they care to. Listen. Listen with hungry earnest attention to every word. In the intensity of your attention, make little nods of agreement, little sounds of approval. You can't fake it. You have to really listen. In a posture of gratitude. And it is such a rare and startling experience for them, such a boon to ego, such a gratification of self, to find a genuine listener, that they want to prolong the experience. And the only way to do that is to keep talking. A good listener is far more rare than an adequate lover.
* * *
I had one useful source of information, if she was in the city. Constance Trimble Thatcher, age about seventy-two. She was the victim in a Palm Beach episode a few years ago. Though she was abnormally shrewd, a plausible sharpster had probed for a weak point and gouged her without mercy. I had discovered the con almost by accident, shaken it out of the operator and taken it all back to her and explained my Fee system. She had turned over half without a murmer, demanding only that I never let anyone know what a damned old fool she had been.
I gave my name and she came to the phone in person and demanded that I come see her immediately before her extremely dull cocktail guests arrived. I taxied up to her big old duplex overlooking the park. I waited in the foyer. The tall old rooms were full of Regency furniture, gold brocade and fresh flowers. From the buffet preparations, I could she expected at least fifty.
She came trotting toward me, all smiles and pearls, piled white hair, green gown and little yips of welcome. She pulled me into a small study off the foyer and closed the mahogany door. She held my hands and peered up at me said, "McGee, McGee, you beautiful shifty scoundrel, if only I were thirty years younger."
"It's good to see you again, Mrs. Thatcher."
"What!"
"It's good to see you again, Connie."
She drew me over to the couch and we sat down. "I can't hope that you came to see an old lady just out of affection and old times, McGee. So there is something you want. From the look of you, you haven't settled down yet, and never will. You are a brigand, McGee."
"You never found me a nice girl, Connie."
"I sent you one, dear. But that was only for therapy."
"How is Joanie?"
"Back with her husband, but you would know that, wouldn't you, because it was your advice, so she told me. She's had her third child by now. Happy, they say. Was I a wicked old woman to send her to you?"
"You know you were."
"She needed a fling, and she could have fallen among thieves. She came back all aglow; McGee. I was eaten with jealousy. Tell me, what intrigue are you mixed up in now, and will you make any money?"
"What do you know about Charles McKewn Armister, the Fourth?"
She stared at me, head slightly cocked, one eye narrowed. It is easy to see how beautiful she must have been. "It's an interesting question," she said. "I know what there is to know."
"Which is why I came to you."
"When I was a little girl I fell off a horse one of many many times-and his grandfather picked me up. And for a time I thought I would marry his father, a romantic fellow much given to kissing and writing love poems. But young Charlie has always been a stick. He was a very proper little boy. He married young. I think they were both twenty. Joanna Howlan he married. Money to money. They had summer places close together at Bar Harbor. A proper girl for him, I guess. One of those sturdy freckled girls, good at games, with a nice smile, and as proper as he. Two children of the marriage, a boy and a girl. The boy is twenty-two I would guess, and off in some far place in the Peace Corps, the girl eighteen and in Holyoke."
She scowled into space. "I don't know how to say it, McGee. Charlie and his wife have no flair for the use of money, at least not that much money. It's the cult of simplicity. They take all the magic out of it. Some kind of inverted snobbism, I guess. Social guilt. I just don't know. They have the old place on the
* * *
I had one useful source of information, if she was in the city. Constance Trimble Thatcher, age about seventy-two. She was the victim in a Palm Beach episode a few years ago. Though she was abnormally shrewd, a plausible sharpster had probed for a weak point and gouged her without mercy. I had discovered the con almost by accident, shaken it out of the operator and taken it all back to her and explained my Fee system. She had turned over half without a murmer, demanding only that I never let anyone know what a damned old fool she had been.
I gave my name and she came to the phone in person and demanded that I come see her immediately before her extremely dull cocktail guests arrived. I taxied up to her big old duplex overlooking the park. I waited in the foyer. The tall old rooms were full of Regency furniture, gold brocade and fresh flowers. From the buffet preparations, I could she expected at least fifty.
She came trotting toward me, all smiles and pearls, piled white hair, green gown and little yips of welcome. She pulled me into a small study off the foyer and closed the mahogany door. She held my hands and peered up at me said, "McGee, McGee, you beautiful shifty scoundrel, if only I were thirty years younger."
"It's good to see you again, Mrs. Thatcher."
"What!"
"It's good to see you again, Connie."
She drew me over to the couch and we sat down. "I can't hope that you came to see an old lady just out of affection and old times, McGee. So there is something you want. From the look of you, you haven't settled down yet, and never will. You are a brigand, McGee."
"You never found me a nice girl, Connie."
"I sent you one, dear. But that was only for therapy."
"How is Joanie?"
"Back with her husband, but you would know that, wouldn't you, because it was your advice, so she told me. She's had her third child by now. Happy, they say. Was I a wicked old woman to send her to you?"
"You know you were."
"She needed a fling, and she could have fallen among thieves. She came back all aglow; McGee. I was eaten with jealousy. Tell me, what intrigue are you mixed up in now, and will you make any money?"
"What do you know about Charles McKewn Armister, the Fourth?"
She stared at me, head slightly cocked, one eye narrowed. It is easy to see how beautiful she must have been. "It's an interesting question," she said. "I know what there is to know."
"Which is why I came to you."
"When I was a little girl I fell off a horse one of many many times-and his grandfather picked me up. And for a time I thought I would marry his father, a romantic fellow much given to kissing and writing love poems. But young Charlie has always been a stick. He was a very proper little boy. He married young. I think they were both twenty. Joanna Howlan he married. Money to money. They had summer places close together at Bar Harbor. A proper girl for him, I guess. One of those sturdy freckled girls, good at games, with a nice smile, and as proper as he. Two children of the marriage, a boy and a girl. The boy is twenty-two I would guess, and off in some far place in the Peace Corps, the girl eighteen and in Holyoke."
She scowled into space. "I don't know how to say it, McGee. Charlie and his wife have no flair for the use of money, at least not that much money. It's the cult of simplicity. They take all the magic out of it. Some kind of inverted snobbism, I guess. Social guilt. I just don't know. They have the old place on the
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