The Texas Twist by John Vorhaus Page B

that.”
    â€œIt’s the Samaritan gag, straight out of the playbook. And now that we know it’s a piggyback, we can challenge him to liaise with the Institute. When he can’t do it, we win.”
    â€œWe win? A mother’s hope for her son is destroyed, and we win?”
    â€œThat’s not what I mean and you know it. Apart from the money, apart from getting scammed, Sarah needs to focus on Jonah right now.”
    â€œDon’t you think that’s her choice?” Allie wasn’t sure Radar was wrong, but it irked her how Radar was sure he was right. “At minimum, she could put herself on the Institute’s map, make Jonah a candidate for treatment.”
    â€œThat’s fine if she wants to do that,” said Radar. “Only not through Ames. He’ll dead-end her money and she won’t get on the Institute’s map.”
    Allie grabbed the big water bottle she now felt compelledto carry with her everywhere and downed a significant chug. She felt herself becoming frustrated with Radar. Was it hormones already? The thought made her cheek twitch. Morning sickness. Ridiculous thirst. Food cravings next, she supposed.
    Allie admired and appreciated Radar’s bright and shiny reaction to her pregnancy, for it was unguarded, and in a Hoverlander, unguarded moments are rare. She felt she could trust that Radar wanted a kid, but here in her fifth week, ambivalence was Allie’s middle name. Not about the body stuff. That she could handle. But Allie, as a damaged child of damaged parents, with further damage inflicted by all those fosters, feared she’d be a damaged parent, too. She looked at Radar and knew she could count on some of his courage to carry her. This is a good man, she thought. Against all odds, a good man.
    When they first met, Allie thought Radar was damaged, too. He had to be, or why would he be attracted to someone damaged like her? By now, though, she had met Radar’s long-lost father, the roguish Woody Hoverlander, himself a con artist of the first water, and she understood that her link with Radar was the game, not the pain. He had been trained in the grift, raised in it from birth, prodigiously talented and soon great at it, but he never got a chance to show off for the person who mattered most. Through her he had filled a long unrequited need. So she drew comfort from his comfort and accepted his acceptance of her. That he showed off for her made her something of a surrogate, and she accepted that, too.
    She just worried that he was showing off now.
    â€œRadar,” she said, “I don’t get you. We’ve done diligence. You met the guy. So he acts too innocent. So he misuses a word.” She shot a look at Vic. “Like that never happens around here.” She leafed through the documents. “I don’t see anything here that barks like a duck, Radar, and if you’re honest, I think you’ll agree. We’ve done our job. We can let Sarah handle this now.”
    â€œEnd-around Ames direct to the Institute?”
    â€œIf that’s what she chooses. But Radar: She chooses.”
    â€œNo. She’s not that smart. She’ll screw it up.”
    Something in Radar’s voice shot through Allie to a place deep inside her, for she detected his sense of protectiveness, a protectiveness she’d have sworn he reserved only for her, or possibly for Mirplo at certain particularly clueless points in his past. She said, “Radar, do I have to quote you to you?”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œâ€˜There’s two kinds of problems in this world, my problem and not my problem.’”
    â€œShe’s right, Radar,” said Vic. “I’ve heard you say that.”
    â€œWe can tell Sarah what we’ve found—and what we haven’t found. We can suggest a course of action. Anything beyond that is making not our problem our problem. I don’t understand why you’d want to do