Page 59 of The Lie Maker

“Fine,” I said, and then decided I had given her enough time to bring up our subject from the other day. “Another thing.”

“Yes, Jack,” Gwen said.

“You given any more thought to my request?”

“Your request?”

Like she’d forgotten. What did she think I’d asked her for? More pens? New printer cartridges? A package of Post-it notes?

“About my father,” I said. “About setting up a meeting with him.”

“I need more time.”

“Why?”

“There’s a lot of red tape to cut through to get the information you want. Let me read what you’ve done, and when we meet to discuss it I’ll bring you up to speed on your father.”

Not long after our chat, her driver came and picked up my latest attempt at Bill’s backstory. This time, we actually had a conversation when he got out of the van.

“How’s it going?” Scorsese asked as I handed him the envelope.

“Same old, same old,” I said.

“Hope there aren’t too many typos. She loses her shit over those.”

She’d already marked those up the last time. “A lot of things seem to irritate her.”

He grinned as he took a package of cigarettes from his pocket, tapped one out, and lit it. “She’s like the princess and the pea. You know that one?” I nodded. “But typos and me fiddling with the radio dial are nothing compared to how pissed she was about you.”

“Pissed about me?”

“Sorry, not with you. But pissed that she didn’t know your background, about your dad. She carved out new assholes on the people who were supposed to have done a thorough check on you. She can’t believe something like that fell through the cracks. I’m just glad that wasn’t my job. I’d be on the street.”

“What is your job?” I asked. As soon as I’d said it I was worried it might have sounded insulting. “Like, are you involved in relocating witnesses? Protection?”

“General dogsbody,” he said. “I do whatever needs doing. Often, that’s the shit no one else wants to do. Drive, deliver, sometimes protect. Was a cop. Took a bullet in the leg, gave it up. Fully recovered, but didn’t need that kind of shit anymore.”

“I get it.”

He leaned up against the van and drew on his cigarette. “She would never say it out loud, but she’s very impressed.”

“Oh?”

“First of all, she thinks your work is good. But also that you came forward with that information. If she’d found that out before you told her, she’d have cut you loose, no question. You wouldn’t be doing this. And not that it’s any of my business, but it must have been tough. Your dad not taking you with him.”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

He grinned. “My dad left us, too, but he didn’t go into witness protection. He fucked off with a bartender he met in Jersey.”

That made me laugh. “Everybody’s got a story, right?”

“You got that right.” He gave me another two-finger salute. “Later.”

He tucked the cigarette between his lips, got back in the van, and took off.

At least until Gwen passed judgment on my latest effort, I was idle. That was fine, because I had shit to do. I changed the sheets, did a load of laundry. There were emails to deal with that I’d ignored, bills I hadn’t gotten around to paying. I had an email from a friend in Montana who was always telling me what he’d binge-watched lately. I didn’t usually have much to tell him in return, given that I didn’t watch much other than repeats of legal dramas. It was Lana who liked to dive into some new series that everyone was talking about, watch several episodes in a row about the royal family or some guy who’d gone down to the Ozarks to launder money.

Speaking of Lana.