Arthur Batanides: Sgt. Sam Olivera

Quotes 

• Johnny Midnight : Lupo, we've been friends a long time and you're a good cop. You'd be a better one if you'd stop leaping to conclusions.

  Sgt. Sam Olivera : Go ahead say it, Johnny. I'm an ignorant Puerto Rican flatfoot. You're surprised I even finished night school.

  Johnny Midnight : I didn't mean that at all.

• Sgt. Sam Olivera : Look, Johnny, you own a theater. Three generations of your family were in show business. You are show business. If anyone can help me, you can.

• Johnny Midnight : A ventriloquist is sometimes an oddball. He says things through his dummy he can't say himself. The dummy becomes part of him, an extension of his own personality.

  Sgt. Sam Olivera : And a release of his inhibitions. I can even spell "sublimation" and "schizophrenia." Night school, remember?

  Johnny Midnight : Alright, so one class you flunked. No ventriloquist destroys his own dummy. Throwing it in Long Island Sound would be like killing part of himself. He'd have to be psychopathic.

  Sgt. Sam Olivera : I said I'm looking for a psycho.

• Johnny Midnight : It's wrong, amigo. It's out of kilter, like a play with a bad final curtain.

  Sgt. Sam Olivera : What, do you want to write a new third act?

  Johnny Midnight : I already have. I want you to let me stage it.

  Sgt. Sam Olivera : You know what happens if your play's a flop? I get busted right back to the hardest beat.

  Johnny Midnight : But if we're a hit you go up for promotion.

  Sgt. Sam Olivera : Alright, either way what have I to lose but my sergeant stripes? Go on, get on with it before I come to my senses.

  Johnny Midnight : 'Attaboy, amigo.