by John Vorhaus
She opened the door wider and peeked out. “It’s okay,” she said. “It’s only Allie.”
Said Sarah, “I thought she was doing bride stuff.”
“So did I,” said Radar. There was an edge of displeasure in his voice—not much, but enough to draw Adam’s and Sarah’s eyes to the door in anticipation of conflict to come. Into that modest moment of distraction, Radar and Vic inserted several actions. Radar flipped his vest inside out and deftly stripped off a tear-away sheath of black fabric, revealing a harlequin lining that was a twin to Vic’s in every respect. Mirplo took the black fabric and Velcroed it into place over his harlequin handiwork. They exchanged vests and then Radar pushed between Ames and Sarah, striding to the door to confront his bride-to-be as she walked in.
“What are you doing here?” Radar demanded.
“Nothing,” she said lightly. “Just joining the fun.”
“There’s no fun here,” he said. “This is business.” Everyone could hear the steely tone in his voice. “Business we agreed would happen without you.”
“You agreed,” she said. “I never did.” She patted his cheek. “Happy wife, happy life, darling. Get used to it.” Then, unexpectedly, she went to Ames and took both his hands in hers. “Adam,” she said, “Radar thinks we should keep this affair strictly on the money tip. He thinks that if you’re not going to address your—” she made a mockery of the next two words “—dark subtext, then neither should we.”
Radar growled a warning, “Allie…” which she ignored.
“I don’t agree. I think we should acknowledge our history.” She touched his chest. It was an intimate gesture. “And have a clear understanding that when this business ends favorably…” she turned to Radar and damn near stuck out her tongue, “… on the money tip, then that history ends, too.”
Now it was Radar’s turn to mock. “What are you, trying to buy him off ? Bribe the bogeyman? Honey, you might as well just light our cash on fire.”
“Radar, please,” said Allie. “It’s better this way. Cleaner.” She turned back to Ames. “Don’t you see it that way?”
Ames stared at her and said levelly, “I do.”
Allie came back to Radar and stood by his side. “There, you see, bub? Water under the bridge.”
“Fine, whatever,” said Radar, seemingly defeated. He nodded to Vic, who handed the vest in his hand to Sarah.
She took it from him and, ignoring the loud lining, began inspecting its pockets. When he was done, she reported, “All here, Adam. Another fifty.”
“Good.” He turned to Radar and said, with surprising sincerity, “Thank you, Radar.”
“What for?”
“For playing this thing straight. I thought you might try some shenanigans with the…‘green,’ as you call it. That would have put me in a tough spot with Jessup. Tougher than you know.” Ames turned to Wellinov. “Now you, sir.”
“Well,” said Henry, “this will take some doing. I’m afraid it never occurred to me that I would have to disrobe.” He removed his ratty velvet vestment, revealing knobby knees, a pair of boxer shorts with Valentine hearts and, over a sleeveless undershirt, a money vest that matched the others, down to the retrofitted black sheath. He tossed it on the table and quickly slipped his wizarding gear back on.
Sarah picked up the vest, surprised by the weight of it. “It’s heavy,” she said.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” said Mirplo. “A hundred grand ain’t a pack of matches.”
Sarah attacked the first pocket with the same kid-on-Christmas glee she’d evinced before. But her face darkened to a scowl as she pulled out its contents. “What are these?”
“Specifically?” asked Wellinov cheerfully. “Bank deposit slips. They fill the pockets nicely, don’t you think?”
Ames blinked twice. “Where is your money?”
“Why, in the bank, of course. Where it belongs.” He reacted to Ames’s gape. “You didn’t really think I was going to bring it here, did you? It’s a party, for goodness sake. I may go home drunk.” He winked at Kadyn. “I might not go home alone.”
“Wh—” Ames started. He stopped, then started again, saying in a low, stern voice, “You made a commitment, sir.”
“True,” said Wellinov. “But then I thought, well, since there’d probably be plenty of cash to go around without mine…” He made a wandy gesture with his chopstick. “I made it disappear.”
“Dude, you’re a fruitcake,” said Vic. “What if we hadn’t brought ours?”
Said Wellinov solemnly, “Ah. Well, that would’ve been a blow to everyone’s credibility.” He paused, then added, “But you did—good lads—so it all worked out. We’ll announce the donations, solicit generous pledges, and then have a wonderful—dare I say magical?—evening.” He turned to Kadyn. “My dear, I understand that you are technically Mr. Jessup’s escort, but I do hope you’ll save me at least a dance. My sambas have been known to seduce.”
Kadyn said nothing, but she did place her hand on his forearm.
“You’re still planning to donate, aren’t you?” asked a visibly shaken Ames.
“But of course. By wire transfer, first thing in the morning.” He patted Kadyn’s hand and grinned wolfishly. “Perhaps second.”
Kadyn smiled prettily, took his hand and held it.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” muttered Vic.
Kadyn shot daggers at him with her eyes. “Now what?”
“No, I just want to know: Are you going to hit on every old fogey in sight tonight?”
“God,” said Kadyn, dropping Henry’s hand. “I thought we had this sorted out.” She went to Mirplo and stood toe-to-toe with him, a smoky, surly look in her eye. “Look, let’s get this straight once and for all. Vic, you’re a nice guy and a funny guy but you don’t call my shots. Who I choose to be with and how I choose to be with them is my affair, and the next time you try to make it yours I will hurt you some. Do you not think I can?” Vic said nothing. Kadyn repeated, “Do you not think I can?”
Sarah gawped and said, “But I thought he was her sweet dummy.” Even Ames seemed enthralled by the sudden soap opera.
Which is why neither of them noticed Radar and Henry switching vests.
Vic held Kadyn’s gaze for a long moment, then collapsed under it. “Sorry,” he said, “I’m sorry. I’m not the boss of you.”
“You’re damn right you’re not.” Kadyn shook her head in evident disgust. She turned back to Wellinov. “You know what, Henry?” she said. “Show me that damn samba.” Kadyn practically shoved Henry out the door. Affecting a look of great surprise—and no small impish delight—he allowed himself to be led away as he clutched his vest—well, a vest—to his chest.
Vic aimed an impotent kick after them as the door slammed shut.
“Wow,” said Sarah, breathlessly. “What was all that about?”
“Didn’t you hear her?” muttered Vic. “I’m not the boss of her.” He slumped against the closed door, seemingly lost in self-pity.
Radar regarded his friend sadly and said without conviction, “She’ll get over it.” Then he turned to face Ames. “Okay, Adam,” he said. “Let’s see your green and get this tired gymkhana over with.” Adam’s face stayed blank long enough and expressively enough for Radar to read it. “Oh, shit,” he said.
“What?” asked Allie.
“Ask him,” said Radar. “Ask Mr. Water under the Bridge. No, don’t bother. I’ll tell you: He stiffed us. He doesn’t have his share.”
“I have it. It’s in the building. It’s just not on me now. You have to admit, that’s just prudent. A layer of protection. In case you decided to.…”
“What? Get frisky with your money?”
“It could happen. Admit it, Radar, you’re not the most reputable of characters. You could say it’s because I respect you that I’m not holding cash.”
“You can’t imagine how honored that makes me feel. So if it’s not here, where is it?”
“Two big men have it.
They’ll be there when we meet Jessup.”
“Two big men,” repeated Radar, shaking his head. It was laughable, but he didn’t laugh. Instead he said, “What makes you think Jessup will hold up his end?”
“Of course he will. Why wouldn’t he?”
“Because he’s a con artist and you’re his mark.”
“Oh, God, Radar, not that old song.”
“Yes, that old song. By process of elimination. Either he’s scamming you or you’re scamming me. Now which is it?”
“For the millionth time, no one is scamming anyone. I don’t even know how you can say that. You’re the one who arranged to pay Jessup in the first place.”
Radar snatched his vest up from the table. “You know, that old man had the right idea, not showing true green. Now he’s on the outside looking in, lucky him. But I did. And Vic did. And that makes us chumps.” He balled the vest in his fist and shook it angrily at Ames. “But you didn’t show true green either, and that means all our deals are off.” He said to Allie and Vic, “Come on, guys, we’re out of here.”
“Wait!” said Adam urgently. “Don’t go!”
“Why not?”
“He…” Adam’s voice broke, “he’s threatened to hurt me.”
“What?” gasped Sarah, theatrically shocked. “Who?” It wasn’t a bad line reading but it didn’t ring close to true.
“Jessup. If I don’t have his money tonight. All of it. He put it in no uncertain terms.”
“A respected university man?” said Radar dispassionately. “Why would he do that?”
“You know these Texans,” said Ames. “They get an idea in their head.” He slumped into a conference chair as if unburdening a great weight. “He called me the other day and said he decided he doesn’t trust you. Seems he broke your Wellinov’s cover.”
“Wellinov’s yours,” said Radar. “You let him into this. I told you he was bogus from the start.”
“I know, but what could I do? I had to hope he’d come through just the same.” Radar stared at him with a look of venomous contempt, and Adam said plaintively, “I had to. Jessup made some promises and advanced some money around, and now he says I’m responsible for the lot.”
“Well, good luck with that,” said Radar. “Maybe your big boys can run interference, keep Jessup off your ass.”
“Radar, please,” said Ames. “I’m begging you.” He paused, then gave the appearance of playing what he regarded as his trump card. “Look, I don’t know if you know it, but Jessup has cash, too. He told me he’d be bringing it.”
“Oh, he did, did he?” sneered Radar. “And why in heaven’s name would he do that?”
“For the same reason as the rest of us,” said Ames. “Your reason, Radar: to create a frenzy of giving among the guests.”
“How much?” demanded Radar.
“A hundred grand, same as you.”
They tried. They really did. But not one of the three could completely stifle their laughs. “What?” insisted Ames.
“It’s script, Adam,” said Radar, “and it’s tired. Frankly, it sounds like something Sarah would say.”
“Thanks a lot,” Sarah pouted.
“I swear, Radar,” said Ames, “it’s the truth. Word for word, it’s what Jessup told me.”
“Even so, so what?”
“Well, look,” said Ames eagerly, “we’re here to give Cal money. We have to give him yours. Radar, we have to. But if the money he brought got somehow lost and made its way back to you, then you wouldn’t be out anything at all, would you?”
“Thus, I could do you a solid for free.”
“Exactly.”
“Just by letting you hold my cash a while.”
“That’s right.”
“If a word of this is true.”
Adam said nothing. He just spread his hands, palms up, throwing himself on the mercy of the court.
The moment opened. Ames could see Radar exchanging looks with Allie and Vic, silently soliciting and receiving their approval for whatever he had in mind. At last he said, “It’s a shame we let the old man go.”
“Why?” asked Ames.
“Because he had a vest full of fake bills, and that could come in handy.”
“Handy for what?” asked Sarah.
“Something fun,” said Radar with a twinkle in his eye. “Real fun. The ol’ switcheroo.”
The Walkaway
Radar and Adam were alone.
Allie had gone off to finish her “bride stuff.” Sarah had declared herself bored with all the money talk and determined not to let a perfectly good party go to waste. Vic, apparently emotionally crippled by Kadyn, could think of nothing better to do than trail along in her wake.
“Okay, here’s what’s what,” said Radar. “We don’t do anything until after the wedding.”
“Why?” demanded Ames.
Radar smiled. “Because I’m not going to disappoint my betrothed, duh.” He let the smile fade from his face, conveying that there would be no further discussion of the subject. “After that we’ll move on to the public presentation, flash our cash, get those donations going. You don’t have a problem with that, do you?”
Ames was feeling belittled. “Radar,” he said, “just because I’ve put myself in an awkward position, there’s no need for you to lord it over me.”
“I’m not doing that,” said Radar evenly. “If you feel that way, trust me, it’s all in your head. Anyway, Jessup will be our surprise guest. We’ll bring him up onstage and have him rouse the rabble with a little Lone Star jingoism—‘Let’s make this brain center the one that kicks all other brain centers’ ass,’ that sort of thing. Meanwhile we have my cash, Vic’s cash, Cal’s cash, your cash—you were telling the truth about that, right?—all that cash, all in the same place, all at the same time. Throw in some crowd noises, special effects, a misdirectomy or two, and Cal will never know what hit him.”
Ames looked skeptical. “Are you telling me that you’ll make the…switcheroo right there in front of God and everyone?”
“Front and center, yep.”
“I can’t believe no one will see.”
“Oh, they’ll see,” said Radar. “It’ll look like a magic act. Very entertaining.”
“What’s my part?”
“You’re what we call the beard.” Ames gave him a blank look. Even at this late date, Radar didn’t know if it was a real blank look or a fake blank look straining to look real. He decided that it didn’t matter. How schooled or unschooled a grifter Ames was had become beside the point. He was showing his cracks. All Radar had to do now was drive the appropriate wedges. “The respectable front,” explained Radar. “You don’t do anything. You just stand there and beard.”
“I see,” said Ames. Then, suddenly, “Wait, this won’t work. If we steal from Jessup, he’ll never let the endowment funds be released.”
“Oh, you’re just figuring that out?” said Radar sardonically, but Ames absolutely didn’t react. Radar was a little amazed at the man’s capacity for cognitive dissonance.
Ames suddenly snapped his fingers. “I know! I’ll blame it on you. I’ll kick you out of the foundation and take the grant under a clean slate.”
Radar nodded solemnly. “That’s a good plan. That will work.”
“Are you mocking me?”
“Not at all. See, that’s why you’re the beard. So you have plausible deniability. Don’t worry, Jessup’s gonna walk bad paper right out of the building, but he’ll be so nicely buttoned up that he won’t even mind.”
“Buttoned up?”
More grifter slang you don’t understand, I suppose, thought Radar. But all he said was, “Taken care of. Feeling good. No doubt, no suspicion. Buttoned up.”
“I see,” said Ames slowly. “I guess it makes sense. But I have to tell you, Radar, I feel like I’m on dangerous ground.”
Radar found himself growing impatient with Adam’s innocence act but quickly swallowed his annoyance. It was his job to put Ames on the wo
bble—not the other way around. He threw a brotherly arm around Adam’s shoulders and said, “Life is risk, brother. Which means you have a choice: Short-change Cal Jessup and see how he likes it, or trust me to make sure he gets his reacharound….”
“Reacharound?”
“Oh, don’t even.” Once again Radar clamped down hard on his anger at Ames’s insistent innocence. “Adam, do you or don’t you want your grant?”
It was the walkaway moment for Ames, and Radar watched him process it. He thought he saw Ames more clearly now, saw that he was engaged like Radar was engaged, locked into the endgame and committed to winning it. And Radar suddenly thought, Is that all this is? Grifter mind wars? What if it’s nothing more than that? But instinct told him otherwise. Just as Adam’s true grifter nature was straining at the seams of his façade, his darkness was, too. It had to come out sometime, it had been bottled up so long. And this had been Radar’s design: putting the long, slow squeeze on the mark. Everything in play tonight—the party, the vests, the proposed switcheroo on Cal, Kadyn and Vic’s conflict, even the wedding—Radar had pieced together to give Adam’s darkness plenty to stew over. Stew, Radar hoped, to the boiling point, which now lay probably no more than an hour into the future, and which would be tricky and potentially dangerous but necessary if they were to “break him like a thing that breaks” and ease him out of their lives.
And now, if Radar’s skills and his script were such as he thought they were, Adam would raise the stakes on himself through the simple act of walking away.
Ames rose slowly to his feet, and the resentful part of him that had earlier uttered Doctor Mirplo with such affront now reemerged. “Radar,” he said, “your plan makes no sense. This ridiculous switcheroo? It’s cartoon stuff. It doesn’t happen in real life.” In a tone of triumphant disappointment he continued, “Frankly, I thought you were better than that. You certainly represent yourself as better than—well, better than everyone. That’s your arrogance, isn’t it? Your pride. I’d say it’s your tragic flaw. My mistake was engaging you, thinking I could harness your strengths. Well, consider yourself disengaged.” He extended a hand for Radar to shake. Radar just looked at it. “No? Okay.” Ames went to the door and walked out.