Startled by his brother’s costume, Booth whirls around and points a pistol at Lincoln, threatening to shoot him next time he scares him like that. He has just come from his new job at the arcade, where he sits dressed up as Abraham Lincoln while customers shoot him with cap guns, a job he recently took so that he could leave behind his dangerous life as a Three-Card Monte conman. He’s wearing a long coat, a fake beard, and a top hat. Lincoln is a former hustler and Three-Card Monte dealer who’s staying with Booth because his wife, Cookie, has left him. Interrupting him, his brother Lincoln enters. He rehearses his banter, imitating phrases he’s heard hustlers use on the street. In the opening scene of Topdog/Underdog, Booth sits in a squalid apartment and practices playing Three-Card Monte atop a cardboard box propped up by milk crates.
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