A car came slashing along the verboten center lane, flashing its lights and blasting its horn at those tremulous souls who might be thinking of making a left turn in any direction. This car and this driver stood out like a panther among sheep; who could it be but the awaited Sara?
No one. The rental radiated so much menace that a camper full of kiddies actually backed up to let the bandit slice rightward back across its own lane of traffic and slew to a juddering halt at the Lodge. Already smiling, already knowing the identity of that driver, Jack crossed the sloping asphalt as Sara sprang from the car, slammed its door, spun around, and said, “What the hell are you doing here?”
Still driving. Jack grinned at her. “I love you, too.”
“Fax it to me,” she suggested, and started around him toward the building, then stopped, turned back, gave him a look of deep mistrust, and said, “You are not taking over this assignment.”
“Of course not,” Jack said.
“You are an editor; I am a reporter.”
“Exactly.”
Skepticism still darkened her features. She said, “So what are you here for?”
“Your body.”
“Oh, that’s all right, then,” she said. “Come on.”
As they walked toward the hotel, he said, “I couldn’t get connecting rooms.”
“That’s okay,” she said. “We’ll connect.”
In the afterglow, she said, “It was my fax, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah,” he admitted, and nuzzled her throat. “Your throat smells wonderful after sex,” he murmured. “Has anyone ever told you that?”
She laughed, hugging him, twining their legs together, wrinkling and roiling the damp sheet even more. “Once an investigative reporter,” she said, “always an investigative reporter.”
Reluctantly, he removed his nose from the side of her neck and the butterfly of her pulse. Leaning up on one elbow, he said, “I wasn’t going to ask who.”
“Not this conversation,” she agreed. “Next conversation.”
With her hair messily around her smiling face, spreading over the pillow beneath her head, she was so beautiful, he couldn’t stand it. “I don’t want there to be anything in the universe,” he said, “except you and me and this room, floating through space and time. Eternity, right here.”
She gave him a look of amused disbelief. “What did they feed you on that plane?”
“Except,” he went on, looking around the room, “one electrician, to put a dimmer on the lights.”
“I think the phrase is ‘to put the lights on a dimmer.’ ”
“I believe I’ll shower now,” Jack said, crawling backward off her and off the bed.
“Some editor,” she commented, and pulled up the top sheet. Curling shrimp-like beneath it, she said, “Wake me when you’re done.”
“Maybe.”
They sat in the little chairs by the small table under the hanging lamp in front of the view of Mickey Gilley’s parking lot, and Sara said, “Okay, the approach was wrong.”
“Agreed,” Jack said.
“I shouldn’t have just sent that one page of fax.”
Jack cocked an eyebrow at her. “That’s what was wrong with the approach?”
“Now listen,” she said. “I’m not turning my back on the Galaxy.”
“Good. No one should ever turn his back on the Galaxy.”
“I’m just saying,” she just said, “there’s something in this singer, too, what he represents.”
“The proles,” Jack told her. “The mouth-breathers. The underclass.” He pointed. “Those people in those used cars out there.”
“Don’t be so condescending,” she said.
“Why not? I’m smarter than they are, faster, funnier, richer and probably better-looking.”
She reared back, the better to study him withal. “Are you being provocative?”
“That, too,” he agreed. “I’m more provocative than they are. Sara, honeybun, our readers don’t care—”
“I hate it when you call me honeybun.”
“That’s the first time I ever did.”
“And I hated it.”
Casually, he said, “Who else called you honeybun?”
She gave him a look. “All those guys that nuzzled my neck,” she said.
“Oh, those guys.”
“You were saying something about our readers.”
“I was. I was saying they don’t care about the shitkickers, is what I was saying. Our readers care about wealth and prestige. They care about power and fame. They care about success and excess. Bottom-feeders are not a matter of deep interest to the readers of Trend. That is why I am going from here to the center of journalistic misuse of money and power, the Galaxy hospitality suite.”
“Two-two-two.”
“And very very.”
“Will you do me a favor?” she asked.
“Anything.”
“After the Galaxy, go to the show. The Ray Jones show.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, honeybun—”
“That’s twice.”
Heavily, he shrugged and nodded his acceptance of the inevitable. “All right,” he said, “all right, all right, I’ll go—”
The phone rang.
“—see the Ray Jones show,” he finished, as Sara got up and went over to the bedside phone. “And you concentrate on the Galaxy.”
“Sure. Hello? Oh, hi, Cal.” Sara listened, then smiled all over her face. “That’s great! Cal, I really appreciate this. I’ll be there. Absolutely. Oh, Gil? Listen, my editor’s in town... from the magazine? Could you put him in the Elvis seat tonight? Thanks, Cal. I’ll tell him. His name is Jack Ingersoll. Right. See you tomorrow, nine A.M. Bye.”
Sara hung up and smiled at Jack. “You are looking at a genius,” she announced.
“The Elvis seat?”
“Don’t worry about it. You just present yourself at the Ray Jones Theater a little before eight tonight. Go to the guy at the door and tell him who you are. He’ll explain all about the Elvis seat. The thing is,” she went on, “Ray Jones sells out, every show, over eight hundred seats. And there’re no house comp seats.”
“I’m looking forward to this,” Jack said insincerely. “What was he calling about? Cal, was it?”
“He wanted to tell me how my neck smelled after sex.”
“Sara, you are beginning to annoy.”
“I don’t really care,” she told him, flashing her sunniest smile. “His name is Cal Denny; he’s rather sweet—”
“Unlike some.”
“He’s Ray Jones’s best friend, and they’re all going over to Forsyth tomorrow for jury selection. Ray Jones and his whole band and Cal Denny and everybody, showing solidarity.”
“And?”
“And I,” Sara said, “have been invited along.” She pirouetted in front of him, arms and hands at a graceful angle. “Just call me supergroupie,” she suggested. “I’m going on the team bus.”
12
Ray wasn’t giving any interviews these days because of the upcoming trial, but back before this latest truckload of wet manure had hit the fan, he used to give interviews all the time. The entertainment press, which lives on a modification of the Will Rogers motto — they never met a star they didn’t like — is access. Access to the public eye, the public ear, and the public brain, if there is such a thing. Access was vital, was the lifeblood of the star’s career, because, as Ray well knew — as every headliner well knew — the public brain, if there is such a thing, has an extremely short attention span. They’ll forget you in a New York minute if you give them the chance. So the stars and the wannabes and the usedtabeens all crowd the entertainment media, the magazines and the TV shows and even (if nothing else is happening) the radio. They all smile and look relaxed and easy, they meet the interviewer’s eye with a confident and friendly gaze, and they blandly ignore the interviewer while they talk right through him or her and directly into the public brain, if there is such a thing.