The Dinosaur Fakers - 1

Starting a new project here...

This is planned to be a picture book when it's finished, probably printed through CreateSpace or some other print on demand place.

But until then, I will just serialize it here...

* * * * *

Bernhard was standing around on a busy corner, looking for easy marks. His common law wife Lena was keeping an eye out for the fuzz.

A man came out of a shop. He was a prosperous-looking man in a gray suit. He began walking down the sidewalk, in the general direction of the mustachioed con.

"Excuse me," said Bernhard, as he gave the man a good jarring and lifted his wallet.

"Mind where you're going," said the man, without pausing.

"Heh-heh," Bernhard chuckled to himself. It gave him an extra frisson of pleasure when the marks were nasty.

Lena whistled. That was the signal to close up shop and skedaddle.

"What's up," said Bernhard, when they met around the block at a pre-determined spot.

"Plain-clothes dick," said Lena. "Don't look now, but he's coming towards us."

"Shit," said Bernhard. "Do you think he knows, or he's just suspicious?"

"What difference does it make, dummy," said Lena. She reached toward her purse to grab a cigarette pack, but Bernhard caught her wrist in his hand.

"Wait," said Bernhard. "Let's slip in here."

The Museum was having a big dinosaur exhibit. Crowds of people were thronging in and out. It looked like a perfect place to disappear and try to shake this plain-clothes dick.

Bernhard and Lena both chuckled nastily when they got inside and saw how jam-packed the place was. "That plain-clothes dick will never find us in this mob of imbeciles," they were thinking.

Lena lighted up, and offered one to Bernhard.

"Thanks," said Bernhard, letting her light his as well. He took a long drag and relaxed a bit. They had had a decent morning. Not spectacular, but they would live to fight again. Then he paused by one of the exhibits. He began to chuckle.

"What?" said Lena. "What's so funny?"

"Don't you see?" said Bernhard. "This skeleton! Or fossil, or whatever it's called. It's pure balderdash."

"Good word," said Lena. "So you're not buying it?"

"It's bunk, if you prefer," said Bernhard. "Take it from an old bunko artist."

"Mommy, Mommy!" said a snot-nosed little boy standing nearby. "That man said dinosaurs are bunk!"

"How dare you," said the boy's mother, glaring at Bernhard.

"But just look at its neck," said Bernhard. "Sure. 'Eighty-eight feet' long. I'm buying that. And did you catch the numerology there?"

"Numerology?" said the woman. "Come, Taylor. We do not associate with madmen."

"They're having you on," said Bernhard to the lady's back.

"Waah!" said the little boy as he was led off.

"And that teeny-tiny head," Bernhard went on. He was chuckling with something almost like admiration at the audacity of the con. "Pumping foliage down that long pipe-line all the live-long day. Heh-heh. Pump! Pump! Pump! Gotta keep that 77-ton torso fueled up! Sure..."

"It does seem a bit fishy," Lena agreed.

"Fishy?" said Bernhard, gesticulating wildly. "It stinks to high heaven! It's rotten as two-day old shrimp! It's phony as a three-dollar bill!"

"Stop gesticulating wildly," said Lena. "That plain-clothes dick might still be around."