True Story

by Kate Reed Petty

  Today you sit in your usual booth in the corner, with your back to the wall. One of the waiters comes over and looks at you levelly. You order, and he starts to walk away.

  “Wait,” you say. He stops and looks at you. The check in your pocket—your half up-front—makes you feel extravagant. “Make it a malt.”

  You lean back and spread your arms out like you own the place. The Happy Pancake Diner always makes you feel like a man.

  As you wait, Haley’s films keep swimming up in your mind. She made a short documentary in college, and then a feature called Truth Booth in 2010, but you couldn’t find them anywhere—they weren’t streaming and the DVDs weren’t at the library. So instead you read what you could. You found articles about her work; press releases about grants she’d been awarded. You’d read the press kit for Truth Booth, which described how the film was made: Haley retrofitted a camper van into a soundproof video studio, then drove it around picking up men on the street—imitating Girls Gone Wild—and bullying them into reading memoirs of rape survivors, in the first person, directly into the camera. Apparently it made most of the men weep.

  In all of the articles about Haley, you recognized pieces of the girl you knew in high school; you saw her confidence, her self-assurance. But you weren’t prepared to hear about her genius. A month before Truth Booth came out, a short preview piece in The New Yorker called Haley a “rising star” on the “fringes of Hollywood” working to create “radical experiments into the very meaning of empathy.” You got a sharp kick of jealousy reading that.

  But then you started reading the actual reviews.

  People hated Haley’s movie. Words like INFURIATING and DYSFUNCTIONAL and DEEPLY MISGUIDED appeared in more than one headline. The reviews were positively gleeful. One called it “a piece of trash.” You shook your head, amazed at the journalist’s viciousness. “It’s a case study in modern feminism gone awry,” he’d written. You’d noted his byline—Willem Connor—then got in touch with him.

  And here he is. Willem Connor walks into the diner just as your malted milkshake arrives. He’s tall and trim, with floppy brown hair and a pair of red glasses that make him look smart. He looks like an actor playing a journalist. He smiles when he sees you, walks over and shakes your hand. “Nick Brothers. Good to meet you.”

  He doesn’t want anything to eat. “I’m fasting,” he says, putting a hand over his belly.

  “Fasting?” you say. “That’s interesting, I’ve never heard of that.” Then you spend a while listening to him talk about the details of this baffling diet.

  You are very patient; you ask thoughtful questions. “But you don’t care,” Willem says, suddenly realizing.

  “No, it’s fascinating,” you say, but you’ve overshot. You laid it on too thick, and he’s embarrassed now, uncomfortable; it’s going to take some finesse to get him on your side. “But, let’s get to business.”

  “Okay: Ed Brand said you have a lead about a filmmaker?” he says. “It was all very mysterious.”

  You nod. Ed Brand is Richard’s old buddy, a powerful guy. You asked Ed to connect you to Willem; Richard is staying out of the details.

  “I don’t feel great about this whole thing,” you say. “So I’m sorry, but I’m not going to tell you everything today,” you say.

  Willem is taking out a notebook. “Whatever you’re comfortable with.”

  “This is off the record, right?”

  Willem writes OFF THE RECORD in big letters across the top of a blank page, then turns it around to show it to you.

  “Thanks,” you say.

  Willem bows his head, pretends to doff a hat. He’s not really taking this seriously.

  That’s fine. He will.

  “So,” you say, “the first thing you need to know is that Haley Moreland and I were high school sweethearts. She was the first girl I ever loved.”

  This is true. Sticking to the emotional truth is one of your secrets to lying well. Willem nods despite himself—sympathetic to first love, charmed by your “openness.”

  “Haley reached out to me a couple weeks ago and asked if she could interview me for a documentary film she’s making,” you say. “Do you know her work?”

  “Yes,” Willem says. (Of course he does—you picked him because he does. You’re just getting him to voice agreement with basic facts. It’s another of your secrets to lying.)

  Willem clears his throat. “I wrote a piece for New York about her first film, actually.” You wonder if throat-clearing is Willem’s poker tell. He’s being so cautious about that bad review.

  “So you know Haley can be pretty strident,” you say. “Which is why I didn’t want to be in her movie.”

  Willem picks up his pen. “Are you thinking Haley is going to accuse you of something?”

  “No, no. She wouldn’t do that to me. Plus, if you know Haley’s movies, you know—she doesn’t tell her own stories. She uses other people’s.”

  Willem makes a quick note.

  “What I’m worried about is, a friend of mine from high school, Max Platt, died two years ago. I think Haley’s new film is going to center on a false accusation against him.”

  You explain the whole story. It’s a story that makes sense: How Haley always hated Max. How she spread an accusation against him in high school—using some other girl. A typical sports-star witch-hunt. Charges were dropped. It was fifteen years ago. But now Max is dead and Haley is trying to revive the old charges. You still care about Haley, but you also care about the truth.

  Suddenly Willem is writing a lot, in a tight and expert handwriting you can’t read. You sit and wait. Patience is part of being a good liar. It’s a bit painful—lying is a craft you honed through years of hiding your drinking from people you love—but it is nice to exercise competence.

  Willem, still writing, says, “Who’s the woman she’s working with?”

  “What?”

  He looks up. “You said she’s making a movie with a girl she knew from high school. Is it the girl who made the original accusation against Max?”

  “Oh,” you say. “The private school girl.” Wait. Nick. Don’t you know her name? “Right,” you say, stalling.

  It’s true. You don’t know her name. And you’re shocked you haven’t thought about this before. But you play it cool. You shake your head and spread your hands, a gesture like—who fucking knows? You say, “I don’t know. Apparently Haley isn’t going to use her real name. So how can anybody know for sure?”

  Willem puts his pen down and folds his hands. “This is a big story, Nick. Can you prove it?”

  You pretend to hesitate. Finally you say, “I have proof. But I’m not sure . . . not sure I can give it to you.” You look Willem in the eye; he’s nearly standing up out of his seat in anticipation. “I want to be sure I can trust you.”

  This is your last and best secret to lying well: make the other person feel they have to prove themselves to you.

  Willem clears his throat, and you know you’ve got him. “I understand,” he says.

  “I can tell you’re a good guy. I just want to think it over for a day or two. Haley still means a lot to me. I want to make sure—you’ll treat her fairly?”

  Willem holds up three fingers. “Scout’s honor,” he says.

  * * *

  • • •

  AFTER WILLEM LEAVES, you text Richard, asking for the private school girl’s name. Then you stay in the diner to finish your milkshake.

  Of course Willem is going to try to talk to Haley. He’ll probably call her today. You wonder whether she’ll agree to an interview. Haley must hate Willem, of course, but also, she isn’t afraid of anyone. You admire that about her. She might be brave enough to take him on, actually give him an interview. You’re curious to see what she does.

  But it doesn’t matter whether she talks to Willem or not. It’s the fact of
his interest that matters—the threat of bad publicity. It should only take a couple of days of digging to find something embarrassing about Haley; as you’ve learned from Richard and his company, most people are not well protected from this kind of thing. Whether you get it by pulling her police records, hacking her computer, or talking to ex-boyfriends, you’ll find something. Then you’ll show it to Haley, and she’ll do whatever it takes to make sure you don’t show it to Willem. It’s blackmail, you know, but you’ve decided that’s better than Richard’s version—where you give the damaging information to Richard, and he uses it to destroy her career.

  You leave a portrait of Hamilton on the table and stand up and straighten your jacket. Things are going exactly as you planned.

  But walking out of the diner, your phone chimes with a text from Richard. I don’t know her name, it says. You’re surprised; during the investigation she was kept anonymous, but still, everyone knew her. You assume Richard put it out of his mind long ago, wanting to move on. And for you, it’s the alcohol, so many names drowned. You walk out the door, under the same door chime, but now it sounds too bright, falsely cheerful, like an airline steward explaining a two-drink limit.

  * * *

  • • •

  ON THE SIDEWALK you turn right, on your way to the bank. After that you’ll go to the library. You’re not meeting your connection at the police department until tomorrow. In the meantime maybe you can find the private school girl’s name on LexisNexis, in some article from your hometown paper, or an old school record. If you find her name, you can ask your police connection to pull her police records, too.

  As you get to the corner you notice a short guy waiting for the walk sign going west. You slow down and watch him. He’s looking both ways, like he’s about to cross the street. But he doesn’t cross. The walk sign clicks on and he just stands there.

  You clock his black jacket and baseball cap, dark sunglasses. He’s shorter than you, maybe five-nine, and so stocky he barely has a neck—his head just swivels on those broad shoulders as he looks up the street and then back. Your heart races. He’s up to something.

  “Sorry,” a woman in a leather jacket says, sharp and sarcastic, as she bumps your shoulder on purpose, and you realize that you’re standing in the middle of the sidewalk, not moving—doing the exact same thing as the guy you’re suspicious about.

  You remind yourself not to be such a freak. You’re not hallucinating dangerous men anymore. You walk past him and move on.

  The bank is in one of those old buildings with two-story columns and a set of wide stone steps leading up to the entrance. You feel a little like Rocky Balboa, jogging up those steps. You haven’t had a financial situation that called for a visit to an actual bank since you opened your checking account with two hundred dollars last fall.

  The teller doesn’t blink at the size of the check. She seems almost bored; you get the feeling she’s comfortable around a lot more than six thousand dollars. But she can’t deposit anything directly into Lindsey’s bank account. She has to deposit it into yours, and then make a transfer.

  You drum your fingers. “So it’ll arrive by Friday?” you say. You’re dreaming of Lindsey calling you, weeping tears of joy. Or better yet: coming directly to your apartment, with Katie in her arms, both of them hugging you. We always knew you could do it!

  “By Friday at the very latest, Mr. Brothers,” the teller says, with a sweet smile. You feel better. It’s been a long time since someone called you mister. Walking out through the golden doors of the old bank, there’s a spring in your step. You have a feeling you’re on the right track.

  Then you freeze.

  The same guy is standing on the sidewalk. He’s facing away from you, calmly smoking a cigarette. Same black baseball cap. Same black bomber jacket. Same squat body. No neck.

  You step to the side, tucking yourself half-hidden beside one of the big stone columns. Your mind races through your choices. You could turn around and go back into the bank and hide. You could try to sneak away.

  But you know what? Fuck it. Why don’t you just be a man?

  You walk down the steps. You head directly toward this guy with no neck. Let’s do this, No Neck, you think, gathering your nerve.

  When you’re halfway there, he turns, slightly. It’s an aimless movement, he’s just kind of pacing as he smokes. He glances in your direction. He doesn’t seem to notice you in particular. But then he turns away and starts moving very casually out of your path. Too casually.

  You try to feel angry instead of scared. You check your surroundings. There’s a hot-nuts cart a few feet away that smells delicious. At the blocked intersection someone lays on their horn, then other drivers respond, like cicadas, a call-and-response that stretches three blocks north. It’s just a regular day in New York. Everything is fine. You walk right up and stand beside No Neck.

  He raises his eyebrows at you over his sunglasses. You say, “Hey—can I bum one?”

  No Neck shrugs and digs a pack out of his pocket, hands it to you along with a lighter. You light a cigarette and hand both back. “Thanks,” you say.

  “No problem,” he says.

  You smoke next to him for a second, looking around. “Cigarettes are expensive,” you say. “And I know people who bum cigarettes are jerks. So I really appreciate it.”

  No Neck shrugs again. The horns have calmed down; the cars are moving again. A fire engine wails from somewhere east.

  “You work around here?”

  “Yeah. Over there,” he says, pointing vaguely, not looking at you. He tosses his cigarette to the curb. “Have a good one,” he says, and walks away.

  You watch him walk all the way into the bank.

  You trash your cigarette and start walking north. You try not to walk too quickly. You try to prove you’re not afraid. But ten blocks up you can’t help it: you stop in the doorway of a shuttered nail salon and open your flip phone, like there’s something interesting on the screen you need to check. You glance around the block, looking for No Neck.

  You wait a full fifteen minutes. There’s nobody on the sidewalk with you except for eight million people, going about their business. No sign of No Neck.

  You shake your head and put away your phone. Then you walk the rest of the way to the library and start looking for the private school girl’s name.

  6. A Witness

  Two days later, you arrive at Quinn Mitchell’s building. You have to double-check the address, because it’s fancier than you expected—there are sleek, dark potted plants in the lobby, and the elevator is polished the same shining black as the walls. You catch your reflection in the polished black doors. A heavyset guy with bloodshot eyes looks back. You look away.

  On the seventh floor, a woman answers the door. She gives you a big smile; she has a charmingly wide gap between her two front teeth and her hair is bright red. “I’m Nick,” you say. “I spoke to Quinn on the phone?”

  She says her name is Kyra and invites you in. “I won’t shake your hand, I’m fighting a stomach bug,” she says, over her shoulder, as you follow her into a living room lined floor to ceiling with books. When she disappears into the kitchen to get you a cup of coffee, you wander over to a big bay window. You look down at a gorgeous view of Prospect Park.

  This isn’t what you were expecting. You were expecting something dingy, dark, because you found this address in the private school girl’s police records. “Records for Alice Lovett,” your old buddy in the police department said, handing you a razor-thin manila envelope. “There was nothing on Moreland.”

  Your stomach sank. “This is it?” you asked. You’d spent three hours at the library, combing through school archives and interviews and articles in the local paper; in the end you’d found her name in a list of “special thanks” for Haley’s first film—To my sister wife, Alice Lovett, Haley had written, and you’d remembered the name of the p
roduction company for Women’s Fiction. You were extremely proud of this detective work, and you’d been expecting more of a payoff than a thin manila envelope from your cop friend.

  But when you got home and looked at what was inside the envelope, you understood that it was plenty.

  You turn away from the window as Kyra comes back into the room. She hands you a warm mug. “Quinn is just meditating, he’ll be out in a second.” You take her invitation to sit down on the couch, but she stays standing, as if ready to bring you another cup of coffee at any moment.

  “So, you’re a journalist,” she says, her hands clasped together in front of her heart.

  “To my mother’s great disappointment,” you say.

  She laughs skeptically. “What are you investigating?”

  “I don’t know if I should—” you start.

  You’re interrupted by a voice from the doorway to the bedroom. “He’s investigating Alice.”

  You look up and see a tall, heavyset man about your age standing in the doorway. Quinn Mitchell. He’s got straight blond hair tightened up into a bun on top of his head; he looks kind of like Lee Marvin—big features, rough skin.

  “You don’t have to hide anything,” Quinn says to you. “Kyra knows all about my ex.”

  “And I don’t want to know anything more,” she says primly, walking toward the back room. “I’m going to leave you two to it and lie down for a bit.”

  As she passes Quinn he stops her, putting a hand on her hip and peering into her eyes. “Are you feeling okay?” he says. You feel a flash of envy at the familiarity of the gesture, the obvious intimacy of a secure couple.

  Kyra nods. “Just a little queasy.” She kisses Quinn on the cheek, gives you a friendly wave, and disappears into the bedroom.