by John Vorhaus
Radar arrived at the office to find Vic proofing posters, wall cards, handbills, web pages, and evites for the foundation’s fete, the magniloquently named Inaugural First Annual April Fool’s Fundraising Celebratiathon and Auction: A Fool and His Money Are Soon Partying. “That’s a mouthful,” said Radar. “You sure folks won’t write it off as a joke?”
“Nope. They’ll be charmed ’n’ disarmed.”
“And how are we going to pay for it?”
“What, this part? This is legitimate enterprise. It pays for itself.”
“I don’t know,” said Radar, still dubious. “It seems a bit much.”
“Anything that’s worth doing is worth overdoing, my friend. You’ll see.”
Radar noticed the call for costumes—Come As Your Favorite Fool—along with attendant examples: Dan Quayle, the Three Stooges, and, with smug self-reference, Mirplo himself. “Costumes, too, I see,” said Radar.
“Oh, yeah. You’ll want to look your best, man. You’d better put your thinking cap on.” Vic considered his own statement, then said, “Of course, you could just wear a thinking cap.”
Radar studied Vic’s promotional mélange. In true Mirplovian fashion, it was six ways over the top, but he had to cede to Vic the savantry of knowing what would draw a crowd. The amazing Mirplo had long since ceased to amaze. Now he just got things done.
At that moment the office door opened and Kadyn stepped in, followed in stride by Adam Ames and a rugged, leathery, ten-gallon Texan that Radar and Vic didn’t know. He was a large, stocky man wearing Austin-standard boots and jeans, a snap-button shirt strained by his gut, and a bolo tie adorned with a chunk of turquoise that could choke a tortoise. Radar and Vic didn’t need to be told that this was Adam’s inside man. He had allocation board written all over him.
And he had his eye on Kadyn. “Are you in school, little cowgirl?” he asked from the condescending depths of a drawl.
“Part-time.”
“Mmm, you got a little ol’ part-time for me?”
Kadyn’s look may have been intended to wither him, but it seemed just to bounce off the man as he moved in and more or less occupied the room.
“Everybody,” said Ames, “this is Cal Jessup.”
“How’s university life, Mr. Jessup?” asked Radar, immediately regretting it, for that sort of demonstrative self-indulgence had no place in an orderly snuke.
But Ames just nudged Jessup and said, “Told you. Misses nothing. Radar, will you join us?” Ames led Radar and Jessup into his office and closed the door. At the reception desk, Kadyn opened her Serengeti and activated YvesDropp, and with wireless earbuds she and Mirplo went about their work, listening in on the conversation like catching the local news.
Inside the office, Ames offered his guests Dollar Tree bottled water and made a self-consciously self-deprecating (and therefore largely unsuccessful) joke about how frugal he was. Once they were settled, he said, “So, Radar, as usual, you seem to be further ahead in the textbook than anyone, you with that crafty mind of yours. What do you think is Mr. Jessup’s business here today?”
Radar figured that Jessup was here to detail conditions of the grease, but having oversold his cleverness once, he wasn’t about to do it again, so he said, “Adam, I have no idea.”
“Shame,” said Ames. “I was hoping we’d get another wild theory about scoundrel code or whatnot.” To Jessup he said, “Radar has some jaundiced views. I think his brain must be a difficult place to live.” He turned back to Radar. “Well, as it turns out, he’s here to talk to you. There are some particulars concerning the matching funds that he needs to discuss.” Yep, detail the grease. “And, well, you understand numbers better than I do, I think.”
The intercom crackled to life. “Mr. Ames,” said Kadyn, “Mr. Wellinov is here.”
“Be right out.” Ames stood up. “Well, Radar, this is your meeting. Mine’s out there.” He smiled. “I’m taking our new best friend to lunch.” He started to leave, then suddenly, theatrically, chuckled. “Wellinov,” he said. “You know, I didn’t get that at first.”
Ames departed. Jessup pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “Y’all don’t mind if I smoke?” He went to the window and opened it. “Oh, out the window, of course. And don’t tell me it’s illegal, I already know. I fought that ordinance tooth and tongs, I can tell you.” He lit up. “I love Austin, but it’s gone and got infested. Too many damn lib’rals with too damn many rules.”
“Liberals with rules?”
“What, you don’t think? No smoking. No chaw. No plastic bags. No whale hunting inside city limits.”
Radar chuckled, as much at Jessup’s effort as at the joke.
“Know which one’s the funniest? Nuclear-free zone.” He pronounced it “nucular,” George Bush style, and Radar wondered if that wasn’t a bit of misdirectomy on Cal’s part, designed to make him look less swift than he was. “There’s a sign, you know. I seen it. Right outside of town. ‘Austin is a nuclear-free city.’ Like some Jihad Johnny with a dirty bomb gonna pay any attention to that.” He shook his head. “Funny ol’ world.”
“So, Mr. Jessup.…” said Radar.
“Mr. Jessup’s my daddy. Call me Cal.”
And with that, Call Me Cal laid out the, as it were, proposed fiduciary relationship between Adam’s foundation and Saligny University. He started by showing Radar a plastic-protected copy of the original Wilson Trust deed, the one that detailed Widow Wilson’s terms and conditions. It was, thought Radar, a very authentic-looking document. Which meant next to nothing; it’s not like period paper and inks were hard to come by. Nevertheless, he gave the supposedly ancient conveyance the attention that Jessup intended it to deserve. After he’d read it, they discussed its stipulations. The allocation board, Jessup said, was satisfied that Adam’s proposal honored the intent of the trust. “That is,” said Jessup, “they might could be satisfied. But that’ll depend on the matching funds. Ain’t no way I can release the full endowment ’less I can show the board a partner in earnest.”
“How earnest?”
“Something in six figures.”
“And when we say earnest, are we to gather that we mean cash?”
Jessup took a drag and blew a smoke ring out the window. “We are, sir. And may I say I’m right pleased that you can say so so frankly.” He cocked his thick chin toward the door, which Radar took to infer Ames. “I know that one understands, but he plays so high and mighty. Can’t talk straight with the man. I like a man I can talk straight to. Round here, bein’ that kind of man really pays off.” Again he looked toward—through—the closed door. “His kind, they don’t last.”
“Then why are you backing him?”
“Oh, business is business, son. That million bucks has been on the books too long.”
“Million?” Radar almost blurted Is that all? And even though he didn’t, his dismay was easy for Jessup to read: A million dollars was too small a sum to warrant a six-figure kickback.
“It was a million at the start,” drawled Jessup. “Back in 1920. It’s been managed well since. It’s worth nigh half a billion now.” Radar gave the sum a respectful whistle, but he knew then that he’d been played, set up to reveal just what he’d revealed: knowledge of how to price a bribe. Score one for Cal. Radar didn’t like anyone scoring one.
Jessup went on talking and puffing, puffing and talking, lighting one cigarette after another off the dying stub of the last and lining up the butts like toy soldiers on the window sill. “So, understandably, we ain’t lettin’ the trust go for cheap. Now your ol’ boy out there, he stumbled onto a play he could make. He found hisself a pot of legal, free money that’ll set him up for life, or for however long he wants to pretend he’s doing a damn thing with it.”
“Won’t there be some oversight? To make sure the center’s properly run?”
“Aw, hell, the board don’t care about that. It ain’t their money. But they damn sure gonna get their taste, and that’s a point seems lost on your boy. Now I�
�m counting on you to get it found.”
“In cash.”
“Yep. To show the board y’all are serious about bringing a world-class brain operation to little ol’ Austin.”
“And you speak for the entire board?”
“Them as matters. We all on the same page on this. Sauce is sauce.” Jessup stubbed out his last cigarette on window glass. “But sauce there will be.” With a sweep of his hand he knocked the entire line of butts down onto the street below. “Littering,” he said, shaking his head. “Look at me, ain’t I a felon?”
Jessup strode to the door and threw it open. Vic and Kadyn had hastily removed their earbuds and Kadyn was back at her desk. The big man tipped his hat to her on the way out. “Little lady,” he said. “You sure I can’t take you out someplace nice? Paris? My place?”
“That’s a sweet offer,” she said. She reached across the desk and adjusted Jessup’s bolo tie, playfully sliding it up his neck so far so fast that he had to pull her hands away to keep from being playfully choked. “But I think I’m gonna pass.”
Jessup glared at her as he loosened his tie and walked out.
“That wasn’t exactly nice,” said Vic.
“You kidding?” said Kadyn. “Guys like him, that just keeps ’em coming back for more.”
“Where’s Ames?” asked Radar.
“Out with his pal Henry Wellinov,” said Vic. He tapped his skull. “Ames could tell right away that the old guy’s not all there. But Henry told Ames that he sees you as a—how did he put it?—man of destination. And damned if he doesn’t want to get down a bet on brain science.”
“His answering machine’s set on announce only,” said Kadyn with a mischievous grin. “It’s gonna be a tough lunch.”
Indeed it was. Down the street at a Chinese deli, Adam Ames listened with growing impatience as the lavishly unraveled Henry Wellinov ootled randomly from thought to disconnected thought, with no nod to causal connection or the niceties of polite conversation. Just now, and for no discernible reason, he was talking at length about his grandson’s bar mitzvah. “Of course I gave the little pudwhacker cash, and that’s lots, sir, lots and lots. A wad this thick.” Henry aggressively poised his thumb and forefinger two inches apart, and two inches from Adam’s nose.
“Cash says you care,” offered Ames.
“Damn right it does.” This sent Wellinov off on a rant about, as near as Ames could tell, overdue library books, how people’s failure to return them showed the depth of the country’s moral decay. Then came something about his ex-wife, how she wouldn’t go down on him with a gun to her head. Then his spin class. Some guy he knew in high school. How his kids never call. The lameness of professional wrestling. Comparative creation myths around the world. And on and on and on. At last Ames could stand it no more and cut Henry off in the midst of his discursive assertion that genetically modified crops were a national menace on the order of fluoridated water.
“Mr. Wellinov,” said Ames, “Henry. I need you to focus on me.”
Henry ground to a halt. “You don’t care about corn?”
“I care about corn. I’m not going to die from it.”
“You could be disfigured.”
“Mr. Wellinov, please.”
Wellinov blinked. “Go on.”
“Now I gather that Radar told you about our work.”
“Yes. Impressive young man. Impressive. He says you’ll be building buildings. I suppose if I donate you’ll name a wing after me.”
“That’s something we’d consider.”
“I’ll settle for a breast!” Henry guffawed, spewing a bit of spittle on Adam’s shirt. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” said Henry, still chuckling. “I’m funny. Go on.”
Ames went on, all the way down to how he’d prefer to take Wellinov’s contribution in cash.
Henry said, “You’ll give me a receipt for that, right? For the donation?”
“Of course.”
“Then what do I care how you take the dough? Hell, I’ll put ’er in a bushel basket if you like. Just like baby Moses.” And with that, he was off again, explaining at length how the real Bible, the original Bible, had been replaced by early Rosicrucians, and that’s when all the trouble between religions really began. Personally he thought that the almighty God should be a goddess with almighty boobs. Certainly that’s who he worshiped when he was alone.
The conversation never drifted back to the money. Ames couldn’t drag it there, and he honestly wasn’t sure whether they had concluded their encounter at all on the same page. Then, out on the street, after thanking Adam for lunch, Wellinov suddenly said, “You’ll match my donation, of course.”
“What?”
“With cash of your own. For the foundation. As a show of good faith.”
“I thought a receipt was a sign of good faith.”
“This is another.” Wellinov spread his hands. “Well?”
“I…I guess it could be arranged.”
“Then mine can, too.”
Ames smiled sourly and watched Wellinov depart, not at all happy with this last-minute pivot to cash of his own.
In reviewing his performance later, Woody was satisfied with how he had dizzied Ames and then forced a mistake on him. Now he’s agreed to a matching fund to the matching fund, thought Woody merrily. This is starting to get fun. At the same time, he realized that his leverage had come much from the element of surprise and from his decades of practice at this sort of art. You could say that Ames had simply been outplayed by a strong player. But this was just a moment in time. Who knew what Ames would think, or how he’d counter, once he reflected on the meeting and had a heart-to-heart chat with himself?
Woody related this concern to Radar and Vic later when they convened a discreet meeting at a Farmer Boy restaurant well outside of town.
“What, you didn’t have him fully wool-pulled?” asked Mirplo.
“No, just cornered. For the role he’s playing, he couldn’t blow my cover without blowing his own.”
“Either way,” said Radar, “that’s his money in play at a time and a place of our choosing, and to that I say nicely worked, old man.”
“I bask in the glow of your approval.”
On the drive back home, Radar texted Allie and asked if she’d teed up Sarah for him.
I had us both in tears, she texted back. You can be a real bastard sometimes.
It grieved Radar to think of Allie bad-mouthing him, even for the sake of the snuke. But in order to flip Sarah, he had to give her hope: the sort of hope that might come to her if she thought he and Allie had had a big falling-out. Yet here they were, once again creating fabricat conflict for the sake of setting a hook. That’s got to stop, thought Radar. Sets a bad example for the kid.
That evening, Sarah stepped out on her balcony and noticed Radar leaning against his railing a few balconies over, staring out at the lake in a manifestly melancholy mood. They nice-nighted each other with nods. Sarah could tell by the set of his shoulders that he was a man still smarting from a spat, and she mouthed the words, “Are you okay?” He answered by waggling his hand to indicate comme ci, comme ça. Then, boldly, he pointed down to the lakeshore and conveyed the idea that they should meet. She countered with a questioning look, but he just essayed a sad shrug: Why not? She smiled and went back inside.
Five minutes later, Sarah found Radar waiting for her outside the building. He led her north a few hundred yards along a lakeside path until they came to a boat landing, a calm, still place illuminated by a single sodium-vapor streetlamp, where tiny wavelets rippled up twin slabs of slanted concrete and floating Styrofoam bumpers made hollow knocking sounds against a dock. Though it had been warm earlier, it was chilly now. Radar wore a substantial wool greatcoat, but Sarah had on only a short jacket, which she pulled close around her. “This is naughty,” she said through chattering teeth. “Does Allie know you’ve slipped out?”
“I suppose,” said Radar, downbeat. “At this point I don’t think she much car
es. What about Adam?”
“He’s not home from work yet. He’s working so hard.”
“Well, that’s what you want, isn’t it? A hard worker? He’ll make a good husband.”
“Oh, husband. No one’s thinking about that.”
“No? Sarah, you know I’m pretty good at reading people. It wouldn’t be the first time I guessed what’s going on in that pretty little head of yours.”
“Maybe not. But it would be the first time it didn’t feel like an attack.” She turned to face him. “Why is that, Radar?”
“I’ve been rethinking some things,” he said.
“Such as?”
“Such as giving you such a hard time. I’ve done that too much. I want to say I’m sorry.”
“Well, thank you, Radar. You have been a little mean.”
“Are you cold?” he asked. She nodded. “Come here.” Radar opened his coat. She eagerly accepted the invitation, wrapping her arms around him under the coat and resting her head against his chest.
“Mmm,” she said, “that’s more like it.” They stood like this for a moment, then Sarah said, “Adam thinks you hate him.”
“I suppose I do.”
“But see, I don’t get that, Radar. If you’re right about who he is, then you’re just like him, aren’t you? A cowboy? You boys, you all want to be cowboys.”
“Cowboys with different agendas. He tried to hurt you. I suddenly find I don’t like that.”
“Why?”
Here we go, thought Radar. He cupped her chin in his hand and tilted it upward. Then he kissed her as he imagined she imagined he’d kiss her if this moment ever arrived. He kissed her with conviction, vehemence; passion. He kissed to communicate commitment. To inspire loyalty. He kissed to bond. He kissed from his soul, from that place where a man tells a woman he’s hers forever. It was a Captain Kirk kiss, hard enough to flip an alien.