Stepping forward through the stages of Mirplo’s fictive career, I awarded him indifferent stabs at writer, performance artist, sculptor, and musician—the sort of flake’s progress you’d expect from someone who took fifteen years to be an overnight sensation. I wrote a backdated grant proposal for something called the Blue/Red River Project, which, had it been funded (or existed), would have placed a flock of ceramic cerulean emus alongside a certain North Dakota watercourse. In the files of the Grand Forks Arts Council—a public database, easily hacked—you’ll find a nice letter rejecting Mr. Mirplo’s grant request but wishing him well in future endeavors, particularly ones in other states. I likewise inserted into the online archives of a certain literary magazine a turgid short story entitled “Dread Reckoning” about a guy who goes to Jamaica and smokes a lot of pot. And an accompanying poem about lizards. (Poor Vic, what was he thinking?) There was a scathing review of a modern dance thing he tried, and reports of vandalism against an offensive statue he erected in a park somewhere. All of these things taken together notionally led up to the Vic of today: an artist who’d passed through some pretty funky phases en route to finding his groove. You could easily imagine—well, Wolfredian could—that the guy was about to achieve critical mass, and explode.

  Next came the exploding part, which entailed planting “real” news stories in legitimate online art sources. Again, not as tough as you might think, for these sources barely spell-check their incoming press releases, let alone vet them. So starting with The Albuquerque Turkey and extrapolating imaginatively from there, I gave Vic a sudden spike in popularity and a verifiable (though completely bogus) chain of lucrative commissions stretching into the indeterminate future. A rough calculation of accounts receivable indicated that Vic would soon be quite rich. Now all that remained was to seed a bank account with some crumbs from the California Roll, so Vic could flash appropriate cash at the casino.

  Vic balked at this. “I’m not gonna piss away my money at a craps table,” he said. “That’s not how I roll.”

  “Don’t worry,” I told him. “The money’s just for show. All your gambles will be high churn, low variance.”

  “Of course,” repeated Vic, “high churn, low variance. Radar, what are you talking about?”

  “You place lots and lots of bets—that’s the churn—but only on even-money propositions. That’s low variance.” Of course, there are no true coin flips in a casino; the house always has its edge. If you bet, say, dead red at roulette, you give away 5.26 percent a spin, so you’re bound to lose over time. But not much and not fast, and if you place enough bets, the house will note your action and start to rate your play—measure, that is, your betting size and frequency. They’re much more interested in how high you play than in exactly how you play, or certainly whether you win or lose in the short run. They know they’ll always grind out their cut in the end. Still, someone who bets dead red doesn’t look like much of a player, so I’d worked out some mutually hedging complex bets that looked like wild gambles. They essentially canceled each other out, but with enough “action bafflegab” to give the impression of high rolling. The overall effect was rather like a grifter’s roll. It seemed like a ton of risk, but really it was not.

  Well, explaining this to Vic was a bit like talking to the taxman about poetry, so I drove him down the highway to Sandia, an Indian casino just north of Albuquerque, to demonstrate. There he ploughed through a Saturday night playing my system at $25 a bet. By bona fide whale standards, that’s not much, but even at a quarter a throw he caught the eye of the pit boss, who invited Vic to join Sandia’s players’ club, which was another point of the exercise, for it contributed to the evidence trail of Vic as a gambler on the upslope of his jones. This being Sandia, arguably New Mexico’s poshest casino, and therefore not such a much, it would also make plausible Vic’s later desire to trade up to something more high-toned. Something like the Gaia.

  Vic found the enterprise entertaining. The gambling didn’t get him off—he just wasn’t wired that way—but he got a big kick out of being the big shot. After so many years of cadging drinks (and everything else) from friends or strangers, he probably liked being the one throwing the party. It made him giddy. Me, I just enjoyed the simple, straightforward, comforting company of a Mirplo. For a grifter, he didn’t have a devious—well, successfully devious—bone in his body. So I could relax with him, and that’s something I hadn’t done much of lately. Truth to tell, the stress was wearing on me. For the first time in my life, I could sort of see the benefits of a life not shot through with duplicity. Such a life would be less intense, for sure, but also less tense.

  While Vic banged away at the tables, I called Woody to see how things were going on his end. He had departed a few days prior, heading back to Vegas to alert Wolfredian that I’d hooked a whale and to prospect for a way past Jay’s defenses to his cash. He’d told me he thought the fact that Vic was an artist showed promise, and he wanted to pursue that angle. Well, that was the plan, but I couldn’t confirm its progress, for Woody didn’t answer his phone. Maybe he was still in transit across the desert, out in the wasteland where no cell towers bloom. Maybe.

  We rolled back into Santa Fe after midnight, cresting a hill on the Turquoise Trail to see the low-rise lights of the Pojoaque Valley spread out before us, a man-made mirror to the big bowl of stars above. “Know what?” said Vic. “I’m still kind of wired. You want to stop in somewhere, get a drink? My treat.”

  Mirplo’s treat? For that alone I’d have liked to say yes, but, “I have to walk Boy. He’s been cooped up all evening.”

  “He’ll keep,” said Vic. “That breed has intense bladder control.”

  “You don’t even know what breed he is.”

  “Well, neither does he, but I bet he can hold it another half hour. Just one drink, Radar. There’s this place you have to try.”

  The place I had to try turned out to be a basement dive called the Cave, a dimly lit, stone-floor den with a long, varnished burl-wood bar, tables made of cable spools, and enough wall-mounted cow skulls to make Georgia O’Keeffe come. The skulls had been drilled out and implanted with electric candles, the artificially flickery kind, so that the faces of the patrons winked in and out of shadow at odd intervals. Were it not for the fact that the crowd seemed abnormally normal—as if Santa Fe’s Young Republicans had discovered the latest hipster hangout first for a change—you’d have feared an outbreak of Santeria, or possibly zombies.

  Leaning against the bar while Vic ordered drinks, I noticed one citizen sitting alone at a spool table, opposite an empty chair with a big black handbag slung over its back. Dressed way too business for a Saturday night, he had the arrogant air of someone with all the answers, or at least all the ones that mattered. For his Suit Warehouse wardrobe, his bland complacency, and his smug self-absorption, I kinda felt sorry for his date.

  Till she returned from the bathroom.

  And it was Allie.

  I think I threw up in my mouth.

  18

  Nuck This

  A good grifter plays emotions like a good fielder plays shortstop. You stay on your toes, think ahead, and react quickly. If the moment calls for rage, you rage. If you’d appropriately be showing sorrow, then sorrow’s what you show. You give the situation what the situation demands. Not your honest reaction. Not ever. You clasp emotion in the firm grip of self-interest, and you do so automatically, intuitively, like a shortstop backhanding a hot smash faster than even his conscious mind can track. So, though inwardly I felt as though I’d just swallowed a hand grenade, the only outward move I made was to crowd close to the bar and put myself in Vic’s umbra, shaded from Allie’s view.

  “Vic,” I said, not raising my voice above the level of bar chat, “how come you chose this place?”

  “I don’t know, you know. I heard it was cool.”

  “Really? Who told you?”

  “What, you don’t think it’s cool?”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  I glanced at Vic, who ostentatiously absorbed himself in trying to catch the barmaid’s eye. “Man,” he said, “who do you have to screw to get a drink around here?” He essayed a smile, which, of course, gave him away.

  “You knew she was going to be here, didn’t you?”

  “Who, this bartender? Tell you one thing, she’s not getting a nucking tip from me, no way.”

  “Vic …”

  “By the way, did I tell you? Nuck is the new fuck. I think it’s really going to catch on.” He was now officially blathering, the engine of guilt driving the motor of his mouth. “It’s a, whaddyacallit, a neolopism.”

  “Neologism?”

  “That’s the word. Like calling a reckless driver a pothole or asphalt instead of asshole. Sounds dirty, but it’s not.”

  I turned to face him. Our eyes met. If I was communicating effectively, Vic would understand that I’d seen through this clumsy wall of woffle and that the future of our friendship hung in the balance of what he said next. I, in turn, could plainly read Vic’s inner conflict. He didn’t care about getting caught—Mirplos are shameless by nature—but what he had to say seemed to pain him so much that he didn’t want to cough it up. So I pushed a little. “Vic,” I said, “if you don’t tell me what’s going on, I’m going over to that table and tell Allie that you brought me here just for the drama of it: confrontation, inspiration for your next installation. Then, in all likelihood, Allie will kick your ass, which we both know she’s one hundred percent able to do. So what’s it gonna be?”

  The barmaid finally came to take our order. Vic indicated the draft tap and she poured us a couple of beers. I killed the moment by glancing at Allie’s table and reading her date’s lips. “So I told my boss that if we wrote it as a floating note instead of a fixed one, we could yield an extra three percent. Awesome, huh? Three percent.” By his words and facial expression he betrayed himself as someone who in a million years would never tire of the sound of his own voice. Allie’s body language (at least what I could glean from her shoulders and the back of her head) indicated that she was enthralled. Me, I’d be making a cyanide sandwich.

  Vic downed half his beer in one gulp, then said, “I saw her here the other night. I asked around. She’s been here every night this week.”

  “With that guy?” Vic nodded. “Why did you bring me here?”

  “Duh, to see them. You think you’d believe me if I just told you?”

  “No,” I had to admit, “probably not. So who is he?”

  “I don’t know. Just some schlub. Works in a real estate firm. Radar, what’s up with you two? I thought she was your trapdoor spider. Is this part of that?”

  “Excellent nucking question, Vic. I honestly don’t know.”

  So what to do now? I could confront her, of course, but that seemed like a weak lead. If the con was still on, then I’d be generating unnecessary hysterical public noise. And if it was off? If Allie had genuinely shed me under the guise of seeming to do so, then what purpose would be served by a scene? The best thing, I decided, was to keep cool and scope her out. What I saw distressed me, for all her signals—how she tossed her hair; the way she covered his hand with hers—told me she was into the guy, which I couldn’t understand at all, because she used to eat Norms like this for lunch. But it couldn’t be an act for my benefit. She didn’t even know I was here.

  Vic, by way of lame distraction, called my attention to a sports highlights show on the TV over the bar. “Can you believe it?” he said. “This team creamed that other team.”

  I smiled despite myself. “Do you even know what they’re playing?”

  “Not sure,” he confessed. “Lacrosse? Quoits?”

  “What the hell is quoits?”

  “A ring-toss game with roots in ancient Greece!” he boomed in his sportscaster voice, but I cut him off.

  “Not tonight,” I said softly. “No Uncle Joe.” Vic nodded, and silently sipped his beer.

  I pounded mine and ordered another. Worked it methodically, then started a third. I have a casual relationship with alcohol, as with a distant cousin you only ever see at family reunions. When I do drink, though, I pass through predictable stages, an arc of emotion that takes me from grim and gray through talky and glowy, then back around to morose. I’m not a bad drunk, certainly not an angry or violent one, but I mostly don’t drink because it loosens my grip, and for a grifter for whom control is everything, that’s anathema. I was just starting to feel the reins go slack when Vic said, “They’re leaving.” I hunkered down over my beer as they passed behind me en route to the door. The date said something I couldn’t hear. I suppose it was a joke, because Allie responded with a lilting laugh.

  I’m gonna miss the funny, she had told me. Apparently there was other funny to be had.

  They departed. Vic patted me on the shoulder. “I’m sorry, man. Don’t kill the messenger, okay?”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “The messenger lives.” I drained my beer and stood to go. I could feel gloom setting in. I wanted to go home and hug my dog. Maybe he could explain where I’d gone wrong.

  Just then Allie returned, calling back over her shoulder, “Be right there, I forgot my purse.” Looking back at her table, I spotted her bag still slung over the back of her chair. When I brought my eyes back around—a beat slowly, and that was the beer balking—Allie was right up in my face.

  “Hello, Radar,” she said.

  “Allie,” I nodded, now realizing that she’d known I was there all along, or at least since Uncle Joe chimed in, and had forgotten her purse on purpose, just so we could have this chat.

  “How’d you know where to find me?”

  I scrunched my nose. “Loyal friends.” She looked at Vic, who gave all his rapt attention to the TV over the bar. “And speaking of friends,” I waved a beery hand toward the door, “best not keep yours waiting.”

  “Radar, I don’t want this to be weird.”

  “What weird? You made a choice. I respect it.”

  “But do you understand it?”

  “Suppose you explain it.”

  Allie sighed—the patented Allie sigh I remembered from so long ago, when we were just getting to know each other, and every word out of her mouth was one or another brand of bafflegab. But those days were gone, right?

  Right?

  “Radar,” she said, “you are who you are. I thought you could be something else, but …”

  “Leopards and spots?”

  Her eyes showed sadness. “Yeah, looks like you were right about that.”

  “I don’t know, was I? You’re the one who said we could change. Seems to me you bailed on that kind of quick.”

  “It’s called cutting your losses,” she said. “I know you know how that works.”

  Again I waved vaguely toward the door. “And this?”

  “Greg’s a nice guy,” she said. “He’s okay. He tells the truth.”

  “Have I lied to you? Allie, tell me where I’ve lied.”

  “It’s not me I’m talking about, Radar. You lie to yourself. Look, I wanted you to be something you’re not, and that’s my bad. But every single move you’ve made lately has been designed to let you hold on to the thing you can’t let go.”

  “My father …”

  “… is just an excuse. If it hadn’t been him, it’d be something else.”

  I mulled that over. For some reason, a boozer’s dumb rationalization flitted through my brain. I never drink before sunset. It must be sunset somewhere.

  “I’m sorry, Radar,” Allie continued, “I just couldn’t sit around waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

  “Whatever,” I muttered. I suppose I was an easy read, being a little drunk and all, for Allie could see me closing her out. She shook her head, disgusted, and turned to go. “Allie,” I said.

  “What?” she snapped, preemptively defending against an escalation of conflict.

  But all I said was, “Your purse,” and pointed to the big black handbag she’d neglected to collect. She went to get it, which gave me a chance to gear up for the last word. “For the record,” I said as she passed back by, “if I was lying to myself, you were lying to me, too. You could’ve just said you wanted to split.” I paused, then went too far. “Trapdoor spider, my ass.”

  She slapped me, hard, with the flat of her hand. At least she didn’t use her purse.

  I watched her walk away, mourning her. Then something shifted inside me. Alcohol-induced perhaps, but a grim resolution just the same. If a worthy woman deemed me unworthy, then, by damn, unworthy I would be. I’d grip the grift with a vengeance. You can’t fight who you are, right? It’s stupid to try. Love? That’s a comforting distraction, but for a grifter, ultimately a fantasy. No grifter knows love; really, all through our lovey-dovey days, Allie and I were just a couple of mooks trying to mook ourselves. At least I was clear of that now. I got it: Once you walk down our road, you can’t unwalk it. Allie still hoped otherwise, apparently, and I knew where it would lead, to a dull normal husband and a dull normal life. But no matter how hard she tried to bury her past in the backyard of her suburban delusion, one day it would rise up to remind her. And then she would be sad. She’d sold herself out of the game. Sold herself cheap, if you ask me. So have a nice life, Allie Quinn. Thank you for cutting me loose.

  The thought crossed my mind that cutting me loose was exactly what she had in mind, and for my benefit. I dared to believe that this business with Greg was just another scene in an epic drama designed to disencumber Radar and leave him free to work his magic on the snuke. That would place me smack-dab in the hero spotlight, deeply and deviously propped up by an entire supporting cast. It makes for good drama, but here in real life, you just have to sometimes see things as they are. Over is over, Radar, and the only hidden agendas are the ones you build in your mind.