Page 12 of The Lie Maker

He smiled. “Maybe I’m eight months late.” He was kind of right about that, actually. He hadn’t been in touch back in January when I’d turned thirty-four. I looked at him, waiting for a straight answer. Finally, he shrugged and said, “I just wanted to, you know, check in.”

I was skeptical.

“You still seeing that reporter? Works for the Star?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s her name again?”

“Lana Wilshire.”

“Right. I see her byline all the time. Sometimes they run a little headshot with her stories. Pretty girl. Very nice.”

I waited. He was working up to whatever it was he wanted to talk about. I watched a blue Corvette rumble past. A red Explorer SUV went the other way. A young woman walked by with four dogs on leashes.

Earl cleared his throat, licked his lips. He was ready.

“There is something I wanted to discuss with you.”

I waited.

“You probably noticed, over the years, that some of my investments didn’t always pan out the way I’d hoped.”

I kept a straight face and nodded.

“Lots of ups and downs. Right now I’m in a situation where I’m a little overextended. I guess what you would call a negative liquidity situation.” He paused, maybe waiting for me to ask him a question, which I didn’t. He sighed. “Basically I’m up to my ass in alligators.”

“Sorry to hear.”

“Guess you heard about that thing in Florida? That building that went down a few months back? Pancaked? By the beach?”

The story had made news around the world. The apartment tower collapsed in the middle of the night. Nearly a hundred killed. Rusted-out support beams in the underground parking garage blamed.

“I heard.”

“I had this opportunity about a year ago to buy into some of those units. Old folks who’d been living there had died, the grown kids didn’t want them, wanted to sell. Figured I could flip them pretty fast, make a good buck.”

“How many did you buy?”

He raised two fingers.

“Jesus,” I said.

He licked his lips again. A few beads of sweat had broken out on his forehead. “There’s a big investigation going on, probably gonna take years, and until they settle this, it presents some financial challenges for me, if you get my drift. Meeting the payments, that kind of thing.”

“Were people living in those condos? The two you bought? Were you renting them out?”

He nodded slowly. “Nice lady from Brooklyn died in one. A retired couple from Duluth in another. It’s a tragedy, a terrible tragedy, no doubt about it. And my heart goes out to their families, for sure. That’s my number-one concern. But I’m a victim here, too. Going to sell the car, and my condo in Quincy.” Earl sniffed. “I could use a loan.”

“I’ll bet.”

“I’ll pay you back. Thing is, I can’t go to the banks. They won’t lend me a dime. I’m kind of at the point where I might have to approach more unconventional lending services.”

Guys with broken noses in the back room of some North End takeout joint, I was betting.

“I’m sorry, Earl. I’m tapped out.”

“Yeah, but when you sell this latest book... you must have something tucked away.”