The Truth Collector (3 page)

The brunette woman jumped up beside her, yelling at the children to stay away and they started yelling too. Paul backed away while the woman turned into a tempest of arms and legs and threats. Malcolm covered his face as purses and hands smashed into it, but he didn't cover his mouth:

“I said, are you cheating on your husband? Are you cheating on Eric?”

Miranda launched a flurry of punches into his chest and called him a pig and told him to mind his own damn business. She pushed and screamed until she ran out of breath, but Malcolm just stood there motionless. Then, like always, all the bullshit faded away and there was only room for the truth.

“Ye – ye – yes,” she said, slapping a hand over her mouth a fraction of a second too late. She finally wrenched her arm away, but it wasn't the arm Malcolm was after. He had her words now. He had her since the moment they showed up.

Miranda fell backwards into her friend's arms. Her face went pale and her limbs limp, crumpled under the weight of her secret. Miranda's friend put the back of her palm against the woman's forehead and began to fan her with a magazine from her purse. She looked too weak to handle much more – his questions had taken almost everything she had. But his client had a condition.

He locked eyes with her and pressed on.

“Are you cheating with Craig? A man named Craig Fielder?”

The brunette woman actually stopped fanning Miranda and snorted. “
Craig
? He wishes. I mean he's a nice guy and all but… give me a break.”

“Yes,” Miranda whispered, “with Craig.” Then the light in her eyes went out and she swooned. The brunette woman started screaming again and laid Miranda out across the park bench. She screamed and cried and called them monsters. Then the children were circling, asking what happened and who were these strangers. Miranda's daughter squeezed past them and reached for her mother's hand. She grabbed it and frowned at Malcolm.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “She'll be okay. Just give her a minute.” The words came out all wrong. Saying them felt about as comfortable as trying to shave with the wrong hand.

“Lies,” the brunette woman said, holding a water bottle against Miranda's forehead. “Lies on top of lies.” She pressed a cell phone to her ear. “Hello? Yes. I'm in Riverside Park. Some men came up and accosted us. No, I'm fine. But my friend fainted. Yes, they're still here. What? Of course.”

Malcolm grabbed Paul by the shoulder. He was standing there with his mouth hanging open watching the drama unfold. “We need to go,” Malcolm said. “Now.”

That snapped him out of it. He got the keys out of his pocket and snatched the scrap of napkin – the napkin with his real phone number on it – from the ground where it had fallen. Malcolm led them toward the parking lot, looking back at first, but throwing caution to the wind when he was sure they weren't being followed.

They passed another pair of benches at the edge of the grass. A strange woman sat in one of them wearing an olive dress and evening gloves. She looked like she'd been plucked out of the opera. She hadn't been there before, but now she glared at them as they passed. Her hands were busy breaking off breadcrumbs and feeding them to the squirrels gathered around her. But her eyes were perfectly still. She never took them off Malcolm. She just sat there watching, skin pale, hair dark, with her lips twisted into a ruthless smile.

Great. Another loose end. A beautiful loose end, but another loose end all the same. Malcolm pushed Paul along even faster once their feet hit the parking lot pavement. His questions came rapidly now, and his admonishments came almost nearly as often.

Malcolm ignored them all.

He ignored everything until the car was rolling out of town and Paul had finally shut up. That's when he pulled out the tape recorder and unwrapped his little bundle of truth.

CHAPTER THREE

Paul let him have it once he'd parked the car in front of their duplex.

“Jesus, man. What the hell did you
do
to her?” The pitch of his voice rose as they climbed the front porch steps.

“Relax,” Malcolm said. “She'll be fine. It works better if I rile them up first. That's exactly what I did. Some people hide the truth a lot better than others. That's all.”

“No,” Paul said. “That's not all.” He held a finger in the air as if to bookmark his place in his tirade so he wouldn't get lost. Then he disappeared into his apartment and came out again with a beer. His fingers trembled on the bottle cap before twisting it open. “You said you needed help with detective work. Not that you were going to make some poor woman faint in the park and get the police called on us.”

Malcolm patted the tape recorder in his pants pocket. “It was the easiest way to get what we needed. Now we get paid. Besides, what would the sheriff even arrest us for? Lying about an imaginary dog and asking some personal questions? Lighten up.”

Paul shook his head, his eyes lost somewhere in the label of his beer bottle. “No, man. You lighten up. Look, I need the money just as much as you do. But it's just a few hundred bucks. That's no way to make a living. Whatever hypnosis shit you did –”

“That's what you don't get, Paul. I did
n't do an
ything except look her in the eye and think of which questions to ask. It just happens. The truth is a bitch sometimes. Well, most of the time. But it always comes out when I'm around.”

Paul took a long sip of beer and looked out into the street. “Yeah. Maybe. But people sure as shit lie all the time. I know I do and you're pretty good at it yourself.”

Malcolm sat on the top porch step and cradled the tape recorder in his hands. “Is a lie that gets to the truth really a lie? I don't want to have some metaphysical debate. You'd just get your ass kicked. But I have to believe the truth is supposed to come out. I mean, why else would I be here? What would be the point of me… being the way I am?”

Paul shook his head, his eyes darting from one side of the street to the other. “I don't know, man. But you could have been a bit more subtle.”

“You're probably right. I'm going to give my client a call with the big news. He'll want to come hear the tape I'm sure. You'll get your cut when I get paid. And if you don't want to help out anymore...”

“Yeah,” Paul said. “Thanks. Don't worry about the money. That kind of stuff just isn't my bag. If you ever have some detective stuff – some real detective stuff...”

“Understood.” Malcolm got up, clapped Paul on the shoulder, and went inside his garage office.

* * * *

If Malcolm dealt in truth Paul dealt in prophecy. He called Eric seven times that day. Each voicemail he left was a bit more frantic than the last. He had to find him before Miranda could corrupt him with more lies and excuses about the strange men who got her to say things she didn't mean. There was always the chance Eric would believe her, or his desire not to know overwhelm what his head told him made logical sense. Malcolm had the tape of course. The tape wouldn't lie…

But it wouldn't earn him any money if no one listened to it.

Night came without word from Eric. Malcolm even tried calling the gas station where he worked, but the voice-cracking teenager told him he hadn't seen him. It was his night off. He could be anywhere, getting blackout drunk before going home to confront Miranda. He could be in a different continent banging his way through all the exotic hookers he could handle. He could be anywhere and everywhere except where he was supposed to be: paying a man who desperately needed the money. Money he was owed.

Malcolm slammed his fist onto his desk after the ninth unanswered call. This one had been different – it went straight to voicemail. Eric's phone was dead or missing, and so were Malcolm's hopes of ever getting paid. But there was alcohol to drink and rent to pay.

There was only one thing to do.

He knocked on Paul's door. It swung inward and revealed Paul standing there with an incredulous expression on his face. Music blasted from speakers behind him, the only sign of life in his side of the duplex. He let out a long sigh before he spoke. “Shit, man. I thought you were Rachel.”

“The redhead?”

“She never called me back. I know I blew it, but for a second I thought I actually had something there. You know?”

Malcolm nodded. He didn't see Paul but
through
him. The little girl from the park was looking at him with those serious eyes. When he blinked she disappeared. “I can't get a hold of Eric. I'm going to go out there and give him a copy of the tape tonight. It might be too late already, but I'm going to try.”

Paul laughed. “With wifey and the kid home? Stop messing with me.”

“I'm not.”

“You're crazy, man.”

Malcolm cocked his head to the side, considering it. “I won't debate you there. Look. I need that money, Paul. Can you give me a ride out there? No getting the cops called on us this time.”

Paul's eyes narrowed into tiny disbelieving dagger points.

“It'll take your mind off red.”

“Rachel,” Paul said. “Her name is Rachel.”

“That's the one. Now will you take me? You don't even have to get out of the car. Promise. It'll be the most interesting part of your night.”

Paul sighed again and crossed his arms in front of his chest. But it was a defeated sigh, performed more out of obligation than anything else. “You're probably right about that last part. I was going to meet up with this girl at the bar, but that can wait I guess. No crazy shit this time. And
definitely
no getting out of the car.”

Malcolm clasped his hands together and bowed. “Sure. All of that sounds perfectly reasonable.”

Paul glared at him, held up his middle finger, and went back inside his half of the duplex.

He came out with a shirt a few minutes later, and then they were off. Paul's face darkened as they passed movie theaters and raucous bars with their patios stuffed to the brim with people and pitchers. He didn't talk much on their way out of town, which was perfectly fine with Malcolm. In Paul's world, the incident at the park meant trauma, a disruption from comfortable routine. But for Malcolm it was just the cost of doing business – another elbow scrape in the never-ending series of elbow scrapes that defined his life.

They passed the Tattersall town limits and ducked off the highway onto a small county road. Malcolm felt his clothes sticking to the seat. He'd chosen a business suit, dress shirt, and the same blue tie he'd worn when he met Eric. He didn't seem like the kind of guy who would mind or even notice when someone wore the same clothes twice… if he weren't already dead or in jail for knocking his wife's teeth out. Malcolm tried to turn on the radio in the taxi, but Paul slapped his hand away.

“No,” he said. “My cab, my rules. I can't listen to the shit they put on the radio anymore. Silence is my soundtrack now. This thing doesn't even have a CD player in it. Can you believe that?”

“I just thought some background noise would be nice.”

Paul shook his head. “My life's loud enough. Driving time's my break.”

“Whatever you say.”

Paul's eyes flashed across the front seat. “Wait. I need to know exactly how you're going to get this guy your little tape. None of this 'follow my lead' stuff. What's the plan? What do we do if the wife's around and answers the door? She's gonna remember us, man. She's probably thinking about us right now.”

Malcolm smiled. “I thought you weren't getting out of the car?”

“I'm not. But I still need to know. I'm not going to be mister stupid getaway driver. He's always the one who gets caught or killed.”

“That's an interesting philosophy. It's simple. If Eric answers the door all I do is give him a copy of the tape. It's probably bad form to ask for money the same time you're dropping a nuclear bomb of bad news on someone. But I'm going to do that anyway. Hopefully he has the sense to pay me what he owes. He's not someone I want to scrap with… but I doubt it'll come to that. If he doesn't pay there are other ways.”

“Fine,” Paul said. “But what if his wife answers? What if she starts screaming hey that's the guy who assaulted me and the dude believes her?”

“Then we're still just two guys looking for our dog. Going around knocking on doors. Typical small-town stuff.”

“But what about the suit?”

“Easy. We continued our search after I got off work. I have an envelope I can drop in their mailbox if she makes us leave before I can get him the tape. Then there's always telling him right in front of her. That isn't ideal, but I'll have the tape to prove it. He already has his doubts.”

“Jesus,” Paul said. “You think you have this all figured out.”

“I don't have i
t all figu
red out. As you've probably noticed thanks to our… up close and personal living arrangement my life is pretty much a mess. But this kind of stuff? I'm good at it – maybe even made for it.”

Paul stared into the rear-view mirror, like if he could just look hard enough he'd find the drinks, music, and beautiful women they had left behind. Ahead of them was only chaos. He shot up in his seat. “What if you're just made for making everyone around you crazy and complicating their lives? I bet you've never thought about
that
.”

Malcolm smiled and glanced down at the directions he'd written, squinting at the letters in the waning light. Nothing ever typed and nothing ever printed. It was easier to be under the table that way. No banks, no emails, and no phones when he could help it. His life was cash only, but it still spent. His finger settled about halfway down the list. “Keep going the way we did last time. But this time we make a left after main street instead of a right.”

Paul just shook his head and hit the accelerator.