The Whole Truth by James Scott Bell

sheriffs all up and down this building. If you don’t leave now I’m going to walk outside and get one of them to explain the law to you.”
    â€œSo you don’t believe Johnny?”
    Steve suddenly sensed a security camera on him. In fact, there was. Looking at it only made him more nervous.
    This was absurd, something out of a Martin Scorsese movie. People didn’t just hand you envelopes with money, let alone somebody representing a guy who was still in prison.
    Steve noticed his chair vibrating. And then realized his right leg was twitching.
    â€œTake your money and get out,” he said.
    â€œJohnny told me you might react this way. He really is a good judge of character. He’s a man of God.”
    â€œThat’s why he’s doing time, I guess.”
    â€œYou do time when bad people are against you.”
    â€œLike the police?”
    The uninvited guest pulled a folded piece of paper from his shirt pocket. He unfolded it. It was notebook paper, three holes and lines. He put it in front of Steve.
    â€œJohnny wanted you to see this,” he said.
    Steve looked at it.
    Brother I know I blew you away. I couldn’t tell everything at once. I want to tell you face to face when I get out but you don’t believe me and I guess I wouldn’t either if I was you. Something bad happened back then but not what you think. I didn’t die. I’m alive. My real name is Robert Conroy. And just to show you I tried to think of something that only you and I would of known of. That was kind of hard. We’re talking 25 years, bro. I don’t know how much you remember from that far back but I thought maybe you remember this.
    Once upon a time there were two monsters named Arnold and Beebleobble. One was green and one was blue.
    Steve’s world, inside and out, started spinning. He thought for a second he might pass out. Light was fading and the guy’s voice sounded off in the distance.
    â€œThe money’s yours,” he said. “Johnny’ll get in touch with you.”
    He got up and walked out.

TEN
    It couldn’t be.
    It was.
    There was no way anybody would know about the monster stories Robert used to tell him. Oh, sure, maybe in a fantasy world of some kind, where coincidences rained like candy drops, this information could have come to a prisoner named Johnny LaSalle.
    That was so unlikely.
    Suddenly he was back in his old room. With the clown clock on the white chest of drawers and the red ball with the black stars. The way the sheets smelled like Tide and he’d put them up to his nose and breathe in deep.
    And Robert, lying on top of the bedsheets, a teller of tales and protector of little brothers. Once, they’d been sitting on the sidewalk one summer day, enriched with two packs of M&Ms and a Mountain Dew from Sipe’s Market, courtesy of Mom. Robert wanted to play Nerf football and ran in to get the ball.
    Stevie waited on the sidewalk. The day was hot and the Mountain Dew sweet and cold. Sipe’s always had the coldest drinks, and it was a good thing the store was so close to home.
    A shadow fell across his face and Stevie looked up and saw Cody Messina standing there. The Messinas were a family Stevie wanted to avoid at all costs. They were in some kind of business that involved junk, and their yard was always a stinking mess of rusty parts of things that used to work. Cody was ten, three years older than Robert, and as mean as the Messina’s Doberman, Deuce, who was kept on a chain in their backyard but who had enough chain to get to the fence and bare his teeth at whoever walked by.
    â€œGimme a sip,” Cody said.
    No way. It wasn’t just the principle of the thing, as far as Stevie understood principle. It was the thought of the gross, slobbering lips of Cody Messina on his can of Mountain Dew. There would be no drinking it after that.
    Stevie was too scared to say anything. If he said no he’d probably get his jaw