Westlake, Donald E - Sara and Jack 01

by Trust Me on This (v1. 1)

  “We know the way they work,” the lawyer said, spreading his hands and shaking his head. “They’ll have backup for that entire story.”

  “There isn’t a word of truth in it!”

  “Of course not. They—”

  “All that crap about mixed-up car keys, and all that other shit, as though we’re mental retards in some slapstick movie!”

  “They’re quoting a quote longtime friend unquote,” the lawyer said. “They’ll have someone, you know, someone you’re acquainted with socially at some level or another. For a few hundred dollars that person read off that ridiculous yam into a tape recorder. If we sue they’ll produce the tape in court. If it’s false, it isn’t their fault. They accepted the friend’s word in good faith. You won’t be able to touch them, and in fact they might very well have a valid countersuit, which wouldn’t be at all pleasant.”

  Mercer stopped pacing to stand with both feet planted on multicolored segments of the Galaxy. Looming over the lawyer, he said, “If we sue, they produce the tape. Then we know who the friend is.”

  “Oh, Johnny, what’s the point?” the lawyer asked. “It won’t be anybody close to you or important to you. If you sue him, or try to get even in some other way—”

  “I was thinking,” Mercer said, “of the death of a thousand cuts.”

  “Legally inadvisable,” the lawyer told him. “All you can do is demean yourself and raise this anonymous pip-squeak into importance. Forget it, Johnny. Treat it as the unimportant dreck it is.” Mercer frowned down at the paper beneath his feet. “I can’t do anything,” he complained sofdy. “I hate these people, loathe and despise and detest them, and I can’t do anything. I’d like to express my opinion of this rag down here on the floor right here and now, and I can’t even do that, because I like the rug too much.”

  Laughing, the lawyer said, “That’s right, Johnny. As long as you keep your sense of humor, they can’t beat you.”

  “You can get further,” Mercer said, “with a sense of humor and a gun.

  Rising, closing his attache case, the lawyer said, “You have money, success, fame and the love of a good woman. And what do they have? Envy, viciousness and a terminal case of small- timer’s disease. Bask in your comforts, Johnny, and forget them.”

  “I guess, the next time I want legal advice,” Mercer said, walking with his lawyer to the door, “I should call a psychiatrist.”

  “Not a bad idea,” the lawyer said, unruffled. They shook hands at the door, said a few more inconclusive words, and then Mercer shut the door, walked back through the house, looked out a window, and saw Felicia sunning herself in her bikini on a chaise beside the pool. The wise man would join her.

  Sunning herself in her bikini on a chaise beside the pool, Felicia idly watched the new groundsman work among the roses in the garden. A tiny gnarled Oriental man of indeterminate age, he was just beginning today, and Felicia found a fascination in watching the way he acquainted himself with the flowers, touching them lightly, muttering to them, poking tentatively with fingertips around their roots. Here was an honest son of toil, as brown and twisty as an old shrub himself—though not exacdy an ornamental—and to Felicia it seemed the man was letting the flowers grow used to him as much as he was getting to know them.

  Johnny came out in his swimsuit and dark glasses, smiling in that tough self-confident way that was second nature to him and was so much of the reason why the camera loved his face. “Nice,” he said.

  “Very nice,” she agreed. “I’m ready for a day like this to go on forever.”

  “I meant you,” he said, grinning, sitting on the other chaise next to her.

  “I meant the day. And you, of course.” Looking around, sighing, she said, “But it is too bad we can’t be married in this beautiful place.”

  “No way,” Johnny told her, an edge in his voice. “The press would be all over us like bedbugs. We’re going to be someplace not connected with us at all, have a good private ceremony, just our closest friends, no circus, no cheapness. Thank God for Martha’s Vineyard!”

  “Johnny!” she exclaimed, with a quick look toward the groundsman. Even though she knew she was just picking up Johnny’s paranoia, she couldn’t keep herself from saying, “We’re not alone!”

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “He doesn’t speak a word of English, I have it absolutely guaranteed by Henry Reed.”

  “He might know Martha’s Vineyard,” Felicia said doubtfully.

  “Not a chance,” Johnny said, waving the idea away. “Come on, let’s do some laps.”

  So they swam together in the pool, two of the beautiful people in sparkling sunshine, making rainbows as the water splashed all about them. The new groundsman continued to work for another half hour, then pottered off, out to his messy rattly truck, where he put his tools away, cleaned his hands, activated the electric gate blocking the driveway as Mr. Mercer had demonstrated, and drove away. His little truck jaunted all the way out the four-mile-long dead-end road, then turned right and came to a stop at a gas station where the groundsman climbed from behind the wheel, went to the pay phone in the comer and made a long distance call to another part of Florida, where Boy Cartwright languidly picked up his flashing phone and said, “Are you there?” a Britishism he’d retained through all these years in exile because he knew the Americans hated it.

  “Istu mintacko kuminish,” said the groundsman.

  “Ah, my little brown friend,” Boy said, sitting up straighter at his desk. “Stendoko mirik?”

  The groundsman nodded. “Dako maku,” he said, “chinchun mookako Martha’s Vineyard.”

  “Ahhhh,” said Boy. “Moko chicku watto.” When he hung up he was smiling.

  Six

  Sara was learning so much about Massachusetts, and none of it worth a good goddamn. For instance, Massachusetts, forty-fifth of the states in size—it lost most of itself in 1819 when Maine was separated off and became its own state—is also one of only four American states officially designated a commonwealth, the other three being Kentucky, Pennsylania and Virginia. But, since “commonwealth” is merely an old-fashioned word that actually means “state,” so what? I mean, so what?

  This was the kind of thing Sara was learning, along with the potential venality and gullibility of certain functionaries and employees and residents within the state, along with much information about the tourist attractions and scenic wonders therein, and absolutely everything about Massachusetts marriage law. But what she wasn’t finding out, no matter how hard she tried, was where in that great and glorious state—motto: Erne petit placidam sub libertate quietem, or, “By the sword we seek peace, but only under liberty”—did the Mercers-to-be intend to become the Mercers-that- were? And when would that happy event take place? And where would they be staying in Massachusetts, either on the wedding night or the prewedding night, whichever turned out to be more newsworthy? And in just what manner—religious, civil, large, small—did they intend to be wed?

  Today was Tuesday, August the third, and in the last four working days Sara had been, on the phone, everything from Felicia Nelson’s pregnant sister to the Atlanta-based offices of the National Disease Control Center. And never in all her life —which is to say, in the three weeks and two days she had been an employee of the Weekly Galaxy —had she run up against so thoroughly blank a blank wall as in this case. Her entire attention was tuned to this problem, so thoroughly that she could do nothing with her evenings but talk to Phyllis about potential further schemes and stratagems. She was even dreaming about it, coming up with wonderful ideas from her subconscious that turned out the next day to be of absolutely no help whatever. And once again the question of Taggart, the missing guard, with no further incidents to fuel her interest, had faded away. His remaining papers lay ignored in the back of her closet.

  Today, Sara almost didn’t take time for lunch, but Phyllis insisted. “You have to eat, silly,” she said.

  “But what if Boy gets there first?”

  “Oh
, what if he does?” Phyllis said, shocking Sara. “Honestly, Sara, I never thought you'd get caught up in it like this. A month from now, what will any of this matter?”

  “Something will matter.”

  “But it won’t,” Phyllis said, laughing at her in surprise. “It’s not as though we’re uncovering Watergate, for heaven’s sake. The subject is a TV star getting married, and honestly, dear, that is not earth-shattering. Now, come to lunch.”

  So she went to lunch, with Phyllis, in the commissary, but all through the meal she kept thinking of calls she could be making, and could barely pay attention to Phyllis’s blithe conversation at all except for when Phyllis said, “Of course, one nice thing if our team does get the assignment, we’ll all get to travel away from here for a while.”

  “Yes,” Sara said fiercely, “but when?”

  “Oh, eat your pie,” Phyllis said.

  But she couldn’t eat her pie. She gulped down her coffee, abandoned her pie, hurried back up to Editorial, and when she saw the white light flashing on her phone she felt only irritation that an incoming call would delay her getting back to work.

  More than delay, though; the game was over. “Forget it,” Jack’s voice said in her ear.

  She knew what he meant, of course, but tried not to know. “Jack? What do you mean?”

  “Ohly ohly in free,” he said, “come on home. Massa just gave the Mercer wedding to Boy.”

  “No! Why?”

  “Massa has spoken,” Jack’s grimly calm voice said. “It has become Boy’s exclusive. We may be called on for some sidebars.”

  “That isn’t fair!”

  “I don’t believe fairness was a significant factor in the decision,” he said. “Come over to Mary Kate to get your new assignment.”

  “All right.”

  “And while you’re here ...”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t sympathize,” said the cold calm voice.

  As Jack dropped the phone onto its receiver, Ida entered the squaricle, wearing her fresh New York pale. “Phyllis Perkinson,” she said.

  “She works for us,” Jack said, “and she works for Trend.”

  Ida nodded. “She does.”

  “And what is she doing for Trend, Ida?”

  ‘“Us,” Ida said. From her shoulder bag she took half a dozen audio cassettes and dropped them on Jack’s desk. “She is doing a Galaxy on the Galaxy” she said.

  In the periphery of his vision, Sara arrived and spoke quietly with Mary Kate. Jack’s attention was focused on Ida, very very very exclusively. Breathing, nearly whispering, he said, “An expose? Of us?”

  “On those tapes,” Ida said, “we got you claiming to be the State Department. We got Sara claiming to be a rape victim, an arthritis victim and an extraterrestrial’s common-law wife. We got Binx explaining all about how the Brits and Aussies work here without the green card. We got Massa talking about John Michael Mercer and the beer and potato chip diet.”

  Wide-eyed, Jack said, “She’s got Massa?”

  “She’s got Harsch doing his hatchetman.” Gesturing at the tapes, she said, “What you got there is nine hours of high crimes and misdemeanors.”

  Jack spread his hands over the tapes. “Are there other copies?”

  “No. I left him blanks.” Smiling like a polar bear, Ida said, “I’d like to be at that editorial conference, when he plays them. He’s been keeping them at home for safekeeping.”

  “Oh, yes?”

  “In the same bedside drawer with the condoms.” Sara, having accepted a wad of papers from Mary Kate, was on her way back to her station. Watching her work her way through the black lines, Jack said, “What about Sara? She a part of it?”

  “No. This is all the Perkinson.”

  “If this gets out,” Jack said, “even if we’ve killed it, if this gets out, I am a nonperson. She’s on my team. Never trust a woman, Ida.”

  “I never do,” Ida said, and Mary Kate said, “Binx just called.”

  “He isn’t talking to me, for some reason,” Jack said.

  “He didn’t want to talk to you,” Mary Kate said. “He just wanted to let me know, he’s been called up to Harsch’s office.”

  “Oh,” Jack said, paying insufficient attention, his mind still turning over the Phyllis Perkinson problem. “Boy must have this,” he said.

  “The spy,” agreed Ida.

  “He found out— Some way, he found out she was a spy for Trend, and turned her, and made her a spy for him.”

  “We’ll never prove it,” Ida said. “I’d love to, even Massa wouldn’t be able to stomach somebody who lets a spy stay here so she can spy for him, but you know as well as I do Cartwright’s too good, he’ll never leave a footprint.”

  “But he can’t blow the story on us either,” Jack said, “not without showing his own knowledge. So we’re safe from Boy, if we can only blow Perkinson out of the water without the reason getting known.”

  “Or leave her in and neutralize her,” Ida suggested.

  “Here? Everybody here talks, Ida, they talk all the time. Information is our most important product.”

  “She could have a fall and break her leg,” Ida suggested.

  “Two or three months in the hospital?” Jack considered the idea. “The only problem is, things like that tend to backfire, and then the situation’s worse than it was be—” He stopped, frowned at Mary Kate, and said, “Harsch called Binx to come up to his office?”

  “That’s what he said,” Mary Kate agreed.

  “What day is it?”

  “Tuesday,” Mary Kate said.

  Jack looked across the room toward Binx’s empty squaricle. “That poor bastard,” he said.

  Binx was back in his squaricle, packing his personal possessions into a briefcase and a shopping bag, under the impersonal gaze of a brown-uniformed guard maintaining a discreet distance, when Jack came in and said, “Jesus Christ, Binx.” “Crucified in Jerusalem,” Binx responded. “Rumored to be a faggot.”

  Jack stuck his hands in his back trouser pockets and walked around and around inside the squaricle. “Shit, Binx,” he said. “We’ve been friends.”

  “Memories I’ll treasure always,” Binx said.

  “What I’m sorry for,” Jack said, “is stealing your life for the Mercer piece. I was scrambling, you know?”

  “Water over the grave,” Binx said, “not to worry. I probably would have done the same thing.”

  Jack stood still and considered him. “Well, no,” he said. “No, you wouldn’t, Binx.”

  ‘“Why do you say that?”

  “Because I haven’t been fired,” Jack said, and hurried on, saying, “Do you have any ideas?”

  “Oh, thousands,” Binx said. “Carbon monoxide, mostly.” With a nod toward the guard, he said, “You know, mosdy, when people get the push and the guard shows up, other people don’t come around. They don’t want the contamination.”

  “Fuck that, pal,” Jack said. ‘Til be your friend as long as you want me.”

  “No ulterior motive?”

  “Like what? Buy your thesaurus cheap? Listen, seriously, Binx, do you have any other job ideas lined up?”

  “Not actually in a line,” Binx said, and paused in his packing to say, “I’m trying to figure out what to put on my resume.”

  “Ah.”

  “Eight years at the Galaxy. Not a selling idea.”

  “A real problem,” Jack agreed.

  “I was thinking, maybe I’ll claim I was in an asylum the last eight years, but Fm better now. What do you think?”

  “It’s even almost the truth,” Jack said.

  “Fm looking at it from the employer’s point of view,” Binx explained. “A man can be cured from being crazy, but there’s no cure for sailing with the Galaxy.”

  “I’m glad to see you’re taking this in a positive upbeat manner,” Jack said, then stopped again, struck by some sort of incredible idea that caused him to go, “Ah!” and smack himself on the forehead.
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  Binx looked at him mildly. “Square root of two?”

  “You could—” Jack started, hope in his face, but then abruptly changed his mind and turned away, saying, “No, forget it, I don’t know what’s the matter with me, thinking about my own problems when you’ve got, oh, hell, this is really rough, Binx.”

  “What?” Binx asked.

  “You being fired!”

  “No. What can I do for you?”

  “No, don’t even think about it, I’m sorry I even mentioned it. Listen, this weekend, why don’t we get together, do a list of people we know in the business, papers and magazines, I bet we could find people who’d back you up here and there, so you could put together a real nice resume, worked this place, worked that—”

  “What,” Binx said.

  “Huh? No, forget it, Binx, I mean it.”

  “I don’t have much energy today, Jack,” Binx said. “Let’s just go to it, okay? What is it I can help you with?”

  “Well— If you’re sure”

  Binx, energy level low, didn’t respond, but merely waited.

  Jack shrugged hugely, spreading his arms, shaking his head, absolving himself of responsibility. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. If you insist. I got a problem, and it’s Phyllis Perkinson, and if I try to fire a member of my own team it’ll give me a black mark with Massa, so I don’t know what to do. But you’re leaving anyway ”

  “So?”

  Jack took a deep breath, clearly reluctant to wash this dirty linen in public. “Phyllis Perkinson made lesbian overtures to two members of my team. Now, you know how Massa feels about—”

  “Who?”

  “What?”

  “Which two members of the team?”

  “Ida and Sara. Now, this is going to have a bad effect on—”

  “That’s the story you want me to bring to Harsch,” Binx said. “What’s the real story?”

  Jack stared at him in utter innocence. “That’s the real story! Jesus, Binx, do you think it’s easy for me to talk about this, under any circumstances at all, much less with my best friend being kicked out on his ass? Holy shit, Binx!”