"B-twenty four.....H-sixty one....F-sixteen.......J-twenty-one..."


"BINGO!!! I've got bingo!! Right here!!"

"Now, hold yer' horses there madam. Give us just a second here while one of our attendants checks out your card."

One of the "bitties" had come over to where she was sitting as soon as she shouted the magic word. She was hip to the signals the old geezer was sending out when he prefaced attendants with the word, "our". They really know how to treat a stranger, she thought. A faint diabolic smile gradually emerged from her face. She knew she'd. She always did.

"G-56...B-24...H-61..F-16....and J-21, yep, that's a good bingo, come on up and collect your prize."

"um, excuse me sir, but I have all four corners as well, see here...."

"Yes, indeed you do and you'll receive additional. I do believe you've hit the jack pot! Where'd you say you were from?"

"Why I'm from Hoboken, in New Jersey. Are you from the garden state of New Jersey as well?"

"No, can't say I am. We're down here from Kansas City. Missour-ah. Edgemont, actually. 'Bout thirty five miles north."

Ah yes, the great suburban sprawl, she thought. Everyone says they're from the great magnet cities of yesterday but no one really resides there. They’re really from one of those leafy high-toned subdivisions scattered across the country like strip-mining sites. Yeah, strip-mining, she'd seen that out in ‘Vegas before there really was one. Before all the fun started.

“Where’d you say you was stayin’?”

The old geezer; just a few minutes before, he'd made her feel like an intruder. Now that she was flush he pitches “woo”. The balls on this guy! In the old days his legs would’ve been broken out from under ‘im.

“I’m staying at my aunt’s condo, The Pelican Reef? Surely you know of it.”
“Yes I do, we looked at a place there when we first came down”
“ It’s very nice. Funny, I never got around to staying there before she passed,”
“Well I’m sure if she was half as nice as you are…”
“ Oh yes, I’m sure. Now, about the prize?”
“Oh, of course. Here you are, five hundred and forty dollars. Not bad for a few hours work, eh?”

Hah, you don’t know the half of it, she thought. Smiling demurely, she put the cash away neatly into her purse careful not to disturb anything in the tote bag. The picture was complete, just one quick glance around the room and…gone.

“If only this happened more often, I guess my rabbit’s foot works after all! Well, nice to meet you and I’ll hope to see you next week”, she said as she shook his hand. His wife gave them a nasty frown but then again, so did most of the regulars, men included. She didn’t know if she’d be coming back, she never did. Gonna’ have to give it a few days, see how everything works out. The locals seem to be clueless enough which was, with any luck, a good sign.

Simple retired folk from up north whose main concern is the early bird special. She liked the west coast. It had a Midwestern sensibility that fell easy for her game. What did that idiot on Fox call it? Oh, that’s right, the “Heartland”! "Sucker-land" is more like it. It had been years since she'd been up there. Chicago, St Louis, KC,Milwaukee. Too goddamn cold. She dreaded the thought of going.

She was getting close to the entrance of the complex. The night doorman would hold the door open for her and tell her about the weather in Chicago, like she could give a “fuck”. It felt so liberating to curse after putting on the snowbird act for so long. Shit, she used to cuss like a sailor. As she approached the door she could see him, old and fat, big beer gut sticking from under his yellow Wal-mart polo shirt. Real class. All the sun in the world won’t change that rumball nose. It’s amazing what they did with this part of the world, she remarked to herself as the lush got up off his fat ass to open the door; it used to be all swamps and alligators, nobody’d ever dream of coming over here back then.

“Evening ‘Ginny”
“ Good evening to you mister Brady. You know, you’re the only person I’ll allow to call me by that awful nickname for “Ginger”.”
“Oh, well I’ll consider myself privileged. You know, there’s an ice storm up in Chicago”
“Well good for them but I’m from the east”

Virginia. That was a good name to use. Respectable, beyond suspicion; she’d used it before in, where was it? the Carolinas? Phoenix or Scottsdale? Didn’t matter, as long as it was far from here.

She emptied her purse out on the turquoise formica counter making sure that the blinds were drawn, then the tote bag. The tote bag contained the tools of her trade, bingo cards in every shape and form, magic markers and dots, dots, dots and more dots. You see, Gertrude, her real name, was retired as well. Only now, the hustle was the geriatrics on the bingo circuit. She was one of them but at the same time, she really wasn’t. Real small time short con, the quick grift, not like the old days out in the valley and Vegas, bagging the big squares with the liquid cash gushing out of their laps. Those were the days. Some swell routines were pulled off, back then with that crowd; the Brow, Midge, Cheech and the Duke, they had a lotta’laughs.

She turned on the television. The weatherman said it was fifty two and cloudy in Fort Myers. But this is easy, she thought. She'd made a lot of dough on this trip. Not much risk if you don’t mind the logistics.

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