The Big Con (28 page)

I have asked many con men about their attitude toward their victims, and I feel sure that they do not admit any pangs of conscience at having swindled a victim. One professional thought carefully back over his life and surprised me by saying, “Yes, I can remember once when I felt terribly sorry for a mark. We had taken a man and his wife for $35,000 in the Miami store. I was taking them back to the hotel in my car. When the chauffeur went to let them out, he accidentally slammed the door on the woman’s hand and mashed it. It was terrible ….” He then launched into a graphic account of his own emotions at the sight of the poor woman’s suffering. But the fact that he had just swindled her and her husband of $35,000 had nothing to do with his remorse. Con men are, in a hundred ways, soft-hearted and sentimental;
they love dogs and little children; but no big-timer can afford to feel sorry for his victims. It never occurs to him that a mark is deserving of any consideration and hence he feels no remorse at taking his money.

As con men grow older they grow rich in experience and mellow in the wisdom of the grift. When they grow too old to play the outside any longer, they play the inside of some racket for a younger generation of ropers. But that is about the only change. They move forward with the times, adapting themselves easily to social and economic change, and improving their professional technique so that they are always at least one jump ahead of the mark and the law.

Old John Henry Strosnider said, “I think the reason that a con man never dies is that, like the Wandering Jew, he is always on the go. He is always traveling somewhere and seeing and doing new things. If he is in California, he looks forward to going to Florida, from there to Cuba, and so on. Then, too, he is always with young people. He dresses and acts like a young man, even when he is seventy. His talk and manners are up to date. I never saw an old pappy con man. Besides, con men never loaf around much. They are always active rooting out a mark. Much of their time is spent in the open air. Nowadays you will find the old-timers on any golf links where they can get by.”

Age is apparently no deterrent to old con men who want to remain on the rackets. For instance, old Chappie Moran, one of the first really big-time grifters, is still working. He started as a nut-player and was one of the first to use the “electric saddle” in con games. When the wire came out, he became very successful, and still has a heart for anything in the line of grifting. Old Man Millsap also grifted well past the mark of three score and ten; to his dying day he pugnaciously resented anyone who called him “Uncle.” John Russell roped to a ripe old age,
and passed on much of his technical skill to the Yenshee Kid, whom he “turned out.” For many years he was a partner to Larry King, who began his grifting career as a pickpocket during the Civil War, worked up through the short-con rackets, and steered for the big con until he was past ninety. All the grifters who knew him regret the passing of this distinguished-looking Southerner who knew so well how to tell fine stories and how to ingratiate himself with the ladies. He made many marriages, not to mention the fact that he was simultaneously on very intimate terms with at least one lady in every large city on the American continent. Just after turning ninety he bedded his last bride—a young girl from Salt Lake City. It is sad, but hardly surprising, that he died quietly and peacefully soon afterward.

Some con men marry money or save their earnings and retire from the rackets to live in comfort and ease. Good investments sometimes increase their original nest egg appreciably, as, for instance, they did for Kid McGinley, who died leaving an estate of over four million dollars, made largely in oil. The Postal Kid increased the proceeds of his confidence games by investments in stocks. The Big Alabama Kid made and laid away a sizable fortune on the pay-off. Dan the Dude made money as a professional gambler and as a fixer for con men, and later profited from his investments in securities. The Judge laid away a fortune made largely through professional gambling. Eddie Mines became wealthy on the grift, especially on the proceeds of con games, big and little. Nibs Callahan retired comfortably from confidence work and has further increased his fortune in later years by acting as a professional fixer in Toledo, Ohio. Jerry Mugivan, Bert Bowers, and old Ben Wallace laid away large fortunes taken on the circus grift. Joe Frog, Bill Bennett, Tom Furey, and Ben Marks all retired wealthy from the fruits of the grift, principally con games. Big Mucks rose from a pickpocket to a
big-time grifter, then used the proceeds of the grift to finance his book-selling activities and eventually retired wealthy. Martin Downs, Joe McMann and Crazy Horse Thompson all acquired small fortunes on the grift. George Ryan used his profits from con work and other grifting to finance his gambling establishment, from which he made and saved a handsome sum. Lou Blonger, for long a power in the western underworld, amassed his wealth through applying the chain-store principle to big-time confidence games. Many others died wealthy, while of course many more gambled away their profits, or made bad investments. And many are now in the higher financial brackets, maintaining a place in highly respectable society and sometimes building up convenient local political connections until they become powers in city or state governments.

During prohibition days a great number of grifters sensed the big profits to be made, became bootleggers and either dealt wholesale or opened up speakeasies, some of which have survived as legitimate saloons, night clubs or cafés. Others have entered legitimate business on a higher plane, and some of them, whose names in justice can hardly be given here, have succeeded. But most of those who aspire to become legitimate successes go broke in short order. “Con men set up in all kinds of business,” said one professional, “but, as a general rule, they are poor businessmen. They just don’t know the value of jack.”

“A good businessman,” says the Postal Kid, “knows money and its value. He knows what it is for. He knows that it takes money to make money. But the grifter doesn’t know what it is for. He thinks it is for playing the bank or the ponies, or for shooting craps. He never gives up the idea that he can win, and nothing can knock him. He is the same kind of a sucker for certain rackets as the legitimate businessman is for a sure-thing game.”

“Many con men and dips go into business,” says another con man. “But they seldom make a success of it. For instance, a gun saves up ten grand and opens a scatter. It turns out to be a dud. Then he saves up more and tries it again, but that venture curdles too. Then he gets disgusted and says, ‘I’m going out on the dip with a stiff upper lip and get myself some dough with my mitt.’ It is the same with con men. They can’t make it stick, somehow.”

Relatively few confidence men end their lives as wealthy men. Either they lose their money to professional gamblers, make bad investments or squander it in one way or another. A few make the mistake of becoming involved with the federal law, which is well-nigh impossible to fix; they spend their substance trying to beat the rap, but generally end broke, in Atlanta or Leavenworth. Some of them lose their nerve and degenerate into pimps in order to live. Some grifters turn stool pigeon and work as informants for the law, but very few full-fledged con men can stomach that work. Some, like the Waco Kid, shot in the back by Big Alabama, and Brickyard Jimmy, stabbed to death, die at the hands of their confrèGres in quarrels over women or money; others, like Bill Larson who jumped from a Jacksonville hotel, Red Snyder, or Kid Duff who inhaled monoxide gas, commit suicide. Some, like Plunk Drucker, succumb under the weight of accumulated venereal decorations received in a thousand bouts at illicit love. Several, like Big Bill Keeley, the Brass Kid, the Little Alabama Kid and Grove Sullivan suffer mental derangement and find their way to institutions. A few, like Little Jeff Sharum, who died last summer in Michigan City, and Kent Marshall, who recently died in Sing Sing, pass their last days behind bars. Most of them, when they die, pass gently away, as did old Larry King, as old men at home.

Although most con men grift right up to the end, I know of only one who actually died with his boots on. Pete Nugent, a fine big-con roper, dropped dead not long ago—much to the dismay of his insideman—right in the midst of a play in the big store.

The public is not only apathetic but naïve toward the relationship between confidence men and the law. The man in the street sees crime something like this: if a confidence man trims someone, he should be indicted and punished; first he must be caught; then he must be tried; then, if convicted, he should be sent to prison to serve his full term. The average citizen—if we ignore his tendency to wax sentimental about all criminals—can be generally counted upon to adopt the following assumptions: that the victim of the swindle is both honest and unfortunate; that the officers of the law want to catch the con men; that the court wishes to convict the criminals; that if the court frees the con men, they are
ipso facto
innocent; that if they are convicted, they will be put in the penitentiary where they belong to serve out their time at hard labor. If these assumptions even
approximated fact, confidence men would have long ago found it impossible to operate.

Confidence men have a problem which does not perplex small-time criminals who steal a little here and a little there. Since con touches must be big in order to make the play profitable, the bigger the touch, the more “heat” develops and, as a result, the more of a hue and cry is raised after the con men. However, this works both ways. The bigger the touch, the more money the confidence men have to pay their way out or to fight the case if it gets into court. The con man knows that if he does not have money he will go to prison, and no con man likes to contemplate the drab and monotonous life behind bars. So the con men as a group have solved this problem by what is known as the “fix.”

The fix, like insurance, is protection bought and paid for. It is an institution among all professional criminals, but perhaps no other professionals use it so continuously nor rely on it so implicitly as con men. When it is “in” con men know that certain powerful representatives of law and order will not only wink at the operation of con games, but will actually co-operate if necessary. All this is accomplished by paying a percentage of each touch for stipulated protection. As long as the con man has the money to meet his obligations and as long as he knows that the fix is reliable, he has every reason to feel secure. When he is broke or when the fix “curdles,” he knows that his days at liberty are numbered.

All habitual and professional criminals employ the fix in one form or another. The legitimate citizen is often aware of the process involved, for any motorist who has had a traffic ticket fixed for him has invoked the same principles that the professional criminals use—except that he usually pays for the small favor he receives with a cigar, political support, or simple good will. But the legitimate citizen seldom if ever does business through the
fixer. The fix for professionals is administered through a more or less permanent fixer who is a part of the underworld-political set-up in every city which harbors any sort of organized crime—and that means every city of any size in the United States. It is not implied that a fixer is necessarily a part of any party political machine—a good fixer can weather many a change in administration—but he usually pays off to that machine, directly or indirectly, in cash. This fixer is sometimes a respectable and legitimate citizen, often an attorney, but in some places he has a hand in the rackets. His underworld connections are legion.

Different types of professional criminals employ different types of fixers, not all of whom operate in the same manner. Heavy-men, for instance, approach the problem of the fix quite differently from pickpockets, gamblers or circus grifters. Here we are mainly interested in the ways and means which confidence men employ to keep out of the penitentiary.

A good con mob would no more think of setting up a big store until the fix had been investigated and found effective than Mr. Chamberlain would think of setting out without his umbrella. Con men have long ago established the value of “appeasement” and they have developed the proper machinery for distributing it in an equitable manner. They well know that a “fitted mitt” is the best—in fact the only—insurance against paying the penalty for their acts.

Sometimes con mobs operate through one fixer who buys protection wholesale, so to speak, for all types of criminals. This is likely to be the case in cities under 30,000 in population, where one man handles all types of protection for a price. More often, however, they locate the big store in a community as permanently, say, as a merchant might locate a dry-goods store there. This means that they must have sound connections with the
forces of law and order—connections which can be depended upon to withstand stormy times. It also means that often the fixer must have a specialized technique for this type of work—fixing con touches. Hence, con men sometimes depend upon one powerful fixer who works constantly in their interests for a stipulated percentage—usually fifty per cent of the insideman’s share after he has paid off the necessary expenses incidental to playing the mark. Thus, from a $100,000 touch, the fixer would receive something like $17,500 (though this might vary slightly one way or another) from which he would “fit” as many “mitts” as he found necessary—sometimes only one, if it is high enough up in the politico-criminal syndicate. The remainder—perhaps $5,000 or $10,000—he puts in his own pocket. In a city where the big store does a thriving business, the fixer has an exceedingly satisfactory and steady source of income.