what's doing?
you shuffle when you're thinking something through. so whatcha thinking?
hi.
it's great.
wait.
i think i need more time to win their-
hermit in the woods. a one eyed, steel toothed vagabond.
with blood red eyes?
and told me of a cave.
a cave of wonders.
at noon on every sunday, there appears a ball of light, which flutters like a butterfly.
that's right. it guides you
to where the treasures lay.
yeah i guess so.
tastes like tin foil.
no.
yeah.
did he tell you the cave story?
what else did he tell you?
stephen took his eye out with an antique rapier.
and then the brothers bloom lit out on their own to make their fortune as gentleman thieves. sounds romantic.
you want to know how stephen did it? with charleston?
he positioned me in the same spot where, seven years ago, charleston's wife stood and told him she was leaving.
so in the end, everyone gets everything he wants.
that's what he does, he writes his cons the way dead russians write novels, with thematic arcs and imbedded symbolism and shit. and he wrote me as a vulnerable anti- hero. and that's why you think you want to kiss me. it's a con.
`do we have to go through this again.'
then you say `let's have a drink, and in the morning bloom you'll have come to your senses'
`and we'll be moving on.'
listen to me, stephen.
listen to me.
listen.
i hate you. i hate this life, i hate it, i hate that you won't fucking listen to me for one goddamn second. just listen.
why? so you can write me a role in a story where i get it? you're not listening to me. i want a real.  thing, i wanna do things how i don't know are gonna work out, a, i, want, a.
i want an unwritten life! aauuugghh god!
why are you here, stephen?
how'd you find me?
how'd the chink find me?
great.
i'm quits, stephen.
well lemme get my jacket.
looks like an etching from a bronte novel.
how much?
what am i doing here, stephen? i have one rule, and you've never even tested it.
no women. one rule. you know we don't do women, i don't, and it's not a morality thing or- a thing- it's, whatever it is it doesn't matter what it is, that's just our rule. so what are we, did you rent a `78 caddy?
an eccentric shut-in rich bitch. you're not helping your case.
so this is the big plan. lure me back into things with some beautiful intriguing elusive girl, stir up old memories with the prospect of redemption and rebirth. seriously stephen. amateur night.
you've got something up your sleeve. this is about me, right? somehow.
i want to be outta all this. so by definition, this is not going to give me what i want.
there are less painful ways to cut into a mark.
this is a banana seat, man!
there's actually a knack to this. you want to avoid dying or breaking anything that won't grow back, but you don't want to roll out of it and come up roses. if you're trying to fast track into a mark's sympathies, there's nothing quite as efficient as having your first conversation be from a hospital bed they put you in. i usually like to try for a dislocated shoulder.
you missed it?
i know.
the next step is to figure out a way to insinuate yourself into their personal life.
uh. yeah.
bloom.
engagement. find a connection with your mark through conversation.
nice area. jersey.
having now deftly set your hook in the mark's psyche, this would be the perfect time to tug the line,
get invited in for coffee, and tell them the full tale.
however, there are advantages to playing it cool. letting it lie for a day or two, then casually re- establish contact.
didn't really have anyone except each other growing up, and our father was in the antique business, he had a shop in charleston. so we stuck together, my brother stephen and me, we and just took over the shop when dad died. then we realized one day, we saw the dealers who were finding and selling us the antiques coming from exotic countries all over the world, and there was a, almost a scent they had, when they'd come in the dusty shop we worked nine to five in since we were nineteen, the air would, like before a rain, the ions would line up, and you could just smell midnight trains to paris and steamer ships and calcutta bazaars, and we made the decision, we just did it, that we want to have that sort of life. so we did, and we've been travelling and treasure hunting the world ever since, and could you, i'm sorry, stop doing - that, you're, i'm, ok. alright, look.
i told you, that's alright. you want me to go?
so what kind of stuff do you do?
alright. i'm just gonna finish my coffee first.
hm. anything interesting?
is that it?
you just learned this stuff, here by yourself?
no. so you just thought, `so i want to learn this and this,' and you just did it? how do you plan to use all these skills?
it's gotta warp the image though, right?
it's a lie that tells the truth.
what's changed between now and twenty minutes ago? cause this is kinda like a conversation.
well, i should, uh, it's late. so. i meet a lot of people in my job i have to professionally act interested in. it's a good feeling to be genuinely interested in someone.
yeah.
well next time i'm in town. we're taking a steamer at noon tomorrow off the docks, to the continent for a few months.
i need another day with her.
i need another day to get her on the boat, she isn't hooked. that bit i skipped where we were talking in the backyard, it was ten minutes on the optics of lensless photography, we didn't really talk.
i think you're wrong.
hi. what are you doing here?
yeah, i didn't want it, but thanks.
why did you decide to come?
it just seems like a big leap. from where you were at yesterday to being a world traveler.
a new hobby.
penelope, this is my brother stephen.
you named the chink `yuengling?'
she knows a lot of stuff. was that who i thought it was on the east deck this morning?
not yet.
you look very nice.
lonely.
how was it lonely?
well it's funny how everyone's usually got one.
wow.
do you feel cheated?
i don't know, but he's carrying a knife up his sleeve and wearing a cape. do me a favor and steer clear of him.
give me a minute.
it isn't a spanish band, but they'll do their best.
the chi-nese, uh, yeungling? she found us.
a few years back, when we hit the top of our art dealing game, she just appeared.
good.
also known in certain professional circles as the curator.
eat your waffles, fat man.
i know you like to throw those clever little details in, but you've gotta watch that shit with her stephen. she had a lot of time alone in that house, and she used it. she did the best double dutch queens i've ever seen up on the deck last night.
she had them in her purse and cut them in while i was folding my napkin.
that's what i'm saying. she's different, she knows, sometimes it feels like she knows everything. doesn't that worry you?
she feels like one of your characters.
i know that. how did you get the belgian, on our budget?
i didn't expect him to actually be belgian.
mine. stephen always loved the life. then he was almost killed on a run to jakarta, two thugs with heads like canned hams worked him beyond all reason.
and i called it, that was it.
for me. stephen enjoyed it. he loved the idea that we were internationally infamous art smugglers, but i think deep down, same as me, he felt like we were putting on a persona, faking it.
he'd love to die on a job. cornered at midnight on a run to jakarta. that's his dream, to tell his story so well it fulfills itself. it somehow would make it finally real for him.
trying to get something real by telling yourself stories is a trap. trust me on that one.
my french is a little rusty, but i believe he just told you `my offer stands.'
oh lord. what has he got?
that's what he does.
probably his spanish guy, right? did he say who's buying?
i'm sorry you had to deal with that guy.
where's the train going?
no.
well first off, we don't have a million dollars.
this is real, it's dangerous, it could go very bad.
this is not an adventure story.
she's making a flag for our "smugglers gang," man. she made me learn a secret smugglers handshake. unhealthy. this afternoon, when she was writing, in the observation car? a letter? a journal? no. she is getting way too into this.
you know, the one from whatsit, the disney thing, that smuggler song, the `we're a band of smugglers hey, la la la la la, we smuggle by night and drink by day, smugglers ho, ho ho, smugglers' there, this isn't.  there isn't a smuggler song, is there? ok. she made up a smuggler song. with hand motions.
while it lasts.
fourteen gins? are you kidding me?
i'm not paying for that.
she made up the smuggler song.
yeah.
i usually drink with the chink in the snack car, play cards.
mrs. yeungling. that's her smuggler nickname.
i think if it were offensive to her, she'd let us know.
no.
what?
look, i'm not-
nite.
that's the big 2.
administrative offices. so how do you steal the book?
who painted it?
diamond dog, carrying a cup and a cane.
if i call stephen down he'll kill you.
is this profundity? cause you can skip it.
don't touch me.
you're going to take your hand away or i'm going to break your arm, there's nothing between.
you can't always be there.
that was a real tonal shift. the curator's tale.
he made it up on the spot?
we're a little early.
well at least he had the decency to just skip out on us, not do something tacky like fake his own death.
you should stay in the city for awhile, they have these amazing puppet show opera things-
it's my fault. i can't believe i left you alone with him.
no. no no. can't you see what happened here, there is no book, we've been swindled -
it's not real, it's a con.
the literal translation is something about water cranes, but essentially it means "when you're done with something, blow it up."
so straight down the corridor, again, tell me where.
the abort code if we need to abort is "corned beef." for some reason.
yeah.
horny?
alright?
for the record, i'm still against this. why send her in alone?
uh-
don't do it don't do it penelope don't-
pen! don't - abort! corned beef! corned beef!
wait. wait, we're fine. she's fine. if the soldiers find her wandering the halls they'll assume she's a clerk, they'll just shoo her out. so as long as she doesn't do anything suspicious, she's fine.
the chief of police.
that was real.
fuckin scary.
yeah, but it was part of an epiphany.
yeah. you should sleep at the hotel tonight, i'll stay with stephen at the beach house. you'll need sleep.
right now i am.
she's something special, stephen.
can i.
i'm not gonna do this.
i know what i've gotta do. i've gotta talk to you. are you wearing shoes?
my brother and i are con men. all things considered, we might be the most respected con man team working today. and everything since you hit me with your lamborghini, all of this, it's all fake. it's all a con.
no, we were going to blow you off tomorrow using the cackle bladder, it's a, term, we have actors playing the argentina guy's men, when we showed up the deal would go bad, they would open fire on us, stephen and i would pretend to be shot using blood packets, squibs. that's - cackle bladder, in the old days they put fake blood in chicken bladders, so.  so you'd escape with the chink, she'd send you off with a little travelling money and that would be that.
but that's not how this one's going to end. i love you now, and i want to get you out of this. i'm going to do what i have to do to get you out of this, away from all this for good. are you ready?
stephen's gone into town to prep the argentina actors. your money's at his place.
c'mon.
so i've told her our whole play. and i'm here. to take her money back. how's that make you feel?
this isn't the ending you wanted?
where's the money?
give me the money, stephen.
he's not going to keep a single piece of you.
i'm sorry.
did you expect me to do it? to come here tonight, end it the way you wrote it? or were you really disappointed i didn't run off with her?
i let you do your monologue, but you wanna know why i did it? i did it so she'd never want to see me again. to get her away from all this for good.
hey.
how did you find me?
how did you find the chink?
i didn't even know she had one.
why are you here, penelope?
everything stephen said that night was true.
go away. everything stephen said was true. i was just playing you as a mark. everything between us, none of it was real.
pick up.  c'mon.
how quickly can you get to ferentino?
alright.
i did what i did in mexico to get her out of all this. i would rather die than bring her into the con.
you knew she'd come back. what did you figure she was good for, another million?
we will play her again, one last con, but not for money. i'm gonna tell you how this one's gonna end. you built us into this, you're gonna fly us out, end it so she's done with all of us. end it all so it can't start up again.
i love her. you owe me this. i don't want to turn her into me.
minskie.
well there's demarco or boyer. or roche, if we want to go state-side.
russia. it's like `cancer', i don't even like saying the word.
who'd you get, anyway?
to play the "russians?"
i don't understand. tell me so i understand. three months ago you were ready to blind the old bastard-
alright, fuckin stop. you want this to finish in st. petersburg, you want this to end with the dog for some what thematic something? fine but don't tell it like a story, let's say it. twenty three years ago and i can still smell, that blood red apartment of his, the smell of that place. i hate him stephen but this isn't that, this is i don't trust him.
it's trash. there's visible cross hatching in franklin's eye.
ok.
you've been awful quiet.
she gives the dog the book, he gives her the fake money. this is taking too long.
what happened?
what happened?
where's stephen?
who's got him?
stephen, god please what's happening. i don't know what to do. i don't know stephen please. please. what's happening. please.
if you know what's happening, now would be a really good time to speak up.
uh huh. assholes. ok. um, ok. so i've got "we are all assholes in our own theatrical enterprises." you sure?
shit head?
i don't know.
"we're all of us marks in our own cons." and she said goodbye.
that the chink fell for a car bomb? neither can i.
ok.
this wasn't russians. this was done by an old mentor of ours who wants us off the map. he has an apartment in st. petersburg. so this is, yeah. i've gotta go back to that apartment to face the dog and get my brother back. that's how i'm gonna end this.
thank christ.
if there are shots you run to the car and drive, with or without me.
he's just an old man.
dog! i came back.
is that what that smell is?
ask him if anyone else is here.
ask him where the diamond dog is.
get the car started.
it's alright.
get out! get out of the car!!
i'll wire the money from my account, and we'll go get stephen.
how much?
how much are they asking for?
oh. oh oh. no no no.
there's another possibility that i should of, i'm a fucking idiot. this might all be a con. by my brother. to get me - oh god - he wanted me to face the dog, to end it, and he gets your money. oh god. i'm going to be sick.
i don't know. yes. yes of course he would.
son of a bitch.
i'm so scared. anything i can imagine finding in there, i'm scared of.
stephen!
stephen!
stephen. game's up. come on out. let's blow this one hat town.
stephen, who is it? is it the dog?
yeah.
no!
please tell me this is all gonna be ok. tell me that's a squib, and that's makeup, and that you just gave me what i always wanted and pulled off the perfect con.
you son of a bitch.
yeah. clean exit.
car bomb.
soon?
i love you. bye.
alright.
pull over. pull over!!
what did you ask the russian kid, in the dog's apartment? he said the dog isn't here, then what did you ask?
and what did he say?
this is real. they hassled you.
the dog was gone before we got there. they hadn't cleared out of their apartment, they had been cleared out.
real russians. took his store. they didn't know about his deal with us, but you haggled with them. you really sold the book to real russians. the diamond dog was gone.
and they came after us. and stephen.
stephen saved my life.
he's gone.
i was thinking of something stephen said too. "the perfect con is one where everyone involved gets just the thing they wanted." well.