谎言书：04

Next to him, in the passenger seat, his dog rumbled 1 and
growled 2 — first at the rain, then at the flashlight, the bobbing and glowing
light-stick in the distance.
“Easy, girl. . . . Good girl,” Ellis whispered, patting his dog’s neck as they
spied the two homeless volunteers shouting at the far end of the little park.
Cal. One of them was named Cal. From this side of the park, it was hard to
hear much. But Ellis heard enough.
“Zero seven eight, zero five, one one two zero,” yelled the ponytailed man.
Ellis pulled out the file folder 3 the Judge’s office had put together and checked
the Social Security number against the one on the pink sheet from Hong
Kong. The driver picking up the Book of Lies: Harper, Lloyd.
Ellis’s amber 4 eyes narrowed as his thick eyebrows 6 drew together. It wasn’t
supposed to be like this.
He’d been following Lloyd for barely ten minutes — following the
simpleminded courier just to make sure the shipment got through. But what
Ellis had seen . . . when the flash of the gun erupted and Lloyd stumbled in
the park . . . No, Lloyd wasn’t simpleminded at all. Lloyd Harper might not’ve
known exactly what was inside, but he knew the value of what he was
carrying. Ellis shouldn’t’ve been so surprised. His own father was a liar 7, too.
And a far worse trickster.
The dog raised her head, always reading Ellis perfectly 8.
“I’m okay, girl,” he promised.
Across the dark park, there was a burst of light as the door of the van flew
open. Ellis saw an older man with white hair — No. He had an open, boyish
face and loose-jointed movements. Like a giant marionette 9 out of sync. He
was young. Young with white hair.
Ellis flipped 10 through the pages, still rubbing his thumbnail across the corner of
the file folder. White hair, twenty-eight years old. There it was. Known
relatives. Calvin. Cal.
One of them was named Cal. And the way he was running — the shock and
fear on his face as he came bursting out into the rainy night — Cal knew
exactly whom he’d found.
For a moment, Ellis laughed to himself. Of course. It had to come back to
father and son. Just as it began with Adam and Cain. Just as it was with
Mitchell and Jerry Siegel.
It was the same when he’d first heard the truth about his own family — the
lifelong lie his father had told him. In that instant, Ellis realized how much of
his life was a construct. But Ellis wasn’t sad. He was thrilled. He knew he was
meant for something bigger. No question, that’s why his mother left him the
diary, the softbound journal with the water-stained leather cover.
For over a year he’d been studying the diary’s pages, absorbing the theories
that his grandfather and great-grandfather — both Leadership officers —
spent so many years working on. Throughout the books, his name was
spelled differently — Cayin, Kayin, Kenite — depending on the translation and
where the story originated. But there was no mistaking the world’s first
murderer. Or the first man God forgave — and empowered. The man who
held the secret of God’s true power.
Ellis still remembered — his hands shaking in the estate lawyer’s office — the
first time he read the words his great-grandfather had written during his time
at the Cairo Museum. Ellis had to go find a Bible — check the language
himself. Like most, he’d grown up thinking Cain killed Abel with a stone. But
as he flipped through the pages, speed-reading through chapter 4 of Genesis:
“And it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against
Abel his brother, and slew 11 him.” That was all the Bible said. No mentions of
stones or rocks or any sort of weapon.
Time and history added other ideas, filling texts with theories of clubs, sticks,
and wooden staffs. The Zohar, the most important work of the Jewish
Kabbalah movement, insisted that Cain bit Abel’s throat, which led others to
proclaim Cain as the world’s first vampire 12. And in ancient Egypt,
archaeologists found hieroglyphics 13 depicting 14 a weapon made from an animal’s
jawbone and sharpened teeth.
It was this theory of the jawbone that filled up half the diary. Shakespeare
wrote that Cain’s weapon was a jawbone, featuring it in Hamlet. Rembrandt
depicted 15 the same instrument in one of his portraits, even including Abel’s
dog barking in the background.
But for Ellis’s Cairo-based great-grandfather, the real question was: How did
this obscure theory from ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics suddenly become
such a rage in seventeenth-century Europe? For years, there was no logical
explanation — until his great-grandfather read the story of a small group of
Coptic monks 16 who emigrated from Egypt to the north, where they hoped to
hide the small but priceless object they’d stumbled upon. The object from
God Himself.
Then the Leadership took interest. The group was new then. Untested. But
extremely enthusiastic — like Ellis, especially now that he was so close.
There was only one thing in his way.
Across the park, Cal slid on his knees, his flashlight shining into Lloyd
Harper’s terrified face.
A trickster, Ellis decided 18. Every family had a trickster.
In the passenger seat, Benoni cocked her head, which meant Ellis’s phone
was about to—
The phone vibrated in Ellis’s pocket. Somehow the dog always knew.
“Officer Belasco,” Ellis answered as he readjusted the badge on his uniform.
“You still with the driver — what’s his name again?” the Judge asked.
“Lloyd,” Ellis replied, watching Cal’s father across the park and unable to
shake the feeling that the bleeding old man was far more than just a driver.
“He get the Book yet?”
“Soon. He stopped for some help first,” Ellis said as he eyed just Cal.
In 1900, the Book — one writing called it a “carving,” another an “emblem” —
whatever it was, it was stolen from the Leadership. Ellis’s grandfathers hunted
it for decades, tracing it to father and son. Always father and son. And
tonight, seeing Cal and his dad, Ellis finally understood how near the end was.
All he had to do was wipe out these villains 19. Then Ellis — for himself, for his
family — would finally be the hero.
“Is that concern in your voice?” the Judge asked.
“Not at all.” Ellis scratched Benoni’s nose, barely even hearing the
ambulance siren that approached behind them. “Lloyd Harper can bring as
many dogs as he wants into this fight. It won’t take much to put ’em down.”
6
“You’re gonna feel a sting,” the nurse says, wheeling my dad into one of the
emergency exam rooms. As she’s about to pull the curtain shut, she turns
back to me and stops. “Only relatives from here. You related?”
I freeze at the question. She doesn’t have time for indecision.
“Waiting room’s back there,” she says, whipping the curtain shut like a
magician’s cape 20.
Sleepwalking toward the L-shaped hub of pink plastic waiting room chairs, I’m
still clutching the mound 21 of my dad’s crumpled 22 belongings 23 — his bloody 24 shirt,
pants, and shoes — that the EMTs cut off him. A digital clock on the wall tells
me it’s 1:34 a.m. To Roo-sevelt’s credit, as I slump 25 down in the seat next to
him, he doesn’t say a word for at least four or five seconds.
“Cal, if he’s really your dad—”
“He’s my dad.”
“Then you should go back there.”
I start to stand up, then again sit back down.
I’ve waited nineteen years to see my dad. Nineteen years being mad he’s
gone. But to hop 17 out of my chair and peek 26 behind that curtain and reenter his
life . . . “What if he doesn’t want me back?” I whisper.
Smart enough to not answer, Roosevelt quickly shows me why, after he raised
his own hell in high school, he was such a great Methodist minister. Sure, he
still had his rebellious 27 side — with a few too many Iron Maiden 28 quotes in his
sermons — but the way he breathed life into Scripture 29 and related to people,
everyone loved that pastor 30 with the ponytail.
The only problem came when church leaders told Roosevelt they didn’t like
the fact that he wasn’t married. In the wake of all the church pedophile cases,
it didn’t reflect well that even though he was from one of the wealthiest
families in town, at nearly forty years old, he was still single. Roosevelt
pleaded, explaining that he hadn’t found anyone he loved. His family tried to
help by throwing around their financial weight. But in rural Tennessee —
where a handsome, unmarried, thirty-eight-year-old man can mean only one
thing — his church refused to budge 31. “If you want to be queer, don’t do it
here,” said the message that was spray-painted on the hood 32 of his car. And
Roosevelt had his first personal heartbreak.
Which is why he empathizes so well with mine.
“Cal, when you were little, you ever watch The Ten Commandments?”
“This gonna be another sermon?”
“Boy, you think you’re the only one who likes saving people?” he teases,
though I know it’s no joke. No matter how happy he is, Roosevelt would kill to
have his old parish back. It’s not ego 33; it’s just his mission. He’ll never say it,
but I know that’s the reason he took this job. And though I bet his family
could easily buy him a new church, well, it’s the same reason he won’t buy us
a new van. Some battles you have to fight by yourself. “Think about the
Moses story, Cal: Little baby gets dropped in a basket, then grows up thinking
he’s Egyptian royalty 34 — until his past comes kickin’ at the door and reveals to
him his true purpose.”
“That mean I’m getting the long beard and the sandals?”
“We all hate something about our past, Cal. That’s why we run from it, or
compensate 35 for it, or even fill our van with homeless people. But when
something like this happens — when your dad shows up — maybe there is a
bigger purpose. ‘What you intended for evil, God intended for good.’ Genesis
50:20.”
（Or when Joseph's brothers sold him into slavery in Egypt, Joseph later recounted that what his brothers intended for evil, God intended for good (Gen 50:20). 
或者，当约瑟的弟兄把他买到埃及为奴，约瑟之后回顾说，虽然他的兄弟是出于邪恶的心想要害他，但是上帝的意思却是好的（创50：20）。
 
Staring down at the pointy tips of my dad’s shoes in my hand, I don’t say a
word. When my mom worked in the hospital, she used to lecture us about the
importance of good shoes. As a cleaning lady, it was the one personal item
she could see in every room. Fancy clothes were replaced by hospital gowns,
but under every bed . . . Show me someone’s shoes, and I’ll show you their
lives.
Thanks to that ridiculous mantra, my dad used to always have one pair of
shiny black lawyer shoes (even though he was a painter) and a pair of tan
cordovans (which my mom was convinced meant you were rich).
Today, in my lap, he’s got black loafers. And not the cheap kind with the
tough leather and the seams coming undone 36. These are nice — buffed and
narrow at the toes; Italian leather soles.
I read the label inside.
“What’s wrong?” Roosevelt asks.
“These are Franceschettis.”
He cocks an eyebrow 5 and looks for himself. He’s the one from money. He
knows what it means.
“Franceschettis are expensive, aren’t they?” I ask.
“Four hundred bucks 37 a pair.”
“What about his shirt?” I ask, showing him the label on my dad’s bloody silk
shirt. Michael Kors. “Is Michael Kors good?”
“Plenty good. As in three-hundred-bucks-a-pop good.”
“On a guy we found on a homeless call,” I point out.
“Maybe they were donated. We get designer clothes all the time.”
I look at the bottom of the shoes. The leather soles barely have a scuff 38 on
them. Brand new. Confused, I once again start to stand up, then quickly sit
back down.
When I was little and we had company coming over, my father would buy
cheap Scotch 39 at the neighborhood liquor store and pour it into a Johnnie
Walker Black Label bottle. He did the same when he first started painting
signs at restaurants, pouring discount remainder paint into the Benjamin
Moore cans he’d have me fish from the hardware store’s trash. My mother
used to tease him, calling it his little CIA trick. He never laughed at the joke.
For him, appearances mattered.