“You might like the East Coast, Gary, and so do I. But the East Coast isn’t going to be liking us very much longer. There have been complaints lodged in Baltimore already against the Genesis Fund. And in New York City against the Eden Fund. And in Boston, and even in Hartford and even up in Bangor.” Fred Thomas, aka Scooter, aka an entire long line of aliases including, most recently, John Adams, shook his head. “You know what I was thinking, Gary? If we head to Oklahoma, we could look for a couple of really rich widows or some wealthy yahoos who don’t know anything beyond their own little Okie lives. You know, there’re a lot of oil wells out that way, and so therefore, there has to be a lot of oil money. Those folks are so damn rich, they likely don’t know what to spend their money on. I figure that if we can hook just a couple of them, and add that to what we have, we can retire.”
“Retire and do what, Scooter?” Gary asked. “We’re grifters! We’ve been grifters forever.”
Scooter knew what he wanted to do. He also knew the odds of their continuing to get away with conning people without being caught were getting smaller and smaller. They should quit while they were ahead.
Scooter had long known that Gary didn’t like change. His lifelong friend and business partner did his thing best when he knew the sides and the depth of it. Scooter had thought some about the approach he’d use with the man.
“We can pull a long con,” Scooter said. “We can look for a couple of nice women, get married, and then pretend to be respectable citizens. Imagine the challenge of taking on that kind of a role, the kind that never ends!”
Gary sent Scooter a look that said he wasn’t buying it. Neither was Scooter, the man selling it, but they did have to get away from the East Coast.
“I get the heat’s going to be turned up,” Gary said. “I’ve heard from one of my contacts that there have been complaints lodged about our Baltimore business with the county police. And I know that if we’re not careful, sooner or later, we’re going to get caught.”
Scooter smiled at the way Gary made it sound like they were a couple of businessmen and yet celebrated being a grifter. It gave him hope he could convince the man to pursue a life of ease. They were con men, men who lived by their quick wits and silver tongues. Despite that, he didn’t feel much remorse for the suckers they took. This was the land of free enterprise and let the buyer beware. Anyone not smart enough to do their due diligence deserved to be fleeced, and he and his partner might as well be the ones doing the fleecing, as far as he was concerned. But there came a point when a man had to take stock and take care, and he was certain they were reaching that point.
“See? By your own sources you know we can’t afford to keep operating where we’ve been operating. I figure, if we head to Oklahoma now, we can start working that whole area—Oklahoma, Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas. Now, I understand that mostly Texas and Oklahoma have those rich oil deposits. I looked it up at the library. There’s a lot of money flowing around down there. And those folks? Not at all sophisticated like the people in New York City. I bet you we’d be able to work that entire area. It’ll be as easy as mom’s apple pie.”
“My mom never made apple pie. She never made pie, period. She was too busy scoring tricks and drinking gin to give a rat’s ass about me. I used to see those commercials on TV showing those so-called ‘all American’ families.’” Gary snorted and shook his head. “Bunch of bullshit, if you ask me.”
It didn’t happen very often, but every once in a while, Gary took him literally at the wrong moment. Scooter had been using a common expression. Gary’s reaction told him that he probably could be talked around to settling down, playing that “long con.” Scooter’s mind scrambled to find the right words. They had to get the hell away from their usual stomping grounds, and they needed to do it yesterday.
“This is our chance,” Scooter said. And then he had it. Gary himself had given him the inspiration, and he ran with it. “This is our chance to change our lives, to get some of what we never had. Let’s pull a couple more cons and make them huge. Then we’ll go see Mikey, get a couple of brand-new names. We walk out with a couple mil, we’ll have it made. New names, new realities. We can find us a life where we can have that apple-pie dream we never got as kids. What do you say?”
Gary looked out the window of their Queens apartment. Scooter stood beside him. They stood quietly gazing down on the same scene they’d watched for the last couple of years. Mrs. Lansky, their landlady, lived downstairs, and they had to go down and out through her place. They made sure to pay her cash every month, and she was happy because no one knew she had this little apartment. There was a john with a shower and a kitchen with a sink and a two-burner stove. They each had a bed and a dresser, and they’d even splurged and gotten themselves a television.
But the time had come for them to cut bait and go someplace else, someplace new.
Gary turned and met his gaze. “Okay. I guess we have gotten all we can get from this area. I sure don’t want to go back to Chicago, so I guess Oklahoma is far enough away from both places.” He sighed.
