Beating the System

I sit in an old Western-style saloon and listen to a couple of criminal conspiracies unfold in the fertile mind of a slight acquaintance, while two cowboys blow each other’s brains out with cap guns over by the john. I am celebrating the acquaintance’s forthcoming journey, with a friend who knows him Well, to the West Coast, and the topic of how fast money is to be made receives ample treatment. The acquaintance is insuring his rather considerable accumulation of baggage for several times its actual worth, and systematically collecting receipts for expensive, nonexistent items from friends who work at fancy men’s shops. He has already arranged for two cronies to steal his baggage when it is unloaded at the airport where he will land, and spirit it away to a secret hiding place until the insurance company comes up with the money. The heat then being off, so to speak, he can regain possession of the purloined articles and whack up the take with his accomplices.

We ordered another round while the cowboys reloaded, and I bit my tongue when the glasses came back half-filled with foam again, but my scheming acquaintance was not to be thus trifled with, and, in response to his smoothtongued protest, the barmaid refilled the mugs. She was rewarded with a dapper smile and she coyly neglected to ring up the round. My companion put a bit more money on the bar: con men understand one another.

EV

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Ed Vazquez

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I sit in an old Western-style saloon and listen to a couple of criminal conspiracies unfold in the fertile mind of a slight acquaintance, while two cowboys blow each other’s brains out with cap guns over by the john. I am celebrating the acquaintance’s forthcoming journey, with a friend who knows him Well, to the West Coast, and the topic of how fast money is to be made receives ample treatment. The acquaintance is insuring his rather considerable accumulation of baggage for several times its actual worth, and systematically collecting receipts for expensive, nonexistent items from friends who work at fancy men’s shops. He has already arranged for two cronies to steal his baggage when it is unloaded at the airport where he will land, and spirit it away to a secret hiding place until the insurance company comes up with the money. The heat then being off, so to speak, he can regain possession of the purloined articles and whack up the take with his accomplices.

We ordered another round while the cowboys reloaded, and I bit my tongue when the glasses came back half-filled with foam again, but my scheming acquaintance was not to be thus trifled with, and, in response to his smoothtongued protest, the barmaid refilled the mugs. She was rewarded with a dapper smile and she coyly neglected to ring up the round. My companion put a bit more money on the bar: con men understand one another.