Writing Meme - White Collar Ficlet
china-shop asked for White Collar -- Moz, Neal and June, three-card Monty in the park. Now I admit, I didn't remember at first what three-card monty even was - and I certainly couldn't do it myself :) But this tiny ficlet emerged anyway...
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Mozzie liked to set up for an afternoon of three-card monte in the same corner of Central Park, under a tree which dappled the light and rustled softly in the breeze. He didn't need to shill for the small (in the scheme of, well, Mozzie's schemes) sums it made in passers-by, and it was more a hobby, a remembrance past of simpler times and simpler cons, a wits-sharpening game from when he was young and - relatively - innocent. Just a trip down memory lane, a bit of good old dishonest fun, as June said.
Sometimes she and Neil would stroll by, looking effortlessly honest and innocent, and June would let herself be drawn in to 'play'. Sometimes Mozzie would even let her 'win', to assure the marks that it was all above board; most of the time, she'd let him 'cheat' her, and laugh and pay up, and that would assure the marks even further. And Mozzie would look small and harmless, even a little dumb, as absolutely no one in the whole of New York could do like he could.
Really, they both thought that in this day and age, it shouldn't still have worked on so many people. Part of the joy was in the simple fact that it still did, and part was in remembering when they were young and just starting out, learning their trade and its tricks and how to make the marks make it work.
Neal just smiled and kept his own memories locked away as he watched them have their fun, and kept an eye out for police... or his FBI keepers, who all three of them knew wouldn't exactly understand about remembrances past.
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