Part 9 (2/2)

So what did I want? Off the razzle? A suburban home life? Soccer camp for the kids and martinis for dinner for Dad? Wise investments? Hawaiian vacations? Or did I just want relief from the pressure I was always (putting myself) under? A chance to relax, like a normal person. Shoot a round of disc golf. Argue in a car. Walk a dog.

Or was I doing that now? After all, if I were me looking at me, what would I see? A guy in his prime, more or less, out running the day away in track shoes and bandanna. I'd seem normal enough, wouldn't I? But if I were me looking at me, I'd know I was seething inside. I would see me questing ahead in my mind to the next move, the next snuke, the next piece of the puzzle that never seems to solve because after every piece there's another piece, and another piece and a half after that. And who's putting the pieces in play? Me. Just me. Hooked-on-calculation me.

All this hard thinking. It makes a man want to rest. Or at least find someone to unbundle to. But who can a confidence man confide in? No one I knew would treat my confession as anything but more smoke, more mirror, and how could I prove them wrong?

I didn't run back to my apartment. I walked the whole way, lost in revelation. I suddenly saw a different arc for my life, one where I didn't always have to live in such a heightened state of intensity. I could learn to relax. I could take yoga. h.e.l.l, I could teach teach yoga. It wouldn't be bad to have peace. yoga. It wouldn't be bad to have peace.

By the time I got home, I of course recognized this for the hogwash it was. I didn't want off the grift. I just wanted out of the present snarl.

Which snarl promised to get a little more snarly with Detective Constable Scovil waiting for me at my door.

She wasn't flying the b.i.t.c.h flag, exactly, but took pains to let me vibe that this wasn't a social call and we weren't about to become NBFs, new best friends. I invited her in and took her out on my deck, just large enough for two to sit comfortably and watch the sun settle into the west, casting an orange-into-red glow on the boulevard below and the wall behind us. Film directors call this the golden hour. It makes everyone look good.

For a while, we exchanged null signals, the kind of empty pleasantries you'd expect in such a situation. At last she half-turned in her seat, sending off the body tell that here came the serious s.h.i.+t. ”Radar,” she said, ”we have to open our kimonos.”

”Is that as good as it sounds?”

”Shut up and listen,” she said, and I did.

To open one's kimono, it turns out, means to exchange data with a prospective business partner, like if you want to build WiMax power amplifiers and I've got the GaN power FETs you need, and we have to know if my devices will give your amplifiers sufficient linearity, * * but without giving away all our trade secrets. In the business world, they underclothe their kimonos with noncompete this and nondisclose that. Out here on the rim of respectability, such niceties don't exist. You just have the other person's word for it. Sometimes you don't even have that. This is where Scovil was. She needed to open her kimono, but what promise of my discretion could she trust or believe? There was nothing for it but to drop the obi and hope for the best. ”I'm not here to catch William Yuan,” she said. but without giving away all our trade secrets. In the business world, they underclothe their kimonos with noncompete this and nondisclose that. Out here on the rim of respectability, such niceties don't exist. You just have the other person's word for it. Sometimes you don't even have that. This is where Scovil was. She needed to open her kimono, but what promise of my discretion could she trust or believe? There was nothing for it but to drop the obi and hope for the best. ”I'm not here to catch William Yuan,” she said.

”No?”

”I'm here to catch Hines.”

And the none-too-firm sand of reality s.h.i.+fted beneath my feet once again. Which was really disappointing, because I'd pretty much decided that I could make Hines authentically as a fibbie with a hard-on for fraudsters. After all, he had all that doc.u.mentary evidence of my ... let's call them adventures. For this reason, and by the sharp logic of Occam's razor, I had decided that the simplest explanation was likeliest to be true: With legitimate access to official records, he'd put together a blackmail package sufficient to bag a Hoverlander. But if he was working my side of the street, then how ...? Wait, maybe he's working both sides of the street.

I said, ”You mean he's not a cop?”

”Oh, he's a cop. He's just ...”

I filled in the blank. ”Dirty.” She nodded. Yep, both sides of the street. ”So where does that leave Allie?” I asked.

Scovil smiled, revealing what she thought she knew about my Allie pangs. ”She works with Hines,” said Scovil. ”We have to a.s.sume she's crooked as well.”

”Well, who isn't?”

Scovil fixed me with a glare, bricking up her tough gal demeanor with the mortar of self-righteousness. ”I'm not,” she said.

”Oh you're you're the honest cop,” I deadpanned. ”I always thought that was a myth, like Bigfoot.” the honest cop,” I deadpanned. ”I always thought that was a myth, like Bigfoot.”

What happened next, I have to admit, surprised even me. In the time it took me to chuckle at my own bon mot, Scovil was out of her chair and straddling mine. With swift, practiced moves, she collected my wrists in one hand and pinned them against the wall above my head. The other hand she clamped ungently on my windpipe, to which my windpipe replied, ”Ack.”

She leaned in close, like she was about to kiss me, but no smooch forthcame. ”I know your type,” she hissed. ”Don't think I don't. You skate through life on charm and think you just ooze irresistibility. Well, I'm here to tell you, this is one gal who finds you completely resistible, sooky bub. And another thing: You're working for me now. You report to me, you do what I tell you, and you always tell me the b.l.o.o.d.y truth.” She squeezed my windpipe a little harder to underscore the point-not, I confess, that it needed much further emphasis. ”I own you, b.i.t.c.h. And if you don't think I do, please consider that I'm fully capable of putting you in the ground.” And here I'd been wondering if things could escalate to violence. ”Get me, mate?”

I nodded to the extent that her grip on my throat would allow.

She shook her head with a look of disgust. I think she was actually hoping I'd show her some of that vaunted Hoverlander bottle so she could go on choking me, or maybe toss me off the deck and see if she could hit the Java Man from here. (I've tried it with rocks; it can be done.) Instead, she let go of my throat, though continued to hold my hands in her grasp. She ground them into the wall, I think as sort of a consolation prize to herself for not getting to kill me and such. In any event, it was clear I wasn't going anywhere until I convinced her I had religion.

Let's be clear about one thing: I'm not a coward, but I am a practical man. I'm able to discern an empty threat from a genuine one, and there was no doubt in my mind that Scovil's was the real deal. Moreover, the puzzle of her personality was clicking into place for me. She'd rubbed me the wrong way from the moment we met. Why? Because she rubs everyone the wrong way. It's what she likes to do: to define herself in enmity. In that sense, she was like the antigrifter. Where a grifter is all verbal prostate ma.s.sage, she was a shaft up the a.s.s. And, I feared, not just in a metaphorical sense.

So I caved. I caved completely and sincerely and, I confess, a bit cravenly. Not my finest hour, but what are you going to do? I had no intention of being collateral damage to a grudge match between a bent fibbie and a self-righteous Aussie cop with blood l.u.s.t. And if it cost me a little pride, a little dignity, I figured that was a better deal than the whole ectoplasmic package that was Radar Hoverlander.

Which I basically conveyed to Scovil in the vernacular of ”You say jump, me say how high?” Problem was, the abject capitulation of a con man gets taken with the same giant lump of salt as everything else he says. How could I convince Scovil that she did, in fact, have a broken Radar on her hands? By playing the only card in my deck with any texture, my doubts about Billy Yuan.

I told Scovil how I'd eased myself into Yuan's acquaintance. ”He's playing me for a mark,” I said, ”but I'm not sure he buys it.”

”Why, Radar,” she offered sardonically, ”you're not smart enough to play dumb?”

”I can play dumb,” I said. ”I can play anything.” Man, she raised my hackles. ”But there's a certain balance of power at work here. As a top grifter, I can convince him of anything, but as a top grifter, too, he's probably not convinced.”

”Clash of the b.l.o.o.d.y t.i.tans,” she said. And then slapped me.

Slapped me!

Sheesh, what'd I I do? do?

”Right,” she continued, ”here's what you'll do. First, obviously, you will keep this conversation to yourself.”

”Obviously.”

”You'll continue to work Yuan. Don't admit anything. You're selling a fiction; so is he. That can be useful. Meantime, you report to Hines that the meeting went well, no problems.” She grabbed my cheeks and chin, and squeezed hard. ”You're on probation, mate. You keep your nose clean, do exactly as I tell you, and never so much as shade the truth to me, then Bob's your uncle. But if anything goes wrong, whether it's your fault or not, I will end you. Understand?” I nodded to the extent that my squeezed cheeks would allow. Scovil seemed satisfied. She got up off me and, without ceremony, left my place.

As I rubbed blood back into my hands, I wondered why, and by whose authority, an Australian copper was after a bent Yank fibbie. But it was one of those ”Reply hazy, ask again later” questions, so I stashed it for future contemplation. Meanwhile, I couldn't help noting how my earlier existential crisis had been overtaken-swamped, really-by events. No time for existential crises now. At some point in the future, I might decide that grifting for money wasn't where I wanted to be, but just then I was grifting for my life, and while I'd always managed a success rate that anyone might envy, in this case I simply couldn't afford to fail. I'd need all my judgment, guile, and skill just to tap dance through.

Plus a healthy dose of think-on-your-feet.

Starting, as it happens, almost at once.

Because fifteen minutes after Scovil left, Hines showed up.

Not in what you'd call a perky mood.

*Some people know what all this means; I personally do not.

name that religion.

T he trouble with having a Mirplo for a chaperone is he's such a f.u.c.king blabbermouth. I should have known he would report back to Hines about my hookup with Yuan-did know it, in fact, but figured he'd be his usual slack self about checking in. But that was before I learned Hines was dirty. Or rather, he trouble with having a Mirplo for a chaperone is he's such a f.u.c.king blabbermouth. I should have known he would report back to Hines about my hookup with Yuan-did know it, in fact, but figured he'd be his usual slack self about checking in. But that was before I learned Hines was dirty. Or rather, alleged alleged to be. In this soap-bubble world of mine, the only fact I felt I could completely trust was Scovil's death threat. Everything else was suspect. Still, if Hines was bent, then he'd be leaning hard on poor Mirplo. It's what you do when you're playing both sides against the middle-that, plus fret about running out of middle. to be. In this soap-bubble world of mine, the only fact I felt I could completely trust was Scovil's death threat. Everything else was suspect. Still, if Hines was bent, then he'd be leaning hard on poor Mirplo. It's what you do when you're playing both sides against the middle-that, plus fret about running out of middle.

Thus I had barely come down from my last adrenaline spike when an ungentle pounding on my front door triggered my fight-or-flight response again. One thing was for sure: Once I got through all this (if (if I got through all this), I would definitely have to move. Too many people knew where I lived now, and seemed to have no compunction about dropping in unannounced. I felt like I was identified on Maps to the Stars' Homes. I got through all this), I would definitely have to move. Too many people knew where I lived now, and seemed to have no compunction about dropping in unannounced. I felt like I was identified on Maps to the Stars' Homes.

My apartment had one of those old-school peepholes, a tiny door covered by a wrought-iron grill. I unlatched it and peered out to find Milval Hines s.h.i.+fting nervously from foot to foot on my doorstep. I had seen Hines wearing all sorts of att.i.tude masks, from clueless wannabe grifter to able investment banker to hard-nosed Jake. I had never seen him all twitchy and itchy like he was just then. It didn't strike me as a mask.

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