(1969) The Seven Minutes (42 page)

‘Will do.’

The buzzer sounded again, and it was Donna.

Two things, Mr Barrett. Your airplane reservations for New York. I’ve got a hold on flights going out of International at eight tonight and another at nine. That’ll get you into Kennedy pretty late.’

‘I’m taking no chances. Make it the eight-o’clock flight. And get on long distance again and call The Plaza. I’ll need a single for late tonight.’

“The other thing, Mr Barrett. While you were on the phone with Mrs Adams, there was a call from Miss Osborn. She said it was urgent and she wants you to call her right back.’

‘Urgent ? Okay, get her for me before you do the rest.’ He looked up at Zelkin. ‘I’ve got to talk to Faye. Something urgent, whatever that means.’

Til leave you,’ said Zelkin. Til be in my office, calling Mrs Vogler. Look in on me before you punch out.’

Moments after Zelkin left, Barrett was on the phone with Faye Osborn.

The tension in her voice was immediately apparent. ‘Mike, I know you canceled out on me tonight because you’re loaded with work, but I’ve got to see you. It’s terribly important.’

‘Faye, I’m sorry, it’s not only work now - it’s work in New York. I’m flying out of here at eight o’clock. But I’ll be back tomorrow.’

‘Mike, it simply can’t wait. I’ve got to speak to you tonight.’

‘But I told you…’ He hesitated. ‘Can’t you speak to me now? What’s it all about?’

‘No, I can’t speak to you now.’

Then on the way to the airport. You can drive me.*

‘No, Mike. This needs a quiet place, and I don’t know how long it’ll take. We may need a couple of hours.’ Then, with emphasis, she added, ‘Mike, this involves your whole future, yours and ours.’

This sounded urgent, and it troubled him. ‘Well, since you put it

that way, I’ll tell you what. Donna can change my reservation, try to get me the midnight flight out of International, and I can grab some sleep on the plane. I’ll have my overnighter with me in the car, and maybe I should allow an hour to get to the airport from town. Want to make it at eight-thirty or nine?’

‘I need some time with Dad before seeing you. Make it nine. Where?’

‘Let’s say the Century Plaza. There’s a convivial room downstairs. The Granada Bar. Want to meet me there?’

‘At nine sharp,’ Faye agreed. ‘I’ll be there.’

She hung up.

Barrett sat thinking.

Faye had said, This involves your whole future, yours and ours. Faye had also said, I need some time with Dad before seeing you.

Completely enigmatic, yet vaguely threatening.

After a while, still troubled, he buzzed Donna to tell her to change his airplane reservation.

He had a table in the rear of the Granada Bar. Before him was the Scotch on the rocks which as yet he had not touched. The hotel barroom was half filled, but he was hardly conscious of the constant jabbering of the tourists and transient drummers. He was ready for Olin Adams in New York. His overnighter was in his car and the eight hundred dollars in bills was in an envelope in his inside jacket pocket, along with his wallet. He was not ready for Faye Osborn. He had finally concluded that she had delayed his departure over some frivolous personal matter, and he felt faintly resentful.

Also, she was late, and he was restless.

He had been waiting fifteen minutes, and had begun to drink his Scotch, when he saw her arrive. She was wearing the pale-beige silk coat. As she tried to locate him among the customers at the long bar counter, he half rose, waving, trying to catch her eye, and then he did. Faye came toward him rapidly, and he stood up fully to receive her.

‘Darling,’ she said. She offered her cheek, and he kissed it, and then she slid in behind the table, and he settled down next to her.

‘Shall I check your coat ?’ he asked.

‘No, I’ll keep it around my shoulders.’

He helped her out of it and draped it across her shoulders. Her silk shantung cocktail dress was new.

‘That’s a nice dress,’ he said.

“Thank you, Mike,’ she said, but gave him no appreciative smile. Her face was thin and drawn, almost tight. ‘What are you having? Scotch? No, thanks. I’ll have a creme-de-menthe frappe.’

The uniformed waitress was cheerful and cute, and he ordered the creme de menthe and another Scotch.

‘Sorry to keep you,’ she said. ‘I had to speak to Dad again, and

he was late coming from wherever he was, and we talked our way through dinner and kept talking after and I simply couldn’t leave as soon as I had intended.’

More enigma, Mike thought. ‘We have plenty of time,’ he said.

‘Why are you going to New York so suddenly?’

‘I’m still on the trail of Jadway’s past. There may be some vital information there that will be useful in court.’

‘I thought maybe you’d found another witness.’

‘No, not this time. Unless something else turns up, I think we have all the witnesses we’ll need.’

She started to say something, but held back until the waitress had served them the drinks and laid down the plate of cashews.

‘Mike -‘ she said.

Barrett had already hoisted his fresh drink. ‘Cheers.’

‘Yes, cheers,’ she said, taking up her green drink and sipping briefly at the two short straws set in the shaved ice. Setting down the glass, she added, ‘Anyway, I hope it is.’

‘Hope what is?’

‘Cheers - cheery, cheerier - after we’ve talked.’

‘Faye, I wish you’d tell me what this is about.’

She came around to face him. ‘It’s about your witnesses,’ she said. ‘At least, one of them.’

‘Meaning?’

‘When we spoke at noon today, or whenever it was - remember ? - you told me you’d just found a new witness for the defense. That woman, Isabel Vogler, who used to work for the Griffith family.’

‘That’s right.’

‘And you were so enthusiastic because that horrible woman was going to take the stand and prove - how did you put it ? - that Mr Griffith was “anything but a paragon of virtue” and that he’d done more harm to his son than a dozen books. I believe that’s what you said.’

‘Right again.’

‘And you said something to the effect that not Dad nor any of his friends had the slightest idea of what Frank Griffith was like in private.’

‘And you thought Isabel Vogler was finky to expose the facts about her former employer on the witness stand.’

‘More than finky. It’s downright immoral and rotten.’

‘Whereas it’s not immoral or rotten for District Attorney Duncan to parade witnesses who will malign a dead author who can no longer defend himself,’ he said caustically, ‘and it’s not wrong to provide public entertainment by propping up in the witness box an emotionally disturbed young man who has no place in this trial, but is being used the same way Hitler used that poor demented Dutch boy, van der Lubbe, to achieve personal political power?’ He made an effort to control himself. ‘You consider that moral and decent?’

‘Mike, please stop it,’ Faye said with exasperation. “Why do you always do that? I can’t stand that habit of yours, of forever reducing what anyone says to lawyer’s arguments, of constantly obscuring truth with double-talk smoke screens. Can’t you, this one time, leave your law diploma in the office and speak to me like a human being ? It is after hours, you know. If you want me to stoop to your argument, I could. That author of yours, Jadway, he’s dead and buried, and nothing Elmo Duncan says will do him harm. And as for Jerry, he is a confessed rapist, and he is ruined and he is going to jail, and anything Duncan does with him won’t hurt him any further. But your use of someone like Isabel Vogler - mat can be damaging to someone who is living and whose reputation is impeccable. Like anyone in public life, Frank Griffith is vulnerable to an attack of lies. His reputation and business could be damaged beyond repair by some common domestic whom he had been forced to fire and who now sees a chance to get even. She’s vicious. It appalls me that you’d condone, let alone support and encourage, her spouting these falsehoods. And for what? I know, I know, to make some minor point in court, that maybe it wasn’t that filthy book alone that was to blame for Jerry’s act, maybe instead it was his father. Really, Mike, knowing you as I do, caring for you as I have, I can’t believe this is you who is doing such a thing.’

‘Can’t you?’ he said angrily.

‘No. Because you are better than that. Oh dammit, let’s not go on with this. It seems we’re always fighting lately, and I don’t want any more arguments.’ She bent her head and took a sip of the creme de menthe. ‘How did we get sidetracked like this?’

‘Did we get sidetracked, Faye?’ he said more evenly.

Slowly she met his gaze, and then she frowned. ‘No, maybe we didn’t. All right. I’ll tell you why I had to see you. You had called me back at noon, and you had mentioned Isabel Vogler. Well, Dad was still home, and maybe he overheard some of my conversation with you, before I told him about your latest witness. I thought I should tell him, because I wanted to know how he would feel about it. You know very well that Dad and Frank Griffith have had a long and rewarding business relationship. They respect one another and they’re fond of one another, and Mr Griffith is responsible for placing a large amount of his clients’ advertising in prime time slots on Dad’s television stations. So, naturally, you can understand how Dad felt when he heard that you were going to use a witness to malign Frank Griffith.’

‘And how did Dad feel ?’ he said, mimicking her.

Her features had become rigid. ‘Are you being sarcastic?’

Dad’s daughter, wow, he thought. He had stepped in where angels fear to tread. He changed his tone. ‘I just want to know how your father felt about that.’

‘That’s better. I’ll tell you how he felt. He felt concerned enough to pay a visit to Mr Griffith and to reveal to him what you were up

to - to forewarn a friend, to prepare him for any libel Mrs Vogler might be spouting forth. Then Dad called me from Griffith’s office, and he made it clear to me that Griffith was furious with Mrs Vogler and just as furious with you for even considering using that harridan publicly in court. Dad was convinced, after his talk with Frank Griffith, that Mrs Vogler is a psychopathic liar, a really dangerous person to have around - unreliable, fishwifey, a troublemaker, resentful of every employer who’s ever fired her for having those faults, and, like all those domestics who are forever brooding about their lot in life, a paranoiac who just wants to have revenge on her betters.’

‘I see,’ said Barrett. He was beginning to see a good deal, and he was beginning to see that this was an important meeting between Faye and himself. ‘So your father believes Frank Griffith, and you do, too?’

‘Don’t you, now that you’ve heard this? If it’s that wretched woman’s word against the word of someone with Mr Griffith’s integrity, can there be any choice?’

‘Because he’s one of her betters?’

‘What did you say, Mike? I didn’t hear you.’

‘Nothing, it was nothing.’

‘Anyway, after Dad saw Mr Griffith and called me, he asked me to call you. He wanted me to speak to you about the whole thing. Then, when I phoned Dad back to say you’d agreed to delay your trip to see me, Dad said he wanted to talk to me first before I met you. So that was at dinner and after, and that was why I was late.’

‘So now you’ve told me,’ said Barrett.

‘Not quite, Mike, not all of it. I haven’t told you yet what Dad discussed with me at dinner.’

Barrett took up his drink, almost drained the glass of Scotch, and now he was ready. ‘Okay, tell me.’

She sat perfectly erect, and she looked businesslike, as businesslike as Willard Osborn II had ever been. ‘Mike, we’re too close to beat around the bush. I’ve always been forthright with you, and I assume you’ve always been the same way with me. So I’ll simply say what I’ve come here to say, and I know you’ll take it the way it’s meant, because I know you are inherently responsible and have a strong sense of decency. And I know I can speak out frankly because Dad likes you and I care for you, and we believe you feel the same way about us.’

Us. He heard the us. All right, us, let’s have it. ‘What do you want to say to me, Faye?’

She moved the straws around the melting shaved ice in her drink.

‘It comes to this,’ she said. ‘Dad wants me to tell you that any thought you have of using Isabel Vogler on the witness stand is out of the question. He simply cannot let you go ahead with it, not only for Mr Griffith’s sake but for your own. He was positive you’d understand, and I promised him that I’d see that you did. Dad felt

that in going along with him you’d be making only the smallest compromise, the kind people in big business are used to making all the time, every day. When you’re irrthe driver’s seat, you get someone else to compromise. Then when you’re not, you compromise. It’s part of getting along, and getting things done smoothly, and getting ahead. It is part of his business, he said, and soon you’ll be an important man in his business, and so it is also to your advantage not to antagonize, let alone crucify, a friend upon whose goodwill you and Dad will often be dependent. Dad was certain you’d be reasonable about this, and I assured Dad that once I spoke to you there would be no problem.’

There it was.

And where was he ?

Memory had carted him back to his sophomore year in college, the year he had collected epigrams, aphorisms, quotations, snatches of sagacity to counsel and direct him and to make him the wiser. There had been intimations of reality when he had noted, courtesy of Juvenal, that integrity is praised, and starves. There had been a final understanding of self when he had realized that, even as Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, he was

Like one, that on a lonesome road Doth walk in fear and dread, And having once turned round walks on, And turns no more his head; Because he knows, a frightful fiend Doth close behind him tread.

At last he had seen the fiend. Once more, as so long ago, he walked in fear and dread. Dare he walk on, sure that never, never again would he turn his head?

He stared at her. The composed and confident face of the betters. He revived her command, daughter’s Dad’s command, that to use Isabel Vogler on the witness stand was out of the question. Dad was certain he’d be reasonable. Daughter had assured Dad that there would be no problem.