Son of a Grifter
Chapter One
Liar
I make my living as a vacuum-cleaner salesman. I've met a lot of good liars in my day. None of them are as good as my mother.
When people lie, the story goes, some tic gives them away. They blink or break their gaze or touch their noses with their fingers. Polygraph machines operate on the principle that these physical signs are inside the body too, and involuntary. Breathing quickens, heart rates jump, and the needle on the lie detector skitters over the graph when run-of-the-mill humans try to deny a criminal truth.
Who can beat a lie detector test? Swamis, maybe, with pulse and breath control, or con artists, or cold-blooded sociopaths. My mother claims to have relatives among the first category, and most observers probably think she belongs to the other two.
I agree that Mom would have no trouble fooling a machine. I've seen her walk into parties filled with little clumps of people who each know her under a different alias. Instead of fleeing in panic, she works the room, remembering what fake name she used with each mark, never slipping, never breaking a sweat. A few electrodes a ... read full excerpt from Son of a Grifter ebook
