why? what's wrong?
but what's wrong?
what is?
but they must be! they cut glass!
it was a gift. it isn't worth anything at all?
all right.
it's not your fault.
i have only one thing now. are you interested?
you are seeing it. you're looking right at it.
thank you. for everything you felt you could do.
roy?
well, well. in a real hurry, are we?
you aren't taking me for granted, are you?
are you sure?
roy?
look at me.
roy? it this all we have?
no more than this?
i didn't say that. you aren't marriage material.
what's that?
no, baby. come to mama.
wore you out, did i? it's a good woman you can't keep down, baby.
have a good sleep, baby. call you tomorrow.
no, really, you're roy's mother? that's impossible!
i'm roy's friend.
oh, of course, now that i see you in the light, you're plenty old enough to be roy's mother.
darling!
you were bleeding inside, honey. remember that bruise you had?
well, no, roy. your mother found you.
roy.  your mom saved your life.
"down to the track?"
i want to know everything about you.
you heard the shower, didn't you?
joe, i thought i was gonna be all right by now, i just need a little more --
joe, you know you'll --
joe, could we talk it over? do you want a drink?
i'll have it tonight. nine o'clock? ten?
we'll work something out, joe.
i don't see why you're still here. you look healthy to me.
you're just comfortable, that's all. you don't even ask to go home. you just lie around, let your mama take care of you.
who else is paying for all this? you badmouth the woman all the time, but you sure do take the payoffs she gives you.
i don't like to come here, roy. every time i do, your mother comes in and makes remarks.
and you never defend me. you're afraid of her.
you're a mama's boy, if you want the truth.
they might as well.
get well soon.
i'll see you when you get home.
myra here. sorry you missed me. tell me how to reach you and i will, just as soon as i can.
i don't see why we have to take the train.
what if we want to drive somewhere while we're there?
big spender.
no.
i'll sign that affidavit.
you already went back to work.
i watched you. working the tap on those soldier boys.
oh, come on, roy.
the tap. what you do for a living.
you're on the grift. same as me.
roy, you're a short-con operator. and a good one, i think. don't talk to me like i'm another square.
the long end. big con.
i was teamed ten years with the best in the business. cole langley.
it was beautiful. and getting better all the time.
it is, roy! and now, right now, it's the perfect time, the best time since i've been in the game.
all over the southwest, you've got these businessmen, they were making money when everybody was making money, they think that means they're smart.
and now they're hurting. everything they had was because of oil.
they still got money, but they need more money, and that's just the kind of guy cole and me like.
when the oil money was good, they put up all these office buildings, and now they're half empty.
they'll give you anything to move in; first two months free, redecoration, whatever you want.
they help you set up the store!
i'm the roper, i go out and find them and bring them in. cole ran the store, and he was the best.
mister hebbing is my bodyguard, my strong right arm. gloucester hebbing, may i present my fine stockbroker, henry fellowes.
oh, i told mister hebbing all about it, how brilliant you are at making money for your special clients!
well, of course not! i know how dangerous this is. but i would trust mister hebbing with anything. wouldn't i, darling?
goody!
isn't that just beautiful?
henry, next time, couldn't mister hebbing --
oh, i know, i know, and you've been wonderful since i was widowed. but mister hebbing has-- -- you don't mind my telling him, darling -- -- suffered reverses. if he could.
so here we are!
oh, henry, no, that's just boring.
we're not really interested, henry.
henry, don't try mister hebbing's patience. he knows what machines look like.
he didn't think they were risks. he was so good, roy, he could just play with the mark.
he'd explain he had to have cash, so there wouldn't be any paper trail for the sec. and a lot of cash, or it wasn't worth while. the least we ever took was forty thousand, and the most was one hundred eighty-five thousand dollars! from one sucker!
no, no, roy, just cash poor. they had savings accounts, stocks to sell, houses to mortgage. sell their wife's jewelry. oh, they had a lot of money, when they put their minds to it. or when i put their minds to it. i stayed with them, that's the roper's job, made them get up every penny they could raise, turn it all over to cole.
no no! he never calls the cops, not after we give him the blow-off.
three or four days after cole got the money, he'd phone the sucker, tell him he'd made the move.
our buy was in the computer, we were rich, he should come collect.
just one or two of the girls, just, they wouldn't --
henry, no!
oh, roy, it was great! we were rolling in dough, lived wherever we wanted, only pulled two or three scams a year.
he retired.
upstate.
atascadero.
no, baby. not again.
cole, it'll be all right. honey?
it's just the strain again, the stress. we'll take a vacation.
cole, you scare me when this happens. one of these times.
oh, cole, please. please come out of it. what would i do without you?
he retired, and that's it. but i didn't. i'm still the best long-con roper you'll ever see.
join up with you! i watched you, roy, i've been watching you, wondering if i should talk about this at all, or maybe just.
i need a partner, roy. i need an inside man, and you're it. you could be as wonderful as cole.
not to take soldiers for a hundred bucks. but how about taking a bank president for a hundred grand?
think about it. okay?
see you later.
separate bathrooms, darling. i will not lay out all my cosmetics for you to knock over.
you don't mind, really, do you, roy? it's been such a wonderful evening, i guess i just wore myself out.
open your door.
open it and find out.
gangway!
i hope you don't mind, sir. i just washed my clothes, and i couldn't do a thing with them.
) if you could have seen your face when i told you good night! you looked so, so.  ah!
i see him.
wait. hold it.
just wait.
ah.
now we follow her.
roy! you drown in there?
i went out to delmar.
i saw her.
i'm not trying to make trouble, roy. it's just, she's always so nasty to me, i thought, who is she to be so high and mighty. i saw her out there, and i called a friend of mine in baltimore, so now i know who she is.
i'm well connected, roy, cole introduced me to a lot of people. very valuable. valuable for us.
you and me, roy. what a team we'll make. we think alike; we get along together. once or twice a year we take some slob, the rest of the time we live like this. you won't regret this, roy.
but why not? i thought it was settled. what's holding you back?
you mean, it would be too tough to give me a turndown here. easier on home grounds.
whatever you say, darling.
darling, guess what? i had to tell you right away.
i called a fellow i know in tulsa, the one who plays my chauffeur. there's a sucker there he says is made for us. and a boroker that just shut down, we can use their office, not change a thing! now, i can scrape up ten grand without much trouble. that leaves fifteen or twenty for your end. we could start this weekend, get the sucker into position --
what?
but the setup's there. it's there now.
you're too good for the small-time, roy. move up to where there's big dough to be made, and you don't have to stick your neck out every day.
well, maybe i don't! i had ten good years with cole, and i want them back! i gotta have a partner! i looked and i looked and believe me, brother, i kissed a lot of fucking frogs, and you're my prince!
no! because i --
what?
for christ's sake, why not?
bullshit!
what is it? what's going on?
by god, it's your mother. it's lilly.
sure it is. that's why you act so funny around each other.
don't act so goddamned innocent! you and your own mother, gah! you like to go back where you been, huh?
i'm wise to you, i should have seen it before, you rotten son of a bitch. how is it, huh? how do you like --
stop!!
and you don't even know it.
mama. it's mama. she's the one.
you'll get yours, mama. oh, yes.
no. i'm me.
oh, don't you have something around back, where it's quieter?
i guess everybody wants privacy.