The Grifters

hotel. Indulging himself extravagantly, he still built up a roll of more than four thousand dollars.

Months passed. Then, one day, when he was eating in an Astoria-section lunchroom, a detective came in looking for him.

Conferring with the proprietor, he described Roy to a t. He had no photo of him, but he did have a police artist's reconstruction, and it was an excellent likeness.

Roy could see them looking down his way, as they talked, and he thought wildly of running. Of beating it back through the kitchen, and on out the back door. Probably the only thing that kept him from running was the weakness of his legs.

And then he looked at himself in the back-counter mirror, and he breathed a shuddery sigh of relief.

The day had turned warm after he left his hotel, and he'd checked his hat, coat and tie in a subway locker. Then, only an hour or so ago, he'd got a butchstyle haircut.

So he was changed, considerably. Enough anyway to keep him from being collared. But he was shaken right down to his shoe soles. He sneaked back to his hotel room, wondering if he'd ever have the guts to work again. He stayed in the hotel until dark, and then he went looking for Mintz.

Mintz was gone from the small hotel where he had lived. He'd left months ago, leaving no forwarding address. Roy started hunting for him. By sheer luck, he found him in a bar six blocks away.

The grifter was horrified when Roy told him what had happened. 'You mean you've been working here all this time? You've been working steady? My God! Do you know where I've been in the last six months? A dozen places! All the way to the coast and back!'

'But why? I mean, New York's a big city. Why-'

Mintz cut him off impatiently. New York wasn't a big city, he said. It just had a lot of people in it, and they were crammed into a relatively small area. And, no you didn't help your odds much by getting out of jampacked Manhattan and into the other boroughs. Not only did you keep bumping into the same people, people who worked in Manhattan and lived in Astoria, Jackson Heights, et cetera, but you were more conspicuous there. Easier to be spotted by the fools. 'And, kid, a blind man could spot you. Look at that haircut! Look at the fancy wristwatch, and them three-tone sports shoes! Why don't you wear a black eyepatch, too, and a mouthful of gold teeth?'

Roy reddened. He asked troubledly if every city was like this. Did you have to keep jumping from place to place, using up your capital and having to move on just about the time you got to know your way around?

'What do you want?' Mintz shrugged. 'Egg in your beer? You can usually play a fairly long stand in Los Angeles, because it ain't just one town. It's a county full of towns, dozens of 'em. And with traffic so bad and a lousy transportation system, the people don't mix around like they do in New York. But'-he wagged a finger severely-'but that still doesn't mean you can run wild, kid. You're a grifter, see? A thief. You've got no home and no friends, and no visible means of support. And you damned well better not ever forget it.'

'I won't,' Roy promised. 'But, Mintz…'

'Yeah?'

Roy smiled and shook his head, keeping his thought to himself. Suppose I did have a home, a regular place of residence? Suppose I had hundreds of friends and acquaintances? Suppose I had a job and-

And there was a knock on the door, and he said, 'Come in, Lilly,' and his mother came in.

6

She didn't seem to have aged a year in the seven since he'd last seen her. He was twenty-five, now, which meant that she was crowding thirty-nine. But she appeared to be in her very early thirties, say about thirty-one or -two. She looked like… like… Why, of course! Moira Langtry! That was who she reminded him of. You couldn't say that they actually looked like each other; they were both brunettes and about the same size, but there was absolutely no facial resemblance. It was more a type similarity than a personal one. They were both members of the same flock; women who knew just what it took to preserve and enhance their natural attractiveness. Women who were either endowed with what it took, or spared no effort in getting it.

Lilly took a chair diffidently, unsure of her welcome, quickly explaining that she was in Los Angeles on business. 'I'm handling playback money at the tracks, Roy. I'll be getting back to Baltimore as soon as the races are over.'

Roy nodded equably. The explanation was reasonable. Playback-knocking the odds down on a horse by heavy pari-mutuel betting- was common in bigtime bookmaking.

'I'm glad to see you, Lilly. I'd have been hurt if you hadn't dropped by.'

'And I'm glad to see you, Roy. I-' She looked around the room, leaning forward a little to peer into the bathroom. Slowly, her diffidence gave way to a puzzled frown. 'Roy,' she said. 'What's this all about? Why are you living in a place like this?'

'What's wrong with it?'

'Stop kidding me! It isn't you, that's what wrong. Just look at it! Look at those corny clown pictures! That's a sample of my son's taste? Roy Dillon goes for corn.

Roy would have laughed if he hadn't been so weak. The four pictures were his own additions to the decorations. Concealed in their box frames was his grifted dough. Fifty-two thousand dollars in cash.

He murmured that he had rented the place as he found it, the best that he could afford. After all, he was just a commission salesman and…

'And that's another thing,' Lilly said. 'Four years in a town like Los Angeles, and a peanut selling job is the best you can do! You expect me to believe that? It's a front, isn't it? This dump is a front. You're working an angle, and don't tell me you're not because I wrote the book!'

'Lilly…' His faint voice seemed to come from miles away. 'Lilly, mind your own damned business…'

She said nothing for a moment, recovering from his rebuke, reminding herself that he was more stranger than son. Then, half- pleading, 'You don't have to do it, Roy. You've got so much on the ball-so much more than I ever had-and -… You know what it does to a person, Roy. I-'

His eyes were closed. An apparent signal to shut up or get out. Forcing a smile, she said, Okay, she wouldn't start scolding the minute she saw him.

'Why are you still in bed-s-son? Are you sick?'

'Nothing,' he muttered. 'Just…'

She came over to the side of the bed. Timidly, she put the palm of her hand to his forehead; let out a startled gasp. 'Why, Roy, you're ice cold! What-' Light bloomed over his pillows as she switched on the table lamp. He heard another gasp. 'Roy, what's the matter? You're as white as a sheet!'

'Nothin'…' His lips barely moved. 'No s-sweat, Lilly.'

Suddenly, he had become terribly frightened. He knew, without knowing why, that he was dying. And with the terrible fear of death was an unbearable sadness. Unbearable because there was no one who cared, no one to assuage it. No one, no one at all, to share it with him.

Only one death, Roy? Well, what are you kicking about?

But they can't eat you, can they? They can kill you, but they can't eat you.

'Don't!' he sobbed, his voice pushing up through an overpowering drowsiness. 'D-don't laugh at me-I-'

'I won't! I'm not laughing, honey! I- Listen to me, Roy!' She squeezed his hand fiercely. 'You don't