Mafia espionage is mundane patience, not dramatic action

Evidence

If we did not appreciate the importance of intelligence gathering in this trade, Calzetta’s long accounts of his daily life would seem random and pointless, just the kind of drifting existence a good-for-nothing leads in any Mediterranean town. His assignments, like those of most spies, are boring, and all the stories sound the same: sitting, waiting, watching, changing vantage point, retracing the same route at different times, liasing, inferring, recording, revealing. — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 99