Read Online The Whole Lie by Steve Ulfelder - Free Book Online

“Pay it no mind. Those things never wreck, and even if they did there’d be no money in it.”
    â€œMother Teresa sends her regards.”
    â€œMother Teresa’s dead. Me too, soon enough. Let’s skip the bullshit, Conway.” He leaned toward me. “Let’s say it wasn’t you knocked up Savvy, and I believe it wasn’t, or at least you think it wasn’t, ’cause you never could lie worth shit. In that case, the proud papa’s got to be Bert Saginaw, and that, amigo, is a very big deal.”
    â€œLet me make sure you’re saying what I think you’re saying.”
    â€œI’m saying it all right. Back then, just before we moved Savvy, she was banging him while she was banging you. Get over it. Hell, even if he’s just the alleged proud papa it’s a very big deal.”
    â€œYou’re taking giant steps.”
    â€œDon’t insult me. I haven’t talked with you in three years. You call me out of the blue, you ask about Savvy Kane. ‘Oh by the way,’ you also ask, ‘I’d like to learn a little about this Bert Saginaw and his hatchet man Krall, if you get a chance.’ You’re clever like an eight-year-old angling for another cookie, Conway. It’s what we like about you.”
    What the hell was I supposed to say to that? The people who love you are the people who know all your moves.
    I hate that about people.
    â€œOkay, you’re smarter than me. It’s not a small club,” I said, shrugging surrender. “What’d you learn about Saginaw?”
    â€œI learned, for maybe the ten thousandth time, that Fitzgerald may be the most misunderstood man in history.”
    â€œWho the hell ?”
    â€œF. Scott Fitzgerald,” Moe said, leaning back, the big rush to photograph a plane crash gone now. Fine by me if he needed to be smug: It meant he had something juicy for me. He was savoring it.
    â€œHe was a writer, right?”
    â€œAnd Jerry Rice was a football player,” Moe said. “And Ali was a fighter.”
    I waited.
    A small jet rattled the porch. Moe didn’t even look up. “Fitzgerald wrote this line,” he said. “‘There are no second acts in American lives.’”
    Moe looked to see if that meant anything to me. It didn’t. He puffed his cheeks out, frustrated. “Everybody misses it,” he said. “They quote Fitzgerald like he meant there are no second chances . When a politician gets caught with a whore or a baseball player beats up his wife, the newspaper hacks and talking heads trot out the line to mean the schmuck is finished, kaput.”
    â€œThat’s dead wrong,” I said. “It’s the opposite. A pro football player can gut a koala bear in broad daylight. If he’s any good, somebody’ll still sign him.”
    â€œExactly!” Moe pounded his armrest. “Fitzgerald was talking about Act One and Act Two in a formal way, like in plays and novels. In Act One, the players get their intro, the problem is set up.”
    â€œWhat happens in Act Two?”
    From the way he smiled, I knew it was the right question.
    â€œDepth,” Moe said. “Complexity, conflicting paths, difficult choices.”
    We sat quietly.
    Noise built. A US Airways jumbo jet rocked the house as it took off.
    â€œYou missed one,” I said.
    â€œYou’ve got me all engrossed,” he said, looking at the big watch. “You prick.”
    â€œJust tell me about Saginaw,” I said. “No more writers. I’m beggin’.”

CHAPTER NINE
    He jerked a thumb at the runway behind his shoulder. “If I miss my big payday bullshitting about Hubert Saginaw,” he said, “You’re a frigging dead man. What do you know already?”
    â€œJust that he made and blew two fortunes, then finally figured out how to hang onto his dough.”
    â€œFair enough. He dropped out of college twenty-five years ago.