There's one born every minute
And the Lord said, "There will be many shifty characters who come before Bernie Madoff to fleece my flock." And so it came to pass. Assurances 3:22
One gets the uncomfortable feeling as you proceed through Amy Reading's book, The Mark Inside, that the author thinks that there is a bit of a con man in all of us or, at the very least, an almost childlike susceptibility to be conned. Of course, it is easy to sit back in an armchair and shake your head in wonder at the gullibility of some people. What is a little more troubling is the link between gullibility and greed. Those who are taken are generally looking for a quick buck and they aren't anxious to inquire too closely into the origins of their potential windfalls.
The victim's integrity gets spattered with the mud of a smooth con operation, too.
There are certain people who take being swindled very badly. J. Frank Norfleet was one of them. Everything he had sweated and striven for all of his life was jeopardized when he met up with a gang of confidence men in Dallas headed by the infamous Joseph Furey. Norfleet was given a golden opportunity to make a killing in the stock market and Joe Furey seemed like a swell guy.
Before Furey was finished, he had taken the 54-year-old Texas rancher for thousands of dollars twice! In the world of big-time cons, the crooks were able to thrive largely because they knew who to target. But they had made a big mistake with Frank Norfleet.
In the course of telling this extraordinary story, Ms. Reading relates the entire history of the con in America and it can be traced back to the country's origins. The author argues -- quite persuasively -- that the young nation needed both the con man and his mark to flourish because they were people willing to take chances: the con risked ending up in jail and the mark thought he was going to make a fast buck. It was a cornerstone of the American notion of capitalism and it still thrives today.
Joseph Furey's swindle of Norfleet's $45,000 (in 1919 dollars!) was a complex operation. Ms. Reading takes her readers through the con step by step, from putting the mark up all the way to taking off the touch, each one designed to further convince the victim that he had stumbled upon the chance of a lifetime. He was happy to rationalize any pesky doubts that might pop up in his own mind if it put the deal at risk.
The loss of the security he had worked a lifetime to accumulate was only a part of the damage done to the rancher from the Panhandle.
It is easy to call Norfleet a sucker of the highest order, but one of the human traits that made the confidence game so lucrative was the disinclination of honest folks to believe that other people were capable of such deceitful behavior. Norfleet was diminished in his own eyes at the hands of people he thought were his friends. It was a very common reaction to being royally cheated and it usually set in after the shock had abated.
What was uncommon was Norfleet's determination to do something about it. He was quick to understand that he could trust no one or depend upon any law enforcement agencies to find justice. The crooked tentacles reached into police departments and the offices of district attorneys throughout the nation.
Ms. Reading occasionally betrays a grudging admiration for these roving thieves with their unique lingo, their resiliency, their astonishing lack of remorse, and their game plans as precisely executed as any play on a football field. It is an admiration that the reader might share (guilt pangs or no). But she doesn't shy away from illuminating the darker side of the grifter's life either, where murder is not discounted as a means for extricating their slippery hides from some con gone sour or keeping a loose mouth permanently shut.
The author has used Mr. Norfleet's memoirs as a primary source for her fascinating history, but she retains a good deal of healthy skepticism about the veracity of recollections that incorporate an inordinate amount of startling coincidences. Unlike most books of this kind, where the villains are the most memorable characters, Norfleet's transformation from victim to crusader to celebrity is the primary thread that weaves together its other elements. It turned out that the pursuer possessed some of the unpleasant traits that distinguished his quarry. He just didn't realize it when he began the hunt.
One gets the uncomfortable feeling as you proceed through Amy Reading's book, The Mark Inside, that the author thinks that there is a bit of a con man in all of us or, at the very least, an almost childlike susceptibility to be conned. Of course, it is easy to sit back in an armchair and shake your head in wonder at the gullibility of some people. What is a little more troubling is the link between gullibility and greed. Those who are taken are generally looking for a quick buck and they aren't anxious to inquire too closely into the origins of their potential windfalls.
The victim's integrity gets spattered with the mud of a smooth con operation, too.
There are certain people who take being swindled very badly. J. Frank Norfleet was one of them. Everything he had sweated and striven for all of his life was jeopardized when he met up with a gang of confidence men in Dallas headed by the infamous Joseph Furey. Norfleet was given a golden opportunity to make a killing in the stock market and Joe Furey seemed like a swell guy.
Before Furey was finished, he had taken the 54-year-old Texas rancher for thousands of dollars twice! In the world of big-time cons, the crooks were able to thrive largely because they knew who to target. But they had made a big mistake with Frank Norfleet.
In the course of telling this extraordinary story, Ms. Reading relates the entire history of the con in America and it can be traced back to the country's origins. The author argues -- quite persuasively -- that the young nation needed both the con man and his mark to flourish because they were people willing to take chances: the con risked ending up in jail and the mark thought he was going to make a fast buck. It was a cornerstone of the American notion of capitalism and it still thrives today.
Joseph Furey's swindle of Norfleet's $45,000 (in 1919 dollars!) was a complex operation. Ms. Reading takes her readers through the con step by step, from putting the mark up all the way to taking off the touch, each one designed to further convince the victim that he had stumbled upon the chance of a lifetime. He was happy to rationalize any pesky doubts that might pop up in his own mind if it put the deal at risk.
The loss of the security he had worked a lifetime to accumulate was only a part of the damage done to the rancher from the Panhandle.
It is easy to call Norfleet a sucker of the highest order, but one of the human traits that made the confidence game so lucrative was the disinclination of honest folks to believe that other people were capable of such deceitful behavior. Norfleet was diminished in his own eyes at the hands of people he thought were his friends. It was a very common reaction to being royally cheated and it usually set in after the shock had abated.
What was uncommon was Norfleet's determination to do something about it. He was quick to understand that he could trust no one or depend upon any law enforcement agencies to find justice. The crooked tentacles reached into police departments and the offices of district attorneys throughout the nation.
Ms. Reading occasionally betrays a grudging admiration for these roving thieves with their unique lingo, their resiliency, their astonishing lack of remorse, and their game plans as precisely executed as any play on a football field. It is an admiration that the reader might share (guilt pangs or no). But she doesn't shy away from illuminating the darker side of the grifter's life either, where murder is not discounted as a means for extricating their slippery hides from some con gone sour or keeping a loose mouth permanently shut.
The author has used Mr. Norfleet's memoirs as a primary source for her fascinating history, but she retains a good deal of healthy skepticism about the veracity of recollections that incorporate an inordinate amount of startling coincidences. Unlike most books of this kind, where the villains are the most memorable characters, Norfleet's transformation from victim to crusader to celebrity is the primary thread that weaves together its other elements. It turned out that the pursuer possessed some of the unpleasant traits that distinguished his quarry. He just didn't realize it when he began the hunt.
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