The King of Lies (2 page)

And just like that, there he was, ribs gleaming palely through a long rip in a shirt that I had forgotten but now remembered quite well. He looked something like a broken crucifix, with one arm outflung and his legs folded together. Most of his face lay hidden beneath what looked to be a candy striper’s shirt still on its hanger, but I saw a porcelain stretch of jawbone and remembered whiskers there, pale and wet under a streetlamp on the last night I saw him alive.

I felt eyes upon me, and they pulled me away. I looked at the gathering of eager cops; some were merely curious, while others, I knew, sought their own secret satisfaction. They all wanted to see it, my face, a defense attorney’s face, here in this musty place where murder was more than a case file, where the victim was flesh and blood, the smell that of family gone to dust.

I felt their eyes. I knew what they wanted, and so I turned to look again upon the almost empty clothes, the flash of bone so pale and curving. But I would give them nothing, and my body did not betray me, for which I was grateful. For what I felt was the return of a long-quiescent rage, and the certain conviction that this was the most human my father had ever appeared to me.

CHAPTER 2

I
 stared at my father’s corpse, doubting that I could forget the sight and wondering if I should even try. I bent, as if to touch him, and felt Mills shift behind me. She dropped a hand onto my shoulder, pulled me back. “Enough,” she said, and her eyes were hard as she herded me away from the scene and back into my expensive but aging car. I watched her walk back to the gaping door, and twice she turned back to look at me. I gave her a nod as she turned for the last time and disappeared inside. Then I tried to call Jean from my cell phone. Her housemate, a rough-edged woman named Alex, picked up on the first ring. She was tight-lipped and physical. We didn’t get along, and my list of questions was longer than her supply of answers. Her relationship with my sister had long ago poisoned the family well, and she made no bones of how she felt about me. I was a threat.

“May I speak to Jean?” I asked.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“She’s not here.”

“Where can I find her?” There was silence on the other end, then the sound of a cigarette lighter. “It’s important,” I insisted.

I heard her inhale, as if she was thinking about it, but I knew better. Alex never gave willingly, not to me.

“At work,” she finally said, making me wonder when was the last time my voice had been welcome in that home.

“Thanks,” I said, but she had already hung up.

Confronting Jean was the last thing I wanted to do, especially at her work, where the stink of decline must have ground deepest into her skin. Yet it was the smell of pepperoni and mushroom that struck me first as I stepped into the old Pizza Hut on West Innes Street. It was a stale smell, one that churned up memories of junior high dates and fumbled kisses. We used to laugh at people like my sister, and the memory of that pulled my shoulders even lower as I walked to the counter.

I knew the manager by sight only, and was again informed that Jean was not available. “On a delivery,” he told me. “Welcome to wait.”

I took a seat in a red vinyl booth and ordered a beer to keep me company. It was cold and tasteless, which on this day was exactly what I needed. I sipped it as I watched the door. Eventually, my eyes wandered, exploring the people who clustered around their tables. There was an attractive black couple being served by a skinny white girl with studs in her tongue and a silver crucifix jammed through her eyebrow. They smiled at her as if they had something in common. Nearest to the buffet, two women challenged chair legs that looked spindly yet weren’t, and I watched them urge their children to eat yet more, since it was all-you-can-eat Thursday.

Three young men sat at the table next to mine, probably from the local college and in for an early-afternoon beer buzz. They were loud and coarse, but having fun. I felt the rhythms of their chatter and tried to remember what that age had been like. I envied their illusions.

The door opened to a spill of weak sunlight and I turned to see my sister move into the restaurant. My melancholy ripened as I watched. She carried her decline as I carried a briefcase, businesslike, and the red pizza box seemed at home under her arm. But her pale skin and haunted eyes would never fit my memories of her—no more so than the grubby running shoes or tattered jeans. I studied her face in profile as she stopped by the counter. It used to be soft but had grown angular, with a new tightness at the eyes and mouth. And her expression was hard to pin down. I couldn’t read her anymore.

She was a year over thirty, still attractive, at least physically. But she’d not been right for some time, not the same. There was something off about her. It was clear to me, who knew her best, but others picked up on it. It was as if she’d ceased trying.

She stopped at the counter, put down the hot box, and stared at the dirty pizza ovens as if waiting for someone to cross her field of vision. She did not move once. Not even a twitch. I could feel the misery coming off of her in waves.

A sudden silence at the table of young men pulled my eyes away, and I saw them staring at my sister, who stood, oblivious, there in the gloom of the front counter.

“Hey,” one of them said to her. Then again, a little louder: “Hey.”

His friends watched him with open grins. He leaned half out of his seat, toward my sister. “How about I take some of that
ass
home in a box?”

One of his friends whistled lowly. They were all staring at her now.

I almost rose—it was a reflex—but when she turned to the table of young drunks and stared them down, I froze. Something twisted behind her face. She could have been anybody.

Or nobody.

She raised both hands and flipped them off, holding it for a few good long seconds.

Then the manager materialized from the back of the kitchen. He hitched at his belt, put the belly that covered it against the counter, and said something to Jean that I could not hear. She nodded as he spoke, and her back rounded as she seemed to sink under his words. He gestured minutely at the table, said a few more words, and then pointed in my direction. She turned and her eyes focused on me. At first, I thought she didn’t recognize me; her mouth seemed to tighten with distaste, but then she came over, passing the table of drunks and giving them the finger one more time, her hand tucked against her chest, where the manager could not see it.

The boys laughed and went back to their drinking. She slipped into the booth opposite me.

“What are you doing here?” she asked without preamble or smile. Her eyes were empty above skin smudged purple.

I studied her more closely, trying to find the reason that she seemed so disjointed to me. She had the same clear skin, so pale that it was almost translucent; large, tilted eyes; a delicate chin; and dark hair that spilled across her forehead and down to her shoulders in an unkempt wave. Up close, she was steady. Study her one piece at a time and she looked fine; nevertheless, it was wrong.

Something in the eyes, maybe.

“What did he say to you?” I asked, nodding toward the manager. She didn’t bother to follow the gesture. Her gaze remained fixed on me; there was no warmth in it.

“Does it matter?” she asked.

“I guess not.”

She lifted her eyebrows, turned her palms up. “So?”

I didn’t know how to get to the place I needed to go. I spread my fingers on the slick red-checked material that covered the table.

“You never come here,” she said. “Not even to eat.”

I had barely seen my sister in the past year, so I didn’t blame her. Wrong as it was, avoiding her had become something of a religion for me. Most times, I could never admit that, but those bruised eyes pained me. There was too much of our mother in them, and they’d not worked for her, either.

Indecision twisted my lips.

“They found Ezra’s body,” she stated. It wasn’t a question, and for an instant I felt pressure behind my eyes. “I’m guessing that’s why you’re here.” There was no forgiveness in her face, just a sudden intensity, and in the place of surprise or remorse, it unsettled me.

“Yes,” I said.

“Where?”

I told her.

“How?”

‘They’re calling it murder.” I studied her face. Not a flicker. “But nobody knows much more than that.”

“Did Douglas tell you?” she asked.

“He did.”

She leaned closer. “Do they know who did it?” she asked.

“No,” I responded. Unexpectedly, her hands settled around my own and I felt the warm sweat on her palms, which surprised me. It was as if I’d come to believe that no blood flowed in her—that’s how cold she’d appeared to me. She squeezed my hands as her eyes moved over my face and picked me apart. Then she pushed back against the cracked and yielding vinyl.

“So,” she said. “How are you taking all this?”

“I saw the body,” I replied, appalled by my own words. In spite of what I’d said to Douglas, I’d not planned to tell her this.

“And . . .”

“He was dead,” I said, ushering in a silence that lasted over a minute.

“The king is dead,” she finally said, her eyes immobile on mine. “I hope he’s rotting in hell.”

“That’s pretty harsh,” I told her.

“Yes,” she replied flatly, and I waited for something more.

“You don’t seem surprised,” I finally said.

Jean shrugged. “I knew he was dead,” she said, and I stared at her.

“Why?” I asked, feeling something hard and sharp coalesce in my stomach.

“Ezra would never detach himself from his money or his prestige for so long. Nothing else would keep him away.”

“But he was murdered,” I said.

She looked away, down at the decomposing carpet. “Our father made a lot of enemies.”

I sipped my beer to buy a few seconds. I tried to make sense of her attitude.

“Are you okay?” I finally asked.

She laughed, a lost sound that had no connection to her eyes. “No,” she said. “I’m not. But it’s got nothing to do with his death. He died for me on the same night as Mom, if not before. If you don’t get that, then we’ve got nothing to say to each other.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You do,” she said, an edge in her voice that I’d never heard before. “As far as I’m concerned, he died that night, the second Mom went down those stairs. If you don’t see it that way, it’s your problem, not mine.”

I’d expected tears and found anger, but it was directed at me as much as at Ezra, and that troubled me. How far down separate paths had we traveled in so short a time?

“Look, Jean. Mom fell down those stairs and died. I feel that pain as much as you do.”

She barked another laugh, but this one was ugly. “‘Fell,’” she echoed. “That’s rich, Work. Just fucking rich.” She swiped a hand across her face and sniffed loudly. “Mom . . .” she began, then faltered. Sudden honeysuckle tears appeared at the corners of her eyes, and it occurred to me that until now I had seen no emotion in her, not since we’d buried our mother. She pulled herself together, raised unapologetic eyes.

“He’s dead, Work, and you’re still his monkey boy.” Her voice strengthened. “His truth is dead, too.” She blew her nose, crumpled the napkin, and dropped it on the table. I stared at it. “The sooner you come to terms with the only truth that matters, the better off you’ll be.”

“I’m sorry, Jean, if I’ve upset you.”

She turned her gaze away and directed it out the window, where two starlings squabbled in the parking lot. The momentary tears had gone; without the sudden color in her face, you would never have known she’d been upset.

I smelled garlic and suddenly two pizza boxes appeared on the table. I looked up to see the manager, who ignored me and spoke to Jean.

“It’s your favorite,” he said. “Sorry.” Then he turned and walked back to the kitchen, taking most of the garlic smell with him.

“I’ve got to go,” Jean said flatly. “Delivery.” She pulled herself out of the booth, jiggling the table and sloshing my beer. Her eyes didn’t meet mine, and I knew that my silence would send her away without another word. But before I could think of something to say, she had scooped up the boxes and turned away.

I fumbled for my wallet, threw a couple of singles on the table, and caught her at the door. When she ignored me, I followed her into the sun and to her time-ravaged car. I still didn’t know what I wanted to say, however. How dare you judge me? . . . Where have you found such strength? . . . You’re all I have and I love you. Something like that.

“What did he mean?” I asked, my hand upon her arm, her body wedged into the open car door.

“Who?” she responded.

“Your manager. When he said ‘It’s your favorite,’ what did he mean?”

“Nothing,” she said, her face looking as if she’d swallowed something bitter. “It’s just work.”

For whatever reason, I didn’t want her to go, but my imagination failed me.

“Well,” I finally managed. “Can we do dinner sometime? Alex, too, of course.”

“Sure,” she said in the same voice I’d heard so many times. “I’ll talk to Alex and call you.”

And that, I knew, was that. Alex would make damn sure the dinner never happened.

“Give her my best,” I said as she rocked into the tiny car and started the tired engine. I thumped the roof as she pulled off, thinking that the sight of her face in the window of that shitty car with the Pizza Hut sign strapped on top was the most pitiful thing I would ever see.

I almost got in my car then, and I wish now that I had. Instead, I went to the manager and asked what he’d meant and where Jean had gone. His answer revealed the cruel pull-the-wings-off-flies kind of torment I’d not seen since high school, and it was part of my sister’s daily life. I was in my car and out of the lot before the restaurant door had closed behind me.

I used to look at homeless people and try to imagine what they had once looked like. It’s not easy. Beneath the grime and degradation is a face once adored by someone. It’s a truth that tricks the eye; our glances slide away. But something happened to ruin that life, to strip it bare; and it wasn’t something big like war or famine or plague. It was something small, something that but for the grace of God could take us, too. It was an ugly truth, one my sister knew too well. She wasn’t homeless, but fate and the callousness of others had conspired to take from her a life I knew her to love very much. It was a good life—many would say great—and were I to close my eyes, I could see it even now. She had been trusting then, aglow with the promise of years that stretched out like silver rails.

But fate can be a wayward bitch.

So can people.

My hands steered the car along a route I knew by heart, and I looked around as I drove. I passed the massive house we’d known since childhood, empty but for my father’s dusty belongings and the tracks I’d left on those rare occasions when I stopped by to check on things. Two blocks more and my own house swam into view. It crowned a small hill and looked down its nose at passing traffic and the park that lay beyond. It was a beautiful old home, with good bones, as my wife often said; but still it needed paint, and the roof was green with moss.

Beyond my house was the country club, with its Donald Ross golf course, clay tennis courts, clubhouse, and swimming pool lined with idle tanned bodies. My wife was up there somewhere, pretending we were rich, happy, or both.