The Albuquerque Turkey: A Novel (6 page)

“Well, there was a little more to it than that.” Woody gave Allie a look that asked permission. “Do you mind?”

Allie acquiesced. “Not at all. I’m curious to know what you know.”

“Well, I know that you recruited smart gals out of Stanford and Cal. And I know that most of their dance partners turned out to be Silicon Valley start-up nerds.”

“Industrial espionage?” I asked.

“I think she called it ‘proprietary venture capital investing,’ ” said Woody. “It’s amazing what a little strategic pillow talk can yield.” He bestowed a generous smile on Allie. “I admired you from afar.”

“Can’t have been that far,” she said.

“Well, there’s more than one way to skin the VC cat. I was brokering contact with military clients.”

“Influence peddling,” said Vic, intuitively grasping the obvious.

“If you like. We moved in the same circles.”

A weird feeling washed over me just then, the feeling that I was being romanced. No, not romanced,
seduced
. With deft application of word, smile, and body language, and without a single backward glance at the missing two decades, Woody was easing himself into my life. And my righteous ire at all his sins of omission? I couldn’t seem to muster it. He’d vanished it through denial exactly as I’d vanished the threat of Andy’s gun the week before. No, not exactly—more so, for he was working on a whole deeper level, the level of feeling, not fact. And here I’d lauded myself as the apple fallen not far from the tree. Let’s remember, class, a tree
flourishes
on the ground; an apple just goes bad.

I looked over at Allie, who struck me as similarly ensorcelled. I wondered what impact this would have on Operation Citizen. Not that Woody had asked anything of me yet, but I suspected he would, and when he did, I wouldn’t hear the words
hourly employee
or
pension plan
.
^*
As far as I knew, my dad had never had an on-kilter moment in his life. Nor did he appear to be staggering beneath the particular weight of any new leaf. As a kid, I’d found him larger than life. As an adult, I found I’d acquired his life. I wondered what to think about that.

Vic, meanwhile, had shifted into pure idolatry mode. He literally sat at Woody’s feet, looking up with doe eyes as Woody told a story about a run-in with a crooked cop back in those Palo Alto days.

“He was undercover vice,” said Woody, “but old-school, totally lost at sea in the new digital world. He couldn’t touch anything I was actually up to, so he decided to do me for dealing drugs.”

“Were you?” I asked. There was some challenge in my voice. I suppose I’d decided to assert myself. Adult son and all.

“Never, Radar. I’ll snuke drug dealers—as you know, it’s a dangerous game, but profitable and fun—but sell that shit? No way.” Interesting. I’d put my adult son subtext right up on the surface where everyone could see it, and Woody’d just batted it away, basically saying,
Don’t try to grab status up here, son. The air is too thin for you
. Yet at the same time, thanks to that “as you know,” I felt endowed, not defeated. This rattled me, for in most situations, status is the bedrock metric. You have it, you want it, you win it, you lose it, whatever—it’s always there, part of every human interaction. But not with Woody. He seemed immune to status. Which gave him lots. Weird.

“He questioned me all night. Tried to bad-cop me into a confession. By morning I had the keys to his Porsche.”

“Why?” asked Vic, agog. “How?”

“Oh, it was all bafflegab,” said Woody. He shot me a look beneath his woolly eyebrows, communicating communion, and I thought,
So that’s where I got that word. All this time I thought I’d made it up
. Then I thought,
And he knows it
. Then I thought,
Shut up, Radar, you’re reading his lines
. When you’re running a game against tough adversaries, you definitely want to stay on your own script. Once you start reading the other guy’s lines, you’ve let him into your head, and that’s a dangerous place for a quality foe to be. I had to rate Woody as a quality foe.

Yet my inner discourse continued.

No, Radar, you’ve got it wrong. He’s not in your head. You’re in your head, oversolving the problem as usual. He’s not a god. He’s not Superman. He’s just a snuke, like you, playing all the cards in his deck. So do what you need to do in this situation. Play your deck
.

“Radar.” Woody looked at me with bland concern. “Are you all right?” Oh, crap, I’d zoned out. Maybe he
was
in my head.
Just be in the moment, Radar, that’s all you have to do
.

Woody next turned his attention to Vic’s tattoo, which he appeared to be noticing for the first time, but that seemed unlikely, since one of the cards in our common deck was: Check shit out. “Nice ink,” said Woody, then—give the guy credit for knowing how to score a point—“What’s that, a yin?” Vic beamed, and I thought,
Man, he better not come after Boy like that
. But I decided to play the civilized son.

“What are you …?” I started. “Um, I mean, I guess I’m supposed to ask, What’ve you been up to?”

“Now there’s a subject that could fill a book.”

“Which you’d probably pay someone to write and then pike his fee.” So much for the civilized son.

Woody reacted with stiff dignity.

“Sorry,” I said. “That was uncalled for.”

“Not entirely,” said Woody. “You’ve got a right to hold some grudge. Absentee dad, totally in the wind. Let’s call a spade a spade, Radar, I was a jerk.”

“Pretty mild dysphemism,” I said. “So long as we’re calling spades spades, I think something like ‘bastard’ would be in line.”

“You want more mea culpa?” asked Woody, letting a sliver of sarcasm show. “I got a whole big bucket of it right over here.”

“So you didn’t come to apologize?”

“For what, Radar? You’ve lived your life, I’ve lived mine. I don’t owe you an apology. I don’t owe you anything. I got you born. Everything after that’s just gravy.”

“Nurturing? Training?”

“Nurturing? What I see here is a friend who’s dog loyal and a woman who probably loves you. Seems like you’ve landed on your feet as far as nurturing goes. As for training, you tell me.”

“So you got out of my way to make me a self-made man?”

“If that’s how you want to put it.”

“Wow, I had it wrong. I’m in your debt.”

“No one’s in anyone’s—” He stopped short. “You know what? Forget it.” Woody stood up. “I’m sorry I opened old wounds.” He wriggled into his red dress and slapped his wig on his head. Glanced at himself in the mirror. “No makeup.” He
tsked
. “It’ll have to do.” He went to the door.

“Hey, Mr. Hoverlander—Woody,” Vic called after him. “What’s up with the dress?”

But he was gone. I shut the door behind him and turned to see Allie standing there, eyeing me closely. “You want to tell me what that was all about?”

“Best to chase him off,” I said, truculently. “He’s bad mojo.”

“You can’t know that. Your data’s out of date.”

“A leopard—”

“Don’t say it,” she said. “Don’t say anything about leopards and spots. Because if people can’t change, then you and I, we’re never gonna make it.”

“But that’s all him,” I protested. “It’s got nothing to do with us.”

“He’s your father, Radar. I’d say he’s got at least a little to do with us.” She took Boy and retreated to the bedroom.

“Man, Radar,” said Vic, “you’ve got people walking on you all over the place.”

I looked at Vic. “You want to be next?”

“Naw, man. I want you to buy me a drink.”

W
e went to a bar called Frosty’s Home of the Infinite Agave. Bit of a mouthful, but when you’re promoting all-you-can-drink margaritas, it pays to put the pitch up front. There was plenty of elbow room at the bar, for the night was getting on. Vic started to seat himself on my right, then abruptly reversed his field and sat left, rolling up his sleeve as he moved. “Might as well air this bad boy out,” he said, then ordered something called a Steel-Toed Boot, a silver tequila margarita laced with blackberry Sabroso. I passed. I had enough idiot in my bloodstream already. We watched sports highlights till the bartender brought Vic his drink.

“To dads,” said Vic. I clinked an imaginary glass against his.

“What’s up with yours?” I asked.

“Dull normal,” said Vic. “Glad I didn’t take after him.” Vic took a sip, and
aahed
theatrically on the exhale. “But you took after yours, though, didn’t you? Big-time.”

“I think I had to,” I said. “He was such a force. And I don’t care what anybody says, he was training me. The first time we worked the Pigeon Drop”
^*
—I looked past Vic, which is to say, over his left shoulder. At the end of the bar sat a girl in a self-consciously crinoline dress, spangly earrings and bracelets, thrift-store fishnets, and streaky blue
hair. Even using only my background brain, I found her pretty easy to analyze. Single girl, party flavor. Ghost of Cyndi Lauper, trying to sell the “She’s So Unusual” tip. And …

She was checking Vic out.

“That girl down the bar,” I said. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, Vic, but I think she likes your tattoo.”

“Of course she does,” he said. “I told you: conceptual.”

“You gonna chat her up?”

“When the time is ripe. Keep talking.”

So I kept talking. I talked about my first Pigeon Drop, how I played the betrayed little boy who
knew
he saw that wallet first, and how Woody played the self-righteous dad, damned if he was going to see his son get cheated out of what he’d found. We whipsawed that poor mark; he never had a chance. Afterward, we had waffles. Not that I needed rewards, either sugar or Dad’s company. I carried his same gene and started chasing his same buzz the second I knew what it was. Got good at it right away. Like some kids can surf or play tennis. I was a natural.

“Maybe that’s why he thought he could leave you,” offered Vic. “He knew you were in your own good hands.”

“Oh, no,” I said. “He doesn’t get off that easy. You think he was thinking about me? You think he was
devoted
? I was cheap labor, that’s all. A partner he didn’t have to pay. And then just Mini-Me, his whole narcissist’s dream come true.”

“Wow, be a little bitter, why don’t you?”

“What, I don’t have a right to be?”

“ ’Course you do.” He lapsed into Uncle Joe and boomed, loud enough to be heard down the bar, “You have the right to remain stupid! Anything you say can and will be used against you!”

“That’s ripening the time?” I asked.

“It’s a start,” he said, bringing his voice back to normal. “Meantime, remind me, what’s Radar’s First Law of Emotion?” If I was needling Vic over the girl, he was needling me right back over my historic insistence on dispassion in the grift.

“Okay,” I said, “I get your point.”

“No, no, I forget how it goes. Tell me.”

So I did. “Effectiveness and emotion are inversely proportional.”

“In other words?”

“Anger makes you dumb.”

“Okay, then, have all the anger you want. But you decide what to do with it. I put it to you that barfing it all over your old man is probably not your best play.”

“Wow, Vic, when did you get so smart?”

“I’ve been smart all along. You just haven’t been paying attention. Now watch this.”

Vic rolled off the barstool and, hand to God, literally sauntered down to the pretty poser at the end of the bar. He leaned in close and whispered an extensive something in her ear. She seemed rapt, and whispered back. They conversed for a few moments, then he left her and walked back to me.

“Her name’s Zoe,” he said. “She writes software, but get this: Her dad owns an art gallery.”

“In Santa Fe?” I asked. “What are the odds?”

Vic just helped himself to a satisfied swig of his drink.

“That looked like a good play,” I said. “What’d you tell her?”

“That it’s a typo. Should’ve been a yang.”

“No, seriously.”

“I don’t know, Radar. What do you care? You’re off the market.”

“For good, you think?” My voice betrayed my hope.

Vic looked at me. “You want it, don’t you? The whole cohabitation trip. Pair bondage. Maybe even marriage?”

“Let’s not get crazy here.”

“Then don’t
you
get crazy here. Allie’s a good girl. Better than you deserve. Don’t piss her off. Show her you can be normal with your old man. It’ll make her think you can be normal with her. That’s all she wants, Radar. Haven’t you figured that out?”

“Damn, Vic, you
have
been smart all along.”

“Told you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to walk a lady home.” Quietly adding, “He shoots, he scores!” Vic started away, then paused and looked back. “Your dad,” he said. “Don’t you even want to know why he’s here?”

He left with Zoe on his arm. Vic Mirplo a smooth operator? That was going to take some getting used to.

Vic’s question echoed in my mind.

Then in my ear, “Well, don’t you?”

I looked to my right, and there, hunched over the bar, was the most child-molesting-looking ancient perv I’d ever seen. With his ratty coat, venous nose, lank greasy hair, and mad-eye stare, he looked like the creep on the cover of Jethro Tull’s
Aqualung
. More to the point, he looked like someone you’d rather not look at at all. Thus, of course, Woody.

“You’ve got a lot of wigs,” I said. “What happened to your dress?”

“I had to make a change,” he said. “That cover was blown.”

“Someone’s following that hard?” He just nodded. “You haven’t had any trouble following me.”

“At first you didn’t know. Since you’ve found out, you’ve made no effort to shake me. I’m thinking you want me around.”

“Well, I don’t think I do, but let’s let that go for now. So why
are
you here?”

“What? I saw you in the paper. You dusted that guy good. I came to say, ‘Nice job.’ ”