The Texas Twist (30 page)

“For the millionth time, no one is scamming anyone. I don't even know how you can say that. You're the one who arranged to pay Jessup in the first place.”

Radar snatched his vest up from the table. “You know, that old man had the right idea, not showing true green. Now he's on the outside looking in, lucky him. But I did. And Vic did. And that makes us chumps.” He balled the vest in his fist and shook it angrily at Ames. “But you didn't show true green either, and that means all our deals are off.” He said to Allie and Vic, “Come on, guys, we're out of here.”

“Wait!” said Adam urgently. “Don't go!”

“Why not?”

“He…” Adam's voice broke, “he's threatened to hurt me.”

“What?” gasped Sarah, theatrically shocked. “Who?” It wasn't a bad line reading but it didn't ring close to true.

“Jessup. If I don't have his money tonight. All of it. He put it in no uncertain terms.”

“A respected university man?” said Radar dispassionately. “Why would he do that?”

“You know these Texans,” said Ames. “They get an idea in their head.” He slumped into a conference chair as if unburdening a great weight. “He called me the other day and said he decided he doesn't trust you. Seems he broke your Wellinov's cover.”

“Wellinov's yours,” said Radar. “You let him into this. I told you he was bogus from the start.”

“I know, but what could I do? I had to hope he'd come through just the same.” Radar stared at him with a look of venomous contempt, and Adam said plaintively, “I
had
to. Jessup made some promises and advanced some money around, and now he says I'm responsible for the lot.”

“Well, good luck with that,” said Radar. “Maybe your big boys can run interference, keep Jessup off your ass.”

“Radar, please,” said Ames. “I'm begging you.” He paused, then gave the appearance of playing what he regarded as his trump card. “Look, I don't know if you know it, but Jessup has cash, too. He told me he'd be bringing it.”

“Oh, he did, did he?” sneered Radar. “And why in heaven's name would he do that?”

“For the same reason as the rest of us,” said Ames. “
Your
reason, Radar: to create a frenzy of giving among the guests.”

“How much?” demanded Radar.

“A hundred grand, same as you.”

They tried. They really did. But not one of the three could completely stifle their laughs. “What?” insisted Ames.

“It's script, Adam,” said Radar, “and it's tired. Frankly, it sounds like something Sarah would say.”

“Thanks a lot,” Sarah pouted.

“I swear, Radar,” said Ames, “it's the truth. Word for word, it's what Jessup told me.”

“Even so, so what?”

“Well, look,” said Ames eagerly, “we're here to give Cal money. We have to give him yours. Radar, we
have
to. But if the money he brought got somehow lost and made its way back to you, then you wouldn't be out anything at all, would you?”

“Thus, I could do you a solid for free.”

“Exactly.”

“Just by letting you hold my cash a while.”

“That's right.”

“If a word of this is true.”

Adam said nothing. He just spread his hands, palms up, throwing himself on the mercy of the court.

The moment opened. Ames could see Radar exchanging looks with Allie and Vic, silently soliciting and receiving their approval for whatever he had in mind. At last he said, “It's a shame we let the old man go.”

“Why?” asked Ames.

“Because he had a vest full of fake bills, and that could come in handy.”

“Handy for what?” asked Sarah.

“Something fun,” said Radar with a twinkle in his eye. “Real fun. The ol' switcheroo.”

R
adar and Adam were alone.

Allie had gone off to finish her “bride stuff.” Sarah had declared herself bored with all the money talk and determined not to let a perfectly good party go to waste. Vic, apparently emotionally crippled by Kadyn, could think of nothing better to do than trail along in her wake.

“Okay, here's what's what,” said Radar. “We don't do anything until after the wedding.”

“Why?” demanded Ames.

Radar smiled. “Because I'm not going to disappoint my betrothed, duh.” He let the smile fade from his face, conveying that there would be no further discussion of the subject. “After that we'll move on to the public presentation, flash our cash, get those donations going. You don't have a problem with that, do you?”

Ames was feeling belittled. “Radar,” he said, “just because I've put myself in an awkward position, there's no need for
you to lord it over me.”

“I'm not doing that,” said Radar evenly. “If you feel that way, trust me, it's all in your head. Anyway, Jessup will be our surprise guest. We'll bring him up onstage and have him rouse the rabble with a little Lone Star jingoism—‘Let's make this brain center the one that kicks all other brain centers' ass,' that sort of thing. Meanwhile we have my cash, Vic's cash, Cal's cash, your cash—you
were
telling the truth about that, right?—all that cash, all in the same place, all at the same time. Throw in some crowd noises, special effects, a misdirectomy or two, and Cal will never know what hit him.”

Ames looked skeptical. “Are you telling me that you'll make the…switcheroo right there in front of God and everyone?”

“Front and center, yep.”

“I can't believe no one will see.”

“Oh, they'll see,” said Radar. “It'll look like a magic act. Very entertaining.”

“What's my part?”

“You're what we call the beard.” Ames gave him a blank look. Even at this late date, Radar didn't know if it was a real blank look or a fake blank look straining to look real. He decided that it didn't matter. How schooled or unschooled a grifter Ames was had become beside the point. He was showing his cracks. All Radar had to do now was drive the appropriate wedges. “The respectable front,” explained Radar. “You don't do anything. You just stand there and beard.”

“I see,” said Ames. Then, suddenly, “Wait, this won't work. If we steal from Jessup, he'll never let the endowment
funds be released.”

“Oh, you're just figuring that out?” said Radar sardonically, but Ames absolutely didn't react. Radar was a little amazed at the man's capacity for cognitive dissonance.

Ames suddenly snapped his fingers. “I know! I'll blame it on you. I'll kick you out of the foundation and take the grant under a clean slate.”

Radar nodded solemnly. “That's a good plan. That will work.”

“Are you mocking me?”

“Not at all. See, that's why you're the beard. So you have plausible deniability. Don't worry, Jessup's gonna walk bad paper right out of the building, but he'll be so nicely buttoned up that he won't even mind.”

“Buttoned up?”

More grifter slang you don't understand, I suppose
, thought Radar. But all he said was, “Taken care of. Feeling good. No doubt, no suspicion. Buttoned up.”

“I see,” said Ames slowly. “I guess it makes sense. But I have to tell you, Radar, I feel like I'm on dangerous ground.”

Radar found himself growing impatient with Adam's innocence act but quickly swallowed his annoyance. It was his job to put Ames on the wobble—not the other way around. He threw a brotherly arm around Adam's shoulders and said, “Life is risk, brother. Which means you have a choice: Short-change Cal Jessup and see how he likes it, or trust me to make sure he gets his reacharound….”

“Reacharound?”

“Oh, don't even.” Once again Radar clamped down hard on his anger at Ames's insistent innocence. “Adam, do you or
don't you want your grant?”

It was the walkaway moment for Ames, and Radar watched him process it. He thought he saw Ames more clearly now, saw that he was engaged like Radar was engaged, locked into the endgame and committed to winning it. And Radar suddenly thought,
Is that all this is? Grifter mind wars? What if it's nothing more than that?
But instinct told him otherwise. Just as Adam's true grifter nature was straining at the seams of his façade, his darkness was, too. It had to come out sometime, it had been bottled up so long. And this had been Radar's design: putting the long, slow squeeze on the mark. Everything in play tonight—the party, the vests, the proposed switcheroo on Cal, Kadyn and Vic's conflict, even the wedding—Radar had pieced together to give Adam's darkness plenty to stew over. Stew, Radar hoped, to the boiling point, which now lay probably no more than an hour into the future, and which would be tricky and potentially dangerous but necessary if they were to “break him like a thing that breaks” and ease him out of their lives.

And now, if Radar's skills and his script were such as he thought they were, Adam would raise the stakes on himself through the simple act of walking away.

Ames rose slowly to his feet, and the resentful part of him that had earlier uttered
Doctor Mirplo
with such affront now reemerged. “Radar,” he said, “your plan makes no sense. This ridiculous switcheroo? It's cartoon stuff. It doesn't happen in real life.” In a tone of triumphant disappointment he continued, “Frankly, I thought you were better than that. You certainly represent yourself as better than—well, better than everyone. That's your arrogance, isn't it? Your
pride. I'd say it's your tragic flaw. My mistake was engaging you, thinking I could harness your strengths. Well, consider yourself disengaged.” He extended a hand for Radar to shake. Radar just looked at it. “No? Okay.” Ames went to the door and walked out.

Radar sat completely still, listening to Adam's footsteps fade away down the hall. In the silence that followed, he got up, threw the two remaining vests into Vic's cargo bag, and zipped it shut.

He smiled a wry smile.
Now we're getting somewhere,
he said to himself.
Now to go some batshit crazy.

Radar returned to the ballroom, where the party was peaking, along with some of its more ecstatically dosed guests. A quick exchange of texts with Mirplo brought him to the
Fool's Rush Inn
, a Gold Rush installation where Vic and Sarah stood over a trough filled with water and soil, trying their hand at panning for gold but panning, largely, for dirt. If they did happen to find color, an assayer and banker stood by, ready to get rich twice, first by buying their pokes for pennies and then by gouging them on food and supplies. Later tonight, an improv troupe would reenact a claim war that, in the nature of these things, would not be fully resolved until the miners banded together to torch the Chinese camp.

It was a fun installation.

But Radar barely seemed to notice. He trotted up to the two of them, looking edgy and nervous, actually on the point of hysteria. Sarah took quick and concerned note, for she'd never witnessed such cracks in his cool. “Radar,” she said, “what's the matter?”

He didn't answer. He just clamped a clammy hand on Vic's shoulder and said, “I can't believe what that asshole did.”

“What asshole?” asked Sarah, internalizing Radar's agitation and reflecting it back.

“Radar,” said Vic softly, eyeing Sarah with some concern, “maybe we should have this conversation in private.”

“No, screw that,” said Radar. “Who cares?” He turned to Sarah and said, “Your boyfriend bailed on us.”

“Bailed?”

“Departed. Retreated. Took his toys and went home.”

“Toys? What—?”

Said Radar, exasperated, “It's a metaphor, you nitwit. He called off the deal.”

“Off?” asked Vic. “All the way off?” Radar nodded. “Wow,” said Vic, visibly stunned. “That's a thing. Maybe a thing and half.”

“Yeah, it is,” said Radar. He ran his fingers through his hair. “I can't believe it. What a goddamn waste of time.”