Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It

the bank doors—that’s the size and scope of the NYPD, in
full force, and their guns were fixed on him and his partner.
Obviously, Bobby was desperate to step out those doors
unharmed.
I didn’t know where Bobby was, inside the bank. To this
day, I don’t know if he managed to step away from his
partner, or if he was talking to me in plain sight of Chris
Watts. I only know that I had his full attention, and that he
was looking for a way to end the standoff—or, at least, to
end his role in it.
I learned later that in between phone calls Chris Watts
was busy squirreling cash inside the bank walls. He was also
burning piles of cash, in full view of the two female
hostages. On the face of it, this was bizarre behavior, but to
a guy like Chris Watts there was a certain logic to it.
Apparently, he’d gotten it in his head that he could burn,
say, $50,000, and if $300,000 was reported missing bank
officials wouldn’t think to go looking for the other
$250,000. It was an interesting deception—not exactly
clever, but interesting. It showed a weird attention to detail.
In his own mind at least, if Chris Watts managed to escape
this box he’d made for himself, he could lie low for a while
and come back at some future date for the money he’d
stashed away—money that would no longer be on the
bank’s ledgers.
What I liked about this second guy, Bobby, was that he
didn’t try to play any games with me on the phone. He was
a straight shooter, so I was able to respond as a straight