Дональд Уэстлейк - Baby, Would I Lie?

Oh, if that could only be the whole of life. To get up here and sing the songs, backed by the good old pals and terrific musicians of the band, with the cheering fans out front, everybody happy, everybody simple and clean, the good music flowing out, the good times happening, these are the good old days.

If only.

For Bob Sangster, the big-nosed Aussie from the Weekly Galaxy , permanent member of the Down Under Trio, life as a shadow juror was one long vacation. All he had to do was laze around the motel all day: in and out of the swimming pool; in and out of the special dining room set aside for the jurors and stocked at all times with a working buffet; in and out of the common room full of magazines and board games and VCR movies, where he flirted dispassionately with three of the five female jurors — shadowettes, he called them — the other two being just too ridiculous. Then, late in the day, all fourteen shadows would get into the bus and be driven from Branson over to Forsyth to look at the video of that day in court, or, that is, as much of that day in court as the real jury had seen, which tended to be not very much.

Bob was known to his fellow shadows as Jock O’Shanley, a naturalized American citizen originally from Galway Bay, brrrrightest jew-wel aff the Umerald Aysle. The actual Jock O’Shanley, a night cook at Skaggs Community Hospital, a divorced loner living in an amazingly filthy cottage down by Ozark Beach, and a dedicated alcoholic, was at the moment having his own vacation, at Weekly Galaxy expense, in San Diego, where most of the alcoholics are seamen and therefore expected to stagger a little on land.

Jock O’Shanley wasn’t the sort of amiable Irish drunk who made friends easily, or at all, so it was unlikely any old pal of good old Jock’s would suddenly pop up and say, “ You ain’t Jock O’Shanley, bugger me eyes!” Nor were Jock’s employers at the hospital surprised when he’d called to say he was taking a couple weeks away from the job; well, actually, they were surprised he’d called . Physically, Bob Sangster and Jock were alike enough, both being rangy gnarly guys consisting mostly of bone and gristle marinated for a good long time in booze, and in Taney County an Australian accent can pass for an Irish accent with no trouble at all.

For the two days of the trial so far, Friday and Monday, Bob was conscientious enough in his simulation of Jock O’Shanley the shadow juror. Over in Forsyth each day, after the fourteen of them had watched the videotape of that day in court, Warren Thurbridge and his assistants would ask questions and solicit opinions, and Bob, not wanting to invalidate the process by his presence any more than was absolutely necessary, did his best to give responses a Jock O’Shanley might give. In the second part of each afternoon’s exercise, when the lawyers discussed with their shadow jurors various strategies and ploys that might be put into play on the morrow. Bob again let his knowledge of the beliefs and prejudices and ignorances and knowledges of such a fellow as Jock O’Shanley guide his tongue, and all was well.

His actual work, though, the work he did for the Weekly Galaxy , came at the end of the day, when the jurors were bused back to the motel in Branson. There, in the semi-privacy of his room — two jurors per room, each juror with a king-size bed, Bob’s roommate being a retired upholsterer from Cleveland named Hacker — Bob would remove the cassette recorder taped to his side — ouch — take out the cassette, and pass it to the maid named Laverne. In the morning, she would bring him the blank to take the used one’s place, which he would install in the machine and tape the machine again to his side.

And that was that.

The maid named Laverne had been suborned on Friday morning, the first day of the trial, by a fierce young Weekly Galaxy reporter named Erica Jacke, whose flaming red hair and hard aerobics body distracted attention from her gaunt-cheeked face and icy hazel eyes. As Erica approached Laverne in the parking lot that first morning, it was hard to believe both belonged to the same species, Laverne being soft and round and sweet and sloppy and kinda dumb. “Hi,” Erica said, with what might have been good fellowship.

“Hi,” questioned Laverne.

“You work here, don’t you?”

“Yes’m, I do.” Laverne looked at her Goofy the Dawg watch. “And I’m gonna be on time for once, too.”

“That’s great,” Erica said. Then she said, “You know about the people sequestered in there?”

“The what?”

“Well, you do know about the Ray Jones trial.”

“Oh, sure!” Laverne said, and grinned widely and leaned forward to half-whisper with bubbling excitement, “Do you think he did it?”

“Men,” Erica said. “What do you think?”

“I just bet you’re right,” Laverne said.

“You’re going to find out, when you go to work in there,” Erica told the girl, “there’re people in there that are off in their own section, can’t see anybody else or anything—”

Wide-eyed, suddenly afraid of her place of employment, Laverne said, “What did they do ? Is it a jail ?”

“No no no, they’re helping with the trial; they’re the extra jury.”

“Extra jury? There’s an extra jury?”

“Oh, they always do that,” Erica said. “In important cases, they do. So if something goes wrong with the first jury, they always have an extra jury that can step right in.”

“I never knew that,” Laverne said, smiling broadly again, happy at the accumulation of knowledge.

“The thing is,” Erica said, “my boyfriend’s one of those people on the jury, and they’re not allowed to see anybody , and I miss him already .”

Now, this was a palpable lie. Erica Jacke being as far as you could imagine from girlfriend material, but there are natural romantics in this world, most of them overweight, and Laverne was one. Her heart softened even more at this image of lovers wrenched apart by the inexorable processes of the law. “Gee, that’s awful,” Laverne said.

“And I know he misses me, too,” Erica said. “We’ve never been away from each other before.”

“Gosh,” Laverne said.

Here it came. Out of her shoulder bag. Erica drew the tape cassette. “I just did a letter on tape,” she explained, “because I just know Jock would like to at least hear my voice.”

“Is that his name?”

“Jock O’Shanley.”

“That’s a pretty name!”

“I love it,” Erica admitted, trying to look like a person melting in love, but failing miserably. “What’s your name?”

“Laverne. Laverne Slagel.”

“ That’s a pretty name, too! I’m Erica Peterson,” Erica Jacke lied.

“Erica?” Laverne’s eyes lit up. “Like on ‘AH My Children’?”

“I was named for her!”

“ Really ? Has she been around that long?”

“Oh sure,” Erica said, blithely maligning a fine actress named Susan Lucci. “My mother told me, in the early days, that show was actually in black and white.”

“I never knew that!”

“Anyway,” Erica said, calling attention to the cassette by waggling it in front of Laverne, “I did this letter on tape, and I so much want Jock to hear it, and I know he has his Walkman in there so he can listen to his Merle Haggard records, so I was wondering if you could give him my letter for me.”