Long White Con: The Biggest Score of His Life Read Online Free PDF

with his transformation, Trevor asked, “Well Johnny, critique me.”
    Folks said, “Trevor, you’re a makeup magician. Even your sister, at face to face range, couldn’t know you.”
    As Speedy tooled the limo from the lot, Folks said softly, “Sport, forgive me for asking, but I’m curious to know why a splendid legit gentleman like yourself, with the world smooching your keister, yens to hang it out playing the con and risking the penitentiary?”
    His haunted, aristocratic face became radiant with visceral passion. His voice tripped and staggered the precipice of nude emotion, “I have, since I was an innocent child, abhorred the slavish regimentation forced upon me by the Buckmeister name and status garbage conventions. I despise the hypocrisy of my immoral peers, with feet of shit, who parade like Gods of Olympus, with total immunity to justice, on this earth.
    “I hunger for the rapture of extreme risk, for the so-calledcriminal big con that promises no immunity . . . nothing! . . . except the most transcendent transport of ecstasy. As a child, my empathy always throbbed for the spider, not the fly. At the circus, I rooted and thrilled for the tiger, not the trainer. Please Johnny, don’t stop teaching me into your secret world. Indenture me in your world, nourish my starved soul in your world, don’t let me perish in Mother’s and Christina’s world.”
    Folks embraced him and said, “Trevor, you’ll always have sanctuary with us. You are forever welcome, my dear comrade, as friend and colleague.”
    They made a fast stop at the mob’s warehouse and coupled a trailer to the limo that was loaded with a canvas-covered portable fluoroscope.
    Speedy reached the downtown hotel around four P.M. Folks and the bellman, with his bags, went through the lobby to the elevators. Trevor stayed with Speedy in the limo until his cue was due to join Folks and the mark in the suite. As Folks rang the suite doorbell, he glanced into the half opened door of the room across the hall. Two grifter tails, keeping round-the-clock tabs on the mark during Folks’ one day hiatus, looked up from a hand of gin. They gave him the A-OK office that the mark was still on stable playing ice.
    He heard Stilwell’s elephantine thirteens stomping the carpet to the door. He slipped on a mask of disappointed gloom. The mark swung the door open. His moon face lit up like Macy’s Christmas tree. He slugged a ham-hock hand against Folks’ shoulder and snatched his bags from the aggravated bellman. Folks restored his neon smile with a ten spot.
    Folks shut the door and followed his bags into his bedroom. It was indecent the way Stilwell looked at him, he thought. He was so happy to see Folks, like he was a beloved son he hadn’t seen for years. Well, Folks thought, the first lesson I learned from Blue Howard was the art of the rapid artificial aging process of friendship in the mark’s heart and head.
    Folks sighed and collapsed on the side of the bed. The mark crashed down beside him, a concerned paternal expression creased his freckled forehead.
    He said, “Gawd, my boy, you look torn down. It was a wild goose chase, wasn’t it? You didn’t find that piece you’ve got your heart set on?”
    Folks closed his eyes and massaged his eyelids with his finger tips. He murmured, “No Cecil, I didn’t. Maybe the statue existed only in the scuttlebutt of ancient drunkards. I’ve spent ten years and a fortune, turned two continents inside out searching for her. Oh God, where can she be? If she exists! I was certain I’d find her here in this area.”
    The mark tugged at Folks’ sleeve and said, “Let me fix a drink and order some food.”
    He slipped off Folks’ jacket and stooped to pull off his shoes. Folks looked down at his sympathetic, seamed face. He didn’t look like a murderer at all, Folks thought, as he followed him to the mahogany bar. He shook up a series of double martinis and ordered food then sat at the bar beside Folks,