The Texas Twist
Praise for
The Texas Twist
“Superbly splendilicious! No living author reinvents the English language with such conniving wit as John Vorhaus. It's time to put everything else on holdâthe new Radar Hoverlander novel has arrived.”
âStephen Jay Schwartz
L.A. Times
bestselling author of
Boulevard
and
Beat
Praise for the Radar Hoverlander Novels
“Grand entertainment ⦠No caper-novel fan should miss this one.”
â
Booklist
“Pleasantly preposterousâ¦what Radar (and Vorhaus) understand is that every emotional attachment can be exploited for the sake of a scam ⦠A lighthearted caper with psychological insight.”
â
Kirkus Reviews
“I loved this comic caper with its twisty pretzel plot, clever invented language, and an attitude that's Carl Hiaasen channeling Dane Cook.”
â
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
“Vorhaus keeps things moving briskly, and Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiaasen fans should be pleased.”
â
Publishers Weekly
Also by John Vorhaus
N
ONFICTION
The Comic Toolbox: How to Be Funny Even If You're Not
Creativity Rules! A Writer's Workbook
The Pro Poker Playbook
Killer Poker: Strategy and Tactics for Winning Poker Play
Killer Poker Online
The Killer Poker Hold'em Handbook
Poker Night
The Strip Poker Kit
Killer Poker Online/2
Killer Poker No Limit!
Killer Poker Shorthanded
(with Tony Guerrera)
Decide to Play Great Poker
(with Annie Duke)
Decide to Play Drunk Poker
The Little Book of Sitcom
How to Write Good
F
ICTION
Under the Gun
The California Roll
The Albuquerque Turkey
World Series of Murder
Lucy in the Sky
    Â
The
Texas
      Â
Twist
A Radar Hoverlander Novel
by John Vorhaus
Copyright © 2013 by John Vorhaus
All rights reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data on file with the Library of Congress
For reference only:
Vorhaus, John, 1955â
The Texas twist / John Vorhaus
ISBN 978-1-938849-08-4
1. NovelistsâFiction. 2. CrimeâFiction. 3. TexasâFiction
I. Title
 | Published by Prospect Park Books www.prospectparkbooks.com |
| Published by Prospect Park Books www.prospectparkbooks.com |
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Design by Amy Inouye/Future Studio
1.
   Â
Olivier de Havilland
2.
   Â
The Zizzles
3.
   Â
Magic Bullet
4.
   Â
Mirplovian Logic
5.
   Â
We Smell a Rat
6.
   Â
You'd Think It's a Scram
7.
   Â
His Pollyanna Docket
8.
   Â
The Gun Smoketh
9.
   Â
True Believer
16.
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Five Oh Something Something
21.
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Savransky Cut
26.
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Grifter Fill
27.
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The Walkaway
29.
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Radar Fucking Hoverlander
A
cold wind fell across the face of the west; a scratchy wet towel of a wind that poured down the front range of the Rockies, gathered speed across the prairie, and blasted into Manhattan, Kansas, slamming it sidewise across the north-south artery of Seth Child Road. Rain mixed with sleet rattled the January skeletons of the poplars dotting Kansas State University and thrummed against the casement window of a basement space in a weathered red brick building on the ragged eastern fringe of campus. Inside the lab, a goggle-eyed man in a lab coat with a slight hitch in his giddyup moved franticallyâcorybanticallyâfrom his computer keyboard to his laser array, cold storage units, and test bench equipment. The scientist (well, he looked like a scientist) paused to glance at his watch. He peered out the window, then back at his watch. He looked nervous. He looked nervous even though no one was looking. That's how good he was, how deep he got into his thing.
He glanced once more at his watch.
They were late.
Back on Seth Child, a boxy black pickup truck roared north. It was a new Song Staccato that, as the driver described it, “handled like an auditorium.” He drove aggressively, power-merging with nary a thought to potential collisions and hitting hit holes in the traffic flow like a running back running scared. At Dickens Avenue he slewed savagely into the right-turn lane, fishtailed in the wet, hopped a chunk of corner curb, jammed onto Dickens, and barreled toward campus. A woman in the back seat moaned softly, fighting down her gorge. She caught the driver glancing at her in the rearview mirror. He may have seen her distress, but his eyes showed no mercy and he continued to drive as though hounds of hell had caught the scent of Pup-Peroni in his pants.
Damn it, Mirplo,
she thought,
learn to freaking drive.
Then she reminded herself that he wasn't Vic Mirplo just now. He was Nick Eintritt, private-equity consultant and angel investor.
And maniac driver.
Why couldn't he leave that out of his docket?
wondered Allie Quinn, using common grifter slang for the package of name, personality, backstory, attributes, business cards, websites, phantom friends, bogus bona fides, and ad hoc bafflegab that comprised a con artist's adopted identity. (Allie's own current docket identified her conclusivelyâalbeit fully fictivelyâas Fabrice Traynor, BSc, MBA, PhD, notionally in from Princeton, and here to lend her expertise to the task of vetting the invention they were about to see.) According to Nick, Nick was in business development, specializing
in alternative-energy investments. Mostly ag-based, of courseâbiofuelâhere in the nation's breadbasket, but every now and then something special came along.