A Con Is Still a Con as Time Goes By

I don’t need a matchmaker, am leery of living in e-harmony and no longer have great expectations. Which pretty much consigns me to a life of solitudinous ennui. But that’s OK. I like my apartment.

Perhaps you’re in the same boat. Perhaps like me, you tell yourself: It’s’s all about self-respect.

After all, if two people can’t meet and hit it off the old-fashioned way -- in a darkened bar after five rum-and-Cokes apiece -- then why bother?

You think computers would have paired Bogie and Bacall?

But in this age of electronic/video coupling, you either get with the cyber program or you run the risk of ending up alone.

Getting colder on planet Earth, isn’t it?

That’s what I was thinking, until I got the e-mail from Mary the day after Thanksgiving. I can’t say that I prayed for someone like Mary to come into my life, but she made it clear she’d taken great pains to find me.

Her full name is Mary Udodo. She’s from Swaziland, which I did not know was a country in Africa until going online. Its king is Mswati III, who appears to faintly resemble Ice Cube.

Her e-mail began: “I am contacting you in order to ask for your assistance on a very confidential business proposal with full financial benefit for both of us.”

She then said it took her four months to find me. “All I need is your trust for us to work it out.”

Sure, I was wary. I’d been burned before by women in need. I’ll be honest, my first thought was: Of all the cyber joints in all the newspapers in America, she had to link on to mine.

Still, I read on.

“Since my husband was assassinated last year, my children and I have been in trouble with our king. Before the death, [my husband] had $15 million ... I am the only one with access to the money and nobody has the knowledge of this situation. The money has been considered lost by the king and officials who conspired to steal it before entrusting it to my late husband.”

I was impressed she entrusted me with a situation of such magnitude. More importantly, I sensed her desperation and was touched that she thought I was the one person who could help. Not to be self-congratulating, I had to assume she’d read some of my columns in Swaziland and jotted down my name.

She provided more detail that only she could know: “When I later located the document leading to the whereabouts of the money, I hired a financial consultant who found the status of things and where it is kept. Unfortunately, my late husband deposited the money in a security firm in Europe.”

This is where I come in.

“If you agree to work with me,” she wrote, “I am ready to give you 30% of the entire amount.” She then provided an e-mail address, with the assurance that she would provide “the steps to you in detail” that I’d need to follow.

They say that a person’s life can change in an instant. “My spirit tells me you can be of help,” Mary wrote.

She asked me not to share any of this with a third party, but I think she’ll understand.

Just when I thought life had settled into a sameness that would carry me to my final reward, Mary has come into my life. Had she and I met in a bar and downed kamikazes and she’d told me a story like this, I would have laughed it off.

But her letter says she specifically sought me out for the task. This is no barroom encounter. This is Fate calling.

My best guess is that she will want me to go to Europe, withdraw the $15 million from the security firm, take my cut of $4.5 million, send her the rest and make sure the same people who assassinated her husband don’t find out about me, track me down and kill me.

That sounds like something I can do. There’s no way Mary would entrust me for a job like this if it was only for the money. If her spirit told her that this big knucklehead in Orange County is just the man to help, who am I to question?

Just like Bogie and Bacall?

Could be. I just wish she’d sent a picture.

Dana Parsons can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at dana.parsons@latimes.com. An archive of his recent columns is at www.latimes.com/parsons.