谎言书：02

. . . seven . . . six . . . five . . .
The dog began to growl 1. She could smell death coming. But Ellis ignored the
noise, peacefully reading from the bill of lading: the container’s new tracking
number, the receiver’s name (had to be fake) — everything the Leadership
needed.
. . . four . . . three . . . two . . .
Still flat on his stomach and now with his mouth wide open, Zhao gave a final
hollow gasp 2 that sounded like the last bits of water being sucked down a
drain. Ellis’s great-grandfather described the same sound in his diary — right
after he mentioned there was no antidote 3 for hemlock 4 poisoning.
. . . one.
Zhao was nice — even kind when they first met at the doctor’s funeral — but
the mission was bigger than Zhao. And based on what happened in 1900 with
Mitchell Siegel, the mission had enough problems with witnesses.
Zhao’s tongue went limp, and his head slumped 5 forward, sending his forehead
against the carpet.
Ellis didn’t notice. He was already on his phone, dialing Judge Wojtowicz’s
number.
“I told you not to call me here, Eddie,” answered an older man with a soft,
crackly voice.
“Ellis. I’m called Ellis now,” he replied, never losing his composure. He
spread out his left hand, admiring the tattoo 6.
“It’s five in the morning here, Ellis. What do you want?”
Ellis smiled — truly smiled — turning his full attention to the phone. “What I
want is for you to remember just where you were when I found you, Judge.
Your group — your Leadership — your dream was old and dead. Is that how
you pictured your final years? Just another discarded, cobwebbed old man
sitting in his cramped 7 Michigan apartment and wondering why his glory days
weren’t more glorious? You’re not even a footnote in history, Judge. Not even
an asterisk 8. But if you want, I can put you back there. Maybe one day you’ll
be a parenthesis 9.”
“My family has been in the Leadership since—”
“Don’t embarrass yourself, Judge. Family names don’t get you into Harvard
anymore; what makes you think they’ll get you in here?”
There was a long pause on the line. “I appreciate your helping 10 us with this,
Ellis,” the Judge finally offered. Clearing his throat, he added, “You’re close to
finding the Book, aren’t you?”
“And about to get even closer,” Ellis said, glancing at the pink bill of lading
and studying the container’s new tracking details: when it left the port, when
it’d arrive in Miami, even the truck driver who was responsible for the pickup 11.
HARPER, LLOYD.
“C’mon, Benoni,” he murmured to the dog.
He knew it was an odd name. Benoni. But according to the diaries, that was
the name of Abel’s watchdog — the dog that was eventually given to Cain —
and the only witness to the world’s first murder.
“You’re in for a treat, girl,” he said as he stepped over Zhao’s dead body and
led the dog out into the hallway. “This time of year, the weather is gorgeous
in Florida.”
As the dog ran ahead, Ellis never lost sight of her. He knew his history. Only
with Benoni would he find the Book of Lies and solve the true mystery of the
world’s greatest villain 12.
 
2
Two weeks later
Fort Lauderdale, Florida
My name is Cal Harper.
This is the second most important day of my life.
“Remove him,” the manager of the French bistro calls out behind us.
“S-Sorry, Cal,” my client Alberto apologizes, his body shaking as I hook his
arm around my neck and help him hobble back toward our van. From the
stench on his breath, Alberto’s been drinking hard. From his fresh split lip,
plus the tear in his ratty T-shirt, he’s been fighting, too. In his left hand, he
clutches the dented 13, rusty 15 RC Cola can that he carries everywhere.
Welcome to Fort Lauderdale beach. Just another day in paradise.
“You planning on helping here?” I call to Roosevelt, who’s reclining in the
passenger seat of our dumpy white van.
“Ah’m mentoring 16,” Roosevelt calls back in a thick Tennessee drawl, nodding a
hello to Alberto, who offers a gray-toothed smile in return.
“No, you’re sitting on your rear while I do all the work,” I point out.
“Whattya think mentoring is?” Roosevelt asks, lumbering 17 out like an old
mountain cat and slowly tugging 19 open the side door of the van, a 1991 GMC
Safari 20 that another client christened “the White House.” (Roosevelt and Calvin
in the same place? It’s downright presidential.)
“You got him?” I ask.
“Isn’t that why God put me on this planet?” Roosevelt says, his dyed-black,
aging-hippie ponytail flapping in the salty ocean breeze. At forty-two,
Roosevelt’s old enough to know better than the ponytail, but we all have our
weaknesses. “Man, Alberto, you reek 21.”
To the few passing tourists still walking the beach, we probably look like
mobsters. But our job’s far more dangerous than that.
“Listen, thanks for calling us instead of the cops,” I tell the restaurant
manager, a middle-aged 22 guy who looks like a ferret.
“I’m no schmuck,” he laughs, dropping his French accent. “Cops would take
two hours. You take the trash out fast.”
He offers a handshake, and as I reach to take it, I spot a hundred-dollar bill in
his palm. I pull back as if he’s offering a coiled snake.
“Just our way of saying thanks,” he adds, reaching out again for the
handshake.
I don’t shake back. “Listen,” I insist, stepping toward him. It’s clear I’m not
the most imposing 23 figure — I slouch and have a shambling walk that’s all
arms and legs and big hands — but I do have most of my dad’s height. Nearly
six feet when I stand up straight. And the only time I do that is when I’m
pissed. Like now. “Do you understand what I do?” I ask, my thick Adam’s
apple pumping with each syllable 24.
“Aw, jeez, you’re gonna give me some self-important speech now, aren’t
ya?”
“No speech. We take the homeless back to shelters—”
“And what? If you accept a tip it’ll make it less of a good deed? I respect
that. I do. But c’mon, be fair to yourself,” he says, motioning to my faded
black T-shirt, which is barely tucked in. “What’re ya, thirty years old with that
baby face? You’re wearing secondhand sneakers and sweatpants. To work.
When was the last time you got a haircut? And c’mon . . . your van . . .”
I glance back at the van’s peeling tinted 25 windows and the swarm 26 of rust 14 along
the back fender, then down at my decade-old sweatpants and my
checkerboard Vans sneakers.
“Take the money, kid. If you don’t use it for yourself, at least help your
organization.”
I shake my head. “You called my client trash.”
To my surprise, he doesn’t get defensive 27. Or mad. “You’re right — I’m sorry,”
he says, still holding out the money. “Let this be my apology. Please. Don’t
make it the end of the world.”
I stare at my sweatpants, calculating all of the underwear and socks I could
buy for our clients with an extra hundred dollars.
“C’mon, bro . . . even Bob Dylan did an iPod commercial.”
“And once again, making the world safe for people who eat croquemonsieurs,”
I say, yanking open the door of the van and climbing back behind
the wheel.
“What the fudge, Cal? You didn’t take the money, did you?” Roosevelt asks
with a sigh as he reaches into the brown bag on his lap and cracks open a
pistachio shell. “Why you so stubborn?”
“Same reason you say dumb crap like ‘What the fudge.’ ”
“That’s different.”
“It’s not different,” I shoot back, looking down at the van’s closed ashtray 28.
With a tug 18, I pull it open, spot the dozens of discarded pistachio shells he’s
stuffed inside, and dump them in the empty Burger King bag between us.
Roosevelt cracks another shell and leans for the ashtray. I shake the Burger
King bag in front of him instead. “You were a minister, so you don’t like to
curse — I get it, Roosevelt. But it’s a choice you make on principle.”
“You were a minister?” Alberto blurts 29 from the backseat, barely picking his
head up from the RC soda 30 can with the plastic wrap on top. It took nearly six
different pickups before Alberto told me that’s where he keeps his father’s
ashes. I used to think he was nuts. I still do. But I appreciate the logic 31. I’m
what my parents left behind. I understand not wanting to do the same to
someone else. “I thought you were some special agent who got arrested . . .”
Twisting the ignition and hitting the gas, I don’t say a word.
“That was Cal,” Roosevelt points out as we take off down A1A, and his
ponytail flaps behind him. “And we’ve talked about my ministry 32, Alberto.”
Alberto pauses a moment. “You’re a minister?”
“He was,” I offer. “Ask him why he left.”
“Ask Cal why he got fired,” Roosevelt says in that calm, folksy drawl that
filled the church pews every Sunday and immediately has Alberto looking my
way. “Losing his badge . . . y’know that’s what turned his hair white?”
Roosevelt adds, pointing at my full head of thick silver hair, which is such a
scraggly mess it almost covers the birthmark near my left eye.
“Nuh-uh,” Alberto says. “You didn’t get that from your momma or daddy?”
I click my front teeth together, staring out at the closed tourist T-shirt shops
that line the beach. The only thing I got from my parents was a light blue
government form with the charges against my father.
The prosecutor 33 was smart: He went for manslaughter instead of murder . . .
painted a picture of this six-foot-two monster purposely shoving a small,
defenseless young mom . . . then for the final spit-shine added in my father
yelling, “That’s it — you’re done!” (Testimony courtesy of every neighbor with
an adjoining wall.)
My dad got eight years at Glades 34 Correction Institution. The state of Florida
gave me six minutes to say good-bye. I remember the room smelled like
spearmint gum and hairspray. Life is filled with trapdoors. I happened to swan
dive through mine when I was nine years old. That was the last time I ever
saw Dad. I don’t blame him anymore, even though when he got out, he
could’ve — I don’t blame him anymore.
“Gaaah,” Roosevelt shouts, his ruddy features burning bright. “You shoulda
taken that restaurant money.”
“Roosevelt, the only reason he was offering that cash was so when he goes
home tonight, he doesn’t feel nearly as guilty for sweeping 35 away the
homeless guy that he thought was bad for his fake French bistro business. Go
pray . . . or send an e-mail to heaven . . . or do whatever you do to let your
God weigh in, but I’m telling you: We’re here to help those who need it — not
to give fudging penance 36.”
His lips purse at my use of the G-word. Roosevelt’ll joke about anything — his
long hair, his obsession 37 with early chubby 38 Janet Jackson (so much better than
the later thinner model), even his love of “Yo Momma’s So Fat” jokes as a tool
for changing the subject during an awkward social situation — but he’ll never
joke about God.
Staring out the side window, Roosevelt’s now the one clicking his teeth.
“Making it a crusade doesn’t make it right,” he says, speaking slowly so I feel
every word.
“It’s not a crusade.”
“Really? Then I suppose when you leave this job every night, your life is
filled with a slew 39 of outside interests: like that kindergarten teacher I tried to
set you up with. Oh, wait — that’s right — you never called her.”
“I called her. She had to run,” I say, gripping the steering 40 wheel and
searching the passing side streets for possible clients.
“That’s why you set up a date! To make time so you can talk, or eat, or do
something besides riding past mile after mile of gorgeous beach and spending
all that time checking every alley 41 for a homeless person!”
I look straight ahead as Roosevelt cracks another pistachio and tosses the
shell in the bag. I never had an older brother, but if I did, I bet he’d torture
me with the exact same silence.
“I know you can’t turn it off, Cal — and I love you for that — but it’s
unhealthy. You need something . . . a hobby—”
“I have lots of hobbies.”
“Name one.”
“Don’t start.” I think a moment.