Matthew Klein - Con Ed

Con Ed
Matthew Klein

Copyright 2007 by Matthew Klein, LLCAll rights reserved.Warner BooksHachette Book Group USA1271 Avenue of the AmericasNew York, NY 10020Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroupUSA.com.First eBook Edition: March 2007Warner Books and the W logo are trademarks of Time Warner Inc. or an affiliated company. Used under license by Hachette Book Group USA, which is not affiliated with Time Warner Inc.ISBN: 0-7595-7197-X

For my father,
And for my son, Jackson:
I think now finally I understand.

AUTHORS NOTE

The events in this book are fictional, except one.On April 27, 1998, a publicly traded company that specialized in manufacturing meat casings and fish oil announced that it was going to change its name to Zap.com and become an Internet portal and e-commerce business.Because of this news, shares of the company on the New York Stock Exchange rose 98 percent.Today, eight years later, the company is again a meat casing and fish protein company.

It should be no reflection upon a mans intelligence to be swindled.
David W. Maurer, The Big Con

PART ONE
THE ROPER

CHAPTER ONE

Its the worlds most simple con, and any idiot can do it, even the one sitting next to me.Hes twenty-five years old, dressed in khakis and a pinpoint Oxford shirt. He has soft hands and wears glasses. Im guessing a dot-commer, college-educated. Probably he read about this con in a book, or maybe on the Internet, so he wants to try it out. A story to tell his friends. Here in the Blowfish he has found the perfect place to give it a whirl: a friendly bar without obvious thugs who might break his fingers, but far enough from home that hell never have to walk past the door again.So here he goes. Hes sitting at the bar, one stool over from me. Hes talking to the guy on the other side of him, a beefy fellow in a badly fitting suit. The beefy guy has one solid eyebrow across his forehead and a big signet ring on his pinkie. Im guessing that he has stamped that signet into the cheeks of one or two men that have tried to fuck with him. Maybe the Dot Com Kid doesnt have such good instincts after all.Dot Com says to Monobrow, You know what? Im feeling lucky. You want to play a friendly game?Monobrow is holding a glass of JD near his mouth. His hand is so big that it wraps entirely around the glass and makes it seem like a trifle. He chews on an ice cube and looks at the kid. He measures him in about a second. All right, he says.Dot Com says, Its called the Pot Game. We each put some money in a pot. Say, I dunno, twenty bucks. He takes a twenty from his pocket and drops it on the bar. Then we both bet on the pot.Monobrow thinks about it. He takes a money clip out of his jacket. A fat wad of cash. Thats another bad sign. No one carries that much cash unless hes in a certain line of work. Work where checking accounts are frowned upon. Now Im thinking that I ought to break in, stop the kid before he gets hurt. But before I can act, the big man peels a twenty off his roll and drops it on the bar. Im in, he says.Okay, the kid says. His face is a mixture of fearwill he be found out?and excitementthat hes actually trying the con. He has probably thought about doing this for weeks, maybe months. What a great story hell be able to tell his other dot-com friends. Its simple. Each player gets to bid on the pot. Whoever bids the highest wins the pot. Got it?Yeah, okay, the big guy says. From the look on his face, math was never his strong suit. But the rules are simple, and the kid doesnt seem very threatening...The Dot Com Kid says, All right. There are forty dollars in the pot. So I guess Ill start off the bidding by offering to buy the pot for twenty bucks.Monobrow thinks about it. The pots worth forty dollars. The kids willing to pay twenty for it. Still room for a profit. Monobrow spits his ice cube into his glass of JD, rattles it around like a craps die. Yeah? the man says. Ill give you twenty-five dollars for it.This is where the kid should stop. He should wave his hand magnanimously, take twenty-five dollars from Monobrows hand, slide him the pot, and then he should walk the fuck out of the bar with a five-dollar profit, and fast, before Monobrow warms up his synapses. But the kids greedy. Not for moneyhe probably has more than enough of that, maybe millions of dollars of stock options in some company that sells something useless on the Internet. No, the kid wants a better story. Hes already envisioning it: getting together with his friends tonight, at a SoMa bar, and telling them how he took this blue-collar guythose are the words hell use, blue-collar guyfor a wad of cashenough to pay for a round of drinks, and sohey?why dont I treat tonight, gang?So Dot Com says, Youre bidding twenty-five, huh? He makes a show of rubbing his chin, thinking about it. Youre a tough one, mister. All right, Ill offer twenty-eight dollars.Monobrow chuckles. Hes already worked out the math, so he doesnt even need to think. Any bid under forty dollars means a profit. Thirty bucks, he says to the kid.The kid pretends to flinch. He sucks in his breath, as if he just ate something spicy. The kid says, Ooh. Too rich for my blood. You win. Ill take your bid. You win the pot. He holds out his palm. Monobrow peels a twenty and a ten off his personal roll and hands it to the kid. The kid pockets it and graciously waves his hand over the forty-dollar pot. He says, The forty dollars is yours.Monobrow takes the pot, adds it to his roll. Did you catch what happened here? Monobrow put in twenty dollars in order to play the game. Then he paid the kid thirty dollars to win the pot. So in total, he paid out fifty dollars, in order to win a forty-dollar pot. The kid took him for ten bucks in two minutes. This is the old Change Game. There are a hundred variations on it.Now, though, Dot Com Kid is making a big mistake. Hes hanging around the bar. The first rule of cons is: Never let the victim know hes been had. The second rule is: If you break the first rule, then run like hell. But the Kid is sipping his beer, watching the Giants game on the bar TV. Finally, he gets up from his stool and settles his tab in a leisurely fashion, dropping a few singles, one at a time, on the bar. God, hes hopeless. Your tab should always be settled before you start. You need to be able to leave the moment the con is done.I can see the wheels turning in the big guys head. Hes obviously a criminal; criminals can smell a swindle faster than straights. Its all the years of ripping everyone else off: If the big man had spent thirty years dancing ballet, chances are hed know a good pli when he saw one, too. Meanwhile Dot Com is watching Barry Bonds on the television. Dot Com is standing behind his bar stool, gaping up at the television, without a care in the world. Hes about to be disillusioned. Fast.Wait a second, Monobrow says. Hes blinking, as if hes bothered by sweat. But the bar is cold as a meat locker. That aint right.Dot Com looks down from the TV, realizes his mistake. If he had gone straight home, he could have watched Barry Bonds highlights on SportsCenter, and he would have kept his ten bucks and his pretty looks. But now, none of those things is certain.Monobrow says, You trying something funny, pal? Monobrow rises from his stool. Hes nine inches away from Dot Com. Dot Com grasps that, for a lousy ten bucks, hes about to get beaten up. Or worse.Sorry? the kid says. Which is the right move. The three rules of running a con: deny, deny, deny.Monobrow is in the kids face. The kid probably smells scampi. The big man says, I paid out fifty! You gave me forty. You think youre smart?The kid goes white. Now the story he will tell his friends wont be as charming as he thought. And it may be recounted not from a SoMa bar over a chardonnay, but from a hospital bed with an IV drip.No, listenToo late. The big man sends a right hook up into the kids jaw. The kids arms windmill around as he goes flying and crashes into the bar. He arches his back and lies on the bar top, soft like a bartenders rag, with his feet on the floor. Monobrow reaches down and clutches the poor kids throat. He pushes down, hard. The kids eyeglasses are crazily askew, one earpiece off the face completely, and his eyes bulge behind the lenses. You little fuck, Monobrow says. You wanna fuck with me? You picked the wrong guy, pal. He reaches into his too-small jacket and pulls out a gun. He presses it against Dot Coms jaw. Surely this is not what the kid expected when he read about this Change Game on the Internet, or when he practiced it in the mirror last night.A patron with a gun always attracts a bartenders interest. He was at the far side of the bar, twirling a swizzle stick in a glass, when the ruckus started. The bartender is a young man himself, early twenties. He calls out, but not too loudly, Whoa there. Its clear from his tentativeness that he doesnt own the placehes just a worker bee in the middle of a four-hour shift between classes at Santa Clara or Stanford. Hed prefer no trouble in the bar while hes in charge, but, then again, hed also prefer not to be shot. If he has to choose, hell take trouble over being shot. So he says, holding up both hands as if hes the one being stuck up, Lets all just calm down. Yes, good idea. LetsNext page