Mastered by His Touch-Complete Box Set (22 page)

So I kept playing. And studying human nature. And playing. And studying.

I read books way outside my age range. Books on persuasion, sales, deception, influence, and psychology.

Every day, wherever I went, I tested the principles I learned from the books. I became a natural charmer. I could walk into a store, dazzle the person behind the counter with wit, and walk out with free stuff.

At poker, I became a master of tells. I got ridiculously good, able to tell when a player was bluffing about ninety percent of the time.

One year and two Army bases later, I was making $500 a week.

For a kid, I was super-duper rich.

Everywhere we went it was the same. Nobody could believe a ten year-old boy played serious poker.

Two hours later, they couldn't believe a ten year-old boy walked away with their money.

On top of my poker skills, I got all A's in school and skipped a grade. I was beginning to believe that life held no challenge I couldn't conquer.

Except my parents.

I couldn't reach either of them.

My father remained a distant and cold man, obsessed with whatever work he did for the U.S. Army. My mother remained drunk.

Life continued on that way for two more years.

I got ever better and better at the game. My talent for reading and manipulating people grew. I could sit on the corner of any street and point out the cheating husband, the homosexuals, the high-class hookers, and the thieves. I could also get them to do whatever I wanted by playing on their weaknesses.

Then, one sunny morning, a colonel and a major came to our door to inform us that my father had died.

Chapter 2

From the amount of people gathered for the military funeral, I deduced that my father had been an important man. To this day, I'm not even sure how he died. He is listed as "killed in action" even though we were stationed in Japan at the time. Later, I surmised that he must have been somewhere else when he died. Whatever the reason, it was classified and filed away somewhere.

The truth is I didn't care. I didn't really know the man. As the 21-gun salute fired, I visually rehearsed my next poker game. The soldiers presented my mother with the American flag. She swayed a little as she took it. I could smell the vodka through the black veil.

Next thing I knew my mother and I were living in a tiny apartment in Tampa, Florida. We had moved there because she had an aunt living nearby who she thought could help us.

The aunt apparently didn't care about my mother, though, and within weeks we received an eviction notice because the rent hadn't been paid.

I was twelve years old.

With my mother crying at the tiny kitchen table in the hot old smelly building, I put down a stack of money.

She stopped crying and stared at it.

"Where did you get that?" she said, her eyes aglow at the stack.

"I earned it," I said. "I want to pay the rent. The three months we owe is there, plus another three. But Mom, you've got to get a job."

"I will, honey, I will."

She wrapped her hands around the money with love, an action I never recall her doing with me.

About a month later, I came home from school and my key wouldn't work. I found the landlord who told me he had to lock us out because it's been thirty days since the eviction notice.

I asked him about the three months we got caught up on, but he didn't know what I was talking about.

The cold hard reality sank in.

That was the moment I stopped caring about people. My own mother had robbed me. How could I trust anyone ever again?

I found my mother drunk and passed out in a shelter. To this day, I have no idea what happened to the money I gave her.

There was a nice lady at the shelter who helped me find a place to live with a foster family. I became a ward of the State of Florida. She told me it was only temporary until she could find someone who would permanently adopt me.

But I didn't care.

I had my own plans.

I was determined to take the world for all it had.

Maybe I was mad. I'm not sure. All I know is that I was focused and determined to take everybody's money wherever I could, whenever I could. I was even willing to cheat if I had to. Fuck 'em.

I played poker like I had never played before. I charmed my way into high-stakes games at lavish homes and expensive hotel rooms. Always the same shock that I was so young. Always the same shock that I could play so well.

One Saturday night a month before my thirteenth birthday, I was at a high-stakes game in a stucco mansion with an orange-tile roof on Bayshore Boulevard. A huge lawn stretched all the way to the road looking out at Hillsborough Bay.

It was a good night. I was winning.

One player seemed particularly offended that he was playing with a twelve-year old boy. He was about forty with slicked-back black hair and a moustache. He wore a Panama hat and a flowered shirt, smoking a big cigar.

Throughout the game, he gave me a very hard time, making fun of me and calling me names. It only seemed to sharpen my focus and concentration because I walked away from the game with over $2,000. My best one-night winnings yet.

I called a cab to take me back to my temporary foster home. I sat on the low wall in front of the mansion looking out at the bay. The Florida summer heat was thick and permeating.

Up pulled a Bentley driven by the man with the cigar in the Panama hat. A woman sat in the passenger seat. About twenty. Latina. Very pretty. I had seen her earlier sipping wine and talking with the wife of one of the other players. She just smiled at me. As she did, I felt a stirring I didn't quite understand yet.

"You're a real little shit, aren't you?" said the man with the cigar in the Panama hat.

I didn't know how to respond so I just stared at him. Oddly, I felt no fear. My logical brain told me that I should feel fear, but I couldn't seem to do it.

But I did formulate my escape route. He seemed a bit out of shape so if he tried killing me, I could easily outrun him. I may have only been twelve, but I had long legs and I was fast.

"Get in the back!" he said.

Is he joking? Does he really think I'm going to get in the car with him after I just took him for several hundred dollars?

I was about to run when he reached across the Latina girl and threw something at me. It landed at my feet.

At that time in my life, it was the only thing that could have convinced me to get in that car. The only thing I loved.

I stared at the stack of $100 bills lying on the ground.

Holy shit! There must be $10,000 in that stack.

"See that, kid?" the man said. "That's a tenth of what I
really
made tonight. The few hundred I lost at the game was nothing. This was the real payout."

He put the cigar back in his mouth and puffed. The Latina girl just smiled.

My curiosity was killing me.

"Where did you get it?" I said.

"From the owner of that house," he said. "He gave it to me as an investment in my company."

The girl laughed. "Company," she said. "Yeah, right."

"And that's just a twenty percent down payment," said the man.

I did the math in my head before he finished speaking. Five hundred thousand dollars!

"Why are you showing this to me?" I said.

He puffed on his cigar, turned and smiled at me.

"Because I'm giving it to you. You can take it and run. Or you can work on this job with me and I'll pay you nine more stacks just like those. If we like each other and work well together, maybe I'll keep you on."

This was certainly a much higher-paying job than my last one at the barber shop. I was transfixed by the $10,000 stack of money.

And he wants to pay me nine more? One hundred thousand dollars? No fucking way!

"What kind of job?" I said.

"You have talent, kid," said the man. "You're going to be a star. Not a movie star, but
my
kind of star. You've got
it.
That special skill."

I was intrigued.

"What special skill?" I said.

"You know how to read people and influence them. Most people go through life not seeing what's really going on around them. But I watched you tonight. You read everybody's mind and said all the right things. You bluffed better than anyone I've ever seen. You manipulated that entire room tonight. And you're only, what? Thirteen?"

"Twelve. I'll be thirteen next month."

"My God, you're only twelve! Where are your parents?"

"Dead. I live in a foster home."

It wasn't a lie. My mother was, for all intents and purposes, dead.

"Kid, I gave you a hard time tonight to see what you were made of. You didn't flinch. You didn't get mad. You just kept on playing. Any of those other grown men would have buckled under the pressure. But you..." he laughed, "...you were better than some of the top guys I know in Vegas. We could make a fortune together, the three of us."

Fortune.

He said the magic word. In my head, I saw it lit up with a big spotlight while trumpets played.

As I sat there, I calculated the odds and percentages. I ran the man's eyes through a complicated algorithm for truth I developed. I could read people like a book, but this man was a puzzle to solve. I couldn't get a read on him. That told me that he was worth learning from. The odds told me that this could be an opportunity.

"You've got ten seconds, boy, or I'm going to drive away. You will never get this chance again. You love money, I can tell. Just like me. With me, you can make more money than you ever imagined possible. Just start with the one job, make your hundred thousand, then if you don't like it you can keep your money and we'll go."

I made a fateful decision.

I picked up the stack of money and got in the back of the Bentley.

"What's your name, kid?" said the man as he put his hand out behind him to shake mine.

I didn't want to give him my real name so I had to think fast. I had just seen
Hard to Kill
, a Steven Seagal movie that pumped me up with energy and enthusiasm. Seagal's character was named Mason Storm. There was a tough kid I knew at school named Caden. In a flash, I had created my new identity.

"My name is Caden Storm," I said as I shook his hand.

"Caden Storm," said the man with the cigar in the Panama hat, "pleasure to meet you. I'm Sebastian. And this is Valentina."

Chapter 3

Sebastian and Valentina introduced me to the world of "the long con." While I had suspected that the offer to invest in his business that he had made to the owner of the house was bogus, it was quickly confirmed.

Sebastian was a master of deception. He could persuade like nobody I had ever known. Sometimes subtle. Sometimes brash. Whatever the situation demanded.

For example, the owner of the home was convinced that Sebastian was going to make a counter-offer for the rights to a development deal on Davis Island for a new residential tower. That was what the money was for. Sebastian promised him that he would quadruple his money.

Once Sebastian received the cash, we were on a plane to Costa Rica. Five hundred thousand dollars, just like that. One hundred thousand of it mine.

Mine!

I was hooked.

Fuck school
, I thought. I want money like this. Who needs school if you're rich? Besides, I was an avid reader. I knew more about history, literature, science, and math than most adults. I didn't need some lame teacher for that.

I signed on long-term.

Sebastian and Valentina taught me the art of playing a part to perfection. Nobody would suspect a thirteen year-old boy of being a professional con artist. Which was perfect for our jobs.

While in effect Sebastian and Valentina had "adopted" me, I would hardly call them parents.

We were more like a team. I was treated as an equal partner.

When traveling, we used fake names indicating that I was their son, even though Valentina was only seven years older than me. If questioned, Sebastian would just say she's my stepmother.

Sebastian was often the "roper" for our jobs, but we also had a network of other professionals who would come and go, each playing various parts.

In a long con, the "roper" makes the initial contact with the "mark", who is the person to be conned. Usually rich and greedy, the mark is given a small taste of something he wants, with promises of much more.

My poker skills had taught me how to hide my emotions while exploiting others. Soon, I found I could con almost anybody out of their money. So much more fun than just playing cards.

Sometimes what the mark wanted was Valentina. Which seemed fine with Sebastian. Those were the easy cons, but the least profitable. While Sebastian and Valentina were lovers, the con was always more important than anything. She readily gave up her pussy to whoever Sebastian told her to.

Including me.

When I was fifteen, we were in Rome working a job. My task was to romance the daughter of a traveling American businessman to get information about her father's assets.

While I had mastered the art of reading people and manipulating them, I still hadn't been on a date with a girl. What can I say? I was a very focused boy, almost obsessive about my jobs.

But it was time to learn a new skill.

We were in our Rome hotel room rehearsing our "characters" and I just couldn't pull off being seductive. Sebastian took one look at me and knew what the problem was. He stood up and walked to the door.

"Valentina," he said to his lover as he threw on a white jacket over his flowered shirt, "educate the boy, please."

Valentina did whatever Sebastian told her to do at all times. No questions. I won't go into detail, but let's just say that when it came time to romance the daughter of the traveling American businessman, I was highly educated.

Up until this point, my specialty was acting as dumb as most kids my age, while spying on the mark and collecting information. If the mark had kids, even better. I would befriend the kids, go on weekend trips with the mark and his wife, and find out whatever I could.

I found hidden safes, rare documents, jewelry, cash, gold. You name it. If it was in the house and I had become a trusted friend, I'd find it.

One particular con was fun. I had to play the part of a kid who was injured in a skiing accident. Fake cast and everything. All so I could stay with a rich couple and their daughter while my "parents" Sebastian and Valentina enjoyed the slopes.

The daughter, who helped "nurse me back to health", told me about various financial concerns her father was involved with. She also told me he murdered a man and hid the body. She knew where.

What a good girl.

Armed with this information, we were able to extort a million dollars from the man. We took a six-month vacation in the Caribbean to celebrate.

I was taller and heading toward manhood by now. My game changed. I became less the dumb kid who befriends and more the good-looking boy who seduces.

This went on for another three years, with lots of vacations in between. We saw it all. Waterfalls in South America. Sled racing in Alaska. The Serengeti. The pyramids in Egypt. Australia. Thailand. South America.

I'll never forget the thrill of turning eighteen, surrounded by bikini-clad girls in Panama, knowing I had one million dollars in my own personal bank account.

Life was good.

But something was lacking.

I couldn't put my finger on it, but I felt unchallenged. I needed a bigger fish to fry, but I didn't know what that fish was.

I also felt something else... an emptiness, I guess. Sebastian and Valentina had never quite become my family. I knew that Sebastian would cut both Valentina's and my throat in a heartbeat if it could get him something he truly wanted.

And there was only one thing that Sebastian truly wanted. It was his Achilles heel. If another con artist wanted to con Sebastian, he would use it.

Every man has his weakness. As con artists, it was our job to discover that weakness and use it against the "mark."

You would think that a true professional con artist wouldn't allow himself to have a weakness, right? But we can't help it. We're only human. Each of us has something we want that makes us throw reason out the window.

Sebastian's was the San Tomé gold mine.

Drunk on rum one night in Antigua, he told me all about it.

Legend has it that the San Tomé gold mine is a place into which you can walk, pluck gold right off the walls, and fill a bag worth a fortune. It has many caverns and stretches down for about two miles. More gold than any man could imagine, all there for the taking.

But the problem was it was in a very difficult remote location. To get to it, you have to climb mountains and cross rivers.

Or so the legend goes.

It's a legend because nobody knows exactly where in the world the mine is.

Except for one man.

Sebastian's great-grandfather apparently found the mine in 1904 and became a very wealthy man. Until he was killed.

Then his grandfather tried to find it. And was killed.

Sebastian's father didn't fall into the trap of trying to find the famous San Tomé gold mine of yore.

But Sebastian was bitten by the bug that destroyed his grandfather and great-grandfather. He felt some sort of right to this elusive gold mine, like it was destined to be his.

Personally, I thought Sebastian was a little nuts when it came to that damned mine. The night he told me about it, I began to formulate a plan to leave him and Valentina. I needed something else in my life, but I didn't know what. I needed new frontiers to conquer.

And I needed to find out what was this elusive thing that made me feel so empty.

Before I left, though, I wanted a little more nut in the bank, so I told myself I'd work on a few more jobs with Sebastian and Valentina. Then I'd disappear.

So there I was in Panama in a sunny hotel suite with three girls. We had just had a romp that would make Hugh Hefner blush. I had fucked all their holes into oblivion, which was why we were passed out.

In stormed Sebastian.

"Out!" he shouted to the girls. "Out! Out! Out!"

Groggily, they rose, found their bikinis, and left.

"What the fuck?" I said. "What's going on?"

Sebastian was oddly happy. He glowed. He rarely smiled, usually just smirking while puffing on his cigar.

But today he was grinning. Beaming, in fact.

I sat up on the messed-up bed, the air still thick with the smell of fucked girl, and scratched my head.

"I found a man who knows where the San Tomé gold mine is!" he said. "Pack your bags. We're going to Tahiti!"