(1969) The Seven Minutes (15 page)

‘Rest, if you can. You need it.’

‘Okay.’

He turned away and started for his bedroom. When he was inside it, Maggie returned to the staircase Slowly, thoughtfully, she descended.

At the bottom, she could hear the conversation which was continuing in the living room. She was drawn toward the voices. She walked softly to the entrance of the room and stood watching and listening. They were too engrossed to note her presence.

Ralph Polk was nodding agreement to something Luther Yerkes had said, and then Polk was saying, ‘Yes, Mr Yerkes, there is no question about that, no question at all. That pornographic book is our most eloquent argument on Jerry’s behalf. It is, as you say, the key factor in our case. For that reason alone, if there were not another, I would want the boy in therapy with Dr Trimble. In a few sessions, I am almost certain, Dr Trimble could learn about and evaluate the trauma that Jerry suffered during and after his reading of The Seven Minutes. This would be invaluable for us.’ He offered Yerkes a brief smile. ‘And I am sure it would be invaluable for our District Attorney, should he prosecute the book.’

Yerkes’ eyes were masked behind the tinted spectacles, and his rotund face remained bland. ‘I suppose that might be so, but I have no idea what Elmo Duncan plans to do. However -‘ he rose to his feet, and immediately Blair stood up beside him - ‘I can tell you what I plan to do,’ said Yerkes. ‘Being here in this house, seeing

firsthand what havoc and destruction can be wreaked upon an adolescent, upon a decent family, upon a community, by a piece of slime disguised as literature, has convinced me more than ever to dedicate myself to the proposition that unless we have censorship in this country we will have chaos and increasing violence. I have your pledge that you will join in this fight, not merely because it is beneficial to your own case, but because it is beneficial to the future of our society and to the cause of justice.’

‘You have my pledge, Mr Yerkes,’ said Griffith fervently.

‘And you have mine,’ said Yerkes. ‘From this moment on, I am going to devote every energy and resource at my command to rid this community and our country of those mind-corrupting, soul-destroying smut peddlers. Do you know what we’re going to do together ? We are going to throw the book at them -their book at them - and drive the avaricious moneychangers and rapemakers out of the temple forever!’

Somehow, Mike Barrett was not surprised that the District Attorney was almost too busy to see him, and that their meeting would be short and simple.

Elmo Duncan had clearly set the time limits a few seconds ago when he had buzzed his secretary and told her to hold off all calls for three or four minutes and to tell persons waiting for their appointments that he would be only a few minutes late.

Driving to the Hall of Justice, Barrett had felt a small hope rekindle, justifying his optimism to Sanford on the longdistance telephone earlier. He had been confident that Duncan would deliver on yesterday’s promise, and that the new development concerning The Seven Minutes would not influence the prosecutor’s original soft attitude toward prosecution of the bookseller.

Barrett had been led from the receptionist’s office, past the District Attorney’s private kitchen, to the room where Duncan’s personal secretary waited. She had shown hirn into Duncan’s spacious, light, modernistic office. Barrett had noted that the doorway to the District Attorney’s comfortable lounge was open, and wondered briefly whether Duncan would escort him into it. Instead, Duncan had gestured him toward one of the two leather armchairs facing the broad, handsome Swedish desk. This meant business. No civilities. Barrett’s hope began to flicker and fade.

Now Barrett could see plainly that this was not the same man who had received him so amiably yesterday. Duncan’s features were taut, as if repressing impatience. The American flag draped from a pole behind his high-backed swivel chair seemed to be growing straight out of his head.

Nervously the District Attorney fiddled with some papers on his desk, glanced at the telephone and the water carafe at his elbow, then at the impressively bound books lining the shelves beyond, and finally, reluctantly, he gave his attention to Barrett. ‘I didn’t

expect you to drop by in person,’ he said. ‘I understood you were going to phone me. I - I’m afraid I’ve got a rather crowded calendar.’

Duncan offered nothing further. He waited.

‘I thought it would be easier this way,’ said Barrett ‘I’ll be brief. We were to settle the Ben Fremont matter.’

‘Yes.’

The District Attorney was giving him nothing, and Barrett realized he would have to recognize the new development and tackle it without subterfuge.

‘I’ve seen the newspapers, of course. About the Griffith boy. And about the Jadway book. Are the stories accurate? Is that what happened?’

They are accurate.’

‘I see. From the tone taken by the press, one might conclude that the shade of J J Jadway had committed the rape.’

Duncan found a Spanish-made letter opener on his desk and picked it up. He contemplated the opener. It was designed in the shape of a sword. Without looking up, Duncan said, ‘In this office we are handling the Fremont case as one case and the Griffith case as another and separate crime. The press is not trying these cases, Mr Barrett. My office is trying them.’

Barrett remained cautious. ‘Are you telling me, then, that in your mind one has no bearing on the other, and you are as objective about the Fremont matter as you were yesterday?’

The Toledo blade of the letter opener glittered as it turned slowly in the District Attorney’s hand. ‘I’m telling you no such thing,’ said Duncan. ‘I am telling you that under the law we are treating each case separately and judging each on its own evidence. We are perfectly aware that these are two cases. Conversely, we are also aware that in the court of public opinion they may become one case.’

‘Are you suggesting that public opinion can prejudice your handling of these cases as separate cases?’

Duncan leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk blotter. His eyes narrowed. ‘Mr Barrett, here we have charges against the seller of an obscene book. Here, also, we have charges against a youth who has committed forcible rape and inflicted grave injury and whose criminal act was incited by a reading of the very same book. The public response to this, not only locally but nationally, has been instantaneous and passionate. While a law-enforcement agency need not be responsive to every public whim, it can be responsive when the public’s demands coincide with its own activities. You must never forget, Mr Barrett, the law is an instrument of the public, created by the public to protect itself. And whatever else I am, Mr Barrett, I am a, public servant.’

Barrett sat very still. The lecture, delivered to him as if he were a schoolboy, had been pretentious and even condescending. It

camouflaged any possible motivation of politics. It was double-talk.

Barrett was no longer in a mood to be winning. ‘Yesterday, Mr Duncan, performing as a public servant, you were prepared to serve the law and the public by treating the charge against Ben Fremont as a minor, an even debatable, infraction of the law. You practically assured me that if I would enter a plea of guilty for Fremont you would see to it that he was let off with a fine and a suspended sentence, and you’d let it go at that. You wanted only the time to explain this to your staff, as a matter of courtesy. Now I am here for your official decision. A fine and a suspended sentence. Is that still your intention?’

The District Attorney threw down the sword-shaped opener. ‘I’m afraid not,’ he said. ‘I have consulted my staff. Since yesterday, we have acquired new evidence against The Seven Minutes. I’ve looked into the book a little more closely, and into the specific charge, illuminated as it is by this new evidence, and I have become convinced that we are dealing not with a mere felony but with a crime that could have widespread effects in endangering public safety.’

‘Are you referring to a widespread rash of rape?’ said Barrett dryly.

Duncan was not amused. ‘I am referring to the distribution of a menacing work of obscenity entitled The Seven Minutes.’ He stared coldly across the desk. ‘You can inform your client that if you plead Ben Fremont not guilty we will prosecute the defendant to the very limit of our ability. We will go to trial and employ every resource at our command to orove the defendant, and the book, if you will, guilty as charged. However, if you prefer to enter a plea of guilty, then the defendant will receive the maximum punishment possible for his offense - the fine as well as twelve months in jail. No deals, no compromises, Mr Barrett.’

And no longer any fear of Barrett’s friendship with Willard Osborn II, thought Barrett. The District Attorney spoke from strength. Obviously, he had a richer, more influential, more powerful patron than Osborn.

‘And the two cases,’ said Barrett, ‘you still intend to treat them separately?’

“They are separate cases,’ said Duncan with a show of ingenuous innocence. ‘Of course,’ he added, ‘if we go to trial over the book, we may be forced to call in Jerry Griffith as a material witness.’

‘Material witness, Mr Duncan?’

‘When a young man in his impressionable years is, by his own admission, inspired to commit a heinous crime because of the contents of a book he had just read, I would suggest that this is relevant to our contention that the book is evil and should be banned and that purveying such a book is a criminal act. Oh, yes, I believe anything Jerry Griffith might tell us about this book, about what it has

done to him, is very material to our case.’

Involuntarily Barrett shook his head. He wanted to voice his objection. But this was not a court of law. And the District Attorney had, by a circuitous route, arrived before him with two separate cases that now resembled one case. A public servant, Barrett thought bitterly, responding to the public’s command. Or, possibly, to Luther Yerkes’ command. No, Barrett thought, he would not give the District Attorney such an opportunity to distort the law in any courtroom.

‘I gather, then, that this is your last word?’ said Barrett.

‘Yes,’ said Duncan. But he made no move to rise. ‘And now I’d like your last word, Mr Barrett. What plea do you intend to enter -guilty or not guilty?’

‘If the decision were mine alone, I could make it now.’ Barrett stood up. ‘I’ll have to consult with my client in New York.’

Rising, Duncan said evenly, ‘I am sure you’ll make it clear to him that there can be no compromise. If the plea is guilty, Fremont lands in jail for a year, and the book is guilty and will not be sold in Oakwood - as a starter. If the plea is not guilty, then that gives you the only chance to see that the seller and -‘ he gave the last careful emphasis’ - the book - could possibly go free. But you’ll have to take your gamble in court for that.’

‘I’ll make it clear,’ said Barrett. You bet your ass I’ll make it clear, he thought, I’ll make it damn clear to Phil Sanford that we’re not giving those bastards a chance for a Roman holiday and a publicity circus at our expense. He went to the door and opened it. ‘You’ll hear from me this afternoon.’

Standing behind his desk, more relaxed now, Elmo Duncan smiled for the first time. ‘I’ll be waiting,’ he said.

Because there was no time to waste, and because Phil Sanford was standing by to hear from him, Mike Barrett had decided to telephone New York at once. Not ailing to trust the telephones in the Hall of Justice building, he had gone swiftly up Temple Street to the magnificent Hall of Records and located an empty telephone booth inside.

While there had been no delay in placing his longdistance call, and Sanford had been informed of it at once, it had taken the publisher an uncommonly long period of time to come on the line. Sanford’s dilatory treatment of a call he had earlier deemed so important at first confused and then irked Barrett. When at last Sanford had picked up the receiver at his end, absently apologizing for making his friend wait and explaining that his office had become busier than Grand Central Station, Barrett had cut him short and plunged into the business at hand.

Hardly permitting Sanford to interrupt him with a question or comment, Barrett had launched into a monologue reporting the details of the exchange between the District Attorney and himself

and the perfidy of Duncan’s complete turnabout. More explicitly than even Duncan might have hoped, Barrett had articulated the alternatives and then the legal consequences of both a guilty and a not-guilty plea.

In the claustrophobic confines of the telephone booth, Barrett had been speaking nonstop to Sanford for several minutes now, and he was not yet through.

‘So what does this add up to ?’ Barrett asked, posing the question almost as if to seek clarification for himself. ‘Let me tell you what it adds up to, Phil, and let me give you my firm advice. Duncan was practically drooling to have me tell him we’d plead not guilty and go to trial. He wants the courtroom as a stage from which he can dramatize the issue and impress his crusading image on the public. And he’s got the script for it. One with great mass appeal. I’m not saying he’s a phony and nothing more. I want to be fair about him. Evidently he is sincere in his feeling that a novel like The Seven Minutes can do incalculable harm. True, he didn’t feel that strongly yesterday. But he feels the Griffith rape is a practical demonstration of the antisocial behavior that can be generated by a mere book. I’m certain that he believes this. God knows, he’s righteous enough. At the same time, you know my cynicism about righteousness. Poke any saint deeply enough and you touch self-interest. The fact remains that with the Griffith boy as his star witness, Duncan has himself a trial that transcends the literary and the intellectual and becomes an emotional carnival with wide public appeal. He can make his name nationally famous from that courtroom, if he can pull it off. And he is positive he can pull it off. And quite frankly, I’m inclined to agree with him.’

‘What are you saying, Mike? You mean you think he can win?’

Barrett moved closer to the mouthpiece. ‘I’ll be blunt with you. Yes, based on the little we know now, the odds would heavily favor the prosecution. I know that I told you this morning we were dealing with one case, a censorship case, and the Griffith rape has nothing to do with it legally. That’s still correct. Duncan admits it. But this session I just had with him made me realize to what extent other forces are at work - public opinion and public pressure - the determination to introduce the Griffith boy into the case by the side door, as a witness - the political ambitions of the District Attorney or his backers. In that climate, they could probably succeed in making both cases seem one case. If they did, it would be almost impossible to obtain a not-guilty verdict from a judge or a jury. How in heaven’s name do you defend a case like this? You say this book is a work of art and you invoke the Constitution and freedom of the press for a work of art. For their part, they merely point to that pathetic girl in a coma in the hospital who has just been raped by someone who says he was driven to it by your work of art. How would you judge those arguments? Take my advice. You absolutely cannot plead not guilty and risk a trial. The unfavorable publicity and the almost inevitable loss of the case will get your book banned in every major city in America. You’ll be through, Phil -‘