Generation of Liars (31 page)

“There’s no point. It’s not who I’m
looking for. Thanks anyway.”

“Alright, Alice, I’m sorry I wasn’t
able to provide what you were looking for.”

“That’s okay, Skip. I couldn’t find
it in any of the local papers or by searching Google either. Maybe the school
covered it up.”

“Covered what up, Alice?”

“Oh, sorry, nothing,” I said
distractedly, already on the other side of my flat, lighting a cigarette over
the stove burner without remembering walking there. “Goodbye, Skip.”

“Goodbye, Alice. Hey, take care of
yourself, alright?”

I placed the phone down on the arm
of the sofa and softly parted the curtains away from the windows. The sun’s
yellow splinters were low and scattered like the runny yoke of a cracked egg,
and the white ghosting shadow of the moon was entering the sky. It was getting
late. I needed to hurry. I uncloaked my hair from the towel and used a blow dryer
to thicken it into large, unstoppable curls. When I was finished, it was huge
and blond and there was no escaping its power. I pinned one side back with a
glittery turquoise butterfly clip. I looked good, I assured myself. Blond
suited me. Mostly I had dyed it blond because I wanted to catch Motley off
guard. Change things up. Blond made me brave.

Partly, I had been planning to do
it ever since I saw
Ms. Clairol
herself hugging Ben at the hospital.
Maybe the gentleman preferred blondes. I wanted him to prefer me. If I even
managed to survive the night and see him again.  

I slipped into a body-hugging blue
velvet dress that I had selected from my closet. I hadn’t worn it since a
harrowing experience in Monte Carlo with a gangster who decided to use information
on the dynamite stick as collateral on a roulette table. It was hell to zip up,
but it looked great on me. I did smudgy black eyeliner and a nude lip. The last
thing I did was step into a pair of silver stilettos and tuck the confession
note inside one of them.

Chapter Twenty-eight: The Dinner

I
TOOK
A taxi to Motley’s house and let myself in through the front door. Rabbit was
already inside when I entered the marble foyer beneath the crystalline
chandelier.

He looked me up and down. “Wow
Alice, putting on the ritz tonight, aren’t you? You look nice.”

I wondered to myself if he meant
nice for a dead person. “Thanks, Rabbit.” Or did he even know? He might have
also taken a nasty slide into the liability column. A shame too, since red X’s
totally clashed with what he had on, which was a blue and white striped dress
shirt, topped with a navy blue blazer with gold buttons.

“Motley said this little
celebration was your idea.”

I fussed with my dress in the gold
baroque mirror in the front hall, pulling at the fabric to straighten the
puckers and bumps. “It was my idea. I thought it would be nice for us to
celebrate as a group. A little colleague-to-colleague bonding time.” I
pretended to be separating my eyelashes with my mascara wand, but really I was
looking past my reflection to sneak glances at Rabbit and try measuring his
face for reactions.  

“I guess I could use a little time
to unwind. We did work our asses off.” Rabbit shook out his neck and jerked his
tie looser.

I turned away from the mirror and patted
shoulders with him and my hands reached up to take over command of
straightening his neck tie. “And we have so much work coming up on the
horizon.” I secured the knot at the nape of his neck, pulling it to bring him
even closer to me. “You and I are going to be busy jetting off to the States,
bribing big names and scaring Washington elite and Hollywood stars speechless.
It’s going to be tiring.” I aggressively cinched the knot on his tie. “But it
will all be worth it once we destroy the dynamite stick once and for all.”

“I don’t think that’s in my
future.” He squirmed free and jerked his tie loose. I let some space creep
between us and swallowed the hard lump that had sprung inside my throat. I
wondered if he had caught on to Motley’s sinister plan. This was something, I
told myself. This was a good something. We could band together and take Motley
down. But then he said something that shattered all hope of that. “I resigned
today.”

“You what?” I blew out an express
of exasperated air because I had the sensation of being sucker-punched in the
gut. “Resigned? How?”

“I took a buyout from Motley and
I’m out of the game. I’m tired. I’ve lived enough for five lifetimes already
and I just want my share of the cash up front so I can go off and do my own
thing.” He faced himself in the mirror and adjusted the knot on his tie back to
the way he liked it. “So I guess in addition to celebrating, this is like my
farewell dinner too.”

“Is that what you were doing at
Motley’s house this afternoon? Getting your money?”

“Yes.”

“You can’t do this.”

Rabbit blinked, and his small,
brown eyes burrowed into me as the crookedness of his nose scrunched up. “Why
not?”

“Because we’re a team.”

“Alice, don’t be ridiculous. You
have made it very clear in the past how you feel about me. You hate me.
Besides, it’s done. I cashed the check this afternoon.”

I was about to say something else,
but Motley appeared in the doorway and I had to stuff my words and force a
tight smile. Motley was dressed in a sharp tan suit with a Burberry tie and
enough cologne dabbed into his corners to drown a fish. He had Cleopatra on his
arm and she was wearing a maroon dress drizzled in sequins and crushed velvet
gloves hiding everything up to her elbows. A pair of diamonds dragged on her
ears and the key tied to a velvet string that she always wore was dangling from
her neck.  

“Ready to roll, guys?” Motley
asked, fastening a jewel-crusted cufflink.

I sucked back the web of bile that
was coagulating in my throat. “Lead the way, boss.”

The four of us shuffled into
Motley’s black Bentley. Cleopatra was sitting beside me in the car and there
was a vanilla scent infused into her well-moisturized skin. She crossed her
legs stiffly beneath her tight dress. I eased into my seat and stretched my
lips into an obtuse smile. “Look at us. The three musketeers out for one last
ride on the old horse. Oh, and Cleopatra too, of course.” I knew I was
embarrassing myself, but my nerves had gone haywire. The only way I could think
to shut my mouth was to sew it up with the bottle of champagne stocked in the
ice bucket in the backseat. “Cheers,” I blithered. I raised the bottle to
nobody in particular before plunging it to my lips. I quickly became a runaway
train of misplaced giggles and slurred proclamations.

The car pulled up to the restaurant
where I had arranged reservations. The acclaimed eatery was housed in a small
building that looked like a jewel box. We piled onto the sidewalk and entered
through the elegant turnstile doors that led inside.

From the moment we entered through
the door, the champagne from the car began making me talk too loud. “I’ll have
the fish,” I proclaimed to a passing penguin-suited waiter.

“The maître d’ hasn’t even sat us
yet,” Rabbit chided.

Cleopatra shot me a demeaning look.
“Alice, dear,” she let my name seethe on her tongue, “I don’t think you’re
meant to order until you have a table and a menu in front of you.”

“Sorry.” I let a small burp escape.
My legs wobbled and I crashed backwards into a stack of menus, scattering them
like a grenade had just gone off.

Judging by the embarrassment on
Motley and Rabbits’ faces when I got back on my feet, I knew I was doing a good
job. The drunkenness was pure theatrics. It was the only way Motley would have
his guard down. As far as he knew, stupid drunk little Alice could never be
planning to tie him up and grab the dynamite stick. I still wasn’t sure
how
I was going to do it, but tonight was the night.

Motley requested a table in the
back of the restaurant and slipped the maître d’ a wad of cash as an apology
once we were seated. My lips twisted into a grin, knowing that my plan was
working.  I shot up from the table. “Excuse me, I have to use the little
girl’s room.” I wobbled to the bathroom, taking the wrong turn more than once
in order to bump into crowded tables of elite diners.

Once inside the bathroom, I rested
my purse on the counter and pulled out a sewing needle and a Zippo lighter I
had thrown in there before leaving my apartment. I hit the flint on the lighter
and submerged the tip of the needle into the flame for thirty seconds. I peered
into the mirror, at the crowns of silky blond hair erupting from my scalp, and
the seductively painted eyes, and I stuck my tongue out. I snapped my eyes shut
and rapidly plunged the needle into the thick, pink flesh.

I heard the bathroom door crunch
open behind me, and I quickly let the needle fall into the drain.

I spun around and guardedly bumped
my ass against the sink. I looked up and saw Cleopatra standing with each of
her hands set on the place where her orbed hips met her succinct waist. A nasty
sneer was on her lips. “What are you doing in here?” Her dainty nose
contracted. “It smells like smoke in here. Were you smoking in here? Honestly,
Alice, get some class.” My tongue, which was burning and expanding inside my
hot mouth, was too swollen for me to form a reply. “Let’s go,” she said
authoritatively.  She propped the door open with the toe of her high heel
shoe. I followed Cleopatra back to the table. My tongue had already begun the
metamorphosis of turning to a heavy, dead organ inside my mouth.

“Alice, you’re being quiet. Are you
sobering up?” Motley asked, once our cocktails arrived.

“I’m not
dunk
.” The clumsy
words spun off my numbed tongue.

“Drunk, Alice. You’re not drunk.”

“Duh, that’s what I just
sad
.”

“Said, Alice, said.”

“Look at her,” Cleopatra remarked.
“She’s so intoxicated she can’t even pronounce her words correctly.”

I fought back the triumphant smile
that was forming on my lips, pleased that my plan was working. The waiter
approached the table and set down our plates. He put a tremendous, juicy rack
of ribs in front of Motley. Cleopatra picked at a skeletal monkfish with a side
of carrot crinkles splayed out like a lotus flower. Rabbit had ordered a
hamburger and, calculating his level of pleasure based on how few words he said
as he ate it, I guessed that he enjoyed it. I shot a glance at Rabbit, feeling
envious that he had the luxury of cashing out early and being home free, feeling
envious that he wasn’t marked for extinction like I knew I was. I wondered if
he knew about Motley’s plan, if it bothered him at all to sail me down the
river.

The meal went by slowly until
Motley drained his bourbon and set down his linen napkin, which was dotted with
barbeque-stained kiss marks. “On account of Alice being a sloppy mess, I think
we should skip dessert and call it a night.”

“I completely agree,” Cleopatra
said, looking up from reapplying red lipstick in her compact mirror. Rabbit, whose
eyes were hooded under heavy, tired lids, could only nod in agreement. Motley
told us he would handle the check and instructed Rabbit to get me back into the
car.

Rabbit got the keys from the valet
and cornered me in the backseat. “What’s the deal, Alice?” I pretended to be
passed out. “Alice, you’re not drunk. Cut the crap.”

“How did you know?” I let my face
spring back to a sober pose.

“Because you pulled this same exact
stunt in Sydney on that mob boss last spring when you wanted him to think you were
drunk so you could steal his hard drive. Let me guess, you sterilized a sewing
needle with your lighter and pricked your tongue to fake a lisp again too?”

“Why the hell did you let me go
through dinner like this without calling me out?”

“Because I figured if you were
putting this much effort in your little act, you had a reason. You’re cooking
up some scheme. What is it?”

I dug my teeth into my lips,
wondering if I could trust Rabbit. His track record was garbage. Ratting on my
face smooch with Pressley and then going off to Amsterdam with Motley and
leaving me behind. It had a teacher’s pet kind of vibe and teacher’s pet was
always a dirty snitch. “I don’t think I can trust you.”

“Alice, I know we aren’t like
friends
or anything,” he said, awkwardly, struggling not to choke on the syrupy
sentimentality of admitting we might be allies. “But we’ve been in some pretty
tough situations together. If you need help, well, I want to help you.”

Sure, I had been faking my
drunkenness, but it’s not like I had been sipping ginger ale in there, so there
was a little buzz and it loosened my tonsils. I opened my lips, to tell him,
subtly and discretely, the plan Motley had been carrying out. But when I spoke,
I blurted it all out. “Motley is selling the dynamite stick to the U.S.
government in exchange for immunity. Then, he’s going to
off
me.”

“
Off
you?”

“As in, kill me.”

“Alice, you can’t be serious.” I
could tell Rabbit really didn’t know about Motley’s plan. People can’t fake
turning that shade of white.  

“I’m dead serious, Rabbit.”

“How do you know?”

“I heard him on the phone. He was
talking to someone at the U.S. State Department and he was brokering a deal for
immunity.”

“Why would Motley collaborate with
the State Department?”

“Because if he turns in the
dynamite stick he won’t be wanted anymore. He’ll be a State Department hero,
and free to live as he chooses without prison breathing down his neck. The
government has offered immunity for anyone who coughs up the dynamite stick.
That reporter from
Zipped
, Skip Hask, told me all about it. Motley had
us sabotage the servers at Cibix so that he could be the one to make the deal,
and not them.”