Generation of Liars Read online

  “I got them climbing down from the Eiffel Tower to escape. I guess I was holding on tighter than I thought.”

  He let my hands drop from his. “You’re still trying to convince me that you climbed down the Eiffel Tower? This will all be easier if you’re honest with me.”

  “I didn’t say I climbed from the top.”

  “Oh, right, it was only part of the way. Makes total sense.” He rolled his eyes. His handsome, jewel-glimmering eyes, which I found myself desperately wanting a look of approval from.

  “I could do without the theatrics,” I told him. I stooped over and tapped the ashes from my cigarette into a pail beneath the examination cot.

  “So could I,” he shot back. His hands were fidgeting inside the droopy pockets of his white coat. “Let me get a better look at the wound on your shoulder. It’s a grazing from the bullet, correct?”

  I sucked a drag from my cigarette, letting my lungs warm up before fluting my lips to exhale loops of smoke that coiled like dragon tails. “Yeah, but it’s no big deal. I could probably just use alcohol and gauze at home. Honestly, doc, I wouldn’t be surprised if I have more experience with bullet holes than you.” I crossed my legs beneath my much-too-tight skirt. “But since my body is a lucrative part of my life, I wanted to make sure nothing turned green and rotted off.”

  “You were smart to seek medical attention.” He was behind me now, steadying my shoulders with his hands as he glimpsed the wound. “This could get nasty if it wasn’t cleaned properly.”

  “If I knew I was going to get a phony doctor, I wouldn’t have bothered.”

  “Really, I must know what makes you so confident I’m a phony.” He was in the process of peeling down what remained of my tattered shirt sleeve and snipping my bra strap with a pair of surgical scissors.

  “You’re American.”

  “You mean because of the November Hit? That’s an exaggerated stereotype. Everybody knows only criminals and losers took advantage of the situation, the same people that would have been scammers even if there hadn’t been a hit.”

  “Spare me the lecture. Liars are everywhere.” It seemed the perfect moment for making a dramatic exit, but pain shredded through my shoulder when I attempted a slide from the cot. “Son-of-a-bitch. Ouch.”

  “Please. Let me clean you up. I am a real doctor.” He inhaled deeply, which I translated as a threat that he would hold his breath until I obliged, so I slid back onto the cot.

  “Fine. But only because I don’t feel like doing it myself, like I said before.”

  He blotted my shoulder with cotton balls that had been soaked in antiseptic. My spine bucked against the sting of the bitter liquid seeping into my raw skin. He whistled along to himself like it was all very routine for him. “So, are you ready to tell me why someone was really shooting at you?”

  “It was a business deal,” I replied. “I was meeting someone on the Eiffel Tower to exchange money for information that is very valuable to my boss.”

  “People don’t usually get shot over business deals.”

  “What transpired up there was part business deal, part lover’s quarrel. You know something, I don’t get why people are so hung up on Paris being a romantic city. It’s pretty love-cursed if you ask me.”

  “Working in the emergency room, I’ve learned that Paris can be a very dangerous city.” He squeezed a bubble of ointment onto my palms and began rubbing the welts.

  “Dangerous,” I husked, “is letting some phony play doctor on me.” I told myself that I was only flirting with him to kill time and avoid making a phone call to Motley that I was dreading. But the truth was that there was something very addictive about this man. “My name is Alice Fix, by the way.”

  “Well, Alice Fix, what really sounds dangerous is you being involved with a boyfriend who is crazy enough to shoot at you.”

  “Who said anything about a boyfriend?”

  “You just said you received these injuries during a lover’s quarrel.”

  “I’m not involved with the guy who shot me. This isn’t some tale of star-crossed lovers. He’s an ex. I hadn’t laid eyes on him in three years, and trust me, Paris is the last place I expected to run into him. This wasn’t about love.”

  “What was it about?”

  “A computer disk.”

  “A computer disk? That seems like an awfully stupid thing to get shot over.”

  “Not if it’s a disk documenting all of our Social Security numbers from before the November Hit.”

  His fingers were moving fast now, twining gauze over my wounds, blood pumping through the lilac veins in his hands. I saw his shoulder shake slightly and I realized that he was laughing to himself. “Excuse me if I tell you that your story seems a little farfetched.”

  It felt like thorns, the bandages pressing onto my tender skin. I jerked away. “Watch it, would ya?” I barked.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t realize how tender it would be. Hold on a second and I will get you some medicine for the pain. You will need it anyways once the shock wears off and the soreness kicks in.”

  “Thanks.” I looked down at my knees, focusing on the exposed patch of shocking white skin between the hem of my skirt and the elastic of my striped stockings. I was swinging my legs back and forth over the side of the cot, maudlin and childlike, as I waited for the pills.

  The doctor grabbed an opaque bottle and dumped three pills into his hand. He filled a paper cup with tap water and carried it to me. I grabbed for the pills. He closed up his fist and pulled it away from me. “You’re saying there’s a computer disk with all the Social Security numbers just floating around out there, and you have it?”

  “I didn’t say I had it. I said I got shot over it.” My eyes were beaming covetously at his fist covering the pills.

  His palm sprang open, surrendering the little white gems. “No offense, Alice, but the likelihood of that being true is about the same as the possibility of your story about falling off the Eiffel Tower.”

  “You’re right. Please forget I even mentioned it. I really shouldn’t be talking to you about it anyways.” I popped the pills into my mouth and threw back my neck to wash down the concoction.

  “It’s a very hooking premise, I will give you that.”

  As soon as the pills landed in my stomach I saw a haze enter the room. My hands felt heavy and then light and then not like hands at all but like wings. The doctor was suddenly blurry, and the surface of his coat was covered in beams from white hot auroras. My eyes started to close, but I felt a sudden jolt and it made my legs shake like I was experiencing freezing, even though I was covered in a film of sweat. “It’s not a premise,” I grumbled. “It’s true. There is a way to get to back everyone’s Social Security number.”

  “Impossible.” His steel-focused eyes were guiding his hands to carefully apply the gauze. “Everyone knows that the worm that erased the government databases spread to every public and private database. Trust me, I worked in a hospital at the time of the November Hit and all of our patient records were obliterated, even the data that was backed up on the supposedly impenetrable servers.”

  I shagged my head to the side, which carried the whole room with it. “No, no, not everything was obliterated. The disk I’m hunting was created before the November Hit, and it has everyone’s Social Security number stored on it. We call it the dynamite stick”

  He arched an eyebrow. “We?”

  “I’m part of an underground network searching for the dynamite stick.”

  “If it does exist, where is this dynamite stick now? Why hasn’t the government used it to restore the lost records?”

  “Well, doc, if I knew where it was I wouldn’t have been up on the Eiffel Tower meeting a pair of blackhat criminals trying to get information on it, now would I?”

  “I suppose not. But surely, as a girl so entrenched in this underground web, you must have some guesses on where it could be.”

  “I know a little about where it’s been.”


  “You make it sound like it’s had a life of its own.”

  “It has, in a way. So far what I know about it is that it was created by a government employee shortly before the November Hit took place. After that it changed hands so many times it’s impossible to pinpoint.”

  “You mean the person who created it was some kind of an amateur?”

  “It was something of an accidental treasure. It only has any extraordinary value in juxtaposition to the November Hit. The story goes that the employee downloaded the information in the months leading up to the cyber attack because he planned to scam senior citizens using their stolen Social Security numbers. I mean the guy had no clue the attack was coming, no clue about how valuable that disk was about to become.” Another cigarette was under my tongue now but I didn’t remember putting it there. “The guy’s name was Enoch Sprites. Isn’t that a weird name?”

  “I suppose,” the doctor said.

  “He was a doctor, too. But a real doctor, not a phony like you. He ended up in the slammer at some point and he lost the disk. It has been passed around quite a bit, but it’s still out there.”

  “So then you have never actually laid eyes on this mythical disk?”

  “Not technically.”

  “Then you have no way of knowing if this disk is even real. With all due respect, this sounds like an urban legend. I don’t believe any of it.”

  “You should believe in it. The United States Government believes in it. They’re looking for the dynamite stick as we speak.”

  “So, you’re attempting to thwart the efforts of the United States Government? Is that who shot you? Or did you mix up your story again and forget you told me it was a boyfriend who tried to kill you tonight?”

  “Ex-boyfriend,” I corrected him, “but I’m still not sure how he got tangled up in this. The last time I saw him he was a first-year history major. We were just a couple of love-struck teenagers taking goofy shots at the photo booth in the mall. But of course, that was before the November Hit.”

  “I’m pretty sure everything you’ve told me so far makes you a criminal.”

  “I guess it does.”

  “If your story is true, that means I would have to report you to the police.” He walked to the sink and began sterilizing all the instruments he had just used. “Lucky for both of us, I can recognize when it’s just the painkillers talking.”

  “Well, you’re never going to see me again, so it doesn’t matter.”

  “But now that I know about the existence of this so-called dynamite stick, doesn’t that mean I have to worry about people shooting at me too?”

  “No. You’re just a boring doctor.”

  “I guess that means you finally believe me about really being a doctor.”

  I rubbed at the tape crossed over my hands. “You did a pretty good job on me. I guess that counts for something towards your credibility.”

  He smiled and I smiled back, and our eyes caught each other’s and then we seemed to be trapped in an awkward stare until the doctor finally looked away, as though he was caught doing something perverse. I recognized what it was. He was looking at me like I was beautiful.

  “Alright, Alice, we’re almost done,” he said. “There are just a few more basic tests I have to do before I can give you a clean bill of health and release you.”

  “Like what?” My legs were swinging back and forth, the colors on my stockings mixing like a spinning carnival trinket. I admitted to myself that I liked the attention from the doctor, and the feel of him in my physical orbit sent a rush of blood that started in my head and travelled to all the nerve endings in my body.

  “I’m going to test your reflexes.”

  “I can assure you, doctor, that my reflexes are catlike.”

  “I don’t doubt that they are.” He was flirting back. I was dizzy but smiling. He selected a mallet from the counter and placed a hand on my thigh to steady my leg, his satiny eyes snagging mine one last time before stooping down to tap my knee. “That’s weird.” Something on my leg had caught his attention.

  “Something wrong?”

  “No, nothing is wrong. I just noticed some blood on your stocking. You must have nicked yourself during the altercation. I should clean it up.”

  “These stockings are my favorite,” I said between pouted lips. “I hope the blood comes out.”

  “Just be glad you’re not in worse shape.” He gently peeled the lip of my stocking. “But I will admit it is a shame about the stockings since they add to the allure of your, what did you call them? Catlike qualities.”

  The feeling of his hand gliding over my knee made the skin on my leg tingle and I bit my lip and laughed, and that’s when something small and light fell out of my stocking and hit the floor. The doctor reached down and scooped up the tightly overlapped note.

  “Hey,” I hollered, recalling the confession I kept on me at all times, “that note is mine!” That damn stupid burden.

  “Did you hide this note inside your stocking?”

  “I forgot it was in there. Just give it back, okay?”

  His eyes flickered to mine and he read the words written on the outer fold: If found dead, please contact the parents of Heather Gilmore at the following phone number and share the enclosed information. “Who is Heather Gilmore?” he asked.

  “That’s confidential.”

  “Is your name really Heather Gilmore, Alice?”

  “No.”

  “Then are you really anticipating someone finding your dead body soon?”

  “Nobody anticipates dying, but it’s a dark world out there. The words on that paper are my last will and testament. Now give it back.”

  He handed me the note. I was relieved that he didn’t open it up to read any further. “You’re a little young to keep a last will and testament,” he told me.

  I shoved the note back into the lip of my stocking. “May I go now?”

  “Technically you have a clean bill of health. There are no signs of trauma or head injury, so I can’t justify ordering you kept overnight for observation. Though just between you and me, calling in a mental health professional for review wouldn’t be a bad idea, Alice, or Heather, or whatever your name is.”

  “Listen, I only told you any of this because you looked bored in this place and I felt sorry for you. I figured I would give you a taste of the exciting life you’re missing out there.”

  When he spoke again, it was rote, as though none of the chemistry we just experienced had happened. “It was nice to meet you. My name is Ben Robinson. You can call me here at the hospital if you need anything else and the receptionist will page me.” I watched him check a few things off from the clipboard chart on the wall. “Do you have any family you need me to call?”

  “No family.”

  “Is there anyone here in Paris who can come pick you up? A friend? Coworker?”

  “No friends. I can get myself home just fine. I’m not a child and the pills you gave me have already worn off.”

  “Okay, but take care of that wound on your shoulder. You don’t want it getting infected. Your hands should be fine in a few days.” His eyes seemed to condemn me. “Just don’t climb anything else.”

  “I’ll try not to.”

  “Oh, and please, whatever you were really doing when you got hurt, just try and stay away from it. I don’t care if it’s a boyfriend, drugs, or a pimp. You got lucky this time. Don’t try your luck again. I don’t want to see you wheeled here inside a body bag next time.”

  I slid down from the cot and grabbed my bag and hiked it up onto my shoulder. “I knew I wasn’t going to get hurt, don’t worry.”

  He snapped off his plastic gloves and bounced them into the trash. “How could you be so sure?”

  “Kitto Katsu,” I said. The words were foreign to him, but oh-so-familiar to me.

  “Kitto Katsu?” he asked.

  “Yeah, it’s my motto. It translates to, I will surely win.”

  “It sounds… Japanese?
”

  “It is Japanese.” I was in the doorway now, pretending it didn’t make me sad to be leaving his gem-like eyes and extremely thorough hands.

  “Does a girl like you make it to Japan often, Alice?”

  “Mostly just to visit the Tokyo Sky Tree. I mean how else do you think I learned to climb the Eiffel Tower?”

  He looked confused. I knew he was dismissing it as another one of my tall tales. I wasn’t about to reveal to him how my boss, Motley, had funded an intensive martial arts training ritual for me, which just happened to culminate on the rickety two-thousand-foot skeleton of the Tokyo Sky Tree during a finance-related lull in its construction. It had felt like climbing to the stars. I was wearing a light-reflective suit that made me nearly invisible the naked eye as I ascended like the Greek god Icarus. Get too close and the sun might burn you up. But I hadn’t burned, I had shined. I had conquered it. Kitto Katsu. I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the metal cabinet doors that lined the room and saw that my shoulder was wrapped in bandages like butcher paper. I wasn’t shining at the moment. My neck was trimmed with ghoulish mustard-and-grape-colored bruises. I drank in one last vision of the handsome doctor, so clean by comparison, and walked out.

  Chapter Two: Big Red X’s

  I SCURRIED DOWN the corridor towards the emergency room lobby and blew by the receptionist’s desk without signing myself out. A skyline of gilded domes and scaffolding awaited me outside. I spun through the hospital’s turnstile doors, and when I got on the sidewalk I reached inside my bag and felt that my trusty snub-nose revolver was still in place. My phone was at my ear. My fingers were dialing the phone number I dial every time I am about to throw a hissy fit.

  The number of my partner, Rabbit.

  Well, Rabbit is just what we call him. His real name is Lenny Rabitz. Based solely on appearances, he is nobody you would take seriously. He has light-brownish hair that would be a curly mop if he didn’t shear it. He is gawky, rail thin, and incurably awkward with girls. He has a craft for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time and a penchant for pissing me off royally.