I was performing magic for three morticians who were having a meal at Dinah's Coffee Shop in Westchester. They own a mortuary on Long Beach Blvd. and they were all dressed in natty black suits and gold name tags. I was blowing them away with magic and they were nipping at my heels, challenging me, staying only one step behind me (I prefer to remain thirteen steps ahead of everybody).
Finally, I took out the monte cards. If you don't know, 3-card monte is a con game that's commonly played around the world, but especially on the streets of America's urban centers, especially New York City, Chicago, and in Los Angeles on Crenshaw Blvd. and downtown. It's illegal to play it for money in most states. Thus, magicians perform it for entertainment and edification.
"Have you guys ever seen the 3-card monte?" I asked.
Two of them had never seen it, but the third was wise.
"My brother used to frow it," he said. "He earned hisself a lot of green."
So I launched into the game, which involves three cards tossed quickly back and forth face-down on a table. Two cards are red and one is black, so the challenge is to follow the black. I've come up with a 3-phase routine that gets progressively more seductive. In each phase, the card is not where the spectators expect it.
When I finally got to the final phase, even though I had fooled them twice already, the biggest guy at the table, a guy named Maurice, noticed that the black card--the card you're supposed to follow--had a bent corner, and thus could be identified face-down.
"Can I bet on it?" Maurice asked.
"Sure," I said.
"A hunnerd," Maurice said.
I gulped. I had presented the game as a magic trick and a demonstration, but now, they were taking the whole thing seriously. There's always a chance that the spectator will choose the correct card, so I wondered whether I would be held responsible if he got lucky. Still, I assented.
"Okay."
Maurice reached out and turned over the card with the bent corner. The silence following the turnover seemed like an eternity and the look on his face was of complete astonishment. Somehow, the bent-corner card was now red. He was beat, he was slayed, he was disemboweled, and I was the one who was standing over him holding high a bloody broadsword.
"Pennies," Maurice added, a twinkle in his eye.
I smiled back, and we all laughed.
