The Texas Twist (33 page)

Radar shook his head. “The Amazing Dr. Mirplo.”

“Ever and always.”

“Come on, let's go get found before their ire cools.”

They moved to an open spot near the Midway and loitered there, looking as much like scared rabbits as two talented grifters intent on looking like scared rabbits can look. It wasn't long before they spotted Ames, Jessup, and the sidewheels moving through the crowd, scanning for them. Jessup wore an expression of implacable fury; Ames seemed to be almost twitching with anxiety.

“He's ticking,” said Vic.

“Let's make him go boom.”

With that, the two of them suddenly and provocatively panicked and took off running. Of course the motion caught Adam's eye. He and the others gave chase.

“So predictable,” said Radar as they ran.

“Candles from babies,” agreed Vic.

Vic and Radar raced past an installation called
Tulpenwoede,
a living model of the tulip mania of the Dutch Golden Age, where tonight hundreds of would-be tulip kings would ride its speculative bubble to riches or ruin. They ran on, past the Olestra and New Coke tasting party and the box wine bar. Outside the
I'm OK, You're OK Corral,
they almost trampled a pair of Siamese Trumps, and that's when Radar very convincingly tripped and went down. Vic looked back, and then he stumbled, too. By the time they righted themselves, Jessup and Ames were upon them, along with the sidewheels, who grabbed them and manhandled them out through a service door leading to the back of the house.

The sidewheels pushed Radar and Vic up against a wall. Jessup brought himself close, staring them down. His face was red and puffy from the effort of chasing them. Ames stood by, just watching, his control of the moment overwhelmed by the juggernaut of Jessup's rage. “Can we assume,” growled Jessup, “that I am of serious intent? Can we assume that I'm the sort of man who will do what must be done?”

Radar said nothing. Vic squeaked, “We can.”

“Okay, then. So now it's just a question of how hurt you want to be, and that's on a scale of none to all. Adam saw your money. He says there's a hundred grand, and that'll do me fine for a clusterfuck like this. So let's take a walk.”

They took it: a short walk back to meeting room 23, where Vic pulled out his card key, opened the door, and did his level best to look shocked and amazed at the discovery that his cargo bag was gone.

“Wha—?” he said.

“Where's the money?” demanded Ames. “The vests. Where are they?”

“Well, gone,” said Mirplo sadly, and with finality. “Gone with the wind.”

“Or more precisely,” added Radar, “with Wellinov.”

“What do you mean?” asked Jessup.

“Vic gave him a card key.”

“He's old,” explained Vic. “He needed a place to chill. How was I to know he'd go walkabout?”

“How do we know this wasn't your plan all along?” asked Ames.

Jessup turned to his partner and asked in a cold voice, “And how do I know you ain't in on it?”

“What? Cal, no, that's ridiculous.”

Jessup glared at Ames, and Radar saw the smaller man wilt under the Texan's threatening gaze. They saw Jessup's fist go up.

Just then Kadyn walked in. “Ease up, cowboy,” she told Cal. “The money ain't gone far.” She opened her library book and pulled out her Serengeti. “And who says I can't track it?”

“You GPSed his vest?” asked Radar, seemingly incredulous.

Kadyn hooked her arm in Jessup's. “All part of the service.”

Jessup looked pleased. “Ain't she a pip?” He said to Kadyn, “Lead on, little gal.” As Kadyn led the little group down the hall to the elevators, Jessup asked her, “How did you know the old guy took the money?”

“Oh, I told him to,” she said brightly.

“What?” asked Ames, perplexed. “Why the hell would you do that?”

Jessup grabbed a fistful of Adam's Joker coat. “Y'all don't use that tone of voice, hear?” He released Ames and turned back to Kadyn. “Just the same, honey.…”

“The money was in their control.” She indicated Radar and Vic. “I thought it'd be better off in ours.”

Jessup nodded. “Makes sense. You're a smart young filly.”

“I am, ain't I?”

“Modest, too. But full of good ideas.”

“Speaking of which,” she said, “here's one you're gonna love.” She leaned up to whisper in Jessup's ear.

Jessup listened at length and then said, “Yep, indeed I do.” He turned to the sidewheels and said, “Come here you
boys, I got a job for you.”

“Hey,” said Adam, “those are my guys.”

“And you don't mind lendin' 'em to me, do you?” Jessup's tone dared Ames to cross him, and he backed down. Then Jessup said something to the men in a low voice. They nodded and briskly walked away.

Kadyn, meanwhile, had come to a halt in front of the service elevators. She was looking at her tablet with a perplexed expression. “I don't get it,” she said. “According to the GPS, he should be right around here.” She contemplated the reading for another moment, then snapped her fingers. “Of course!” she said. “Right place, wrong height.” She summoned an elevator, and in a moment they were heading down to the bottom level of the underground parking garage. There they found a utility door propped open. It led to the convention center's engineering space and physical plant. Kadyn glanced at her GPS and said without looking up, “He's in there.”

“Well,” said Cal, “let's go give 'im a howdy.”

They walked the length of an industrial space lined with repair bays and equipment rooms. At its dead end they found a small vestibule surrounded by chain-link cages in which thrummed giant air conditioning compressors. In the middle of the vestibule lay the cargo bag.

With Sarah kneeling beside it, rifling its contents.

She turned at the sound of their footsteps, stood, and said, “God, there you are! I've been looking all over for you!” Then she held her nose and gave the cargo bag a big thumbs down. “That's a waste. There's no money in there.”

Said Adam, “But the vests—”

“Oh, the vests are packed with phony baloney. See for yourself.”

Adam dropped to his knees and inspected the pockets of both vests, finding nothing but a bounty of banking slips. “But I saw.…” He stopped. “Oh.” He looked at Radar. “You?”

“Us,” acknowledged Radar. “The ol' switcheroo.”

“But how?”

“The eyes play tricks,” said Vic with a shrug. “So do reversible vests.”

Ames stood up. “Well, that's that, Cal. There's no money.”

“Is that right?” said Jessup. He pushed his cavalry hat back on his head, evidently not buying anything he was being sold. He asked Sarah, “Darlin', how did you get down here?”

“Well, after you guys ditched me,” she said petulantly, “I wandered out. I thought maybe you were having another meeting in that meeting room. So I went looking. That's when I saw what's-his-name wheeling the bag down the hall. He went down in the elevator and came in here. I was chicken to go in after him, so I waited. After a minute he came out without the bag.”

“Where did he go?”

“How should I know? I didn't follow him, duh. It looked like he stashed the cash in here so he could come back for it later.” She kicked the cargo bag. “But like I said, phony baloney. It was like a, what, a decoy like.”

“A GPS wild goose,” muttered Kadyn. “Okay, that's one for you, old man.”

Ames picked up one of the vests and shook it at Radar. “Where is the money?”

“You mean the money we showed you twice and then romanced out the building?”

“That was a bad mistake,” said Ames. “You shouldn't have done that.”

“Oh, here's a thought,” said Radar calmly. “Why don't we just say ‘good game' and all go home? You tried to play us and it didn't work out, so, ‘good game,' all go home. Hell, I'll even eat the cost of the shindig.”

Jessup said, “Nah, buddy, I know horseshit when I smell it, and I'm smellin' a powerful load of Flicka's finest right now.” His eyes narrowed. He said to Radar, “I want the damn money.”

“Will you settle for sixty seconds of straight talk?”

Jessup considered this. Finally, he said, “No promises. Speak your peace.”

“Okay.” Radar sighed. “Here's what I think. At some point in the past, Adam Ames somehow got on Allie's and my trail. Maybe just Allie's, maybe just mine, I don't know, but whatever, he took it into his head to take us down. It wouldn't be hard to figure we had cash. So he set up a Texas Twist, with a bogus allocation board as its centerpiece and you as his beard. Only problem is, Adam picked the wrong partner: a hard guy who'd insist on getting paid whether the play panned out or not. Then he was stuck, because you could squeeze him but he couldn't squeeze me. So all he could do was roll through the Twist and hope for the best, but he's not very good and he gummed it up. And now here we are, stuck in the fantasy world grifters live in, where a half-billion-dollar promise puts a few hundred grand in play. Only it's not a few hundred, it's only fifty.” Radar picked up one of the vests
and idly peeled back the black sheath, showing the harlequin camouflage. “I made it look like twice as much, but that was just to get under Adam's skin.” He looked at Ames. “Sorry, dude, I like getting under skin.” He turned back to Jessup. “The point is, are we going to fight over fifty grand? When we've already dropped the get from the lofty heights of half a billion? Could we be that desperate for a score? I'm not, but I didn't know about you. So instead of fifty grand, I dialed it all the way down to zero. Wellinov's gone. The money is gone. We're sensible men, yeah? We don't fight over zero.”

Jessup looked Radar up and down. “You think you're pretty swift, don't you?”

“I have my moments.”

“Maybe you do at that.” He turned to Ames and said with a contemptuous half laugh, “Shithead. You bought the same damn money twice.” He turned back to Radar. “What'd you call me? A hard guy? I guess I am. I guess I do aim to get paid no matter what. And let me tell you something about little ol' Austin. It ain't as friendly as it sells itself to be. Kind of a locals-only place, when all's said and done.” He hooked a thumb at Ames. “This Yankee asshat screwed up, coming into my town, thinking he could make a score. But guess what, son? You made the same mistake.”

“I'm no threat to you, Cal,” said Radar. “I work out of state.”

“Maybe so, but even so,” and now the threat in his voice was clear, “fellow comes onto my turf, he pays to get off.”

“Blood from a stone,” said Radar. “There's no money here for you.”

Jessup contemplated this for a moment, then seemed to
take the conversation in a different direction. “About y'all's wedding,” he said. “I'm real sorry that got interrupted.” He eyed Kadyn narrowly. “And, darling, you and me's gonna have a long conversation later about why that happened.”

“Cal—”

“No, you be quiet now.” He turned back to Radar. “Thing is, I never got to see the ring. I heard it was a real beaut. Suppose I take a look at it now.”

“No need for that,” said Radar. “It's paste, pure dime store. Part of the playact. I'll get Allie a real one later.”

Jessup put up his hands in mock surrender. “Fine,” he said. “I'll believe it's a fake if that's what you want. But we both know it's not, don't we? Oh, it's not the crown jewel you made it out to be—Savransky cut, whatever the hell that is—but it's easily worth that fifty grand you think I won't fight over.” Jessup fired off another denigrating grin at Ames. “This one here,” he said, “he bought that it was a fake. I wanted to see if you would, too, and if you did would you tell him. When you didn't, that told me how to play you. Now give me back my ring.”

“You're blowing smoke, Cal. Adam's going to end up disrespecting you. We all know that ring's a fake, but it kind of has sentimental value now. If I let you have it, the little woman will have my hide.”

“It's okay, Radar,” said a voice nearby. “The little woman says okay.”

It was Allie.

Radar turned to see her standing at the head of the vestibule, with the sidewheels blocking the exit behind her. Adam and Sarah exchanged looks; they hadn't seen this
coming. As for Allie, she just smiled a wan smile and said to Radar, “You're totally not hurt, aren't you, bub?”

“Of course I'm not hurt. Why would I be?”

Radar turned to Jessup, his eyes flashing with anger. “You sent them to kidnap her, you son of a bitch. That doesn't work for me. Not here, not anywhere.”

Radar balled his fists and took a step toward Jessup, but Jessup just laughed. “Nobody kidnapped anyone,” he said. “They told her a story is all. Ain't my fault if she bought it. Now give me the ring.”