The Big Con (41 page)

Confidence games are cyclic phenomena. They appear, rise to a peak of effectiveness, then drop into obscurity. But they have yet to disappear altogether. Sooner or later they are revived, refurbished to fit the times, and used to trim some sucker who has never heard of them. In the past, short-con games—literally hundreds of them—have gone through this cycle, some several times over. Just as it appears that the gold-brick game is a chestnut and worthless, some operators in Texas revamp it and take $300,000 from a group of financiers and bankers; just when the wipe appears to be effective only for small touches among ignorant Negroes and immigrants, a sharp
short-con worker polishes it up a bit and takes $1,500 from a sophisticated movie star. Just as this is being written, a pair of con men in Mexico City are trying to revive the old
Spanish prisoner
con game on a wholesale basis, using
Who’s Who
as their sucker list. The big-con games are probably here to stay for some time, though, like the fight and foot-race games, they may ultimately be superseded by others more effective. The wire, not much used at present, may be at any time revived by con men with new ideas and made into a first-rate swindling device. However, the pay-off and the rag are still king among con games; they are being constantly improved and perfected; they show no tendency to fall into disuse. The principles on which they operate are so sound and the results they produce are so satisfactory that it is probable that, until another Ben Marks or Buck Boatwright appears with some effective innovation, they or games very much like them will dominate the big-con field exclusively.

Confidence men trade upon certain weaknesses in human nature. Hence until human nature changes perceptibly there is little possibility that there will be a shortage of marks for con games. So long as there are marks with money, the law will find great difficulty in suppressing confidence games, even assuming that local enforcement officers are sincerely interested. Increased legal obstacles have, in the past, had little ultimate effect upon confidence men, except perhaps to make them more wary and to force them to develop their technique to a very high level of perfection. As long as the political boss, whether he be local, state or national, fosters a machine wherein graft and bribery are looked upon as a normal phase of government, as long as juries, judges and law enforcement officers can be had for a price, the confidence man will live and thrive in our society.

D
AVID
W. M
AURER
was a professor of Linguistics at the University of Louisville until his death in 1981. His other books included
Whiz Mob
and
Kentucky Moonshine.

L
UC
S
ANTE
is the author of
Low Life
, an acclaimed account of New York’s underworld; the memoir
The Factory of Facts;
and
Evidence.
He lives in Brooklyn, New York.