The Book of Lies - Brad Meltzer [30]
“Cal, I promise you, I have no idea what book Ellis is after, or what’s inside that container.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I shoot back. “We’re about to get our answer.”
20
Here?” my father asks, looking inside the dark doorway. Our clothes were soaked from the water, but he’s still fidgeting with the spare dry T-shirt and jeans I always keep stored in the van. “Y’sure?”
I nod, holding open the door with no doorknob and thankful that the punch-code lock is still so easy to jimmy. Inside the old warehouse, the walls are bare and peeling, while each corner hosts a small hill of crumpled newspapers and garbage. Up high, the few horizontal windows are shattered. And the sign out front carries the spray-painted love note “LO” (a gang-inspired tag that means “Latinos Only” just in case anyone misses the welcome mat).
But as I flick a switch and the fluorescent lights blink to life, they reveal what we’re really after: the navy blue container with black tracking number 601174-7 painted across its back. Beached like a metal whale, it rests its tail against the narrow loading dock that runs along the back of the room.
“You sure it’s safe?” my father asks, racing for the container.
He’s missing the point. The warehouse may be decorated in modern dungeon, but that’s the goal. Hidden under layers of fake corporate names, this place is owned by the U.S. government.
We— They. They own them all around the city: fake warehouses that ICE, Customs, and the FBI can use for whatever sting operations they happen to be running. When Timothy offered to have the container delivered here, I thought he was doing me a favor. All he was really doing—once he presumably got rid of me and my dad—was swiping it for himself.
“So you don’t think Ellis knows this’s here?” my father asks.
“If he did, you really think he’d’ve driven off with a truck full of plastic pineapples? Now c’mon—I figure we’ve got an hour on him. Time to see what’s behind door number two.”
“Y’sure there’s no door number three?” my father moans forty-five minutes later, up to his knees in the rancid smell of slowly melting frozen shrimp.
Back in the day, I’d have half a dozen agents burrow to the center of a four-thousand-pound container, send in the dogs, and empty whatever looked suspicious, all within twenty minutes. I don’t have half a dozen agents. Or dogs. I have my dad, and all my dad has is a gunshot wound and a bad back.
“Y’okay?” I ask, walking backward and dragging yet another fifty-pound carton of shrimp out the back doors of the truck, onto the ledge of the loading dock.
My father nods, nudging the carton with his foot so he doesn’t have to bend over. But the sun is up—it’s nearly seven a.m., and the warm air is baking us in the seafood stench—I can see it reflecting off the sweat on his face.
“Halfway through,” I tell him.
With a sharp kick, he sends the newest box toward the maze of cartons that crowd the left half of the loading area. On a small radio in the corner, he put on the local Paul and Young Ron morning show. Still, my dad’s not laughing. From the hospital to being up all night, he’s had it. But as he turns my way, he suddenly looks oddly . . . proud.
“When’d you start wearing it facing in?” he asks.
“Excuse me?”
“Your watch,” he says, pointing to the inside of my wrist. “You wear it facing in.” He then lifts his arm so his palm and the face of his own watch are aimed at me. “Me, too,” he says. “Funny, huh?”
I look down at my watch, then over at his. Both are cheap. Both are digital. Both have nearly identical thick black bands.
“It doesn’t mean anything,” I insist.
“N-No, I know—I just meant—”
“It’s a stupid coincidence, okay, Lloyd? Now can we drop it and finish unloading the rest of this?”
I squat down and tug another wet box full of shrimp toward my dad. Using his foot like a broom, he sweeps it along and adds it to the pile.
“You’re right,” he says. “We need to focus on what’s important.”
“Okay, now what?”
“Just gimme a sec,” I say, shoving aside the last box and staring into the now completely empty