Baby, Would I Lie?

39

It was not turning out to be a good month for Jolie Grubbe. On her latest diet, she’d gained seven pounds. Her doctor kept telling her he didn’t like the sound of her heart. Her one and only client, Ray Jones, whom she also happened to like on a personal level, was about to get himself executed by the state of Missouri for a murder he might actually have committed. And to put the icing on the cake, as she and Ray and Warren and Jim Chancellor and Cal Denny headed back for court, there was Leon Caccatorro waiting for them in the hall, amid the journalists encamped around the courtroom door.

Warren was at that moment murmuring something in Ray’s ear about some sort of statement he ought to make to the judge — an apology, no doubt — so it was up to Jolie to deal with the creep from the IRS. As journalists up and down the corridor snapped to attention — or as close to attention as a journalist can snap — yapping out dumb questions at the moving clump of Ray and his advisers, questions that were unheeded and unanswered and asked for God knows what reasons of personal ego gratification, Jolie veered off to say to the taxman, “Not now, for God’s sake.”

Caccatorro was a happy man, far too happy for Jolie’s bad mood to bring him down. “No rush,” he assured her. “At the lunch break, your client might want to sign a few papers.”

“You have them ready? That was quick.”

Caccatorro showed his small sharp teeth in a Cupid’s bow smile. “It was an easy decision to make, actually,” he said. “Between earnings from past endeavors and earnings from future endeavors.”

“Let me guess which one you picked.”

“We feel,” Caccatorro allowed, “that Ray Jones is still a vibrant and creative force in the country-music industry. I hope he’ll be pleased by our vote of confidence.”

“He’ll jump up and down,” Jolie predicted. “Excuse me.”

The others had gone on ahead into the courtroom, leaving the squall of journalists to blow itself out in muttered asides to one another. Jolie bumped her way through them like a beach ball through bowling pins and made her way to her seat in the front row, near Cal and the ever-present ever-present ever-present Sara Joslyn. Looking back just before taking her seat, Jolie saw that Caccatorro had come in as well and was showing some sort of ID to the bailiff back there. Another ever-present son of a bitch. Gloat, you bastard.

Warren was on his feet at the defense table, saying, “If the court please, Mr. Jones would like to make a short statement before resuming his testimony.”

“He already made a short statement,” Fred Heffner commented. He was so pleased at having rattled Ray Jones that he was beside himself over there, grinning and winking at Buford Delray and the distinguished little man whom Sara had said was some sort of journalist. Takes one to know one.

Warren had ignored Fred Heffner’s remark and kept his eyes and attention on Judge Quigley, who pondered a moment, pushing her reddened lips in and out in a disgusting fashion before saying, “Very well, Mr. Thurbridge. A short temperate statement.”

“Thank you. Your Honor.”

Warren sat, and Ray stood. “I want to apologize to everybody in this courtroom,” he said, “and especially to you. Judge, and to the prosecuting attorney, Mr. Heffner, who was just doing his job. And I hope the jury will remember that a weak man isn’t necessarily a killer. Thank you.”

Good boy, Jolie thought. You do come through, Ray, more often than not. Ray’s manner was so offhand and shitkicker, it still came as a surprise to Jolie every time he revealed the good and devious brain tucked away inside there. Ray was deep, and he was always playing his own deep game, and Jolie had to keep that in mind.

Now he was going back to the witness stand, where Jolie was sure he wouldn’t let himself be caught out again. As the old saying goes: Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

The judge assured Ray he was still under oath, Ray thanked her and sat down, and here came Fred Heffner, grinning like a fox, looking less like Lincoln now and more like John Wilkes Booth. “Mr. Jones,” he said, “before the break, we were just about to discuss a song, I believe a sing you wrote. Is that right?”

“I’ve written some songs, yes, sir.”

“I’m referring to a specific song, Mr. Jones, as I believe you know. You did have a specific song in mind, just before the break, did you not?”

“Yes, sir, it’s called ‘My Ideal.’ ”

“And what is the name of — Um, yes.”

“It’s called ‘My Ideal.’ ”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“I wrote it a long—”

“Thank you, Mr. Jones, I don’t need your professional biography at this point.”

“I haven’t sung that—”

“The song is called ‘My Ideal.’ Do you happen to remember the words to that song, Mr. Jones?”

“I haven’t sung that—”

“Do you remember the words?”

“No, sir, I don’t believe I do. It’s been so many—”

“It’s your own song, Mr. Jones. But I take the point. You’ve written so many songs, it wouldn’t be reasonable to expect you to remember every word of every one of them.”

“No, sir, I’m saying—”

“And yet, Mr. Jones, you have a sufficient memory of that song, of its subject matter and terminology, let us say, that the photo I showed you recalled the song to mind, did it not?”

“No, sir.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Jones, but it was on seeing the photo that you—”

“You said that poor dead woman looked like a pizza. I thought that—”

“Mr. Jones, I asked you what she looked like.”

“—was a disgusting thing to say about a poor dead—”

“Mr. Jones, I would ask you to be responsive to the question.”

“—woman. I didn’t think she—”

“Your Honor, would you ask the witness to be responsive to my question?”

“—looked like a pizza. I thought she looked like a poor dead woman that was being made fun of when she couldn’t defend herself.”

Judge Quigley said, “Mr. Jones, have you quite finished your speech?”

“Your Honor,” Ray said, “somebody ought to defend poor Belle Hardwick from being made fun of when she can’t stand up for herself. If the state of Missouri won’t defend her, I guess it’s up to me.”

Judge Quigley pounded her gavel, outraged. “Mr. Jones!”

Now Warren was on his feet, and Jolie thought it about goddamn time. “Your Honor, I’ve been a patient man,” Warren said, with which Jolie could only concur, “but it seems to me we’ve all heard enough by now of the prosecutor’s bizarre ideas of what a dead body looks like. Perhaps some in this court have cast-iron stomachs, but I do not.”

Judge Quigley raised an eyebrow in Fred Heffner’s direction. “Counsel, is there a purpose to this line of questioning?”

“Your Honor, when the court hears the song to which Mr. Jones and I have been referring, the direction and intent of my examination will be made clear.”

Surprised, the judge said, “You aren’t going to ask the defendant to sing, are you?”

“Alas, no. Your Honor,” Fred Heffner said. “I am sorry to miss the opportunity to hear Ray Jones live, in person, but I can understand that he might be reluctant, under the circumstances, so we have brought into court a recording, which, with the court’s permission, we will now play.”

Buford Delray was already on his feet, holding up the cassette player, but Warren, who hadn’t sat down, said, “Objection, Your Honor. A song written eighteen years ago and not performed by the defendant for some eleven years can hardly be germane to a crime that occurred in July of this year.”

Good, Jolie thought. They wouldn’t let Ray make that point, so Warren made it for him.

Fred Heffner said, “Our purpose is to establish character and motive. The jury cannot have a clear idea of Ray Jones or of his attitudes — particularly when he’s being just a bit less gallant than he was a moment ago in this courtroom — unless we are permitted to hear him express himself in his own words.”

“I’m going to overrule your objection, Mr. Thurbridge,” Judge Quigley said. “A published article written by the defendant, or a book, if relevant to the subject matter at trial, would certainly be admissible. By that standard, a song written and performed by the defendant can be equally illuminative of attitudes and state of mind. You may proceed, Mr. Heffner.”

“Thank you. Your Honor.”

Heffner smiled at Buford Delray, who pressed PLAY on the little cassette player, then held it over his head as the music began.

It was an old song and an old recording, heavy on the electric guitar and the fake Hawaiian sound of that era. The machine was not at all high fidelity, but when Ray Jones started to sing, the words came through loud and clear.

Jolie, who knew the song — she knew all Ray’s songs — watched Sara Joslyn’s profile next to her to see how the song would go over with somebody hearing it for the first time.

Not well.

It’s too bad nobody dropped a pin; you would have heard it. The click-click of the little machine as Buford Delray switched it off and the foom-squll of his trousers as he sat down were audible to every stunned ear in the room.

Jolie looked at the jury. They looked as though they had been condemned to death.

Fred Heffner milked the silence beautifully. Jolie watched him do it. She had to admire the slimy bastard. It wasn’t until Ray had actually opened his mouth and just started to make a sound — Don’t do it, Ray, she thought; nothing you can say will make anything better — that Heffner, as though letting Ray off the hook (though he wasn’t; he was fixing Ray more firmly than ever onto the hook), said quietly, somberly, “No further questions.”

“Perhaps it’s time to break for lunch,” Judge Quigley said, and when there was a gasp in the room, a sudden intake of many breaths as though the awful tension was about to be broken by even more awful laughter, she reared back, glared the assemblage into ongoing silence, and announced, “Court is adjourned until two P.M.”

Into the sudden rush of comments, shiftings, chair slidings, Warren called, “We reserve a right to redirect.”

“Of course!” Judge Quigley cried, and almost ran from the room.

Ray’s friends in the front row continued to sit there as the jury was led out, stumbling, like trauma cases off to rehab. “I don’t feel much like lunch,” Jolie said, and thought that was probably the first time in her life she’d ever made that statement.

“I may never eat again,” Sara said, which Jolie considered extreme.

On Sara’s other side, Cal leaned forward to tell the row of people, “You know, that was just a joke. Back then, when Ray wrote that, that was just a joke goin around. So he turned it into a song. Like ‘If It Ain’t Fried, It Ain’t Food.’ It was just a joke, that’s all. And he don’t even sing it anymore.”

“It isn’t a joke now,” Jolie said. “Every single member of that jury is thinking. Belle Hardwick was turned into a pizza at three o’clock.”

“Please,” Sara said.

A shadow fell across Jolie — another shadow. When she looked up, Leon Caccatorro was standing there with the strangest and most wrinkled smile Jolie had ever seen. “As it turns out,” he said, “the paperwork isn’t quite finished. We won’t be able to have our signing today, after all.”

Well, here’s a hell of a silver lining. “Back on your branch, buzzard,” Jolie said, and when Caccatorro faded away like Bela Lugosi, she looked around at all the long faces and suddenly, for no reason at all, felt better. “It isn’t over,” she announced, “until I sing. Let’s go eat, I’m starved.”