Garner Bullis got out of bed, splashed some water on his face and went to the refrigerator for some orange juice. Rose was sitting at her computer with the rice paper screen pushed back so she had full view of the room.
"Good morning, Rose," Garner said cheerfully as he took a gulp of orange juice from the carton.
Rose looked up from her computer and smiled. Garner reflected on the fact that Rose never told him to get a glass. He always drank straight from the container and she never told him not to. It was one of those small things that could go one way and break up a relationship or go the other way and make the relationship very comfortable. And this relationship was very comfortable, maybe even a little too comfortable for Garner's liking. He felt a little vulnerable, the way you feel when you have something to loose. And he didn't like that. His reverie was broken by Rose's melodic voice.
"You must have really been sleeping deeply last night," she observed. "There was thunder and lightning and you didn't even stir."
"Yeah, I feel pretty good today," he responded. Garner thought that he enjoyed the slumber of a person with a clear conscience. In reality it was the cooler temperature and change in the ionic polarity of the air brought on by the thunderstorm that had allowed him to sleep so well. But Garner had a way of interpreting things to his advantage. For many years he was a master of fooling other people. Now he was beginning to fool himself.
"What are you going to do today?" Rose asked, typing and looking at the keyboard as she spoke.
"One of these days I'm going to have to find a job," he replied, plopping down on a chair at the kitchen table and opening up the morning newspaper. "What are your plans?"
"I have a pretty busy day," she responded turning in her chair so that she could see him without craning her neck. "First, I have to get some work done on the web site I am developing. I promised to show it to the client last week but I got behind. Then I have to be over at Baker Hall at ten for office hours. After my office hours, I have to teach a lab. Then I have a break for a couple of hours. I will probably grade lab assignments. Then I have Professor Wentworth's class from four to six. I thought you might want to meet me at Baker Hall at six and we could have a beer or get some dinner."
"Sounds good to me," replied Garner. "But it makes me tired just listening to all you have to do. I think I'll have to come home and take a nap this afternoon."
Rose laughed and turned back to the computer screen. Her focus had turned away from Garner and it made him feel just a little lonely.
It took Garner three and a half hours to eat breakfast, read the newspaper and get himself together enough to go out. Rose had left for Baker Hall over an hour ago. It was only a ten-minute walk from their apartment to the University, but she liked to get there early so she could check her mailbox before the onslaught of students with lab questions began.
Garner put on a suit that was a little more fashionable and considerably more flashy than his normal attire. Under normal circumstances he wanted to be as unnoticeable as possible. But today he was going to look for a job, so he wanted to create an impression. Over the years, Garner had held many jobs in upscale restaurants and retail establishments. These places always hired you on face value and never pressed for references. If you looked good and seemed to know the inside lingo, they would hire you on the spot. Everybody knew that you would probably only stay for six months and then show up at the next place looking for a new job. But that was the nature of the job market, so everybody just went along with it.
This worked well for Garner because it gave him a cover for his other activities. A good looking, well-dressed man just hanging around with no visible means of support would raise questions eventually. But a well-dressed, good looking man working as a waiter answered those questions to most people's satisfaction, and raised others that Garner couldn't care less about.
Garner didn't really need a job right now. He had enough money in the bank to last him a few years. But he needed time to come up with a new sting and didn't want to draw attention to himself in the meantime. Eventually people would start asking Rose questions about her boyfriend and what he did for a living. If he appeared to just live off of invisible funds it would arouse their curiosity and bring unwanted attention upon him. So he got himself together and headed down Pennsylvania Avenue towards Georgetown looking for a cover job.
A block past the point where Pennsylvania Avenue merges onto M Street Garner spotted a "Waiter's Wanted" sign in the window of The Syncopation Nation, a ragtime piano bar that he had been in more than a couple of times since he had moved to Foggy Bottom. He liked having a beer there, especially when they had Dixie Blacken Voodoo on tap. But he intensely disliked waiting on drunks so he was inclined to keep looking. Just as he was turning away a slight breeze wafted an inviting smell of Cajun cooking from the exhaust fans at the back of the restaurant. It made his mouth water so he decided to go in and check it out anyway.
The bartender was a slim, muscular, ruggedly good-looking American mongrel named Tyrone, whose wary posture suggested a past that he did not care to talk about. Garner had met him before when he had been on the night shift. Syncopation Nation had a piano player named Pop Sanchez who could tease the ivory off the keys. One night Pop was showing off by playing a round of the Twelfth Street Rag accompanying one hand with the other hand two beats delayed. Garner asked if he could join the round. Pop took the first and third octaves while Garner took the second and fourth octaves. They played four simultaneous Twelfth Street Rags each in a different octave and each delayed two beats from the previous. The crowd loved it and Tyrone gave Garner free drinks for the rest of the night.
"Hey, Tyrone," Garner began. "Sign says you're looking for waiters."
"That's what it says," Tyrone agreed, matching the clipped street repartee.
"Meals or slinging suds?"
"Meals," Tyrone replied. "We just started serving Cajun specialties for lunch so we need a couple of lunch waiters."
"Who do I talk to?" Garner inquired.
Tyrone jerked his head toward the end of the bar where an attractive blonde woman in her mid twenties was jotting down something on a clipboard.
"She's the manager. Her name's Melanie."
Garner looked at her and smiled. "Great hips," he thought to himself.
"Don't waste your time," Tyrone advised, with a sly smile. "She's all business."
Garner walked over to where Melanie was standing at the end of the bar and waited for her to finish her figuring on the clipboard.
"Yes?" she inquired, looking up from the clipboard. There was a slight tone of impatience in her voice as though she really had better things to do at the moment than deal with Garner.
"Sign says you're looking for waiters." Garner said in his most charming tone of voice.
"That's what it says," she agreed." She paused and then in a please-get-to-the-point tone she continued. "Are you applying?"
"Could you tell me a bit about the job?" Garner asked wrestling for control of the interaction.
"What's there to tell?" she said casually. "You take orders and bring out the food when it's ready. You ever wait on tables before?"
"Of course," said Garner. "What I meant was, what are the hours? How do you allocate tips? Do I have to wear a uniform? That sort of thing."
"Hours are eleven to four. Sometimes five if there's a big late lunch crowd. Your tips are your own and you wear whatever you want as long as it doesn't affect anybody's appetite."
"Sounds good to me." Garner said and flashed a winning smile.
Melanie seemed not to notice the smile and pulled an application off the bottom of the stack of papers on the clipboard.
"Fill this out and leave it with Tyrone," she instructed. "You can start tomorrow."
Her business with Garner being completed, she had no time to hang around and bask in pleasantries. She turned and hollered into the kitchen. "The orders are backing up. Let's show some signs of life in there."
Garner walked out feeling good about having completed his business for the day. The weather was still lovely so he decided to stroll down M Street before returning home. A couple of blocks down the street he walked into The Book Nook looking for a magazine to read. Immediately, as he walked in, a poster caught his eye. It was advertising a new book entitled "World Wide Scams: How the Web Brings Con Artists Into Your Home". He couldn't resist it and a few minutes later he was walking briskly back down M Street towards his apartment with a copy in bag tucked under his arm.
At home, he took off his suit and put on a pair of jogging shorts and a T-shirt. Then he settled into his easy chair and began to read. Most of the scams, reported in this volume, were set up to fool unsuspecting people into providing information about themselves that they should have been more careful to protect. One site was a false storefront. It got visitors to use their credit cards and then used those credit card numbers in turn to charge goods from other sites. Another site promised to report up-to-date telephone billing information and what you would have been charged by other long distance services. All you had to do was enter your telephone number and the corresponding pin number. A month later the visitors would find thousands of dollars of long distance calls charged to their accounts. One site offered products for which they would charge your account and then simply never deliver the products.
Garner put the book on his lap and mused over the naiveté of these operators. These guys were amateurs - petty thieves at best. They stung their marks and then ran away. The marks, in turn, reported them and they had to go on the lam. A 'good' con goes in one of two directions. Either the marks never realize that they have been stung. Or the con gives the mark something he or she wants or needs. In the first case, the con is never exposed. In the second case, the mark is ambivalent about accusing the con, because the mark has, after all, gotten something of value in return. Even in Garner's grocery store scams the marks were sorry that he had gotten hurt and were glad that he didn't take them for more money. Usually, at least.
As he read, there were many things that he didn't understand - IP addresses, domain names, TCP, routers, servers, encryption, and the like. He would have to get Rose to explain them to him. He also thought that the author sounded a little paranoid. Hackers breaking into your desktop computer and violating your privacy. People pretending to be somebody else. It was all a little far fetched. But nonetheless it gave him some ideas. These guys might be techno-wizards, but they didn't know the first thing about pulling off a real con. The more Garner thought about it, the better he felt about himself. Maybe, with a little technical upgrading, he could even be his old self again.
"Today is my lucky day," he thought. "A new job and maybe even a new career, all in one day."
At quarter till six he walked over to Baker Hall to meet Rose. They went to the Brewer's Pub for dinner. Garner told her about his new job as a waiter at Syncopation Nation.
"Well, look at us," Rose said smiling broadly. "We have our own apartment. We both have jobs. We're starting to look like a respectable couple." She then laughed at her observation completely unaware of its multiple levels of meaning. Garner shifted uncomfortably in his chair, churning with ambivalence and contradictions.