Baby, Would I Lie?

by Donald E. Westlake

  At some point in this flapdoodle, the ex-wife will ask to call back, won’t she? She listened this long, but she’s doubtful; she wants to talk it over with her lawyer and her boyfriend and her best girlfriend, so she’ll ask if she can call back. Now, you don’t want to give her a hotel telephone number, do you? You don’t want your calls to go through a hotel operator who might very well have already been suborned by some other scurrilous paper, do you? You don’t want a hotel maid to wander into the room during the next call, do you, while you’re talking with an Italian accent and being Countess Sylvia?

  Of course not. If you wish to use a phone, if you wish to set up a darkroom (in the bathroom), if you wish to interview a witness, a relative, a venal police officer, if you want a private conversation with anybody at all in which both information and money may change hands, you don’t want that happening in a hotel, do you? Or anywhere out in the world, right? What you want is your own house. Every time there occurs in the world what the Galaxy thinks of as a major story, therefore, the Galaxy begins by renting a house.

  This particular story’s house, at 1023 Cherokee, was in the old original part of Branson, the part that existed when the only strangers who’d ever heard of the place were bass fishermen. (Of course, once the Army Corps of Engineers put in those flood-control and hydroelectric dams, converting the flood-prone White River into a lot of weird-shaped lakes, there wasn’t any bass fishing anymore because of the severe temperature change of the water, but not to worry. They put in the fish hatchery, near which Belle Hardwick would eventually expire, and stocked their fake lakes with trout. From a real river with real bass to imitation lakes with interjected trout, the fishing equivalent of a carnival game. But, hey, fish are fish, right?)

  Anyway, 1023 Cherokee was owned by a nice widow lady who lived mostly in a nearby nursing home these days. Her house was so thoroughly low-maintenance, it, too, could have been put together by the Army Corps of Engineers; beige paneled walls, beige wall-to-wall carpeting, Formica and Scotchgarded beige furniture. (All the furniture was now out in the carport, under tarps.)

  It was in this place, surrounded by photographers caring for their equipment as endlessly and lovingly as any infantryman cares for his rifle, plus reporters on the phone, reporters on the manual portable typewriters given out by the Galaxy to any of its staffers forced to face the rigors of the road, reporters studying the road maps and topographical maps and real estate maps and all the other maps defacing the nice widow’s walls, reporters sleeping on the floor under tables, reporters arguing with other reporters, photographers taking photos of miniatures set up on shaky tables, which just might be made with extensive retouching to look like aerial photos of Ray Jones’s house out at Porte Regal, or the murder scene, or photos of the courtroom or Ray Jones himself behind some sort of bars, it was in this restful setting that Binx Radwell, editor, boss of this madhouse, sat and listened to the voice from Florida.

  The owner of this particular voice, this nasty voice like a cross between a moped and a dentist’s drill, was a demidemon named Scarpnafe. He was not an editor, not a fact checker, not an evaluator, nor any of the other normal horrors of the editorial department; he was some sort of “manager,” possibly an “assistant flow manager,” or a “deputy product manager.” This was an added layer of harassment, inserted by the new ownership, who had sent to the Galaxy building from their corporate headquarters down in Homestead a number of their minor devils to form a new level of control. These days, every employee of the Galaxy had one of these demidemons perched on his or her shoulder, second-guessing, haranguing, nitpicking, prodding, never satisfied. Narrow pasty people, young and skinny, in dark blue suits and narrow ties, with the pinched faces of creatures taken off the breast too early. Way too early.

  This one, Scarpnafe, had just called to say do more, get on with it, faster, deliver or die. “Thursday,” said this rasp of doom, “we go to press.”

  This had been true for many, many years, going back much longer than Binx’s employment, since the paper came out every Friday to catch the weekend shopper, but Binx perforce had to receive the fact as though it were a startling and inspiring piece of fresh news. “Ah, right!” he cried, and turned his head aside from the phone to burp, a bad-tasting burp.

  The voice in his ear whined on: “Jury selection is tomorrow, in the trial.”

  Oh, that jury selection. “That’s right. That’s right,” Binx agreed, nodding spastically as sweat droplets sprayed from his head.

  “Tomorrow is Wednesday.”

  “Yes, it is! It is!”

  “We will want those jurors.”

  “Yes, of course,” Binx agreed, having no idea what Scarpnafe meant. Want those jurors? Scarpnafe made it sound as though he wanted those jurors lightly sautéed on a bed of lettuce, but that couldn’t be right, could it? Oh God, what now?

  “Their names,” Scarpnafe explained.

  “Naturally.” Binx sighed, afraid to feel relief—not yet.

  “Bios.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Interviews.”

  The volcano sent a little lava into Binx’s throat, just a little. “Interviews? But, but—”

  “Not afterward,” Scarpnafe elaborated. “Now, before deliberation.”

  “The thing is, uh, the only thing is, little, uh, thing. Is,” Binx said, swallowing like mad, rubbing his belly with his free hand as though to soothe a dangerous cat, “the thing is, the jury’s going to be, uh, sequestered.”

  “Sequest?”

  “Ered.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Well, uh, locked up. It’s a death-penalty thing they do, serious cases; they put the jury in motel rooms, lock them up; they can’t read the papers, watch television—”

  “This is America!” Scarpnafe cried, outraged.

  “Well, uh,” Binx explained, hating to be the bearer of such tidings, “apparently that’s the way they do it … in America.”

  “Bribe a relative,” Scarpnafe ordered, rolling very well with the punch.

  “They don’t get to talk to their relatives,” Binx said. “Not without a bailiff there.”

  “What are they, in prison?”

  “Just about.”

  “Bug the motel!”

  “Uh,” Binx said as rivers of sweat foamed and whitecapped the rapids of his body. He could think of nothing else to say. He sat there, the phone at his damp ear, mouth open like a gargoyle on a French cathedral.

  “Well? What’s the problem?”

  Binx knew the answer to that one. “Nothing!” he cried brightly, and then inspiration—or perhaps desperation—struck. “Just as soon as you fax me the order, sir, I’ll put my team on it.”

  “Fax?” The nasty voice was suddenly wary. “What do you mean fax?”

  “Oh, don’t you have our fax number? It’s four-one—”

  “I know the fax number! Wait a minute, Radwell. Are you saying you want this order in writing?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “With my signature, I suppose.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “In other words,” Scarpnafe said, “you think this particular use of journalistic technique might go one small step further than First Amendment protection would cover, is that it?” “Well, sir, Mr. Scarpnafe, uh, you know, the courts, the judicial system, they get a little antsy if they think you don’t take them seriously.”

  “Radwell,” Scarpnafe said, on solid ground again, “how many judges and prosecutors do you suppose read the Weekly Galaxy on a regular basis?”

  “Outside Florida, sir? Probably not very many.”

  “We take our readers seriously, Radwell. No one else in the world. Do you understand that?”

  Of course he did. It was what made life at the Galaxy so challenging. “But, sir, Mr. Scarpnafe, uh, state courts, you know. It isn’t like some movie star gets mad at us, sues for a couple years, gets tired. State government, uh, outside Florida, they could probably do more to us than we could do to the
m.”

  “Hmmmmm,” Scarpnafe said. As with any satrap, he found it discomfiting to be reminded of the limits of his power.

  Grasping the moment, lowering his voice in an attempt to sound both supportive and self-assured—two lies in one inflection—Binx said, “Mr. Scarpnafe, sir, I have some experience with situations of this sort. My team and me.” (Might as well spread the responsibility in case something went wrong.) “We’ll get you great stuff, guaranteed, everything within the range of possibility. More than anybody else on any other paper, I can promise you that.”

  “What about the other papers, Radwell?” Scarpnafe demanded, leaping away from that uncomfortable area where he had no control. “And magazines. And television people, too. MTV, isn’t that what they call it?”

  “One of it, yes, sir.” Now here was something to feel pleased about, proud of. Permitting just a trace of self-satisfaction to creep into his usual obsequious manner, Binx said, “We have many of them in our charge already, sir. Unless the Christian Science Monitor shows up, I think we’ll have the media pretty much under control. That’s print and broadcast both, sir.”

  “Good.”

  End with the devil saying good; segue out of this. “And speaking of that, sir,” Binx quickly said, “I probably should go back over there now, make an appearance, keep them all happy.”

  “Remember what I said, Radwell.”

  Had to get that in there, didn’t you? “Oh, I will, sir,” Binx said. “It’s engraved on my …brain.” (He was going to say heart but decided to be less accurate.) “Well, I’m off to the open house.”

  Well, yes; but if he didn’t want to empty that suite over at the Palace, he should shower first. So he did.

  The shower was good; the vodka and Sprite was better. Binx bopped around the party, cheery and eager, too cheery and overeager, sweating again already but not even caring anymore, greeting old friends and new, dismayed at how many of these goddamn friends were new and just how horribly new they were, not letting it get him down, managing to touch this female rump, that female waist, the curve of some other female breast, most of them younger than they used to be. You know, your young firm female flesh is very nice, but this is ridiculous. Here are these girls, six feet tall, weighing less than a hundred pounds, encased in leather and rubber, and perched on top of each is the face of a twelve-year-old. Granted, a twelve-year-old on uppers, but still.

  Jack Ingersoll, over there, across the room. There’s an old friend, goddamn his eyes, Jack Ingersoll, compact, clean, self-contained, like a lumberjack on his day off, moving through the party like a census taker.

  We used to work together, Binx reminded himself, squinting across the crowded room at this recent arrival, this guy clutching a bottle of beer and moving slowly, inexorably through the room, dropping a word here, a word there, counting the house, clearly counting the house.

  He’s doing what I’ve been trying to do, Binx thought. He paused in gnashing his teeth to knock back a little more vodka and Sprite. He’s doing what I’ve been trying to do, and he’s so much better at it.

  There was a complicated hate-hate relationship between Binx Radwell and Jack Ingersoll, at least from Binx to Jack, dating from when Jack was also a Weekly Galaxy editor. In fact, once Binx had clawed his way back up to his own second posting as editor, he’d inherited Jack’s team—the Down Under Trio and Mary Kate Scudder and Chauncey Chapperrel and the rest. All except the ones who’d left—Sara Joslyn and Jack himself, gone off to a happy life of nonmarital sex and legitimate journalism up in New York; and, of course, Ida Gavin.

  Jack Ingersoll was everything Binx wanted to be; Binx admired Jack with a hopeless, helpless infatuation. Jack was self-assured, straightforward, stoic, and single, everything Binx was not. What could Binx do, poor man, but clothe that envy and admiration in the thickest, heaviest cloak of hatred and then overcoat the whole package with a fawning smile of false camaraderie? Nothing; so that’s what he did.

  But not just yet. First, another vodka and Sprite. Standing on line at the handiest bar, Binx brooded on the meaning of Jack’s presence here. Trend had sent Sara down to cover the Ray Jones trial. Trend was not topical in the way the Galaxy was and would not actually cover the trial until it was all over. So why would Sara’s editor follow her? And why, knowing the Galaxy as well as Jack Ingersoll did, would Sara’s editor, having for no comprehensible reason followed her to Branson, Missouri, then come here?

  I must be clever, Binx told himself hopelessly, as he ordered his fresh drink. I must be cleverer than Jack and find out what he’s up to. Because, damn his eyes, he’s up to something. And Binx, with the instinct of the field mouse when the shadow of the hawk passes by, knew without question that whatever Jack was up to, it bode no good for Binx Radwell. No good at all.

  Slinking forward like a minor footpad in Dickens, Binx actually washed his hands together as he at last stood in front of Jack Ingersoll, amid the milling throng; or, that is, the free hand washed the hand holding the vodka and Sprite. “Jack! Long time no see!”

  “Well, Binx,” Jack said, saluting with his beer bottle, “you look like shit. Sara tells me you’re an editor again.”

  “You can’t keep a bad man down,” Binx suggested.

  “Very true.” Looking around, Jack said, “Do I see some of my former unindicted coconspirators here?”

  “It’s mostly your team,” Binx said, feeling proud and humble and furious at the humility and embarrassed by the pride and defensive over all. “The Aussies and Don Grove and everybody.”

  “Gee, Binx, it sure brings it all back,” Jack told him. “And I don’t miss it for a second.”

  “Oh sure you do. The fun, the camaraderie, the thrill of the chase.”

  “The terror, the pressure, the Valium, the heart attacks, the failures. And now I understand you have an even more vicious management than before.”

  “Oh shoot,” Binx said, “if you want to talk reality.” Then he cleared his throat. He liked it so much, he did it twice more. Then he said, “Uhhhhhhhhh, how come, uh, how come, uh, how, uh, come, you’re here? Here.”

  Grinning, Jack took a folded sheet of fax paper from an inner pocket and extended it, saying, “Don’t tell Sara I showed you this.”

  Binx had no idea what this paper was going to be. He hated unexpected things, and so many things in life came under that category. With vague memories of nightclub hypnotists who put people under merely by handing them a card to read, Binx opened the slimy curly fax paper and, with increasing astonishment, read Sara’s projected lead. “Good golly, Miss Molly,” he said.

  “That,” Jack said, “was after Sara experienced the Ray Jones show at the Ray Jones Theater once, in person.”

  “There must be something in the water,” Binx suggested.

  “I’ll be finding out,” Jack said. “I promised to go there tonight myself. They’re saving me the Elvis seat.”

  Assuming that to be some sort of joke he wasn’t catching—so much of life, it seemed to Binx, was a joke he wasn’t catching—Binx said a neutral “Uh-huh” and returned the fax to Jack, who returned it to his pocket. “So that’s why you skyed M-O-ward.”

  “Well, also,” Jack said, “Sara is my girlfriend. I like to see her from time to time.”

  So would I, Binx thought, and many images crossed the mildew-stained movie screen of his mind. His wife, Marcie, appeared in one of the images, and he dispatched her with a bazooka. “You know, Jack,” he said, musingly, thoughtfully, maturely, “I’ve been thinking for some time about making some changes in my life. Get out of Florida, maybe move on to—”

  “Full up,” Jack said.

  “Oh, I wasn’t thinking about Trend in particular,” Binx lied, “just any opening you might know of up in the Apple that—”

  “Nobody there calls it the Apple,” Jack said.

  “Big Apple?”

  “No.”

  “New York, New York?”

  “Only when drunk.”

  “We
ll, what do you call it?”

  “The city.”

  Binx said, “How do you know which one you’re talking about?”

  “What other one is there?”

  “You used to be more down-to-earth, Jack,” Binx reproached him, and was interrupted by Bob Sangster, the most working-class looking of the Down Under Trio, whose manner was so laconic that passing doctors sometimes took his pulse just to be sure. “Say,” he said. Actually, being Australian, he said, “Sigh.”

  “Hel-lo, Bob,” Binx said, as though heartily.

  “Right,” Bob said obscurely. “Ever heard of a shadow jury?”

  “It has dogged my footsteps,” Binx said, “my entire life. You remember Jack Ingersoll, your former lord and master.”

  “Oh, right,” Bob said, giving Jack the double O. “You went away to America or somewhere, didn’t you?”

  “No, the city,” Jack said.

  “Ah, New York, New York,” said Bob, who in fact was drunk. Turning back to Binx, he said, “About this shadow jury, the way it seems, what they do—”

  “Uh, Bob,” Binx said. “Jack isn’t with us anymore.”

  Smiling comfortably, Jack said, “I’m the enemy now.”

  Binx said to Bob, “So we’ll talk later, won’t we?”

  “What do I know?” Bob asked. “I’m a simple Aussie.” And he wandered away, into the milling, drinking, thronging scrum.

  Looking after him, smiling faintly, Jack said, “You know, the Down Under Trio I almost do miss.”

  “You were right, though, to make your move when you did.” Binx licked his lips. “I’ve been thinking—”

  Jack shook his head. “Binx,” he said, “we’ve always leveled with one another.”

  Alarmed, Binx said, “We have?”

  “When necessary.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  “So I’m going to level with you now,” Jack threatened.

  “Jesus, Jack, I really wish you wouldn’t.”

  “It’s for your own good,” Jack assured him, making things worse. Then he said it: “Marcie is your wife. The Galaxy is your job. You’re never gonna get away from either. Once you accept that, you’ll be happy.”