FICTION - THREE CARD MONTE

It's just a game to the kid. Maybe he's got money to burn. Maybe he believes the bullshit. Either way he's losing twenties hand over fist, dropping them onto Michael's lap like he's pouring water down a drain.

"There," he says. "That one."

Michael flips over the middle card and the kid groans as he loses another twenty.

"I was sure you had it that time," Franklin says to the kid's right. He and Tony are the two shills, winning and losing to make it look like real gambling to sucker in a mark, make him think he can beat the game.

Michael's never seen a mark so easy, so totally involved, so, well, so happy about losing. Not complaining, just finding it a little odd.

At first he used a Throw, gathering the three cards and dropping the top one in his hand, rather than the bottom, so that it looked like the queen was going down, when in fact it was one of the two aces. But after a while it just seemed to be a waste of time.

He was a master at the Throw. Even when he was caught on camera it was almost impossible to see. He'd trained for twenty years, doing card magic at hotels in the Catskills, Saturday night clubs in New Jersey, lounge acts outside of Vegas.

His old man had been a magician, but he never listened to the best advice the old trickster tried to give him until he was on his last dime in Miami. "Magic gets you bupkes, kid. All the money's in the hustle."

So he took his skills and cleaned out a dice game full of Cubans in a badly lit parking lot. He knew to lose enough that they didn't try to roll him over, but to win enough that he could eat that night.

That was almost fifteen years ago. And now, mid-fifties, he's on an MTA bus in downtown Los Angeles pumping a college kids just to make his rent.

Times like these he wonders if maybe he should have gone into a different line of work.

Tony gets in on the game. The trick is to have the shills win enough that the game looks legit, but lose enough so that the mark thinks he can do a better job. He takes a twenty, loses another. The kid takes another crack.

"What's your name, anyway, son?" Michael asks.

"Greg." He points to the left card. Michael decides to give him one just to keep him on the hook.

"Nice job," Franklin says, muscles in and wins a hand.

"You go to school around here?" Michael says.

"Yeah," Greg says. "USC. Double major. Economics and fine art."

"That's a hell of a combination."

"Yeah. But it's working out pretty well. Doing my Masters thesis."

The kid plops down another twenty, spots the Queen, so Michael does a quick flip of the cards, switching one for another mid-turn. The kid doesn't even blink. Thirty five years of card tricks and he's still got it.

Over the course of the next ten minutes Michael cracks the kid for over four hundred bucks. A hell of a haul for a short day.

Someone rings the bus' stop bell and the kid looks out the window, squinting at the street sign. "My stop," he says.

He gets up, slings his backpack over his shoulder, makes his way to the back door. Michael starts to gather his cards just as the bus driver is starting to give him the stink-eye.

"Oh," the kid says, pushing on the doors. "You might want to work on that Mexican Turnover. Try tightening your grip with the thumb and forefinger. It works better."

Michael looks at him, dumbfounded. Looks at the stack of twenties in his lap. Something's wrong. "What did you say you were working on?"

"Masters thesis. It's on the effects of counterfeiting on the black market culture." He gives Michael a grin. "Don't spend it all in one place," he says and steps off the bus.