"I'm a cat person, myself."

I looked up from the pool table at the hulking man who had spoken and gave him my most polite “I've never heard that line before” smile.

To explain; my name is Caterina. I go by Cat. In my entire life, or at least since the age of sixteen, I have never been in a room full of guys without at least one of them stating that they were 'a cat person', usually in a tone of voice that suggests that they think this line alone should be enough to seal the deal with me.

I should probably have been grateful that none of them had mentioned ‘pussy’ yet. These are the everyday tribulations of a woman called Cat, and you might think I was showing admirable restraint by not breaking the pool cue across the head of this particular guy—whose name was Hank. Actually, I was kind of glad that Hank had said such a douchey thing, because I was about to cheat him out of his money, and I felt a lot better about taking money from a jackass than a nice guy. So, instead of smacking him over the head and kicking him in the gonads—I knew how to take care of myself—I smiled teasingly like I had never heard such a witty line, and was actually a little turned on by it. I had to keep Hank and his pool-playing mates onside by making them think that they had a chance with me. Keeping them distracted, and making out that I was dumb and ditzy made them overconfident.

All part of the grift.

“I hear you, Hank. I like a nice pussy myself."

Annnd, there it was. I barely managed to keep my eyes from rolling into the back of my head.

Hank’s rat-faced best friend was named Leon and he had the physique of an emaciated clothes horse. He wore a ridiculously tight T-shirt, apparently designed to show off a chest that looked like a bunch of wire hangers in a sack. I had taken a dislike to him on sight, which is something I don't like to do—you shouldn't judge people by their looks. It was a relief to learn that he was as dickish as his looks suggested.

Still, I smiled back as if this was the most romantic thing I had ever heard, and in my sexiest, most sultry voice, I whispered back, “I bet you do."

You wouldn't think that any man would be dumb enough to think I was actually flirting, but men have a blind spot when it comes to attractive women. If a good-looking girl pays attention to them then they will believe every word she says…a very useful thing to know in my line of work.

It probably sounds arrogant to describe myself as attractive, and it's not something I would have done when I was younger, but after spending the past ten years conning men on a daily basis, there was no denying that they seem to like the way I looked. Since I’d had no part in determining the symmetry of my facial features and my appearance was just the result of my parental units’ melding of cells or whatever, I was no more proud of it than I would be of inherited money. I had been fortunate enough to come out on the better side of the luck of the draw but I’d done nothing to earn it.

That said, I couldn’t deny that it made my work a lot easier, and for that, I was grateful. No point in looking a gift horse in the mouth.

I bent low, making sure both Dumb and Dumber had eyes on me, and took my next shot.

"Damn!" I muttered, then stamped my foot petulantly as the ball rebounded off the cushion. "I suck at this."

Hank scooped up the bundle of notes from the edge of the table and put an arm around me, sending up a waft of BO that made my eyes tear a little. "Never mind, sweetie. I bet you make up for it in other ways."

“Oh yeah? Like what?" I asked innocently.

Hank gave a knowing look to his mates around the table. “Maybe you can show me later."

They all chuckled, their expressions as oily as their hair.

Sometimes it was almost too easy.

That said, playing pool that badly is a skill. Being bad at pool is one thing, but you have to be very good to pretend to be convincingly bad.

Especially when you're as good as I am.

I downed a shot of tequila from a row set up along the bar, and tottered convincingly on my heels. Two other things you have to be good at when grifting; holding your liquor and pretending to be drunk. I’m pretty good at both, but I wish I was better at the former. Always room for improvement.

"You're not going to take more of my money are you, Hank?” I ask, wheedling. You've got to time the moment right; don't leave it so long that they've lost interest, or have become more interested in you than in the money. That could be dangerous.

"Sorry, darling," said Hank. "I know you've lost a lot this evening but a bet's a bet."

"My daddy's going to be so mad at me." I don't why the 'Daddy' thing works, but it does.

"I hope you learned something then," said Hank, playing the big man.

"That I suck at pool?" I sighed. "Give me one more chance to win my money back?"

"You got anything left to bet?"

I shrugged. "That depends. I don't have to bet money…do I?”

I watched Hank’s eyes to see the 'sure thing' bulb light up inside his head.

I sidled closer to him to seal the deal. "This way; whether I win or lose - I still get to win."

It's important to know that if you try this grift one on one, it doesn't usually work, but in a group of a certain type of man, it works one hundred percent of the time. And here's why:

"Hank, if you don't take her up on this, then I'm gonna!" Leon laughed.

I turned unsteadily to look at Leon. "For how much?"

Just like Hank's a minute ago, Leon's rodent eyes lit up and he fumbled for his wallet.

"Now hang on..." Hank began. “The lady asked me first.”

But the other men were now joining in. "I'll take a piece of that action."

"Count me in!"

I pretended to look concerned. "Guys, I'm starting to think you're taking advantage of me and my lack of skill."

Immediately, they all rallied round to reassure me; it was just in fun, just a bit of a laugh, and besides, I've been losing all night, I'm bound to win eventually and, really, I'm taking advantage of them for encouraging them to bet so much on a pool game that could clearly go either way and from which they didn't stand to win any money.

"Well..." I bit my lower lip, turning the matter over. "Okay."

The men cheered and a pile of money went down on the table. I had to wonder what they thought was going to happen if they won. But they were all drunker than me by this point and this was apparently fulfilling some nasty little fantasy for them.

"Rack 'em up," I said with a practiced, nervous giggle.

This was where things got tricky.

The most difficult thing in pool hustling is the final game. How do you make it look like anything other than hustling? The short answer is, you probably can't. No matter how accidental you make it look—and I'm pretty good at making a win look like an accident—they are still going to be suspicious. A lot of the time the men just don't want to admit that they've been hustled in front of their friends—especially by a girl—and so they let it go. That was best-case scenario and what I was counting on here.

Worst case?

I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.

The next twenty minutes went by in a blur of missed balls that mystically left my opponent without a clear shot of his own, peppered with a handful “lucky” shots that resulted in me winning the game.

I straightened as the eight-ball slipped neatly into the pocket and squealed with as much excitement as I could fake-muster.

"Look at that! I won! This is so cool."

I scooped the money into my bag then grabbed a bar napkin—because there is one thing you can do to make proceedings marginally less painful for a male mark. I scrawled a phone number on the napkin—I always use the number of a guy I knew in school who grabbed my boobs at a party one time—then kissed it, leaving a vivid impression of crimson lipstick.

I stuffed the napkin into Hank's hand and gave him a fleeting smile.

"This was really fun. Big fun, but I gotta go,” I added with a pout before holding my thumb and pinky to my ear in the universal sign for ‘phone’. “Call me."

I took another shot of tequila and headed out. Leaving the number and telling him to call me was always my exit strategy because it soothed the sting of things if they got to save face in front of their boys some. That said, in my experience, the effect wore off pretty fast when you've just taken a lot of money from them. Usually I had time to get to the end of the block, and that was all I needed. In my home territory of Brooklyn I have every escape route mapped out in my head. I knew the back alleys around the bars like I was brought up in them and I can lose anyone.

But this was the Flushing end of Queens and, while I did a scout around beforehand to get the lay of the land, it wasn’t the same. My foster brother, Remi, who was also my occasional partner in these ventures, told me it would be risky coming out this way, but I didn't think we had much choice. You can only grift the same area for so long before you get known. I'd been banned from half the bars in Brooklyn, and the only reason I hadn't been banned from the other half is because my marks hadn’t complained to management. They wanted to get me in the door so they could have a frank conversation about where the hell their money went.

I had told Remi that Queens was a risk worth taking, and based on the bulge in my bag, I was right. It was still only half of what I needed for the month, but that was a problem for another day.

It started to rain, the light pitter-patter on the ground oddly comforting on a dark night in a strange place. But then I heard a different patter, mixed in with the rain, and coming up behind me.

Footsteps.

I quickened my pace, mentally calculating the distance to the next subway.

If I was lucky, then it was Leon rolling up behind me. I tried to stay in shape and took half a dozen different self-defense classes. If it was Leon, he was going down.

Hard.

"Hey! Wait up, bitch!"

Hank.

Shit.

I could hold my own in a fight, but Hank was built like a bus. He probably wasn't quick, but if he laid a hand on me then...

Then all I could do was hope that he would take the money and leave me relatively unharmed.

"I said, wait up!"

I should have listened to Remi. Well, I was going to take some of my foster brother's advice now. Remi’s favorite mantra was, 'If you can't beat 'em, run'.

I broke into a sprint, tearing ass down the street. I might not have been as strong as Hank, but surely I was quicker?

On an impulse, I turned down an alleyway, hoping to lose him. At the far end was a chain-link fence. That wouldn't have happened in Brooklyn. I'd have known where I was going. On the other hand, I could climb chain-link like a monkey and I was betting that Hank couldn't. He might plow through it like a rhinoceros, but it would at least slow the bastard down a bit.

"You better stop or else…”

Or else what? I might get away from him?

What an idiotic thing to say. Unless...

I glanced back and saw Hank reaching into his jacket. It occurred to me that he hadn't taken that jacket off all night, even in the sweaty heat of the bar.

Holy shit, did he have a gun?

From nowhere I found a new turn of speed, racing for the fence. I was only a foot or two away when something hit me in the back of the head and down I went. He shot me. He fucking shot me! In the panic of the moment I hadn't even heard the gunshot. Maybe that was what it was like when you were shot. There wasn't much pain but that wasn't much relief.

It wasn't fair. It wasn't fucking fair. All I did was cheat him out of a bit of money - not really all that much. I'd misled him, sure, but I hadn't actually stolen anything. Plus, he had behaved like a total sleaze, didn't I deserve some payback for pussy jokes and groping hands?

It wasn't grifted money, exactly. It was more like a tax on guys who behave disrespectfully towards women. And even if none of that was true, I still didn't deserve to die for it.

Remi was going to be so pissed.

And yet, under all that, under the panic and the fear and the will to fight and survive like I'd been doing my whole damned life, as I closed my eyes to a welcoming darkness of oblivion, I felt an odd sense of relief.

At least now I could stop running.