EIGHT LIES (About the Truth): A collection of short stories (7 page)

My new buddies were Tibor and Nick. Tibor was a crazy Hungarian who looked like Sean Penn and talked like the listener was holding a stopwatch. He spent some time arguing the proposition that
Kiss Alive
was the greatest live rock & roll album of all time. Nick was a quiet chain-smoker who preferred
Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out!
I sided with Nick and proclaimed my love for the Stones.

The front door opened and Kate Barrett approached the bar and came to a stop to my immediate left. Although now off duty, she was still in uniform. Nice touch. She showed the picture of George Garcia to the bartender and the waitress, both of whom acknowledged knowing George as a customer but professed not to know his whereabouts. Kate turned my way and handed me the picture.

“How about you, sir,” she said. “You know George Garcia?”

“No, Officer,” I said, “I’ve never seen him.” I passed the photo back to Kate and she showed it to Tibor and Nick and asked them the same question. They only knew George as a fellow Sparky’s regular and casual drinking buddy. She asked if any of us knew where she could find of any of George’s family. Nobody did. Kate thanked us all and left. So far, so good.

“Cops,” I mumbled, opening the door to conversation. “You can’t ask a guy’s family to rat him out. That’s just wrong.”
Translation: I’m on George’s side.

“Right on,” said Tibor.

“Unless this George guy did something really bad,” I reconsidered. “Like, if he’s a child molester or something.”
Anybody care to defend him?

“Wait a second,” said Nick. “George ain’t no child molester.”

“Hey, I don’t know him,” I said, holding my hands up in a ‘no offense’ gesture. “He could be the greatest guy in the world. I’m just saying,
if
.”

“There is no
if
,” said Tibor. “George is good people. You can ask anybody here.”

“That’s right,” said Nick. “George is solid.”

“I didn’t mean anything by it,” I said. “If you guys say George is a good people, then I feel sorry for him, ’cause the cops will get him. That was my whole point.”
Care to prove me wrong?

“Don’t bet on it,” said Tibor, “unless they get the idea to look in Indiana. Even then, George’s mom has a different last name.”
Bingo! You’ve still got the touch, Dudgeon.

Nick shot Tibor a look and I knew it was time to change the subject. I made up a story about a friend who got convicted of a burglary even though he was innocent. Then I lost another $10 at the pool table and drank another beer, hoping that the subject of George Garcia would come up again. It didn’t.

In addition to the $200 I’d given Kate, I’d dropped $60 on beer and lost wagers. Indiana is a big state, but I considered Rik’s money well spent.

The next morning, I phoned Rocky Millwood, the private detective who’d served divorce papers on George Garcia. He looked up the file and told me that he’d served George at Juno Auto Center, at 9:15am. The date of service matched the date of the accident. It was possible that George had slipped out for a few drinks after getting the bad news and before working on Sarah Shipman’s car. Or not.

Millwood had no idea where to look for Garcia. The only addresses he had were the trailer home and place of work.

I didn’t want to visit George’s estranged wife, but you go where a case leads you or you find a new line of work. So I looked up her current address from the divorce papers and arrived at her modest apartment in the early afternoon.

Betty Garcia was a mousey little thing in her mid-twenties. Everything about her— body, face, hairstyle, mannerisms—seemed vaguely pleasant and entirely forgettable. You could ride the same bus with Betty Garcia on the daily commute for five years but if someone showed you her photograph, you’d swear you’d never seen the girl before. A great attribute for a private detective or an assassin, but Betty was neither.

We sat at a Formica table and drank instant iced tea and she told me about her marriage to George. They’d been high school sweethearts and then Betty got pregnant and they got married. George earned his mechanic’s license and they moved into the trailer park. Betty assured me that they weren’t “trailer trash,” even though I had suggested no such thing. She explained that they had to cut corners so she could go to community college part-time. She studied marketing.

And fell for her teacher.

“George loves me and he’s a good father,” Betty insisted. “It’s just…well it’s kinda hard to explain. College opened up a whole new world for me. George still likes watching television, but I like
books
now. I mean, I tried to get him to improve himself but he just wanted to do his job and play with the baby and he wasn’t interested in improving himself. Whenever he did read a book, it was either a book about cars or one of those stupid novels where everybody shoots at each other. But Andrew, he’s in
public relations
and he’s like a genius—his apartment is full of books and not just about marketing either. Andrew’s into
philosophy
, like Plato and stuff. He’s really making something of himself. Anyway, so that’s what happened. It really wasn’t anybody’s fault. I guess you could say I just sorta
outgrew
George.”

Maybe Betty was an assassin, after all.

I laid down the same line that I’d used on Phil—it was best for George to come forward and give a witness statement and get on with his life. I knew Betty would respond to the idea of George getting on with his life, and she did. But she had no idea where he was. I told her I had reason to believe he was staying with his mother in Indiana.

“Oh, that’s easy,” she said. She left the room and returned with a small piece of paper. She handed me the paper, which had an address written on it. “His mom lives in Des Plaines, but she also has a dumpy little cottage in Indiana. It’s just a shack, really, in the middle of nowhere. Rural Route 2, about fifteen miles south of Gary.”

Gary, Indiana. Some people call it the armpit of America. Which is an uncharitable thing to say but, Christ, it’s a sad city. Steel mills with smokestacks belching fire and the air smells like
Mom’s home cooking
and potholes in the streets and downtown shops displaying boarded-up windows, padlocked doors and graffiti. Litter and vagrants and abandoned houses and the only shops thriving are the liquor stores which live on every corner like parasites feeding on despair. A city of suburban White Flight and economic gloom. A city on its knees.
God Bless America, Land of the Free and Home of the Very Fucking Brave…

I passed through Gary without stopping and continued south on highway 41. Near Cedar Lake, Rural Route 2 ran by some smaller lakes. Garcia’s cottage backed onto one of them.

I passed the driveway and parked a hundred yards up the road and walked back with a six-pack of beer in my left hand. The property was thick with trees and I could just make out a one-story, wood-shingled building. Behind the cottage, the early evening sun reflected orange off the tiny lake. It was hot and humid and I’d fed about a dozen mosquitoes by the time I reached the top of the dirt driveway that led to the little house.

There was no car in evidence and no lights burned behind the screened windows. But there was no reflection off glass behind the lower half of the screens—the double-hungs were open for breeze. A good sign.

The little cottage sat on cinder blocks. I climbed four creaky wooden steps to the front door, put the beer down and knocked. No answer. Knocked again, harder.

The door opened and George Garcia stood before me with a week’s worth of stubble on his tanned face. His orange t-shirt had an R. Crumb cartoon on the chest, with the slogan KEEP ON TRUCKIN’. He smelled like Brut antiperspirant and body odor, in equal measure. He was long overdue for a haircut and he looked like he hadn’t slept in a month.

“Whatever it is, we’re not buying any,” he said and started to close the door. I stopped it with my right foot.

“I’m not selling anything George,” I said, “except maybe a clear conscience.” He disappeared inside and I picked up the six-pack and followed him in.

We sat on threadbare furniture and I put the beer on the coffee table between us. Next to me was a floor lamp made from an old rifle. I turned it on. The wood paneling behind George sported a needlepoint wall-hanging that depicted a flotilla of ducks. Mallards. There was an old cast-iron woodstove at the end of the room and a doorway led to the kitchen. No door, just a doorway with a painted plaster crucifix hanging above. Looking into the kitchen, I could see about a dozen gallon jugs of water lined up on the counter. The place had no running water.

It was hot inside the cottage but not as bad as Phil’s trailer. The place smelled musty, like my grandfather’s house in Georgia. I always loved that smell.

George plucked a bottle from the six-pack. He twisted the cap and took a swig and said, “The cops on TV don’t bring beer, so I guess I’m not under arrest.”

“You’re not under arrest,” I said, “and I’m not a cop. But if you keep running from this thing, there will be cops soon enough. They definitely won’t bring beer.” Then I explained subpoenas and bench warrants and the perils of perjury. I explained that giving a witness statement might motivate Juno to settle and George might spare himself the trauma of testifying in a courtroom. He drank two bottles of beer and smoked half a dozen cigarettes during my sales pitch. When I talked about Sarah Shipman and how she’d lost the use of her legs, the cigarette in his hand trembled and his eyes welled up, so I closed on the morality angle. “Everybody tells me you’re a good man, George. Phil, Tibor, Nick, Betty…everybody. It’s time to do the right thing.”

He covered his eyes with his left hand and exhaled hard through his nose. I opened a new beer and handed it to him and opened one for myself. I took a mini-cassette tape recorder from my pocket, pressed record, and placed it on the table between us.

“You don’t understand, man” he said. “I can’t. The lawyers from Juno, they put a lot of pressure on.” The tape was recording and I didn’t stop it. He lit a new cigarette and now I wanted one too. I took a swig of beer instead. Thinking,
Two months without a smoke, Dudgeon, don’t blow it now.

“The lawyers from Juno…,” I nudged.

“Yeah, see, they told me to move out of state. They’re giving me enough cash to buy food. They said they’ll get me a job at a Juno Auto Center in another state when the lawsuit is over. California, maybe. All I have to do is stay here for a year or so and keep my head down, they said. I didn’t know what else to do.”

I glanced at the crucifix hanging above the doorway and said, “Don’t sell your soul, George.”

“It’s not the money. These men are very bad. They come by every Monday to give me my week’s pay, but really just to check on me. If I back out…and they carry guns.” He took a long pull on the beer.

“I appreciate your honesty, and we can protect you. Just give a statement and you can come with me. We’ll make sure they don’t find you.” George Garcia drained the rest of the bottle and stared into space for a while. Then he nodded his head.

On the morning of the accident, Rocky Millwood served George with Betty’s divorce papers. George hadn’t gone out drinking. He stayed at work and did his job. But he was an emotional wreck and he couldn’t concentrate. Images of Betty and their child flooded his mind and he spent the day fighting back tears. With a knot in his gut, he went through the motions of his job on autopilot.

“Honestly, I don’t even remember working on the car,” he said. “I’m sure I did and I’m sure I fucked up somehow, but I don’t remember. The whole day is a fog, after the divorce papers.” He reached for a new beer. “Boss wouldn’t give me the day off but I should a taken it anyway, even if they fired me. I shouldn’t a been working. That poor woman…I’m just so very sorry.” Tears ran down George Garcia’s face and he let them run.

I found some paper towels in the kitchen and brought the roll back to him. He wiped his face and blew his nose. I asked him a few more questions and he answered them and I clicked stop on the recorder.

“Okay George, you did very well,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”

He shook his head. “My mom’s coming by in the morning. If I’m gone, she’ll worry.”

“Tomorrow’s Monday. You said the Juno’s goons come on Mondays. Leave her a note.”

“No, I have to speak to her…explain things. She’ll be here at eight. Come back at nine and I’ll go with you.”

“You don’t want to risk them showing up.”

“It’s okay,” said George with a failed attempt at a smile. “They never come before noon. Just make sure you’re not late. I have to say goodbye to my mom.”

A waning gibbous moon above and Bob Dylan’s
Nashville Skyline
on the stereo made the drive back to Chicago tolerable. I sang along with Bob to chase George Garcia’s sadness away and arrived at my office just after midnight.

I transcribed the witness statement from the audiotape into my computer. I made sure to include the coercion by Juno’s legal department. Of course they’d deny it, but with the implied threat of a criminal investigation, a quick settlement was Rik’s for the taking. I printed out the statement and emailed a copy to Rik’s office, feeling pretty pleased with myself.
Three days to find a witness who was hiding in another state and didn’t want to be found.
Not too shabby.

But the congratulatory pep talk was impotent and George’s sadness returned and I had a hankering to drink myself to sleep. A bad idea. I tried to focus on just one of the multiple streams of thought that clamored for my attention. The voices in my head were doing just fine without any help from me, so I finally gave up and let them fight it out amongst themselves. As I sat there, George Garcia’s sadness grew and morphed into Sarah Shipman’s sadness. And mine. And everyone’s.

We encounter people like George and Sarah and Phil (and even Betty) and we say to ourselves:
There but for the grace of God go I
. Then we are self-satisfied. Look how grateful we are, not taking our good fortune for granted. Look how virtuous. We pity George and Sarah and we wallow in our gratitude, because pity and gratitude reinforce the illusion of a great distance between
us
and
them
. We avoid that other thought. The thought that goes:
Better him than me
. Because we’re all just one bad decision from being George Garcia. One serving of bad luck from being Sarah Shipman.