Baby, Would I Lie?
Page 24
“Why me?”
“You’re a smart lady,” Cal said. “I know you and I like you, and I figure you’ll know what to do with this.” He held up the tape, almost but not quite offering it to her.
“Give it to the authorities,” Sara said. “Give it to Warren.”
“I don’t think so,” Cal said slowly and carefully. “That’s what I thought at first to do, but then I thought it over, and I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“They just got themselves a big murder conviction over there,” Cal reminded her. “Now, after it’s all over, Ray’s best friend shows up with this tape, they’ll say, ‘It’s a fake.’ They’ll say, ‘Where’s it been all this time?’ They won’t even look at it; they’ll throw it away.”
“Give it to Warren; let him give it to them.”
“Same thing. Even if Warren believes me, so what? The smart-ass out-of-town high-priced lawyer, and this is his latest cute stunt, you know that’s how they’ll think.”
“But they can’t ignore this.”
“Sure they can,” Cal said. “Law people ignore stuff all the time if it don’t fit what they want. Bigger evidence than this come around in cases sometimes, got ignored. That guy on death row on television? Years later, you see it on TV, how nobody paid any attention to this evidence, that evidence.”
“Not if it’s out in public,” Sara said. “Like the Rodney King tape.”
Cal looked hopeful. “So you think I oughta give it to a TV station?” Then he looked worried again. “They’ll say the same thing. Best friend, can’t trust him. Don’t wanna get in trouble with the prosecutors.”
Then Sara got it; all of it. “You want me to take the tape, don’t you?”
Cal lit up. “Would you? What could you do with it? You’re on a magazine, right?”
“But still, that’s the idea,” Sara said. “I should print something in Trend about this unknown tape, maybe get a copy of it to somebody at one of the networks. Then they’d have to pay attention to it, wouldn’t they?”
“Gee, Sara,” Cal said, blinking in all his redneck innocence. “Do you think you could do that?”
“I think I could,” Sara said. “I’m not sure I will.”
Cal’s blinking now was suddenly more real. “What? Why not?”
“Socks don’t roll on shag carpets,” Sara said.
He went right on being innocent, good old shitkicker Cal. “I don’t know whatcha mean,” he said.
“What we saw on the tape there, that’s real all right,” Sara allowed. “Ray figured Golker really would run away, didn’t plan on him drinking up that bottle in the car and kill himself.”
“Or accident himself,” Cal said. “That would be Bob, too.”
“Either way. Ray believed him, there on the tape, that the body wouldn’t ever be found. But the next day, when the police came around, looked in that car, started asking questions, Ray suddenly saw what an opportunity this was.”
Cal said, “I don’t getcha. Opportunity?”
“To solve his income-tax problem,” Sara said.
Cal gawked. “You ain’t serious!”
“It was golden, wasn’t it, Cal?” Sara grinned at him, on solid land at last. “He could let the IRS think there wasn’t gonna be much of Ray Jones to kick around anymore, and once he did it, he could pull the plug anytime with that tape.”
“Naw, Sara.”
“Yeah, Cal. Only Ray didn’t realize at first, I bet, what a lot it would take to convince the IRS to cave in. But that was the idea all right, from the very beginning.”
“Ray wouldn’t do nothing like that!”
“Of course he would,” Sara said. “To save himself millions of dollars? Millions! There was no way for Warren to get Ray off, not before a settlement with the IRS. Warren thought he was running things, but Ray was, from the get-go. Warren could pull every slick lawyer stunt he knew, but every single time Ray would make sure to screw up just enough to keep himself on the hook. And meanwhile, Jolie’s supposed to get him a better deal from the tax people, because maybe he won’t be an earner any more. His only problem was, he couldn’t tell either of his lawyers what he was up to, because they wouldn’t have let him do it. Nobody could know about it but you.”
“Aw no, Sara.”
“Aw yeah. And when the feds still wouldn’t back off, he insisted on taking the witness stand, because he just knew Fred Heffner would give him a chance to accidentally blurt something out and buy that guilty verdict. Accidental! That ‘cocksucker’ line was deliberate. Ray’s a showman—I should have remembered that—and the witness chair was a stage, and Ray doesn’t do anything accidental onstage.”
“Sara,” Cal said, more in sorrow than in anger, “you don’t make any kind of sense at all.”
“And me,” Sara said, starting to get mad. “That was the other part of it, find a patsy—”
“Aw no, Sara, don’t say that.”
“Some dumb little girl reporter, somebody from the media who can carry the water for you on this when it’s time to do the big reveal. ‘Gee willikers, look what we just found!’ That was my job, wasn’t it? Handpicked.”
“Aw, Sara.”
“That’s why I had the inside track. The whole goddamn thing was a scam.”
“Sara,” Cal said, “Ray’s really and truly found guilty of murder. That’s no scam. They mean to kill him.”
“And the dumb little girl’s supposed to save his wicked hide.”
“Well, won’t you?” Cal asked. “I mean, gosh, Sara, nothin you said is what happened at all, but even if it was true, you wouldn’t let Ray die, would you?”
“Why not?” Sara asked.
Cal just gaped at her. She reached into her shoulder bag, and he was still gaping when she Maced him, grabbed the tape out of his hands, and ran for it.
49
Monday in New York, four days after Sara had come back from deepest Missouri. The little apartment on West Eleventh Street was dusty but nice, the neighborhood still full of a variety of good restaurants, work at Trend still interesting—particularly with Jack’s Weekly Galaxy story in this week’s issue all over the newsstands, Jack himself booked onto a whole bunch of public-affairs TV talk shows, solemn discussions on the duties and privileges of the fourth estate. The Prrreessss, don’tcha know.
All day Friday, the Trend switchboard was flooded with calls from Cal, down in Branson, none of which Sara responded to but some of which attracted Jack’s attention by Friday afternoon, when he came out of his office—he had an office—and over to her desk to say, “Cal Denny’s calling you.”
“I know.”
“You aren’t taking his calls.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You’re up to something, Sara.”
“Of course I am.”
“What?”
Sara smiled at him. Exasperated, Jack said, “I’m your editor!”
“So what?”
“I’m your lover!”
“So what?”
Jack reared back. “Is nothing sacred to you, Sara?”
“One thing,” Sara said.
Interested despite himself, Jack said, “What?”
“The first typewriter I ever had, back in high school. It was a Smith Corona.”
After that, he left her alone.
On the weekend, they went away for a minivacation upstate in the Shawangunks, steep rocky hills beloved of weekend mountain climbers. Seated in luxurious comfort in rocking chairs on the wide wood porch of Mohonk Mountain House, high in the Gunks, glasses of lemonade within handy reach, they refreshed their souls by watching the laden climbers schlepp on up the road away from the sparkling lake.
Monday, back in the office, Sara threw away another stack of phone messages from Cal. She also noticed on the wire that the jury down in Branson was still listening to witnesses discuss what should be done about that rapscallion Ray Jones. Then, around four, she left for the day, alone, Jack being off for another television
look at journalism. Sara cabbed down to the West Village, did a little shopping at D’Ag, and the phone was ringing when she unlocked her way into the apartment.
It was Cal. “I gotta talk to you, Sara.”
“So now you’ve got my home number.” She’d wondered how long that would take.
“I gotta talk to you.”
“I’m not interested in talking to the dog,” she said cruelly, “but I wouldn’t mind hearing from his master.”
“Aw, Sara.”
She hung up and put away the groceries.
She was watching the six o’clock news, in fact a piece from Florida in which a lot of Weekly Galaxy executives who’d never before been exposed to sunlight stuttered and stammered and took the high road by announcing that every employee implicated in the Branson scandal was being summarily fired, when the phone rang again. “Nice guys,” Sara commented at the TV, shot it dead with the remote, and picked up the phone.
It was Ray, sounding gruffer and rougher and raspier than ever. “Cal tells me I owe you an apology.”
“Oh really? Why?”
“ ’Cause you’re smarter than we thought you were.”
Sara couldn’t help herself; she laughed. “You are a rascal, aren’t you?”
“Part of my charm.”
“I’d love to write your obit.”
“Hey, wait a minute, now,” he said, sounding honestly startled for once. “Fun’s fun.”
“Ray,” she said, brisk and cold, “is there any other reason for this call?”
Hesitantly, he said, “Well, in a way, yeah.”
“Go ahead.”
“It’d be easier if you could talk to Cal.”
“No way.”
“Sara, you understand, we aren’t alone on this telephone line.”
“That’s all right; we know what we’re talking about.”
He took a deep breath. She could almost hear him squeezing the phone. “What do you want, Sara?” he asked. “You want to mention a number?”
“Two,” she said.
Bewildered silence. “Two? Two what?”
“Two things, Ray. Did you know I went to see you at that fund-raiser for the hospital there?”
“Oh yeah?” He wasn’t very interested. “You went to that?”
“What’s that hospital called again?”
“Skaggs Community.”
“Have you ever actually given them any money, Ray?”
His voice more guarded, Ray said, “Not actual cash money, no. Just my time and efforts and celebrity and like that.”
“You can do better, Ray,” she told him.
“Jesus,” he said, breathing his disbelief and disgust down the phone line. “That’s your favorite charity?”
“No, it’s yours.”
He thought about that. “How much do I love them?”
“You tell me.”
“Ten grand.”
“Cheapskate.”
“Fifty?”
“Piker.”
“Listen, Sara, fifty thousand’s a lot of money.”
“Not for you,” she told him. “If you get out from under this little trouble of yours—”
“Hah!”
“—you’ll have a lot more money to spend than you had, say, a couple weeks ago. They might even name a wing of the hospital after you.”
Really alarmed, he said, “I can’t afford any wing!”
“What can you afford, Ray?”
Another little pause while he calculated. Then he said, “You said two before. How about two?”
“Two what?”
“Hundred grand.”
She nodded, though of course he couldn’t see that, being in a room in a jail in Missouri, a thousand miles away. She said, “Publicly announced?”
“First thing tomorrow morning,” he offered, “if that’s what you want.”
“Thank you, Ray.”
His voice more insinuating, he said, “Nothing for you, personal?”
“Well,” she admitted, “that was the other thing.”
“Uh-huh.”
“What if it should happen,” she asked him, “you should beat this rap?”
“That would be nice,” he said.
“A whole lot of press would want to interview you, wouldn’t they?” she asked. “People magazine and Barbara Walters and all kinds of press.”
Startled, getting it, he said, “You want an exclusive!”
“A thirty-day exclusive.”
“Jesus, Sara, the rest of them, they’ll tear me to shreds!”
“Well, Ray, somebody’s going to anyway, isn’t that true?” A longer pause this time, before he finally said, in a smaller voice than before, “All right.”
“By the way, Ray,” she said, “I think you ought to know, just in case the jail’s phone-tap system breaks down, I do record all my calls.”
Sullen now, he said, “I won’t try to renege.”
“Of course not.” Having gotten what she wanted, Sara said, “Ray, would you tell Cal for me that I’m coming back to Branson tomorrow, right after your charitable announcement?”
“Call him; he’ll meet your plane. You have his number, don’t you?” he asked without a trace of irony.
“Around here somewhere,” she admitted.
“Nice talking to you,” he said, with an edge to it.
“Come on, Ray,” she said, “don’t be bitter. You’re getting what you want. The original scenario and all.”
With surprise in his voice, he said, “I guess I am, at that.” Then he chuckled, back in a good mood at last, and said, “Okay, Sara. And you’re getting what you want, too, huh?”
“No losers, Ray,” Sara said, pleased with herself. And why not? “Everybody wins.”
She hung up, then sat a while, smiling.
An hour and a half later, Jack came home, in a bad mood, sour and exhausted from having spent a lot of time listening to pundits. “Hi, baby!” Sara cried, and kissed him a good one.
He pulled away, snarling. “What are you so happy about?”
“Good news,” she said, and laughed.
About the Author
Donald E. Westlake (1933–2008) was one of the most prolific and talented authors of American crime fiction. He began his career in the late 1950s, churning out novels for pulp houses—often writing as many as four novels a year under various pseudonyms—but soon began publishing under his own name. His most well-known characters were John Dortmunder, an unlucky thief, and a ruthless criminal named Parker. His writing earned him three Edgars and a Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America.
Westlake’s cinematic prose and brisk dialogue made his novels attractive to Hollywood, and several motion pictures were made from his books, with stars such as Lee Marvin and Mel Gibson. Westlake wrote several screenplays himself, receiving an Academy Award nomination for his adaptation of The Grifters, Jim Thompson’s noir classic.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
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Copyright © 1994 by Mantra Productions, Inc.
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ISBN: 978-1-5040-5162-0
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