Deceit

by James Siegel

  “Yes,” I said, starting to understand something. Beginning to see. “Great job, Nate. Really.”

  “Okay,” he said. “So why would ten nuclear geniuses-more than ten probably, because who knows who else didn’t come up when I cross-referenced-why would all these top-notch A-bomb guys be living in a little pissant power-dam town?”

  I was going to answer him, to recite what any legitimate journalist should memorize by heart-that when you assume, you make an ass out of you and me. That we’d assumed Littleton Flats was just a town of dam workers and that we were wrong. That maybe we needed to stop assuming something else.

  That there was just a dam.

  Except a loud sound punctured the stillness.

  Nate the Skate heard it, too. He turned and instinctively hunkered down.

  “What the hell was that?” he said, perfectly normally.

  The pickup truck, I was going to say. The one I just asked you about. A flash of blue darting down the street.

  But blood was all over my hands, as if I’d been fingerpainting in it.

  And Nate was staring at my bloody hands with a look of shocked concern, ready to say are you all right-I could see the words forming on his lips.

  It wasn’t me he needed to be worried about.

  Nate crumpled to the ground and stared up at the sky with curiously dead eyes.

  I heard Norma screaming from far away.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  They dug the bullet out of the drywall in Foo Yang, the bullet that had apparently passed straight through Nate’s rib cage and out the other side, missing Foo Yang’s 13-year-old daughter by six infinite simalд inches or so.

  Nate wasn’t dead after all. He’d looked a lot worse than he was.

  All that blood.

  He was taken to Pat Brown General Hospital, where they staunched the bleeding, sewed him back up, gave him two transfusions, and left him resting comfortably in ICU.

  He was going to be fine, an Indian doctor named Dr. Plith informed us-Norma, Hinch, and myself.

  Hinch had been maintaining his vigil up on the cancer ward when they’d wheeled Nate in. Of the three of us, he seemed the most calm-a wounded intern clearly not matching the emotional intensity of a dying wife.

  Somehow I was elected to call Nate’s divorced mom in Rancho Mirage and break the news; I opted to start with the cheery prognosis and progress backward to the actual shooting.

  After she took the name of the hospital-she’d be on the road as soon as I hung up-she asked me who in God’s name would want to shoot her son.

  “I don’t know,” I lied.

  I spent some quality time off the main ward with Sheriff Swenson discussing that very subject.

  This time he treated me as if I were a bona fide witness instead of a convicted liar. He wrote down my account of what happened: the circling blue pickup-I had seen it; that awful noise, like a tire blowout; Nate suddenly crumpling to the ground.

  It was time to tell the sheriff about Santa Monica-about everything. Someone had been shot.

  I started with Sam Savage. About the Web site and the plumber and that morning on Highway 45.

  “An actor?” he said.

  He looked appropriately incredulous.

  “Yeah,” I said. “The plumber isn’t just breaking into homes anymore. He’s hiring out-of-work actors for reality shows on Highway 45. He’s incinerating people.”

  Then I told him whom it was I thought had been incinerated.

  Benjy Washington.

  Which is when his eyes glazed over. When he got that look.

  “Huh?” he said.

  I told him about the note in Belinda Washington’s picture frame.

  “The kid who died in the flood? This is who you’re talking about? A dead kid?”

  “He’s not a kid anymore. And I don’t think he’s dead. He called your deputy, remember?”

  “Oh Jesus, Lucas… it was a prank.”

  “Dr. Futillo said it was the body of a black person. The whole accident that day was choreographed.”

  Swenson sighed, shook his head. “I see. Okay-just out of curiosity. Why? Why was it choreographed?”

  “I don’t know yet. I think it has something to do with the town. With Littleton Flats.”

  “Littleton Flats. Right.”

  He got up, closed his notebook. “You have this actor’s number, Lucas?”

  I was still at the hospital when Nate’s Mom showed up.

  Dr. Plith had told us to go home-Nate would be sleeping it off for hours, but I was responsible for him being there. You’re it, the plumber had whispered to me in the basement that day, but Nate had taken the bullet. What’s the government’s favorite buzzword these days? Collateral damage. Reducing murder to a term more appropriate to property destruction, to make it more palatable for a public that likes its blood at the Cineplex.

  Nate’s mom looked as if she’d run all the way from Rancho Mirage. She was flushed and sweaty, in danger of needing medical attention herself.

  I heard her ask the head nurse for her son-Nathaniel Cohen-barely managing to get his name out between gasps.

  “Mrs. Cohen,” I walked up to her. “I’m Tom Valle-from the paper. I’m terribly sorry about this.”

  She must’ve taken my apology to be the concerned empathy of a coworker and not the guilty plea of the person who’d put her son directly in someone’s crosshairs.

  When I saw the pickup circling like that-why hadn’t I gone back inside?

  She moved toward me in a kind of slow motion, then half collapsed in my arms, and I awkwardly held on to her, somewhere between an actual hug and something to lean on. That odd inclination of the bereaved to seek physical comfort from total strangers.

  She finally pulled away, gathering herself together as if she were picking her spilled emotions off the floor and storing them back where they belonged.

  “I’m sorry…” she said, “it’s just so… God…”

  “Don’t be silly,” I said, cognizant of the uncomfortable wet spot she’d left in the center of my chest. “It’s got to be awful to hear something like this. Over the phone, too. The good news is, Dr. Plith says…”

  “Dr. Plith?” she repeated his name as if she hadn’t heard it correctly. “What kind of name is Plith? Is he a good doctor? I mean I don’t know anything about anyone here.”

  “He’s Indian, I think. He seems very competent.”

  “Okay. Right.” She brought her hands to her face and momentarily kept them there, as if she were murmuring a prayer.

  “The doctor says Nate’s going to be fine. He was very lucky. The bullet went right through his rib cage-it missed his major arteries.”

  She kept nodding up and down, up and down, drinking in the news in big thirsty gulps.

  “Can I see him?”

  “I don’t know. I think he’s still out of it. You’d have to ask the doctor. Of course-since you’re family, maybe they…”

  She didn’t wait for me to finish, went scurrying off after the first flash of hospital green, an ER nurse wheeling another patient into ICU.

  I waited.

  There were some magazines laid out on a small wooden table. A recent issue of Time, an ancient People missing half its cover-a newly married Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston ripped completely in half, leaving only Aniston with her left arm reaching oddly out into space. Someone must’ve wanted to set the record straight. I leafed through it without actually reading it.

  I was doing something else.

  Pushing an imaginary pencil from dot to dot to dot.

  I’d say our deceased was black.

  It was just a little odd-the timing… Someone called one of my deputies…

  The car was already on fire. He said it was empty.

  Willing to act in nontraditional formats.

  I got ten hits. Ten fucking hits.

  There’s the outline. Now look at it and say what it is.

  Say it.

  What are you drawing? she asked me,
the pretty waitress who always seemed to give me and Jimmy an extra helping of flapjacks. Who sometimes tousled our hair and leaned over the table on both elbows so that we could smell her perfume-like the crushed flowers my mom put between the pages of books.

  A whale, I said. An octopus. An elephant.

  She laughed. An elephant here in the diner-whoops, I better call the zoo.

  I smiled and laughed too, feeling my cheeks flush. Complicit in the whole thing, even though I wasn’t.

  It’s hard to say what a kid knows or doesn’t-isn’t that what Bailey Kindlon found out?

  Was it my first lie?

  That she was just a waitress who’d picked us, out of all the kids in the diner, to bestow her special smiles on?

  Why did my mom never come to breakfast at the Acropolis Diner?

  Or did she-just once?

  If I tried hard enough, I could remember.

  The four of us sitting in a red booth-one unhappy family-only we weren’t that unhappy, not like we were going to be. Not yet. But wasn’t there a coolness as my mom handed her menu back to the waitress who’d taken our order-the waitress who asked me what I was drawing, what fabulous animal I was conjuring up this time? And me not understanding why my mom wasn’t smiling back at her, worshiping at the altar of her radiance like we did-Jimmy, Dad, and me?

  I could remember something else, too.

  My mom brusquely calling her over, this waitress-Lillian, her name tag said, like the flower, like a Lilly-after my pancakes had already arrived and I’d poured half a bottle of maple syrup over them. My mom suddenly pulling my plate away, just yanking it right from under me, and calling her over.

  These pancakes are cold! How can you serve your customers cold food? It’s disgraceful-do you hear me! Disgraceful! You are a disgrace!

  Doing what moms aren’t supposed to do, except when they get flowers, maybe, or are watching something sad on TV.

  Crying.

  Fat tears rolling down her cheeks as the diner went very quiet as if all the jukeboxes had suddenly shut off, and I learned that you couldn’t actually die of embarrassment.

  After that morning, it was just Jimmy, Dad, and me.

  Every Sunday, just the three of us.

  Until he left.

  And if I knew it wasn’t just the three of us-knew that it was the three of us plus one-I never whispered it out loud.

  Not even when it became just the two of us.

  I heard the sound of the ICU swing open, sniffed the faint odor of blood and alcohol.

  A surgeon came striding out with the purposeful walk of the almighty who’s still got miracles to accomplish. He pulled off his mask, using it to wipe off the sheen of sweat that covered his brow.

  It reminded me of something.

  That other thing that needed to be checked out-the thing sitting out there on the ledge I needed to coax back in. The thing I was trying to remember when Nate tapped me on the shoulder and said: those science awards? I know why.

  Sure.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Here’s my notes,” I said to him. “What seems to be the problem?”

  I was in the office that had a stenciled Editorial on the door. He was crouched over his desk, looking as if he was half sleeping on it. He didn’t have bags under his eyes as much as fully packed valises.

  “The abortion clinic-bombing doctor?” he said. “You said he took his residency in pediatrics at St. Alban’s, a hospital in Mizzolou, Missouri. That’s what it said in your article.”

  “Yes?” Look calm, I coached myself, even a little affronted.

  “A spokesman from St. Alban’s just called. Notwithstanding their obvious desire to separate themselves from a religious zealot and possible murderer, he swore on a stack of good Presbyterian Bibles they don’t offer residencies in pediatrics-certainly not in the years you mentioned. So we have an obvious problem here.”

  “I don’t think I mentioned what years he served his residency.”

  Good, just a touch of annoyance, as if he was keeping me from doing my real work, which was scratching out my next article and not answering for a minor inconsistency.

  “No, I know you didn’t, Tom. But you mention his age-43. Which would pretty much tell you when he served his residency-give or take a year.”

  “Okay. Well, maybe he took a little longer to become a doctor. I’m sorry-he didn’t tell me when he served his residency. I was kind of delighted he told me where. I mean, I think he tripped up a little telling me that-since the deal was anonymity or nothing.”

  He had an unraveled paper clip clenched between his teeth. It was nearly bitten in half.

  “Of course, now that you mention it,” I said, “he might’ve told me he served his residency at St. Alban’s to throw me off the scent. I probably should’ve left it out of the article.”

  “You have your notes, Tom?”

  “Right here.”

  “Good.”

  I leaned over and placed them on the desk, flipping the memo pad to the second page. “There,” I said, pointing to the name of the hospital. “See-that’s what he told me. St. Alban’s. Residency served. I probably should have pushed him on it-but, you know, I was kind of holding my breath that he’d told me even that much.”

  He stared at my notes, running his finger across the ink like a blind man reading Braille.

  “When did you interview him, Tom?”

  “Oh… let’s see… uh-huh, March 5,” pointing to the date at the top of the page, the one I’d scrawled last night right after I’d interviewed the imaginary doctor in my head-Tom Valle, meet Dr. Anonymous-devolving my article into scrupulously ordered notes able to pass safely through the treacherous shoals of fact checkers, legal eagles, and increasingly suspicious editors.

  “That’s odd, Tom.”

  “Why?”

  “March 5. You were in Florida on March 5. I remember because I turned 55 the day before, and you called to wish me happy birthday. You were in Boca Raton doing that piece on retirement communities. That was March 5, Tom-I’m positive. Didn’t you say you interviewed the doctor in Michigan?”

  “Hey… what… what you’re asking me?”

  “I’m asking you when you interviewed the doctor. We have a spokesman from St. Alban’s screaming about lawsuits and I need to know the facts. So again… when did you interview the doctor?”

  “Well… lemme see… you know, it was more than once, of course. I talked to him on the phone, and then I met him in person in Michigan.”

  “You said you met the doctor in a deserted field, the ruins of some frontier town that burned down. You drove out there and he showed up in a separate car-right?”

  “Yes-that’s right. It might be… yeah, it might be that these notes were from my phone call to him. Yeah, now that you mention it, that sounds right. I probably called him from Florida.”

  “Okay, Tom. You used your cell, I guess.”

  “My cell?”

  “Your cell phone, Tom. I assume you would use your cell phone to call Michigan? If need be, we can get the phone records and show that you called Michigan on March 5 from Florida.”

  “Show who?”

  “If we end up in court, Tom, we might have to walk everyone through the process.”

  “Okay. The doctor obviously gave me the wrong hospital. Remember that the deal was anonymity-he didn’t even give me the name of his home or birthplace. Just anagrams, remember? My antenna should’ve gone up. He fed me the wrong hospital and hoped I’d put it in the article, and like a stupid idiot, I did. He used me-I’ll be more careful next time.”

  “I’m not talking about getting the wrong hospital, Tom. I asked you when you interviewed the doctor and you said March 5; only you were in Florida on March 5 and now you say you called him from there and conducted the interview by phone.”

  “I met him in person-I sat right across from him. As close as we are now. I told you. I just forgot I talked to him on the phone first. It was over several conversations-the intervi
ew.”

  “Fine. Understood. When you called the doctor on March 5 from Boca Raton and conducted your first of many interviews, did you call him on your cell phone? It was long-distance. You were in Florida-I assume you would use your cell so you wouldn’t run up larcenous charges from the hotel? I’m just trying to get the facts straight, Tom.”

  “Well, let me think a minute, okay. Let me… you know, I think I called him from a pay phone.”

  He took the paper clip out of his mouth and carefully laid it down in front of him.

  “You called him from a pay phone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why would you do that? Why would you call him from a pay phone?”

  “That’s the way he wanted it. I’d forgotten about that. He was very secretive, obviously. The whole anagram thing, meeting me where no one could see us. He didn’t know whether he could trust me yet. He didn’t want me to be able to see what number he was calling from.”

  “I thought you called him. You just said you called him from a pay phone.”

  “I’m sorry, I got my syntax wrong.”

  “Your syntax? Either you called him, or he called you. Which is it?”

  “I told you. He called me.”

  “How would he know the number of a pay phone in Florida?”

  “I e-mailed him the number. And then I was supposed to wait at the pay phone at a certain time for him to call.”

  “You e-mailed him the number?”

  “Look, I don’t remember everything exactly the way it happened. I mean, I was doing two stories at once-you said so yourself-I was down there doing the retirement home story, and so you can understand why I forgot about the pay phone. I forgot about it-that’s all. That’s why I have my notes.”

  “Yes, Tom,” he said. “You always have your notes.”

  I’d left them at the office.

  My notes from my trip to Littleton Flats.

  I stared at them-my interview with the army doctor.