Con Ed
A Novel
Chapter One
It's the world's most simple con, and any idiot can do it, even
the one sitting next to me.
He's twenty-five years old, dressed in khakis and a pinpoint Oxford
shirt. He has soft hands and wears glasses. I'm guessing a dot-commer,
college-educated. Probably he read about this con in a book, or maybe on the
Internet, so he wants to try it out. A story to tell his friends. Here in the
Blowfish he has found the perfect place to give it a whirl: a friendly bar
without obvious thugs who might break his fingers, but far enough from home
that he'll never have to walk past the door again.
So here he goes. He's sitting at the bar, one stool over from me.
He's talking to the guy on the other side of him, a beefy fellow in a
badly fitting suit. The beefy guy has one solid eyebrow across his forehead and
a big signet ring on his pinkie. I'm guessing that he has stamped that
signet into the cheeks of one or two men that have tried to fuck with him.
Maybe the Dot Com Kid doesn't have such good instincts after all.
Dot Com says to Monobrow, "You know what? I'm feeling luck ... read full excerpt from Con Ed ebook
