The Grifters

name.

Say to some institution for Wayward Women

Well, but that is getting ahead of the story, skipping over its principal element.

New York is a two-hour ride from Baltimore. At seventeen going on eighteen, Roy went there, the logical objective of a young man whose only assets were good looks and an inherent yen for the fast dollar.

Needing to earn-and to be paid-immediately, he took work selling on a flat commission. Door-to- door stuff. Magazines, photo coupons, cooking utensils, vacuum cleaners-anything that looked promising. All of it promised much and gave little.

Perhaps Miles of Michigan had made $1,380 his first month by showing Super Suitings to his friends, and perhaps O'Hara of Oklahoma earned ninety dollars a day by taking orders for the Oopsy Doodle Baby Walker. But Roy doubted it like hell. By literally knocking himself out, he made as high as $125 in one week. But that was his very best week. The average was between seventy-five and eighty dollars, and he had to hump to get that.

Still it was better than working as a messenger, or taking some small clerical job which promised 'Good Opportunity' and 'Possibility To Advance' in lieu of an attractive wage. Promises were cheap. Suppose he went to one of those places and promised to be president some day; so how about a little advance?

The selling was no good, but he knew of nothing else. He was very irked with himself. Here he was nineteen going on twenty, and already a proven failure. What was wrong with him, anyway? What had Lilly had that he didn't have?

Then, he stumbled onto the twenties.

It was a fluke. The chump, the proprietor of a cigar store, had really pulled it on himself. Preoccupied, Roy had continued to fumble for a coin after receiving the change from the bill, and the fidgety storekeeper, delayed in waiting on other customers, had suddenly lost patience.

'For Pete's sake, mister!' he snapped. 'It's only a nickel! Just pay me the next time you're in.'

Then, he threw back the twenty, and Roy was a block away before he realized what had happened.

On the heels of the realization came another: an ambitious young man did not wait for such happy accidents. He created them. And he forthwith started to do so.

He was coldly told off at two places. At three others, it was pointed out-more or less politely-that he was not entitled to the return of his twenty. At the remaining three, he collected.

He was exuberant at his good luck. (And he had been exceptionally lucky.) He wondered if there were any gimmicks similar to the twenties, ways of picking up as much money in a few hours as a fool made in a week.

There were. He was introduced to them that night in a bar, whence he had gone to celebrate.

A customer sat down next to him, jostling his elbow. A little of his drink was spilled, and the man apologetically insisted on buying him a fresh one. Then he bought still another round. At this point, of course, Roy wanted to buy a round. But the man's attention had been diverted. He was peering down at the floor, then reaching down and picking up a dice cube which he laid on the bar.

'Did you drop this, pal? No? Well, look. I don't like to drink so fast, but if you want to roll me for a round- just to keep things even…'

They rolled. Roy won. Which naturally wouldn't do at all. They rolled again, for the price of four drinks, and this time the guy won. And, of course, that wouldn't do either. He just wouldn't allow it. Hell, they were just swapping drinks, friendly like, and he certainly wasn't going to walk out of here winner.

'We'll roll for eight drinks this time, well, call it five bucks even, and then…'

The tat, with its rapidly doubling bets, is murder on a fool. That is its vicious beauty. Unless he is carrying very heavy, the man with-the-best-of-it strips him on a relatively innocent number of winning rolls.

Roy's griftings were down the drain in twenty minutes.

In another ten, all of his honest money had followed it. The guy felt very bad about it; he said so himself. Roy must take back a couple bucks of his loss, and…

But the taste of the grift was strong in Roy's mouth, the taste and the smell. He said firmly that he would take back half of the money. The grifter-his name was Mintz-could keep the other half for his services as an instructor in swindling.

'You can begin the lessons right now,' he said. 'Start with that dice gimmick you just worked on me.'

There were some indignant protests from Mintz, some stern language from Roy. But in the end they adjourned to one of the booths, and that night and for some nights afterward they played the roles of teacher and pupil. Mintz held back nothing. On the contrary, he talked almost to the point of becoming tiresome. For here was a blessed chance to drop pretense. He could show how smart he was, as his existence normally precluded doing, and do it in absolute safety.

Mintz did not like the twenties. It took a certain indefinable something which he did not have. And he never worked it without a partner, someone to distract the chump while the play was being made. As for working with a partner, he didn't like that either. It cut the score right down the middle. It put an apple on your head, and handed the other guy a shotgun. Because grifters, it seemed, suffered an irresistible urge to beat their colleagues. There was little glory in whipping a fool-hell, fools were made to be whipped. But to take a professional, even if it cost you in the long run, ah, that was something to polish your pride.

Mintz liked the smack. It was natural, you know. Everyone matched coins.

He particularly liked the tat, whose many virtues were almost beyond enumeration. Hook a group of guys on that tat, and you had it made for the week.

The tat must always be played on a very restricted surface, a bar or a booth table. Thus, you could not actually roll the die, although, of course, you appeared to. You shook your hand vigorously, holding the cube on a high point, never shaking it at all, and then you spun it out, letting it skid and topple but never turn. If the marks became suspicious, you shot out of a cup, or, more likely, a glass, since you were in a bar room. But again you did not really shake the die. You held it, as before, clicking it vigorously against the glass in a simulated rattle, and then you spun it out as before.

It took practice, sure. Everything did.

If things got too warm, the bartender would often give you a take-out for a good tip. Call you to the phone or say that the cops were coming or something like that. Bartenders were chronically fed up with drinkers. They'd as soon see them chumped as not, if it made them a buck, and unless the guys were their friends.

Mintz knew of many gimmicks other than the three standards. Some of them promised payoffs exceeding the normal short-con top of a thousand dollars. But these invariably required more than one man, as well as considerable time and preparation; were, in short, bordering big-con stuff. And they had one very serious disadvantage: if the fool tipped, you were caught. You hadn't made a mistake. You hadn't just been unlucky. You'd just had it.

There were two highly essential details of grifting which Mintz did not explain to his pupil. One of them defied explanation. In was an acquired trait, something each man had to do on his own and in his own way; i.e., retaining a high degree of anonymity while remaining in circulation. You couldn't disguise yourself, naturally. It was more a matter of not doing anything. Of avoiding any mannerism, any expression, any tone or pattern of speech, any posture or gesture or walk-anything at all that might be remembered.

Thus, the first unexplained essential.

Presumably, Mintz didn't explain the second one because he saw no need to. It was something that Roy must certainly know.

The lessons ended.

Roy industriously went to work on the grift. He acquired a handsome wardrobe. He moved to a good