That is only one, but the main one, of the lines. Nowhere else are there so many men and women who live in luxury and are guilty of vagrancy. In a community of nonproducers, where there is a minimum of tangible exchange, the nature of man breeds agents and agents’ agents, because the liveliest industry is “getting to” people who can or could deliver golcondas.
Those who are not big-time enough to know people can know people who know people, and do nicely on the far fringes. They case a “prospect” and work him on whatever he is after. His principal occupation will be waiting—waiting; thus he will have the time as well as the temperament to be plucked. In that atmosphere the crudest con-games flourish. Never trust a stranger in Washington. Gyp-and-clip carney operators who are run off the lot because they can’t shill a rustic to a ten-cent wheel of fortune, come here and take executive vice-presidents.
A. Swindlers with Swank
Beware of smooth-gabbing guys who drive around in big black limousines with chauffeurs and live in costly apartments staffed with butlers, housekeepers and valets. Some may be on the up-and-up. But, what with taxes and cost of living, few square shooters can afford such luxury.
A few we know:
One has an “in” in the reservation departments of the big hotels. He is tipped off to the prospective arrival of a wealthy chump. This is how he worked one case: When Mr. Money arrived at the airport, the grifter had him paged, then introduced himself with a bunk story, such as being a friend of the hotel manager, who had asked him to pick up the boob. The lamb lamps the limo and is sure the glib gypster who is giving him a lift is okay. The wire has been properly briefed on the stranger’s habits. He knows he’d go for a little life, so he suggests they go to his suite for a slug. In a little while, a couple of babes happen in. Soon everyone is drunk and undressed. That’s when the pictures are ground out. One metal-manufacturer went for $35,000, left town next day.
Another sold the famous Muscle Shoals Dam to a former Congressman from Nebraska for $50,000. He used Henry Ford’s name as a reference and flashed a phony letter from him authorizing the sale.
Some years ago, in another administration, this same tip-and-tosser tried to sell forged documents to the President and Vice-President and other high officials. He said they were found in the clothes of a dead man on the street. The papers, if genuine, were so hot they would have blown up the government.
If someone tells you he can let you in on the inside of a hot oil deal, and then introduces you to a couple of “prospectors” who just arrived from Kentucky, call the cops, especially if one is an Indian with long plaited hair and the other is dressed like a vaudeville comedian’s idea of a Southern Colonel. These fast workers make a splendid living peddling queer securities from an office on the sidewalk in front of the Ambassador Hotel, at 14th and K. They have a fabulous well in Kentucky, and they guarantee it is producing. It is. One barrel a day.
They mooch strictly person-to-person. They do no business through the mails, so they are clear of the Post Office and the SEC. Many of their meat are middle-aged and elderly women, widows with a small amount of insurance or a modest business like a rooming-house preferred. But they will tackle tough touches, approached originally by dames.