The Texas Twist (5 page)

“Sarah said they'd be back by now. Maybe the appointment ran late.”

“And how is it exactly that we became the neighborhood dog sitters?” asked Vic.

“Emily's cute,” said Allie. “Boy likes her.”

“Boy wants to stomp her,” said Radar. “She won't let him nap.”

“Well, there you go. She's keeping him fit.”

The doorbell rang. Vic flipped down the lid on the clamshell case and slid it under the couch. Allie kissed Radar's cheek. “You're taking this pretty calmly, big guy. You know it's gonna put you through changes.”

“Change is good,” said Radar. “Change is growth.” He turned to Vic and stage-whispered, “Don't worry, I'll freak out later.”

Allie opened the door for Sarah and her son and immediately noticed the sparkle in her neighbor's eyes. “Well, you look happy, Sarah. Good news from the docs?”

“No,” said Sarah, “same news from the docs.” Then she added explosively, “But Allie, I found a cure!”

“What?”

“I mean, not me, I didn't find it, but this fellow did, this man I met.”

As she blurted the detailed tale of Adam Ames, Radar and Vic were soon exchanging looks. Allie intercepted these and said sternly, “It doesn't have to be that.”

“It's that,” said Radar.

“It doesn't have to be,” she repeated, though with less conviction. To Sarah she said, “You'd better come in.” She got Jonah a snack and settled him down with the dogs—dog fur still soothed him. He disappeared back into his music as Radar led Sarah to the couch.

It turns out there really is such a thing as snake oil. It's a homeopathic cure, made from Chinese water snakes and traditionally used to relieve pain because Chinese water snake fat is just dripping with—here comes the big word—eicoapentaenoic acid, which may or may not, you know, relieve pain. Nineteenth-century railroad coolies brought it to the Old West, where it met modern commerce and morphed into what we now know it to be: patent medicine; placebo-effect drugs pimped by fictive testimonials.

Snake oil. It's the first thing you see on display in the Quackery Hall of Fame.

One thing, though: With snake oil, at least there's a product. Radar surmised that this Ames was selling nothing to Sarah but Sarah's own hope. According to the script for this snuke, she would soon be touched up for front money, and if she proved promising, they would settle in and just milk her. They? Of course they. You don't run this scam on your own. There was Adam's nurse friend for starters, plus other friends like her, bird dogs ensconced in medical suites far and wide. These could be honest people even, except that they took cash to steer potential victims Ames's way. Eventually, if needed, there would be the Swiss pathologist, armed with ironclad proof of a cure just a few tantalizing dollars away. It was a pretty straightforward snuke, one of many designed to strip-mine a desperate and vulnerable mother. In scam circles
it was called the Magic Bullet.

A shiver ran through Radar.
Have I done things like that?

I have done things like that
.

Radar studied Sarah. She'd moved into the complex a few months ago, shortly after they had. She was relentlessly peppy, despite her son's condition, and always had a cheery greeting when they met in the elevator or laundry room, or in the parking lot beside the building. Then their pets became playmates—whether Boy liked it or not—and she became a fixture among them. Radar had been leery at first, for it was ever his policy to hold citizens at arm's length. But Sarah and Allie had a relaxing, chatty gal-pal friendship of a type Radar had never known Allie to have before, and for that alone he was willing to make room for Sarah in their lives. For his part, Radar found Sarah's fluffy nature soothing, like dog fur in its way.

Now she's facing a Magic Bullet, and how do you break that bad news? “This Adam Ames,” he began, “don't you think it's a pretty big coincidence that his son had your son's same rare disease?”

“But he explained that,” said Sarah. “He's been looking for people like me.”

“He's always looking for people like you,” said Radar. “He knows how desperate you are.”

“I don't understand.”

Vic cut bluntly to the chase. “Sister, he's a con artist. He doesn't have a cure. He'll let you believe he does, and make you pay for your belief. Has he asked you for money?”

“No.”

“He will.”

Sarah's mouth formed a small o as the allegation sank in. “But that's horrible,” she said. “Who would do a thing like that?”

“It doesn't matter,” said Radar a bit too quickly. “The important thing is to cut him off right away. Don't initiate contact. If he contacts you, tell him you've lost interest. You can't let him get his hooks in.”

“But what if he really does have a cure?”

“He doesn't.”

“How do you know?”

“We…” said Allie, “we know people like this.”

“You
associate
?” With a word, Sarah conveyed her shocked contempt.

“Hey, now,” said Vic, but with a look from Radar he put his affront back in his pocket.

“Sarah, I'm sorry,” said Allie. “He's selling smoke.”

“But what if he's not? I can't leave this stone unturned. I can't leave any.”

“Sarah.…”Allie reached out a hand.

Sarah practically slapped it away. “No. No, I have to know.”

“You'll just be wasting your money.”

“So? I'd spend every cent I had to save Jonah. Wouldn't you if it were your son?”

Radar and Allie exchanged looks. For the first time in their lives, such a question was not rhetorical. Nevertheless, “That's the attitude they want,” said Radar. “It's what they feed on.”

“Feed on? You make him sound like a vulture.”

“He is.”

“No, he's not. I
know
he's not. I looked him in the eye.”

“So he's a skilled vulture,” said Vic.

Tears welled up in Sarah's pale blue eyes. “I don't understand why you want to hurt me like this.”

“Honey,” said Allie, “we're not trying to hurt you.”

Sarah angrily rose to her feet and brought Jonah out of his iPod. “Come on, Jonah, let's go.”

Radar knew that this friendship hung in the balance. Under other circumstances, he'd have cut ties without a single backward glance. But this was different. If they didn't act, she'd be hurt, badly hurt, not in just her wallet but her soul.

Is it the goodness virus?

What the hell, she's a friend
.

Radar said suddenly, “We'll meet him.”

Sarah sniffed. “What?”

“If he contacts you again. We'll be your well-meaning friends. The skeptics, you know? If he's in the game, he'll expect skeptics and have a script for them.”

“Script?”

“A set of steps to get your money.”

“And you'll recognize this…script?” Radar nodded. Said Sarah, “What kind of people are you?”

Allie said, “Not the kind you think.”

Sarah sagged. “An hour ago I was so happy.” Allie crossed to her and held her in an embrace. Sarah pulled back and looked in her eyes. “Is there any chance you're wrong?”

“There's always a chance,” said Allie.

“That's all I need,” said Sarah. “All I need is a chance.”

Q
uick in, quick out,” said Radar. “We get next to this guy, move him off Sarah, move on with our lives.”

Radar, Vic, and Allie had gone out to a nearby Rudi's Eatateria for a skull session and some awesome chili pot pie. Under the table, Radar's hand kept creeping up Allie's leg. It couldn't help itself, that hand. It felt giddy. “What's our script?” asked Allie, not so much ignoring his hand as refusing to dignify it with a response.

“Just like I said. Skeptical friends. Our Sarah blew in all bubbly; we just want to make sure the bubbles are justified.”

“This Adam Ames,” said Mirplo, “shouldn't we Google him first?”

“Already have,” said Radar. “He returns exactly as Sarah saw him. Citizen, widowed father.…”

“Wait, widowed?” asked Allie. “Sarah said he was divorced.”

“Maybe she misremembered,” said Radar.

“True,” intoned Vic. “Witness memory is crap, this we know.” He cocked his head at his own thought, then pulled from his hip pocket a small Hello Kitty notebook and a pen, and laboriously inscribed,
Witness memory is crap, this we know.

“What are you doing?” asked Radar.

“Starting my book.”

“You're writing a book?” asked Allie. “About what?”

“This. Us. Life on the razzle. How grifters roll.”

“It's a memoir?”

“Maybe. Maybe a how-to. Maybe a novel. I haven't made up my mind.”

“Uh-huh. And when did you decide to write this book?” asked Allie.

“Just now,” said Vic. “When I said that aphormism about witnesses. I thought, ‘That's good. Someone should write that down.' So I did.”

“And the notebook?” asked Radar.

“Oh, I started carrying it.”

“What for?”

“In case I decide to write a book. Come on, Radar, keep up.” Radar didn't keep up; he gave up. At a certain point, Mirplovian logic becomes so circular that there's no sense in following it. You're much better off just staying in one place and waiting for it to swing back around. He and Allie exchanged the looks of indulgent parents as, unbidden, Radar's hand went scurrying back up Allie's thigh. That was one happy hand. Fatherhood, it seemed to be saying, would suit it fine. Allie was happy with the happy hand, but she wondered how it would feel when the giddy wore off. The truth is revealed under pressure, Allie knew, and this would be a new kind of pressure for the
man she loved, a man whose own childhood—dead mom, disconnected dad—left lots to be desired in the department of love. Not that hers didn't—all those foster homes, all those mauling foster fathers—so it was new ground for them both. It didn't feel like shaky ground right now, but of course that could change.

“So maybe that's a hole in his docket,” said Radar, returning his brain's, if not his hand's, attention to the apparent inconsistency in Adam's story, “and maybe we can dig there. But whatever we find, we don't make a big deal about it. We just help Sarah disengage. If this guy's on the snuke that's fine, his affair. We just want him to snuke elsewhere. He doesn't need to know anything about us.” Radar indicated Vic's notebook. “He can read about us later when we're a bestseller.”

“Anyway,” said Allie, “widowed or divorced, how does he present to the world?”

Radar woke up his tablet computer, the latest generation Grape with its distinctive purple synthetic rubber frame and ergonomic teardrop form. He started off by showing them Adam's handmade website, a static offering of financial services, evidently created many years ago and barely updated since. Next came a Facebook page, a tribute to the departed Dylan with hopes of heaven and statements of Adam's dream to give back. Surfing on, Radar pointed out a couple of online medical-discussion forums where Adam's name had popped up; someone wondered if Ames was on the level, a question to which no one had replied. The website didn't strike Allie or Vic as particularly fishy, but that didn't mean much. It could easily have been an artifact of an earlier snuke, or for that matter
something recently created and anchored to an heirloom URL in order to backpredict a credible narrative. All three of them could do that sort of work before breakfast. As for the tribute to the son, there was nothing in the language that definitively linked Dylan's tale to any particular hospital or medical institution. To the casual eye, it seemed to be the heartfelt and intimate grief of a bereaved dad, long on emotion and therefore plausibly short on detail. To a more jaundiced eye (of which this particular table seated six), it conveniently blocked any tangible avenue for further investigation. And the discussion boards? Either dead ends or misleads designed to look like dead ends. You couldn't tell. These days, any decent grifter could create a solid, internally consistent online reality. It meant nothing and proved nothing, any more than a bogus badge proved you were a cop.