The Big Con (3 page)

Ben Marks understood all about easy money, for his business was sure-thing gambling. Ever since he had left his home in Council Bluffs, Iowa, he had roamed the country from the Mississippi on west. His youthful, stocky figure and red whiskers, bristling in friendly fashion, were a familiar sight on river steamboats, at land-openings, and on the streets of frontier towns. Suspended from his broad shoulders he carried a board upon which he played a most popular frontier gambling game which had come up from Mexico—three-card monte. It was a simple little game in which the players bet against the operator, whose deft manipulation of the cards and amusing spiel drew a crowd about him on the street. He threw three cards, face down, upon the board in plain view of the spectators, then invited them to pick out the queen, first for fun, then for money. They knew it was easy, for they could see the queen flash as he threw the cards. Then he offered to bet upon the ability of anyone to find the queen. One of his accomplices (a
shill
) bet a dollar and picked out the queen. The crowd grew interested. More and larger bets were taken; meanwhile, another accomplice had located a fat sucker and connived with him to examine the cards, surreptitiously bend the corner of the queen slightly, and beat the operator. When the bet had been run up high enough, the trick was tried, but Ben deftly removed the “ear” from the marked card and put it on another as he manipulated the cards. The player was dumfounded when the queen evaded him.

Ben ground away at this little grifting game, picking up bets of five and ten dollars, occasionally one as large as
twenty-five. It made a living for him and his shills, but that was about all. He had too much competition on the streets of Cheyenne, where catering to the vices of lusty men had become one of the chief enterprises. The fat suckers paid little attention to a monte-player who plied his trade on the street.

Then Ben had an idea, an idea which was eventually to revolutionize the grift, an idea which was to become the backbone of all big-time confidence games. Why not set up a place of business of his own? Why not operate from a permanent base, let the players come to him? But how would he get trade? He would have to compete with numerous saloons where gambling was carried on amid other forms of red-blooded entertainment.

He turned the idea over in his mind for some time and finally opened, in a shack of a building, what he called The Dollar Store. In the windows he exhibited all kinds of colorful, useful, and even valuable merchandise—with all items priced at one dollar—and he soon had customers a-plenty. Inside there were several monte games going, replete with shills and “sticks” to keep the play going at a lively pace. Once a gullible customer was lured in by the bargains he saw displayed, Ben “switched” his interest from the sale to the three-card monte, which was being expertly played on barrelheads. The merchandise never changed hands. It remained always the same. But the customers were different, and each one left some cash in Ben Marks’ money belt. Like most pioneers Ben did not realize the importance of his innovation.

Thus, in a very crude form, developed what we know today as the “big store”—the swanky gambling club or fake brokerage establishment in which the modern pay-off or rag is played. It became the device which enables competent modern operators to take, say, $75,000 from a victim and at the same time conceal from him the fact that he has been swindled. Although today there are several
types of stores used, they all operate on the same principle and appear as legitimate places doing a large volume of business. So realistically are they manned and furnished that the victim does not suspect that everything about them—including the patronage—is fake. In short, the modern big store is a carefully set up and skillfully managed theater where the victim acts out an unwitting role in the most exciting of all underworld dramas. It is a triumph of the ingenuity of the criminal mind.

The use of a store against which to play the victims of a confidence game developed gradually. Previous to the very end of the nineteenth century there were no big-con games, although the country was overrun with what were then called “confidence games” but which are today known as
short-con
games. They were played on the street, on passenger trains, in saloons and gambling houses, on passenger ships, with fairs and circuses—in short, any place where short-con workers could find people with a little money. During the last quarter of the nineteenth century there were thousands upon thousands of these short-con workers plying the country; they liked to follow the boom-towns connected with mining and the land-openings on the westward-sweeping frontier, for there people had money and were speculation-bound. The feverish atmosphere west of the Mississippi River was a healthy one in which con games could flourish and grow. It was quite natural that the principle of the store should have been discovered in Cheyenne. But as yet the mobs were not organized, the fix did not extend beyond the occasional bribing of a sheriff or constable, and the grifters made a small income at best.

The idea of a store caught on among grifters and they began to organize, raise enough capital to open stores, and profit by Ben’s simple invention. It spread over the West, then to the East, where it housed
green-goods
games and the
gold-brick.
Other forms of the short-con,
largely some form of gambling games, copied the idea, and little Dollar Stores sprang up all over the United States—one of them, incidentally, in Chicago, growing into a great modern department store owing to the fact that the founder, who originally leased the building for a monte store, found that he could unload cheap and flashy merchandise at a dollar and make more money than he could at monte. But the idea of a store was well established and was to be forever afterward associated with confidence games. Ropers and steerers (long used by gambling dives) were adopted, which of course increased the volume of business tremendously, and eventually made the display of merchandise unnecessary.

Gamblers took up the idea, and the
mitt store
succeeded the Dollar Store. The mitt store masqueraded behind the front of a legitimate business—for instance a sample-room where cloth was sold wholesale, or, in the South and Southwest, under the guise of an institute where farmers were to be instructed in the control of the boll weevil or some other agricultural pest. Old Farmer Brown sometimes used exhibits of cotton bolls in various stages of destruction, together with bottle specimens of the weevil showing its development from egg to maturity. A lecture which compensated in color for what it lacked in scientific value was used as a stall for the farmers from the cotton states and served to lure unsuspecting farmers into his monte game. The steerer for a mitt store brought the victim in on some equally legitimate pretense, invited him to sit down until the proprietor arrived, and pushed him into a chair at a table. Other strangers were seated there, too. A newspaper covered the top of the table. Finally the newspaper was raised to reveal a little game of poker which was going on to pass the time. The mark was “mitted in” whether he wanted to be or not, was cold-decked on his own deal, and fleeced. This type of store, housing both mitt and monte games, flourished prosperously
well into the first quarter of the twentieth century, and is still occasionally used by some short-con workers.

Before 1900 crime had not become a big business. Confidence men did not realize that they were destined to become the aristocrats of crime. They had not visualized a smoothly working machine, its political cogs well greased with bribe-money and its essential parts composed of slick, expert professionals. While even in those days the police were frequently paid off, the “fix” as we know it today was still to be developed. The operators of mitt and monte stores simply gave the cop on the beat an occasional five- or ten-dollar bill to avoid being run in, and their game went merrily on. The idea of inducing the victim to try to beat the store had not yet germinated; he was pitted against the players, and the store was only a center for the game, a device to facilitate getting the sucker to play. The grifters had to content themselves with the money which the sucker had on his person. If they took off scores of from twenty-five dollars to two hundred dollars, they were satisfied. Some of the better monte-mobs made fairly good money, but nothing to compare with the consistently large scores taken off by modern con mobs. On the whole, they lived a hand-to-mouth existence, with only the best ones making much of a profit over and above their operating expenses.

From 1880 to 1900 thousands of these small-con games appeared, played in crude stores which offered little more than shelter to the players. The fix was a simple transaction between con men and officers, with influential saloon-keepers or politicians occasionally acting as intermediaries in difficult cases. In New York and especially in Chicago, there were hordes of gamblers, thieves, grifters and short-con workers. These men naturally made saloons their headquarters, came to know the proprietors, and the machinery of the fix was established. From 1893 for some ten or fifteen years, the famous proprietor of two
of these saloons was unquestionably the best fixer for all kinds of criminals, but especially for grifters; his saloons were a veritable rogues’ gallery most of the time. He still wields a powerful influence in Chicago. There were, of course, many others, some of whom still operate prosperously. The situation in Chicago was typical of the rest of the country, except that both grifting and fixing went on on a larger scale there than anywhere else, with the possible exception of New York.

But bigger things were ahead. Times were to change, and the days of the small score were to end. After 1900, when the big-con games began to develop, the mitt and monte stores gradually dwindled away. With the advent of the big-time games, the simple fix for a small fee was no longer sufficient. Con games were to pass into the realm of big business.

Meanwhile, other types of short-con workers realized the advantage of playing their marks against a store, with ropers to bring the victims in and an insideman to do the playing. The sporting proclivities of the American public were exploited and thus arose the
fight store
, the
wrestle store
, and the
foot-race store
, immediate ancestors of the big store as we know it today. Ben Marks had not stopped with his original Dollar Store, but continued to contribute liberally to the development of confidence games, and had quite an extensive layout at Council Bluffs, Iowa, his home town, where marks taken off the railroad trains or roped at their homes were brought in for the slaughter. He built a large clubhouse where he had a faro-layout, dealt one-handed with great dexterity by his partner, Stebbins, who had lost an arm while blowing a safe. Also, Marks had a prize-ring where he played marks against the fight store, and a circular cinder track for the foot race.

These early stores are important because they not only developed the principles later applied to the big-con games, but also trained a host of both inside and outside
workers who brought the benefit of their experience to the big con as soon as its principles were discovered. Ben Marks himself “turned out” many of the young men who were later to become notorious on the rag, the wire and the pay-off. He probably contributed more than any other one man to the development of the big store.

The fight-store swindle worked, briefly, like this. The mob consisted of one or more ropers, an insideman, a “doctor,” two prize fighters and several minor assistants. The roper traveled about the countryside (usually not far from the store) and steered a mark in whenever he could find one. He posed as the disgruntled secretary to a millionaire sportsman, often a railroad executive, who ostensibly traveled about the country in a private car with a prize fighter, his own personal doctor, a trainer and staff of servants. In order to indulge his sporting instincts, he would match his fighter against any other fighters who could get any backing from their own communities, and of course he bet heavily on the fight. Many fight stores used some local bruisers for their fighters; Ben Marks engaged a famous ex-champion of the prize ring and his brother, who was also a prominent pugilist.

The roper told the victim that he had been selected for a part in this scheme because he could be depended upon. The roper’s problem was this: he has been abused and neglected by his employer, who, he says, is really an old skinflint. He has decided to quit his service—but not without making some money for himself. The next fight, for which he is now making arrangements, will be held in Council Bluffs. He has contracted with his employer’s fighter to “take a dive”—pretend to be knocked out—in the tenth round. His employer will bet heavily on his own fighter. He, the secretary, cannot personally bet against his employer; hence he needs someone with money who will bet heavily on the other fighter, then divide the proceeds. It is a sure thing.

If the mark was interested, the roper moved him into Council Bluffs to look the situation over. He met the millionaire executive (the insideman) and his fighter. Everyone talked of the coming fight, with the millionaire calling wildly for large bets, and waving money under the mark’s nose. As soon as the victim was convinced that he could win heavily, he was sent home, procured his money, contributed something to the purse, and made his bet. Often he was made stakeholder as a mark of the high esteem in which he was held—although, without his knowledge, the satchel containing the money for all the bets was “switched” and he was given a duplicate full of paper, just in case he should yield to temptation.

The fight was held before a very limited audience, for in those days prize fighting was illegal in most states and prize fights were held clandestinely, like cock fights today. However, for the mark’s benefit, the fighters put on quite a show. In the sixth round, something happened which no one had counted on. The millionaire’s fighter delivered a terrific right over his opponent’s heart and he fell to the ground, spurting blood from his mouth. All was confusion. The millionaire’s “doctor” came forward with his stethoscope and pronounced the fighter dead. The mark was dazed; the millionaire collected the bet (which was already in his possession, since he had taken the satchel with the stakes in it) and everyone was in a hurry to get out of town before the local authorities got wind of the fight and arrested them for being accessories to manslaughter. Thus the mark blew himself off and the con man split the amount of his bet.