Page 141 of Never Flinch

There’s a star decaled onto the door of Sista Bessie’s dressing room, and a taped sign that says, KNOCK BEFORE ENTERING. Trig simply barges in. The woman is sprawled on the pull-out couch and fast asleep. Dressed in her slop-around clothes, she doesn’t look famous, and lying still instead of doing various rock-and-soul moves around the stage, mic in hand, she looks ginormous.

She hears him come in and sits up, first rubbing her eyes and then looking at her watch—not a Patek Philippe or even a Rolex, but a plain old Swatch. “I told Alberta I could sleep until four-thirty, but since you’re here—”

She starts to get up. Trig advances two steps, puts his spread fingers into the top-swell of one breast, and pushes her back down on her fat ass. This gives him surprising pleasure. He’s seen a lot of famous people come and go, and in his heart of hearts, he’s always wanted to do that. They all think they are God’s anointed because they can attract a crowd, but they put their pants on one leg at a time just like anyone else.

Meanwhile, time is fleeting and the puck is flying. Too late to turn around. Too late to flinch.

She stares at him from the edge of the couch. “What in thehaildo you think you’re doin, Mr. Gibson?”

He pulls over the chair in front of the makeup mirror and sits on it backwards, cowboy-style. “Making sure you’re fully awake and aware. Listen to me, Sista whatever-your-real-name-is. Very closely.”

“Name’s Betty Brady.” She is fully awake and aware now, and looking at him with narrowed eyes. “But since you seen fit to push me, why don’t you go on and call me ma’am.”

He has to smile at that. She’s got some sand. She makes him think of Belinda “just call me Bunny” Jones in the jury room. She had some sand, too. Once Lowry gave in, Bunny was the last holdout. But he wore her down, didn’t he?

He says, “Okay, ma’am, that’s fine with me. You’ll be leaving here soon, I understand you’re planning to go back to the hotel and change clothes for your appearance at Dingley Park, and I won’t stop you from doing that. With me so far?”

“With you, yes I am. Cain’t wait to see where this is goin.” Sounding almost pleasant, but also sounding more southern, and looking at him with those same narrowed eyes.

“Once you leave, you can do whatever you want, it’s your decision, but you should look at this before you make it.”

He holds up Barbara Robinson’s phone and shows Sista Bessie—his ma’am—the picture of Barbara bound to one of the penalty box poles.

Betty puts her hand to the wattles below her throat. “Mother of God, what… what—”

“My partner has a gun on her.” Trig produces this lie smoothly. “If you tell the cops, if you tellanybody, she’s going to die. Got it?”

Betty says nothing, but her expression of dismay is all Trig could have hoped for. The singer has been a weak point all along. (Well, there are actuallylotsof weak points, it’s an extremely rickety plan, but this is one of the weakest.) How much does this woman, thisstar, care for her new friend? He listens;keeps his ear to the ground, as they say. So, for that matter, does Maisie, who is all about famous people. They’ve heard enough to know Sista Bessie has taken the girl under her wing. Enough to always keep the girl’s book of poems close and to have included her in the band, at least for this first gig. Enough—this to Trig’s mind is the convincer—to have adapted one of the girl’s poems into a song important enough to be the show closer.

Enough for him to take the chance.

“If you’ve got it… ma’am… give me a nod.”

Betty nods without taking her eyes from the picture of Barbara. It’s as if she’s hypnotized by it, the way a bird can supposedly be hypnotized by a snake, and for the first time Trig really believes this rocket will fly.

“For the next three hours or so, can you act as if nothing is wrong? Go through with singing the National Anthem before that game?”

She thinks about it, then says, “Back in the day, I once played Giants Stadium with intestinal flu in front of eighty-two thousand people. Didn’t want to disappoint em, so I wore Depends. Threw up at intermission and nobody but the boys in the band ever knew. I can do it, but only if you convince me you mean to let her go.”

“I mean to letbothof you go. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Once you finish the Anthem, I’ll give you a call and tell you where to come and get her. It’s not far.”

She gives him a goggly-eyed look, then laughs. Actuallylaughs. “You are one crazy white man and you are also onedumbwhite man.”

“Enlighten me.”

“I sing the song. Not eighty-two thousand watchin me do it, but as many as that park’ll hold. I go back to change my clothes in the little room they got set aside for me, and when I come out, there’s going to be two, maybe three hundred people standin outside and hopin to get my autograph or at least a picture. You think I can just slip away? Shi-yit.”

Trig hasn’t considered this. He expects the other one, McKay, will find a solution, because hotels—the good ones, at least—usually have a way or even two ways by which celebrities can make a quick and quiet escape. But from a makeshift dressing room in the cinderblock equipment building at the softball field? To coin a phrase, that’s a very different ballgame.

But because the plan depends on it, he says what he said to Kate McKay. “Find a way.”

“Let’s say I do. Do you expect me to believe you’re goan let her and me go? I was born at night but it wasn’tlastnight, and I have an idea who you are. You been killin people in this town, Mr. Gibson. So like I say, convince me.”

Lies work best when the person being lied to wants to believe. They also work best when they are combined with the truth. Trig employs both strategies now.

“I was on the jury that convicted an innocent man named Alan Duffrey. I had help from an ambitious, self-righteous prosecutor andfrom the man who framed him, but that’s no excuse for what I did, which was browbeating three jurors who felt that Duffrey was telling the truth when he testified in his own defense. If not for me, that jury would have hung. And do you know what happened to Alan Duffrey?”

“Nothing good, I’m guessin.”

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