Octopus by Guy Lawson

Author:Guy Lawson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780307716095
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2012-07-10T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

The Big Lie

Con!dence men are not thieves, at least not in the conventional meaning of the word.

The true con man practices an art, a mixture of improvisational theater, mind control, and mimetic misrepresentation. His most basic insight into the human condition is that it is impossible to con an honest man. It is the larceny lurking in the soul of his victim that he must prey upon. This was true of Sam Israel, who understood the irrational expectations of Bayou’s investors and satis!ed them to perfection. So was it true for Robert Booth Nichols. The con!dence man o"ers a deal that is too good to be true and makes the mark believe it to be the truth—the urgent, lucrative, top-secret truth. The sophisticated long-con artist sets out in the manner of a novelist, creating an entire universe for his mark—or Babbitt, as the victim is called in the business. The Savage.

The Fool.

The modern American con!dence game was created in the 1890s in frontier saloons and riverboats by grifters with names like Lime-house Chappie and the High Ass Kid.

Their scams revolved around gambling on !xed horse races and prize!ghts—cons known as the Rag and the Wire. The con unfolded in a choreographed series of steps: telling the tale, putting the mark on the send, taking o" the touch, the blow-o", putting in the !x. The Babbitt usually came from a wealthy family. Or he was a self-made man with little formal education. He had outsized opinions of his accomplishments and intelligence—as well as his facility for making money. The con artist hung out in the best hotels and bars looking to befriend a high–net worth individual with enough money to make the long con worthwhile. The best Babbitts considered themselves visionaries, even geniuses—the type who might run a hedge fund fraud.

It may seem as if only a fool could fall for a pantomime like the shadow market, but the contrary was true: The smarter and more cunning the mark, the quicker he was able to see the potential riches. The more greed lurking in his soul, the more likely he was to suspend his disbelief in return for the promise of a fast fortune. “Very shortly the victim’s feet are quite o" the ground,” David W. Maurer wrote in his 1940s classic The Big Con. “He is living in a play-world which he cannot distinguish from the real world.

He is living in a fantastic, grotesque world which resembles the real one so closely he cannot distinguish the difference. He is the victim of a confidence game.”

Such was the fate that seemed to have befallen Samuel Israel III. The con man was being conned. It was the Hollywood-worthy twist of the tale. Sam’s years of running his own long con had evidently made him extremely susceptible to being conned. The son of privilege, Sam truly did consider himself to be a talented trader: a natural, born to the business, hardened by years of experience on Wall Street. The inability to build

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