Page 18 of The Lie Maker

Jack

“You’re shittin’ me,” Lana said, staring at the phone Harry had given me. “You’ve had this for two days?”

It sat on the island in her kitchen, and we were gazing upon it as though it were some rare artifact recovered from King Tut’s tomb, or a chunk of a meteorite from Mars. A mystery, an enigma made of metal and plastic that was no bigger than a—well, a cell phone, sitting right there before us.

“Yeah,” I said. “I carry it around with me wherever I go, plug it in and give it a charge if the battery starts to run down.”

“It’s like a Tamagotchi,” she said.

“A what?”

“Don’t you remember those? They were huge about twenty years ago. This little electronic egg you had to take care of and feed and nurture.”

Lana picked up the phone, felt its heft in her palm, as though physically examining it would provide some clue as to who was supposed to call me on it. She pressed the “redial” button.

“Nothing on redial,” she said. “It’s never made a call out, unless the call history was erased. Nothing in contacts. It’s never been used to answer a call, either, so far as I can tell.”

“I know,” I said. “I checked.”

“You know what it probably is?” she said. I waited. “Harry was sworn to secrecy, but Steven Spielberg gave him that phone, and he’s going to call and tell you he wants to make a movie out of one of your books.”

I nodded. “Of course, that must be it. But why can’t Spielberg just have one of his people call me? Why go through all this bullshit?”

Lana shrugged. “You know movie people. They have to do everything in a special way. Like when they go to restaurants. They never order anything off the menu.”

“How do you know that?”

“I think I read it in an Elmore Leonard book.”

“Okay, so, a movie deal. That’s one theory. Any others?”

Lana thought. “Someone big wants you to ghostwrite their life story.”

“That’s what I said to Harry. El Chapo wants to set the record straight. That he’s just a misunderstood businessman.”

“Doesn’t have to be a drug dealer or some other big-time criminal. Could be someone involved in the insurrection. An intelligence guy who gave secrets to the Russians, or a Russian who gave intelligence secrets to us. One of Putin’s oligarchs wants to come clean. Could be a big celeb who had a drug problem or a comedian who liked to jerk off in front of people who’s trying to rehabilitate his image.”

“Yeah, I might give that one a pass.”

“Whoever it might be, it’s someone who’s got a story to tell but doesn’t have the writing chops to tell it.”

I knew of an Australian writer who had a decent career writing thrillers but had started out ghostwriting books for politicians and pop stars. “Possibly,” I said.

“Would you want to do that?”

I thought about that as I went to the fridge for a bottle of already-opened wine. I got two long-stemmed glasses from the cupboard—I’d been here enough times to know where everything was—and poured some into each.

Handing a glass to Lana, I said, “Maybe. I could get past the anonymity of it, not getting my name on the cover. And it would depend on who it was. And what kind of money the publisher was ponying up.”

“It’s come along at the right time,” Lana said.

“No shit,” I said. “No job, no car, no money in the bank. Who cares if it’s El Chapo? I’m sure he has some redeeming qualities.”

We clinked glasses and drank.

Changing subjects, I said, “I read your piece this morning on the missing judge. The name rings a bell. Bentley.”

“It should. He’s a big deal.”