The Texas Twist (14 page)

But please, God, good driving habits.

As Vic devoured a quick scotch and something, and started in on a second, Ames asked Allie where she was from. She gave him a backstory that Radar had never heard before, a myth of middle-class Midwest normality with a minister mother and a stay-at-home dad dwelling in, of all places, Ames, Iowa. Radar immediately recognized this as a backstory wink because…
Ames, Iowa
? It was so ridiculously on the nose, clearly intended to provoke a response. It either would or would not get one, but either way it would tell them something about Ames: how attentive he was; how good he was at hiding it. In the same vein you might use a name wink, like Olivier de Havilland, to rate your mark's cultural literacy. Sometimes it helps. People think grifters do these things for whimsy, but they don't. There's always a reason.

Ames left the remarkable coincidence unremarked as he forcefully percolated his own personality through detailed elaborations of his newfound love for Austin, Texas. To Radar, Adam's nonversation appeared almost formulaic. No, it
was
formulaic. 1) Name an Austin trait or landmark. 2) Express admiration for one of its qualities. 3) Make a self-deprecating joke. 4) Swear loyalty.

He did this four times.

“I mean, the
food
in this town? I had ribs at the Salt Lick. Seriously delicious. But I'd better be careful.” He patted his stomach. “Flab city, right? Anyway, the locals tell me that Artz's is the real deal for barbecue. I can't wait to try them all.

“Hook 'em Horns, yeah? Big 12 champions, baby. If I had a spare arm and a leg, I'd get season tickets.

“South by Southwest, does anything rock harder? Not that me and my tin ear would know. Still, great for the city, huh?”

And so on.

Radar felt his mind starting to go numb. Was that Ames's intention? To make his own bafflegab so stultifying that Radar lost his edge? Feeling the need to clear his head, Radar retreated to the kitchen where Sarah was chopping salad. “Your guy's in love with Texas,” he said.

“He hasn't been here in summer.” She put down the knife and wiped her hands on a dish towel. “Radar, I'm sorry about barging in last night.” She turned to face him, leaning against the kitchen counter in such a way as to pull her blouse tight across her breasts. Radar could see the high-relief outline of her nipples. “I know I've been acting weird,” she continued. “I can't help it. You…you make me not help it.” She took a step forward. Then, as if winning an internal struggle, she abruptly turned away. “Dinner will be ready soon,” she said. “I'll let you know.” He saw her rub her eye with the back of her hand.

He gave her the kitchen and went back into the living room, where Mirplo had captured the colloquy with his
true fact, bar fact
bit: how there's two classes of reality, things that
are true and things that sound true in bars late at night, and you have to guess which. “For example,” he said, “Napoleon invented Napoleon brandy. True fact or bar fact?”

Ames, forced into the role of indulgent host, pondered for a moment, then said, “True fact?”

“Honestly, I don't know. I think I just made it up, but I might have heard it somewhere. Reality is tricky that way.” And while Ames contemplated the trickiness of reality, Radar found himself almost outside himself, lost in analysis. Adam hadn't risen at all to the “Ames, Iowa” bait. He seemed to be tolerating Mirplo's megaphone move with equal equanimity. In all, he gave not so much as a hint that anything here was anything other than what it was. Maybe they needed a stronger sort of probe.

Merging into the Mirplovian flow, Radar diverted the discussion back around to Adam's honeymoon with Texas. “It's not a honeymoon,” said Ames. “It's true love. This state and I are going all the way. You don't know it, Radar, but I'm out there every day, meeting people, getting the lay of the land.”

“Meeting folks,” corrected Radar.

“Excuse me?”

“Around here you don't meet people, you meet folks.”

“Okay, well, thanks for the tip.”

“Will it be easy to pull up stakes?”

“What?”

“No ties that bind left behind?” This was a nod to Raluca. It said,
I know about the girlfriend, friend, and you don't know how much more I know.
Radar searched Adam's eyes for a flicker of acknowledgment—and got it! For a split-second, a
different person was present there, a man of Adam's true past, not his ingenuine present.

But the flicker died and Ames said, “Nope. This ol' cowboy is footloose and fancy free.”

“Then welcome to Texas, cowboy. Someone get the man a yellow rose.”

A few minutes later Sarah served the meal, a spicy salchicha lasagna that she washed down with quantities of a quaffable Bulgarian red, which went straight to her head and made her the sing-songy life of the party. By the time she brought out her special dessert—homemade strawberry pie, thank you very much—she was calling the wine “Marilyn,” as in Marilyn merlot, and regarding herself as the height of hilarity. As she doled out the pie, she yattered on, summing up the evening and how she thought it was going so far. “We're all having a good time, right?” she said. “A good time?” She handed Radar and Adam their plates. “Friends are friends, bygones have… bywent.” She giggled tipsily, then continued, “So we're all good. We're all all good. And I think that's…” she cast about for the right word “…good.” She cut Allie a robust slice of pie. “Okay, mommy, this is for you, blimp you up right and proper.” She served Allie her plate—and flipped it into her lap. It sure looked like an accident, a triumph of alcohol over motor control, but Radar thought that situational faux clumsiness could not be ruled out. “God, Allie, I'm so sorry!” cried Sarah. “Such a clumsy clod!” She jumped up and immediately improved the situation worse by knocking her sticky pie knife off the table and onto the white condo carpet. At that she started laughing, a defense response to humiliation, and said, “Wow, I should definitely not drink.”
She scooped up the pie knife and grabbed fistfuls of pie out of Allie's lap. “Come on, girl,” she said, “let's get you cleaned up.” She led Allie toward the kitchen and called back over her shoulder. “You boys go out on the balcony. I'll fix this all.”

Ames took Radar and Vic out on the balcony. “In a sense,” he said as he slid the glass door closed behind him, “that was a happy accident. I did want to talk to you men alone.”

Here comes the pitch,
thought Radar. He wondered what Adam would try to hit them up with. He anticipated maybe an insider trading gag or some other sort of can't-miss disinvestment.

He did not expect the Texas Twist.

I
've been talking to a man from a university,” said Ames.

“UT?” asked Radar.

“No, Saligny.”

“Never heard of it,” said Vic.

“It's small. But it's been around forever. Named after a French friend of the old Texas Republic. Its fans are rabid. And it has an interesting problem: money it can't spend.”

“I love that sort of problem,” said Vic.

“Apparently, there are these old endowments that have been on their books for years, money that was donated to the school, but with odd strings attached, terms that couldn't be fulfilled for one reason or another. So they've become orphans in a sense.”

“Poor things,” said Vic. He was rapt. Well, he had a rapt act.

“Some of the endowments are quite strange,” said Ames. “Problematic, you might say. There's one from 1964, a bequest from an actual Ku Klux Klansman to set up a white-studies
think tank on the Saligny campus. Can you believe that? Well, with Lyndon Johnson off in Washington getting the Civil Rights Act passed, no one had the stomach to fund a racist institute, so the money just sat. Technically, that grant is still open, if someone could find a way to meet its conditions. Not that anyone wants to promote racism. But there are medical grants as well, and one of particular interest.”

“And that would be?” asked Radar, playing good cop, daft cop with Mirplo.

“The bequest of Eartha Wilson, widow of a rich alum named Scuggs.”

“Scuggs Wilson,” said Vic, “that's a colorful name. How about Scuggs, Radar? Scuggs Hoverlander?”

“Not now, Vic,” said Radar. He turned to Ames. “Go on.”

“Well, it turns out this woman had a deep and abiding faith in trephination.”

“Trephination?” asked Vic.

“Trepanning,” said Radar. “Drilling holes in the skull to relieve pressure or release bad humors.”

“Yes, exactly,” said Ames. “When she passed away in 1920, she left money to study the science—such as it is—and advance its practice.”

“I doubt you'll be able to get a trepanning chair funded.”

“Obviously no one has been able to. But it's a matter of interpretation. If the donor can be construed to have been interested in brain study in general, then that money can be put to work. You know, Radar, people laugh at me when I say I define myself through service. You yourself had an… adverse reaction, as I recall. But I see a resource like that going
to waste, and I won't put up with it. Not when lives can be saved.” Ames leaned against the balcony railing and stared out over the lake. “For almost a century, Widow Wilson's dream to advance understanding of the human mind has lain fallow. I'm going to make that dream come true. Not through caveman science, of course. Through cutting-edge investigation of the human mind. The Scuggs Wilson Center for Brain Studies. I can make it happen. And Radar, I want you to help.”

“How so?”

“Join me. Be my director of fundraising.” He looked at Vic. “You too, Mirplo.”

“You don't need two directors of fundraising,” said Vic.

“No, of course not. You'll be my head of special projects.”

“I
am
a special projects kind of guy,” Vic conceded.

“I know you are. That's why I want you with me.”

“Why do you need fundraising?” asked Radar. “I thought there was an endowment for the spend.”

“Well, yes, but it seems to require a matching grant.”

“That's one of the conditions?”

“Mm-hmm.”

Radar said nothing. He'd just been handed a Texas Twist, and though he had run the gag many times before, he'd never been on the receiving end of it. He found the sensation quite strange.

In the Texas Twist, a hapless do-gooder is roped into working for a worthy cause. There's never any problem finding such folk, for charity enthusiasts abound: people desperate to give their lives some sense of purpose. Those who take the bait are invited to take on roles of great
responsibility within the worthy cause, but really they're just getting primed for the bleed: the key moment in the con when, for some bafflegab reason, the cause finds itself in sudden need of fast cash. Well, the mook is so passionate and dedicated and do-gooding and all, that he reaches for the first wallet he can find: his own. It's a trope of the Texas Twist that the charity's primary fundraiser is also its chief chump, and for Ames to imply that a grifter as savvy as Radar could be put in that position was really quite insulting. But Radar didn't know if Ames apprehended the gag on that level, so he kept his indignation to himself as he diverted the discourse to, “Special projects. What's that all about?”

“Whatever Mirplo wants,” said Adam. “He's a charming character.
And
a character. Perhaps he'll be our spokesman.” Ames waxed poetic for many long moments about the opportunities that awaited Vic as the public face of the Scuggs Wilson Center. Radar and Vic instantly understood that Vic was being magpied—distracted by something shiny. Radar decided to distract back. “You sure you don't want Dr. Mirplo on your medical staff?” he asked.

The question was so preposterous that it almost blew its own cover. But it also threw Ames. “He…he didn't name his specialty,” stammered Adam. “It would be a huge coincidence if—”

“Neuroscience,” said Vic. He allowed for just a beat of reaction, then said, “Nah, I'm just joshing. It's not neuroscience. Anyway, if Radar's in, I'm in. Whether he goeth, I goeth, too.”