The Grifters

by Jim Thompson

  “Now, what,” he said, “was a nice girl like you doing in a place like that?”

  “Oh, you know.” She laughed lightly. “I just dropped in for a glass of yogurt.”

  “Tsk, tsk. It’s a good thing I didn’t offer you a martini.”

  “It certainly is. I won’t settle for less than a double Scotch.”

  They took it from there.

  It took them rapidly to where they were now. Or reasonable facsimiles thereof.

  Lately, today in particular, he sensed that she wanted it to take them somewhat further.

  There was just one way of handling that, in his opinion. With the light touch. No one could simultaneously laugh and be serious.

  He let his hand walk down her body and come to rest on her navel. “You know something?” he said. “If you put a raisin in that, you could pass as a cookie.”

  “Don’t,” she said, picking up his hand and dropping it to the bed.

  “Or you could draw a ring around it, and pretend you’re a doughnut.”

  “I’m beginning to feel like a doughnut,” she said. “The part in the middle.”

  “Oh, fine. I was afraid it might be something shameful.” Then, cutting him off firmly, pulling him back into line, “But you see what I’m driving at, Roy. We don’t know a thing about each other. We’re not friends. We’re not even acquainted. It’s just been early to bed and early to bed from the time we met.”

  “You said you weren’t knocking it.”

  “I’m not. It’s very necessary to me. But I don’t feel that it should begin and end with that. It’s like trying to live on mustard sandwiches.”

  “And you want pâté?”

  “Steak. Something nourishing. Aah, hell, Roy”—she shook her head fretfully. “I don’t know. Maybe it isn’t on the menu. Maybe I’m in the wrong restaurant.”

  “Madame is too cruel! Pierre weel drown heemself in ze soup!”

  “Pierre doesn’t care,” she said, “if madame lives or dies. He’s made that pretty clear.”

  She started to rise, with a certain finality of movement. He caught her and pulled her back to the bed, pulled her body against his again. He felt of her carefully. He smoothed her hair and kissed her lips.

  “Mmm, yes,” he said. “Yes, I’m sure of it. The sale is final, and no exchanges.”

  “Here we go again,” she said. “Out into outer space, before we have our feet on the ground.”

  “I mean, I went to a great deal of trouble to find you. A very nice little partridge. Perhaps there are better birds in the bushes, but again there might not be. And—”

  “—and a bird in bed is better than a bush. Or something. I’m afraid I’m crabbing your monologue, Roy.”

  “Wait!” He held onto her. “I’m trying to tell you something. That I like you and that I’m lazy. I don’t want to look any further. So just show me the price tag, and if I can I’ll buy.”

  “That’s better. I have an idea it might be quite profitable for both of us.”

  “So where do we begin? A few evenings on the town? A fling at Las Vegas?”

  “Mmm, no, I guess not. Besides, you couldn’t afford it.”

  “Surprise,” he said curtly. “I wouldn’t even make you pay your own way.”

  “Now, Roy…” She rumpled his hair affectionately. “That isn’t the kind of thing I have in mind, anyway. A lot of girls, glitter, and glassware. If we’re going some place, it ought to be at the other end of the street. You know. Relaxed and quiet, so that we can talk for a change.”

  “Well. La Jolla’s nice this time of year.”

  “La Jolla’s nice any time of year. But are you sure you can afford—”

  “Keep it up,” he warned her. “One more word of that song, and you’ll have the reddest butt in La Jolla. People will think it’s another sunset.”

  “Pooh! Who’s afraid of you?”

  “And get the hell out of here, will you? Go crawl back under your culvert! You’ve drained me dry and got me to splurge my life’s savings, and now you want to talk me to death.”

  She laughed fondly, and got up. When she was dressed, she knelt again at his bedside for a good-bye kiss.

  “Are you sure you’re all right, Roy?” She smoothed the hair back from his forehead. “You look rather pale.”

  “Oh, God,” he groaned. “Will this woman never leave? She puts me through a double shift, and then she says I look pale!”

  She left, smiling smugly. Very pleased with herself.

  Roy arose wearily, his legs wobbling as he made the round trip to the bathroom. He dropped back down on the bed in a heap, a little worried about himself for the first time. What could be the cause of this, anyway, this strange overpowering fatigue? Not Moira, surely; he was used to her. Not the fact that he had eaten very little during the past three days. He often had spells when he didn’t feel hungry, and this had been one of them. Whatever he ate bounced back, in a brownish-colored liquid. Which was strange, since he’d eaten nothing but ice cream and milk.

  Frowning, he leaned forward and examined himself. There was a faint purplish-yellow bruise on his stomach. But it didn’t hurt any more—unless he pushed on it very hard. He’d had no pain since the day he was slugged.

  So…? He shrugged and lay back down. It was just one of those things, he guessed. He didn’t feel sick. If a man was sick, he felt sick.

  He piled the pillows on top of one another, and reclined in a half-sitting position. That seemed to be better, but tired as he was he was restless. With an effort, he reached his trousers from a nearby chair, and dug a quarter from the watch pocket.

  Offhand, it looked like any other quarter, but it wasn’t quite. The tail side was worn down, the head was not. Holding it back between the fleshy part of his first two fingers, hidden edgewise by them, he could identify the two sides.

  He flipped it into the air, caught it and brought it down against his other hand with a smack. For this was the smack, one version of it. One of the three standard short-con gimmicks.

  “Tails,” he murmured, and there was tails.

  He tossed the coin again, and called for heads. And heads came up.

  He began closing his eyes on the calls, making sure that he wasn’t unconsciously cheating. The coin went up and down, his palm deceptively smacking the back of his hand.

  Heads…tails…heads, heads…

  And then there was no smack.

  His eyes closed, and stayed closed.

  That was a little after noon. When he opened them again, twilight was shading the room and the phone was ringing. He looked around wildly, not recognizing where he was, not knowing where he was. Lost in a world that was as strange as it was frightening. Then, drifting back into consciousness, he picked up the phone.

  “Yes,” he said; and then, “What, what? How’s that again?” For what the clerk was saying made no sense at all.

  “A visitor, Mr. Dillon. A very attractive young lady. She says”—a tactful laugh—“She says she’s your mother.”

  5

  At seventeen going on eighteen, Roy Dillon had left home. He took nothing with him but the clothes he wore—clothes he had bought and paid for himself. He took no money but the little in the pockets of his clothes, and that too he had earned.

  He wanted nothing from Lilly. She had given him nothing when he needed it, when he was too small to get for himself, and he wasn’t letting her into the game at this late date.

  He had no contact with her during the first six months he was away. Then, at Christmas time, he sent her a card, and on Mother’s Day he sent her another. Both were of the gooey sentimental type, dripping with sickly sweetness, but the latter was a real dilly. Hearts and flowers and fat little angels swarmed over it in an insanely hilarious montage. The engraved message was dedicated to Dear Old Mom, and it gushed tearfully of goodnight kisses and platters and pitchers of oven-fresh cookies and milk when a little boy came in from play.

  You would have thought that Dear Old Mom (God
bless her silvering hair) had been the proprietor of a combination dairy-bakery, serving no customer but her own little tyke (on his brand-new bike).

  He was laughing so hard when he sent it that he almost botched up the address. But afterward, he had some sobering second thoughts. Perhaps the joke was on him, yes? Perhaps by gibing at her he was revealing a deep and lasting hurt, admitting that she was tougher than he. And that, naturally, wouldn’t do. He’d taken everything she had to hand out, and it hadn’t made a dent in him. He damned well mustn’t ever let her think that it had.

  So he kept in touch with her after that, at Christmas and on her birthday and so on. But he was very correct about it. He just didn’t think enough of her, he told himself, to indulge in ridicule. It would take a lot better woman than Lilly Dillon to get to him.

  The only way he showed his true feelings was in the presents they exchanged. For while Lilly could obviously afford far better gifts than he, he would not admit it. At least, he did not until the effort to keep up with or outdo her not only threatened his long-range objectives, but revealed itself for what it was. Another manifestation of hurt. She had hurt him—or so it looked—and childishly he was rejecting her attempts at atonement.

  She might think that, anyway, and he couldn’t let her. So he had written her casually that gift-giving had been over-commercialized, and that they should stick to token remembrances from then on. If she wanted to donate to charity in his name, fine. Boys’ Town would be appropriate. He, of course, would make a donation in her 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 the 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 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 butch-style haircut.