The Art of the Con (17 page)

Shame is a powerful emotion, and the smarter a mark is, or the higher their standing in society, the greater the chances that he won't tell a soul about being conned. This is one of the key advantages to successfully isolating the mark in the process of a scam. The fewer people who know what the victim has been doing, the easier it is for the mark to conceal what happened from friends, colleagues, and loved ones.

In general, scams depend on this self-imposed blow-off to let hustlers walk away scot-free. It's a numbers game that depends largely on how the mark has been selected and groomed. Whenever victims are drawn into a scam at random, the risk of someone reporting the crime or coming after the hustlers is increased; there has been no weeding-out of dangerous or troublesome marks. Scams like the jam auction need only to hide behind a convenient interpretation of the law and employ a healthy number of bouncers to dissuade anyone who might put up a fight. Other con games hit and run, leaving the sucker with nowhere to go once they realize they've been stung. But in cases when the prize warrants the effort or the mark presents a greater potential danger to the crew, a cool-out is tailored to the mark and built into the scam.

A constructed cool-out is almost a scam within a scam. It is a motivation for the mark to walk away from their losses and keep quiet about what happened. In the movie
The Sting
, Paul Newman's Henry Gondorff and his protegé, Robert Redford's Johnny Hooker, confront each other in front of their mark after Hooker has apparently ratted Gondorff out to the FBI. Gondorff shoots Hooker and is then gunned down by the Feds as the mark is dragged away. Despite losing a huge amount of money, Robert Shaw's mobster character can't risk getting mixed up with the FBI and the two people he'd go after are now both dead. Of course, it's all a big show to make sure Gondorff and Hooker can take the money without getting killed for it later. This is an excellent, if overly dramatic, example of a cool-out in action because it clearly illustrates why the mark would never come back for his money.

In the real world, hustlers rarely go to so much trouble, but it's not unheard of to drop the mark into a compromising situation so that all he wants to do is get out, regardless of how much he has lost. A simple way to do this is to “poison the well.” Once the mark has committed and his money is secure, the nature of the proposition suddenly changes from being an honest opportunity into a criminal act.

On
The Real Hustle
, in an homage to
The Sting
, we convinced people to give large sums of money to my investment firm after seeing an impressive operation that gave my imaginary stockbrokers instant access to the latest financial data. Once their money was in our hands, the “police” suddenly burst in to arrest everyone for an insider trading scheme. This was all witnessed on closed-circuit cameras by our marks, who were then hustled out of the office and onto the street. They all got out of there as fast as their legs could carry them. From their perspective it looked like a seemingly legit operation was actually using illegal methods and that they were lucky not to get caught up in the whole affair.

This turn of events changes everything; all the victim wants is to get away and protect his freedom no matter how much he might lose.

A simple example of this is an investment scam where victims are told they can profit from a powerful new system that can predict the market with such accuracy that it's almost guaranteed to make a profit. Once the mark is hooked, he is convinced to buy into the company but soon learns that the “system” relies on insider information gathered illegally by a team of hackers. Now, money is no longer the mark's primary motivation. All he really wants is to get out before the police or the government moves in to arrest everyone. Another clever twist allows con artists to squeeze even more from their mark in order to walk away clean; a visit or a phone call from bogus investigators is sure to convince any mark to keep his head down.

Certain scams are designed to make the victim appear responsible for any losses; others create fake scenarios where an unforeseen event or disaster apparently ruins everything. These strategies are excellent for making the mark walk away without knowing he was conned. In fact, hustlers sometimes use them to take a second swing at their sucker. If the mark feels he was to blame, he might beg for another chance.

In the black money scam, there is a powerful cool-out that is sometimes used to back off a mark. During the scam, the hustler asks the mark to verify his story (that black paper can be changed into real money) for another potential customer, and the mark confirms what they genuinely believe at that time. Later, when they learn that they've been conned, the other “customer” confronts the mark and accuses him of being one of the scammers, perhaps threatening violence. This scenario can be so frightening that most people just want to get away.

This form of bait and switch is a powerful way to keep a victim quiet, but nothing is certain; people can be impossible to predict once someone has been conned. Throughout history, con artists have come to a violent end at the hands of their once-innocent victims. Whether hung by an angry mob, shot by a humiliated mark, arrested, or merely tarred and feathered, being a con man is a dangerous profession and almost everyone has to face the music at some point. The cool-out, constructed or automatic, is certainly one of the strongest weapons in the con man's arsenal, but it's always a gamble. There's always the chance that a victim is going to make a stand.

On
The Real Hustle
, we interviewed a former victim of the black money scam who was suspected of sending several con men to the hospital. After learning that he had bought nothing more than ordinary black paper, the mark told the scammers that he wanted to buy even more. They quickly agreed to meet the mark again only to find out he brought several friends and a collection of blunt-edged weapons.

Most con artists are remarkably brazen in their attitude. They just want to get the money, get out, and go after the next mark. It might seem satisfying to employ a few friends with baseball bats, but this is more likely to put the victim in jail than to recover any money or self-respect. Many are unfazed by victims who want to come after them, and previously charming and amiable con men quickly transform into hardened criminals when pursued. I would strongly urge anyone
not
to go after a grifter themselves—contact the police. More important, con artists are criminals and criminals tend to know many other bad people; always call the authorities and let them do their job.

My own experience with HL at that bar in Maryland taught me that not confronting the reality of a scam is preferable to admitting I was almost a sucker. Until writing this book, I had only shared this story with one close friend, afraid it might somehow taint my reputation or make me seem foolish or less qualified. I've come to realize the opposite: This experience was incredibly valuable. It taught me that con artists can never be trusted and that, to them, I'm just another mark, waiting to get clipped.

I often hear people say that “the best con game is where the mark doesn't even know he was conned.” This is certainly true but, with a few exceptions (such as a well-run crooked card game), most marks soon realize that they were suckered somehow. The cool-out simply creates enough smoke for scammers to walk away, but that smoke eventually clears.

The vast majority of cons and scams go unreported because victims are naturally inclined not to admit or confront what has happened to them. In some cases, hustlers deliberately construct situations that force their victims to keep quiet. Eventually, someone will ring the bell, forcing the scammers to adapt or run. This cat and mouse game will continue to go in cycles. However, there are ways to fight back and to make the hustler's life more difficult.

*
In fact, I was carrying a lot of cash at the time. While I had not shown this to HL, he was able to surmise that I might be carrying a large bankroll.

For me, it all started with
The Sting
.

George Roy Hill's 1973 film about a team of con artists trying to scam a Chicago mobster during the Great Depression remains one of my all-time favorite pictures. Paul Newman and Robert Redford were perfect as charismatic charlatans playing a long con surrounded by a cast of colorful characters—cartoons of real-life con men from that era.

It began my fascination with con games and introduced me to gambling sleight of hand as demonstrated by the hands of John Scarne during one unforgettable scene. I still remember watching it for the first time and the impact it had on me as a child, and have since seen it over a hundred times. It never fails to entertain or inspire, but as I've come to learn, it has very little to do with the world of real-life grifters.

In
The Sting
, con men are honorable thieves who willingly come together to avenge a murdered member of their fraternity. For Johnny Hooker, the fledgling con man played by Redford, revenge is the primary motivation; he even rejects his piece of the take once the con is complete. It's nothing more than an entertaining fantasy concocted from several sources to create a pitch-perfect Hollywood movie.

In reality, con artists can certainly be charismatic, sometimes even cool, but mostly, they are remorseless and cold as ice. To be a grifter, one needs to be willing to sink to any level when going after the money. There are no limits, no restrictions, and no rules. Most assuredly, there's rarely any honor among thieves.

Not all movies present con artists so kindly as
The Sting
. In
Nine Queens
, director Fabián Bielinsky introduces us to two con artists as they scam their way around Buenos Aires before stumbling upon the opportunity of a lifetime. The film begins by concentrating on how the two grifters con innocent people but quickly becomes a character-driven story that leads to a satisfying conclusion. In
Nine Queens
, the hustlers are not glamorized, but the story is told from their perspective. The film depends on the audience's natural fascination with the genre to draw them into the plot.

David O. Russell's excellent
American Hustle
draws from the notorious Abscam affair and creates a pair of hustlers who accurately reflect the kind of crooks who willfully prey upon people desperate for financial help. The film is a powerful portrayal of three people manipulating each other until the con artists find a way to escape their situation. However, the film bears little resemblance to the real events on which it is based. As the opening of the movie states, “some of this actually happened,” but a great deal was added or embellished in the name of entertainment. In particular, the motivation that drives Christian Bale's con artist seems to shift as he feels remorse for bringing down Jeremy Renner's Carmine Polito, the mayor of Camden. I find this extremely unlikely. In reality, the real con man's only regret was probably that he wasn't making any money from the affair.

David Mamet's
House Of Games
conjures a dark fascinating world filled with intriguing personalities who easily seduce the interest of Lindsay Crouse's psychiatrist character. As we are taken deeper into Mamet's version of this world, we see past their fascinating methods to uncover a vicious, remorseless cabal of low-life hustlers. The con artists in Mamet's later film
The Spanish Prisoner
prove to be equally repugnant, even resorting to murder to accomplish their goals. Throughout the story the con men are charming, but their true colors are clearly shown when the mark needs to be “taken care of” at the end of the picture. It's hard to accuse Mamet of glorifying con men, though he certainly makes them interesting. He uses them to compose stories filled with intrigue without compromising their motivation as con artists.

Stephen Frears'
The Grifters
, based on a novel by Jim Thompson, introduces the audience to three hustlers: John Cusack's short-con operator, his girlfriend with a background in the long con (Annette Bening), and his mother, who is part of a large bookmaking organization (played perfectly by Anjelica Huston). This film illustrates not only con games in action, but the repercussions of living in that world. Violence, murder, theft, prostitution, and even incest affect and ultimately destroy the lives of the characters in this brilliant piece of drama.

The cons portrayed in these movies are usually dramatic variations on old con games. In
House Of Games
, the card-game scam is a variation on The Tip, a con game where the victim is asked to signal information but after making a mistake, either loses a lot of money or is forced to cover a debt. In
American Hustle
, the con artists turn the tables on the FBI with a variation on the original Spanish Prisoner scam while Mamet's movie (called
The Spanish Prisoner
) features a complex con that is actually an ingenious Separate and Lift scam where the titular con is used only as part of the distraction.