“You’ve heard worse, I’m sure,” she said with an ease that made him wonder how exactly this girl had managed to survive under the tutelage of her aunt. Perla must not have cared much about her niece, letting her grow wild. Then again, Inés seemed to have a talent for subterfuge, for concealing her true self.
He had to admit he hadn’t met a girl like her. Sure, he’d known women of the criminal type, thieves and pickpockets and even those who were handy with a knife, but for all her cynicism Inés still had a freshness that was out of place.
“Will you fuck her tonight?”
“Not if I can help it.”
“What? You don’t want to? Men are dogs, always trying to stick it in the first hole they find.”
He sighed and slumped against the pillows. “I assure you,Idon’t want to ‘stick it in the first hole’ I find. Maybe the boys you know do, but I have a modicum of taste.”
“Forgive me, I confused you with a man who makes a living seducing and defrauding women, not a virgin. You said you knew what you were doing.”
He reached out his hand and pulled her down. She stumbled and fell upon the bed, practically on his lap. “I do know what I’m doing. For some people the chase is the most interesting part. That slow crescendo before an explosion.”
“Or maybe you can’t get it hard,” she replied, and although her words were cool and composed, he recognized the vulgarity as an attempt to camouflage her nerves. She didn’t think he noticed the way she turned her head a little, to glance at him, then quickly looked ahead again.
He wished to make her blush and stammer. He shifted his weight, and she was now definitely sitting on his lap, her back pressed to his chest. “No judge is going to dissolve the marriage because I’m impotent, trust me on that point,” he said, with a suggestive tone that should at least get him a pair of blushing cheeks.
“Don’t romance scams mean romance? And, you know, sex?” she asked, not too bothered by his words, merely curious.
Her genuine inquisitiveness made him smile. “Not necessarily. Not if you understand what people really want and the intricate labyrinths of a person’s mind. Many times, I can get money from women simply because they’ve grown to trust me.”
“How does a typical scam work? After they’ve grown to trust you.”
“You start with something insignificant, a little favor or a tiny amount of cash. If you start by asking for huge amounts of money it won’t work. Then you ask for more, but you couch it in sensible language. It’s for new equipment for your business, or you’re short on rent because you had to help your poor sister out.”
“Then you meet them in person?”
“I told you; I prefer postal scams. You can run several at once. When you meet someone in person, you must work harder to remember details and keep your story straight. There’s also the danger that a friend or family member might suspect something unsavory. And yes, women expect you to sleep with them and they’re not necessarily the type you’d want to take to bed, so you must be sure they’re worth the effort. That they’re a good target.”
“What’s the best target?”
“Depends. For my father? Married women.”
“Really?”
“You can use their letters to blackmail them, threaten to show them to the husband. Even if they don’t pay, you can tell the husband and then threaten to share the letters with their friends, so if the dame doesn’t fork over the dough, the husband will pay.”
“And the husbands don’t break all your bones?”
“It’s a possibility. Whenever there’s a married woman fooling around, you’re in danger of being pummeled. But there was a scheme we used to run that was profitable. My father would start seeing a married woman and we’d set it up so I’d show up with a camera when they were together. I would snap a few pictures and pretend I was a detective her husband had hired. My father would quickly suggest that I could be bribed, and the woman would hand me whatever jewels or money she had on her. I’d hand her the film and depart.
“Then one time I burst in with my camera and start snapping pictures. The lady is there half naked, but my father is not on the bed. I’m confused. After all, it’s two o’clock and he’s supposed to be there. I wonder if I got the time wrong. Then a furious man bursts out of the bathroom and starts asking who I am. The husband doesn’t come home until six o’clock, so I don’t know who the hell this is, but he is built like a gorilla. Suddenly the door of the wardrobe swings open and my father rushes out of it.
“Turns out the woman hadtwolovers, my old man and another fellow. When the other fellow arrived for an unexpected visit, my dad had to jump into the closet. We ran down four flights of stairs and hailed a taxi with my father wearing socks and a shirt but get this: no underwear. His dick was flopping in the air for three whole blocks.”
She laughed, pressing her hands against her mouth to muffle the sound. He chuckled too and rested his chin against her shoulder.
“Once we boarded the taxi, we had to ask the driver to stop at a newsstand so I could cover his private parts with a newspaper. He was so mortified.”
“That did not happen.”
“That’s not even the worst thing that happened to us. One time he was fooling around with a circus performer’s mistress, and he showed up with a chimpanzee—”
“No!”
“It was a chimpanzee in a tiny tuxedo. It even wore a hat.”
