(1969) The Seven Minutes (26 page)

Mrs Lott bent to her folder. ‘As a matter of fact,’ she said, ‘I have a note here that he has taken seven literature courses - rather, had taken five and is taking two now, or was, before he… when he dropped out of the university. Would you like the names of the classes and the instructors?’

She read them off slowly, as Barrett jotted down the details in his notebook. When she was done, Barrett looked up. “That last course,’ he said, ‘American Expatriate Literature, being taught by Dr Hugo Knight. That sounds promising. What’s it about?’

Mrs Lott was in her element now, and suddenly more self-assured. ‘It’s a popular course, and Dr Knight teaches it with great enthusiasm. Yes, Jerry had signed up for it, was taking it, until his trouble. It’s a shame he couldn’t see it through to the final exam and get credit for the course.’

‘What does Dr Knight cover in this course?’

The approach is clever. In his lectures Dr Knight tries to show how the expatriate experience, the feeling of alienation as well as the absorption of foreign mores and backgrounds, the experience of living and creating abroad, has affected the mainstream of American literature, from Nathaniel Hawthorne to Henry James to Ernest Hemingway. The youngsters seem to like it, I gather from my meetings with them, because Dr Knight rather fearlessly touches on the history and influences of those authors who were avant-garde and too realistic to be published in their native America. Instead they were published in Paris by Jack Kahane’s Obelisk Press, between 1931 and 1939, and by the Olympia Press which his son, Maurice Girodias, established in 1953. Between them, they published Frank Harris, Radclyffe Hall, Henry Miller, Lawrence Durrell, James Hanley, Jean Genet, William Burroughs, all at a time when no one else dared publish such authors. Of course, Dr Knight stresses the American authors.’

‘Do you happen to know whether the professor includes Editions

Etoile, founded by Christian Leroux, and the book I represent, The Seven Minutes, by J J Jadway, in his lectures ?’

‘I don’t see how he could have helped but refer to Jadway, at least in passing. You really should ask Dr Knight that question personally. I’m sure you’d find him cooperative. I could set up an appointment for you during his office hours.’

‘Like maybe today, Mrs Lott, this afternoon while I’m on the campus ? Dr Knight sounds as if he has the makings of an excellent witness.’

Almost with relief, Mrs Lott started to reach for her telephone, then thought better of it. ‘I should keep my line open for a call I’m expecting.’ She left her executive chair and hastened to the door. ‘I’ll be only a minute. Let me call Dr Knight’s office.’

Barrett stood up and massaged his back, and waited.

In less than a minute, Mrs Lott had returned. ‘You’re in luck, Mr Barrett. His next office period is a half hour from now. I told him who you were and what it is you wanted to know, and he said he’d be happy to make time for you. Here, let me jot down his location on the campus, and I’ll diagram the shortest way you can get there.’

As she wrote and drew her diagram, something else occurred to Barrett. He waited until she had handed him the piece of paper.

‘Just one more thing, Mrs Lott,’ he said. ‘There is someone else I’d like to see, if possible - and undergraduate, a close friend of Jerry Griffith’s. If he’s on campus, and if I could find out where, I’d like to talk to him in the half hour before seeing Dr Knight or right afterward. The young man’s name is George Perkins. I hate to bother you further, but -‘

‘No bother at all,’ said Henrietta Lott. ‘Let me see what I can find out.’

What she found out was that George Perkins, like Jerry, was a junior, a geology major, and he had a class at this very time. If he was attending his lecture, he could be reached. Mrs Lott wrote a note to the class instructor, requesting that he ask George Perkins to remain behind after the class was dismissed, and she suggested sending the note with an office secretary, who would bring him to meet Barrett.

Fifteen minutes later, Barrett stood at the edge of Dickson Plaza, the quad west of the old UCLA library building, overlooking the seemingly endless pitch of brick steps leading down toward the gymnasiums, and he tried to remain undistracted by the scrubbed, healthy girls swinging by as he watched for the return of his guide and hopefully the sight of George Perkins.

Suddenly he made out the secretary coming up the patterned walk before Royce Hall, and slouching along beside her was a big ungainly young man with tangled sandy hair and a shrub of beard, dressed in a turtleneck sweater, corduroy trousers, army fatigue boots. The girl halted, and Barrett realized that she was pointing

him out to the young man, and the young man nodded, and then she waved at Barrett and he waved back as she hurried away.

The young man was clumping across the quad, making his way toward Barrett. He shitted his textbooks from one arm to the other, and as he came nearer, Barrett could see that his beefy face was puzzled.

‘Hiya,’ he said. ‘I’m George Perkins. They said somebody wanted to see me. They didn’t tell me what about.’

‘I’m Michael Barrett. I’ll be glad to tell you what about.’ At the mention of Barrett’s name, George’s brow puckered, as if trying to place it. ‘You may have read my name in the papers,’ Barrett went on. ‘I’m the attorney for Ben Fremont, the bookseller who was arrested for selling The Seven Minutes’

“That’s right,’ muttered George Perkins. ‘Well, well -‘ But something had crossed his mind, and his expression became wary. ‘What do you want with me?’

‘Answers to a few questions, nothing more. I thought you might be able to help me out on something. I’m trying to get a fill-in on Jerry Griffith’s background. I was told you’re a friend of Jerry’s.’

‘No more than lots of others,’ said George, his manner guarded and suspicious. ‘I know him a little, see him around here once in a while. A couple of times he gave me a lift to my apartment. And that’s it.’

‘I was told you were close friends.’

‘Mister, you were told wrong. Naw, nothing like that. Sorry.’ He squinted off. ‘Look, mister, if you’ll excuse me now, I’ve got a chance to get a ride to my place. I better get down there.’

George Perkins started for the brick steps that brought one to the private street along the athletic fields, but Barrett caught up with him and then kept in stride with him. ‘Mind if 1 keep you company to your ride?’ said Barrett. ‘Maybe you can give me some leads.’

‘You’re wasting your time.’

‘Well, it’s my time, so let me waste it,’ said Barrett cheerfully, as he began descending the stairway alongside George Perkins. ‘So at least you know Jerry a little. Ever meet any members of his family ?’

‘Naw.’

‘Did you ever hear Jerry discuss his father?’

‘Nope.’

‘What did you hear Jerry talk about? Any favorite topic or subject?’

‘Nothing special. He’s a listener. We’re all listeners. Haven’t you heard, mister? We’re the generation that’s soaking it all in, so’s we know what not to do.’ He cast a mocking sidelong glance at Barrett. ‘We let others do the yakking.’

Barrett nodded good-naturedly. ‘Bully for you. Maybe listeners are also readers. I was told Jerry Griffith read a lot.’

‘Everybody reads a lot if they want to stick in school.’

‘Did you ever see Jerry reading or hear him discuss The Seven Minutes?’

‘Maybe. I don’t remember. He was big on Hesse the Hermann. But that Jadway thing, that just came out, didn’t it? I probably haven’t seen Jerry since that came out, so how would I know if he discussed it ? The paper says he read it, so you know as much as I know.’

‘When did you last see Jerry Griffith ?’

George Perkins went down the remaining flight of stairs silently. Then he said, ‘Maybe about a week before he hopped that broad.’

‘Have you seen him since, George?’

‘No, and I wouldn’t want to very much, either.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because he’s given sex a bad name. What kind of guy is it -with all the pussy around - who tries to get it that way ? Imagine getting it that way today ?’

“That’s what mystifies many of us.’

‘Well, I gotta go along with Jerry on what he says. He says that book of vours sent him off into orbit. Well, they’re always yakking about the power of the press, so here we see the power. Sounds like that book of yours can give a guy a better trip than LSD.’

They had reached the bottom of the stairs. Barrett saw that any further talk would be useless. ‘I guess that does it, George. I appreciate your help.’

‘You’re putting me on. What help?’

‘At least I’ve learned Jerry hasn’t got any friends - now.’

‘Oh, yeah.’

‘Maybe one of his professors can tell me a little more. I understand he had a class with Dr Hugo Knight. Know anything about Knight?’

‘Fagsville. And a horse’s ass besides.’

‘How do I get to bis office from here?’

George Perkins jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “The same way you came down. Only this time up. I hope you had a cardiogram lately.’

‘Don’t worry. Thanks for your time, George.’

‘Mister, one second…’

Barrett hesitated. ‘Yes?’

“‘You’ve been asking questions. Maybe I ought to ask one or two. Like who told you that me and Jerry Griffith were buddy-buddy? Did Jerry himself tell you that?’

‘No. I’ve never met or seen Jerry. I got it from an employee of the Oakwood Library who saw you with Jerry several times.’

George seemed at once relieved and for the first time amiable. ‘Oh, that’s who. Well, that explains it. But she was wrong. Well, sorry I couldn’t make your day, but good luck anyway.’

Barrett watched him go slouching off past the men’s gym, and he decided he would not be learning much about Jerry Griffith from

his contemporaries. For one like himself, the Union of the Young would remain a closed shop. Ruefully he peered up at the Everest of stairs soaring skyward before him. Was a fag named Dr Hugo Knight worth it ? Well, he had come to UCLA in search of higher education, so it was worth at least one more college try. Laboring, he started to ascend the steep brick staircase.

It was an hour and a half before Mike Barrett returned to his temporary office in the suite Abe Zelkin had leased. Their rooms were on the fifth floor of a recently constructed high-rise building, which was located between Robertson Boulevard and La Cienega Boulevard just before Wilshire Boulevard’s Miracle Mile.

Barrett’s deeply carpeted corner office had an enlivening, unused feel - one could still smell the fresh pale-green paint on the walls -and Barrett liked its oversized oak desk placed near the large scenic window, the new leather-covered occasional chairs, and, somewhat apart, the cushioned sofa and the two classic lounge chairs surrounding the huge disk of a coffee table. There were not yet any framed college diplomas, civic citations, Impressionist reproductions, or celebrity photographs on the walls. But, hanging on the wall near his desk, he had four small framed quotations which he had paid an art student to reproduce in cursive script. These were among his long-time favorites. The first was to remind him of the enemy without: “The dispensing of injustice is always in the right hands. - Stanislaus Lec.’ The next two were amulets against vanity. One read: ‘Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all. -Shakespeare.’ The other read: ‘Perhaps in time the so-called Dark Ages will be thought of as including our own. - Georg C. Lich-tenberg.’ The last, recently penned, was to remind him of the unsolvable problem basic to all censorship: ‘Who shall stand guard to the guards themselves? - Juvenal.’

Three doors broke the monochrome green of the walls. One door opened onto the corridor that brought visitors to him from Donna Novik’s spacious reception room. Another door led to a communal area that included a bathroom and shower, a small dining area, and a kitchenette. The third door led to the conference room, which also opened into Zelkin’s office, beyond which were Kimura’s quarters, Zelkin’s law library, and a spare office used as a storeroom.

In Barrett’s office only his desk gave evidence of the activity that had been generated in this suite these last days. It was piled high with file folders filled with the typed notes and findings concerning the Ben Fremont case, representing the defense’s paper arsenal against the assault being prepared by the prosecution. But what also gave Barrett’s desk the appearance of a craggy mountain landscape were the bound court reporters’ transcripts of previous English and American censorship cases. Among these, all filled with a forest of paper markers, were Regina v. Hicklin, London,

1868; the Crown’s prosecution of The Well of Loneliness, London, 1928; the United States government’s trial of One Book Entitled Ulysses, 1934; the trial of the Grove Press against Postmaster General Christenberry over Lady Chatterley’s Lover, 1959; the trial of the State of California against bookseller Bradley Reed Smith over Tropic of Cancer, 1962; the Massachusetts trial of Fanny Hill, 1964. Then there were full decisions and opinions of the United States Supreme Court: Roth v. U.S., 1957; Jacobellis v. Ohio, 1964; Ginzburg v. U.S., 1966, and numerous others. Lost somewhere in the desk landscape was the record of Hearings on Control of Obscene Material garnered by a Senate subcommittee investigating juvenile delinquency in 1960.

Upon his return from UCLA, Barrett found added to this mass of material on his desk several memorandums from Leo Kimura, and one was important.

A cable had arrived from Monte Carlo requesting Kimura to telephone the private detective, Dubois, at the Hotel Gardiole in Antibes at five o’clock. This was enigmatic, since Dubois was supposed to have intercepted Jadway’s French publisher, Leroux, at the Hotel Balmoral in Monte Carlo much earlier. In his memorandum Kimura did not attempt to speculate on the meaning of the cable. He stated only that he was on his way to Philip Sanford’s suite to interrogate Sanford further, but he would be making the overseas call from there and the moment that he had any word, good or bad, he would be in touch with Barrett.

Now it was five o’clock, and Barrett determined to ignore the clock and his suspense about the results of Kimura’s call to the Riviera in order to finish his verbal report to Abe Zelkin. For the last fifteen minutes, seated behind his desk, puffing his pipe, Barrett had been summarizing his afternoon interviews for Zelkin who had been pacing back and forth before him. Barrett had reviewed his meetings with Ben Fremont, Rachel Hoyt, Henrietta Lott, George Perkins, and now he was giving an account of his interview with Dr Hugo Knight, of the UCLA English department.