Moonlight on the Way

Synopsis

My mother was the female swindler everyone called a master of the honey trap. The men she had conned ranged from eighteen to eighty. When I was nine, she dumped her lovestruck eighteen-year-old boyfriend and latched onto a well-known wealthy businessman. A month later, she died in the wealthy businessman's house. With no one to raise me, I learned her tricks. Using her handwriting, I forged a love letter. Then I found her eighteen-year-old ex-boyfriend and wrote: [Mom said the only one she ever loved was you. Before she died, she left you this letter. She said she wanted to leave me to you as her only keepsake, for you to raise.] In the dim evening market. The boy brought his knife down and cleaned the last fish before closing up. Then he looked up, his bloodstained eyes cool and clear, and fixed his gaze on me.