The Art of the Interviews, by Jason Kersten:

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As I've been visiting various cities and promoting the book, people have been asking how I managed to get Art Williams to open up and tell his story. This is a natural question, given that he not only shared some very valuable criminal secrets, but also bared many of the emotional wounds that helped mold his criminality in the first place.

What can I say? I'm a journalistic ninja with the ability to get sources to instantly pour out their stories. Seriously, at the risk of sounding reductive, there are only two ways a journalist can get a source to talk honestly: because the source wants to, or because he is forced to. And Art definitely wanted to talk.

Why? The answer he first told me was that he was sick of his life. He wanted to put crime behind him, and telling our stories-whether we're criminals or congressmen-is a well-worn path towards exercising our demons. Confession must be as old as language. But as I got to know Art better, I saw other motives as well. He was proud of his counterfeiting accomplishments-not because he had "beat the system" or anything so vainglorious-but because buried within him was that 12-year-old kid who had skipped two grades before winding up in the projects. Even though poverty and crime had been determining factors with him, in his heart he wanted inclusion into a bigger world where he'd still be considered part of the smart set.

More importantly, Art wanted people to know why he had chosen a criminal path, to internalize the forces that led him down the outlaw trail. Art is a dreamer and he's great at shooting high.

"You think people who read this will really, really understand what it was like for us growing up, Jason?" he'd sometimes ask hopefully.

"That's my main goal," I'd tell him.

"That's what matters most," he'd say. "The counterfeiting stuff is fun, but this is what's important to me."

I warned Art up front that to get it right we'd have to go down a mineshaft together, and I planned to bottom him out. Many of our interviews were conducted in a basement apartment in Bridgeport, with two chairs and a table between us. He kept answering my questions and deeper we went. One day, during a marathon interview stint, he cried four times. He relived the traumas of watching his mother go insane, his father's abandonment, events that he'd buried beneath his Bridgeport armor. He and his sister Wensdae were very, very brave.

"This really is like therapy," Art once said as he dried his eyes.

"Maybe a little bit," I told him. "But don't think this will cure you. You definitely need a real professional and probably years of work." He knew I meant it. We laughed and laughed.

In journalism school, and later while working with magazines, I'd often hear professors and editors warn, "Don't get too close to your source. Then you become biased, then they run you." I got real close to Art Williams and he knows secrets about me as well. You can't ask someone to tell you the kinds of things he told me without being willing to spill your own beans. His honesty fed mine and vice versa. Did I get too close to my source? You bet.

Some people are surprised that I now have a crook for a friend. All I can say to that is that few are the people in my life who have shared as much with me. Did Art ever run me? Maybe a little bit; there were times I portrayed him the way he saw himself, and there were times I agreed to leave certain things out because he was protecting people. But at the end of the day, Art Williams, counterfeiter and con man, was more generous and truthful than anyone I've ever interviewed.