(1969) The Seven Minutes (22 page)

Sanford shrugged. ‘I doubt if there’s anything I can add. However, I’ll be glad to ran through it again. Two years ago my father sent me to represent him at the Frankfurt Book Fair. I was taken to dinner one night by an old friend of my father’s, Herr Karl Graeber, who owns a solid and well-known publishing house in Munich. We got to discussing the new freedom in writing and publishing, and Graeber said it was a good thing, because soon many works that had long deserved publication might find their way to the public. He mentioned several such works, but the one he admired first and foremost was something called The Seven Minutes. He had hoped to publish it himself, in the period just as Hitler was coming to power, but that had been impossible and he’d been lucky to flee with his life. Since he was re-established in Germany, I asked him why he didn’t undertake it once more. He said that by now he was too old to begin a fight against the Bonn conservatives, and, besides, he was now specializing in textbooks and religious books, and a book such as Jadway’s in his catalogue might harm the rest of his list. Graeber felt that there was far more freedom in America, and hence the book was more likely to have its first accepted public appearance in our country. He felt also that my father’s imprint might give the book a certain protection. I asked who owned the rights to The Seven Minutes. Graeber said he had heard that Leroux had sold the rights to some small borderline publisher in New York named Norman C. Quandt. Graeber located a copy of the Etoile edition and asked me to show it to Wesley R., my father. I was already bringing a number of new books back from the Frankfurt Fair, and so I added the Jadway book to the rest of them. I took a ship home, and since there was plenty of time to read, and what Graeber had told me about the Jadway novel titillated me, I read it. Before I even finished it, I knew that it was nothing I could show my father. It just wasn’t his type of literature. So I showed him the other books I’d found, but not this one. Then last year, as you know, my father fell ill, and I was temporarily put in charge of Sanford House. I was eager to find something unusual and provocative, and I remembered the Jadway book. I thought the timing was right. So I looked up Norman C. Quandt.’

‘He was in New York?’ asked Kimura, brandishing a ballpoint pen.

‘He had offices right on Forty-fourth Street. I saw him there. Quandt was nothing more than a mail-order publisher of hard-core pornography, original paperbacks that specialized in sadism, and masochism. And he was in trouble. He had just been tried in a United States district court on charges brought by the Postmaster General that he was mailing obscene matter.He had been found guilty. He was appealing the lower-court decision and hoping to bring the matter before the United States Supreme Court. He was pressed for money to fight his case, and he was more than happy to sell off his rights to The Seven Minutes. Within three days the contracts were drawn and signed, and I had the Jadway book for five thousand dollars. That’s all I can tell you, Leo. I’m afraid I’ve given you nothing new.’

Kimura had been checking Sanford’s recital with the pages before him. ‘And after that you never saw Quandt again?’

‘Never,’ said Sanford. ‘I followed his appeal to the Supreme Court, of course. As we know, the Supreme Court, purely on a technicality, reversed the decision of the lower court by a five-to-four vote. Quandt was acquitted. Of course, he took an awful beating in the appeals. It was clear he’d been running a shoddy operation, pandering to the most perverted tastes, and I suppose he knew better than to tangle with die postal authorities again. Anyway, when I was getting ready to publish The Seven Minutes, and we needed more jacket copy on Jadway, I thought Quandt might be able to help. You know, I figured he might have heard something from Leroux. So I did call Quandt. He was no longer at the old stand. That’s when I learned he’d given up publishing and moved to Pittsburgh -‘

‘It says Philadelphia here,’ said Kimura.

‘I’m sorry. Yes, Philadelphia. I couldn’t locate him there either, and I had no idea what business he was in by then.’

‘He is in the motion-picture business and he is in Southern California now,’ said Kimura.

Barrett sat up. ‘No kidding, Leo ? When did you find that out ?’

‘Today. But unfortunately there is no Quandt listed in our telephone directories.’

‘If he’s in the movie business, he shouldn’t be hard to find,’ said Zelkin.

For the first time, Kimura smiled faintly. ‘Mr Zelkin, there are movies and there are movies. Anyway, I have some leads, and I expect one should eventually bring us to Mr Quandt.’

Sanford had turned worriedly to Barrett. ‘Mike, you’re not thinking of putting that Quandt on the witness stand if you find him, are you?’

‘Heaven forbid,’ said Barrett. ‘No. But he might provide us with

some vital information on Jadway’s life. In fact, the very information you’d hoped to get from him before, something he might have heard from Leroux.’ Barrett directed himself to Kimura once more. ‘Which brings us to our most important witness. What’s the word on Leroux?’

‘Christian Leroux,’ said Kimura, savoring the name. ‘I was keeping him for last.’ He shuffled his notes, until he had found what he wanted. ‘Christian Leroux. Most hopeful. I have just heard from our man in Paris. He tracked Leroux to an apartment on the Left Bank. A hundred-franc tip to the concierge produced the information that Leroux had just gone off to the Riviera and had made a reservation at the Hotel Balmoral in Monte Carlo. He should be there any - well, he should have arrived already. Our Paris man hired a private detective in Nice, a Monsieur Dubois, and fully instructed him. This Dubois drove up to Monte Carlo. He will be in the Hotel Balmoral waiting for Leroux to check in.’

‘Very thorough,’ said Barrett. ‘And most hopeful, Leo, as you put it.’

‘Wonderful, wonderful,’ said Sanford, plucking a cigarette from a patch pocket of his canvas jacket.

Kimura had separated a clipped sheaf of notes from the other papers. ‘As to the Griffith family, I have not been able to add substantially to the dossier we have assembled. A few more facts on the backgrounds of Frank Griffith, his wife, Ethel Griffith. No further data on the niece who lives with them, Margaret or Maggie Russell. No chinks in the family armor - yet.’

‘What about the boy?’ inquired Zelkin.

‘I was coming to him,’ said Kimura, flipping the pages. ‘I am afraid we will have to press our investigation harder. I have a start -‘

‘A start ?’ wailed Zelkin. ‘We’ll be selecting a jury in a couple of days. The minute the jury is impaneled, sworn in, the trial begins.’

‘Unless one has a start, there can never be a finish,’ said Kimura. ‘Forgive me, but there is a difficulty in researching one who is still of college age. With a short life, there is no long history. We are acquainted with certain facts. Jerry Griffith was an honor student in prep school. He is now in his third year of college, and he is not doing so well academically. I visited UCLA today. I remembered there are counselors for the students. I was able to find Jerry Griffith’s counsellor. She said she couldn’t discuss Jerry - there’s a rule against giving out information on any student unless there’s clearance from on high. So I went through the required procedure and finally got this clearance from the Dean of the College of Letters and Science. The counselor was notified that she could discuss Jerry with any person from our office. That was a start.’

Kimura’s painstaking, detailed account was making Barrett restless. ‘What did the counselor have to say, Leo?’

‘Once the clearance came, she was eager to be entirely cooperative. It turned out she has had several meetings with Jerry and is most disturbed by what he has done. Because there are so few sources to give us information on Jerry I felt that she was too important for me to interrogate. I felt it would be better if you or Mr Zelkin saw her. She is a Mrs Henrietta Lott. I have arranged an appointment for either one of you this afternoon. Mrs Lott will be extremely busy later in the week, so I thought I must take advantage of her readiness to discuss Jerry today.’ He pulled free a slip of paper and held it out tentatively. ‘Her name, office number - the academic counselors’ offices are in the Administration Building -and the time of the appointment. I hope one of you -‘

Barrett reached for the slip. ‘I’ll take it,’ he said to Zelkin. ‘I intended to drop by UCLA later in the afternoon, anyway. They’ve got a sharp English department, and I want to learn whether any member of the faculty understands the book well enough to talk about it sympathetically in court. Before that, I’m going to look in on Ben Fremont.’

‘And I’ll be out pounding the pavements, too,’ said Zelkin.

‘Leo,’ said Barrett to Kimura, ‘you’d better stick close to the office, or let Donna know where she can find you if you go out, so we don’t miss that call from Monte Carlo. Once we’ve got that French publisher, we’ve got a real chance. Here comes the food now… . Well, Phil, old boy, how does it feel to be where the action is?’

Sanford stretched and beamed. ‘It’s beginning to feel good, now that I can see what’s being done. I tell you, if that District Attorney - Duncan - if Duncan knew half of what we’re doing, he’d throw in the towel.’

Barrett removed his sunglasses and made a wry face. ‘Don’t be too sure of that. If we knew half of what he is doing, we might want to kill ourselves. One thing you can bet on. Elmo Duncan isn’t sitting on his hands.’

For Elmo Duncan, the telephone call and the summons early this morning had been unexpected, and his presence here this early afternoon, in this renowned prelate’s office, had about it an air of the strange and the mysterious.

Waiting now in the Chancery office for the appearance of His Eminence, Cardinal MacManus, the District Attorney was again conscious of the empty velour armchair facing the portrait of the Pope that hung on an otherwise barren wall. When the Cardinal’s secretary had escorted him into this room, Duncan had been told that every prince of the Church had such a chair facing a portrait of the Pope, a chair kept ready should His Holiness ever pay an unexpected visit in person. Tradition.

Elmo Duncan continued his survey of the Chancery office. Every decoration gave the impression of venerable age and continuity. Again, tradition. Rich damask draperies framed the windows. The

fireplace hearth was charred, blackened by years of providing warmth. On the old desk, atop a pedestal, stood a driftwood cross bearing a drooping carved figure of the Saviour, a crucifix which might have been carried by Junipero Serra in his trampings through California.

Only one inharmonious object intruded. This on the prince’s desk also. A flashy late-model dictating machine. The same model that Duncan had in his very own office.

Although somewhat reassured that he and the prince of the Church might have more in common than he had feared, Duncan still felt uneasy. He yearned for a cigarette. But as a Protestant in the inner headquarters of the Los Angeles diocese of the Catholic Church, he had no idea of the restrictions or, indeed, of the Cardinal’s personal quirks. Duncan decided not to smoke.

Once more Duncan speculated on the early-morning summons.

The telephone call had come from the Very Reverend Monsignor Voorhes.

‘District Attorney Duncan?’ Monsignor Voorhes had introduced himself briskly. T am secretary to His Eminence, Cardinal MacManus, Archbishop of Los Angeles. I am telephoning at the personal request of Cardinal MacManus. It concerns a matter in which His Eminence has taken a considerable interest’

‘Yes?’

‘I refer to the forthcoming legal trial regarding the book The Seven Minutes, and your prosecution of this work. The Cardinal feels that your civic office and his church office may have a common goal in this affair and may benefit by mutually cooperating.’

‘Well, I - I’d certainly welcome cooperation from any source. But it’s not clear to me what you, or rather His Eminence has in mind.’

‘It would gratify the Church to have this work obliterated. The Cardinal feels he can achieve this end by being useful to your cause.’

‘Do you have anything specific in mind?’

‘Yes. That is the purpose of my call, Mr Duncan. His Eminence would like to meet with you at your earliest convenience to explain.’

‘I’d be glad to see him today.’

‘Excellent. Perhaps it would be wisest if the meeting were to take place in Cardinal MacManus’ Chancery office. We are located at 1519 West Ninth Street, near downtown Los Angeles. Would two o’clock this afternoon be satisfactory ?’

‘I’ll see that it is. You can tell His Eminence that I’ll be there at two. And be sure to let him know how much I appreciate his - his interest in this case.’

Later, when he had joined Luther Yerkes, Harvey Underwood, and Irwin Blair for a business lunch on the patio of Yerkes’ Bel-Air palace, Duncan had brought up the curious call and wondered what it could mean.

Yerkes had warned Duncan immediately not to expect any concrete evidence from Cardinal MacManus. ‘The Church has a continuing stake in censorship,’ Yerkes had said, ‘so he’ll probably assure you that you’ll have the Lord in your corner. Don’t expect more than that.’ Then the subject of Duncan’s appointment with Cardinal MacManus had been dismissed, because there was important work to be done. This very evening a fund-raising affair sponsored by the Strength Through Decency League was being held in the Grand Ballroom of the Beverly Hilton Hotel. The principal speaker, as arranged by Irwin Blair, would be District Attorney Elmo Duncan. The title of his speech would be ‘The Freedom to Corrupt.’ It was to the revising and strengthening of this prepared speech that the four of them had devoted the rest of the lunch hour.

And now Elmo Duncan stood in the Chancery office of the Los Angeles diocese, waiting to learn what the Cardinal would offer that might be ‘useful’ to his case. Would the offer be, as Yerkes had so cynically suggested, the blessings of the Lord? Or would it be something more substantial?

‘Mr Duncan, I am sorry to have kept you. How very kind of you to come.’

The voice had issued from the far corner of the office, and Duncan whirled around to see Cardinal MacManus shutting a door behind him as he lifted a welcoming hand. Duncan had seen the Cardinal’s picture in the newspapers frequently, and in these photographs he had always looked his age, which was seventy-eight. Now, though he wore a Roman collar and a black suit instead of his elaborate ceremonial vestments, he resembled the face and cleric in the photographs - the same cottony white hair, baggy eyes, wrinkled skin, hunched back.What was not the same, what was evident when seen in person, was the Cardinal’s alertness. Although limping, he advanced across the room rapidly, his sunken eyes lively, one bony hand vigorously brushing lint off his black jacket and the other hand extended.