In five days, when the last New York City subway token slides through the slot of the last booth to sell them, few people will notice and fewer will care. There will be no official ceremony to mark the passing. If there is music in the background, it will not be taps; it will be the bleating song that turnstiles sing to valid MetroCards.

But off in a corner, hidden in the shadows where things begin to smell bad, at least a few observers will notice and care quite a lot. They belong to a sad and desperate breed of criminal that has been in decline for a long time, one that will soon become as irrelevant as bootleggers and horse thieves.

Officially, the crime is classified as theft of Transit Authority property. But among transit police officers it is more accurately and less delicately known as token sucking. Unfortunately for everyone involved, it is exactly what it sounds like.

The criminal carefully jams the token slot with a matchbook or a gum wrapper and waits for a would-be rider to plunk a token down. The token plunker bangs against the locked turnstile and walks away in frustration. Then from the shadows, the token sucker appears like a vampire, quickly sealing his lips over the token slot, inhaling powerfully and producing his prize: a $1.50 token, hard earned and obviously badly needed.