The Big Con (19 page)

The personnel of the store is hardly considered a part of the mob proper for, with the frequent exception of the manager, it consists of floating grifters or con men who have not made a touch recently and are in need of money. Some of the best stores, however, retain their personnel almost intact over a period of months or even years. Other necessary connections for the mob as, for instance,
persons who “put up” marks on a percentage basis or fixers (where the insideman does not do his own fixing), are only auxiliaries and not an integral part of the mob, even though their services may be necessary to the smooth functioning of the organization.

Once the store is established, the size of the mob increases even though its essential elements remain exactly the same. If the insideman, who is usually the proprietor of the store, wishes to show a good profit, he must have more than one roper to bring in victims. So he arranges to have several ropers on the road while he stays near the store to handle the marks as they come in. If business is good, he keeps an appointment book after the fashion of a doctor or dentist and plays the marks according to a rigid schedule. As the insideman multiplies the number of ropers working for him, the fundamental relationship between himself and each roper remains the same, with the result that the store becomes increasingly prosperous. If he has a high professional reputation and ropers know that he will give their marks a good play with a minimum of risk and a maximum of protection, he may have as many as forty or fifty ropers working out of his store during a busy season.

As the play given a store increases, the burden of the roper’s work increases for he must, since the insideman cannot travel far from the store, assume more and more of the responsibility of gaining the mark’s confidence. Consequently, in order to give the mark the convincer in the form of cash winnings which is usually necessary before he can be moved to the store for the big play, ropers frequently work in pairs, each temporarily playing the inside for his partner when a mark is roped. As soon as one of them picks up a mark, he arranges for his partner to meet him at a given point (probably the mark’s destination) where the pair find the poke or play the point-out for the victim. The mark finds out all about the deal by
which he can make a fortune, after which he is given enough of a play “against the wall” (that is, without the use of a store) to hook him on the scheme and insure his continued interest. Then the first or temporary insideman moves the mark to the city where the big store is located, on the grounds that he has been ordered to report immediately to the headquarters of the racing syndicate or the stock syndicate, as the case may be. He tells the mark that he will take him along and that he can make a much larger investment there. At headquarters the mark meets the high executive in charge of the syndicate (the permanent insideman who operates the store). His confidence is then “switched” to this insideman and he is given the big play.

Although this arrangement complicates the task of bringing in the marks somewhat, at the same time it facilitates the play from the ropers’ viewpoint because the mark can be told the tale and given the convincer very early in the game. It also makes for much greater mobility, for the ropers can, after hooking the mark, move him clear across the country, if necessary, to his doom. In fact, the mark can be moved anywhere, once he has had a sufficiently realistic convincer; a captain of detectives from Los Angeles, recently roped in Europe, was moved to Los Angeles for his money, then returned to Montreal for the play against the store there. But a roper who works with a partner pays well for the assistance he receives. If he ropes the mark unaided, he usually receives forty-five per cent of the touch; if he has a partner, each gets twenty-two and a half per cent. It is not often that a roper has such good luck as did the Hashhouse Kid when he roped an Englishman in Canada for $375,000 just the day after his partner, John Singleton, quit him. Thus he collected $168,750 where, had he found the mark a day earlier, he would have received only $84,375.

The permanent insideman keeps the remaining fifty-five per cent of the score, from which he pays the manager ten per cent of the gross score, settles with the banker for from five to ten per cent, gives the shills and other accessories one per cent each (or in some stores, a “consideration” of from $100 to $500 each, depending on the size of the score), and usually splits the remainder with the fixer—unless he is thrifty and does the fixing himself. Whatever set-up is used, the big store is the center for all big-time confidence games; it is “framed” in different ways for the wire, the rag and the pay-off, and different mobs have different working arrangements (though practice is remarkably standardized), but these are differences of detail. The fundamental relationship of the roper to the insideman, of the mob to the store, remains the same.

The roper and the insideman are the principals of any mob. Upon them depends the success of the big store, for, however elaborate a set-up is provided, and however secure the fix, all is useless without the services of a man who can bring in marks, and one who can give them a convincing play. Each must perform a specialized piece of work and needs certain personal qualifications and experience which fit him for the task. Some men, and rare they are, can handle either end with great success, as, for instance, the Yellow Kid, Frank MacSherry or the Jew Kid. Others, like Limehouse Chappie and Charley Gondorff, have consistently specialized in inside work, at which their talent falls little short of genius, but could not steer a hungry man into a restaurant. Grifters like Stewart Donnelly and the Umbrella Kid specialize as ropers. It is rather unusual for a man to be able to handle either end; most first-rate con men specialize in one type of work and perfect their technique in that field until it is a high art.

The outsideman travels on railways and steamship lines, usually on those lines leading into the city where the big store is located, and preferably those lines which extend far beyond the borders of the state within which the big store is situated; thus he avoids the “home guards” and “short riders” who might be able to cause trouble through political connections in their home state. He “roots out” the mark, makes the initial contact, decides whether or not he is worth playing for, makes a tentative estimate of the game he will respond to best, puts him in touch with the insideman, is tied up with him during the play, and generally assists with the play in the big store. While he is on the road roping, he either lives on cash he has saved from his last score, or borrows from the insideman if he is well known at the store and has an established reputation as a roper; if he is spending some time in the city where the big store is located, he may fill in on the boost for several touches and thus increase his income materially.

Upon the roper falls the responsibility of ferreting out marks to be trimmed; as soon as he ceases activity, the big store must close. However excellent the talents of the insideman may be, they are wasted unless he has good ropers out “riding in” the fools. Without a slow but steady stream of marks coming in, the big store cannot show enough profit to operate in the face of the high overhead, the expense of keeping ropers on the road, and the maintenance of fixed municipal and county officials. Hence ropers are just as essential to the prosperity of a big store as salesmen are to the success of a legitimate business.

“A good outsideman is one who always has a chump to play for,” comments one insideman. “You can always spot a good roper by the fact that he is out railroading continually for marks.” This extensive travel wears the roper down, separates him from his wife and friends, and keeps
him on his toes to pay expenses—for no one knows how long it will be between touches. “There’s nothing easy about roping if you want to keep out of stir,” said the Postal Kid. “The fear of getting lagged keeps you always under a strain. My friend, it’s no bed of roses. Playing for marks is hard mental work. You just try going out and getting a good mark on your own, riding the trains day and night and dodging the dicks. And the cap every day is something terrific. If you play the bank, boy, you have to get yourself a fool quite often.”

Not only does the outsideman have to locate and ride in the marks, but he works under conditions which are much less safe and comfortable than those enjoyed by the insideman, who stays near the store, within “right” territory where he can feel reasonably secure from arrest. Hence, most ropers hope some day to open a store of their own and play the inside—but while they are roping, they look with some envy upon the man who plays the marks in the store. “It is pretty soft for him,” said one con man. “He can just loaf around, knowing that he has a dozen good ropers out digging up marks. All he has to do is sit around on his can. Nice work if you can get it ….” The outsideman, almost constantly working outside the territory which is covered by the protection money paid out by the mob, is continually exposed to the danger of being recognized by a detective and arrested or shaken down, or of being identified by a former mark who may have him arrested in a strange or hostile locality.

I once asked two ropers who were in a merry mood what they considered the qualifications for a first-rate roper to be. Although their answers are not entirely serious, they contain a measure of truth beneath a broad burlesque of the platitudinous style of Dale Carnegie. Said one, “Will-power is the most important asset a con man can have. Have you ever watched a grifter who stayed in one position all his life and never advanced? It is
pitiful to see how much mental energy he uses up getting nowhere. If he is a smack-player, he won’t try to get up any higher in the racket. Most failures wear themselves out with futile grifting and worry about keeping out of the can. They work themselves into a fever because they haven’t the will-power to stop and organize themselves for efficiency and try to get a big mark for the big store.

“Then there is the grifter who works the trains, the ocean liners and the resorts, trying to land a mark for the big store. That’s today—but tomorrow he meets a pretty girl and decides that he could not possibly leave home to travel. So he changes his direction toward the shed in his home town, Chicago, and falls back on the smack. Yes, he has a goal all right, but he hasn’t the will-power to keep on the track. Yes, I think will-power is essential to success on the grift. The grifter who can develop his will is increasing his roping force, adding to his horse-power, and building up character which will eventually carry him to the big store with a fine mark. Trained and disciplined, the will can be a most valuable and useful tool. Of course, there are grifters who will object to any talk of training the will. They will talk wisely of the need for self-expression and the inhibiting effects of any kind of discipline. But you will find that grifters who do this do so because of their inordinate desire for self-indulgence. Their psychology,” he concluded with a twinkle in his eye, “is not the quill.”

The other said, “I couldn’t say what you
must
have to be a good roper, but I can tell you some of the traits you better
not
have. Never permit yourself to be bored. If you gander around you will always find some mark you can trim. But some heel-grifters think it is smartly sophisticated to appear languid or condescendingly wise. That is really stupid. Tie into any mark. He may have it in the jug.

“Never ask a mark embarrassing questions. You know
how
you
feel when someone lets the cat out of the bag. Take it easy with any fool, and always lead your ace.

“Never boast about your rags, but brag about your long cush. That will lead him along to brag about his long jack, and then you’re getting somewhere, brother. If he is a hard-shelled Babbitt, why you’re one too.

“Never advance political views unless the fink asks you to do so. It is good to ‘yes’ him. And always be on the feel-out regarding his sporting tendencies in an easy way so as not to raise his suspicions. Marks are sometimes prejudiced against sporting.

“Never give detailed accounts of a trip, accident or personal ailment unless your mark evinces an avid interest in all the details. Just a hint about sex, and if he’s interested, you’ve got something to work on. Tell him about the married woman you know and leave the impression that you would like for him to meet her. They love it.

“Never interrupt a fink while he is talking. Be a good listener and he will immediately conclude that you are a young man of some note. Just listen carefully to the lies he tells you. Marks are chock full of lies.

“Never be untidy or drink with a savage. There is nothing worse than drinking when you are trying to tie up a mark. You’ve got to have your nut about you all the time. You need what little sense you’ve got to trim him—and if you had any sense at all, you wouldn’t be a grifter.”

In all seriousness, however, the most important qualification for a roper—so important, in fact, that he would starve without it—is what is known in the underworld as “grift sense.” No one, it seems—not even the grifters themselves—can say just what grift sense is. It appears to be a faculty which the grifter is acutely aware of when he needs it; a something that “clicks” within him, telling him when he meets a mark that he can beat, enabling him to sense at once whether or not the man is good for a play and to chart the mark’s probable reactions to the game; it
guides him materially in eliciting the proper response from his victim, and “tells” him how to handle the particular man in question. There is nothing occult or supernatural about it; yet it is there and every con man follows its promptings unconsciously, just as a tightrope walker reacts instantaneously and without question to his highly developed sense of balance. Probably it is no more than a highly sensitized and elaborately co-ordinated set of reactions to people and to situations, but a satisfactory explanation of it remains to be found and stated by the criminal psychologist. Whatever grift sense is, one thing is certain: it is a very real and useful faculty; without it no con man, regardless of what other brilliant attributes he might possess, could ever rope or play a mark.