. . . seven . . . six . . . five . . .

The dog began to growl. She could smell death coming. But Ellis ignored the

noise, peacefully reading from the bill of lading: the container’s new tracking

number, the receiver’s name (had to be fake) — everything the Leadership

needed.

. . . four . . . three . . . two . . .

Still flat on his stomach and now with his mouth wide open, Zhao gave a final

hollow gasp that sounded like the last bits of water being sucked down a

drain. Ellis’s great-grandfather described the same sound in his diary — right

after he mentioned there was no antidote for hemlock poisoning.

. . . one.

Zhao was nice — even kind when they first met at the doctor’s funeral — but

the mission was bigger than Zhao. And based on what happened in 1900 with

Mitchell Siegel, the mission had enough problems with witnesses.

Zhao’s tongue went limp, and his head slumped forward, sending his forehead

against the carpet.

Ellis didn’t notice. He was already on his phone, dialing Judge Wojtowicz’s

number.

“I told you not to call me here, Eddie,” answered an older man with a soft,

crackly voice.

“Ellis. I’m called Ellis now,” he replied, never losing his composure. He

spread out his left hand, admiring the tattoo.

“It’s five in the morning here, Ellis. What do you want?”

Ellis smiled — truly smiled — turning his full attention to the phone. “What I

want is for you to remember just where you were when I found you, Judge.

Your group — your Leadership — your dream was old and dead. Is that how

you pictured your final years? Just another discarded, cobwebbed old man

sitting in his cramped Michigan apartment and wondering why his glory days

weren’t more glorious? You’re not even a footnote in history, Judge. Not even

an asterisk. But if you want, I can put you back there. Maybe one day you’ll

be a parenthesis.”

“My family has been in the Leadership since—”

“Don’t embarrass yourself, Judge. Family names don’t get you into Harvard

anymore; what makes you think they’ll get you in here?”

There was a long pause on the line. “I appreciate your helping us with this,

Ellis,” the Judge finally offered. Clearing his throat, he added, “You’re close to

finding the Book, aren’t you?”

“And about to get even closer,” Ellis said, glancing at the pink bill of lading

and studying the container’s new tracking details: when it left the port, when

it’d arrive in Miami, even the truck driver who was responsible for the pickup.

HARPER, LLOYD.

“C’mon, Benoni,” he murmured to the dog.

He knew it was an odd name. Benoni. But according to the diaries, that was

the name of Abel’s watchdog — the dog that was eventually given to Cain —

and the only witness to the world’s first murder.

“You’re in for a treat, girl,” he said as he stepped over Zhao’s dead body and

led the dog out into the hallway. “This time of year, the weather is gorgeous

in Florida.”

As the dog ran ahead, Ellis never lost sight of her. He knew his history. Only

with Benoni would he find the Book of Lies and solve the true mystery of the

world’s greatest villain.

 

2

Two weeks later

Fort Lauderdale, Florida

My name is Cal Harper.

This is the second most important day of my life.

“Remove him,” the manager of the French bistro calls out behind us.

“S-Sorry, Cal,” my client Alberto apologizes, his body shaking as I hook his

arm around my neck and help him hobble back toward our van. From the

stench on his breath, Alberto’s been drinking hard. From his fresh split lip,

plus the tear in his ratty T-shirt, he’s been fighting, too. In his left hand, he

clutches the dented, rusty RC Cola can that he carries everywhere.

Welcome to Fort Lauderdale beach. Just another day in paradise.

“You planning on helping here?” I call to Roosevelt, who’s reclining in the

passenger seat of our dumpy white van.

“Ah’m mentoring,” Roosevelt calls back in a thick Tennessee drawl, nodding a

hello to Alberto, who offers a gray-toothed smile in return.

“No, you’re sitting on your rear while I do all the work,” I point out.

“Whattya think mentoring is?” Roosevelt asks, lumbering out like an old

mountain cat and slowly tugging open the side door of the van, a 1991 GMC

Safari that another client christened “the White House.” (Roosevelt and Calvin

in the same place? It’s downright presidential.)

“You got him?” I ask.

“Isn’t that why God put me on this planet?” Roosevelt says, his dyed-black,

aging-hippie ponytail flapping in the salty ocean breeze. At forty-two,

Roosevelt’s old enough to know better than the ponytail, but we all have our

weaknesses. “Man, Alberto, you reek.”

To the few passing tourists still walking the beach, we probably look like

mobsters. But our job’s far more dangerous than that.

“Listen, thanks for calling us instead of the cops,” I tell the restaurant

manager, a middle-aged guy who looks like a ferret.

“I’m no schmuck,” he laughs, dropping his French accent. “Cops would take

two hours. You take the trash out fast.”

He offers a handshake, and as I reach to take it, I spot a hundred-dollar bill in

his palm. I pull back as if he’s offering a coiled snake.

“Just our way of saying thanks,” he adds, reaching out again for the

handshake.

I don’t shake back. “Listen,” I insist, stepping toward him. It’s clear I’m not

the most imposing figure — I slouch and have a shambling walk that’s all

arms and legs and big hands — but I do have most of my dad’s height. Nearly

six feet when I stand up straight. And the only time I do that is when I’m

pissed. Like now. “Do you understand what I do?” I ask, my thick Adam’s

apple pumping with each syllable.

“Aw, jeez, you’re gonna give me some self-important speech now, aren’t

ya?”

“No speech. We take the homeless back to shelters—”

“And what? If you accept a tip it’ll make it less of a good deed? I respect

that. I do. But c’mon, be fair to yourself,” he says, motioning to my faded

black T-shirt, which is barely tucked in. “What’re ya, thirty years old with that

baby face? You’re wearing secondhand sneakers and sweatpants. To work.

When was the last time you got a haircut? And c’mon . . . your van . . .”

I glance back at the van’s peeling tinted windows and the swarm of rust along

the back fender, then down at my decade-old sweatpants and my

checkerboard Vans sneakers.

“Take the money, kid. If you don’t use it for yourself, at least help your

organization.”

I shake my head. “You called my client trash.”

To my surprise, he doesn’t get defensive. Or mad. “You’re right — I’m sorry,”

he says, still holding out the money. “Let this be my apology. Please. Don’t

make it the end of the world.”

I stare at my sweatpants, calculating all of the underwear and socks I could

buy for our clients with an extra hundred dollars.

“C’mon, bro . . . even Bob Dylan did an iPod commercial.”

“And once again, making the world safe for people who eat croquemonsieurs,”

I say, yanking open the door of the van and climbing back behind

the wheel.

“What the fudge, Cal? You didn’t take the money, did you?” Roosevelt asks

with a sigh as he reaches into the brown bag on his lap and cracks open a

pistachio shell. “Why you so stubborn?”

“Same reason you say dumb crap like ‘What the fudge.’ ”

“That’s different.”

“It’s not different,” I shoot back, looking down at the van’s closed ashtray.

With a tug, I pull it open, spot the dozens of discarded pistachio shells he’s

stuffed inside, and dump them in the empty Burger King bag between us.

Roosevelt cracks another shell and leans for the ashtray. I shake the Burger

King bag in front of him instead. “You were a minister, so you don’t like to

curse — I get it, Roosevelt. But it’s a choice you make on principle.”

“You were a minister?” Alberto blurts from the backseat, barely picking his

head up from the RC soda can with the plastic wrap on top. It took nearly six

different pickups before Alberto told me that’s where he keeps his father’s

ashes. I used to think he was nuts. I still do. But I appreciate the logic. I’m

what my parents left behind. I understand not wanting to do the same to

someone else. “I thought you were some special agent who got arrested . . .”

Twisting the ignition and hitting the gas, I don’t say a word.

“That was Cal,” Roosevelt points out as we take off down A1A, and his

ponytail flaps behind him. “And we’ve talked about my ministry, Alberto.”

Alberto pauses a moment. “You’re a minister?”

“He was,” I offer. “Ask him why he left.”

“Ask Cal why he got fired,” Roosevelt says in that calm, folksy drawl that

filled the church pews every Sunday and immediately has Alberto looking my

way. “Losing his badge . . . y’know that’s what turned his hair white?”

Roosevelt adds, pointing at my full head of thick silver hair, which is such a

scraggly mess it almost covers the birthmark near my left eye.

“Nuh-uh,” Alberto says. “You didn’t get that from your momma or daddy?”

I click my front teeth together, staring out at the closed tourist T-shirt shops

that line the beach. The only thing I got from my parents was a light blue

government form with the charges against my father.

The prosecutor was smart: He went for manslaughter instead of murder . . .

painted a picture of this six-foot-two monster purposely shoving a small,

defenseless young mom . . . then for the final spit-shine added in my father

yelling, “That’s it — you’re done!” (Testimony courtesy of every neighbor with

an adjoining wall.)

My dad got eight years at Glades Correction Institution. The state of Florida

gave me six minutes to say good-bye. I remember the room smelled like

spearmint gum and hairspray. Life is filled with trapdoors. I happened to swan

dive through mine when I was nine years old. That was the last time I ever

saw Dad. I don’t blame him anymore, even though when he got out, he

could’ve — I don’t blame him anymore.

“Gaaah,” Roosevelt shouts, his ruddy features burning bright. “You shoulda

taken that restaurant money.”

“Roosevelt, the only reason he was offering that cash was so when he goes

home tonight, he doesn’t feel nearly as guilty for sweeping away the

homeless guy that he thought was bad for his fake French bistro business. Go

pray . . . or send an e-mail to heaven . . . or do whatever you do to let your

God weigh in, but I’m telling you: We’re here to help those who need it — not

to give fudging penance.”

His lips purse at my use of the G-word. Roosevelt’ll joke about anything — his

long hair, his obsession with early chubby Janet Jackson (so much better than

the later thinner model), even his love of “Yo Momma’s So Fat” jokes as a tool

for changing the subject during an awkward social situation — but he’ll never

joke about God.

Staring out the side window, Roosevelt’s now the one clicking his teeth.

“Making it a crusade doesn’t make it right,” he says, speaking slowly so I feel

every word.

“It’s not a crusade.”

“Really? Then I suppose when you leave this job every night, your life is

filled with a slew of outside interests: like that kindergarten teacher I tried to

set you up with. Oh, wait — that’s right — you never called her.”

“I called her. She had to run,” I say, gripping the steering wheel and

searching the passing side streets for possible clients.

“That’s why you set up a date! To make time so you can talk, or eat, or do

something besides riding past mile after mile of gorgeous beach and spending

all that time checking every alley for a homeless person!”

I look straight ahead as Roosevelt cracks another pistachio and tosses the

shell in the bag. I never had an older brother, but if I did, I bet he’d torture

me with the exact same silence.

“I know you can’t turn it off, Cal — and I love you for that — but it’s

unhealthy. You need something . . . a hobby—”

“I have lots of hobbies.”

“Name one.”

“Don’t start.” I think a moment.