Grift

by Jason Mosberg

  “Oh, are you sure? You don’t mind?”

  “No, it’s fine,” she says back to me.

  I hand her the briefcase as she hands me ten twenties from the register. Then I’m gone. Off to the Venetian. The next two don’t work out, but I squeeze four hundred out of the fourth.

  Three and a half hours later, and we’re finished. Of the 30 clerks in 30 different stores, 18 of them paid. There were four morally sound people who were honest about the guy “offering to pay 1,000.”

  Only four out of thirty? Laughable.

  Six of them, who were immoral and stingy, tried to get the briefcase for free but never offered any money for it. And then there were two we had to walk away from – one where Mars recognized the clerk as a regular pool player and another where I walked into the shop while there happened to be a cop inside.

  I could have pressed the four people who were honest. When they volunteered the valid reward amount of $1,000, I could have said I couldn’t wait. I could have offered to split the reward money if they could pay me cash up front. And that probably would have worked in three out of the four if not all four cases.

  I won’t tell Max about sparing those four. He’d remind me of his golden rule of conning: if someone’s willing to give you their money, you have to be willing to take it.

  Treasure in hand, Mars and I head back to Treasure Island. A couple hours will pass before the clerks realize what’s happened. Some of them will try to open the locked briefcases (no easy task) only to find them empty. Eventually most will realize they’ve been had. And then they’ll be on the lookout for a fat teenager in a suit and a pasty UNLV student with blond hair. Good luck, suckers.

  Max had hoped the series of cons would pull in over $3,500, so he’s delighted when we hand him $4,200 in a brown paper bag.

  ***

  I read people well. Not sure if it’s an instinct or a skill. And if it’s the latter, not sure if it’s a skill I picked up playing poker or performing grifts. Or both.

  Reading Jesse at dinner, I suspect that he had sex during his most recent long con.

  For the most part, dinner proves pleasant. We chose a steakhouse in New York-New York that we’ve heard about but never sampled. As we eat, I relay the stories and hijinks from the last couple weeks. My nerves cause me to shift from not being able to say anything to not being able to shut up. When I catch myself babbling, I divert the conversation to Jesse.

  “What about you? Was your latest job difficult?”

  “No, it wasn’t too bad.”

  It’s then that I suspect he slept with someone. It’s not just his cagey response. Or the way he avoids eye contact. It’s the guilt that makes it harder for him to swallow his mashed potatoes, let alone talk to me.

  I know Jesse likes me.

  Many people have liked me. I know Jesse doesn’t merely want to spend an hour with me in a hotel room for two grand. But is that because he really likes me? More than just some fleeting sexual desire? Or is it because he doesn’t think about me that way? Because he thinks about me like a sister?

  One night, eight months ago, we were watching a movie in my room, and he fell asleep. He was exhausted from a three-week con, and I didn’t have the heart to wake him, so he slept in my bed the whole night. A sliding door connects our adjacent rooms. Since that night, periodically, he comes into my room in the middle of the night and sleeps in my bed. Nothing has ever happened; it’s more like a dog climbing into bed. We’ve never talked about it before. Courtesy of the quasi-secret door, no one else in the penthouse knows.

  As Jesse stares at his plate, I stare at him. Does he know how I feel about him? Is that why he feels guilty for having sex with some girl during the con? Or does he merely feel guilty because of our sibling-like rapport?

  I’m left contemplating who she was. Did he sleep with her because he had to? Because it was part of gaining the mark’s trust? Or was she just someone he happened to meet while pulling the con?

  I’m not as jealous as I probably should be. Madeline was (and maybe still is) a prostitute. So from an early age I associated sex with business and money and food and paying bills. Not with love or marriage. And now sex is something I deal with every day hustling men. So I almost put sex in a whole different category than love or romance.

  Or maybe I don’t get as jealous because I know he had sex with her as part of a ruse where he was pretending to be someone else. Jesse, like some extreme method actor, gets lost in his job. When he’s with me, and we’re at dinner, or he’s sleeping in my bed, I know it’s him. I know it’s Jesse. I get to be around the real Jesse, something these other girls have never gotten to experience.

  While eating maybe the best sautéed green beans I’ve ever had, I actually find myself trying to be jealous. Liking someone means being jealous if that person hooks up with someone else, doesn’t it?

  Shortly after dessert arrives, Mars becomes the centerfold of conversation.

  “I feel bad for Mars,” Jesse says. “Max shouldn’t be pressuring him to do a con he doesn’t want to do.”

  “It’s just a glim dropper.”

  “Yeah, but Mars never wanted to be some outlaw. He just wanted to shoot pool.”

  The word outlaw echoes in my head. I never thought of us as outlaws, but I guess we are. Vegas used to be known as “The Outlaw City.” I don’t know when that stopped or why, but nobody calls it that anymore.

  “I hear you, but Max houses us. He pays for our food. He gave us a life. He’s even gotten most of us out of trouble with the police at one time or another. The least we can do is bust our butts a few hours a day to help him with the expenses of this grandiose life we’re granted.”

  Jesse shrugs. Not convinced. The truth is Max isn’t always completely content with Jesse. A few times, tensions arose when Jesse didn’t come through on a job.

  I wasn’t there, so I can’t say whether Max was justified in his frustration, but I do know Jesse. Every job Max gives Jesse is a challenge. I believe Jesse thrives off the challenge, but to him, the reward is the fun and excitement of deceiving his mark, not the money he cons from them.

  ***

  After dinner, as we leave, the famous New York-New York roller coaster zips over our heads. In a moment of spontaneity, I want to ride the coaster. With Jesse.

  He reads me like a book. “You wanna?” he asks, smiling.

  “Yeah. I do.”

  I’m already fantasizing about some romantic ride. Visualizing our hands clasping together. Imagining our first kiss. But a long, stagnant line changes our minds. Womp womp.

  As if it’s a consolation we take the monorail home rather than a cab.

  We return just in time for family game night. Nothing official, since we’re not an official family, but once a week we all gather in the game room – one of the lofts positioned around the pool – for some type of a game.

  Last week we played Monopoly. No ordinary match, our game was between con artists, thieves, and hustlers. No one could be trusted.

  After landing snake eyes four times in an hour, we caught Rob substituting loaded dice. Mars talked everyone into letting him purchase Go (as if it were a property) if he paid everyone one thousand dollars. Although he initially went down five grand, he collected two hundred from everyone each time they passed Go. Meanwhile, Max argued that because he owned all four railroads, he could construct new railroads that cut across the board. Sophie misled everyone by keeping a secret stash of money underneath the board. I offered large sums of cash for the get-out-of-jail-free cards and then sold them for a profit when anyone landed in jail. At one point Kim’s piece (the shoe) actually walked off the table. And an unknown player smuggled in counterfeit money from another Monopoly set.

  Max left the game halfway through. Although he cited the shenanigans as his reason, I suspected it was to take his nightly walk. Once Max left, we all agreed to play the game for real money. The shenanigans only worsened.

  This week we plan to play poker, the only game t
hat gets recycled once every three or four weeks.

  I need an outfit change. Sweats and a long sleeve t-shirt that was a gift from Sophie. The shirt is a collage of playing cards. They cover every inch of the shirt. Wearing it, I look primed to be groped in a game of 52-card-pickup.

  When she first gave me the shirt two years ago, I thought it was obnoxious. It looked like something a tourist from Miami would wear his second day on The Strip after buying the shirt on his first. But it was the first time Sophie had bought me a gift, and the gesture outweighed the tackiness.

  Aside from the obvious thematic benefit, the long sleeve t-shirt also affords me the chance to take off my bra, which was irritating my ribs during dinner. Between the loose fitting shirt and my modest breasts, no one’ll know the difference.

  In any other city, they’d be on the larger side of average, but in a city crawling (or bouncing, I guess) with silicone, my breasts are relatively small. Though this might seem counterproductive to my career, real breasts are actually a sign of a high-class escort. A pair of nice fake tatas might generate more tips at a strip club or bar (places where the misogynistic expression “bigger tits = bigger tips” rings true). And they might help double a mid-range call girl’s two hundred-dollar rate. But for the highest class, working escorts in Vegas, fake breasts are going to knock you down below the thousand-dollar benchmark.

  When I come out from my room wearing the shirt, Sophie grins. We head up to the game room. Every game imaginable on the shelves. On one wall, we tacked a poster featuring Vegas’s slogan, “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.” Except we crossed out the “happens” and wrote “is taken.” What is taken in Vegas stays in Vegas.

  On the first hand, I get a burst of motherly pride when Sophie bluffs Mars for twenty bucks on nothing more than jack high.

  An hour into the game, when it’s Rob’s turn to deal, I catch him cheating – using his sleight of hand skills to base-deal himself better pocket cards. I decide to keep quiet. It’s a good challenge to see if I can beat him even as he deals himself superior cards.

  He gives himself triple queens. I’m on a flush draw (five cards of the same suit). Even after I don’t land it, I bet heavily into Rob, and he folds his three ladies.

  “I had six tits. You hit that flush?” he asks.

  Because he folded, I’m not required to show him my cards. So I don’t.

  “Yo, come on, Pi. It’s a friendly game. You ain’t gonna show me?”

  All I do is smile.

  “Come on, Pi, don’t be a bitch.” He’s had two too many beers, and even though he says it with a smile on his face, I still don’t appreciate it. The way I see it, there is a certain word only black people can say, a certain word only gay people can say, and a word only girls should be able to say.

  “I’ll show you my cards when you start dealing ‘em right, bitch.”

  That shuts him up.

  Two hands later, I am dealt ace, king suited. Everybody stays in the first round of betting. After the flop gets me nowhere, I’m fairly certain no one else holds anything more than a high pair. Time for another bluff.

  I bet big, but not so big that it looks like I’m trying to buy the pot. I try to make it look like I want them to stay in. It scares nearly everyone off. Sophie, Mars, Rob, and Kim all fold. The bet is to Jesse. He looks me in the eye. I break.

  Jesse makes me a terrible liar. Though a superb bluffer, he’s never been interested enough in the game to figure out a strategy. He’s probably the worst poker player in our house, but when we all play, he’s the one I struggle to beat in one-on-one hands.

  Jesse triples my bet, and I fold.

  “Can we see ‘em?” Rob asks.

  “Would’ve shown ‘em, but you asking makes me not wanna,” responds Jesse.

  As Rob pouts, Jesse winks at me. His way of telling me that he didn’t have anything either. I was trying to bluff everyone, and he bluffed me.

  You win Jesse.

  You always win Jesse: I have no idea how you feel about me.

  ***

  Max watches for about half of the game before he excuses himself. Under no circumstances will Max gamble, even in a friendly house poker game. It would be more fun if he played, but I admire his resilience.

  “Sure you don’t want to play?” Mars asks.

  “A walk a day keeps the demons at bay.” Max turns back before he disappears. “Have fun.”

  And we do. For four more hours. The only downside comes when Rob opens his fat mouth and mentions the secret laser tag tournament.

  About four months ago, Rob had taken Jesse, Mars, and me over to the Sahara Hotel and Casino. The casino had been closed since 2011 (when it was determined that it was no longer economically viable – the house lost!). But one of the 1,600 workers who were laid off is a friend of Rob’s. And this friend, a former shift manager on the maintenance staff, still had a set of keys.

  We met at 2:00 AM at the corner of Sahara and Las Vegas Blvd. There were 46 of us. Rob’s friend laid out the ground rules for the laser tag tournament. On a map of the casino and hotel grounds, he showed us the boundaries. The game cost a hundred dollars to play. The winner got $4,000, and Rob’s friend took $600 for organizing the game and providing the weaponry.

  I lasted two hours and killed six people before this blond guy chased me down a hallway into a stairwell. I was sure to be killed before Jesse stepped out of the shadows and shot the blond guy right in the chest. Before I could thank him, Jesse had shot me too. Jesse ended up winning and taking home four grand. The next week, we convinced Kim to come with us.

  The third week, I twisted my ankle running away from twin brothers who had teamed up. Jesse carried me out of the casino grounds and took me home in a cab. I thought maybe he was going to kiss me that night, but he didn’t.

  Jesse, Rob, Mars, and Kim went back a few more times, but before my ankle had a chance to heal, the police raided the game one night. Jesse, Rob, Mars, and Kim all got away, but the police caught and arrested a few of the players. I was glad I hadn’t let Sophie go. In fact, I hadn’t even told her about it because I knew she’d want to play.

  So tonight, when Rob mentions it despite my having told everyone to avoid bringing it up in front of Sophie, everyone gets quiet.

  “What is it? What’s going on?”

  I don’t know what to say. I know she’ll be furious I left her out of the game. It will only drive us further apart. I want to cover the lie, but I’m stumped.

  “Piper, what are you guys talking about?” Sophie asks in an octave lower than her normal voice. A sign her temper is building.

  Jesse covers me. “Nothing, Soph. We were planning a surprise party for you. Rob’s ruined it though.”

  I nod a thank you to Jesse.

  Cool. No better way to describe Jesse. Cool.

  “Piper. Piper.”

  I snap out of my daze. “What?”

  “It’s your deal,” says Kim.

  “Oh. Sorry. I was thinking about the surprise party.”

  But really I was thinking about Jesse carrying me home. It was the sweetest, most romantic moment of my life.

  But wouldn’t a brother have done the same thing?

  --How is this happening? One minute, I’m living this dream in Las Vegas, caught in a hyperreal, fantastic version of reality. The next, I’m facing down my worst fear. I hear about people feeling numb when they get tragic news, but numb is not what I feel; I envy numb.--

  CHAPTER FOUR – Half the Reason

  I walk by the Luxor and tilt my head back. The light at the top of the hotel is the brightest beam in the world. It can be seen from a spacecraft 250 miles above the Earth’s surface. I remember the very night when Max told me that fact a few years ago. I found myself thinking if aliens ever pass by our planet and decide to stop by, it’ll be the Luxor’s fault.

  Max knows everything about Las Vegas. Something he takes pride in. In addition to teaching me the art of the con, Max taught me Vegas history. Anytime we
walk by a building or a street corner, he always drops some tidbit.

  Just past the Luxor sits Mandalay Bay, my destination.

  My client: the CFO of a tech company. Max received a tip from one of his spotters that the guy was willing to pay five grand for the right girl. Right girl means he has to approve her in person. So there’s a chance he could reject me outright when we meet.

  At the Shark Reef, an aquarium where we’re meeting, I locate Clark Alvinner using the description Max gave me. Glasses. Just over thirty years old. Almost six feet tall, but weighing only twenty more pounds than me. A corporate nerd.

  With each breath, I try to exhale my uneasiness. Normally, at this stage, the job is locked down. Today, I took an extra hour getting ready. Making sure my makeup wasn’t excessive. Picking out a crimson dress that would look perfect in the Shark Reef’s lighting. Spraying the perfect amount of perfume to ensnare without overwhelming.

  When Clark sees me, I can’t read his initial reaction. Is he going to reject me? Am I not in line with his “five grand for the right girl” taste? As my anxiety intensifies, I resist the urge to bite my fingernails. The habit Max eradicated remains on the brink of return in times of duress.

  “Hi, I’m Madeline.” I was about to introduce myself with another one of my aliases, but I use Madeline because it sounds classy (Madeline’s name is the only classy thing about her). A guy like Clark doesn’t want to drop five grand on a girl named Candy or Bianca.

  “Clark.” I know from his voice that he’s content. That he’s willing to drop five large on me. I realize his lack of reaction was positive. His stare is a gaze. He’s just taking me in.

  Should I feel good about myself? That I’ve passed Clark’s test, and he’s willing to spend five thousand to sleep with me? I’m not here to build my self-esteem. I’m here to screw this asshole. Screw him over that is.