I just posted my first attempt at flash fiction on my short story fiction site named Imaginings of a Grateful Man. It is called The Patsy. You can find it here: https://imaginingsofagratefulman.com.
It is also below. I plan to post another flash fiction piece titled The Elm Street Ladies Club at Imaginings of a Grateful Man, so if you like The Patsy I recommend you follow me on Imaginings of a Grateful Man.
The Patsy
By Russ Towne
“These lonely old ladies are such patsies,” Carlton Fitzgerald smiled wickedly to himself. “They’re all the same. Flash a smile, show them you’re interested in them, listen to their boring sob stories, build their trust, flash some fancy brochures about some non-existent gold mines, lie about how another little old lady got rich investing in the same mines, talk them into giving their life savings to you in cash so they ‘won’t have to deal with those greedy IRS agents’, then split.” This was the fourth little old lady he’d bilked in the last two months. “It’s almost like shooting fish in a barrel, only easier.” He smiled inwardly again.
He flashed his best, ‘You can trust me’ smile as she held the large bag of cash, hesitating. Her hands were shaking.
“But this is all I have. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost it.” Her voice trembled and was barely audible. The frail woman had to be pushing 90.
“There’s nothing to worry about, Martha. I gave you a written guarantee that this gold mine will double your money in less than six months, didn’t I? How could I do that unless gold was gushing out of the mines?”
“Well, since I have the written guarantee, I guess it’s safe.” She held out the old bag. He took it and said, “You won’t regret this.” He turned toward the door and crashed into all 6’ 4” 235 pounds of Detective John Marston who’d been waiting in a bedroom for this moment.
After the creep was cuffed and his rights were read to him, she smiled. “Well, John. How’d I do?”
“You did great, Aunt Martha.”
“That was fun. Can we do it again sometime?”
—
With Love,
Russ
Russ Towne's A Grateful Man 
hi russ, tried to read it but it would not allow me access –
Hi, beth. Thank you for letting me know. I hopefully just fixed it, but in either case, I’ve included the story in this post.
Russ
I had the same problem…
Thank you for the heads-up, Mimi. I’ve changed the URL and embedded the story in this post.
Russ
me too, the link says I’m not allowed to edit the message. It is your wp admin link. 🙂
Thank you for letting me know, Diana. I apologize. I’ve revised the URL and added the story to the post in A Grateful Man.
Russ
Hi Russ, the link above says, “dotcom.” could that be the problem?
I loved your flash fiction…especially the ending. 😀
Thank you Mrs. P. In case your guess was correct, I replaced “dot” with “.”.
Russ
Hmmm…still getting an error message. This time it says, “This connection is untrusted.” When I type the address in the address line, it goes through just fine. Hope this info helps in figuring out the technical bug. I checked the spelling of the link and it’s fine, don’t know what the next step would be…contact WordPress?
I now get the same thing. WOW! If I saw such a message, I’d be disinclined to go to that site. Thank you for the feedback. Puzzling…
Russ
GOOD story!!!
Thank you, John. I now have several new stories at Imaginings of a Grateful Man including more flash fiction.
Russ