Read Online EIGHT LIES (About the Truth): A collection of short stories by Sean Chercover - Free Book Online

air inside was hot and close. Old air.
    I flicked the light switch next to the door and searched the place. No towels or soap or shampoo in the bathroom, medicine cabinet bare. No clothes in the closet, drawers empty. Sweat trickled between my shoulder blades and I decided to step outside and then I heard someone pull back the hammer of a gun behind me.
    “I’m in my rights to shoot you where you stand. Where You Stand!” The voice was angry, or scared, or maybe a little crazy.
    I raised my hands beside my head. “Please don’t point that at me with the hammer cocked,” I said evenly. I kept my hands up and turned to face him.
    He was about five-foot-eight, in his late fifties. His face was full of ragged old scars. One scar began at his hairline and ran down over his left eye and continued on the cheekbone, all the way down to the jaw. The skin below the eye was stretched down and a lot of pink socket showed. Another scar ran sideways from his flattened nose to his right ear, which was missing the lobe. He wore a t-shirt that had once been white, stained blue jean cutoffs and green flip-flops. Blue tattoo art covered his arms like sleeves. The gun was a stainless Colt .357 and it was pointed at my chest and his finger was on the trigger. His hand shook. With the hammer cocked there was a distinct possibility that he might shoot me by accident.
    “Please point it to one side,” I said. “You can always point it back at me if you feel the need. I’d hate for you to make a terrible mistake.” Another river of sweat ran down my back.
    “You don’t give me orders!” But he pointed the gun to one side. “I’m the property manager here. Who the hell are you?”
    “My name is Ray Dudgeon. I’m a private detective. A lawyer hired me to find George Garcia.”
    “Yeah?”
    “Yeah.”
    “You still got no right to be in here.” A stream of tears erupted from his mangled left eye and ran down his cheek and tumbled onto the linoleum. He didn’t seem to notice. Using only my index finger and thumb, I fished my badge from my breast pocket and held it open for him to see. Then I smirked like we were old buddies.
    “Listen, why don’t we go to your trailer and have a drink and I’ll tell you all about it. If you don’t like my story, then you can call the cops. There’s a pint of bourbon in my car.”
    He eyed the badge for a while and then un-cocked the hammer with his left thumb and lowered the gun. “Got ice in my trailer.”
    “Name’s Phil,” he said as we entered his mobile home. A thermometer by the door read 105.
    “Say, you get the ice and I’ll crank the old a/c here-”
    “Don’t touch that!” he barked. “Your hooch buys some talk. It don’t buy air conditioning.”
    I fished a twenty out of my pocket and dropped it on the coffee table. “Twenty bucks.”
    “Deal,” he said, and opened the freezer door. I cranked the air conditioner to high.
    “You’re no pushover, Phil. I respect that. Gotta be careful, look out for yourself.”
    “Fuckin’ A,” said Phil. He ran his fingers through his greasy hair, wiped his hand on his back pocket and grabbed a fistful of ice cubes. He dropped the ice in two grubby mugs and deposited the mugs on the coffee table. I poured bourbon over the greasy ice and we sat and drank. Phil outpaced my drinking three-to-one. And he made it clear that I wasn’t going to hear what he had to say about George Garcia until I’d first heard the life story of Phil the property manager.
    Phil had left home at fifteen and drifted from Florida to Chicago. He became a hardcore biker—a member of the Outlaws. He was a pretty bad dude once upon a time and he offered plenty of details to make sure I believed him. But his biker days ended twelve years ago when he lost a high speed argument with an eighteen-wheeler. Which explained the face.
    Brain damage was also evident. As he spoke, his left hand occasionally flopped around on his lap like a sunfish on the deck of a boat. He