Baby, Would I Lie?

24

Binx wanted to talk about Marcie. Sara wanted to talk about what the Galaxy was up to in connection with Ray Jones, but she couldn’t ask that question head-on, so they talked about Marcie. That is, Binx talked about Marcie. Sara could have sung the whole song right along with him, but she didn’t, because he thought he was making it all up. So she let him take a solo.

“The thing is, we were too young when we got married, we didn’t know our own minds, we didn’t know who we were. I’m not blaming Marcie, I think it’s just as tough on her as it is on me, and she’s stuck just the same way I am. And now with the kids, you know, and that drives us even further apart. We were just kids ourselves, somebody should have told us, ‘Don’t do it! Find out who you are first, don’t tie yourself down before you ever even tested those wings.’ I’m not blaming Marcie, I know it’s hell on her, too, and she’s got the kids more than I do. We came together and we thought it was love, you know, love for the ages, but what did we know? It was just sex, that’s all. We were just kids, and sex was like a new lollipop, you know, in those days we couldn’t keep our hands off each other, and then the kids started coming. I’m not blaming Marcie, we made all the decisions together, but we were wrong. What did we know? Nothing. We met in college, and her folks were all over her to marry me, and my folks were just as bad. I’m not blaming them, it was our own decision, but we weren’t ready to make a decision, neither of us. I’m not blaming Marcie, I’m as responsible as she is. More. It was up to me to be the mature one, and I just wasn’t. And then the Galaxy job came along, and the money looked so good, and we just spent it, we just bought stuff, and everything you buy it winds up you still owe on it, we’ve got all these mortgages, and paying off the cars, paying off the furniture, paying off the swimming pool, paying off all this stuff. I’m not blaming Marcie, I wanted that stuff as much as she did, or almost as much. But it means we’re stuck again, all over again. The kids, and all the debts, and when I was fired for a while we really fell behind, taking out loans and I don’t know when we’re gonna get caught up. I’m not blaming Marcie, it’s the whole lifestyle, you get it, you spend it, you know how it is at the Galaxy, the money isn’t real, so you spend it as soon as it comes in, and then you’re behind the eight ball, and you don’t know what the hell you’re gonna do. You’re stuck, that’s all. You and Jack were right to get out, you really were, but I’m stuck in it. I got Marcie, and the kids, and the house, and the cars, and the pool, and all this stuff, so I can’t make a move. I wanted life, you know? And I got the Sargasso Sea. I’m not blaming Marcie, but if only I could get away from her at some point, find somebody that understands me, has confidence in me, faith in me, I know I could turn my life around, get out from under all this shit. And I have to tell you, I’m not blaming Marcie, but she’s no help at all, she doesn’t try to save any money, give me any encouragement, act like she’s gonna stand by me, you should have heard her when I was fired for a while, no support, nothing. And sex. On a good day our sex is down to something that looks like an illustration in a plumbing manual, but when I was fired for a while it was hopeless, she had Krazy Glue in there, I swear I couldn’t—”

“Maybe,” Sara interjected, “you shouldn’t tell me about your sex life.”

“Well, it isn’t what you’d call a sex life,” Binx said. “It’s more like your dance of the dead, if you know what I mean. Now, I’m what I think I’m a pretty passionate guy, if you know what I mean, I mean in terms of like technique and understanding what a woman likes, you know, what she’d like a guy to—”

“I don’t think you need to tell me about that,” Sara said, definitely not wanting to hear an offer of cunnilingus.

“I’m just saying,” Binx explained, “what I’m saying, I’m not a turnoff. In bed. I give good orgasm, I really do, but I gotta have a partner, it’s been so long since there was any kind of satisfaction in the marriage, I mean any kind of satisfaction, I honestly believe if I could meet a woman who would appreciate me and encourage me and give me the kind of boost of the ego that I just don’t get at home, I honestly believe, Sara, I’d even be a better husband for it. Better able to go home, better able to face the problems, put up with Marcie and the kids, maybe see my way clear at last, figure out some way out of this mess. I mean, I’m not blaming Marcie, but I can’t do it all on my own, and I’m on my own, Sara — in every way that really matters, I’m on my own. I’m not blaming Marcie, but she isn’t satisfying in the way that a woman ought to be and could be and most of the time is in the life of a man. You know what I mean. We’ve known each other a long while now, Sara, and—”

“Mr. Radwell?”

Binx, having just hurtled from the roof in this mad attempt to teach himself to fly, now faltered, fluttered, wings collapsing, as he looked up at the waiter. Rage and hatred seethed so fully in Binx’s red-rimmed eyes that the waiter, a slender chap, took a nervous step back. Through gritted teeth, Binx said, “Yes?”

“Telephone for you, sir.”

Binx was torn. He was shredded. Sara could see it in the clench of his jaw and she felt a kind of amiable pity for him. This must be the Galaxy, his master’s voice, and both he and Sara knew it. But he didn’t want to stop, not when he was — he apparently believed, or desperately hoped — at last getting somewhere, just starting to make his pitch, just about to dream the impossible dream, scale the unscalable mountain, bed the unbeddable broad. No; not the Galaxy, not now.

But yes. “I’ll be right back,” Binx threatened Sara, in a new voice, low and guttural, as he rose, trembling all over, to follow the waiter to the phone.

Binx, in his pursuit of Sara, had brought her to Branson’s only attempt at a prestige restaurant, the Candlestick Inn, high on the cliff directly across Lake Taneycomo — a river-narrow Lake Taneycomo — from downtown Branson, whose lights, both in themselves and in their reflections in the water, were the view. The Candlestick was hushed, dim, candlelit instead of fluorescent-lit, and there was no buffet table at which you could have all you could eat. Therefore, the tourists weren’t here, the bargain-seeking families who didn’t care what they ate just so long as it was cheap and there was lots of it. What was here on a Thursday night, fairly late, therefore, were locals of the professional class, in pairs and quartets, eating slowly, chatting quietly, drinking wine, and looking only occasionally out the plate-glass window at the seductive lights of Branson.

With no Binx before her, singing his aria of the hog-tied husband, Sara sat back, observing the people at the other tables, watching the Branson lights shiver and shatter in the waters of Lake Taneycomo, and thought about what weird places one found oneself in if one were a reporter. This is not a place Sara would come to on vacation, but that hardly meant much of anything, since vacation was not a word in Sara’s personal lexicon, anyway. Vacation? What do you do when you’re on a vacation? If you love your work, if you derive your sustenance and your heartbeat and your very air from your work, what’s a vacation for? What’s the difference between vacation and exile?

That’s what separates me from the Branson tourists more than anything else, Sara thought. They’re happy when they’re away from their lives, and I’m happy when I’m in my life. She turned that thought over, found it good, and decided not to share it with Jack.

Binx returned, a troubled man — more troubled, in a different way. His nose-to-the-ground trailing of Sara was off for now; that was obvious. Looking sunny and innocent, Sara said, “Good news?”

Binx drained his wineglass, reached into the bucket for the bottle, found it empty, and waved it energetically over his head at the waiter, who nodded calmly and retired. Then Binx plunked the bottle back into the ice and water, sighed deeply, and said, “They arrested Don and Chauncey.”

Two of Binx’s reporters. “Who arrested them?”

“The police. When it’s time to do an arrest, that’s who you get.”

“Binx,” Sara said, “don’t make it tough on me. Just tell me what happened.”

“We had Don and Chauncey outside Ray Jones’s house,” Binx said. “With gear, you know.”

“Infrared cameras.”

“Gear, yeah.”

“Microphones.”

“Gear, all right?”

“And the police got them?” Sara shrugged that off as the waiter arrived with a new bottle.

“Yes,” Binx said to Sara. “Yes,” he said, less patiently, to the waiter, who insisted on showing the label for approval rather than merely opening the damn thing so Binx could pour it all straight down his throat.

“So what is that, after all?” Sara said carelessly. “Trespassing. The Galaxy’s used to trespassing.”

“They got the gear.”

“The Galaxy’s lost gear before.”

“Well,” Binx said, “we weren’t broadcasting it, too tricky, you know. It was just on tape, right there.”

“The police have the tape, you mean.”

“They turned it over to Ray Jones.”

“Pity,” Sara said.

“There is no pity,” Binx said. He tasted the wine, at the waiter’s silent behest. “Yes,” he said again.

Sara said, “So you lost one conversation and a few green-and-black pictures. You must have other things set up, other ears and eyes in place.”

“Oh sure,” Binx said, watching greedily as the extremely slow waiter poured first Sara’s wine — as though she needed the stuff — and then at last his. He drank off half the glass before the waiter could put the new bottle in the bucket. Rolling his eyes slightly, the waiter carried away the empty bottle, and Binx said, “But this alerts them. And they’re keeping Don and Chauncey in jail overnight. And Florida is going to hate all this.”

“They had Galaxy ID on them?”

“Don’t remind me,” Binx said, and drank down the other half glass.

As Binx poured for himself again, the neck of the bottle chattering against the rim of the glass, Sara said, “Still, you have other things going.”

“Thank God.” Splunk, bottle away.

“What kind of thing do you have?” Sara asked, as casual as a spring day.

Binx drank deep. He put the glass down. He gazed upon Sara more in sorrow than in anger. “Oh, Sara,” he said. “You’re gonna do it, aren’t you?”

“Do what?”

“Shoot me down.”

“Binx! What a thing to say.”

“I know you are,” Binx said, as forlorn as a poodle in a rainstorm. “I can’t stop you, and maybe it doesn’t matter anyway, but at least I’m not gonna help you.”

“Binx, these are awful things to say.”

“At least I’m not gonna slit my own throat,” Binx said, and used that throat to down more wine. “And maybe it’s just as well, anyway,” he said.

Sara looked at him carefully. “Maybe what’s just as well?”

“Get thrown out of the old life entirely,” he explained. “Take the decision out of my hands. No more excuses, no choice, nothing. Like those army guys — what are they? — Rangers. Get dropped naked on a mountaintop—”

“I don’t think they’re naked.”

He ignored that. “Have to figure it out, start all over, don’t carry a thing from the old life.”

“A naked person on a mountaintop,” Sara cautioned, “is most likely to just die.”

Binx smiled wanly and spread his hands. “See? No downside.”