The Book of Lies

19

Do you know what’s in the truck or don’t you?” my dad asks.

I stomp my feet to shake off the excess water, then open the door to my van, hop inside, and flick off the blue lights. “Not yet.”

“Whoa, whoa—hold on,” my dad says, climbing into the passenger seat. “I saw him take the truck and drive off with—”

“He didn’t take anything.”

Landing with a squish in the passenger seat, my father looks at me, then out at the empty road, then back at me. “No, I saw it—container number 601174-7. I checked the numbers myself. There’s no way you could’ve unloaded it that fast. And when I drove it out, you were following right behi—”

I close my eyes and picture the black numbers on the side of the forty-foot rust-colored container: 601174-7. At three in the morning, in the dark, it’s amazing what you can do with some black electrical tape.

“The numbers. You switched them, didn’t you?” my dad blurts. “That container Ellis just drove off with—”

“Is filled with three thousand pounds of plastic pineapples, courtesy of the controlled delivery sting operations that Customs keeps prepared for just such an occasion.”

Starting the van and noticing the exposed wires that Ellis used to hot-wire underneath, I swing the steering wheel into a U-turn and do my best to ignore the blue pulsing swirls as Timothy’s unmarked car fades behind us. Up above, the purple-and-orange sunrise cracks a hairline fissure through the black sky. The water from my clothes soaks my seat and puddles at my crotch. But as I look in the rearview mirror, it still hasn’t washed off the flecks of Timothy’s blood that’re sprayed across my cheek.

“You think this book—whatever it is—you think maybe there could be something good in it? Y’know, like, maybe we’re finally getting some good luck?” my father asks.

I turn to my dad, who’s eyeing the steering wheel and— Is he studying my hands? He turns away fast, but there’s no mistaking that gleam in his eyes. He’s anxious, but also . . . it’s almost like he’s enjoying himself.

“Lloyd, let me be clear here. There’s nothing good about this. The shipment . . . the shooting . . . everything. It’s rotten, okay? And once something’s rotten, it can never be good again.”

Surprised by my own outburst, I sit there silently, my chest rising and falling far too rapidly. I’m not stupid. I know all the emotional reasons I went chasing after my dad instead of just writing him off after the hospital. I still believe in those reasons. But that doesn’t mean I believe him.

“Cal, I promise you, I have no idea what book Ellis is after, or what’s inside that container.”

“Doesn’t matter,” I shoot back. “We’re about to get our answer.”