Generation of Liars

by Marks, Camilla

  I lifted my napkin from the table and blotted the drops of sweat from my face and neck.

  Chapter Twenty-one: London Broil

  IN THE MORNING, Pressley spread open the window shades and I stretched my neck to see the view of the dreary London fog, dark like mink, draping the skyline.

  The night before had seemed to last in a long twilight. Kisses and promises had spilled from both our lips, the word forever had been whispered more than once.

  I looked over at Pressley. He was already dressed and sitting on the chair by the door, lacing his boots.

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “I have a quick errand to run. There’s somebody in the city I promised to see if I was ever in town again, but I shouldn’t be long.” His arms were sliding into his black trench coat. “We can see Big Ben when I get back.”

  I shook the tangles from my hair and dangled my legs over the recliner I had fallen asleep stretched over. “Okay,” I said, lifting my arms as I yawned, “but after that there’s a ton of stuff I want to see. I want to visit Buckingham Palace and go to Abbey Road and buy a T-shirt with Paul McCartney’s face on it.”

  “That all sounds good. We can figure it out when I get back.” He shut the door and the room got quiet.

  I still couldn’t shake the impending feeling of hopelessness that had seeped into my core when my feet hit the pavement in London. I hated to be alone with the feeling. I got up and looked out the window and noticed that the fruit stand across the street, which had been shuttered the previous night, was open now. I got showered, and dressed in my stale clothes, and I walked outside to cross the street towards the fruit stand. I could see pyramids of stacked fruit; bright oranges and apples and crates of melons.

  “Can I get you something?” the man behind the register asked me. I noticed that he had the same accent as my friend, Wally, the resident identity broker of my old neighborhood in Pigalle. I pronged the base of an apple in my fingers and pretended to be inspecting it while my eyes discreetly scanned the accordion folder propped under his arm.

  “I wonder if you can,” I replied.

  He cleared his throat and his eyes seemed to shift from side to side to make note of anyone standing close enough to listen. “I think I know what you’re looking for.”

  “Oh?”

  He tottered off the wooden crate he was sitting on and walked around to the front of the stand. He reached for the handle and pulled down the metal shutters and closed us inside the tight space. “I know exactly what you want.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “You have an American accent, girl.” He smiled so that his lips crawled up his face to reveal his slippery gums. “You’re you looking to buy yourself a new identity?”

  “I’m skipping out on a life and I might need some fake papers to make the transition a little smoother.”

  “I’ve got a good variety,” he said, lifting the lid off a crate labeled GRAPES, and revealing what appeared to be an elaborate filing system of papers.

  “I’ll take something low profile.”

  “So Kate Middleton is out?” He chuckled so forcefully I expected the pressure of his laugh to dislodge one of his flashy gold teeth.

  “No princess names for me. In fact, I’ll take a name that traces back to the peasant’s quarter if that keeps me low profile enough.”

  He thumbed through the papers in his filing system until he stumbled upon something that appeared to delight him. “I got it. I got the perfect one.”

  I peeked at the passport in his hand. “Pat Leor?” I read the name out loud. The photo was a doughty woman with mousey, shoulder-length strawberry blond hair. Her small, squinty eyes disappeared into her face as she smiled for the photo.

  “That’s not really Pat Leor,” he told me. “That’s just the last woman who bought this name and traded it back in. For six-hundred euro, your picture can be on here.”

  “Pat is sort of an ambiguous name. Are you sure you don’t have something a little more girly in the pile?”

  “Nah, this name is plenty girly. Full name is Patricia C Leor. A British citizen, with additional citizenship in the United States, South Africa, and Australia. You could have some fun with this one, traveling and such.”

  “There’s no way I can give you six-hundred euro,” I told him, reaching for my wallet and feeling afraid to see how much money I even had left to my name. When I opened it up, there was only forty dollars’ worth of euros and the Russian passport with the physicist Nadine Blye’s name on it. I held it out for him to inspect. “Is this enough? I mean I’ll throw in the passport and you can resell it.”

  His lips bunched. “I guess it will have to do. Now smile.” He pulled out his camera phone and snapped my picture. Within five minutes he handed me a fresh passport with my face and Pat Leor’s information on it. He lifted the metal shutters. “Take these too.” He thrust a bushel of apples at me. “Complimentary.”

  I grabbed the apples and swung around to leave, but I smacked into a man who had been waiting on the sidelines for his chance with the dealer. The brunt of the apple bag caused the papers in both of our hands to sputter onto the sidewalk.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled, bending to discreetly scoop up my new passport.

  “Hey, I know you,” the man said. “You’re that chic who pointed a gun to my face in Rio.”

  “Nebraska?” I shot to my feet. “What are you doing in London?”

  It was Benny Nebraska, alright. The Hollywood-bank-account hacker I had bribed with a suitcase full of money in Rio. His hair was still slicked with grease and he had used none of his million-dollar bounty from Motley to buy himself a new T-shirt.

  Benny Nebraska jubilantly slapped the passport he was holding against his palm. “Got myself the ID of a United States CIA agent.”

  “A CIA agent? Let me see that.” I gripped it away from him and glared at the passport. I knew the brown eyes staring back at me from the photo very well. “This belongs to Pressley Connard. Do you know him?”

  “Sure I know him. I just saw him.”

  I bumped my shoulders against his. “How do you know Pressley? What were you doing with him just now? How the hell did you get his passport?”

  “I only met him once, just now, to pass off the dynamite stick to him.”

  “What? You had the dynamite stick and you gave it to Pressley Connard?”

  “He paid me a lot more than your cheap-ass boss, Motley, did for the stuff on my hard drive. Or the other guy I was working with for a while.”

  “Who was the other guy?”

  “His name is Enoch Sprites. But he was broke, there was no way he was going to pay up what he was promising. The CIA agent offered me the best price. Uncle Sam’s money, not his, so he had green to play with I guess.”

  “You made contact with a man named Enoch Sprites? You really get around, Nebraska.”

  “What can I say? I’m good. Now if you will excuse me, I’m going to go trade up this passport for something better. I might as well enjoy myself while I can, since it won’t be long before the Generation of Liars is squashed now that the CIA has the dynamite stick.”

  “I don’t believe this,” I said. “Pressley was visiting Nebraska while visiting London. That snake.” I tucked the apples under my arm and trudged back towards the hotel.

  * * *

  Cold and prickly, the water sent shivers down the length of my neck and made the bones in my back flutter like the handles of impatient angel wings. All around me was a web of damp hair, rivulets of water, tinged red, dripping down the side of my face. The box of hair dye beside the sink said Pink Paradise. The instructions said to leave it in for twenty minutes. Twenty minutes to seethe over Pressley lying to me.

  He still hadn’t returned to the hotel room. I had enough time to stop at a small pharmacy down the block for hair dye and I still beat him. I scooted up onto the vanity counter, crossed my legs and lit a cigarette. I tapped the ashes into the sink and stared at the clock, hop
ing he hadn’t already traversed to some CIA contact at the embassy to turn in the dynamite stick. I was also kicking myself for not asking Benny Nebraska what Enoch Sprites looked like. I had been curious about him ever since that day on the train pulling away from Grand Central Station when Motley told me about him. That had been the last time Motley had ever mentioned him. I had always been curious if he was still out there in the world, desperately searching for his rogue creation, the dynamite stick. Now I knew that he was. Great, one more person to fear.

  I heard the jangle of keys from the hallway. I shredded the box of hair dye and stuffed the cardboard strips at the bottom of the waste bin beneath the sink. I quickly wrapped a towel over my head, letting none of my hair poke out.

  “Hey.” I emerged coolly from the bathroom.

  Pressley shed his raincoat and plopped his bag down on the bed. “Where did the apples come from?” He was glancing at the fruit, which had been tossed asunder.

  “Just some fruit from across the street.”

  “Nice.” His teeth were already sinking into one.

  “But I need more than fruit, I’m starving. I wouldn’t mind fish and chips again.”

  “Sounds good.” He reached to unhook his coat again. “Just tell me when you’re ready.”

  “No way, you can’t go out like that. Take a shower. Gussy up a little.”

  “Alice, I’m dressed perfectly fine.”

  “No, I want us to look nice. I mean I just washed my hair and I can’t have you looking like a bum accompanying me in the dapper streets of London.” My fingers gamboled around the rim of my towel to seek any hairs that might peek out and reveal the pink dye.

  “You have very strange priorities. Fine, I will take a shower.”

  “While you’re in there, I will just watch some TV, or as the Brits call it, the telly.” I did all I could to make my voice sound playful and assured.

  “Whatever you say.” He closed the bathroom door.

  “I’ll be waiting,” I called to him. I listened for the sound of the shower faucet turning before making my move. I dug into the pocket of Pressley’s trench coat and pulled out a slim, silver thumb drive.

  I was holding the dynamite stick, at last.

  It felt like something monumental should be happening to me at the mere touch of it, like electricity should spark through my veins, but all I experienced was the muffled roar of the shower faucet and the sound of a maid wheeling a cleaning cart outside in the hall.

  Pressley began humming in the shower. I snapped the towel off from around my head and shook my hair out. I shoved the dynamite stick into my pocket, scrambled my stuff into my bag, hiked my bag over my shoulder and left. The elevator ride down to the ground floor seemed to last forever. I looked at myself in the reflective gold doors; pale skin laid over an anemic figure, and a shock of pink hair all in my eyes. The damp spindles of hair made me look like a pink medusa.

  Once on the sidewalk, I walked a disorienting few blocks until I found a red telephone box and closed myself inside and dialed Motley’s number in Paris with trembling fingers. “Motley, it’s Alice. I’m in London.”

  “Alice, you little bitch,” Motley chided. “Why did you run away? And with that GI Joe wanna-be?”

  “Motley, I got the dynamite stick,” I blurted. My plan was to play it off like it was my plan all along. No traitor here. Loyal as a lamb.

  Motley was silent for a moment. It was a killing silence. “Alice. Get back to Paris immediately.”

  “You got it, boss.”

  Chapter Twenty-two: Return to Paris

  AS THE AIRPLANE hovered over the city, following the glitter trail of the Parisian lights, I looked down at the disk in my hand. Its cold, hard surface felt like a blade handle. The blade I had used to slice Pressley in the back with.

  But he had inflicted the first dig of the blade, rendezvousing with Benny Nebraska and not telling me that he was really in London to get the dynamite stick.

  I wondered about his reaction as he emerged from the shower to find me gone from the room, the moment he realized the dynamite stick was gone too. He would know exactly where I was headed, no question about that. He would be staking out Motley’s house the second he had a chance. But like he had mentioned at dinner the night before, the CIA was never going to approve a raid or any kind of arrest. They couldn’t take that chance in case the dynamite stick wasn’t really inside Motley’s house. The publicity, or any leak on the news, would be detrimental to their cause. Pressley was going to try and get the dynamite stick back the only way he could. In a sneaky, covert way.

  Motley was waiting for me in his office. He was seated in his executive chair behind his stately desk. I couldn’t read his eyes behind the dark shades he was wearing. Rabbit was leaning with his ass up against Motley’s desk and he had his arms crossed with a big satisfied smile on his face.

  “Welcome back to Lala Land,” Rabbit said.

  “Thanks,” I said, “it’s good to be back.”

  “Do you have something for me?” Motley asked. He was dressed in a pinstriped suit over a vibrant plum-colored silk shirt, looking every bit the international mobster.

  “Why, yes, I do,” I replied. I reached into my bag and I threw the dynamite stick down so that it hit the disk and slid across the smooth mahogany surface right into Motley’s hands.

  He raked it up with his fingers and grinned. “Good work, Alice. I underestimated you.” He was inspecting the dynamite stick in his hand like a diamond merchant looking for imperfections in a stone. “For a minute there, Alice, I really thought you had lost it. Gone all school-girl stupid for that CIA goon.”

  “Yeah, Alice. Good job,” Rabbit said. “We were ready to kill you. But you were just yanking our chain. Brilliant.” He did a laugh and hit me up for a high five. I gave it to him and my internal monologue was a big fat gulp.

  Changing the subject felt essential at that moment. “So, I guess Amsterdam was a dud?” I asked.

  “Amsterdam doesn’t matter now. We have the dynamite stick.” Motley’s eyes went to the door, and when I looked over at the door I saw Cleopatra striding in.

  “Hello, darling,” she greeted Motley, while strutting past me so that her shoulder rubbed against mine with a ginger touch of aggression. She was wearing a leopard-print blouse that seemed to bring out the animalistic gold flecks in her eyes.

  I gave her the dirtiest look I could conjure. “I guess it took a girl to do a woman’s job, huh, Cleopatra? Or didn’t you hear? I got the dynamite stick.”

  Without responding, she walked to Motley’s desk and stood beside him. Her hand rubbed on the thick part where his shoulder met his chest. Motley cleared his throat and said, “Alice, Rabbit, why don’t the two of you take the rest of the day off. I am going to review this disk and make sure it is what we think it is. We’ve been fooled by a dud before, that time with Etienne and his yacht. Let’s hope this isn’t the case now.”

  “I’m positive it’s the dynamite stick,” I told him.

  “Putting all your eggs in one basket doesn’t mean it will come out as a soufflé,” Cleopatra said.

  I gave Cleopatra a lingering glare while my lips addressed Motley. “Sure thing, boss, I’ll head home while you verify it.”

  Rabbit and I walked out together and got inside Rabbit’s car, which was parked in the semi-circle driveway in front of Motley’s house.

  “You really pulled through, Alice,” said Rabbit. He threw my cell phone onto my lap. “You left this at Motley’s before you ran off with the CIA chump."

  My fingers scrolled through the phone to spot missed calls. Ben hadn’t even tried to reach me. “So, what happens next?” I asked.

  Rabbit pulled his black shades over his eyes. “Now Motley begins extorting politicians and celebrities who used fake credentials to get where they are since the November Hit. Once we have squeezed all the money we can out of the dynamite stick, we destroy it once and for all. Then we disappear for good, rich and anonymous. Just how I
like it.”

  I snapped my seatbelt into place. “Rabbit, you and Motley weren’t really going to kill me after you thought I ran away with Pressley, were you?”

  “Of course not, Alice.” I drew out a sigh of relief as Rabbit sped by Sacré-Couer, the Basilica of Montmarte which looked like a sloppy wedding cake. His head turned to mine and he gave me a rough pat on the shoulder. “We were going to pay someone else to do it.”

  Chapter Twenty-three: Blackout

  I HAD RABBIT drop me off outside my apartment building. When I got into my flat it was completely dark and the air inside was freezing. I unpacked my bag and pulled out the passport I had purchased in London, taking a bored glance at my picture next to the alias of Patricia C Leor. I shoved it in my dresser drawer, knowing that I wouldn’t be needing it any time soon. I drew my bedroom blinds for the first time since I had moved in and did a scan of my devastatingly bare fridge, which contained only a single yogurt. I knew it was past expiration, but I was desperately hungry. I reasoned to myself that French people ate things that looked spoiled all the time. They called them delicacies and charged a bank robbery for them.

  I plunged a spoon into the yogurt and looked out my window over Paris. Maybe it wasn’t London. Maybe it didn’t have a giant white wheel on its horizon, and maybe it didn’t spring the Beatles from its cobblestone loins, but damn it, Paris was where I belonged. I did not need Pressley Connard, that much I was sure of. I wondered how long it would be before he was stalking around my apartment.

  I finished my yogurt and drew a hot bath and climbed into the water with a cigarette dangling from my lips. I tilted my head back in the water, letting my hair splay all around my face like a pink web. I got dizzy for a moment. The overhead lights were beginning to flicker. It was subtle at first, easily confused for the flicker of a sleepy iris. Then I was totally in the dark, with only the sound of rippling water and the glowing ember on the end of my cigarette to fulfill my senses.