谎言书：05

 “Did he say anything in the ambulance?” Roosevelt asks, eyeing the other

people in the waiting area. A teenager on crutches 1 stares our way.
“Not much,” I say, lowering my voice. “He told the medics he was coming
out of that dump bar on Third Street when some Hispanic kid with big ears
pulled a gun and asked for his wallet. When he refused, the kid took the
wallet, pulled the trigger, shoved him into a red Jeep Cherokee, and dumped
him in the park where we found him.”
“Okay, so that’s a story. He’s not homeless. He just got robbed.”
I shake my head, still staring at the shirt’s snazzy black label. “People with
three-hundred-dollar shirts and four-hundred-dollar shoes don’t go into lowlife
bars on Third.”
“What’re you talking about? This is Florida. We got stupid rich people
everywhere. Besides, even if he’s out of place, doesn’t mean he’s out to—”
Roosevelt cuts himself off, watching me carefully. “Oh, you think this is like
Miss Deirdre, don’t you? No, no, boy. This is not Miss Deirdre.”
I’ve known Roosevelt for nearly six years. I first met him back when I was an
ICE agent (which is just the cooler-sounding acronym 2 for the U.S.
government’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement). I guarded the ports,
stopped terrorist and drug shipments from coming in, and, at least during my
first two years, confiscated 3 shipments of fake Sony TVs and counterfeit 4 Levi’s
jeans. Until I opened myself up, helped someone I shouldn’t have, and in one
horrible moment got fired from my job and plummeted 5 through the second
trapdoor in my life.
“Cal, what happened with Miss Deirdre—”
“Can we please go back to my father’s shoes?”
“That’s exactly what I’m doing. I know you, Cal. And I know it’s easier to
drive around with a van full of strangers where there’s no risk of any
emotional investment, but just because you got burned once by letting your
guard down doesn’t mean it’ll be the same here. Not everyone you care about
will eventually screw you.”
Back during my leap from grace, every newspaper reporter, community
leader, and government colleague took me out of their Rolodex. Roosevelt,
when he heard the story, invited me in. For that alone, I love him like a
brother. And while he knows what it’s like to be excommunicated from your
kingdom, unlike Roosevelt, I’m no longer waiting for someone to bring me
back inside.
Within a minute, I’ve combed through my dad’s shirt and pants pockets. All it
gives me is some spare change and a few tabs of nicotine 6 gum. No secrets.
Nothing revealing. That is, until I toss the shirt and pants into the plastic
chair on my left and get my first good look inside his other shoe. I notice a
tiny yellow triangle peeking 7 out from inside. It’s no bigger than the corner of
a stamp, but the way it’s tucked in there catches my eye, as if it’s hidden
under the leather.
I yank the insole. It comes right out, revealing what’s tucked underneath—
“What? Is it bad?” Roosevelt asks as I pull out a folded-up yellow sheet of
paper. As I go to unfold it, a small laminated card drops and clicks against the
floor. He hid this here instead of in his missing wallet. It’s got a photo of my
dad on it. A commercial driver’s license 8.
“Says here he’s a truck driver — double and triple trailers, plus hazardous 9
materials,” I say, reading from the back of the license.
Clumsily, rushing, I unfold the yellow sheet. At first, it looks like an invoice 10,
but when I spot the familiar letterhead up top — Aw, crap.
He’s lucky they took away my gun.
7
“I don’t get it. He’s bringing in a shipment?”
“Not just a shipment. A four-ton metal container — y’know, like those ones
you see on the backs of trucks.”
“And that’s bad because . . . ?”
“Have you read this?” I say to Roosevelt, waving the yellow sheet of paper
that—
Roosevelt grabs my wrist and shoots me a look, which is when I notice that
half the emergency waiting room is staring our way. A cop in the corner, the
teenager on crutches . . . and a creepy older man with a moon chin, who’s
holding his arm like it’s broken but showing no signs of pain.
Roosevelt quickly stands up, and I follow him outside, under the overhang of
the emergency room’s main entrance. The sky’s still black, and the December
wind whips under the overhang, sending the yellow sheet fluttering back and
forth 11 in my hand like a dragonfly’s wings.
“We call them hold notices,” I explain, reading from the first paragraph. “
‘. . . wish to inform you that your shipment may experience a short delay.
This doesn’t indicate there are any problems with your shipment . . .’ ”
“Doesn’t sound so bad — they’re just saying it’s delayed.”
“That’s only because if they say the word hold, all the drug dealers 12 will run
away. That’s also why they say there are no problems.”
“But there are problems?”
“Look at the letterhead on top — U.S. Customs and Border Protection.”
“That’s where you used to work, right?”
“Roosevelt, I’m trying hard to not be paranoid. I really am. But now my
long-lost father just happens to be bleeding in the one park that just happens
to be on the homeless route of his long abandoned son, who just happens
to’ve worked at the one place that just happens to be holding on to the one
package that he just happens to be trying to pick up? Forget the designer
shoes — that’s a helluva lotta happenstance, with an extra-large order of
coincidence.”
“I don’t know. Separated all those years, then bringing you together —
sometimes the clichés get it right: The Lord works in mysterious ways.”
“Not for me. And not with my—”
“Cal?” a deep voice calls out behind me as the emergency room’s glass doors
slide open.
I turn around just as Dr. Paulo Pollack joins us outside. Like most doctors,
he’s got the God swagger. I just happen to know this one, which made it
easier to call him from the ambulance.
“How’s he doing, Paulo?” I ask.
“He’s fine. Luckily, the bullet didn’t hit anything organwise. Looks like it went
in on an angle and got trapped under the skin, right above his liver. In this
case, it’s good he had a little bit of chub on him.”
“But you got the bullet out?”
Two years ago, Roosevelt and I picked up a homeless girl who had done so
much cocaine 13, the cartilage between her nostrils 14 deteriorated 15, and the bridge
of her nose collapsed 16. The girl was Dr. Paulo Pollack’s seventeen-year-old
niece. From then on, he’s waited to return the favor.
“One cleaned-off slug at your service,” Paulo says, handing me a small
plastic bag with an old copper-jacketed bullet. “You know the rules, Cal — it’s
your dad’s property, but if the cops come asking . . .”
“Send ’em my way,” I say, squinting 17 hard at the contents of the bag. The
single bullet is squatty, with shallow grooves 18 that twist left along the bottom
half. I don’t recognize the make and model, but it’s definitely got a unique
shape. Won’t be hard to find out.
“When he came in, I could touch his stomach and feel the bullet right under
his skin,” Paulo points out. “But when I made the incision 19 — and this is with
no pain medication, just some anesthetic 20 by the wound — but even as I
tweezed it out, your dad grunted 21 once, but never cried in pain.”
“All those years in prison. He’s lived through worse,” I say.
Roosevelt stares me down. So does the doctor. It’s so damn easy to judge.
But as Paulo knows from his niece, no matter how much you want someone
back in your life, sometimes it’s the letting-them-back-in part that hurts the
most.
“So how long you keeping him for?” I ask.
“Keeping him?” Paulo asks. “You watch too many cop shows. I sliced it out,
gave him his grand total of five stitches, and let him borrow some hospital
scrubs so he wouldn’t have to wear his own blood home. You should be
careful, though — he’s overweight, high blood pressure, and although he
won’t admit to any chest pains, he’s got the beginnings of myocardial
ischemia. Wherever he’s going next, he needs to watch his heart. Otherwise,
he’s yours.”
Just behind the doctor’s shoulder, there’s a hushed electric whoosh 22. But it’s
not until he steps aside that I spot the tall man with the grassy 23 green eyes
and the twisted Irish nose. Dressed in a fresh pair of blue hospital scrubs, my
father climbs out of his required wheelchair ride. And shuffles 24 directly toward
us.
8
Roosevelt cuts in front of me and motions back to the yellow sheet in my
hand. I stuff it back in my dad’s shoe and cover it up with his bloody 25 silk shirt
and pants.
Like kids watching fireworks, Roosevelt and I crane our necks up. My dad’s six
foot two. In all the carrying and rushing from the ambulance, this is the first
moment he looks it. He’s got a face that reminds me of an egg, made wider
at the bottom by his gray-speckled beard, which is trimmed and neat. For a
second, it looks like the pain in his side is too much. But when he sees us
watching, he takes a deep breath, brushes his fine gray hair from his
forehead, and squares his shoulders into a near perfect stance. No question,
appearances still matter.
“Cal, I’m inside if you need anything,” Paulo says, and quickly excuses
himself.
Roosevelt stays right where he is. By my side.
My father clears his throat, taking a long look at Roo-sevelt, but Roosevelt
doesn’t take the hint. I expect my dad to get annoyed . . . maybe even lose
his temper the way he used to. But all he does is glance back toward the
emergency room and scratch his knuckles 26 against his beard. By his side, his
left hand is clenched 27 in a tight fist. Whatever he’s holding in, he’s fighting
hard with it.
“I’ll be fine,” I whisper to Roosevelt, motioning him inside. There’s no
mentoring 28 with this one.
“I . . . uh . . . I’ll be inside pretending to get coffee,” Roosevelt announces as
he heads back through the sliding doors.
We stand silently outside the emergency room entrance. On both sides of the
overhang, the rain continues its prickly tap dance. My father lowers himself
onto a metal bench and looks my way. I’ve practiced this moment for years.
How, depending on the mood I was in, I’d tell him off, or ask him questions,
or even embrace him in the inevitable 29 swell 30 of tears and regret that would
follow my ruthless verbal assault. But as I sit down next to him, the only
thing I notice is the gold U.S. Navy military ring on his right hand. As far as I
know, he was never in the military. And as much as I try to make eye contact,
he won’t stop staring at the pile of designer clothes and shoes I’m still
holding.
“Calvin—”
“Cal,” I correct him. “I go by Cal now.”
“Yeah . . . no . . . I . . . Here’s the thing, Cal—” He cuts himself off. “I’m glad
you’re the one who found me.”
It’s a perfect line, delivered with as much polish and determination as my own
preplanned speech. The only problem is, it doesn’t answer the only question
that matters.
“Where the hell have you been?” I blurt 31.
“Y’mean with the park? I told you: I was at the bar, then got jumped . . .” He
studies me, reading my anger all too well. “Ah. You mean for the past few
years.”
“Yes, Lloyd. For the past nineteen years. You left me, remember? And when
you went to prison—” My voice cracks, and I curse myself for the weakness.
But I’ve earned this answer. “Why didn’t you come back for me?”
Staring over my shoulder, my dad anxiously studies both ends of the Ushaped
driveway, then scans the empty sidewalk that runs in front of the
hospital. Like he’s worried someone’s watching. “Calvin, is there anything I
can possibly say to satisfy that question?”
“That’s not the point. Y-You missed everything in my—” I shake my head.
“You missed Aunt Rosey’s funeral.”
I wait for his excuse. He’s too smart to make one. He knows there’s no
changing the past. And the way he keeps checking the area, he’s far more
worried about the future.
“The doctor told me you drive around and pick up homeless people,” he
offers, eyeing the parking garage on our right. “Good for you.”