(1969) The Seven Minutes

by Irving Wallace

  ‘Chief of Police Patterson wishes to speak to you, Mr Duncan,’ the butler added.

  Duncan groaned. “That’s worse. That’s business.’

  ‘If you want to save yourself a walk, Elmo, you can take the call in here. Unless it might be private. We’ve installed a microphone and loudspeaker - it’s called a Speakerphone - for conference calls here.’ Yerkes pointed to two small green boxes, with the usual perforations over microphone and amplifier, that rested on the table between the armchairs.

  ‘It shouldn’t be anything private. Turn it on and we’ll see, Luther.’

  Yerkes leaned over and depressed the push button on the microphone.

  Duncan nodded his thanks and then called out to the telephone microphone, ‘Hi, Tim. This is Elmo. What’s up?’

  The reply crackled through the speaker. ‘Hate to bother you, Elmo. Nothing unusual, actually. Forcible rape on Doheny in West Hollywood. Victim sustained a head injury, is in a coma, got her over to Mount Sinai. Mostly routine, except some big game involved, so when the officers reported it I thought you might want to be notified.’

  ‘Who’s the big game, Tim?’

  ‘Well this twenty-one-year-old kid who did it - he’s confessed to the whole thing, that’s sewed up - but he’s the son of - His father

  is Frank Griffith.’

  ‘The Griffith who has the advertising agencies ?’ Duncan asked.

  ‘That’s the one,’

  Luther Yerkes had sprung to his feet, waving a hand at Duncan. ‘Elmo, ask the Chief if he’s absolutely positive. Griffith Advertising does a lot of billing for me. I know Frank Griffith. I’m sure it can’t be the same -‘

  Duncan turned back to the microphone. “That was Mr Yerkes, Tim. Did you hear him ?’

  The loudspeaker crackled. ‘I heard. Yes, it’s the Frank Griffith whose son -‘

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ said Yerkes. ‘Do you know who Frank Griffith is? He’s up there with Benton and Bowles, Young and Rubicam, Doyle Dane Bernbach. He’s got one of the best reputations in the world. You remember, he was an Olympic hero - decathlon -years ago. Today he’s one of the most respected men in the community. How could his son - it can’t be his son.’

  Duncan bent toward the microphone. ‘You heard that, Tim. Are you positive this is Griffith’s boy?’

  The Chief’s voice came on again. ‘My men apprehended the boy as he was returning home. Frank Griffith was there and he brought in Ralph Polk, his attorney. And, as I said, the boy confessed to forcible rape.’

  Duncan glanced at Yerkes, then at the amplifier. ‘He confessed, fine. Any corroborating evidence?’

  ‘The victim was a Miss Sheri Moore, eighteen. Her roommate was out and returned and found her semiconscious, and she said she’d been raped, and the roommate called the police. Jerry Griffith - that’s the boy’s name - his keys, with a name disk, were found near the victim. He said he did it alone. We found a knife on him, so that’s probably true. We’ve had a report from the hospital. The tests show she was entered, no question. The boy’s car was searched after he was apprehended. There was a cigarette butt with a trace of lipstick - the lab will test it in the morning - and, let me see - oh, yes, four books in the rear trunk, three of them college texts and the fourth one was found under the spare tire - a dirty book - believe it or not, the book that made us haul in that bookseller in Oakwood this morning -what the devil was the title ? -yes, The Seven Minutes - that was there, and then there was -‘ ‘Tim, you mean you found that book in the Griffith boy’s car?’ ‘Yup. Hidden away under the spare. Anyway, I thought -‘ Darting forward, Yerkes reached up and grabbed Duncan’s shoulder. ‘Elmo, tell him goodbye, tell him you’ll speak to him later,’ he whispered urgently. ‘Let me shut that damn machine off.’ Obeying, Duncan called out, ‘That covers it, Tim. Thanks for checking in. I’ll be in touch. Thanks a lot.’ He freed himself from Yerkes’ grasp and pushed down the off button on the microphone. Yerkes, who was behaving as if he had St Vitus’ dance, was pulling

  Underwood and Blair forward, one on either side of him. Now he looked at Duncan with a strange excitement.

  ‘Elmo, Elmo, don’t you see it?’ Yerkes demanded.

  ‘I think so. The book - the boy - but I’m not sure if we can -‘

  ‘I’m sure! I’m positive!’ Yerkes shouted. ‘Griffith’s son, that poor kid, he didn’t commit forcible rape and grave injury. He didn’t do it and he’s not responsible for it. You know who is responsible ? You know the real criminal out there ? It’s that filthy, slimy book, The Seven Minutes. There’s your true criminal, the one that incited a decent boy from a good family to commit rape. There’s your clear-cut evidence of what sort of thing is driving youngsters berserk, sending them out into the streets like hordes of beasts to perpetrate the worst kind of criminal attacks. That vicious book, Elmo - there is your rapist!’

  Underwood and Blair were bobbing their heads in hypnotized agreement, and Duncan found himself nodding his own assent with fervor.

  ‘By God, Luther, you’re right, you’re right,’ gasped Duncan. ‘I think it’s possible to -‘

  Yerkes had whipped off his tinted glasses, and his eyes were fanatical dots.

  ‘Elmo,’ he said, dropping his voice, ‘that little censorship arrest of yours this morning - it’s no longer the jewel theft - you know what it is? - it’s the irrevocable murder - the very act that can arouse millions in this state and country. Elmo, forget sleep and forget caution. You take yourself over to Frank Griffith’s place as fast as you can get there, and you take command personally. Because you know what - we’ve finally got hold of the winner we’ve been looking for - the big case, the big issue, the big image-maker, the best one possible. Pounce on it. Rip those rapemakers limb from limb. Protect the public from those lust-provoking books that lead to terror. Do that, and you’ve got it made - we’ve all got it made, Senator Elmo Duncan!’

  He had been dreaming that he was basking in the Riviera sun on the deck of his white yacht anchored off Cannes, when a sudden explosion shredded the dream, dissolved it, and flung him back on his bed in West Los Angeles.

  ‘ Eyes closed, he could still hear the reverberations of the explosion, nearby but diminished in volume.

  His head cleared, and so the sound became clearer, and he realized that it was the ringing of his telephone.

  He opened his eyes, turned his head on the pillow, and saw that it was seven o’clock in the morning. He lifted himself on an elbow, and more to shut up the damn persistence of the telephone than to take a call, he reached for the receiver and brought it to his ear. If it was the wrong number, he would perform mayhem on someone.

  It was the right number.

  ‘Mr Michael Barrett?’ The voice was feminine, secretarial, and distant.

  ‘Yes,’ he croaked in his before-breakfast guttural.

  ‘Mr Philip Sanford calling you from New York. One moment, please.’

  Clutching the receiver, he threw aside the blanket, sat up, and swung his legs off the bed.

  Philip Sanford came on. ‘Mike, sorry to wake you. I held off as long as I could.’

  He sounded agitated, and Barrett dimly wondered. ‘Never mind, Phil. Is anything - ?’

  ‘Have you heard what happened last night out your way ? Have you seen this morning’s front pages?’

  ‘No, not yet.’

  ‘Let me read you one of the headlines. It’s not the banner head, but it’s on the front page, which is bad enough. Here it is.’ Sanford seemed to catch his breath, and then he read aloud, ‘ “Son of Prominent Ad Man Confesses to Rape; Blames Allegedly Porno Book.” Did you hear that? It’s our book he blames!’

  Barrett was wide awake now. ‘What’s this all about?’

  ‘Every newspaper is carrying it at length. And I’ve had the television on. All the top news commentators are reporting it. You’d think this is the first time rape had ever been committed.’

  ‘Phil, will you please tell me - ?’

  ‘Sorry. I th
ought I was upset yesterday, but after this lousy break! Some kid picked up an eighteen-year-old girl and gave her a ride to her apartment, and then he followed her in, and he held a knife over her and raped her. Apparently she tried to resist and he banged her head against something and she suffered a concussion and she’s in the hospital now, in a coma. Something dropped out of the boy’s pocket when he was trying to dress, and the police traced him and arrested him. Guess what was found hidden in the kid’s car? You guessed. A copy of our edition of The Seven Minutes. Then the boy admitted rape, and he put the entire blame on the book. In one of the wire stories - where is it ? - anyway, he was quoted as saying, “I read it and it got me all worked up. Then something sort of snapped in my head and I guess I went crazy.” And later on he said, “Yes, that novel, that’s what incited me to do what I did.” ’

  “Those last words, I’m sure they’re not his own,’ said Barrett. “The word “incited,” that’s not a boy’s word. That’s a police word or press agent’s language. It sounds to me like the boy is being coached.’

  ‘But he did it, he plainly did it, and there was our book in his car.’

  ‘I’m not questioning that. I meant something else. I meant how the facts are being handled. Never mind. Anyway -‘

  ‘Mike, I think we’re in the soup. I’m worried. I don’t mind publicity for the book. Hell, I want it. But not this kind. It’ll turn everyone against us. Wesley R. has been trying to get me on the phone all morning. One of the few times my …. my … my father has ever acknowledged I’m alive. I won’t answer. I make them say I’m out.’

  ‘The boy, the one who violated the girl, what’s his background ?’

  ‘Ideal background, the best kind of upbringing. Do you want me to read you the stories ?’

  ‘I think you’d better. At least the wire stories.’

  For the next five minutes, in an unsteady voice, Sanford read the newspaper stories to Barrett. When he had finished he said, ‘There you have it. I don’t know why it’s getting such a play, except maybe because the boy is Frank Griffith’s son - prominent family.’

  ‘No,’ said Barrett, ‘that’s not it. It’s the coincidence of a rape following the arrest of a bookseller for purveying an obscene book. Each act, separate, isolated, would not be news. In juxtaposition, tied together, they appear to make real news and they appear to refute the well-known pronouncement once made by Mayor James J. Walker.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Jimmy Walker was supposed to have said, “I never knew of a girl who was made pregnant by a book.” Actually, I think the verbatim version is “I never knew a girl who was ruined by a book.”’

  ‘Yes, I’ve heard that.’

  ‘Well, here there seems to be an actual situation that refutes that statement. The press has put a case together. Very neat. The cause - a book inciting a boy to attack a girl. The effect - a girl ruined by a book. That is news.’

  Sanford had become increasingly agitated. ‘All I care about is how this affects us. What does it do to that arrest of Ben Fremont you were going to settle? You did see your District Attorney, didn’t you?’

  T did, but one question at a time,’ Barrett said calmly. He was trying to think it out. ‘First, as to how this affects our efforts on behalf of Ben Fremont and your book. I stated that the press was trying to couple two separate events and make them one. I stated that that is what made it news. True. It is news, but it is not evidence. One crime has nothing to do with the other, in a strictly legal sense. Forget the press. Let’s concern ourselves with the law. Ben Fremont was arrested for purveying obscene reading matter. That’s one thing. Jerry Griffith was arrested for forcibly violating and injuring a girl. That’s another thing. Under the law, Jerry Griffith’s reading habits have nothing to do with the charges against Fremont. The fact of Griffith’s reading The Seven Minutes is not relevant and is immaterial to the charge that The Seven Minutes is of prurient interest only and therefore violates Section 311 of the California Criminal Code. The Fremont case will be determined on its own merits, as far as the law is concerned.’

  ‘But we’re not up against the law alone,’ protested Sanford. ‘What about public opinion?’

  There was the big question, Barrett knew, and he had considered it and anticipated it. But it was too early to answer that one. Perhaps he would have the answer later, even later this day, but he did not have it yet.

  ‘We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,’ he said. ‘Right now let’s confine ourselves to the law, which is what we have to contend with. This brings me to your second question. Did I see District Attorney Elmo Duncan about the Fremont case? I did, Phil. He was friendly and cooperative. He agreed that the whole censorship business and the arrest were a nuisance, and he made it clear he was no more interested in a costly, time-consuming trial than we were. He wanted to know what would satisfy us, and I told him. He found our request acceptable. We were to have Ben Fremont plead guilty, and then it would be arranged that Fremont be fined the twenty-four hundred dollars and be given a year’s sentence which would be suspended. Your book would not be sold in Oakwood, which is an unincorporated area in Los Angeles County, but you’d be free to place the book on sale elsewhere in Los Angeles County.’

  ‘Was it settled, then?’

  ‘No, not quite. That’s why I postponed calling you back. I wanted it all wrapped up. It’s virtually settled. When I left the District Attorney, he asked simply for time to discuss our compromise with his staff, as a gesture of courtesy. He told me to call him today and he’d make his acceptance official. That is where we stand.’

  ‘Pasttense, Mike,‘said Sanford. ‘That is where we stood-yesterday. Maybe today’s another day.’

  ‘Phil, I can only repeat, under the law nothing has changed since yesterday. Duncan’s certainly as smart an attorney as I am, and maybe smarter. He knows that a case of forcible rape is utterly immaterial to the 311 charge against Fremont. He will deal with the Fremont affair on its own merits. And if he does so, as I believe he will, he’ll stand by our agreement of yesterday. I’m fairly confident about that.’ .

  There was a woosh of air in the telephone receiver. Sanford had obviously sighed with his relief. “Thanks, Mike. I feel much better… Only one thing. My secretary keeps sticking memos under my nose. Our sales department is starting to get a steady stream of inquiries from booksellers around the country wanting to know what we’re going to do about this prosecution of the book. I’d like to be able to tell them that there’s nothing to worry about, that we got Fremont off without trouble, and now everyone can go ahead with the book. The sooner we can say that, the better. Can you settle this whole business today?’

  I intend to,’ said Barrett. ‘I was supposed to phone the District Attorney. I think it would be better if I drove downtown and saw him in person for a few minutes. Besides, it’s to my advantage, too, to get this out of the way as soon as possible. I told you yesterday that I left Thayer and Turner, and that I had something much bigger coming up. Well, it’s a vice-presidency with Osborn Enterprises.’

  ‘Why, that’s great, Mike! Congratulations.’

  ‘Thanks. Anyway, I’m settling that tonight, and part of the deal is that I start right in on the new job. So I want to get this censorship nuisance out of the way as quickly as you do. And I expect to. I’ll call you later today, the second it’s settled.’

  Ever since she had come to California to make her home with the Griffiths, it had seemed to Maggie Russell that the world had somehow ceased revolving on its axis. It was as if all life had come to a standstill. One day succeeded another so quickly, smoothly, without change, each new day as uniform as the last, that one hardly felt the passage of a month or of a season. While it was not truly living, she suspected, it was a peaceful way of existence that she welcomed in this period of her youth. After the frenzy and insecurity of her earlier years, losing first her father and being uprooted from Minnesota, then losing her mother and being uprooted from Ohio, and
then living with relatives in Alabama, and then trying to find jobs that would support her and still give her time for a college education in North Carolina and Massachusetts, it was wonderful to have one haven where there were routine and regularity and the days came and went in a soft blur and you could wake and sleep mindless and safe. That was what made the shock greater, Maggie reflected, as she sat unobtrusively on the bench in the bay window of the Griffith living room, observing all the activity and tension going on before her eyes.

  The sudden, unexpected change in the routine and life of the household was what had jolted her so. Not that it had always been so easy to adjust to others, even relatives, especially one as highly regarded and demanding as her Uncle Frank (although her Aunt Ethel and cousin Jerry were paragons of kindness and for them she had an unshakable affection), but as households went, as far as she knew or had known, this one had been a comfortable cocoon with each bright day as predictable as the next. Yet overnight this world had been turned upside down and set spinning uncontrollably.

  Yesterday, at this hour, this room had been quiet and restful. Today it was a small madhouse overcharged with emotion and danger.

  Or, she wondered, had it always been this way, at least in its potential, and had she shut her eyes and mind to it because she had wanted something perfect?

  Besides herself, there were five of them in the living room, seated in a ragged circle, chattering incessantly. Beyond them, at the foot of the staircase and near the home elevator, which had been installed several years ago for Aunt Ethel after she was no longer ambulatory, was the empty wheelchair. Maggie was grateful that it was empty, and that her aunt had been put to bed by the doctor and heavily sedated. Her aunt would have been made more distraught by this scene - last night, with the police, later with the District Attorney, had been bad enough - as Maggie herself had been made distraught seeing Jerry, so troubled and frightened, amidst all those men, returning from the first arraignment fifteen minutes ago.

  Carefully Maggie Russell studied the men in the room.