deception, then, is both Louis’ means of survival and his undoing?
As his mentor, Memphis Arnie, states, one of Louis’ gifts is his complete and utter selfishness, his drive for self-preservation. The only way he can reconcile himself to all the terrible things he’s done is to deliberately block them from his mind or invent a means of justification. He also believes that he is better, different from everyone else, and thus provides a rationale for his conning. But again, the irony is that, to a con artist, the perfect mark is the one who wants it better than everybody else. The ideal con victim, too, is a person who believes they are better or more deserving than other people, and so Louis, by imbuing himself with a sense of primacy, becomes the ideal mark. Which is a precarious position for anyone, but especially him as he attempts to work many angles at once. There’s a particularly affecting scene in which Louis hears from a friend about a war souvenir the guy is desperately jealous of: a “Jap ear” necklace. In the exposition that follows, Louis is
