A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Eddie “The Shark” Clark, a fellow who combined the worst of both worlds. He was a diehard, unrepentant con man and a born loser. So while he spent his whole life going from one scam to another, he also went from one failure to another. And while he may have emerged sadder from each one, he never emerged wiser.

I met him in college during his first and last semester, when about halfway through it he got booted for plagiarizing. Abandoning a glorious career in the Ivory Tower, he moved on, and up, going for The Big Score — a personal injury insurance scam. All he had to do was take a bad tumble in front of a prosperous business. Then, faking constant, crippling pain, he’d find some shyster who, on a contingency basis, would sue the business. The business’s insurance company, not wanting to spend all the money litigating it, would settle and he’d be home free.

Watertown, he decided, was perfect for his hustle. It was big enough that no one knew him, and since he had no car, small enough so he could walk everywhere. He moved there and within a day found a boarding house a short walk from downtown, as well as his target — a prestigious jewelry store, Fazio and Son. As for the lawyer? That’d be no sweat since ambulance chasers with dubious ethics were as common as diapers in a daycare (and equally repulsive — for the same reason). The only thing easier to find was a slippery snow-covered sidewalk, which in Watertown in the old winters was a redundancy.

To add verisimilitude to his disguise as a decent, hard-working citizen, he got a job as a Grand Union stock boy. He figured a few weeks as wage slave was a small price to pay for the windfall that’d come his way.

As for the windfall itself? Eddie figured he’d sue for $150,000, but would graciously settle for 75G’s. After the shyster got his cut, Eddie would clear a cool 50 thou. And keep in mind, this was 50 thou in 1965, when the average North Country wage earner was lucky to make $5,000 a year, a new VW was $1,595, and college tuition about $800 a year. In other words, $50,000 was Big League mazuma.

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Subtlety in action

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Eddie decided to leave nothing to chance, so each day after work, he walked by the jewelry store, slowly, checking closely what would be the best place to hit the deck. He finally decided if he fell midway from each of the store’s ends, it’d be clearly the store’s liability.

While Eddie was thinking he had it all figured out, someone else was doing some thinking, namely Fazio, Jr. And what he thought was the kid who kept walking by the store was up to no good. Specifically, he worried that the kid was going to rip off their store. Finally, he brought it up to his father.

“Hey, Pops,” he said, “have you noticed that young guy who’s been walking in front of the store so slowly, these past couple of weeks?”

“Who?” said Fazio Sr., “That kid with the beret and dime store sunglasses?”

“Yeah, him,” said Junior. “I think he’s casing the store, looking to do a smash and grab.”

“Casing the store? A smash and grab?” said the old man. “You gotta quit looking at all those cop shows. Why dontcha read a book — any book.”

“So you don’t worry about him?” said Junior.

“Not at all,” said Senior.

“Why not?”

“For a bunch of reasons,” said Senior. “First, we’re completely insured. Second, we have the best security system money can buy. And third, all the good stuff goes into safe after hours, where it’ll stay, since that jamoke is hardly a master criminal.

“Besides,” continued Senior, “he never looks in the store, just at the sidewalk.”

“So what’s he up to?”

“No idea,” said Senior. “But I bet we’ll find out soon enough.”

Which they did.

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Taking the fall

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A few days later, on Friday around four o’clock, with the streets crowded with shoppers, as he’d planned, Eddie walked in front of Fazio’s. Suddenly, his feet flew out from under him and he flew skyward at least four feet in the air. Then gravity took over and sent him crashing to the sidewalk with a sickening thud and a piercing scream.

He was instantly surrounded by onlookers (or as Eddie chose to think of them, witnesses), and within minutes an ambulance pulled up. Moaning, groaning and gasping, Eddie was put on the stretcher and taken to the ER, where after the usual battery of questions, he was taken in for X-rays.

Then, back in an ER bay, he waited for the results, which he knew wouldn’t exist. But he also knew all sorts of injuries don’t show up on X-rays, and those nonexistent injuries would be his ticket to a kingly fortune.

And as he was lying there, whimpering piteously but thinking of his glorious future, a nurse came in.

“You’ve got a visitor,” she said.

“A visitor?” said Eddie. “Who?”

“A very distinguished one,” said the nurse, who then turned around and motioned for someone to come in.

In stepped a huge cop. And not just any cop — he was the chief of police. After he introduced himself, he asked Eddie how he was doing.

Eddie grimaced and through clenched jaws said, “Not well.”

“It’ll all get sorted out soon enough,” said the chief.

“I hope so,” said Eddie moaned.

“Oh, I know so,” said the chief.

The chief sounded far too confident for Eddie’s comfort, as if he knew something Eddie didn’t. Eddie said nothing, and the chief went on.

“You’re an actor,” aren’t you?

“Well,” said Eddie, primping, “I was in summer stock for several years. But how’d you know?”

“Because I saw a film you made.”

“A film?” said Eddie, confused..”

“Yeah,” said the chief. “A film on Fazio’s security cameras.”

“Security cameras?” Eddie repeated, feeling lightheaded.

“It was dark, the tape said it was 3:17 a.m. But it was you all right,” said the chief. “And there you were, falling on your keester a bunch of times, just like you did this afternoon.”

Eddie started getting nauseous.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think it was a rehearsal,” said the chief. “So you could fake a fall another time. You know, like today. Then pretend you’re all kinds of injured, start and lawsuit … all that sort of thing.”

“But since you’re an honest fella,” said the chief, “I know that couldn’t be true, could it?”

Eddie shook his head and groaned — this time for real.

“Didn’t think so,” said the chief. “Now, after you leave here, you might want to go to the bus station and catch a Greyhound to Hollywood. Put your talents to good use.”

Then he gave Eddie an avuncular pat on the arm, followed by a clamp on his shoulder joint that would’ve made Killer Kowalski proud. Eddie would’ve screamed, but had breath no to do it with. Finally, when the pain left and his breath returned, he checked himself out and tore down to the bus station.

He hopped a bus, not to Hollywood, but to Old Siwash. There, he’d be taken in by his girlfriend, a world-class codependent with Mother Theresa syndrome, who’d minister to him in his hour — and years — of need.

The bus ride was a bitter one, as he thought how hard he’d worked, only to have it ruined by a paranoid store owner and a sadistic cop. It was typical Eddie — never admitting his mistakes but instead blaming them on everyone and everything else: He couldn’t even accept that he was too dense to think a high-end jewelry store would have security cameras.

Ultimately, he was doomed to failure for one good reason: Like all petty criminals, he was shortsighted and lazy. So whatever time and effort he put into his schemes would never be enough for them to succeed.

Ultimately, while he wouldn’t put in an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay, he wouldn’t put in an honest day’s work for a dishonest day’s pay either.