BILLY HILL Chapter two

Flim Flam Man
courtesy free clip art

Billy couldn't make sense out of what was happening to him, especially this Latin lover business. He had learned his lesson about who was the boss and didn't question out loud what Logan was doing.

While this transformation was happening they were out every day selling stuff people didn't want or need.  After a few days Billy had mastered the methodology Logan used on people to cause them to buy.

They would go from door to door and sign people up for books, magazines and anything else they could talk them into. The time spent in any one town was about ten days for they would promise to deliver the product within two weeks.  Since they didn't really have the merchandise, they had to get far away from the people in that town because they had collected the money in advance.

Logan taught Billy, I mean Ricardo how to size up people very quickly without spending a lot of time with them. This involved in figuring out how much money they had and what would interest them.  

Logan had catalogs on everything, and once he found out what the person would buy he would show them a picture of the product, this along with his description would bring it into reality for them.  Ricardo was learning all of the tricks, and methods of selling.  It was truly on the job training, and the money was pouring in.

Logan kept most of the money and Ricardo only had a little spending money with the promise that when they struck it rich, it would be divided.  Ricardo trusted Logan for he had learned so much from him and they were living like rich people.

As the word got around that there were "flim flam" men working the area they had to move farther away from the last town in order to keep ahead of their notoriety.   While at first it was from town to town now it was from county to county.

Billy had come to think of himself as Ricardo for everything he did now was in character, and he was beginning to see some of the logic behind this whole scheme.

  
As they moved into more expensive products to sell Logan used Ricardo as a distraction especially when trying to sell women.  While they were enamored by Ricardo's smile and flirting, Logan would be making the sale.

This would happen even if the husband was home for he wanted them out and away from his wife and daughters as soon as possible even if he had to sign on the dotted line!

 
Ricardo began to get a high from this sales seduction as Logan called it.

What can I say, the money kept rolling in and Ricardo was mesmerized by the fact he had gained this power over people. They had progressed in selling by taking the "No" away from people. and leaving them with only a "Yes."

Their sales system now involved the marks in somewhat of a questionable transaction. Thinking they were breaking the law kept them from objecting when they realized they were the ones who were the marks. This happened when they moved on up to automobiles.

Sometimes Ricardo forgot that they were not going to deliver the merchandise, but were just stealing money from the "Haves."

Ricardo began to see the reasoning behind starting with small sales.  If you messed up there it didn't matter, and it was in the small stuff where he learned and honed his skills. Now they were going to make the big money.

He felt confident he could sell anybody something.

When they arrived in a new town they would spend a couple of day sizing up the town as to who the marks would be and then make their plans.

To be Continued