EIGHT LIES (About the Truth): A collection of short stories (11 page)

B
ACK IN THE ’80s,
the Harrison Hotel stood, dirty and defeated, between Michigan Avenue and Wabash, on the south side of the street from which it takes its name. The rates were cheap and there were always rooms available and the elevators were a gamble and the stairwells reeked of urine. Much of the Harrison’s business came by way of the government, which had been housing men in Joliet for fifteen or twenty years and now needed to put them somewhere else.

Some of the men were young when they killed somebody, but now they were old and broken and had nowhere to go. So the government housed them at the Harrison Hotel until they could get back on their feet, which most of them never did. Instead they settled in, collected their welfare checks and slouched across the street to the Step-Hi Lounge to spend them.

The Step-Hi Lounge stood on the northeast corner of Harrison and Wabash. It was always busy and smelled of stale beer and body odor and ammonia cleanser. It was dimly lit, which was for the best, and a jukebox in the back played songs from the early-’40s to the mid-’60s.

The Step-Hi used to sell a bottle of beer for two dollars, and from four to seven you got a second bottle free. Then some local bureaucrat told them that it was illegal to give away beer for free so they changed the happy-hour deal to two bottles of beer for two dollars. And that seemed to satisfy the local bureaucrat.

The broken old men at the Step-Hi came in quiet and conversation didn’t start until they got a couple of one-dollar beers down. Then there was talk, but never about their time inside. They talked instead about their lives before they went to prison, playing out the scenes of their younger days like the old songs playing on the jukebox. To listen you would think they’d had it made when they were younger men. They used to drive shiny new cars and wear fancy suits and go out with their best girls on Friday nights. There was always money for whatever they needed and they were young and smart and tough and good-looking.

And then they went and killed somebody. It wasn’t their fault, of course. Whether it was over money or love or simple respect, Somebody always had it coming. Somebody ripped them off or stole their girl or wouldn’t back down in a bar and say sorry. It was as good as self-defense, the way they told it. But then they got some good-for-nuthin’ defense attorney who probably played poker with the prosecutor after church on Sundays.

And that’s where the stories ended. The broken old men didn’t talk about their time inside. Those fifteen or twenty years never happened. The men who killed their girls instead of their rivals didn’t talk about the killing either, and only joined in on the good-time stories. Even then, they didn’t talk much.

The stories would change with each telling; the cars got newer and the girls got sexier and the young men got smarter and tougher and better looking. But the stories were all they had and there was an unspoken agreement not to question the truth of them.

When nighttime descended and the men got hungry, they would brave the cold and shuffle over to the Pacific Garden Mission, on State Street. Painted large on the side of the building was a warning, and a promise: “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.—Romans 6:23.” It was hard to see at night, but there was no missing the red neon
Jesus Saves
cross that hung above the front door.

Inside the Pacific Garden Mission the broken old men would be fed, but first they had to sit through a fire-and-brimstone sermon that lasted a full hour, sometimes two. And there was always the promise of salvation, through Jesus Christ Our Lord, but few men took him up on the offer. They just sat and pretended to listen and hoped the beer buzz would last longer than the sermon. Then they could eat their fill and go back to the Step-Hi and pick up a flask of whatever was cheapest and take it back to their shabby rooms at the Harrison Hotel.

One night an old ex-con set himself on fire, smoking in bed. The general consensus at the Step-Hi was that any experienced drunk who smokes in bed probably means to die, because you never can tell when you’re going to pass out, once you lie down. One of the men, who had once set himself on fire smoking in bed but lived, said this wasn’t necessarily true. If you get drunk enough, he said, you might just forget. The oldest of the men said there are ways of meaning to do things without meaning to. It was,
subconscious
, like.

This led to a lot of philosophizing among the broken men who talked never of the future and never of the wasted years in prison, but mostly of the distant past and sometimes of current events, like the ex-con who set himself on fire smoking in bed.

It’s been over fifteen years since I lived in the Chicago. I recently returned, hoping to find my favorite city just as I left her. Bags unpacked, I braved the cold and walked into the wind, into the South Loop. I figured I’d stop at the Step-Hi Lounge to drink a few and offer the broken men a fresh pair of ears, like I used to.

But the Step-Hi Lounge is gone. The northeast corner of Harrison and Wabash is a parking lot. And the Harrison Hotel is a Travelodge now. Clean and white and not an ex-con in sight.

I’m sure the government has plenty of other places to put their broken men, but the South Loop is clearly off-limits.

“For nothing is hidden, except to be revealed…”

Mark 4: 22

In 1983, Pope John Paul II officially abolished the Office of the Devil’s Advocate—the Vatican’s department responsible for investigating miracle claims. Only, he didn’t. The ODA continues its work, unofficially and in secret, to this very day…

Prologue: New Orleans, Louisiana…

THE DECEIVER HAD NOT YET
arrived, but the multitudes preceded him, and Jackson Square was packed. A sea of clamorous believers stretched from the rocky bank of the Mississippi River all the way to the microphone stand set before the blazing white façade of Saint Louis Cathedral. A turbulent sea of believers, jostling and sweating under the oppressive midday sun.

Some in the crowd carried placards.

REPENT AND BE SAVED
PREPARE FOR THE RAPTURE
TRINITY SPEAKS FOR THE TRINITY

Idiots.

The man wondered if he would get a clean shot.
It’s in God’s hands.
He stepped back from the window and again checked the action of the well-oiled rifle that had been left here in this room for him. Clack-clack
.
Smooth.

There were cops everywhere, of course. National Guard too. And media. News vans below and helicopters above. The timing had to be perfect. No one would see him at the window, so long as he was quick and careful. The lights inside the apartment were off, and the sheers—yellowed by years of sunlight and nicotine—were duct-taped to the wall against any wayward breeze. This too had been done for him in advance.

He had set up a table with a sandbag rest, four feet back from the window. This far back from the sheers, he wouldn’t be seen from the street outside, yet with the scope, he could see right through them.

The crowd outside roared to life. It was time. The man lifted the rifle from the bed, seated the magazine, and racked a round into the chamber. Clack-clack. He carried the rifle to the table, set it firmly on the sandbag. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with a sleeve and put his eye to the scope.

His target had arrived. About a dozen cops cleared a path to the small stage that had been set up in front of the cathedral, and the Deceiver followed in their wake, carrying his famous blue Bible from the television. He wore a shiny silk suit, which picked up the highlights in his wavy silver hair. His skin glowed with a deep salon tan. The tan contrasted with his brilliant smile. His teeth looked like dentures, or implants.

Perfect, and perfectly fake.

The Deceiver hopped up on the stage and waved to the cheering horde with both hands. He approached the microphones and signaled the multitudes into submission. The cheering subsided.

All at once—
divine providence?
—the cops backed away, providing a clean shot.

It’s in God’s hands.

The Shepherd had said not to pull the trigger before one thirty. He checked his watch.
1
:
34
.

The man mopped his brow with his sleeve one more time, put his eye to the scope, and carefully positioned the crosshairs, center-of-chest.

Flicked off the safety.

Put his finger on the trigger.

“State of grace,” he said. He took a deep breath, held it, and squeezed the trigger.

1: Lagos, Nigeria – four weeks earlier…

DANIEL BYRNE DIDN’T NOTICE THE
boy with the gun until they were standing face-to-face, six feet from each other in the quiet alley behind the fruit stand. Before he saw the gun, Daniel Byrne had been enjoying the best day of his trip.

First day off in two weeks, seventh in the nine since he arrived in Africa. A day free of commitments or obligations or expectations. A day he didn’t have to live up to his rep as Golden Boy of the department. He spent the morning working on his tan, reading a novel on the beach, and swimming in the Atlantic Ocean, bathtub warm and salty soft. Back in his executive suite on the top floor of the Federal Palace Hotel, he showered, made the executive decision to give his face a day off from the razor, and dressed—light chinos, a plain black silk Tommy Bahama shirt, and deck shoes, no socks.

Out on the balcony, Daniel stood with the salt air caressing his face and looked out over the white sand beach, the sparkling blue ocean beyond. He leaned forward until the balcony railing pressed against his waist, just above the pelvic bone. Then he leaned farther, keeping his hands free, bending over the railing, looking down at the concrete patio and swimming pool below.

He started to get the tingle.

He leaned even farther. There was a little give to the railing, but it was unlikely to give way completely. Unlikely, not impossible.

The tingle grew into an adrenaline rush. Heart racing, Daniel imagined concrete screws shredding mortar, imagined the sudden jolt of the railing ripping free of its mooring. Imagined falling. Like the dream of falling that jerks you back from the edge of sleep.

But the railing held.

He straightened, blew out a breath, went back inside, and checked his e-mail one more time—all quiet at the office—and grabbed a taxi to Jankara Market.

He wandered among stalls of corrugated steel and sun-bleached canvas, navigated around the beggars, dodged the occasional moped, stopping at the stalls of the artisans, thinking he might find a gift for his boss, who had a birthday coming up. Folk art was always a safe bet.

In the stall of a juju man he found a stunning crucifix—the cross carved out of ebony, polished to a high gleam. But the corpus was real ivory, so he let it go.

He moved on, taking in the bright colors and rough textures, shrill sounds and pungent smells of the seventh largest metropolis in the world. Second largest, on what was, but a few generations ago, referred to as the Dark Continent.

The aroma of charcoal-grilled meat, peanuts, and hot chilies drew Daniel to a smoky green tent across from the voodoo shop, sandwiched between a stall brimming with colorful jewelry, hand-beaded in Nigeria, and one selling counterfeit Gucci and Louis Vuitton handbags, made in Southeast Asia, bribed through customs, and liberated off the back of some transport trailer.

An old man sat in the swirling smoke, skin dark as ebony and beard whiter than ivory, shifting wooden skewers of various cubed meats around on a rusty hibachi, calling out
:

“Suya, Suya!”

Hanging on the canvas wall, a menu of sorts:

PORK
CHICKEN
BEEF
GOAT

Beside the menu hung a line drawing of a snake coiled around a pole, cradling a large egg in its open mouth.
Damballah Wedo
. The Source—Creator of the Universe, chief among the
loa
for the Yoruba practitioners of the Ifa religion, and for practitioners of new-world offshoots like Vodun in Haiti, Santeria in Cuba, Voodoo in America.

Daniel had been warned not to purchase any animals—dead or alive, cooked or raw—in the market. The meat of cats and carrion birds sometimes masqueraded as chicken, dogs and hyena as beef. The rumor of what passed for pork was too horrible to contemplate. Goat was the safest choice. Goat meat had a taste you could train your tongue to identify, and goats were plentiful, cheap to raise—probably not worth faking. Daniel always ordered goat. He held up two fingers.

“Eji obuko, e joo.”
Two goat, please
.

The old man offered a gap-toothed smile and held out two skewers.

Daniel handed over some bank notes—the equivalent of about twenty-five American cents. He’d have been happy to pay five bucks, but that would’ve been an insult to the man’s pride, so he just paid the price listed on the menu.

“E se,” he said.
Thank you
.

The old man held up a hand. “Ko to ope. Kara o le.”
You’re welcome. Good health.

Daniel dodged through the crowd, spotted a quiet alley behind a fruit stand, made his way there, and sat on an empty crate to eat. The
suya
was delicious, maybe as good as that served at the Ikoyi. And he was pretty sure it was goat.

He wiped his fingers on the rough paper napkin as he stood, turned, and then he saw the boy, six feet away.

Saw the boy before he saw the gun.

The boy couldn’t have been more than thirteen. Skinny kid. Too skinny, wearing cutoff jean shorts, two sizes too big and held up with a rope belt, and a once-white t-shirt, threadbare and stained. A small gold cross on a thin chain around his neck. Complexion almost as dark as the
suya
man, eyes set far apart. Eyes more desperate than afraid.

And then Daniel saw the gun. A snub-nosed revolver, pointing at his chest.

“Gimme your wallet.”

Daniel dropped the paper napkin, raised the index finger of his left hand, and slowly fished the wallet from his back pocket, nodding his head the whole time.

“No problem, I understand.” He kept his tone casual, his face placid. He finished chewing the last bite of lunch, swallowed. “Here’s my wallet.” He opened the wallet, showed its contents. “No plastic, but I’ve got two hundred Yankee dollars, and you’re welcome to it.”

“Hand it over.”

Daniel locked eyes with the boy. “Well, now that’s the problem. You can have the money, but only in exchange for the gun.”

“What?”

“I’m offering you the money, but I’m buying the gun. It’s a purchase.”

The kid stared at him, processing. “Then I just shoot you, take the wallet anyway. How you like that?”

Daniel held the kid’s stare. “I really wouldn’t like that at all. Have you done it before?”

“Plenty times.”

“No,” Daniel put compassion in his smile, “you haven’t,” he drew the bills from the wallet, “and you don’t want to start now.” He pointed at the cross hanging from the kid’s neck. “You really want my blood on your hands? Carry that with you for the rest of your life? Answer for that, when your time comes?” He slipped the empty wallet back into his pocket. “Give me the gun, and you can have the money.”

The kid bit his lower lip, shook his head. “I give you the gun, you shoot me, take your money back.”

“Fair enough.”
Keep the head nodding and the tone soothing and the message positive:
“Here’s a solution. Take the bullets out, and
then
hand me the gun, and that will make you happy.” Of course, he could pistol-whip the boy into submission with the empty gun easily enough if he wanted to, but he didn’t want to, and he figured the kid could see the truth of his intentions. Just as he was betting that he could read the kid. “Two hundred, American. Just give me the gun and it’s yours.”
Always be closing.

The boy thought for a few seconds, then flipped the cylinder open and dumped the bullets into his left hand and shoved them into his jeans. He held the gun out and said, “Same time.”

They executed the trade by simultaneous snatch, and the kid ran away. Daniel took the gun to the back of the alley. If he gave it to the police, it would be back on the streets before nightfall. He cocked the hammer, used a rock to break off the firing pin, smashed the hammer until it bent and wouldn’t snap back into place, and tossed the now useless weapon into a trashcan.

A voice behind him said, “You really are a sucker.”

Daniel knew that voice. He turned around. “How long were you watching?”

Father Conrad Winter pulled at his clerical collar, letting a little air in, and grinned. “Long enough.”

“Thanks for the help.”

“Any time.” The priest pulled at his collar again, wiped a handkerchief over his forehead, pushing back his damp blond hair. “Hot as a bitch out here, let’s find some shade.”