Дональд Уэстлейк - Baby, Would I Lie?

“Sure, baby,” Honey said, and led the way back into the changing room while Lennie Elmore left to tell the new reed man the change was okay.

The map of Branson in Sara’s hotel room indicated all the attractions — that’s what they called them — along the Strip, and when Sara picked out the Ray Jones Theater, it looked as though it must be very close to the Lodge of the Ozarks, separated from it only by Mickey Gilley’s theater. Wouldn’t it be faster to go there by foot than by internal-combustion engine?

It would. Sara, the only walker in sight, reached the theater at ten minutes to eight, to find the parking lot blocked by a sawhorse bearing the sign performance sold out. She walked by it anyway and went inside to the lobby filled with theatergoers to see what her press card could do.

Nothing. The twangy little girl in the box office assured her that sold out actually meant sold out — no more seats available. The term house seats did not appear to be part of her vocabulary. Not only that, the girl informed her this evening’s performance had been sold out yesterday and that both of tomorrow’s were already sold out as of now. A seat was offered for the matinee day after tomorrow. “Maybe later,” Sara said.

“Be gone later,” the girl said complacently.

Maybe so. Still, Sara didn’t feel like planning her life that far ahead. Also, there had to be some way her press connection could be made to work for her. It was true she wanted to see Ray Jones at work, but it was also true that she wanted him to become aware of her presence in his peripheral vision, without her joining that hopeless line of media people who were trying and failing to get interviews. Long ago, she’d learned that the best way to approach celebrities was obliquely.

So she thanked the twangy girl for her advice, declined the matinee two days off, and turned away to leave. A man held the door open for her and she stepped outside and looked around, trying to decide what to do next.

“Miss?”

She turned, and it was the man who’d held the door for her. Fiftyish, he was baggily dressed and blockily built, with a worried-looking bony face. In one hand, he carried three candy bars. He said, “Excuse me, did I hear you say you were with some magazine?”

“I am, yes,” Sara said, wondering what this was about. Surely he wasn’t trying to pick her up.

He said, “I didn’t catch the name of it.”

“ Trend ,” Sara said, really doubting this fellow was one of Trend ’s readers. Around them, other non- Trend readers straggled up the slope and into the theater.

He seemed to chew on the name for a few seconds, then said, “Weekly or monthly?”

“Weekly,” she said. Feeling obscurely compelled to explain further, she added, “We’re a New York-based service and cultural magazine. I’m here to cover the Ray Jones trial.”

“For your magazine. Trend .”

“Sure. I’m sorry, I don’t see what...” And she gestured, inviting him to do some explaining of his own.

Which he promptly did. “Oh yeah,” he said, “I oughta tell you who I am. I’m Cal Denny. I’m a friend of Ray’s. I’m kind of connected, uh, with, uh...” And he waggled the candy bars at the building beside them.

“Oh.”

“I heard you trying to get in.”

“Apparently, full is full.”

“We’re doin real good business,” he allowed.

Sara grinned. “God bless Belle Hardwick, eh?”

He looked startled, then abruptly grinned back, as though they now shared a dirty secret. “I guess you’re right,” he said. “You want to see the show?”

“In return for what?”

“Huh?” He wasn’t very quick, Cal Denny, but sooner or later he got there: “Oh!” he said, and blushed, actually blushed. “No, I just thought you’d... I heard you in there...”

“Thanks, then,” Sara said. “There’s room after all, huh?”

“Well, not really,” Cal Denny told her. “But there’s a seat in the back that’s only used two different times, by somebody in the show. You’d have to go stand by the lighting guy just those two times, and the rest you could sit down.”

“It’s a deal,” Sara said. Sticking out her hand, she said, “Sara Joslyn.”

“Hi, there,” he answered, and awkwardly shook her hand, as though not used to physical contact with a woman. Soon he let go of her hand and led her back into the theater, where they joined the shuffling throng crossing the lobby to the two interior entrances. Cal Denny led them to the doorway on the left, where what looked to be a high school boy, in a thin pink blazer too big for him, stood collecting tickets. Denny murmured a word to the boy, pointing his thumb over his shoulder at Sara, and the boy nodded and waved her on in.

Inside was a theater like any other; longer than wide, the floor sloping down toward the front, rows of red plush seating parted by two carpeted aisles, a dark red curtain closed over the stage. At the rear, a platform displaced most of the last two rows of the center section, and on it, inside a simple two-by-four railing, hulked a fairly complex-looking light board in the care of a fat man in a Yosemite Sam T-shirt and Yosemite Sam beard. This was the lighting guy.

Denny in a half whisper introduced Sara — “This lady’s a reporter. She’ll be in the Elvis seat; let her know when she has to get out of it” — and Yosemite Sam nodded hello and agreement. Then Denny showed her the Elvis seat, on the aisle next to the lighting platform, and bent down to murmur, “I gotta bring Ray his Snickers now,” showing her the candy bars.

“Oh. Right.”

He went away, and Sara watched the people come in: families, many many families; children of all ages, most of them not overweight; adults of all ages, most of them overweight — rural people, small-town people, working-class people. These are the faces in the crowd when a farm is auctioned off for back taxes. They filed in, well-behaved, cheerful, carrying soft drinks and popcorn and candy as though they were going to the movies. They found their seats and organized themselves and faced the curtain, and it opened.

Houselights down. The six people on the simple stage, formally dressed and armed with musical instruments, began to play and sing country music, none of which Sara had ever heard before. Two of them were women, slender and pretty, with important hair, both dressed in glittery tight black gowns that covered them from neck to toe and enclosed their arms to below the elbow. They played guitars. The four men wore slightly odd tuxedos; one of them played piano, one drums, one an electric bass, and one a bewildering variety of wind instruments, all lined up on a chrome rack beside him.

Which of these was Ray Jones? Sara had expected more of an impressive introduction. Was it Ray Jones’s conceit to present himself as no more than a simple sideman who’d made good?

No. None of these people was Ray Jones, which became clear at the end of the first number, when the male guitarist introduced his co-musicians and himself and then engaged in some simple comedy routines with the others before dropping into another song, this one showcasing the talents of the pianist and the singing quality of one of the girl guitarists.

So this was the warm-up act. The audience seemed content with it, laughing at the old jokes and applauding the displays of musicianship. Sara sat and waited for Ray Jones.

Tap tap, on her shoulder. It was Yosemite Sam, beckoning her to join him on his platform. She did, and he gestured for her to squeeze herself flat against the rear wall. She did that, too, while onstage another musical number loped along like horses on a bridle path, and into the seat she’d just vacated slipped Elvis Presley, complete with all the black hair and a glittery shiny white suit with gold and glass beads all over it. Onstage, the song came to an end, the audience applauded, and the lighting man swung a big spotlight hard around and switched it on just as Elvis erupted out of his seat, shouting and hollering and waving his arms over his head. Sara, against the wall, was just out of the harsh beam of white light.