Generation of Liars (13 page)

Now that he had seen me like this,
seen who I had become, I knew there was no way we could ever be together. Every
dream I had of destroying the dynamite stick and returning home to my old life
were gone. It was a hopeless dream anyways. I had known that all along, even if
I couldn’t fully admit it. The words written on the confession inside my shoe
made it hopeless. But I had always held out hope. The scariest part was that
Pressley was the only person who knew both my real name and my alias. I never
trusted Motley with knowing my real name. I was afraid that if I took the wrong
step, he would use it to seek out my family for revenge. Success or death,
those were the two options he told me I had that first day I met him at Grand
Central. He never mentioned those terms again, but they were ever-so-subtlety
present every time he announced that he had a job for me to complete.

Chapter Seven: Hot Coffee

T
HE
NEXT MORNING I was awoken by the disharmonized screech of someone impatiently
pressing the buzzer on my door.

I threw the sheets off my body and
swung my feet onto the floor. I padded across the icy floorboards, crossing the
deflated trench coat and pink heels that been tossed asunder the night before.
I stumbled over a pink heel lying sideways on blond-oak floorboards, with the
note that contained my secret discarded beside it. The buzzer screeched again.
I bent down and fished my snub-nose revolver from the coat pocket and rolled
the note into my sock.

I peered through the keyhole and
spotted a wisp of Cleopatra’s silken red hair.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“I thought you might want some of
the stuff from your old apartment, so I had the boys bring it over.”

“What boys?” I timidly asked.

Just then two giant men lurched
into view through the peephole, each holding a large cardboard box of my
possessions. One of the men was six feet tall with a cartoonish red beard as
brightly colored as a crayon. The other man had the physique of a brick;
immense muscles built over a layer of fat and packed into a frame that barely
stretched out to five feet, and he was crowned with a head so bald it appeared
wet. The one with the red beard chimed, “Hello, Alice,” and tipped his cap in a
gentlemanly way.

“Hey, Xerxes,” I said. “Haven’t seen
you guys in a few weeks. Motley keeping you busy?”

“We’ve got goodies for you.” Xerxes
had a tongue like stretchy bubble gum that gave him a lisp when he talked. He
was part of Motley’s team of paid muscles, along with his equally-Neanderthal
partner, Moonboots.

I undid the locks and swung the
door open to let the three of them pass inside. I shot Cleopatra a scathing
look. “Motley even has Xerxes O’Brien and Moonboots McCafferty doing your dirty
work for you now?”

“Technically, Alice, they’re doing
you’re dirty work.” Cleopatra pointed towards a spot on the floor. “Put the
boxes down right there, boys,” she commanded.

“I thought their job consisted of
providing extra muscles for Motley, not serving as your own personal moving
crew.”

“Maybe it’s time for the roles to
change around here a little bit.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Cleopatra drummed her
cream-lacquered nails over their opposing arm. “It doesn’t mean anything,
Alice.” Her eyes shot to the boxes. “That should be everything from your old
apartment.”

“Great. I will be happy to have
some clothes to wear again.”

“I don’t blame you,” Cleopatra
replied, looking me up and down, dressed in only my stockings, a ratty tank
top, and underwear. My outfit was a stark contrast to her sophisticated
chartreuse pantsuit, diamond earrings in the shape of fleur de lees, snake skin
stiletto high heels, and the ever-present velvet ribbon with a key around her
neck.

“It’s not so bad, you know,
relocating,” she told me.

“Oh yeah? Did you just relocate to
Paris from somewhere? I never saw you around before you picked me and Rabbit up
after Rio.”

“Motley recruited me last week. I
was working in the diamond trade in Johannesburg and I got into a little
trouble. I decided that working for someone who was good at hiding might be a
smart move.”  

“Are you my replacement?” I asked.
“Because I won’t go down without a fight. You should know that.”

Cleopatra let a laugh escape, one
powerful enough that she had to throw her head back. “Don’t be ridiculous,
Alice.”

“Then why are you here? Between
Rabbit and myself, we have enough people working here in Paris.”

“When you really want something,
the way Motley wants the dynamite stick, you can never have enough people
working for you.”

“And what about you?” I asked
aggressively. “Do you want to get your hands on the dynamite stick, too? What
does it benefit you to destroy it anyways, when you’re Australian and not
American?”

“Like I just told you, Alice, I got
myself into some trouble working in the diamond trade. To put it less
delicately, I stole millions of dollars’ worth of diamonds.” A smile came over
her face, like the thought of what she had done thrilled her. The revelation of
her fiercely white teeth intimidated me. “Now the authorities are looking for
me. Motley is able to keep me hidden until the smoke clears.”

“So, you’re sure you weren’t called
in to be my replacement?”

“Alice, what you and I bring to
this operation are two very different things.”

“Why is that?”

“You are just a girl,” she said, as
her fingers played with the key around her neck, “and I am a woman.”

“Is that what this is about? I get
it now. You and Motley are an item, right?”

“It’s true. Our working
relationship quickly blossomed into a romantic one.”

“Listen, Cleopatra, I don’t care if
you and Motley are dating. Motley’s romantic liaisons are of no concern to me,
as long as it doesn’t interfere with the dynamic of how we get our work done.
Dating is probably good for Motley. It might actually relieve some of the
hatred he has for his ex-wife.”

“Alice, my being here won’t change
the plan, I can tell you that right now.”

“So you’re just going to help
Motley out while you hide out, and then you’re going to go back to where you
came from to scoop up your diamonds and live happily ever after?”

“Something like that. From what
Motley tells me, you’re no stranger to running from a secret yourself.”

“He told you that?”

“Yeah, except that it sounds like
whatever you’re hiding is a lot worse than my diamonds, seeing as you won’t
share it with the rest of us.”

“Listen, when I signed on with
Motley he knew I was running from something. Without your meddling, he’s
perfectly fine without knowing. In fact, I still don’t even know much about
Motley’s past and I’m fine with that. Things run perfectly smooth around here
without us overlapping our personal business.”

“I best let you get yourself
situated.” Cleopatra snapped her fingers to reign in the attention of Moonboots
and Xerxes. “Let’s go, boys.”

The two men muscled their way out
the door with Cleopatra parading behind them and I shut the door and dropped to
my knees to rummage through the boxes.

I pulled out my favorite pink
hoodie, with a trim of fake fur that was ratty from wear, and shrugged into it.
Next, I slid my legs into a pair of dark denim skinny jeans, topping off my
ensemble with black ballet flats. I tied my hair into a short ponytail and then
I rimmed my eyes corner to corner with black eyeliner.
Just a girl
,
Cleopatra had said to describe me. My thick lashes blinked back at me in the
mirror and I made a grimace.

*   
*    *

I stepped outside my apartment
building and walked towards Rue de Rennes
,
pushing a pair of gold
aviator glasses over my eyes
.
My new neighborhood was the kind of place
you see on postcards from Paris. Manicured buildings, pyramids of fresh fruit
selling on the sidewalk, and pigeons staring you down like they knew you tasted
salty. I walked along the cobblestone pathway, dotted with quaint townhomes the
color of lemon cake.

I had a mental list of errands I
needed to get done, and first on the list was finding a pharmacy so I could
swap the putrid bandage on my arm for a fresh one. Then I needed real groceries
since I had eaten little more than tuna tartare and chocolate ice cream in the
past twenty-four hours.

Close to my apartment, I found a
little pharmacy with a white country door that looked promising. As I swung the
door open to step inside, I heard someone call my name from the sidewalk. My hand
instinctively clutched the revolver in my bag. I spun around and saw a man
waving at me. His face was oddly familiar, but I couldn’t place it immediately.
I tried to make a mental checklist of all the people I had pissed off in the
last three years.

“Alice,” the man called again. He
didn’t sound particularly pissed off. No, in fact, he sounded wonderstruck to
see me. Something about his eyes, burnished like cocoa, and caged beneath a
dual set of lengthy lashes, made me remember him. It was the doctor who had
cleaned me up at the hospital after Pressley shot me. He was waving towards me,
calling out, desperate for my attention. “Alice! Alice!”

I let the door to the pharmacy shut
behind me and I treaded towards him on the cobblestone way, letting my hand slide
out of my bag, away from my weapon, to brush back loose strands of hair from my
cheek. "Hey, you're that doctor that patched my arm up," I said.
“It’s Ben, right?”

"And you're that girl who fell
from the Eiffel Tower like a shooting star." His demeanor was much lighter
and more playful than it had been when we parted company at the hospital.
 

"Yeah, that’s me." I had
forgotten about him and his thick, almost curly brown hair, and dimpled cheeks.
He was wearing a gray waffle-jersey shirt and relaxed jeans that fit like they
were sewn on a loom predestined for his body.

“You changed your hair,” he
remarked.

“I always change my hair,” I said,
eagerly pushing myself up onto the balls of my feet. He was a tall one.

“I didn’t know you lived in my
neighborhood.”

“Neither did I.” There was an
awkward few seconds when neither of us knew what to say. 

Ben’s eyes, lucent as jewels, shied
away and pretended to be entranced by something on the pavement at our feet.
His genuine shyness was disarming. "Hey,” he said as though hit by a
thunderbolt of an idea, “let me buy you a cup of coffee."

“Sure.”

“I know a place,” he told me. My
fingers were nervously straightening my hooded collar as we walked side by
side. “You do like coffee, right?” he asked. Our shadows stretched out on the
sidewalk, guiding us like sun-streaked ghosts in the mid-day shadow play.

“I love it,” I replied.

Five minutes later we were seated
inside a bakery called Gerard Mulot, located on Rue de Seine. We had a quaint
little corner table and two steaming coffees in front of us. The sun streaming
through the windows was making Ben’s eyes shine like coins.

“So,
doctor
,” I began, as I
swirled fresh cream into my cup, “do you always buy gunshot victims a cup of
coffee after they stumble into your emergency room?”

“Only the cute ones, for the ugly
ones I only spring for cold tea, or a Fresca, maybe.”

I laughed out loud. I let my eyes
tilt to the side, showing my curiosity. "Seriously though, are you a real
doctor?"

"I healed you, didn't I?"

“I suppose, but I retain the right
to be cynical.”

He sighed. “You know, Alice, the
idea that all Americans working abroad are scam artists is a nasty stereotype,
and one that I personally take offense to.”

“It is a stereotype that has been
well earned by some.”

“The people you’re talking about
are only the criminals and scum bags, they’re the only type low enough to
capitalize on the November Hit.”

“I don’t know. I’ve heard some
tales.”

“Oh, that’s just the media playing
it up with sensational stories. Like that bozo who used to write for
TIME
,
Tisk, or Risk, or whatever.”

“Elliot Risk,” I corrected. “That’s
his name, the guy who invented the term Generation of Liars.”

“Yeah, well, when is the last time
anyone even read an article by him? For the better if you ask me. Do you know
how many Christmases and birthdays I got stuck with a stack of those lame
T-shirts with the baby’s face on them?”

“The baby was cute,” I defended.
“The slogan was terribly lame.”

“Never Trust Anyone Over the Age of
Zero,” Ben summoned the slogan, shaking his head. “I really hope that guy
didn’t become a millionaire over the licensing deals.”

“What about you, Ben?” My chin
rested enchantingly on my fingers as I wandered inside his eyes. “You’re over
the age of zero. Can I trust you?”

“I wouldn’t stake who I trust based
on a battle cry used to sell magazines.” Ben poured a cascade of sugar into his
coffee, and neatly hedged the rogue sprinkles on the table with his fingers. I
remembered how delicately those fingers had smoothed the bandages on my skin.
“You know, Alice, they say that only about one percent of the American
population engaged in any sort of fraud following the November Hit.” He shook
his head and laughed. “I mean it must drive you crazy, as an American, for
people to always assume you’re a con artist.”

"You know, I really have to
apologize for what a jerk I was at the hospital. I shouldn’t have accused you.
I was having a rough night, which I’m sure was obvious."

“It’s okay. You were just a little
shaken up. I was worried about you though, I mean, the way you were going on
about, um, what was it, being shot over a computer disk? It had me concerned
you had bumped your head. Trust me, I’ve seen concussions cause some real
feisty delusions.”