Generation of Liars (45 page)

“
Back
into your hands?
You’ve had it before?”

“I had it in the beginning.”

“Enoch had it in the beginning.”

“I am Enoch.”

My tongue was dry as velvet inside
my open mouth. “That can’t be.”

“Of course it can, Alice. Every
legend needs an origin story. The dynamite stick is no different; it is a
legend like every other. I wish it weren’t so, trust me, but like all cursed
treasures, it has had a sorted journey of falling in and out of the hands of
its creator. It’s almost like a fairytale, if you really think about it.”

“So does that mean you targeted me
because I was involved with the dynamite stick? Is that how I fit into your
sick, fairytale
fantasy?”

“None of this is fantasy. Except
maybe the part about your prince turning out to be a frog.”

“More like a snake.” I glowered at him.

“It all started out quite
reasonably. Creating the dynamite stick derived from a need of utmost
practicality. The only practical choice I had at the time. Reality is what got
in the way, so don’t pin this mess on fantasy. Besides, I didn’t target you.
You landed in my lap that night after you fell out of the Eiffel Tower. I
merely pursued you.”

“Has our entire relationship been a
lie?” There was a hollow sinking in the pit of my stomach. “What about all
those sweet things you told me, what about worrying about me being a dancer?”

“I know you weren’t a dancer. I’ve
known exactly what you are this entire time. I was lying. Fancy that. I was
merely doing everything I could to keep you close to me, hoping that one day
you would bring the dynamite stick straight to me.”

I could hear keys jostling on the
other side of the door. I looked up at Ben. “Who is that?”

“It sounds like my wife is home.
She can explain it all to you.”

“You have a wife?”

Chapter Forty-seven: Sparks

T
HE
DOOR SWUNG open and there was a woman standing there wearing a full-length coat
in a distinct shade of cardinal red, with the hem stylishly split to reveal an
enduring pair of legs. She trained her eyes on me with a look of callous
satisfaction. “Hello again, Alice,” she said.

“
You
?” I disbelievingly
panted. The wild blond hair and three-foot long legs made it clear that it was
none other than my nemesis, Ophelia Le Fur, standing in the doorway.

She sauntered over to Ben and
planted her plump, heart-shaped lips over his. He kissed back like he was
accustomed to it. When they pulled away from one another, the look on his face
was overcome with triumph. “You’ve already met my wife, so there is no need to
introduce her,” Ben told me.

“You’re married to this psycho?” I
asked.

“Alice, please don’t insult my
wife. It’s rude.”

 “That was her at the
hospital. She was the woman I saw hugging you, wasn’t she?” The realization
almost knocked me over as I said it.

“You almost caught us,” Ben said.
He was smiling. So proud of himself. “But your jealousy blinded you from
realizing what you were even seeing. You know, you should really stop being so
hasty, Alice.”

Ophelia had a briefcase at her hip.
She set it down on the kitchen table and opened it. Inside was a jumble of
spare red wires mingled like vines, and a pile of shiny plated electrical
pieces.

“How long have you been married?” I
asked.

“Seven years. Ophelia was a patient
of mine. I was helping her with a prescription and our relationship blossomed
into something more. I’m not really Enoch Sprites. My real name is Dr. Elijah
Coke. Sprites was just a fake name I used when working with Motley.”

“You were her drug pusher for the
steroids? That’s how she got in trouble with the Olympic committee for being a
junkie, right?”

“Watch it, bimbo,” Ophelia barked.
Her cold eyes were primed on me and I could tell she had nothing good planned.
“You’re in no position to pass judgment.”  

“And you pushed drugs on me too,
didn’t you, Ben? The painkillers you gave me that night we met at the hospital,
you said they were to help my shoulder. But really they loosened my tonsils,
made me loopy enough to prattle on about the dynamite stick.”

“A little truth serum never hurt
anyone.” Ben sat at the table and rotated the dynamite stick in his fingers,
like a spinning orb, to admire it. The smile digging his lips transposed into a
disbelieving head shake. “This thing has caused me so much trouble. Three years
of chasing it down.” His eyes shot to me. “Until a stupid girl fell out of the
Eiffel Tower and landed in my lap. Ha. Imagine the absurdness of it.” He got up
from the table and tapped the knife to the side of my cheek. “Funny
coincidence, isn’t it?”

“You jerk,” I screamed.

“Simmer down, Alice,” he said.
“It’s all almost over now.”

“What’s almost over?”

Ophelia interjected this time. “I’m
blowing up the dynamite stick, once and for all.” A sharp-toothed smile was on
her face. “And I’m blowing you up along with it.”

“Is that a figure of speech?” I
asked, my eyes nervously floating down to the bastion of red wires on the
table.

“No, Alice, I meant it quite
literally.”

“How does blowing me up benefit
you?”

“You know who I am,” Ben said. “The
stakes are too high in keeping you alive. I’m a wanted man, as you already
know.”

“You broke out of prison with
Motley, right?”

“Yeah, the one and only, your boss.
You were stupid to ever get involved with him, you know. He’s a reptile.”

“I was desperate,” I told him. “And
I trusted an offer that I realize now was too good to be true.”

“You can’t trust anybody over the
age of zero, didn’t anyone ever tell you that?”

“I think I’ve heard it
before.” 

“And didn’t anyone ever tell you,
Alice, that the human brain is part reptile and part monkey? That we’re all
lying psychopaths. Every last one of us.”

“Someone did once, yes. Motley,
actually.”

“He turned in that kid from Yale,
you know. The one you brought to my apartment with the gunshot wound. Lenny
Rabitz. That’s why I was so angry with you when you took him to my apartment. I
was afraid it would lead Motley to my apartment and once he saw me again and
saw how I had infiltrated your life, my gig would be up, you would find out I
was the infamous Enoch Sprites.”

“Wait, you’re saying it was Motley
who turned Rabbit in to the dean at Yale and ruined his perfect life?”

“Motley set Rabbit up with that
poker racket at Yale. Motley is the heir to the Fool’s Luck playing card
fortune. His great grandfather founded the company and his dad built up a chain
of hotels and casinos in Vegas. The initial reason why Motley got interested in
Rabbit happened long before the November Hit. Long before he realized he could
use him to help find the dynamic stick. It was Rabbit’s reputation as a math
whiz kid that he was after. He wanted to recruit him to help him do algorithms
for a new casino he was opening, you know, help him fix the numbers in their
favor. But you know how Motley operates. He only brings someone onboard knowing
he has the upper hand with them. He sent a goon to pose as a student and get in
Rabbit’s ear, inspire him to start that racket at Yale so that he could tip him
off to the dean and make him a job offer once he was academically ruined.
Motley knew he could scoop him up that way. After the November Hit happened, he
found a better use for Rabbit’s genius than cooking casino books.”

“Motley was overseeing the opening
of a new casino from inside prison?”

“These mobster types, they don’t
let prison stop them.”

“What was he in prison for?”

The corners of Ben’s mouth widened.
He was highly amused by my question. “Something terrible,” he said. “But far be
it from me to shatter your little world by telling you.”

“What were you in prison for?”

“Something far
less terrible
than Motley.”

“But you’re a murder, aren’t you?
Both you and Ophelia are. You killed that college kid in Brussels, Jamie. He
was found hanged inside his dorm room.”

“I had to let Ophelia do it, Alice.
Surely you of all people understand the sacrifices we make for the sake of
keeping a secret.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I
asked.

“I read that note you always kept
hidden in your shoe. I know all about the dead girl. I know about Heather
Gilmore.”

“You read it?”

“For goodness’ sake, Alice, it
wasn’t exactly hard. You left your dirty socks floating about the floor all the
time. I took a peek at the note one night while you were asleep.” 

“She isn’t really dead. Heather
Gilmore is alive.”

“But you thought you killed her,
and you ran away from the scene of the crime. That makes you disgusting.”

“What’s your excuse?” I asked
dryly. “What secret is so worthy of protecting that Jamie had to die for it?”

“I never meant for it to get so out
of hand, you must believe that part. It begins as a simple tale, really. I
hated my job.” He was pacing the table now. “It’s a simple American phenomenon.
So I cooked up a scheme, using my position as a doctor at a veteran’s hospital
with ample access to Social Security databases, to scam senior citizens. The
elderly were a natural target. Plus, after working with them for a few years, I
found them to be an utterly intolerable subcategory of humans. But I couldn’t
scam my own patients because that would be too obvious after a while. The pool
only goes so deep. I used my work computer to hack the entire Social Security
agency database. I aggregated every single Social Security number of all United
States citizens onto a thumb drive. The plan was to use the Social Security
numbers of elderly Americans in various geographical locations, people with no
tie other than being of a certain age, and then dip into their savings. It was
supposed to be easy.”

“The thumb drive you created, its
sitting right there on the table?” I nudged my chin towards it. “The dynamite
stick.”

“Yes.”

“I was so excited about my plan and
all the frills of my impending early retirement. I planned a getaway to Turks
and Caicos or Tahiti, where Ophelia could finally be free of all the disgrace
that followed her Olympic fall. The excitement caused me to start slipping at
my medical practice.”

“Slipping?”

“I accidentally wrote one of my
patients the wrong dosage on a blood pressure prescription and she died. The
family sued. I was probably going to jail for manslaughter. I knew I had to get
out of the country, even though there was a court order preventing me from traveling
with the impending charges. But I didn’t care. Ophelia and I were at the
airport on our way to Tahiti when I got stopped by security. Long story short,
I ended up in a cell with Motley. I had the dynamite stick on me while I was
trying to board the plane. They confiscated it and I never saw it again.”

“And then the November Hit
happened.”

“Yes, it happened while I was in
jail. I was ecstatic. If only I could escape from the prison walls, I could
take on a new identity and start fresh without any trace of my old name or the
manslaughter charges. But as long as the dynamite stick was floating out there,
I was never completely in the clear; there was always a chance of our real
identities being restored. I shared the fact that I had created the dynamite stick
with Motley. He was so damned charismatic. I spilled everything.” I could see
little sprigs of veins popping in his forehead now. I had never seen them
before. I was watching everything I thought I knew about Ben unravel in front
of me.

“So, how did the dynamite stick
become so famous after you lost it at the airport?”

“My guess is some airport
rent-a-cop popped in the disk, saw what was on it, and then after the November
Hit, he realized he could sell the information contained on it and be the one
on the airplane to Tahiti.”

“Well, whoever ended up with it, it
didn’t stay in his hands for long.”

“This thing is like the Hope
Diamond, bad luck befalls on whoever touches it.”

“Is that why you’re blowing it up?”

“It needs to be destroyed, once and
for all.”

“I can’t believe I’ve been so
stupid, dating the man who created the dynamite stick. I need a cigarette.”

Ophelia, who had been intently
threading the red wires on the bomb, looked up. “Oh don’t worry darling, you’ll
be smoking soon enough,” she said.

“That’s what you’re working on,
right? A bomb to blow me up, along with the dynamite stick.”

I studied her, intimidated by her
husky sensuality, which I knew was what Ben truly preferred and not my scrawny
frame. She had a coat of red lipstick over her rough, pouty lips. “You’re
probably wondering why I want to blow you up,” she asked.

“I’m a tad curious.”

“No good reason. But after enduring
watching you suck face with my husband and play house in my apartment for
months while I slummed it in a Parisian hotel, I’m kind of pissy. I mean have
you ever stayed in a French hotel?
Blech
!”

“Ophelia,” I said, “if you missed
your apartment so bad, why would you want to go and blow it up now? You’ll be
at the mercy of the French hospitality industry all over again.”

Ophelia laughed. I feared those
flat, white teeth that seemed to cut the air like pliers. She was looking at
Ben as though they were sharing an inside joke. “Gosh, this one is even dumber
than you told me.” She turned her attention back to me. “No, Alice, I am not
blowing you up inside the apartment. I am going to blow you up on top of the
Eiffel Tower.”

Chapter Forty-eight: It Happened On the Eiffel Tower

T
HE
FLICKER OF the dying light casting a gyrating glow over the stairwell was
making me dizzy enough to puke.