Page 43 of An Honest Lie

They stood by a patch of shriveled saltbush as Marvin smoked his cigarette while leaning against the side of the building. Rainy faced the parking lot, keeping her eye on things. The heat was pulling up memories of endlessly long days spent outside. She wanted a cigarette badly.

“You from around here?” Marvin spat in the dirt and then smiled at her, a fleck of spit resting on his bottom lip like a blister.

“Do I look like I’m from around here?”

He eyed her for a beat before saying, “All right, all right,” chuckling to himself. He reminded her of a lizard, beady-eyed and darty, his skin scaled with age. “You look like someone I used to know, that’s all.”

“Oh? Who was that?” Rainy asked.

“I can’t put my finger on it.”

She smiled.Liar.

“Who owns this place?” She looked back at the Canary.

“I used to.”

She put effort into her surprised face, raising her brows as high as they would go. Marvin loved it. Encouraged by the height of her eyebrows, he did what old men do: regaled her with a story from the past.

“Owned it for thirty years, sold it ten years ago. Was called the Nirvana before, but the new owner hated the band and wanted to change it. I said, why ruin a good thing, but he wouldn’t hear it.” Marvin tossed his butt but didn’t bother to crush it.

“Well, the food’s still good, I see,” she said. “Or are you coming for the excellent service?”

He grinned. He still hadn’t told her who owned the place now.

“You used to live around here, up at the compound.”

“The what?” Rainy made her jaw hang open and hoped she looked as stupid as she felt.

“Old women’s prison. Never mind. Must have been your doppelgänger. You’re too young to be her.”

She raised her eyebrows. She sensed that he wanted to talk, so she shut up and let him.

“Guy came through here in ’94 and bought the women’s prison, moved a bunch of roughnecks in to work for him, then came the women and children. Pretty soon he had a whole operation going on over there.”

“Oh, yeah, like drugs?” She made her eyes big, but she hardly needed to; old Marvin was on a roll.

“Nah, nothing like that. It was all legit. He had an orchard out there that generated some money, but rumor was he was a computer guy—was training all the kids on them computers, figured he could build an army via the web. You know old-timers like me didn’t think much of it back then, but now the guy has all of these damn nerds working for him from all over the country, building websites and selling them for a profit. Made millions at one point...” He spat again. “They come in here wearing those little glasses and leather jackets!” Shaking his head, Marvin eyed her clothes. “Weak-minded, enthralled by their emotions,” he added. “Perfectly culty.”

“Why did he stay here? If he made all that money why not move on?”

Marvin shrugged. “Snakes like the desert.” A laugh wrapped in a throaty cough followed. “Why would he leave? He owns this part of the desert.”

A good enough answer. Rainy was almost done with him.

Taured had been enthusiastic about technology. Mostly, she thought, it was to manipulate them. Now, in light of Marvin’s words, it sort of made sense. He’d been dismissive of the adults spending time in the computer lab; Summer had never seen her mother use a computer while she was at the compound. But the kids were a different story: in addition to the journals he made them send him via email, he went as far as having them take lessons with Gerry Lackey, a former programmer who taught them a computer science class. Taured told them he had met Gerry online, and wasn’t that amazing that you could meet people from all over the world and have them become your family.

“How do you know all this?” Rainy was genuinely curious.

He laughed. “Ain’t got nothing else to do.” He pointed a finger in the air, his head shaking as he spoke. “This place is not even a town proper—a highway rest stop, really.”

He wasn’t wrong. This was the town she’d known as a kid, and back then, it had seemed a lot larger.

“So he owns this place, then—that guy you’re talking about?”

The kid who took her order—she’d already forgotten his name—stuck his head out the door.

“Food’s up,” he said, not meeting her eyes.

---