Can You Find the Lady of Hearts? [Open]

The oldest con in the book. It robbed people of a few petty dollars but it built up over time. Catch enough gullible people on a good day and you could get yourself a few hot meals, a place to stay for the night, hell, you could even get yourself a new phone! And that’s not including if you worked with a partner, someone to plant among the crowd and slip their hands into a few pockets and purses. The take away could be that good.

And all it took was three cards and some confidence.

Charles used to play this game in school, in the lunchroom. Con his fellow students out of a few quarters, maybe their slice of cardboard pizza. That is until the teachers caught onto him. The reprimand was quick there, but that didn’t deter him. No matter how many predictions they made about a ruined future, Charles could not be dissuaded from the path of easy and simplistic. People had money. He wanted money. The path of least resistance was often the most lucrative.

The corner he found to work on was perfect. Across the street there was an old church that often ran gambling support groups on Fridays and Saturdays. Of course Charles didn’t set up when the staff could see him. He often waited until right before the sessions would start so he could catch the stragglers and would wait until just when they needed to catch those gamblers who were leaving and aching for a hit.

It was a good system and one that he was proud of. Today a session had just ended so he had about ten minutes before the organizers in the church came out and saw him. Plenty of time to catch a few folks off their guard.

His hands flew as he moved the tented cards, swapping the places of each card in a blur of movement and announcing in a stream of fast words, he made the game look both simple and easy to follow.

Today the new hooked fish was a blonde woman, business-like, clearly new to trying to be on the clean and narrow as he could see her watching the cards intently. Judging by the looks she more often than not probably engaged in online gambling. Poker. Blackjack. You could gamble from anywhere now. But the in-person games were different – far easier to manipulate.

Charles kept swapping the cards. His hands were fast so there was no way for her to see him make a hidden fourth card visible while the true card she was trying to watch, invisible. It was a trick worthy of a master. So when he set the card down, he watched with a hidden smile as she confidently tapped that card as the Queen of Hearts – and then saw her expression sour when he turned it over to reveal it was instead an Ace of Spades.

Charles winced. ”Ooof, sorry beautiful. Maybe better luck next time?” The woman huffed and stormed away as Charles accepted the crisp $20 she had left on the table.Taking the cards up, shuffling them, he made his trick card invisible again without anyone noticing, and looked up for other passing customers. ”Come on, come on! Easiest game in the world! Find the Lady of Hearts! Who can find her amongst the dashing gents?”