flynn_gillian_gone_girl (1) (858987), страница 64
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She’ll ask you anyway, but we’ll teach you how tosa y , Because of certain prejudicial actions by the police involved in this case, I really,unfortunately, can’t answer that right now, as much as I’d like to—and say it convincingly.”“Like a talking dog.”“Sure, like a talking dog who doesn’t want to go to prison.
We get Sharon Schieber totake you on as a cause, Nick, and we are golden. This is all incredibly unorthodox, butthat’s me,” Tanner said again. He liked the line; it was his theme music. He paused andfurrowed his brow, doing his pretend-thinking gesture. He was going to add something Iwouldn’t like.“What?” I asked.“You need to tell Sharon Schieber about Andie—because it’s going to come out, theaffair, it just will.”“Right when people are finally starting to like me. You want me to undo that?”“I swear to you, Nick—how many cases have I handled? It always—somehow, someway—always comes out.
This way we have control. You tell her about Andie and youapologize. Apologize literally as if your life depends on it. You had an a air, you are aman, a weak, stupid man. But you love your wife, and you will make it up to her. Youdo the interview, it’ll air the next night. All content is embargoed—so the network can’ttease the Andie affair in their ads. They can just use the word bombshell.”“So you already told them about Andie?”“Good God, no,” he said. “I told them: We have a nice bombshell for you.
So you do theinterview, and we have about twenty-four hours. Just before it hits TV, we tell Boneyand Gilpin about Andie and about our discovery in the woodshed. Oh my gosh, we’ve putit all together for you: Amy is alive and she’s framing Nick! She’s crazy, jealous, and she isframing Nick! Oh, the humanity!”“Why not tell Sharon Schieber, then? About Amy framing me?”“Reason one. You come clean about Andie, you beg forgiveness, the nation is primedto forgive you, they’ll feel sorry for you—Americans love to see sinners apologize.
Butyou can reveal nothing to make your wife look bad; no one wants to see the cheatinghusband blame the wife for anything. Let someone else do it sometime the next day:Sources close to the police reveal that Nick’s wife—the one he swore he loved with all hisheart—is framing him! It’s great TV.”“What’s reason two?”“It’s too complicated to explain exactly how Amy is framing you. You can’t do it in asound bite. It’s bad TV.”“I feel sick,” I said.“Nick, it’s—” Go started.“I know, I know, it has to be done. But can you imagine, your biggest secret and youhave to tell the world about it? I know I have to do it. And it works for us, ultimately, Ithink.
It’s the only way Amy might come back,” I said. “She wants me to be publiclyhumiliated—”“Chastened,” Tanner interrupted. “Humiliated makes it sound like you feel sorry foryourself.”“—and to publicly apologize,” I continued. “But it’s going to be fucking awful.”“Before we go forward, I want to be honest here,” Tanner said. “Telling the policethe whole story—Amy’s framing Nick—it is a risk. Most cops, they decide on a suspectand they don’t want to veer at all.
They’re not open to any other options. So there’s therisk that we tell them and they laugh us out of the station and they arrest you—and thentheoretically we’ve just given them a preview of our defense. So they can plan exactlyhow to destroy it at trial.”“Okay, wait, that sounds really, really bad, Tanner,” Go said.
“Like, bad, inadvisablebad.”“Let me nish,” Tanner said. “One, I think you’re right, Nick. I think Boney isn’tconvinced you’re a killer. I think she would be open to an alternate theory. She has agood reputation as a cop who’s actually fair. As a cop who has good instincts. I talkedwith her. I got a good vibe.
I think the evidence is leading her in your direction, but Ithink her gut is telling her something’s o . More important, if we do go to trial, Iwouldn’t use the Amy frame-up as your defense, anyway.”“What do you mean?”“Like I said, it’s too complicated, a jury wouldn’t be able to follow. If it’s not goodTV, believe me, it’s not for a jury. We’d go with more of an O.J. thing. A simple storyline: The cops are incompetent and out to get you, it’s all circumstantial, if the glovedoesn’t fit, blah blah, blah.”“Blah blah blah, that gives me a lot of confidence,” I said.Tanner flashed a smile. “Juries love me, Nick. I’m one of them.”“You’re the opposite of one of them, Tanner.”“Reverse that: They’d like to think they’re one of me.”Everything we did now, we did in front of small brambles of ashing paparazzi, soGo, Tanner, and I left the house under pops of light and pings of noise.
(“Don’t lookdown,” Tanner advised, “don’t smile, but don’t look ashamed. Don’t rush either, justwalk, let them take their shots, and shut the door before you call them names. Then youcan call them whatever you want.”) We were headed down to St. Louis, where theinterview would take place, so I could prep with Tanner’s wife, Betsy, a former TV newsanchor turned lawyer. She was the other Bolt in Bolt & Bolt.It was a creepy tailgate party: Tanner and I, followed by Go, followed by a halfdozen news vans, but by the time the Arch crept over the skyline, I was no longerthinking of the paparazzi.By the time we reached Tanner’s penthouse hotel suite, I was ready to do the work Ineeded to nail the interview.
Again I longed for my own theme music: the montage ofme getting ready for the big fight. What’s the mental equivalent of a speed bag?A gorgeous six-foot-tall black woman answered the door.“Hi, Nick, I’m Betsy Bolt.”In my mind Betsy Bolt was a diminutive blond Southern-belle white girl.“Don’t worry, everyone is surprised when they meet me.” Betsy laughed, catching mylook, shaking my hand. “Tanner and Betsy, we sound like we should be on the cover ofThe Official Preppy Guide, right?”“Preppy Handbook,” Tanner corrected as he kissed her on the cheek.“See? He actually knows,” she said.She ushered us into an impressive penthouse suite—a living room sunlit by wall-towall windows, with bedrooms shooting o each side. Tanner had sworn he couldn’t stayin Carthage, at the Days Inn, out of respect for Amy’s parents, but Go and I bothsuspected he couldn’t stay in Carthage because the closest ve-star hotel was in St.Louis.We engaged in the preliminaries: small talk about Betsy’s family, college, career (allstellar, A-list, awesome), and drinks dispersed for everyone (soda pops and Clamato,which Go and I had come to believe was an a ectation of Tanner’s, a quirk he thoughtwould give him character, like my wearing fake glasses in college).
Then Go and I sankdown into the leather sofa, Betsy sitting across from us, her legs pressed together to oneside, like a slash mark. Pretty/professional. Tanner paced behind us, listening.“Okay. So, Nick,” Betsy said. “I’ll be frank, yes?”“Yes.”“You and TV. Aside from your bar-blog thingie, the Whodunnit.com thingie lastnight, you’re awful.”“There was a reason I went to print journalism,” I said.
“I see a camera, and my facefreezes.”“Exactly,” Betsy said. “You look like a mortician, so sti . I got a trick to x that,though.”“Booze?” I asked. “That worked for me on the blog thingie.”“That won’t work here,” Betsy said. She began setting up a video camera. “Thoughtwe’d do a dry run rst. I’ll be Sharon. I’ll ask the questions she’ll probably ask, and youanswer the way you normally would. That way we can know how far o the mark youare.” She laughed again.
“Hold on.” She was wearing a blue sheath dress, and from anoversize leather purse she pulled a string of pearls. The Sharon Schieber uniform.“Tanner?”Her husband fastened the pearls for her, and when they were in place, Betsygrinned. “I aim for absolute authenticity. Aside from my Georgia accent. And beingblack.”“I see only Sharon Schieber before me,” I said.She turned the camera on, sat down across from me, let out a breath, looked down,and then looked up. “Nick, there have been many discrepancies in this case,” Betsy saidin Sharon’s plummy broadcast voice.
“To begin with, can you walk our audience throughthe day your wife went missing?”“Here, Nick, you only discuss the anniversary breakfast you two had,” Tannerinterrupted. “Since that is already out there. But you don’t give time lines, you don’tdiscuss before and after breakfast.
You are emphasizing only this wonderful lastbreakfast you had. Okay, go.”“Yes.” I cleared my throat. The camera was blinking red; Betsy had her quizzicaljournalist expression on. “Uh, as you know, it was our ve-year anniversary, and Amygot up early and was making crepes—”Betsy’s arm shot out, and my cheek suddenly stung.“What the hell?” I said, trying to gure out what had happened. A cherry-redjellybean was in my lap.
I held it up.“Every time you tense up, every time you turn that handsome face into anundertaker’s mask, I am going to hit you with a jellybean,” Betsy explained, as if thewhole thing were quite reasonable.“And that’s supposed to make me less tense?”“It works,” Tanner said. “It’s how she taught me. I think she used rocks with me,though.” They exchanged oh, you! married smiles. I could tell already: They were one ofthose couples who always seemed to be starring in their own morning talk show.“Now start again, but linger over the crepes,” Betsy said. “Were they your favorites?Or hers? And what were you doing that morning for your wife while she was makingcrepes for you?”“I was sleeping.”“What had you bought her for a gift?”“I hadn’t yet.”“Oh, boy.” She rolled her eyes over to her husband.
“Then be really, really, reallycomplimentary about those crepes, okay? And about what you were going to get her thatday for a present. Because I know you were not coming back to that house without apresent.”We started again, and I described our crepe tradition that wasn’t really, and Idescribed how careful and wonderful Amy was with picking out gifts (here anotherjellybean smacked just right of my nose, and I immediately loosened my jaw) and howI, dumb guy (“De nitely play up the doofus-husband stu ,” Betsy advised), was stilltrying to come up with something dazzling.“It wasn’t like she even liked expensive or fancy presents,” I began, and was hit witha paper ball from Tanner.“What?”“Past tense.
Stop using fucking past tense about your wife.”“I understand you and your wife had some bumps,” Betsy continued.“It had been a rough few years. We’d both lost our jobs.”“Good, yes!” Tanner called. “You both had.”“We’d moved back here to help care for my dad, who has Alzheimer’s, and my latemother, who had cancer, and on top of that I was working very hard at my new job.”“Good, Nick, good,” Tanner said.“Be sure to mention how close you were with your mom,” Betsy said, even though I’dnever mentioned my mom to her. “No one will pop up to deny that, right? No MommyDearest or Sonny Dearest stories out there?”“No, my mom and I were very close.”“Good,” said Betsy.
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