(1969) The Seven Minutes (85 page)

bench of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the President has privately asked Jadway whether he would accept an appointment to the Supreme Court.’

“The Supreme Court?’ Barrett gasped. He was truly taken aback. ‘I keep picturing Jadway today as a bohemian, just as he was in his Paris days, since that’s the way he’s been described to the world in court. Do you mean he’s become a man of such stature and respectability that he is eligible for appointment to the Supreme Court?’

‘He is eligible and he will be nominated.’

The full meaning of this information now took hold of Barrett and brought him closer to Bainbridge.

‘Senator, do you know what that means ?’ Barrett beseeched him. ‘It means Jadway -or whatever he’scalled today -is a hundredfold more valuable a witness than I had ever imagined he could be. And it is a hundred times more imperative that he now come forward for us, for himself.’

Bainbridge began to protest, but Barrett overrode him and continued his peroration with growing conviction. ‘Imagine the appear ance in court of such a man on behalf of his book, how it would contradict the charges against him,’ said Barrett. ‘I’ll tell you what it would be - at least from a defense counsel’s point of view - it would be one of those incredible naturals just like - like, well, the high spot in the Lizzie Borden trial. You remember, I’m sure. Lizzie’s father and stepmother had been found horribly, brutally bludgeoned to death. Everything, all circumstantial evidence, was against Lizzie Borden, Nevertheless, her defense counsel put her on the witness stand. It was a daring move, and proved to be a brilliant one. There Lizzie sat, the well-bred, well-groomed, delicate, ladylike spinster. And her counsel merely pointed to her as he addressed the jurors. “To find her guilty, you must believe she is a fiend. Gentlemen, does she look it ?” Did she look it ? She did not look it. She would never look it, this prim lady. It was unthinkable. All other evidence went out the window. Lizzie was declared not guilty.’

Barrett caught his breath, then resumed. ‘Senator Bainbridge, if fitting Lizzie Borden to such a crime was unthinkable, then I suggest to you that judging a candidate for the Supreme Court, a gentleman who has won high esteem, who is a scholar, judging this man to be a pornographer and purveyor of filth is impossible. Let Jadway take the stand as my final witness, my star witness, and it will be enough. The jury will know, from the very moment I point to him, that such a man could not have written a dirty book that might deprave and corrupt the young. They will know, before he answers a single question, that his motives must have been of the best. They will trust his moral values and his testimony. Senator, we’d get an acquittal for Ben Fremont, for The Seven Minutes, for Jadway himself, just as Lizzie Borden got’-‘

‘Mr Barrett,’ the Senator interrupted. ‘You need not burden me further with the legal tactics in the Borden case.’ Then he added caustically, ‘After all, I was Dean of the Law School at Yale.’

Barrett was instantly contrite. ‘Forgive me, sir. It’s just that such a perfect witness rarely comes -‘

‘Mr Barrett, if you will, permit me to finish what I had begun to say.’

‘Please.’

‘I have no doubt Jadway would be your perfect defense witness. However, there is considerably more at stake in this matter than your trial. There is a Supreme Court appointment in the balance. The announcement will be made soon enough, and you shall know Jadway’s identity, though no one else beyond this room, save dear senile Cassie and our befuddled friend Q’Flanagan, will know that the new Justice of the Supreme Court was once the author of The Seven Minutes. Now, Mr Barrett, in all good sense, were you Jadway would you sacrifice this opportunity of a lifetime in order to go out to California simply to defend in a mere felony trial, a book that you had written in your youth ? That, I suggest, would be self-indulgence. For, I assure you, should Jadway reveal his past in the witness box, should he go out there to save your censorship case, it would mean the destruction of his reputation. The offer to become a justice of the Supreme Court would be instantly withdrawn. Yes, your call to me last night was brought to Jadway’s attention swiftly enough. It gave him considerable anguish and invited much soul-searching. It was not the damage to his reputation or ambition or social standing or family that prompted his decision. It was this -that he might do far more for the cause of freedom from his seat on the highest bench in the land, over the years to come, than if he sacrificed that opportunity in order to speak out in one court case on behalf of his own past. It was the opportunity to defend many freedoms, rather than only one, that motivated his decision. I say to you that this is not the choice of a selfish but of a public-spirited man, not of a man of cowardice but of a man of courage. That is the kind of man J J Jadway is. And - that is why he will not apear at your trial.’

Barrett was very still. He walked slowly to the window, gazed absently into the street, and finally returned to the desk.

‘Senator Bainbridge,’ he said with control, ‘I think Mr Jadway is wrong. I know I can’t persuade you, or him through you, but I must tell you what I feel. I think he is wrong. I believe that there are other great men in law who might fill the Supreme Court vacancy as capably as Mr Jadway might, and who might dispense wisdom and justice as well as he might. However, there is only one man, one man on earth, who can save this particular book, and all it represents, and all it means to the future. I think that this is where Mr Jadway should fight his fight, in the here and now, down among the people, where he, and he alone can save us, and save himself by refusing to

repudiate his past. I do believe his past means more to the present, his present and ours, than does his future. That’s what I feel. And there is something more. If this case is lost, it will establish as a legal precedent that the courts believe men can be driven to violence - as the prosecution has contended with its example of Jerry Griffith -by a work of literature. Should this go unchallenged, should this fallacy be upheld and become legally accepted in our time, then all words spoken or written hereafter will be under the sentence of death, and the real evils in our society that nourish and breed violence will be acquitted to grow on and on until alli of us, and our heirs, and everything we cherish will be destroyed. Thank you for the hearing, Senator Bainbridge. Tell Mr Jadway 1 hope he sleeps well tonight.’

He was at the door when Bainbridge’s voice caught him.

‘Mr Barrett -‘

He waited.

Bainbridge was standing behind his desk. ‘I’ll see that Mr Jad-way considers everything you have said. Should he change his mind, he’ll know where to reach you.’

Barrett tried to smile. ‘But you know he won’t change his mind, don’t you?’

The Senator did not reply. He appeared bemused. He said, ‘You might like to hear that in the matter of Jadway’s writing the book, his life, his suicide, the reasons for his suicide, Christian Leroux did not knowingly lie. He simply did not tell the truth. Because he did not know the truth. He knew only the lie. Just as Father Sarfatti knew only the lie. Jadway’s and Cassie’s lie. Perhaps that is of importance now. I cannot say. One thing I am sorry about. I am sorry that it will be believed that a book could drive a boy to commit rape, to act violently. Rape was an avocation of men long before they learned to read. This aspect of the result of your case will be unfortunate. But perhaps Mr Jadway will be able to rectify that one day - in another way, one day.’

‘Senator, there is no one day. There is only tomorrow. Goodbye.’

Going down to the street level, he knew that he had reached rock bottom at last. How many times had he thought he had reached the floor of the pit of despair? He could scarcely count the number. But this time it was the bottom. There was no place else he could go. The last light of hope had been extinguished.

He emerged into the sunlight and went dejectedly down the flight of stairs to the street, and then he started toward a taxi.

A newsboy who was hawking papers on the corner was calling out to passersby, ‘Read it, just in - latest sensation in Los Angeles sex-book trial!’

The latest ? What in the devil could that be ?

Barrett hastened to the corner, handed the boy a coin, and unfolded the front page of the newspaper.

The bold black banner headline lashed at him like a whip:

SHERI MOORE IS DEAD!

RAPE VICTIM IN JADWAY ‘MINUTES’ CASE

DIES UNEXPECTEDLY; DEBATED PORNOGRAPHIC BOOK

GOES TO JURY TOMORROW.

He recoiled.

His first thought was of that poor kid in the hospital, gone, ended, and then his thoughts were of her father, Howard Moore, of Jerry Griffith, of Maggie, and finally, of Abe and himself.

Minutes ago he had thought that he had reached bottom, but it had been a false bottom, for now the last trapdoor had been sprang from under him, and he found that it was possible to sink even lower, and it was black down there, the blackest day he had ever known.

It was late morning in Los Angeles, and in the bedroom of Barrett’s apartment Maggie Russell had finished drying after her shower, and was just fastening her brassiere, when the telephone rang for the second time in the past hour. Still clad in only her half slip and brassiere, she hurried into the living room to catch the call.

To her relief, it was Mike Barrett calling from Washington.

‘Mike, I was praying it would be you,’ she said into the telephone. ‘I wanted to call you, but I knew you wouldn’t be in. Have you heard ? I mean, about Sheri - Sheri Moore. She did in the night.’

‘Yes, I saw the headlines a half hour ago.’

‘Isn’t it pitiful? She was so young. I feel awful. And Jerry is desperate. And you -I can hear it in your voice - you sound so low.’

‘I am low. That poor kid, Sheri -I never knew her, but still, when something like that occurs, it makes everything else seem unimportant.’

‘Yes, it does. I can’t get her out of my mind - and, selfishly, I keep worrying about Jerry also, how it’ll all affect him.’ She paused. ‘And I’m worried about you, Mike.’

‘Forget about me. Sure, I’m low. It’s been a rotten morning all around, but at least I’m alive, sort of.’

‘What does that mean ? I thought you’d - well, aside from everything else that’s taken place, I thought you’d have some good news. You were seeing Senator Bainbridge and Jadway this morning, weren’t you?’

‘I saw Bainbridge. Period. I just came from him.’

‘What happened, Mike? Don’t tell me he wouldn’t - ?’

‘He wouldn’t. It’s no go.’

‘Oh, Mike, I’m so sorry. I was sure once they realized you knew Jadway was alive, they’d -‘

‘It’s not that simple. Bainbridge’s main sideline seems to be perpetuating the myth that Jadway is dead. He threw me one crumb. He’ll see that Jadway considers everything I said, my whole plea.

But that won’t come to anything.’

‘Can’t you subpoena Jadway?’

‘Where? How? How do you subpoena a ghost?’

‘I guess that was a stupid suggestion, but I’m so upset for you, I - I’m trying to think of something.’ She thought of something else. ‘Mike, what happened between you and Bainbridge? What did he say? Do you want to talk about it?’

His voice sounded so dispirited that her heart ached for him, but she coaxed him to talk, and before long he had told her everything that had transpired from the moment he had met Miss Xavier in the Capitol until he had left the Senator’s office.

Then he went on. After this failure to reach Jadway, he had learned about Sheri’s death. He had returned to his hotel, and because of the time difference he had been able to catch Zelkin before he had gone into court. Zelkin too had been rocked by Sheri’s death, and crushed by the refusal of Bainbridge and Jadway to cooperate.

‘As Abe put it, if the author wouldn’t defend bis own book and Ms own life, how could we hope to defend it successfully for him?’ said Barrett. ‘And Sheri Moore’s dying, that certainly upset Abe -he feels as we do about the poor kid. But quite apart from that, there is the question of how Sheri’s death will influence the result of the trial. Abe had to admit that even though her death has nothing to do with the legal aspects of the case, the emotional effect it will have on the jurors - and you can be sure one of them, somehow, will hear about it - the effect it will have on everyone connected with the trial, today and tomorrow, will be tremendous. It puts the final exclamation mark to Duncan’s argument that Jadway’s book drove Jerry to do what he did to Sheri and was the real cause of her death. Jadway is no longer a rapist. He is now a murderer, he and anyone else who ever wants to express himself freely.’

‘And there’s nothing more you can do about it?’ she asked slowly.

‘Nothing anyone can do about it, Maggie, except Jadway himself. Had he agreed to come forward, even the emotionalism surrounding Sheri’s death might have been overcome. His appearance might have put the whole focus of the trial back on the book itself. He could have succeeded in getting, it a clean bill of goods. In that way, we would have had a chance to prove, with living evidence, that such an author and such a book could have done Jerry no harm and therefore was in no way responsible for Sheri’s death. But what’s the use of speculating? It’s over. To all intents and purposes, Jadway is as dead today as he was the day the trial started. And those who feel as we do are going to suffer for it. The censors are in the saddle. The witch hunters ride again. Freedom to speak, to dissent, to protest, they’ll all be cut down along with freedom to read. Well, why go on? I might as well come back

to Shed’s funeral -‘

•Mike-‘

‘Yes?’

She had been listening carefully, and thinking a lot, and she had to know one last thing.

‘Besides what happens to your case now, Mike, this latest development is going to make it much harder on Jerry, isn’t it?’

He seemed reluctant to reply. Finally he did. ‘Yes, I’m afraid so, Maggie.’

‘How much harder?’

‘We can talk about that when I get back.’

‘I want fo know now, Mike. I’m a grown girl. Tell me straight.’