Jack of Spades (6 page)

“You will please leave the courtroom peaceably, Ms. Haider. At once.”

“Sir, I am here to
be heard
. I will
have justice
. I will not leave until
I have justice
.”

Somehow it happened, the (portly, middle-aged) bailiff was on the floor, and—(was this possible or did I, in the confusion of the moment, imagine it)—Haider was kicking at him with her stubby-toed shoes, as one might kick at a recalcitrant door to open it.

Haider was pushing at restraining hands—a half-dozen hands by this time. Haider was screaming, and Haider was shrieking. Yellowed manuscripts fell to the floor, the cardboard file was upended—papers, documents, journals fell in a cascade. Hardcover books by Andrew J. Rush were kicked underfoot. It appeared that Haider was suffering some sort of attack, like an epileptic fit; several uniformed officers were trying to restrain her. Did I imagine it, the afflicted woman’s eyes had rolled back in her head, her distended mouth was wet with saliva like the froth of madness . . . In a loud voice Judge Carson declared the morning’s session closed. Hurriedly he left the room by a rear door. Poor man! I could see the abject horror in his face. The judge of a small suburban court is not accustomed to
brute, physical reality
—only to words. But now, words had erupted into
brute, physical reality.

We were being ordered to vacate the courtroom. With others I filed out into the corridor even as the wild-white-haired woman screamed and sobbed at the front of the room, still scuffling with deputies—
Justice! I will have—justice!

It is rare to hear the sound of madness. The actual, tearing-at-the-heart sound of another’s madness.

You see? The enemy was defeated.

If more punishment is required, more punishment will be exacted.

9 Victor

On the phone, Grossman was triumphant.

“A total victory, Andrew! Maybe you should’ve been there, it was quite a performance.”

“Was it!”—I managed to sound surprised, just slightly apprehensive.

“I mean, the plaintiff gave quite a performance. Poor woman is deranged as we’d thought.” But Grossman laughed in exhilaration.

I was driving home when Grossman called my cell phone to tell me the good news. Seeing his name in the caller ID I’d been reluctant to answer with a childish fear that, though I knew better, the court case had turned out badly for me after all.

The entire episode in the courtroom had been dreamlike and unreal. Truly there was something nightmarish about the wild-white-haired C. W. Haider who’d been not only defeated but humiliated in a public place. I could hear the poor woman’s cries and sobs, her demands for justice.

I thought—
But I am not responsible for any of this. She brought this disaster on herself.

“The judge dismissed as I knew he would. He let the complainant present her ridiculous case—gave her plenty of rope to hang herself. As I thought, ‘C. W. Haider’ turned out to be a local crank—not looking for money, I think—so much as some kind of public apology from you, and what she calls ‘damages.’ Evidently she’s from a well-known local family and has money, or rather has inherited money. You’d have been amused, Andrew—she was claiming that you, a bestselling writer, had actually broken into her house and stolen her writing—
literally
! You’d stolen ideas and prose passages from her manuscripts and from her journals—it looked like thousands of pages of handwritten journals. Jesus! Of course she had no proof of anything—just seemed to think that people should take her word for it. The way she addressed the court, you’d have thought she was some sort of royalty. Her major claim was that some manuscripts she’d written predated your novels—which were ‘derived’ from them—but there was no way to date the manuscripts, even if anyone wanted to take her ridiculous claims seriously. Unsurprisingly she’s a writer who has never been published except by a few vanity presses. She’s been writing a
work-in-progress
for decades. She was also claiming that you’d stolen events from her life—either you’ve written about her life literally, or you’ve changed it so much that it’s a ‘nefarious lie.’” Grossman laughed heartily. Through a buzzing in my ears I heard only part of what he was saying but I understood his reiterated words—
deranged, pathetic, crazy, dismissed.

“Essentially the case is finished, Andrew. Your role is finished—you can forget about ‘C. W. Haider.’ I will apply for an injunction to keep her from harassing you further, and I will demand that the complainant pay legal fees and court costs. Though you’re not paying my fee, and the publishing house has me on retainer, it’s always a good idea to sue people like Haider for all that you can, to discourage them from initiating lawsuits. Imagine, if the case had gone to a jury, and some paranoid crank on the jury connected with Haider—it could have turned out badly for you.” Grossman was working himself up to righteous indignation now. I’d had to pull over to the side of the road to listen to him.

Dazedly, I’d left the courthouse avoiding all eyes, hoping that no one would recognize me. Hearing my prose read aloud in that grating jeering voice had been lacerating. Especially, I’d made a point of avoiding Elliot Grossman who was lingering on the courthouse steps talking animatedly with fellow lawyers—an assertive individual, very New York in manner, flush with victory and feeling the anticlimax of the abrupt dismissal. Grossman had been brought by limousine all the way from midtown Manhattan to Harbourton, New Jersey, and was finished with his day’s work before 2:00
P
.
M
.—still supercharged with adrenaline.

By the time I’d left the courthouse parking lot, I had heard a siren—I’d seen an ambulance pull up to the front entrance. A small crowd had gathered on the walk in front of the building, parting just enough to allow medical workers to hurry through.

I’d looked quickly away. I hadn’t wanted to see even a glimpse of the stricken white-haired woman.

But if you are very lucky, she will die now.

She will die, and you will never be exposed.

In his cruel jubilant voice Grossman was boasting again of how well the case had gone, exactly as he’d anticipated. Was he expecting me to praise him? Thank him—again?

“Something for you to write about in one of your thrillers, eh, Andrew?”

I felt the sting of insult. As if I had nothing better to write about than the pathetic C. W. Haider!

Through a haze of headache pain, I thanked Grossman. I praised him, and I assured him that I would tell my editor how brilliantly he’d handled the case, but—“I don’t think that we should pursue the plaintiff further. Let’s drop the pathetic case now.”

“What do you mean, ‘let it drop’? I don’t understand.”

“I don’t want to sue her for—whatever you’d said: fees, court costs. Let’s just let it drop.”

“Andrew, the plaintiff lost her case and she should pay costs. She should pay for her recklessness in bringing suit. Why should your publisher pay?”

“I’ll pay. I’ll pay your fee and whatever the costs are. Just send me a bill.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re the innocent party. My fee is paid by the publishing house. And I am well paid. But Haider is the losing party, and she
should pay
. Fees are deterrents in nuisance cases. Otherwise every idiot would be suing every other idiot and the courts would be jammed. This woman comes from a well-to-do family, after all.”

I insisted, I didn’t want to further humiliate C. W. Haider. She was hospitalized—was she? She’d collapsed in the courtroom, and had to be taken away by ambulance . . .

“How do you know that, Andrew?”

“You told me.”

“Did I? I don’t remember telling you.”

Perspiration broke out on my forehead, and inside my clothes. My head throbbed with pain. I could not recall whether Grossman had told me any of this.

“Yes, you said—you told me that Haider had collapsed in the courtroom and an ambulance was called. Just a few minutes ago, you told me this.”

“Did I!”—it seemed that Grossman was genuinely perplexed.

Quickly I stammered that I had to hang up, I couldn’t drive while talking on the phone and would speak with him another time.

It was several minutes before I felt strong enough, and my scattered thoughts focused enough, for me to drive the rest of the way home to Mill Brook House.

I entered the house, which was very quiet. I hadn’t noticed if Irina’s car was in the driveway. No one appeared to be home.

Not even the cleaning woman. No one.

Silence rolled at me, in waves.

They are all dead, and you are free.

And you are blameless.

10 “Spotless As a Lamb”

And then, I waited.

The
Harbourton Weekly
came out on Wednesdays.

Stealing myself for a withering front-page headline—
Local Author Rush Sued for Theft, Plagiarism in Hecate Co. Court.

There were no stories about the events of Monday on local TV or radio. No reporters tried to contact me. Nor did Irina seem to know that something upsetting had occurred in my life, and of course I didn’t tell her.

When at last the
Weekly
was delivered to our mailbox, and I opened it hurriedly, I saw nothing on the front page that bore my name or photograph. No
Rush
, no
Haider.

Slowly I walked back to the house. My hands were trembling and my eyes filled with moisture.

In sudden dread I stopped to open the
Weekly,
to scan the “Court Beat” column on page six, even the “Police Blotter”—nothing.

Through the entire paper, nothing.

My heart lifted. I laughed aloud, in gratitude. I felt the euphoria of one who has escaped punishment, though I could not have said why.

II

11 Perfect Crime

And now, it is time.

For Andrew J. Rush to commit a perfect crime.

In the night waking with a lurch of my heart. And my jaws aching as if I’d been grinding my back teeth.

What time was it?—barely I could make out the numerals on the bedside clock.

That time before dawn that is not-yet-dawn. The Hour of the Wolf it is called, when people who are gravely ill are most susceptible to death.

Can’t you see? In front of your eyes?

Your enemy—helpless.

Your enemy—waiting.

On the farther side of the bed Irina was sleeping. Since moving to Mill Brook House we’d acquired a “king-sized” bed vast as a field in which two living breathing heat-producing bodies can lie oblivious of each other through the night.

Though sometimes, it is true that Irina will call out to me, “Andrew? Are you all right?”

Or, “Andrew? Are you having a bad dream?”

Or, “Andrew! You were grinding your teeth again.”

This time, Irina wasn’t (evidently) awake. Something had roused me from sleep at the climax of a dream of such chaos and confusion I’d immediately forgotten it—or rather, whatever it had been,
possibly, fleetingly, involving the wild-white-haired woman—
I was no longer able to recall.

It was in such ways, at such times, that Jack of Spades most directly spoke to me. But I wasn’t always sure what Jack of Spades meant by his taunting words.

. . .
time.

. . . perfect crime.

12 Temptation

“Andrew? May I have a minute?”

It was Grossman. I had not wanted to answer the phone but felt compelled out of duty.

A week had passed since the hearing in the Hecate County courthouse. My dread of being exposed in the local media was abating slowly and I was back to work, or nearly. Still I checked my e-mail with trepidation, and rarely answered the phone unless I recognized the caller as someone whom I knew well and could trust.

I’d hoped not to hear from my publisher’s lawyer again. The episode had been upsetting in ways I could not have explained. So far as I was concerned, the case was over.

I was determined not to think of C. W. Haider ever again—though at weak moments I found myself staring into space and hearing the furious wrathful voice
I will have justice!

I wondered if the wild-white-haired woman had died in the hospital. For all I knew, she might have died of a stroke or a heart attack in the ambulance. For a fleeting moment I thought that Grossman might have been calling to tell me this and I did not know if I would feel relief, or guilty regret.

But Grossman’s voice was ebullient, loud in my ear.

“Very interesting development, Andrew! Are you prepared for a surprise?”

No. No more surprises.

“I suppose so. Yes.”

“Remember, I’d predicted that this C. W. Haider had to be a ‘local crank’?—turns out that this is so. She has filed complaints against other writers—major writers—just as she did you. My paralegal did a little investigating, and discovered that Haider tried to sue Stephen King a few years ago. I wasn’t representing King at that time but I know the attorney who worked with him, and I gave him a call, and guess what, Andrew—”

For a moment I couldn’t quite comprehend.

Stephen King? She’d tried to sue—also?

Andrew J. Rush is not special to her—after all?

Grossman was saying that the case Haider had prepared against Stephen King was virtually identical to the one she’d prepared against Andrew J. Rush except for different prose passages from different books.

Even the ridiculous breaking-and-entering charge was identical.

“Imagine—the likelihood of Stephen King coming to Harbourton, New Jersey—to break into
her house.
”

Grossman laughed heartily. Indeed it was a preposterous fantasy.

“In October 2004 there’d been a hearing in the same courtroom, with Haider ‘representing herself’ before the same judge.” This, Grossman thought particularly amusing.

Weakly, I tried to laugh. “Really! The same judge . . .”

Stephen King had been so alarmed by the woman, who’d also written threatening letters to him in care of his publisher, that he’d hired a private detective to investigate her. He’d been afraid that she might drive to Maine and stalk him and his family—afraid that she was crazy enough to try to kill someone. But the detective hadn’t turned up much that sounded dangerous, so King dropped the case.

“You’re sure she has never written you threatening letters, Andrew? Maybe they went to the publisher, and didn’t get forwarded.”

I had no idea how to reply to this. I was feeling mildly stunned and could not think coherently. Grossman’s ebullient laughter seemed to be suffocating me.

“Your adversary has also tried to sue, over the years, John Updike and John Grisham, Norman Mailer and Dean Koontz, Peter Straub and James Patterson—
and
Dan Brown!—all without success.”

We laughed together. Well, this was funny—wasn’t it?

Slowly I was deflating. Like a balloon that has been pierced by a pin.

“Quite a virtuoso, your ‘Ms. Haider’! Impressive range of styles and themes.”

“Yes—well . . . I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise.”

It is a total surprise. And not a flattering surprise.

“So, Andrew, I’d like to file a complaint against
her
. As I’d said, the next step should be ours.”

I understood, this was probably so. A lawyer would know, and would have my best interests at heart. Grossman was only being reasonable and yet, my instinct was to resist.

“But—do you know how she is? It’s possible that she isn’t even alive . . .”

“My paralegal made inquiries. She was taken to New Brunswick for ‘observation’—she may have some sort of congenital epileptic condition, that causes her to throw fits when she’s frustrated or angry. There’s a family caretaker with whom my paralegal spoke, who was very helpful. He told the paralegal that ‘fighting her enemies’ was what kept Ms. Haider going after her father died and she was left alone in the world. Not just her literary enemies but neighbors on Tumbrel Place and town officials. Incidentally, she’s sixty-seven years old.”

Sixty-seven!
I’d hoped she was older. This seemed dismayingly young. With the steely resolve of the mad, C. W. Haider could be my nemesis for the next twenty years.

“If you don’t disapprove, Andrew, I’m going to move ahead with my plans. We’ll get an injunction against her to ‘cease and desist harassing’ you and we’ll file for charges. You don’t have to be involved except to sign a document or two.”

But still I felt an instinct to resist, to demur. In this unpleasant situation, Andrew J. Rush had to behave
nobly.

“I’ve told you, Elliot—I don’t want to be punitive. This incident has left a sour taste in my mouth.”

“But you’ve been the victim! Imagine if you didn’t have a publisher who was willing to protect you, and you’d had to hire a lawyer—a Manhattan, not a Harbourton, New Jersey, lawyer. (I don’t come cheaply, Andrew—which is why you should follow my counsel.) Imagine if the local judge hadn’t been reasonable, and the case had gone to trial. Imagine if the judgment had gone against you, who knows what the settlement might’ve been—millions? You’d have to appeal to the New Jersey State Court of Appeals—none of this a bargain, I can tell you. More bizarre and unjust things have happened in the history of US law.”

“But—what exactly would you do? How much would she have to pay?”

Patiently Grossman explained his plans another time. He estimated a sum—far more than I’d anticipated.

“I told you, Andrew—
we’ll bury her.
”

For a moment I felt this temptation. It was like creeping out onto a diving board—a high diving board—to (gently, almost unobtrusively)—press against the bare back of another, to urge him into space.

A temptation to give in to the aggressive lawyer’s advice, to sue and to punish. To further defeat the enemy.
Bury her
.

But I heard myself say:

“I understand, Elliot. But—I still don’t want to sue.”

“Jesus! Are you some sort of—Christian? Quaker? Is it fair to your publisher, to expect the company to pay?”

“I’ve told you, I will pay the fees and the costs myself. I just want to forget this sorry episode, and get back to my life.”

“Well—that’s very noble of you. Gentlemanly.”

(Was Grossman sneering? I could imagine his mouth twitching in disdain.)

“I feel sorry for the woman, that’s all. Mental illness isn’t a choice or an option, and it shouldn’t be confused with criminal behavior. From Haider’s point of view, she believed that she was right.”

“Exactly what one might have said about Hitler, or Genghis Khan. Our own war criminal politicians. Quite right.”

“Haider isn’t a Hitler or a Genghis Khan. She’s a lonely old woman who imagines she’s a writer. She may be permanently disabled, after her stroke. I just don’t want to make things more desperate for her, it was enough to win the case.”

“Very well, Andrew. We’ll let it go. For now, at least.”

“I don’t want this to continue any longer, please. I’d be terribly ashamed if anyone knew we were persecuting this woman. I don’t intend to give ‘C. W. Haider’ another thought.”

“Good! It’s rare that the object of a lawsuit is so generous, but ‘Andrew J. Rush’ is obviously not an ordinary man. Can you promise not to contact her, at least? In the hospital or at home?”

“Of course! I have no reason to contact her.”

“You’ve told me already that you did contact her, by phone.”

“That was to appeal to her, to drop the complaint. I don’t have any reason to contact her again.”

“Well—you might imagine that you could convince her you’re ‘innocent.’ You don’t seem to realize that ‘innocence’ isn’t the point in the law—it’s what the law determines that establishes ‘innocence’ or ‘guilt.’ Whether you stole every one of your twenty-eight novels from C. W. Haider’s shelf of manuscripts, or not a single line, doesn’t matter; it’s only what the judge has ruled that matters. What other people, like the litigious C. W. Haider, might think is of zero significance.”

This was damned insulting but I forced myself to murmur in assent.

“Maybe we’ll speak again. I hate to leave it like this. As a professional, I think my advice is valuable to my client—it isn’t just a matter of sentiment. At least, promise me that you’ll steer clear of the woman.”

“Of course, I won’t. I mean—I won’t try to contact her.”

“And if she harasses you again, call me immediately.”

“Yes.”

“D’you promise? You will cell me immediately, if she gives you trouble again.”

“Yes. I will call you immediately.”

“And what I’ll do, Andrew, is hit her with all I’ve got. No more Mr. Nice Guy, eh?
We will bury her
.”

That night I was in bed fairly by midnight. Too exhausted even to take up my pen and yellow legal pad and sit sipping whiskey at the battered little table immersed in the seductive prose of Jack of Spades.

But I slept only intermittently. Sighing, and squirming, like a great fish caught in a net.

And who is wielding the net?