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

didn’t seem to notice. He also didn’t notice when, every minute or so, he let out a loud vocal tic that sounded like, “HEEP!” I tried not to notice either.
    As it turned out, Phil was aware of the problem with his tear duct, which spilled salt water down his face every few minutes. “Fuckin’ duct,” he said, wiping his cheek with the back of his fish-hand. “Fuckin’ bad luck duct.”
    I refilled his mug and nodded at a wedding picture on the side table. “Your daughter?”
    “Yeah, last time I seen her was eight years past. She got this nerd she’s gonna marry, so I get ready when I hear they was comin’ HEEP!” Phil opened the drawer of the side table and handed me a bullet. “See that? Read it.” I inspected the bullet and found an inscription on the side of the casing: Gavin Brooks . Phil pointed at the photo. “So my little girl brings the nerd to meet her old man. She goes shopping and, soon as she’s gone, I hand the kid that thing and tell him to look at it real close. I say, ‘You ever do anything to hurt my baby girl, I’m gonna plant this slug right between your eyes. That’s a promise.’ HEEP! And the kid just about craps his pants.” Phil laughed himself into a choking fit, got it under control, wiped his leaky eye and swore at his malfunctioning tear duct. I handed the bullet back to him.
    “And I bet he never hit your daughter,” I said.
    “Damn straight.”
    “So you’re a man who understands that there’s a right way and a wrong way to treat people,” I said. Thinking, Let’s get on with it. “My client represents a woman who is paralyzed from the waist down. No fault of her own, a wheel fell off her car. And George Garcia rotated her tires just an hour before the accident.”
    “That’s a real shame,” said Phil, now into his fourth bourbon. “But I don’t know…A couple of tough guys in fancy suits come calling and suddenly George moves away. And now you. George is a good man, and I don’t want to see him hurt anymore.”
    Tough guys in fancy suits.
    “I’m not trying to hurt George,” I insisted. “Juno Auto Centers has plenty of liability insurance and nobody’s suing George personally.”
    “Not yet, anyway.” Phil, the skeptic.
    “That’s exactly right. Not yet. And not ever, if Juno pays the claim. But so far, Juno won’t pay. If George gives me a witness statement, the company will have to settle and we can put an end to this whole mess. And I’m sure he’ll start sleeping better.”
    Phil drank some. “You talk a good game, mister.”
    “I’m not shitting you, Phil. This thing is moving forward, like it or not. If George won’t give a statement, the court will issue a subpoena and he’ll be compelled by law to testify. He runs away from it, he goes to jail. He perjures himself on the stand, he goes to jail. You say he’s a good man and I believe you. He may lose his mechanic’s license and he may have to find a new career. But the woman lost her legs. Giving me a statement will let him put this in the past and get on with the rest of his life.”
    I thought I’d closed the sale, so I just kept my mouth shut and pretended to sip bourbon and waited.
    “So what’s the cripple want, a hundred million or something?”
    “Ten million,” I said.
    “Still a lot a bread.”
    “I wouldn’t cut off my legs for ten million.” I refilled his mug and watched his fish-hand flop around on his lap. And waited some more.
    “Neither would I,” he said finally. Salt water surged from his left eye and fell down his face. “Fuckin’ duct.”
    Phil told me what he knew, which didn’t include George Garcia’s current address. I spent the next day in various government offices. I’d learned from Phil that George’s wife split a few months before George quit his job. Apparently she intended the split to be permanent. I got a copy of the divorce papers she’d filed a week before the accident. Then a photocopy of George Garcia’s face from his