“I’ve always been able to make money,” says Billie Sol Estes as he picks over a plate piled high with lasagna, chicken cacciatore, and spaghetti. “If I put my mind to it, I could make a million in the next thirty days.” That’s just the sort of talk that has gotten Billie Sol in trouble for the last thirty years, a third of which he has spent in prison. In the eyes of the law his talent lies in being able to make money a little too easily – by a variety of schemes and cons that have made his name a national synonym for “swindler.” I have already experienced, in a small way, Billie Sol’s skill at separating people from their money. When I asked to meet him, he imposed one condition: I had to take him and his grandkids to dinner at a restaurant of his choice. And that is how I came to be seated at the Olive Garden Italian Restaurant in Abilene with Billie Sol, his daughter Pam, two of his granddaughters, and a nephew named Kerry who is a hairdresser in Los Angeles.