The Vig
“Vig” is short for vigorish, aka juice. If you take out a loan from a loan shark, expect to pay interest, and probably a lot of it. This interest is called “the vig.” As the real Frank Sheeran explains in the book I Heard You Paint Houses, the source material for The Irishman, a waitress at a diner might borrow $100, and agree to pay back $12 a week for ten weeks. “If she couldn’t afford the $12 one week she’d just pay $2, but she’d still owe the $12 for that week and it would get added on at the end. If it wasn’t paid on time the debt would keep piling up,” Sheeran says.
Here’s the real Frank Sheeran, a dude you would not want to owe a vig to:
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