(1969) The Seven Minutes (48 page)

‘Maggie, there’s no need for you -‘

‘Let me get it off my chest while I can. Just take one thing. Yerkes wants Duncan to use Jerry as a witness against your book. That’s become a bad thing. And, while Jerry won’t discuss the night he tried to kill himself, he is constantly telling me he’ll try it again before he’ll go on the witness stand. He’s petrified by the very thought of it. Jerry isn’t capable of resisting his father any longer, so he speaks only to me and to the psychoanalyst about his fear. But it’s not as if Uncle Frank doesn’t know what he’s doing to the boy. He’s heard from Dr Trimble what an ordeal public exposure in a courtroom would be for Jerry. Nevertheless, Uncle Frank remains adamant. Goddammit, he keeps saying, his son is going to be a man, stand up there like a man and speak out to the world about what your book did to him. Uncle Frank’s pretense is that he is demanding this of Jerry to help the boy save himself from the rape charge. But I think all Uncle Frank is doing this for, consciously or unconsciously, is to save his own face and image by diverting everyone’s mind from his personal responsibility for Jerry’s behavior. I think it’s a selfish act, not a fatherly act. He’s sacrificing his son to save himself. And I simply can’t let it happen.’

‘What can you do about it, Maggie?’

‘Maybe not much. Maybe a lot. Jerry doesn’t have to appear as a witness if he doesn’t want to, does he?’

Barrett shook his head. ‘No. Oh, Duncan could subpoena him.

But he wouldn’t risk it if Jerry promised to be an uncooperative witness-, no, it is up to Jerry whether he appears or not.’

‘It’s not up to Jerry. It’s up to his father. And it’s up to me to see that his father doesn’t push him into this - and over the brink of sanity. I’ve been tempted to take Jerry’s part a dozen times in these past days. I’ve been afraid, I admit. Afraid maybe of endangering my own security. But what you’ve told me about Uncle Frank’s manipulation of Isabel Vogler makes me furious. I’m almost ready to speak up come what may. I hope I can get drunk enough one night to do it. How much time have I got ?’

‘Probably until the middle of next week.’

‘I’ll do it yet.’

‘Do you think anything you say can possibly make Frank Griffith change his mind ?’

‘Yes.’ She paused. ‘Telling him that Jerry has tried to commit suicide might.’

‘You think you could tell your uncle that ?’ Barrett did not conceal his doubt.

‘I think so. I’m not sure. I’m only sure that if Uncle Frank is told about it, and knows his pressure may drive Jerry to another attempt, that might make him stop. The possibilities of a scandal like that might outweigh whatever is driving him to put his son on the stand.’

‘Maggie, even though you’d be doing this for Jerry - and I’d profit from it as well by not having Jerry as a witness against us -I would think it over carefully before having it out with Frank Griffith.’

‘Why?’

‘Because, win or lose, you’d make your own position in the Griffith household untenable. And I’m not sure you’re ready to leave there. You yourself told me you needed them. That’s why you’re there.’

‘Well, I’m not so sure I need that kind of horrible incubator any longer. I may be ready to risk flying on my own. I’m here in public with you, am I not? That’s a step. A small defiance. A shred of courage.’

‘I wondered.’

‘About what?’

‘Why you took the risk.’

‘You asked me,’ she said simply. She brushed a strand of hair away from her eyes. ‘I like you, that’s why mostly.’

‘And I care for you, Maggie. That must be very apparent to you.’

‘Oh, that. You’re on the rebound.’

‘I was attracted to you before the rebound.’

“The polygamous male,’ she said. But she had smiled. ‘I won’t hide this. I’m glad you’re through with that other female. Or are you?’

‘Am I glad or through? Both. Yes, especially glad that I’m

through. It’s finished and done.’

She toyed with a ring on her index finger. There’s another reason I’m here. Despite what it may have done to Jerry - and, as you say, we can’t be sure that’s all of it - I’m for Jadway and I’m for The Seven Minutes. I’ve told you so before. I wanted to stand up with you in public and be counted.’

That instant he wanted to say, Maggie, I love you. He said, “That’s wonderful of you.’

‘Now that you’ve lost Mrs Vogler, I wish I could find someone else to help you prove the book alone shouldn’t be blamed for Jerry’s deed. But there is no one else who can tell the truth -except … myself. And - and I could go far, but not that far, not as far as the witness stand. You understand.’

‘I wouldn’t allow you to be a defense witness even if you wanted to be one.’

‘I find it unbearable, the crude things I hear and read against Jadway’s book. I keep thinking of the heroine, Cathleen, and the real woman, Jadway’s mistress, the one they say inspired Cathleen -‘

‘Cassie McGraw.’

‘How I envy her having been so liberated about loving, her having been so freed as to experience total love. Most women go their entire lives, to the very grave, without knowing even a small bit of love or being able to accept or appreciate what little love they do get.’

‘What about you, Maggie?’ Barrett asked quietly. ‘Could you feel toward a man the way Cassie did - or let’s say the way Cathleen did in the story?’

Maggie looked away. ‘I don’t know. When I think of Cathleen in that book, I sometimes think maybe I could be like that. I mean, that I have it all locked inside me, and I could find myself opening up and giving someone, the right partner, all of me, everything of me, and, in turn, being able to accept and embrace the love given to me. I hope one day I can have my own seven minutes.’

‘If you want such love enough, you’ll have it one day,’ he said seriously.

She gave an embarrassed shrug. ‘We’ll see…. And do you see what time it is? If you’re going to be in shape for Monday, you should have been in bed an hour ago, especially considering what’s happened to you. I hope you’ll be sensible and rest tomorrow.’

‘I’m afraid not tomorrow, or any day until the trial’s done. We’ve got an Italian painter, da Vecchi, who claims to have known Jadway and done a portrait of him, coming in from Florence tomorrow. And a half-dozen other witnesses to interrogate further.’

‘Well, try to get some rest.’

Barrett stood up and pulled back the table to make room for her to rise. ‘And you think twice before tangling with Frank Griffith,’ he said.

‘Only if he sees the light before,’ she said. ‘Maybe I’ll work on Dr Trimble first. God, I am a coward. But something will be done.’

Barrett scooped up his change and then caught up with Maggie as she reached the aisle between the bar and the exit. There he took her arm, and as he did so he saw that she had recognized someone at the bar.

From the middle of the crowded bar, a young man with curly rumpled hair that was badly in need of a barber, but wearing an expensive silk suit, was waving to Maggie energetically. ‘Hiya, Miss Russell!’ he called out.

She raised her gloved hand tentatively. ‘Hi,’ she said without enthusiasm.

Then she pivoted quickly and hastened down the steps and outside. Once again Barrett had to catch up with her.

On the sidewalk in front of La Scala, Barrett inspected her. She was gnawing her lower lip, and her face had gone pale.

‘Who was that ?’ he wanted to know.

‘Irwin Blair,’ she said. ‘He’s a public-relations man. He’s in the Luther Yerkes stable, doing some of the publicity on Duncan.’ She smiled weakly. ‘Wherever Yerkes is, you can be sure Frank Griffith is not far away.’

‘I’m damn sorry about that, Maggie. I shouldn’t have brought you here.’ He frowned. ‘Is this going to mean trouble for you?’

‘I don’t know and I don’t care.’ This time her smile was full and it was real. She took his hand. ‘Whatever happens, it was worth it.’

It was late, and Elmo Duncan had begun to think that this was a helluva way to spend a Friday night.

Worse, tomorrow would be busier, and Sunday would be no day of rest. All weekend, from dawn to late at night, Duncan would be meeting in the Hall of Justice with his staff, his investigators, Leroux, and other prosecution witnesses. Finally, with the coming of Monday morning, the roulette wheel would spin and he would be laying his career and his future on the table.

Yet, even though he was now weary to the very marrow of his bones, Elmo Duncan knew that when the gavel fell on Monday morning and the trial opened he would be refreshed and strong. It had always been thus in his past experience. Time and again he had come into the courtroom suffering fatigue of mind and body, but, once the trial began, it seemed that some hidden reservoir began to feed him from its store of energy, and he was revitalized and revived. One part of this came, he supposed, from having an audience. Spectators, the press, the faceless audience beyond the boundaries of the courtroom always stimulated him, and he might never possess a larger audience than on Monday morning and in the days to follow. Another part of the rejuvenation process sprang from the excitement of challenge, to which he always responded as if his self-preservation, the lives of himself and his family, were at

stake. He liked an opponent he could see and hate, and he would cast this enemy as a murderer who was out to destroy him, so that he was forced to kill to prevent being killed. Lately he had begun to regard Michael Barrett, the defense attorney, as such an enemy. A third part of Duncan’s renewed vigor derived from a dedication to his cause. He had to believe that his prosecution was just, that his fight was holy, and that if he did not succeed then the great mass of people who depended upon him would be swept away by the barbarians. Rarely before had he believed so absolutely in a cause he represented. He knew that the fiendish hordes of lust and decadence had to be stopped (it was as if he were the guardian to the gates of Rome as the ravaging Numidian cavalry of the Carthaginian army approached) if civilization, meaning law and order and morality, were to be preserved.

Yet, most of all, what set Duncan’s adrenal glands secreting, what sparked him to life in a courtroom, was the confidence that he was better prepared and better armed than his enemy. And never in his life had he been as confident as he was tonight. Key skirmishes had been won before the final battle had even begun, and the enemy’s ranks had been seriously weakened, if not decimated. Conversely, his own ranks had been powerfully strengthened. There had been serious defections from the other side. By what means he did not know or wish to know. He could guess, but he would not seek confirmation. Luther Yerkes was the keeper of the magic. All was fair in love and war, and this was war, this was war for survival. In the ledger that he posted in his head, the enemy had no star witness. While he, Elmo Duncan, had not one but two. He had Christian Leroux and he had Jerry Griffith, and this was an excess of riches.

Yet, despite these reassurances that he would be ready and effective on Monday, this was still late Friday night and he was exhausted.

His mind had wandered, but hearing Jerry Griffith mentioned once more across the coffee table, Elmo Duncan tried to give the other two in the deep armchairs his undivided attention. There was Luther Yerkes, resplendent as ever in his blue-tinted glasses and his ascot and smoking jacket, patting bis hairpiece, then gesticulating with one tiny feminine hand at Frank Griffith. There was Griffith, in the other armchair, his beefy countenance absorbed and his athlete’s body straining against the side of the chair to catch every word his superior was addressing to him. To Duncan’s knowledge, this was the first time that Griffith had been invited to attend a conference in Yerkes’ beach house in Malibu colony.

Earlier, the other two regulars had been present. The jumpy publicity man, Irwin Blair, had been here, but only briefly. He had already done the hardest of his work, developing citywide, statewide, nationwide, and, finally, worldwide interest in the forthcoming trial. Once the trial was under way, the publicity would be self—

perpetuating. Blair had made only a token appearance this evening and then had skipped out for a dinner date in Beverly Hills with several reporters who had just arrived from New York and London to cover the trial. Harvey Underwood had been on hand earlier and remained for several hours to discuss his testimony and the surprise witnesses he would supply. He had left only thirty minutes ago. Now there were Yerkes, Griffith, and himself, and Duncan speculated on how long the conference would go on.

Duncan could feel a twinge in his back, in the area of his sacroiliac, and he prayed it wouldn’t lead to a muscular spasm before the trial. He tensed as the pain shot up his spine, and then he remembered that (as his wife often reminded him) it was a recurring pretrial symptom. Once he was in court, once on his feet in court, his back would not betray him.

Yerkes and Griffith were still engrossed in conversation, and Duncan took the opportunity to leave the center of the ten-foot sofa and seek support for his aching back. Rising, he could hear a telephone ringing in another room. He stretched carefully, kneaded the lower muscles of his back, and sought a straight chair. Then he became aware that Yerkes’ Scottish butler had materialized.

‘Mr Yerkes, sir, excuse me -‘ the butler began.

Yerkes lifted bis head with faint annoyance. ‘What is it?’

Telephone for you, sir. Mr Irwin Blair wishes to speak to you.’

‘Blair ? Can’t it wait until - Oh, very well, I’ll take it. Forgive me, Frank. Let’s find out what Irwin thinks is so important.’

Yerkes pushed himself out of the chair, planted himself before the green boxes on the table, and pressed the Speakerphone’s on button.

“That you, Irwin?’ he called down into the machine.

Irwin Blair’s voice came honking through the amplifier. ‘Mr Yerkes, sorry to interrupt, but I just saw something that I thought you and Mr Griffith, if he’s still there, would want to know about.’

‘Mr Griffith is here. So is Elmo Duncan. Go ahead. We’re listening.’

‘I’m calling from La Scala Restaurant in Beverly Hills.’ Blair’s voice assumed the conspiratorial tone of someone about to transmit a choice piece of destructive gossip. ‘Guess who I saw here a few minutes ago? I was sitting at the bar, waiting for those reporter guests, just watching the door for them, when who comes out of the dining room but Maggie Russell, Mr Griffith’s niece. Only what I figured you should know is that she wasn’t alone, no, sir. Miss Russell had a date. You ready? None other than our esteemed member of the opposition, the attorney for the defense, Michael Barrett himself, in person.’