Baby, Would I Lie?

16

The worst possible situation for a reporter is to be at the back of the bus when the interesting event is happening at the front of the bus. “Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me,” Sara mantra’d, as she pushed her way down the aisle, making good use of elbows and knees and her heavy shoulder bag, caroming musicians and their instruments back into their seats along the way, single-mindedly plowing her furrow forward.

Still, by the time she got to the bus door, whatever had been happening was already over with and done. While tourists and journalists went nova with excitement all around the periphery, Ray Jones was being escorted in the middle of a swarm of brown-uniformed policemen toward the courthouse, and Ray Jones was in handcuffs.

Sara didn’t want to leave the bus. To leave the bus would be to lose her advantage, her insiderness, to be dropped at once into that maelstrom of shouting, camera-waving former humans beyond the pale and below the salt. Standing on the bottom step, clutching to the vertical chrome rail as an earnest of her determination not to be cast into the outer sunshine, Sara looked around desperately for an explanation, an ally, something, and her eye fell on the fat woman who’d been seated beside Ray Jones on the trip and who now stood down there in sunlight just outside the bus. Who was she? Not his wife, though one never knew. A secretary, maybe, or his sister. Whoever she might be, at this moment she was standing with arms akimbo, fists pressed to where her waist would be if she had one, glaring all around herself like an enraged mother bear. Catching the woman’s eye, Sara said, “What happened?”

“An outrage!” the woman declared. She had the kind of rich contralto that goes with such a barrel shape, plus the gravelly hoarseness of someone who’s spent too much time shouting for more beer in smoke-filled rooms. “It’s a public-relations outrage!” she tromboned on. “A cheap publicity stunt!”

Meantime, Ray Jones and his escort had squeezed themselves through the double doorway into the courthouse, and the mob had become a tidal wave, breaking against the front of the building. And the brassy blonde who’d been seated behind the driver now came pushing past Sara (who clutched harder to the chrome pipe), saying to the fat woman, “I’ll get Warren.” Having done her homework, Sara knew that Warren would be Warren Thurbridge, Ray Jones’s attorney.

The fat woman eyed the mob. “If you can get through.”

The blonde was lighting a cigarette, puffing on it madly without inhaling, then taking it out of her mouth to give a critical eye to the large burning red coal at its end. “I’ll get through,” she said, and hopped off the bus to wade into the crowd, branding those who were too sluggish in getting out of her way.

Sara watched, admiring the technique, filing it for future reference, and then Cal Denny appeared at her elbow, saying, “Jolie, what’s goin on there?”

Jolie was the fat woman. She said, “They arrested him. On the courthouse steps,” which was more dramatic than accurate. “They came up and arrested him.”

“What for?”

Jolie shook her big head. “The goddamnedest thing I ever heard,” she said. “They say he killed Bob Golker.”

A gasp, a quick intake of breath so harsh that it was almost like a death rattle, made Sara turn her head and study Cal Denny’s profile, right next to her. He was ashen; his lined face looking like tracks on a snowy field, his eyes wide with astonishment and shock. “Bob’s dead? That’s...” He faltered, and swallowed noisily, Adam’s apple bobbing. “That’s crazy!’

“I know that, and so do you,” Jolie said, and glared again at the courthouse. “And so do they, the bastards.”

Cal became aware of Sara staring at him and gave her an anxious look and a scared smile. “A little more excitement than we thought,” he said.

“I guess,” Sara said, and risked a question: “Who’s Bob Golker?”

“He went to California,” Cal said. He seemed utterly bewildered. “He told everybody he got a studio job out there.”

Jolie, her deep raspy voice full of warning, said, “Cal, we don’t have to talk to the press just this minute.” She looked at Sara, probably the first time their eyes had met directly, and Sara was astonished at how cold and intelligent the eyes were in that fat face. “The bus ride’s over,” she said.

I’m gonna get thrown out, Sara thought, scrambling for some way to stay inside, stay aboard. But who was this woman Jolie? What authority did she have? “I’m not with a newspaper,” Sara said, talking fast. “I won’t be printing anything until the trial’s all over, and anyway, I agree with you, the way they handled this, it was an outrage, and maybe, from my perspective, I could—”

Cal said, “It’s okay, Jolie. I talked with Ray about this lady; it’s okay with him.”

In the middle of Jolie’s large round face, the large round nose wrinkled. “What Ray thinks he’s doing, I’ll never know,” she said, and made shooing motions for Sara to back up into the bus. Cal went first, on up the aisle toward his seat, then Sara stepped backward but stayed near the front of the bus, and Jolie followed, grunting and wheezing as she laboriously pulled her cotton-bale body up the steps, clutching to the vertical chrome poles, which Sara half-expected to bend in the middle.

But they didn’t, and Jolie, once successfully aboard, said to the driver, “Take us around to the law office.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He shut the door, and Sara said hesitantly, “Okay if I take Mr. Jones’s seat?”

Jolie glowered at her, repelled. “God, you’re pushy. A New York reporter, all right.” She waggled her fat hand at the vacant window seat. “Get in, then.” The bus jerked backward, almost knocking them both off their feet, and Jolie said, “And be quick.”

Sara was quick, darting to the seat, Jolie turning and dropping into place next to her as the bus moved slowly backward, the courthouse receding beyond the big windshield, the driver looking in every direction at once in his efforts not to drive over any curious onlookers, of whom there seemed to be several million, including a few in front of the bus, walking forward as it backed up, staring in through the windshield at Sara and Jolie, some of them mouthing questions or statements, some of them jumping up and down to try to see deeper into the bus.

See what deeper in the bus? Putting these goofs out of her mind, Sara said, “I’m Sara Joslyn. I’m with Trend. I’m sorry, I’m not sure who you are.”

Reluctantly, grudgingly, the fat woman said, “Jolie Grubbe. I’m Ray’s attorney, not as though he pays any attention to me.”

The bus having backed far enough away from the curb, the driver now tried to move it forward, blaring his horn at the people in front, who seemed to think this was television rather than life and that they could just stay in one spot and watch the world swirl around them without actually being dragged beneath the giant wheels of a great big bus. Through this cacophony, Sara said, “His attorney? I thought Warren Thurbridge was Mr. Jones’s attorney.”

Jolie gave her a sour look. “Are you calling him Mr. Jones so you won’t seem like the impudent boorish pushy New Yorker you really are?”

“Yes,” said Sara. “I thought his attorney was Warren Thurbridge.”

“And single-minded.” Jolie sneered slightly. “Warren is Ray’s trial lawyer, the one who gets all the publicity and most of the money. I’m his attorney for everything else, including why we shouldn’t have press on this bus.”

“Are you handling his income-tax problem?”

Jolie reared back, as much as her poundage would permit. “I may throw you off the bus myself.”

Sara garbed herself in the attributes of offended innocence. “Ms. Grubbe,” she said, “it’s Ms. Grubbe, is it? Ms. Grubbe, he was singing about it on this very bus; it’s hardly a secret.”

The bus was now rolling down the block, trailed by only a few of the goofs, the majority still believing the main action would be at the courthouse. Jolie Grubbe said, “The first thing you’re gonna do when we get to the office is sign a release.”

Sara laughed. “Even before I turn water into wine?”

“You are not here as a friend,” Jolie insisted. “You are here as a journalist, and everything you hear and see is privileged. It’s our decision what and whether you can publish.”

“You’re speaking in the plural,” Sara said. “Who besides Ray Jones makes the decisions?”

Looking very mulish, Jolie said, “Don’t get tough with me, girl, that’s my advice.”

“I’m not your enemy,” Sara said. “The people who decided to make a publicity stunt out of a second arrest, they’re your enemy. Why would anybody think Mr. Jones would kill John Golker? He was a musician, was he?”

“His name was Bob Golker,” Jolie said, which Sara had well known (get them into the habit of giving you information, that’s the idea), “and there’s no reason at all.”

“He was a backup musician in the show?”

“And a drunk. And a skirt-chaser. And I didn’t say any of that.”

The bus stopped and Jolie struggled to her feet, giving Sara a grim smile. “You can’t use anything,” she said. “Not without our permission.”

Nevertheless, Sara got off the bus with the group and walked among them into the former furniture store that was now Warren Thurbridge’s headquarters and where a whole lot of people were noisily going out of their minds. As Sara stared around at everything, recording and remembering every detail, Jolie grabbed a handy clerk. “Where’s Warren?”

“With the judge!” the clerk cried. “That’s all we know!”

Jolie released the clerk, who scurried off like the white rabbit. Giving Sara her most sour look, Jolie said, “Now we’ll see if Warren is worth all the money he gets.”