* * *
The first voice Scott hears on the tape is his.
What’s going on? he asks. In your mind. With us.
The recording quality is distant, a layer of mechanical hiss over the top. It sounds like a phone call, which is what Scott realizes it is, in the instant he recognizes his own voice.
Let’s go to Greece, he hears Layla say. There’s a little house on a cliff I own through, like, six shell companies. Nobody knows a thing. Complete mystery. We could lie in the sun and eat oysters. Dance after dark. Wait till the dust clears. I know I should be coy with you, but I’ve never met anyone whose attention is harder to get. Even when we’re together it’s like we’re in the same place, but different years.
“Where did you—” Scott asks.
Bill looks at him and raises his eyebrows with a kind of triumph.
“You still think we should believe nothing happened?”
Scott stares at him.
“Did you — how did you—”
Bill holds up a finger—Wait for it.
The tape plays again.
How’s the boy?
It’s Gus’s voice. Scott doesn’t have to hear the next voice to know that it will be his.
He’s not — talking, really, but he seems to like that I’m here. So maybe that’s therapeutic. Eleanor’s really — strong.
And the husband?
He left this morning with luggage.
A long pause.
I don’t have to tell you how that’s going to look, says Gus.
Scott finds himself mouthing his next words along with the tape.
Since when does how a thing looks matter more than what it is?
Two thousand twelve, I think, says Gus. Especially after — your hideout in the city. How that made the news. The heiress, which — I said find someplace to hide, not shack up in a tabloid story.
Nothing happened. I mean, yeah, she took off her clothes and climbed into bed with me, but I didn’t—
We’re not talking about what did or didn’t happen, says Gus. We’re talking about what it looks like.
The tape ends. Bill sits forward.
“So you see,” he says. “Lies. From the very beginning you’ve been telling nothing but lies.”
Scott nods, his mind putting the piece together.
“You recorded us,” he says. “Eleanor’s phone. That’s how you knew — when I called her from Layla’s house — that’s how you knew where I was. You traced the call. And then — did you have Gus’s phone too? The FBI? Is that how — all those leaks — is that how you got the memo?”
Scott can see Bill’s producer waving frantically from off camera. She looks panicked. Scott leans forward.
“You bugged their phones. A plane crashed. People died, and you bugged the phones of the victims, their relatives.”
“People have a right to know,” says Bill. “This was a great man. David Bateman. A giant. We deserve the truth.”
“Yeah, but — do you know how illegal it is? What you did? Not to mention—immoral. And we’re sitting here, and you’re worried about what — that I had a consensual relationship with a woman?”
Scott leans forward.
“And meanwhile, you have no idea what actually happened, how the copilot locked the captain out of the cockpit, how he switched off the autopilot and put the plane into a dive. How six shots were fired into the door — gunshots — probably by the Batemans’ security guard, trying to get it open, trying to regain control of the plane. But they couldn’t, so they all died.”
He looks at Bill, who — for once in his life — is speechless.
“People died. People with families, with children. They were murdered, and you’re sitting here asking me about my sex life. Shame on you.”
Bill gets to his feet. He looms over Scott. Scott stands himself, facing off, unflinching.
“Shame on you,” he repeats, this time quietly, just to Bill.
For a minute it seems Bill will hit him. His fists are balled. And then two cameramen are grabbing him, and Krista is there.
“Bill,” she yells. “Bill. Calm down.”
“Get off me,” yells Bill, struggling, but they hold him firm.
Scott stands. He turns to Krista.
“Okay,” he says. “I’m done.”
He walks away, allowing the anger and struggle behind him to fade. He finds a hallway and follows it to an elevator. Feeling like a man waking from a dream he presses the button, then waits for the doors to open. He thinks about the floating wing, and how it was on fire, thinks about the boy’s voice calling in the dark. He thinks about his sister, and how he waited on his bike in the growing darkness. He thinks about every drink he ever took, and what it feels like to hear the starting gun and dive into chlorinated blue.
Somewhere the boy is waiting, playing trucks in the driveway, coloring outside the lines. There is a lazy river and the sound of the leaves blowing in the wind.
He will get his paintings back. He will reschedule those gallery meetings, and any others that present themselves. He will find a pool and teach the boy to swim. He has waited long enough. It’s time to press PLAY, to let the game finish, see what happens. And if it’s going to be a disaster, then that’s what it’s going to be. He has survived worse. He is a survivor. It’s time he started acting like one.
And then the doors open, and he gets on.
About the Author
Noah Hawley is an Emmy, Golden Globe, PEN, Critic’s Choice, and Peabody Award — winning author, screenwriter, and producer. He has published four novels and penned the script for the feature film Lies and Alibis. He created, executive produced, and served as showrunner for ABC’s My Generation and The Unusuals and was a writer and producer on the hit series Bones. Hawley is currently executive producer, writer, and showrunner on FX’s award-winning series, Fargo.