Last night the new season of "The Sopranos" started. (For poor deprived souls who've never watched the show, it features the life and hijinks of mob boss Tony Soprano, his family and his Family. It also has some of the best characterization in the whole medium of television.) In any case, and it included the following snatch of dialogue, which has to win some sort of award for elegantly evasive-but-to-the-point ways of ordering murders:

Tony's nephew Christopher is at the club, shooting pool with some minor gangster. Chris tells him that he needs a favor--some one who owes him money. The guy shrugs and says, "you want me to collect?" Chris pauses, looks at him for a second, and says, "nah...that ship has sailed." "Really?" the guy asks, sounding slightly distraught. Chris nods. They go back to the game.

(I think of the Sopranos as sort of evil-aspirational. Yes, these are Bad People doing Bad Things, there's never a shred of doubt about that or romanticization of the nitty-gritty of how all of tihs works, but a lot of it does look fun and you're seduced into identifying with Tony and his henchmen totally enough that every one watchng winces when one of them does something stupid that might lead to the FBI catching them.)