(1969) The Seven Minutes (76 page)

It was after four o’clock when she had returned to Pacific Palisades, and to her surprise Frank Griffith was home. He was at the telephone in his study, and his voice was booming cheerfully and Luthering all over the place, so she knew that he was speaking to that horrible Yerkes. Upstairs. Aunt Ethel was napping, and the door to Jerry’s room was locked from the inside, but she could hear his record player. She had changed quickly into the new sheath, a smasher, and then she had brushed her hair and freshened her make-up.

Now she was hastening down the stairs, just as Frank Griffith, his beefy sunburned face aglow with some kind of self-satisfaction, emerged from his study.

Seeing her, he waited at the foot of the staircase.

‘Hiya, Maggie girl. I heard you were in court this morning.’

She reached the bottom of the staircase. ‘How did you know?’

‘That was Luther Yerkes on the phone. Some of his lieutenants were in the courtroom, and they spotted you. I had no idea how we made out this morning until just now. I wanted to be on hand there, give Jerry some support, see for myself what was going on, but Dr Trimble vetoed it. He felt my presence would make Jerry too self-conscious. So I agreed to pass. Doctor’s orders. Anyway, I had some important business in San Diego. I was in conference down there all morning. But the second I was through, I thought I’d come straight back and find out what happened. I got home just after Jerry did, but that little snot son of mine wouldn’t tell me a thing. Just clammed up and locked himself in. How do you like that for gratitude - with all we’ve done for him? Once this trial is over, and his own case is settled, I’ll attend to him, straighten him out, teach him to show some respect.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means we’ve been too lax with him, coddling him, and you can see what results that brings. Never mind. He’ll be made to toe the mark in due time.’

His big country-club face had become ugly during the last, but the transformation was brief, for he was still reveling in his triumph. His exhilaration over the public victory quickly restored his good humor. Oh, Lord, Maggje thought, how I hate that man.

‘Anyway, first things first,’ he boomed. ‘We won, and that’s what counts. Luther Yerkes just gave me a complete rundown on what happened this morning. I knew we’d make those shysters on the defense fold up, and sure enough, they did.’ Jubilantly he put an arm around Maggie’s waist and began to steer her into the living room. ‘Come on, Maggie, you were there. Now I want to hear what you think of it. I can’t hear enough of it.’

Maggie resented his grip, but not until they reached the middle of the living room was she able to free herself from him.

‘What do you want to hear?’ she asked.

‘How Elmo made them cry Uncle, and how Jerry handled himself. Was my name mentioned?’

‘I don’t recall. As for Jerry, he stood up wonderfully. I was proud of him.’

‘I told you he would. From now on you’ll listen to me. All these weeks, you and Ethel fluttering around him, whining about keeping him off the stand, treating him like some invalid, when from the start I knew there was more in him, plenty of gumption like his old man. Now you’ve got to admit I was right in the end, don’t you?’ ’

‘I’ll admit nothing of the sort, Uncle Frank. It was a terrible ordeal for Jerry. You should have seen him. He only survived it because - because Mr Barrett didn’t cross-examine him.’

‘Hogwash. He’d have put down your friend Barrett too. Why do you think Barrett closed shop and ran ? Why do you think he quit ? He quit because he knew Elmo Duncan and our side had him whipped, and we’d prepared Jerry for him, and he couldn’t get anywhere. So he waived the crossexamination - trying to make a bid for public sympathy, as Luther put it - but the fact is, and I’m sorry if this offends you, Maggie girl, but you’ll find out for yourself sooner or later, the fact is your friend Barrett was gutless and afraid. That’s why he backed away from the crossexamination.’

She had listened to Griffith with incredulity. For a person in his position, the degree of his stupidity and insensitivity was beyond belief. Hatred of his dumb arrogance almost gagged her. All these weeks of pent-up, repressed resentments pounded inside her, demanding to be heard. What was it he had said? That Mike was gutless, afraid?

She found her voice. ‘It wasn’t because Mr Barrett was afraid that he didn’t cross-examine. It was because he was - he was decent and kind, among other reasons.’

‘Decent and kind ?’ Griffith threw back his head and gave a roar of laughter. “That’s the best one I’ve heard yet. A shyster attorney, working for a fee, refusing to try to score a point because he’s -what was it ? - ho! - decent and kind.’ He wagged his head. ‘Maggie

girl, you know as little about human nature as your mother did. Less, maybe. Listen to me, young lady, and grow up. I’m in the business of knowing about people. And you’ll thank me one day for warning you in time. That shyster friend of yours hasn’t got an ounce of guts in his whole body.’

‘He’s got as much guts as you have,’ she flared. It was all too much. She’d had enough. It was time to let go. ‘If you want the truth, the reason Mike Barrett didn’t cross-examine Jerry was that /asked him not to, and there were other reasons, and one of these was that Mike understands your own son better than you do. He was ready to sacrifice a part of his case, his trial, because he agreed with me that Jerry’s future was at stake, and that’s more than you were ready to do or understand.’

Frank Griffith’s face grew ugly again. ‘Look, young lady, you’re getting a little out of line there. Don’t you go comparing me to that stud of yours. He didn’t cross-examine Jerry because you asked him not to ? You expect me to believe that ? Why should he listen to you when his whole career’s riding on this trial ? Or maybe - no, I got it - maybe you have a way of making men listen to you, eh Maggie? Maybe some men will do anything for a little piece of nooky?’

The last had been spoken viciously, and Maggie wanted to strike him. Had she been a man, she would have had him by the throat. But it was precisely because she was a woman that he had tried to degrade her.

‘That’s rotten of you,’ she said, ‘really rotten.’

He was not through. ‘Even if I can see what’s in it for Barrett, what I want to know is what’s in it for you, Maggie girl ? What would you be after?’

‘How can I speak to you?’ Her voice was quavering. ‘You won’t try to understand. Both Mike and I are essentially out to win one thing. A chance to live at peace with our consciences. No matter what else I might have offered Mike Barrett, his final decision had to be based on the one thing I haven’t seen around here lately - a sense of decency.’ Oh, she wanted to destroy that big, smug, smirking, filthy-minded goon. ‘You want to know how it happened ? I’ll be glad to let you in on it. I went to Mike Barrett and I told him that you and your upper-bracket-Mafia friends were going to force Jerry to stand in the witness box, even though Jerry begged you not to force him. But you were determined to make him do it, to put the blame for Jerry’s condition on the book. And I told Mike Barrett what he already was aware of, that Jerry was sick and suicidal, and that if he managed to survive Duncan’s examination he’d never be able to come through Mike’s crossexamination. I reminded Mike that he had seen Jerry try to kill himself once, and now the defense investigators had learned Jerry’s secret, that he had tried to kill himself another time, before that book came out, and now, in his condition, if the ordeal in the court was too much, he’d try to kill himself again - and this time he might succeed.’

Frank Griffith had turned livid. ‘What kind of bullshit is that?’ he bellowed. ‘Where did you pick up that line of crap? From your pornographer friends?’

‘Can’t you face the truth once in your life? We’re not talking about the fairy tales you deal with in your advertising world. We’re talking about your son’s life, and the truth about it. The defense investigators found out that Jerry had suffered a breakdown and tried to do away with himself last year. And a couple of weeks ago Jerry took an overdose of sleeping pills in his car, and Mike Barrett happened to find him in time to save him.’

‘So that’s it! Your source for all that bullshit is your shyster friend Barrett, eh? I should have known it. I should have known he’d try anything. Even to making up that suicide bit, and planting it in your head to brainwash you, and telling you he saved Jerry - he saved Jerry ? ha! - so you’d be beholden to him. What a crummy, scurvy trick to get you to work on Ethel to work on me to keep Jerry off the stand as a witness, so that your Barrett could win the trial. And you fell for it, you actually fell for it.’

It was the moment for the entire truth. It was the moment to say that this had not come from Barrett alone. That it was she herself who had saved Jerry after his first suicide attempt, and she who had taken him up to San Francisco for therapy. That it was she herself who had brought Jerry home from the doctor’s house, after Barrett had called her about the second attempt. Yet she could not bear to speak of this last truth. Griffith would not believe her, anyway. He could not afford to believe her. Worse, he would immediately fall upon his son either to repudiate what she’d said or to confess to it - one way or another he’d bedevil Jerry further - and in the end Frank Griffith would still believe only what he wanted to believe, and the one loser would be Jerry.

‘I’ve told you the whole truth,’ she said finally. ‘If you can’t accept it, that’s too bad, for you and for Jerry.’

Frank Griffith glared at her. ‘If I had any sense, I’d kick you out of here right now, this second. But now I can see that your misbehavior and your foul tongue are not really you, and since you’re not yourself you’re not responsible for what you say. You’ve been influenced by that clip artist Barrett, used and manipulated by him, so that you no longer know what you’re saying and what is true or not true. So maybe I’ll give you another chance, young lady. Just maybe. Because it’s not my son’s condition I’m worried about. It’s your condition and the trouble you might get into, being as unbalanced as you are, and that might involve all of us, because you are our responsibility.’

The hell you’re worried about me, buster, Maggie thought. What you’re worried about, if you kick me out of here, is having another antagonist on the outside who might go around telling people what Frank Griffith is really like.

But she did not speak her mind. She waited.

‘At the same time, I’m not letting you off so easy, young lady, not after your performance in this room just now,’ Griffith went on, still trying to control his fury. ‘I think I should tell you that you’d better make up your mind damn fast whose camp you are in, which side you are on, where your loyalties belong. I think you better remember damn fast that I’m the one who’s been supporting you, paying you, keeping you in clover, and putting up with more than any other relative ever would, and you’d better decide if you appreciate this and are on my side or their side.’

‘I’m on neither side,’ she said. ‘I’m not on your side, and I’m not on Mike Barrett’s. I’m on Jerry’s side. I’m for whoever and whatever is good for him.’

‘So, it’s only for him now, for Jerry, eh? Well, I’m not buying that either, young lady. I can see it all coming into focus now. Jerry isn’t, and never was, the real issue in your mind. You tell me you’re for the boy, just so you can hold on to your cushiony life in this house, but at the same time you got the hots for that shyster stud, that big bold sex crusader who’s been humping you and keeping you tranquilized below while he’s brainwashing you on top and sending you back here every night to play his little Trojan horse in this house. Well, let me tell you something, young lady. I’ve had enough of that, and I’ll have no more. You’re not playing both sides of the street, not from here on in, not when the stakes are this high. There’s only one side, my side, see, and either you’re on it or out you go. I’m giving you no choice, and I think I’m being damn sporting and fair about it. I’ll put it another way. You want a place to eat and live - and you’ll never find a better one - you want to stay among your relatives, and, as you say, you want to be near Jerry ? you want that ? Okay, then from now on you do as I tell you. And what I’m telling you is - no more Mike Barrett. If you see that shyster again, even once, you’re kaput, fired, out on your ass. Right now, from this moment on, I’m ordering you not to see him. If you go out to see him, sister, you just stay out and don’t bother to come back. Now, there you have it.’

Maggie felt herself trembling. ‘You’ve no right to tell me what I can or can’t do socially. I’m not in bondage. And I’m not a charity case. I work, I work hard for my pay, and I deserve time off and the freedom to spend that time as I wish. I’m not a chattel of yours, like your wife and son are. I’m me and I’m my own person. I can see any man I choose to see. If the man’s name happens to be Mike Barrett, I’ll see him. As a matter of fact, I intend to see him today.’

T don’t give a damn what you intend. I’ve laid down the law that’s going to be observed in my house. If you’ve got a date with Barrett, you’d better cancel it damn quick, and cancel him out of your life just as quick - if you want to stay on here. But if you’re going out there to see Barrett today, you better pack your bags first. Now, Maggie girl, it’s up to you. I want your answer right now. Are you going or are you staying ?’

She wanted to spit in his face. She wanted to run from him. She wanted to be liberated from his oppression forever.

And she wanted Mike Barrett - if he still wanted her, after today.

But then her mind traveled upstairs, and on its way to her room and the packing, it paused outside Jerry’s room.

The worst days for Jerry might be those immediately ahead.

How could she abandon the boy to this monster right now?

She teetered on the dilemma.

What was that old story that ended with the question mark?

“The Lady or the Tiger’ ?

Yes.

Now - which? And - what would happen then?

Not until five-fifteen did Mike Barrett seriously begin to worry.

He had reached his office before five o’clock, but had expected no messages from Maggie Russell, and Donna had confirmed that there had been none. Nor had he expected Maggie to appear promptly at five, as they had agreed, because many women (especially the most feminine of them) are rarely on time, and he suspected Maggie was one of these.