by Clark Howard
At any rate, Devlin decided, the most logical lead to follow at this point was definitely Abigail Daniels. And, he thought, the easiest place to begin would be right in Keyes’ office—
He put the bank files back in order and stacked them neatly in the center of the desk. As he was leaving the bank, he thought of the other checks Keyes had written on his personal account; checks for liquor bills, to jewelers and florists, for a motel room—
Interesting, he thought, how a few cancelled checks can tarnish a man’s halo.
Four
In the shadowless blue room of the Eden Movement, a tape recorder projected through its speaker the soft, almost drowsy voice of a young woman.
“The girl’s name was Anita Atkins,” the voice said quietly. “She worked as a waitress in a restaurant across the street from Mr. Keyes’ office. I ate lunch there once or twice a week, but I don’t think I ever really noticed her until the day she came into the office and told Mr. Keyes that she was pregnant, and that Hal O’Brien was the father…”
The recorder was on the conference table in front of the Examiner. J. Walter Keyes, again strapped to the chair facing the table, stared at the unwinding tape reel and frowned as he searched his mind to place the vaguely familiar voice.
“Anita wasn’t a very pretty girl, at least not by the usual show business standards. She had an average face and an average figure, although by the time she came in that day, by the time I found out what was going on, she was already beginning to develop a chubby look because of her condition, her pregnancy. And, of course, she was very nervous because she didn’t know what Keyes and O’Brien were going to do about the situation…”
At the panel table, the other members of the Truth Court listened intently to the quiet, unhurried voice, and the seemingly detached tone of the words being spoken. The elderly Moderator leaned forward, shading his eyes with one hand, unmoving. At the opposite end of the table, the Investigator sat with folded arms, his eyes fixed trance—like on the slowly revolving tape reel. The other men assumed their own attitudes, each very still, very concentrated.
“Anita had thought that Hal was to meet her in Keyes’ office that day, but Keyes and Hal had agreed beforehand that Hal wasn’t to show up. Keyes was determined to make some kind of deal with the girl, and he felt he could do a better job on her if Hal wasn’t around. Hal had just signed a big TV contract a couple of weeks before that and he and Keyes both were scared to death that some publicity might get out about this waitress he had pregnant, and that the studio would use their morals clause to cancel the contract. Hal wasn’t what you’d call a big TV star at that time, but he was signed to do a series, and if it clicked it would mean a lot of money later on from personal appearances and residuals and things like that. I over-heard Keyes say to Hal on the phone before Anita came in that he damn well wasn’t going to let some cheap little waitress upset the apple cart on what could be a gold mine if the series turned out to be a good one. And, of course, it did later on, it became very popular and made a lot of money for everybody concerned…”
Keyes, leaning forward as far as his strapped wrists would permit, continued to stare in incredulous fascination as the calm voice spilled forth, painting a word picture of a matter he had thought to be so completely confidential that its utterance now completely bewildered him.
“Anita got there that morning right on time. She was surprised, of course, to find that Hal wasn’t there; but Keyes told her that he had been delayed and they could begin discussing the matter without him. As it turned out, there really wasn’t that much to discuss. Once he got Anita into his office, Keyes told her flatly that, pregnant or not, Hal wasn’t about to marry her—it would be too damaging to his image as a handsome young bachelor; and secondly, that if she tried to put the pressure on them by filing a paternity suit or going to the press, that he’d come up with a dozen other men who would swear that they’d had intercourse with her during the time she became pregnant…”
At the end of the panel table, the Investigator had raised his eyes and was glaring at Keyes with cold hatred. Unlike four of the other five men who occupied the table with him, the Investigator had already heard all of the evidence once before, and by virtue of familiarity should have been less affected by its impact. Such was not the case, however, for in additon to hearing the evidence, he also had seen the people involved in the evidence; and their faces, etched in his trained mind, gave a three—dimensional effect to the sleepy words emanating from the tape recorder.
“Anita was shocked by what Keyes threatened to do. She was very fond of Hal, I guess, although I don’t know if she was really in love with him or not. Whatever the case, she didn’t believe that he would let Keyes do a thing like that, and didn’t think that Keyes could do it even if Hal did consent. You see, Anita was pretty naive; she didn’t know just what they were capable of doing to protect their interests, their images—
“Anyway, Keyes educated her pretty quickly. He told her in no uncertain terms that Hal would go along with it, and that it could be done and done very easily. He told her that he personally knew at least four men who made full-time livings by swinging, as he called it, with middle-aged rich women who got their kicks from young guys. They were called studs, these young guys; they kept small apartments where the women could come visit them in the afternoons when their husbands were at work. Some of them, these studs, were perverts; but so were some of the women. Keyes told Anita that for a thousand dollars apiece, he could get all four of them to come into court and describe on the witness stand what she had let each one of them do to her…”
Besides the Investigator, the only other person at the panel table who had already heard the tape was the Psychiatrist. A small, slight man, he sat now with his face fixed in its usual impassive, almost aloof expression. It was an expression that might easily have caused one to wonder whether what was taking place around the man was even registering upon him; for there was no evidence at all of any life, any emotion, in his countenance. His features were almost waxen; only his wide, alert eyes seemed to have any vitality. He listened calmly, clinically, his mind recording and examining the content of the words as if he had never heard them before. Virtually, he lost himself in the work of analysis. In this way, unlike the Investigator, he was able to repress any instinctive hostility that the tape might incite toward the bound man he was charged with judging.
“Anita was appalled by the things Keyes threatened to do. Apparently it had never entered her mind to see a lawyer or to do anything else that might make the matter public. She was filled with revulsion that she would even have to admit in front of strangers that she had slept with O’Brien; so the mere thought of the humiliating spectacle that Keyes promised, came close to terrifying her. When she came out of Keyes’ office later that morning, she was actually trembling, and she was as white as a ghost. It was—it was almost as if—as if, while he had her in his office, he had drained all the blood from her body…”
The young woman’s voice broke into a sudden, uncontrollable sob. “I’m—sorry—I—”
“That’s all right, dear,” a soothing male voice came onto the silently unwinding tape. “Here, give me your hand. Take a deep breath now and let yourself relax; remember the trick I showed you; that’s it, deep breath, let it out quickly, relax— There, that’s fine. Are you all right now? ”
“Y—yes—thank you—”
There were several moments of silence on the tape then; it continued to run smoothly past the speaker head, one spool unwinding, the other taking up, both of them mute cogs whose synchronized spin held the eyes of all who sat in the blue room.
Sitting next to the Psychiatrist was a broad—shouldered man with an open, frank face topped by a thick head of wiry blond hair. He wore a dark suit over a black shirtfront around the neck of which was a white clergyman’s collar. During the silence on the tape, he leaned close to the Psychiatrist, laying a wide, strong hand gently upon the smaller man’s arm.
“Isn’t that your voice on the tape with the girl?” he whispered. The Psychiatrist nodded and the clergyman, who was known in the blue room as the Theologian, smiled briefly. “I thought so. I recognized the way you spoke the word ‘dear’. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard you use that word, I could build that new playground I’ve been wanting for the children down in the Potts area.”
The Psychiatrist relaxed his waxen face for a second and returned his old friend’s smile. Twice now in two days the Theologian had mentioned that playground project. The Psychiatrist’s eyes twinkled knowingly as he wryly wondered how large a donation he would eventually be persuaded into contributing.
“Now then,” the Psychiatrist’s voice resumed on the tape, “shall we continue?”
“All right,” the young woman replied in her drowsy voice.
“Do you know what the final outcome was in this matter concerning Miss Atkins and her condition?”
“Yes. Keyes wanted her to have an abortion; he felt that it would be the simplest solution for everyone concerned. That way, the problem of the pregnancy and the baby would be solved; O’Brien could give her a few thousand dollars after it was over and the whole thing could be forgotten. But Anita wouldn’t have it that way. She was scared half to death now by the way Keyes was threatening her; I suppose she felt that if she let them get her in the hands of a doctor, that she might not get out alive. Anyway, as afraid as she was of Keyes, she managed to take a stand and flatly refused to agree to an abortion.”
“How was the problem finally resolved?” the Psychiatrist asked.
“In the usual way,” the sleepy voice said. “They had Anita sign papers stating that she’d had intercourse with five other men besides Hal O’Brien during the period when she became pregnant, and that the father of her child could have been any one of the men—”
“Was that true?”
“No. Anita hadn’t slept with a man for nearly a year before Hal came along. Actually, Hal was only the second man she’d ever slept with; the other was a boy she’d been engaged to in high school who was killed in an auto wreck. Anita didn’t know much about men, really; if she had, she’d never have been taken in by Hal’s line. Hal was pretty well known around town; everybody said he was over—sexed. There was even a joke going around about him, that he kept his trousers half unzipped at all times. He liked to call himself the Big Gun. I remember one time, after his television series had been on for a couple of years, he had a picture taken of himself, just for kicks, standing naked with a pair of guns strapped around his waist. There was a caption under the picture that read ‘Three—gun O’Brien’. Keyes was furious when he found out; he made Hal burn the print and the negative right there in the office—”
“That’s very interesting,” the Psychiatrist said gently, “but let’s get back to Miss Atkins, shall we? Can you tell me what she was given in exchange for signing the papers you mentioned?”
“Yes. They paid for her stay in a private nursing home until after the baby came, and then she was to get fifty dollars every week until the child reached eighteen years of age.”
“And for that, for fifty dollars a week, she had falsely admitted to having sexual intercourse with five men besides Hal O’Brien?”
“Yes. And she agreed not to try to see Hal again or to attempt to communicate with him in any way. The same agreement included the child; she promised never to tell the child that O’Brien was its father, or to try to let the child see O’Brien, anything like that. And she was not to give the child O’Brien’s name; it was to be named Atkins—”
J. Walter Keyes sat as far upright in the chair as his bonds would permit. His face was a study in righteous indignation.
“Where did you get that information?” he demanded. “Just who are the people on that recording, anyway? ”
The Examiner, sitting at the conference table behind the tape recorder, reached forward and depressed a button which silenced the speaker and halted the winding spools.
“The man on the tape is a member of our panel, Mr. Keyes,” the Examiner said, nodding his head to indicate the Psychiatrist.
“And the woman,” said Keyes, “who is the woman?”
“Perhaps if you listen to the tape a bit longer, you might not have to ask.”
The Examiner activated the recorder again and the tape resumed with the Psychiatrist’s voice.
“Were you in Mr. Keyes’ office during his conversation with Miss Atkins?” he asked quietly.
“No, I wasn’t,” the young woman admitted.
“Then how do you know that everything you have told me is the truth?”
“He told me.”
“He? Who do you mean?”
“Keyes.”
“When did he tell you all this?”
“In the evening,” she said, her voice rising and breaking again. “In the evening, when we were together in that goddamned apartment he kept me in—I” Another sob rose in her throat and broke through, and silence returned to the tape. The Examiner stopped it again.
Keyes stared mutely at the silenced recorder. His lower jaw went slack, the weak upper lip seemed to wither under its flimsy mustache disguise. In his mind a single name reverberated over and over again: Abby, Abby, Abby, Abby, Abby—
“Well, Mr. Keyes?” the Examiner asked. “Do you recognize the woman’s voice now?”
“I—” Keyes stopped and swallowed hard. He could not bring himself to either deny or confirm recognition of the voice. Abby, Abby, Abby—
“Come now, Mr. Keyes,” the Examiner prompted. “Have you forgotten so soon that the purpose of our being here is to find the truth? Surely by now you must have associated the voice on the tape with a young woman who formerly worked for you? A young woman named Abigail Daniels?”
Fear. Cold fear. Stark fear. It crept over Keyes like a cloak, shrouding him. Madmen, he thought, they’re madmen. They meant to harm him, to—to destroy him! He had to fight back, he had to struggle; he had to dissuade them.
“I—yes, I recognize her voice now. It’s been several months, you see, and I—well, frankly, I was very surprised to hear her saying those things, after all I did for her—”
“For her,” the Investigator interrupted, “or to her?”
“That will do, Mr. Investigator,” the elderly Moderator ordered. The Investigator glanced over at the Examiner, parting his lips to protest; but seeing no sympathy in the Examiner’s face this time, he quickly relented and looked down at the table in silent frustration. The Examiner waited a moment, until he was certain that the Investigator had fully composed himself; then he started the tape again.
“Now then, dear,” the Psychiatrist’s quiet voice said from the speaker, “I want you to tell me very honestly how you felt when Mr. Keyes told you about the arrangement he and Mr. O’Brien had made with Anita Atkins.”
“I—I’m not quite sure I understand—” the young woman, Abigail Daniels, replied quizically.
“Well, did this transaction they had forced upon Miss Atkins revulse you in any way; did it shock you or offend your moral sense of right and wrong?”
“No. No, nothing like that,” she admitted, her voice lowering as if she were ashamed of her words. “Walt—that’s what I called Mr. Keyes outside the office—Walt was so pleased with himself over the good deal he had made for Hal, just fifty dollars a week and the whole problem was solved; he considered it a very praiseworthy accomplishment that he had prevented some cheap little bitch, as he called Anita, from securing a big claim on Hal’s future income. Protecting an investment, that’s how he looked at it; he had a lot of time and effort tied up in Hal because he thought Hal was going to be a big star someday—”
“I understand all that,” the Psychiatrist prodded gently, “but you still haven’t told me how you felt about it. You do remember how you felt, don’t you?”
“Y—yes—”
“Then tell me, please.”
“I was proud of him!” Abigail’s voice broke for the t
hird time. “God forgive me,” she almost shrieked, “I didn’t know what kind of monster he was, I didn’t, I didn’t, I swear I didn’t—!”
“All right, dear, all right now, here, take my hand again—”
The Examiner stopped the tape. He stared at Keyes for a brief moment, then turned to the panel table.
“That concludes the portion of the tape relevant to the charge of Undermining Civilization,” he told the panel. “At our session tomorrow night we will have a current status report compiled by our Investigator concerning Anita Atkins and the child of Hal O’Brien, plus projections by two of our other colleagues, Mr. Psychologist and Mr. Statistician—”
“Just a minute,” said Keyes. “Don’t I get to say anything at all? Surely I’m entitled to at least deny the things that were said about me on that tape—”
“You would be allowed that right, yes, Mr. Keyes,” the Examiner told him, “if there were any reason to allow it. In this instance, however, it is not necessary since there is absolutely no question at all as to the truthfulness of the statements made on the tape.”
“But that’s not fair!” Keyes said indignantly. “How can you just take it upon yourself to decide whether she was telling the truth or not? I demand—
“As I told you once before, Mr. Keyes,” the Examiner reminded him, “you are not in a position to demand anything. And I assure you that no one has arbitrarily decided what is truth and what is not. We of the Eden Movement value truth above all else in the world, and we never—never, Mr. Keyes—treat it lightly.” He snapped his head toward the panel table. “Mr. Psychiatrist, will you be good enough to tell Mr. Keyes why there is no doubt in our minds as to the veracity of the statements made by Abigail Daniels.”