How to Hire a Con Man

“When a man calls himself a genius, count your fingers and locate your wallet.” ~ The Clown

Elias fished his buzzing phone from his vest pocket. “Tough Wolf.’”

“Mr. Wolf, this is Mamzer Mud Hut He She Junior, a most excellent and objective lawyer. You’ve been trying to reach me.”

“Yeah. Two weeks of voicemail, listening to your weaselly voice explain that you were on another line. I was about ready to knock down your door.”

“No need for that, Mr. Wolf. I am a fantastic lawyer and quite a stable genius. I’m just busy doing work for Indians that they should be doing for themselves, but they’re lazy, lazy. I haven’t had time to return your call.”

“You sure brag like you’re a wonderful lawyer. Slippery Elm thinks you rock. But I smell rat. Now tell me why we should hire you.” The Clown sighed. Every con man begins their pitch with the same words: ‘I am great. You are not. I can help you, however, to become me. But only if you surrender your soul.’”

“I’m already hired, Mr. Wolf. No need for us to keep this conversation going.”

“Whaaaat? How?”

“That’s for you to find out, and me to know. I have a fully executed purchase order for a million-dollar non-refundable retainer and the check that makes it real. Already deposited. Now I’m waiting for my monthly stipend—$250,000—before I can get to work. I’ll need to rebate a portion to an associate for his future lies. Who do I call down there to make sure the stipend’s on the way?”

Elias gasped, “That goddamn Slippery Elm! Another day, another million. He acts like he’s got no pride or honesty. Even worse, he acts like he has no relatives!” The Clown’s shoulders sagged. The first million was just the entry fee. The real cost was the tribe’s soul.

“Oh, I’ve already spoken with Mr. Elm. He’s reasonable, caring, and has keen insight into tribal affairs as well as the ways of the real world. Elm’s a wonderful man who’ll benefit from our association—whether I find Sitting Bull’s mutual funds or not.”

Elias had been down dark and lonely stretches of rutted road before. Evil priests and thieving colleagues lived in those ditches. He’d never forgotten how to face down an adversary. “What do you mean, whether or not you’re successful? Heads I win, tails you lose?”

“It means simply that I am in no hurry to run down those funds, if they even exist. My preliminary analyses indicate that it may not take that long but to be sure the contract executed by the tribe extends for fifty years. Plenty of time to ensure that we’ve left no stone unturned and no avenue unexamined. My heirs—and I’ve only very rarely consented to sexual relations with a woman—will be very well off.

Say, Mr. Wolf! It occurs that you might be a useful fool for me. How about I put you on my team with your buddy, Slippery Elm? We could be famous together! I can promise you a small percentage of all the money we’re going to rake in.”

“No way. Keep your stolen loot. I’ll see that both of you get hung in a tree for this!”

“OK. Your choice. More bucks for us, if you’ll permit the pun. Oh well. I have another, how do you say, proposition.”

“Such as?”

“I’ve been admiring your swagger. I’m daydreaming now about the way you must look in those tight jeans. Would you like to, you know, horse around? We could start tonight. I know a few spots in Bismarck that would look the other way for guys like you and me.” 

“Horse around? Guys like you and me?”

“You know.”

“Not on your life. Or what’s left of it anyways. You think you can put us all in a barrel, right? Well, let me tell you something, Mr. Mamzer Mud Hut He She Junior. Slippery Elm told me all about your digs in Bismarck. A slimy little office with cheap wallpaper, a rickety desk, red naugahyde chairs, velvet bull fighter pictures stolen from a German Russian bordello, and a ten-year old flip phone, thinking you’re the Godly savior of the Lakota. The truth is you’re a two-timing snake of ambiguous sexuality who only cares about stolen money. I’ll really enjoy settling your hash.”

“A lawyer of my intelligence must economize. Bills are bills and they’re a form of economic slavery to which I’ve fallen prey. I know you don’t understand that because you’re a victim of a culture that values people over dollars, but I do. As for you settling my hash, please know that I’m fast friends with the North Dakota Highway Patrol and I will have you intercepted at the northern boundary of the reservation and led away in handcuffs if you think for one idiot moment that you can drive up here and practice your age old savagery on me.”

“You won’t even see it coming.”

“That’s a threat. Making a lawyer face consequences is serious business. Such rhetoric t leads any lawyer to slow down whatever we’re working on. We learn that in our first class at law school. It’s fundamental to our profession. Threaten us and we take our foot of the gas. Now, because of your belligerence, you and your tribe can expect to know the status of Sitting Bull’s mutual funds in about seventeen years. Maybe twenty-one years. God willing that we both live that long. Have a nice day. You’re still cute, Pow Wow Face! Woo. Woo.”

The Art of the Non-Refundable

“Only a middle range genius demands proof of funds from the dead and then bills the living for the search.” ~ The Clown

Spittle framing his feted lips, Mamzer Mud Hut He She Junior’s frustration was as black and thick as molasses. Held hostage by endless phone queues—Fidelity, E*Trade, Merrill, J.P. Morgan, Ameritrade—he finally broke through to someone who could tell him whether their firm held Sitting Bull’s 130-year-old mutual funds. The soft voices on the other end of his conversations pivoted to colder tones when he told him what he wanted.

Was this a prank? Some North Dakota lawyer harassing a long-dead Lakota chief’s estate? Mamzer Mud Hut He She Junior. Nobody has a name like that! What manner of nut was on the line? Was he high? North Dakota’s meth problem personified, maybe?

“I represent the Natives of this country,” Mamzer hissed. “You know—the ones you and your mutual fund company tried to wipe out!”

“Sir, we don’t understand how to help you.”

“You’re not helping me. You’re helping my Native clients who are rightfully owed billions. Now—what’s the full account number for Sitting Bull’s funds?” The response was always incredulous silence.

“Sir, we can’t pull up a record without proper authorization. Are you an authorized representative of Mr. Bull?

“I most certainly am. I can get a letter of proof from the tribe, but I prefer not to do that. Takes too long. So, do you or do you not have an account for Sitting Bull?”

“Again, sir I can’t answer that without authorized paperwork. That paperwork will require his signature and social security number. If you have the original receipt showing what he deposited with us including the number and type of mutual funds he purchased and could please send that with your notarized letter, the process will go quicker.”

“Listen, cretin. You can’t have his signature. Sitting Bull was assassinated 40 years before social security was created. Franklin Roosevelt never met Sitting Bull.”

More stunned silence. Was this frantic voice on the other end real? “Sir, this is as much as I can help you now. Where may I mail the correct forms for you to submit.”

“I believe you already have all the original paperwork. It’s in a cabinet near your desk. Please get off your fat ass and have a look before I file suit. It’ll save you. It’ll save your company.”

“We converted all our records to a digital format twenty years ago. Every mutual fund transaction our firm has ever made is stored on our servers. There are no file cabinets here and certainly no fat posteriors.”

“I was first in my class at Mid-Continent School of Law, and I certainly can spot a fat and lazy ass just by talking on the phone with one. You probably graduated near the bottom of your class at a former teacher’s college, am I right? Most mutual fund employees are nothing if not simply mediocre intellects. Now, does Sitting Bull have a mutual fund account with your company with a billion dollars in it or not?”

“Sir, this has been a long conversation and as you know it’s been recorded. I will share your concerns with my supervisors while we wait for you to return our paperwork. Thank you.”

“May I ask about your full name and extension? I need to confer with my clients, and I want to call you directly back.”

“Sir, I can’t give you that information. We get many calls a day and our agents have been specifically trained to help all individuals who contact our company. They will have my notes and a recording of this very conversation from which to draw the next time you call.”

“You either give me your full name and direct line, or I’ll find out that information through the discovery process when I sue your firm for every shekel it ever made. I know some rough and tough Indians personally who’d be most interested in where to find you and your family.”

“Sir, this has been more than exasperating for me and for our company. Certainly, you can sue us, and many have. But, while we’ve been talking—and I’m not supposed to do this—I looked to see whether we hold any mutual funds for Mr. Bull, and I can now assure you that we do not. I hope that this information saves you time and effort.”

“You looked under both Bull and Sitting Bull? I don’t think he had a first name.”

“I did look under both names, sir, and there is no record of Mr. Sitting Bull or any onen else with any variation of the name Bull that owns any asset that we have ever sold.”

“Well, well. Why didn’t you say so when I first asked? Guess it’s too much to ask for a lazy and fat ass. Goodbye.”

The hunting down consumed five weeks between naps, lunches of butter slathered gefilte fish, and long lulls of staring at the ceiling. Some companies told him flat out. Some he would have to file paperwork with. As predicted by Elija, this turned out to be too much work even with his lucrative monthly retainer. The Clown rolled around on the ground laughing about how fat wallets can’t save mortals from paperwork hell.

The Ghosts of 1885: When Integrity Was Just a Rumor

“Some men reek so foul the flies leave the room, yet still believe their stench is perfume and their greed is genius.” ~ The Clown

Doheny Rockwell was as ugly on the outside as the inside. He toyed with a diamond toothpick, last night’s dinner congealed as scum on its mounting, he grunted “good morning” to his assistant, a bright but inbred product of a lower caste Connecticut family, muttered that the just poured coffee wasn’t hot enough, and snapped open the morning’s paper. Adjacent to news about the next president of the Chicago Board of Trade, a headline read, “BUFFALO BILL FIRES SITTING BULL. INDIANS IRATE!”

The story claimed that Buffalo Bill and Sitting Bull had erupted in a shouting match before the previous night’s show—over who Annie Oakley really favored. Buffalo Bill insisted he was first in line for her affections and that he had named her “Little Sure Shot.” The Old Bull balked. He’d known Annie as long as Bill, and he’d be damned if he hadn’t given her that name. Bill wouldn’t back down, and the split between two proud icons of the American frontier was underway.

Everyone knew Buffalo Bill’s finances were precarious; the article went on to speculate that losing Sitting Bull might finally sink the Wild West Show, no matter how much fabulous money Bill had once made.

Dabbing his toothpick on his napkin, Doheny smelled opportunity. “Track down Sitting Bull,” he instructed his assistant, “Now! He left New York last night. Bring him to me. I want to make him a proposition.”

The Agent’s Ledger

“A man with a badge and a ledger can steal a people’s future, one line and one dime at a time.” ~ The Clown

What was with Grover Cleveland? “Old Morality” the press had called him and the name stuck. Even so Rockwell had shaken the president’s hand at his inauguration and slipped him $10,000. Since then, he’d heard only crickets. He could have purchased the whole of the Bowery for one-tenth that. It was always entertaining to watch those smelly Irish would blow through a free night of whiskey, toothless grins, and fornication. He sighed. At least Garfield hadn’t revoked his lucrative Indian Agent license.

Rockwell had secured his license through hook and crook. Once purchased, he used his authority to siphon off food and medicine meant for Native communities to sell on the black market. It was a sideline but an enriching exercise.

Rockwell had never been west of Buffalo, New York. He knew a lot less about Indians than he did about every low-life employee that made his empire money. Cleveland had created his own peril by ignoring him. Newspaper reports from the frontier now hinted at real trouble: something about a crazy dance, spirits promising to bring ancestors back to the prairie. Return of the buffalo. They’d named it the Ghost Dance.

Anything that stopped his wagon carts from rolling up to the doors of the federal treasury with shovels must be eliminated. If Cleveland didn’t want to uphold national character, Rockwell would have to find another route. He sighed. Here he was once again—the Sisyphus of the robber barons, rolling Grover Cleveland uphill like a bad rock. As that stone turned in his head, he wondered what Cleveland really thought of that infernal Ghost Dance. It was plainly rock bottom on Old Morality’s playlist. Rockwell closed his eyes and conjured his next move.

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