The Albuquerque Turkey: A Novel (17 page)

“You knew she was going to be here, didn’t you?”

“Who, this bartender? Tell you one thing, she’s not getting a nucking tip from me, no way.”

“Vic …”

“By the way, did I tell you?
Nuck
is the new
fuck
. I think it’s really going to catch on.” He was now officially blathering, the engine of guilt driving the motor of his mouth. “It’s a, whaddyacallit, a neolopism.”

“Neologism?”

“That’s the word. Like calling a reckless driver a pothole or asphalt instead of asshole. Sounds dirty, but it’s not.”

I turned to face him. Our eyes met. If I was communicating effectively, Vic would understand that I’d seen through this clumsy wall of woffle and that the future of our friendship hung in the balance of what he said next. I, in turn, could plainly read Vic’s inner conflict. He didn’t care about getting caught—Mirplos are shameless by nature—but what he had to say seemed to pain him so much that he didn’t want to cough it up. So I pushed a little. “Vic,” I said, “if you don’t tell me what’s going on, I’m going over to that table and tell Allie that you brought me here just for the drama of it: confrontation, inspiration for your next installation. Then, in all likelihood, Allie will kick your ass, which we both know she’s one hundred percent able to do. So what’s it gonna be?”

The barmaid finally came to take our order. Vic indicated the draft tap and she poured us a couple of beers. I killed the moment by glancing at Allie’s table and reading her date’s lips. “So I told my boss that if we wrote it as a floating note instead of a fixed one, we could yield an extra three percent. Awesome, huh? Three percent.” By his words and facial expression he betrayed himself as someone who in a million years would never tire of the sound of his own voice. Allie’s body language (at least what I could glean from her shoulders and the back of her head) indicated that she was enthralled. Me, I’d be making a cyanide sandwich.

Vic downed half his beer in one gulp, then said, “I saw her here the other night. I asked around. She’s been here every night this week.”

“With that guy?” Vic nodded. “Why did you bring me here?”

“Duh, to see them. You think you’d believe me if I just told you?”

“No,” I had to admit, “probably not. So who is he?”

“I don’t know. Just some schlub. Works in a real estate firm. Radar, what’s up with you two? I thought she was your trapdoor spider. Is this part of that?”

“Excellent nucking question, Vic. I honestly don’t know.”

So what to do now? I could confront her, of course, but that seemed like a weak lead. If the con was still on, then I’d be generating unnecessary hysterical public noise. And if it was off? If Allie had genuinely shed me under the guise of seeming to do so, then what purpose would be served by a scene? The best thing, I decided, was to keep cool and scope her out. What I saw distressed me, for all her signals—how she tossed her hair; the way she covered his hand with hers—told me she was into the guy, which I couldn’t understand at all, because she used to eat Norms like this for lunch. But it couldn’t be an act for my benefit. She didn’t even know I was here.

Vic, by way of lame distraction, called my attention to a sports highlights show on the TV over the bar. “Can you believe it?” he said. “This team creamed that other team.”

I smiled despite myself. “Do you even know what they’re playing?”

“Not sure,” he confessed. “Lacrosse? Quoits?”

“What the hell is quoits?”

“A ring-toss game with roots in ancient Greece!” he boomed in his sportscaster voice, but I cut him off.

“Not tonight,” I said softly. “No Uncle Joe.” Vic nodded, and silently sipped his beer.

I pounded mine and ordered another. Worked it methodically, then started a third. I have a casual relationship with alcohol, as with a distant cousin you only ever see at family reunions. When I do drink, though, I pass through predictable stages, an arc of emotion that takes me from grim and gray through talky and glowy, then back around to morose. I’m not a bad drunk, certainly not an angry or violent one, but I mostly don’t drink because it loosens my grip, and for a grifter
for whom control is everything, that’s anathema. I was just starting to feel the reins go slack when Vic said, “They’re leaving.” I hunkered down over my beer as they passed behind me en route to the door. The date said something I couldn’t hear. I suppose it was a joke, because Allie responded with a lilting laugh.

I’m gonna miss the funny
, she had told me. Apparently there was other funny to be had.

They departed. Vic patted me on the shoulder. “I’m sorry, man. Don’t kill the messenger, okay?”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “The messenger lives.” I drained my beer and stood to go. I could feel gloom setting in. I wanted to go home and hug my dog. Maybe he could explain where I’d gone wrong.

Just then Allie returned, calling back over her shoulder, “Be right there, I forgot my purse.” Looking back at her table, I spotted her bag still slung over the back of her chair. When I brought my eyes back around—a beat slowly, and that was the beer balking—Allie was right up in my face.

“Hello, Radar,” she said.

“Allie,” I nodded, now realizing that she’d known I was there all along, or at least since Uncle Joe chimed in, and had forgotten her purse on purpose, just so we could have this chat.

“How’d you know where to find me?”

I scrunched my nose. “Loyal friends.” She looked at Vic, who gave all his rapt attention to the TV over the bar. “And speaking of friends,” I waved a beery hand toward the door, “best not keep yours waiting.”

“Radar, I don’t want this to be weird.”

“What weird? You made a choice. I respect it.”

“But do you understand it?”

“Suppose you explain it.”

Allie sighed—the patented Allie sigh I remembered from so long ago, when we were just getting to know each other, and every word out of her mouth was one or another brand of bafflegab. But those days were gone, right?

Right?

“Radar,” she said, “you are who you are. I thought you could be something else, but …”

“Leopards and spots?”

Her eyes showed sadness. “Yeah, looks like you were right about that.”

“I don’t know, was I? You’re the one who said we could change. Seems to me you bailed on that kind of quick.”

“It’s called cutting your losses,” she said. “I know you know how that works.”

Again I waved vaguely toward the door. “And this?”

“Greg’s a nice guy,” she said. “He’s okay. He tells the truth.”

“Have I lied to you? Allie, tell me where I’ve lied.”

“It’s not me I’m talking about, Radar. You lie to yourself. Look, I wanted you to be something you’re not, and that’s my bad. But every single move you’ve made lately has been designed to let you hold on to the thing you can’t let go.”

“My father …”

“… is just an excuse. If it hadn’t been him, it’d be something else.”

I mulled that over. For some reason, a boozer’s dumb rationalization flitted through my brain.
I never drink before sunset. It must be sunset somewhere
.

“I’m sorry, Radar,” Allie continued, “I just couldn’t sit around waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

“Whatever,” I muttered. I suppose I was an easy read, being a little drunk and all, for Allie could see me closing her out. She shook her head, disgusted, and turned to go. “Allie,” I said.

“What?” she snapped, preemptively defending against an escalation of conflict.

But all I said was, “Your purse,” and pointed to the big black handbag she’d neglected to collect. She went to get it, which gave me a chance to gear up for the last word. “For the record,” I said as she passed back by, “if I was lying to myself, you were lying to me, too. You could’ve just said you wanted to split.” I paused, then went too far. “Trapdoor spider, my ass.”

She slapped me, hard, with the flat of her hand. At least she didn’t use her purse.

I watched her walk away, mourning her. Then something shifted inside me. Alcohol-induced perhaps, but a grim resolution just the same. If a worthy woman deemed me unworthy, then, by damn, unworthy I would be. I’d grip the grift with a vengeance. You can’t fight who you are, right? It’s stupid to try. Love? That’s a comforting distraction, but for a grifter, ultimately a fantasy. No grifter knows love; really, all through our lovey-dovey days, Allie and I were just a couple of mooks trying to mook ourselves. At least I was clear of that now. I got it: Once you walk down our road, you can’t unwalk it. Allie still hoped otherwise, apparently, and I knew where it would lead, to a dull normal husband and a dull normal life. But no matter how hard she tried to bury her past in the backyard of her suburban delusion, one day it would rise up to remind her. And then she would be sad. She’d sold herself out of the game. Sold herself cheap, if you ask me. So have a nice life, Allie Quinn. Thank you for cutting me loose.

The thought crossed my mind that cutting me loose was exactly what she had in mind, and for my benefit. I dared to believe that this business with Greg was just another scene in an epic drama designed to disencumber Radar and leave him free to work his magic on the snuke. That would place me smack-dab in the hero spotlight, deeply and deviously propped up by an entire supporting cast. It makes for good drama, but here in real life, you just have to sometimes see things as they are.
Over is over, Radar, and the only hidden agendas are the ones you build in your mind
.

“Nuck this, Mirplo,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.” We left the bar. In my mind, I was already in Vegas.

I hadn’t quite figured out what to do about Boy, but when I got home, I discovered that problem to have sort of solved itself. On the tile kitchen floor (where Allie and I’d made love—ack!) I found a note written in crude block letters, like a righty writing lefty, “Sorry, man, she needs me more.” And it was signed with a paw print.

Oh, Boy.

I
was walking through the Gaia Casino in an outfit that did not agree with me. My shoes were too tight, too shiny, too squeaky. My tie was ridiculous—well, all ties are ridiculous, a noose around a neck—and my white-on-white custom suit with the Gaia-green silk shirt made me feel like a revival preacher or a pimp. Or an ice cream man. This sucked. And it sucked worse because when I play dress-up, I want it to be my choice, for my reasons. But this clown suit was Jay’s play—one I’d tried my best to talk him out of.

That hadn’t gone too well.

Rolling the clock back a few nights, we find Hoverlander and Wolfredian sitting in parked cars in the parking lot of Sunset Park, just south of McCarran Airport’s glide path. A beer-league softball game is in progress nearby, the
donk
of aluminum bats on balls cutting through the background din of landing planes.

I had called Wolfredian. Told him about this genius young artist I knew who was suffering from a bad case of sudden wealth. I was surprised to hear that Woody’d not sent advance word of this, but I stumbled past that and proposed that Jay and I meet to discuss the best way to pluck this bird, code name Albuquerque Turkey. I told him I was already in town and could come to his office at the Gaia at his convenience. Instead he directed me here, to this grotty, anonymous ball field, where the Droogs were beating the snot out of Maxx’s Tap. I suppose I didn’t fit the profile of the sort of associates Jay greeted in his office.

Or maybe Jay was just a huge fan of the Droogs, for just then coming to bat was none other than Red Louise, the sidewheel with the sense of humor. As I eyed Jay eyeing Red, I understood that he was multitasking: having a meeting with me while watching his hot bodyguard play ball. I wondered if they were having an affair.

I also wondered where the hell Woody was, for he’d been tasked to lay pipe for this meeting, which pipe had gone manifestly unlaid. I couldn’t ignore the possibility that this was Woody’s own exquisite exit strategy: simply paste my picture atop his on Wolfredian’s dart-board, then do the shade and fade. I preferred to think not, but who could know? It’s not like Woody’d have dropped me a jackalope postcard saying, “Here’s my bag of shit, thanks for holding it.” Maybe he’d found another angle to pursue, which would put him off script, but at least not off the reservation. Maybe he’d met a mishap, even a premeditated one. I couldn’t bring myself to contemplate that dark scenario.

Whatever I wanted of Woody, dead wasn’t it.

Wolfredian got out of his car and motioned me out of mine. We slouched against our front fenders, watching Louise take her stance. She toed the dirt, bent her knees, cocked her ass. Her bat, held high and vertical behind her right shoulder, stirred the air like a swizzle stick. She looked off the first pitch, fouled off the second, and drove the third so high and deep into the night that I worried about it getting snarged in a passing jet engine. Her mirthless home run trot brought her teammates to home plate to greet her, and a wry smile to Wolfredian’s face. All I could think was,
The damage she could do with a bat
.

Now Wolfredian outlined what he haughtily called his job offer. I was to join the Gaia staff as a casino host. I’d be given a salary, benefits, and a crash course in Gaia guest services. I needn’t worry about finagling a casino employee’s license, for Jay knew a guy in Gaming Control who could “expedite” (read: totally fabricate) my paperwork. As for my personal history—how I came to work at the Gaia and what I’d done prior—Jay left that to my own natural inventiveness.

“I don’t see why I have to jump through these hoops,” I said. “I already told you about …”

“The Albuquerque Turkey, yes. Is he ready to write a check?”

“Of course not.”

“Of course not. We have to fluff him first. So he’ll need his host. Someone he can trust. Can he trust you?”

“Like a brother.”

“How about me? Can I trust you?”

“Like my other brother.” I saw a segue and slid through it. “Speaking of trust and family relations,” I said, “you’ve been burned by my old man before. Aren’t you worried about getting singed again?”