The Texas Twist (28 page)

Charles Darwin? Well, when you think about it, everyone is someone's idea of a fool.

At the entrance to the Midway stood a money wheel, blatantly offering even-money payouts on ten-to-one longshots. Only a fool would take that action, so of course it was already thronged, especially because, as the sign above it announced,
All Proceeds Go to the Benefit!
Radar loitered near the money wheel, watching the passing parade. Uncle Fester. Bertie Wooster. The Doctors Doolittle, Who, and Daneeka. And then, oh lovely, a whole ship of fools, each with an albatross (well, rubber chicken) around his neck. Radar saw enough fools in motley to field a football team, especially if you counted those who decided that a jester stick and two
dabs of makeup were all the costume they could muster. A full Spike Jones band marched up the Midway playing the crap out of “You're a Sap Mister Jap.” There were Beetle Bailey with his Sarge and Gomer Pyle with
his
Sarge. Was that Colonel Kilgore loving the smell of napalm in the morning? And who would be foolish enough to wrap himself in a Nazi flag, saying over and over again, “First, we kill ze Jews”? Radar pitied the fool who had realized too late that he'd sentenced himself to playing Hitler all night—worst costume ever. But when a singing quartet of Don Quixote, Sancho Panza, Dulcinea, and a windmill tilted past, he set his mind at ease for the state of humanity's creativity, or at least its party cleverness.

“See, Radar?” an arch voice beside him said. “Other people are as half-witty as you.” Radar turned to see Sarah standing there, dressed in something of a cleavage-spilling toga. She wore flowers in her hair and a golden torque around her neck, and she carried a small cedar chest with a brass clasp and a baby doll padlock.

“Pandora?” he guessed.

“Oh, very good,” she said. “Go to the head of the class. Wanna peek in my box?”

“Thanks, I'll pass.”

“Of course you will,” she said smugly. “You're Radar Fucking Hoverlander, too good for everything and everyone. Hell, you can't even play along at a party. You know, Radar, I don't think you realize it, but you have a really big stick up your ass.”

“Is that right?”

“Uh-huh. It took me a while to figure it out, but I did. So I'm just here to tell you: Have fun, fool, you're not going
to spoil my night.” She kissed his cheek, then lasciviously licked it, and sauntered off exactly like a lady who'd gotten over a man. A little too exactly, thought Radar. That didn't feel like Sarah at all. It felt like a pulled string. He looked around to see if Ames was watching, but couldn't spot him. This proved nothing; many guests wore masks.

Radar drifted up the Midway. It wasn't too crowded yet, but you could see that it would be later, with long, snaking lines for fried Twinkies and funnel cakes further serving to impede pedestrian flow. Just beyond the Midway he found an Adam Sandler retrospective and paused to watch loops from
Happy Gilmore
and
The Waterboy.
That's where Allie caught up to him, and the sight of her took his breath away. She simply dazzled, from her elaborate coif to the diamonds on the soles of her shoes, and all he could think to say was, “I thought it was bad luck to see the bride.”

“Screw that,” said Allie. “Have you heard the klezmer band? They're hot like sun. Let's go dance.”

“Allie, we're not here to—”

She leaned in and whispered, “I know what we're here for, Radar, but the night is young, and this is called letting the game come to you, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“So let's go dance.”

She led him to the end of the Midway, where a yellow brick road led past a kaleidoscope of installations, one of which was a shtetl courtyard, very Old World, very
Fiddler on the Roof.
Later tonight there would be a pogrom, but for now the
klezmerim
made merry on a low stage of hay bales, ensnaring costumed madcaps in their driving 2/2 beat. Odd
pairings hoofed around the dance floor: Ratso Rizzo and Joe Buck with Papa Smurf and Smurfette; a massively fat Falstaff and a bevy of blonde cheerleaders, all wearing short skirts and none wearing undies. The Emperor's New Clothes romanced Lady Godiva, and both costumes were completely authentic. It was that kind of party already.

The music slowed. Allie pulled Radar in close—as close as her nascent baby bump allowed—and started whispering in his ear. Not sweet nothings; the dredged memory of her ancient encounter with Ames. He took in the news and danced with her in silence for a moment, processing. At last he said softly, “Didn't we suspect this was a revenge tip?” She nodded. “Okay, then nothing has changed. The truth is revealed under pressure, and everything we're up to tonight is about using pressure to get truth.” He touched his forehead to hers. “We trust our script,” he said. “We end this tonight.”

Radar essayed a confidence he didn't entirely feel. After all, he'd mapped out his moves to the best of his ability and hoped they would have the intended destabilizing effect. But there's a difference between putting the mark
on
the wobble and just
near
the wobble. If Ames bent but didn't break.…

He put the thought out of his mind.
Trust your script,
he told himself, and he danced with his bride-to-be.

The music heated back up, and the couple heated with it, so that they both wore a sheen of sweat by the time the set ended and the band took a break. As they walked off the dance floor, a flash of clashing colors caught Radar's eye: the purple trench coat, blue swallowtail jacket, green hair, and deviled eyes of the Joker—and damned if it wasn't Adam Ames, standing there rigid, glaring at them. Sarah stood by
his side, her cedar chest tucked under her arm. The sight of Ames chilled Radar, for looking at Adam's chosen role, that of a cartoon psychopath, you'd have to conclude that Mr. Nice Guy had been given the night off. Then Radar chided himself, for all Ames's costume choice really revealed was a lack of imagination on his part. The Joker was practically the first fool that came to anyone's mind. As if to prove the point to himself, Radar scanned the dance floor and spotted three other Jokers, including one in the klezmer band. It was a common costume.

Stay on your script, Radar. Trust your script. You have this under control.

Adam and Sarah vectored over to meet them. Radar expected Ames to make at least a vague attempt to inhabit his character, but he seemed to know nothing about the Joker, his mannerisms, motivations, backstory, or riffs. He just asked in a low, dark voice, “Do you have the money?”

“Wow,” said Radar, “so much for foreplay.”

“You're the one who doesn't believe in preambles.”

“True,” said Radar, “but we're not all here yet.”

“Here come more of us,” said Sarah brightly. She pointed to an archway that separated the shtetl courtyard from the splashy chromatic landscape of the next installation over,
Pepperland,
where Jeremy Hilary Boob, the original Nowhere Man, battled an array of Blue Meanies. Framed against that display's resplendent spray of jelly-bean colors stood Vic Mirplo, looking like something straight off a tarot deck. He wore leather ankle boots, yellow tights, and
calzon flojos
: loose shorts that billowed out around his waist like a poltroon's pantaloons. Having accessorized the look with
a feathered cap, a bindle, and a beaming smile of radiant stupefaction, he struck a momentary pose, then walked up to join them.

“Well, Mirplo,” said Radar. “I should have known.”

“But what else?” asked Vic. “The Fool. Forever seeking enlightenment. Forever walking off his cliff.” He pointed across the ballroom to another installation,
Dave's Drink
'
n' Drive Dive
, where the house specialty was always one too many. “It's not too crowded over there yet,” he said. “We can talk.” As they walked over, Radar surreptitiously eyed the custom job Vic had done on his vest, first inverting it, then dolling up the lining into kind of a harlequin camouflage. It fit perfectly with the rest of his look and seemed to serve no other purpose than that.

Mirplo led them into the Dive—and pulled up short, for there was Kadyn, sitting at a table, her legs primly crossed at the ankle, looking like the librarian of his most moist adolescent fantasy. She sported horn-rim glasses, a starched white blouse, blue wool skirt, and sensible shoes. With her hair pulled back in the severest of buns, you could almost feel her rapping your knuckles with a ruler. To Vic it was the most deeply erotic thing he'd ever seen in his life. If he wasn't a goner before, he was sure a goner now.

She held a prop paperback—a case for her Serengeti—and closed it as she rose and moved to join them. Vic's heart melted at the sight of her naked knees. Ames, however, once again cut brusquely to the chase. “You,” he barked. “Where's Jessup?” Kadyn darkened at his tone of harsh unceremony, but Radar took heart, for Adam's no-nonsense stance actually betrayed the nervousness of a man who wasn't sure where
he stood in the snuke. And that was good. It raised the possibility that Ames was putting the wobble on himself.

“Cool your jets,” said Radar, matching Adam harsh for harsh. “He'll be along. We don't need him yet.”

“Well, we need Wellinov,” said Ames. “And where the hell is he?”

“Hanging out,” said Vic, waggling a key card. “Someplace quiet. He thinks it's too noisy in here.”

“Ha,” said Sarah. “Wait till later.” She looked around, admiring, at the swelling crowd of revelers. “I think the roof's gonna come off.” This comment earned her a glower from Ames. “What?” she said. “It's a party, isn't it? Can't I have fun?” She gestured with her little cedar chest. “Careful, I'll open my box.”

Ames looked like he wanted to say something, but then apparently decided that the best thing to do with Sarah was ignore her.

Meanwhile, Mirplo was staring balefully at Kadyn. “So,” he said in a flat monotone, “Jessup's your date? Well, good times there, huh?”

She gave him a cold look and said, “What's your problem, Fool?”

“No problem,” he said in a voice betraying not the slightest hint of conviction. “I'm happy as a cow in Calcutta.”

“Oh, please.” She kissed him hard, then pulled off his cap and tousled his hair. “My sweet dummy,” she said. “He's a
date,
nothing more. Now, no more jealousy, okay?”

Mirplo said nothing. The shape of his mouth said he wanted to buy it but wasn't sure he could.

“What's that all about?” Ames asked Radar.

“The vicissitudes of true love,” Radar replied in a whisper. He glanced at Sarah, then gave Ames an elbow nudge. “I don't have to tell you what a rocky road that is.”

Ames seemed not at all happy to be tarred with the brush of true love. “Whatever,” he said. “Let's get this damn show on the road.”

More self-inflicted pressure,
thought Radar. And in a voice tinged with pugnacity, he demanded, “What's your hurry, man? All you've got to do tonight is collect the green and get it where it's going. That won't take too long, will it?” Adam said nothing. “So let's slow down, let the moment breathe.” He looked around. The pulse of the party was definitely starting to quicken. “Apart from everything else, this little bash is shaping up to be a major earn. Doesn't that excite you?”

“All that excites me is getting Jessup paid.”

“Okay, Joker,” said Radar with a sigh. “Have it your way.” He turned to Mirplo. “Vic?” At a nod from Radar, Vic turned over the card key.

“Room 23,” said Vic. “We'll be along shortly.”

Ames grunted and led Sarah away. She wanted to stop and ogle a deliciously muscular Rocky Horror, but Ames grabbed her elbow and steered her swiftly past.
Yep,
thought Radar,
close to the edge.

Getting closer all the time.

In meeting room 23, the redoubtable Henry Wellinov inspected his wizardy garb. It presented somewhat less well here than it would have in the forgiving light of the darkened ballroom—but then again, it was never intended to present as anything other than the slapdash haberdashery
of the borderline daft. Here, under stark fluorescents, the verdict was especially grim, highlighting every strained seam of his black velvet robe and the crude haste of the runes and pentagrams he'd chalked on it. In places the velvet was worn shiny and smooth, evidence of repeated Halloween rentals or hard low-budget movie use. His shoes were brown brogans dusted liberally with glitter and tricked out—who knew why?—with cardboard wings. The conical stiff satin hat decorated with moon and stars was pure cliché, and the wand, well, the wand was a chopstick.

At the sound of a card key slotting in, Wellinov turned toward the door and struck a frankly ridiculous pose. As Adam and Sarah entered, he raised the chopstick high above his head and demanded, “Frog or newt!”

“What?” asked Ames, taken aback by Wellinov's nonsensical mien.

“Frog or newt!” Henry repeated. “Which would ye be turned into?”

“Oh, it's a game,” said Sarah. She smiled indulgently at the old man. Though she barely knew him, she found him charming—just as marks had been finding Woody Hoverlander charming for a half century or more. “Well, newt,” she said.