Empire of Lies by Andrew Klavan Read Free Book Online Page A

doesn't it?"
    "You kidding me? That's all we do."
    She grabbed a drag and laughed out more smoke. It was an angry, unpleasant laugh. "Whipping the sin out of naked schoolgirls. Repent! Swish!"
    "Exactly."
    "And you got the wife."
    "Got the wife," I said.
    "She hot?"
    "The mother of my children, you mean?"
    "Oh, well, sorry."
    "As the hinges of hell, yeah."
    She'd already managed to set up a hovering cloud in front of herself with that Kent of hers. She nodded and smiled at me through the haze but, boy oh boy, I could feel the bubblings and eruptions of nastiness going off just beneath the thin surface of her, her temper threatening every moment to explode right through. I
wasn't sure if it was just the sight of me that had her so pissed off, or if she resented having to ask me for help or—who knows?—maybe she was always like this, percolating with wrath.
    "And two kids?" she asked.
    "Three. Two boys and a girl."
    "And what do you—all, like, go to church together?"
    "Whenever we can rustle up a Jew for the human sacrifice, sure."
    "Well, jeez, don't get all defensive, Jason. I'm just asking."
    "Yes, we go to church together. Every Sunday."
    I got more of that appraising look from her. Her lips quirked, her eyes mocking and furious. More smoke. She shook her head. "I'm sorry. It's just when I think back..."
    I shrugged.
    "I can't believe anyone I used to fuck is a Republican. Oh, but maybe I can't say 'fuck' to you now."
    "You can say anything you want."
    "You mean because I'm going to hell anyway."
    "Right, Lauren. That's what I mean." Hoping to deflect the onslaught, I pointed to the mantelpiece, to the framed photos. "What about you? You take these? You still doing photography?"
    "Shit, no. I don't have time. One day..."
    "That's your daughter, though."
    "Serena, yeah."
    "She's beautiful. Serena. Very pretty name. She go to school?"
    "High school. She's a sophomore." Her answers were curt and grudging like that. She didn't want to be distracted from the business of attacking me. She stuck her tongue in her cheek, looked me up and down again, shook her head again. "Man, look at you. I can't get over it." There was a drooping tube of ash on her cigarette now. She flicked it violently into the tray. "If they only knew,
right? Your wife and kids. The sort of evil shit you used to get up to. Does your priest know? Your reverend or whatever he's called. What the hell? You should tell him, Jason. Might put a little excitement in his day." She made a sound like a laugh. Not a laugh, really, but a sound like a laugh. "The Scene. Right? Don't you ever miss it?"
    "No."
    "Liar."
    "Why? Do you?"
    "Not really. But it didn't come as naturally to me."
    I shrugged again and waved her off. I didn't want her to think she was getting under my skin.
    There was a dining alcove off one end of the room. A little space by the kitchen with an oval table and four wooden chairs—the kind of furniture that comes in boxes and you slap it together. I wandered in there as if to take a look around. I was really just trying to put some distance between us, maybe slow her down. Behind the table, there was a glass door. You could see through it into a postage stamp of backyard and on through a diamond-link fence into the backyard of the house on the next street over. There was a woman in the far yard, a woman in her forties but too soon old. She was slumped in a flannel nightgown. Holding a plastic bag full of trash. I watched her carry it to a can standing against the side of the house. What a depressing place this was.
    "You know, I've been trying and trying to figure out why you called me," I said. "I mean, why you need help so urgently and why I would be the one you'd call for it after all these years."
    I glanced back over my shoulder at her. She was still standing there the same as before. In her little cloud, her cigarette upraised. Still appraising me with that combination of mockery and rage.
    "Maybe I just decided I need Jesus," she said. "I