The Texas Twist
Page 24
Afterward, at the reception, Mirplo marveled at Allie’s belly out to here, and wondered if she and Radar were still playing the name game.
“No, we’ve settled that,” she said. “If it’s a boy, Woody. If it’s a girl—”
“—when it’s a girl,” said Radar.
“If it’s a girl,” Allie repeated, “Curiosity.”
“I knew it!” cried Vic. “It’s what I predicted all along!”
“Oh, did you?”
“You’ll see. You’ll see when my book comes out. Anyway, great choice, awesome choice. Curiosity Hoverlander. Sounds like the name of a detective.”
“It does, now doesn’t it?” said Radar.
And his eyes went to a faraway place.
THE END
Next: Radar and Curiosity Hoverlander team up as father-daughter detectives in The Seattle Straddle.
Afterword
Off the Snuke
People ask me all the time, “JV, are you a con artist?” By which they usually mean, ’Cause if you’re not, you sure know a lot about that world. Okay, let me state for the record that I, personally, am not a con artist. I know that’s exactly what you’d expect a con artist to say, and there’s not much I can do about that, by the logic of Only a witch would deny being a witch. But what can I tell you? The cons I’ve invented—the ones I hold dear to my heart, like the Doolally shorthair terrier scam or the Visine gag—are ones I wish I had the balls to pull off. No, dear friends, I exist in the world of my imagining. I find that it’s safer that way.
But come on, admit it—you’re fascinated, too. I mean, duh—I know you are because here you are at the end of a book about cons. But it goes deeper than that. When you read a story about just some audacious scam—your Hitler Diaries, your Catch Me if You Can—don’t you think, Who would get into that line of work? You know that you wouldn’t. You’d be too scared. And maybe too moral.
Others share not your compunctions.
Just today I get a phone call from a teenage stranger who tells me in a hoarse voice that he’s “my oldest grandson” who’s been sick, so that’s why he doesn’t sound like him. Can you guess where he’s going with this? Seems last night he was out driving with some friends—You know those crazy friends of mine, Grandpa—and got into a teeny tiny accident. Well, he’d been drinking a little, so now he’s in jail, hoping “Grandpa Duffy” can throw some cash at the owner of the other car and make this whole thing go away.
Of course “Grandpa Duffy” was a dead giveaway, because that’s my wife’s surname, not mine, but who wouldn’t see through this from the start? You would, right? I think most people would. Yet there must be enough profit in this scheme to keep people trying it. I strung the guy along for five or ten minutes before he realized I was messing with him and clicked off. Most of the time he just gets hung up on, I’m sure. Every now and then he gets a nibble, but can he land the fish? That has to be a victim clueless enough to buy the caller’s fake panic, yet together enough to, you know, have cash. Do people like that abound? They can’t abound.
The thing I think about most attempted cons is they’re just colossal wastes of time. But let’s take somebody who cooks up one of these grand scams—a multi-million-dollar pyramid, let’s say. That’s a job that takes time, effort, planning, organization, infrastructure, collaboration, seed money, and sales—tons and tons of sales. It’s a business, muthafucka, and I just have to ask, if you have what it takes to launch and run a successful scam, couldn’t you apply those same tools to something legit?
Maybe the part I don’t get—the part I can only comprehend in the world of my imagining—is that it’s not about the money for these guys. It’s about getting over on their fellow man. They take joy in ripping people off, satisfaction in proving they’re better than you. In my book, that’s called sociopath. Okay, so that’s what they are, and that’s what I’m not.
At least I think I’m not. Here I am, cooking up these cruelties to inflict on innocent people, things I know I’d never do in the real world. Steal from someone? Strip-mine some senior’s savings account? I can’t even imagine it. Except that I can imagine it, and I’m lucky enough to do just that for a living. Which begs the question: If JV’s not a con artist, yet he represents himself as an authority on con artists, doesn’t that make him something of a…con artist?
Oops, yeah, kind of it does.
So here’s where we get to the intersection of invention and morality. I mean, like all novelists, I lie for a living. So do con artists. What’s the difference between us? We do it to entertain; they do it to steal.
Which is why I used this novel to get Radar off the snuke. I invented him to entertain; I could no longer stand that he’d steal. Sure, he tries to justify it, with phrases like metaphorical reacharound and verbal prostate massage, and he rationalizes that crossing paths with him isn’t the worst thing that could happen to a mook. But I don’t buy it. Never have, really. If you want to be moral, be moral, Radar. Quit screwing around and get right with the world.
You might be thinking, Hang on, now, JV. I’ve read all the Radar novels (or at least this one) and he seems to be doing things for a worthy cause. Self-defense, if nothing else. What’s wrong with self-defense? Nothing, friend, nothing at all. But you don’t know Radar like I know Radar. You only see his stories—stories designed by me to protect him from your disapproval.
But he’s never escaped mine.
Isn’t that a weird thing? And what a discovery to make after already having lived with the guy for a quarter of a million words. Don’t get me wrong: I like and love Radar Hoverlander. I admire that he can “read lips, pick pockets, pick locks, run a six-minute mile, and build a car or disable its engine.” I just never liked what he stood for. And he never liked it, either. In a sense, he’s been fighting against his nature since page one of book one. And trying to explain it away. So his inner conflict is my inner conflict. He’s as fascinated by the world of cons as I am. He’s always wondered if he was as good as the game, and always wanted to prove that he was. Even while knowing that the game itself was no good.
It took me three novels to get Radar off the snuke, but now that he’s out, he’s out for keeps. He recognizes that his talents, cleverness, and bent perspective are “powerful tools that can only be used for good or for evil.” He’s determined to use them for good. Up next, then, The Seattle Straddle, in which Radar becomes a detective. Working with his daughter, no less. I’m very excited by that. Now he can use his massive mental dexterity for good works and good parenting. No moral ambiguity there.
I wonder if that will be a problem. Maybe a Radar Hoverlander without inner tension just falls apart, or isn’t worth looking at. Nah. That won’t be a problem. He’ll have a little girl for a partner. That’ll keep his hands full.
Honestly, I have no idea what the next novel will be about. I want to advance Curiosity’s age to the point where she can be an effective girl detective. But what age is that? If she’s a Hoverlander, she’s bound to be precocious; I feel I can start her as early as I like. That said, though, if I advance her timeline even a few years, I’ll get out ahead of the present day, and have to start thinking of my tales in some world of the future context, maybe even a sci-fi one. Or, no, probably I won’t. Radar is witty enough to manipulate his reality; I’m half-witty enough to manipulate mine.
For the record, I always make this shit up as I go along. Some writers don’t. The smart writers, I’d say, map their moves out way in advance. That never worked for me; if I know too much about where the story’s going, I lose my desire to follow. So I’m forever treating my novels as puzzles where I’m simultaneously creating the pieces and trying to make them fit. It’s not an efficient process. No more efficient than trolling for senile grandparents by phone. I guess I do it because it gets me off, and I guess at the end of the day that’s why the con guys do what they do, too. So join me in The Seattle Straddle, and we’ll discover together what Radar and Curiosity are up to next.
Otherwise, heck, I might have to be a con artist for real.
—Southern California
February 2013
About the Author
JOHN VORHAUS first introduced the charming con man Radar Hoverlander in the novel The California Roll, followed by The Albuquerque Turkey. When not spinning such yarns, he travels the world teaching and training writers—twenty-nine countries on five continents at last count. His many nonfiction works include the Killer Poker series and the bestselling comedy writing text The Comic Toolbox: How to Be Funny Even if You’re Not.