The Texas Twist by John Vorhaus

financial.”
    Ames asked plaintively, “Am I asking for money? Have I asked anyone for money?”
    â€œWill you?”
    â€œWell, not me, but the clinic. They have to keep the research going. As I told Sarah, they get no support from official channels.”
    â€œI see.” Radar rifled through the documentation he’d been given. Nothing immediately jumped out at him as bogus, but he doubted it would stand up to close scrutiny. “Very well,” he said, standing up. “I’ll give these papers all the consideration they deserve.”
    Ames leapt to his feet. “Listen, I appreciate that youthink you’re looking out for Sarah and Jonah, but remember one thing: It’s not your son who’s dying. ” He raised his voice. “For someone looking out for their interest, I think you’re overlooking the possibility that this might actually save his fucking life!” He looked around, self-conscious at his language, then engaged Radar with pleading eyes. “Radar, I don’t know what makes you such a suspicious person, and I don’t know why Sarah gave you the say-so in this, but at least ask me some questions. At least make me feel like you heard me out. The way things are,” Ames pointed to the printouts, “that might as well be toilet paper. It is in your eyes. And I don’t understand why you’re so prejudiced against me. You don’t even know me. If you don’t mind my saying so, you’re really a closed-minded guy.” That point resonated with Radar, who realized that he was, despite policy, letting himself be guided by untested assumptions. Could he really say, based on what he had seen so far, that the guy was a fake? No, he could not. So he sat back down and gave Ames a chance to tell his tale.
    Adam did a comprehensive job, outlining his hunt for breakthrough research on Karn’s and, having apparently found it, his equally fervent search for someone in need. Radar heard nothing in the narrative that lifted it above the level of a yarn, yet nothing that manifestly unraveled it, either. It had the ring of, if not truth, verisimilitude; Ames sounded like a normal person recounting normal events—if you bought the central premise that the tragic death of a son could turn a man’s life into a crusade, and the secondary premise that a cure for Karn’s was out there, undiscovered or at least unexploited by the medical community at large.Radar could neither buy these premises nor reject them outright. So he shot a couple of questions.
    â€œSarah says you’re divorced.”
    â€œWell, yes. And widowed.”
    â€œExcuse me?”
    â€œMy wife died during the separation.”
    â€œI see.” Well, that answered that. Or not. “How? Karn’s?”
    â€œNo,” said Ames. “Karn’s is not hereditary, just an unhappy accident. The wiring in your brain goes bad.”
    â€œGood thing it’s rare.”
    â€œI wish it weren’t. Then maybe there’d have been a cure for Dylan.”
    â€œYes, as you told Sarah. Why did you meet her on the street? Why didn’t you—”
    â€œWhat? Email? Text? IM?” Ames looked Radar square in the eye. “What would you do with such correspondence?”
    â€œTrash it.”
    â€œTrash it. Right. Because you’d think it’s a scram.”
    â€œScram?”
    â€œYou know, a con.”
    â€œScam,” corrected Radar.
    â€œScam, of course. I’m new to this language. I’m…new to the whole idea. I thought if I showed up here, flew to Austin, made the trip, that would make me seem more legitimate somehow. Show my commitment. Now I see that it just shows my, I hate to say, naïveté. Radar, can I ask you a question?” Radar said nothing, just waited for Ames to continue. “If I were who you…I’m trying to think of the right way to put this…someone who you legitimately had to