(1969) The Seven Minutes

by Irving Wallace

  ‘That book,’ said Osborn, mouthing ‘book’ as if it were a scatalogical four-letter word. ‘You intend to defend that foul book ? Surely you’re not serious?’

  Barrett felt himself bristle. ‘I have no idea whether the book is or is not foul. Only our District Attorney has said it’s foul. The other side hasn’t been heard from yet. I haven’t read the book, but nevertheless it deserves -‘

  ‘It deserves nothing,’ snapped Osborn. ‘It deserves to be ripped to shreds and stuffed into the garbage disposal. You have no idea whether the book is foul? I am really surprised at a man of your intelligence making a remark like that, Michael. One doesn’t have to read a book to know that it is foul. One can smell it. I, for one, know what it is. There is sufficient evidence to make judgment. I am acquainted with our District Attorney. You yourself have met him in this house. He is an honest man and a decent man, and certainly no prude. If he’s seen fit to charge The Seven Minutes as obscenity, I would trust his judgment. If that were not enough, consider that book’s history. It was all over the newspapers this morning. With the exception of that one ratty underground press in Paris, no publisher in any nation in over three decades has felt that this book should be brought to light. And when your so-called friend, whose morality has plainly been warped by his psychotic resentment of his father - when your friend opportunistically determined to publish the book, what was the first thing to happen? The book found its way into the hands of Frank Griffith’s young son, and it unleashed his normal inhibitions and provoked him into an act of violence.’

  ‘We only have the boy’s word for that,’ said Barrett, shaken by Osborn’s vehemence.

  ‘His word is good enough for me,’ said Osbom. ‘Michael, you

  must realize this. I am no stranger to the Griffith family. Certainly, I’ve known Frank Griffith well for many years. He has bought endless hours of television time from me for his numerous clients. His clients are drawn from the top business executives in America, and he has them because he has earned their respect. He is an outstanding public citizen, and he has brought up his son in his own image. Nothing could have corrupted the mind of a young man like that except a criminally pornographic work. You’ve come to know me a little, Michael. You could hardly call me a puritan. You must know I am against those who would restrict our freedoms. I oppose their efforts daily in the never-ending battle in our world of tele-vison. But even freedom must have boundaries. Otherwise, the greedy, the vicious, will use our freedom against us and destroy that freedom, as well as destroy our young and innocent. I say open the door to the new candor and realism when it is honest and broadening, but I say shut the door in the ugly face of a monster like The Seven Minutes. For your own sake, Michael, let alone our future together, but mainly for your own sake, I trust you are not serious about defending that book.’

  Listening, Barrett had become frightened. His fear was not a fear of Willard Osborn, but a fear of the reckless anger that had been growing inside himself and a fear that this anger would overcome his rational self, dominate him, and make him give voice to long-forgotten feelings that would destroy his wondrous future. He did not know what to day, but, fortunately, in those seconds he needed to say nothing, for Faye was addressing her father.

  ‘Dad, I’m pot disagreeing with what you’ve said, but I do think you are entirely missing the point that Mike is trying to make. Mike may or may not be serious about defending this book, but the point is that he has said from the start that if he defended it at all, it would be because of his loyalty to an old friend. He’s tried to tell you he is considering handling this case because of Mr Sanford, not because of The Seven Minutes.’

  ‘Well, that may be, but the very thought of Michael here becoming involved…’ Osborn had turned to Barrett once more. ‘As to friends, I understand loyalty to friends. That is admirable. Yet, from long experience, I also know one must not permit friendship to become devouring. Most of us pay our dues to friendship. But we must never do so to the point where we bankrupt ourselves. Remember that, Michael.’ He took up his cigar and brought a table lighter to it. ‘Now, then, your place in Osborn Enterprises. I said we must have you at once. Possibly we can reach a compromise. How much time would you have to give this - this trial of yours?’

  ‘It’s too early to tell,’ said Barrett. ‘I’d say maybe a month. Maybe a little longer.’

  Osborn shook his head. ‘Impossible. I’m afraid that is asking too much. I couldn’t afford to keep the position unmanned for such a

  period of time. I’d have to find someone else. Also, to be perfectly frank, there is another aspect of your involvement with Sanford that would be distasteful. This has the makings of a sensational and dirty trial. Some of that dirt would automatically rub off on you, and if you were to become one of our vice-presidents it would in turn rub off on Osborn Enterprises. It would place you and the company in a bad light with the more finicky conservatives who advertise on our stations. I would find it extremely difficult to justify your role in such a trial and, indeed, my having given you so responsible a position in a company involved with communications that influence young and old alike.’ He suddenly ground out his cigar. ‘What the devil. You know what I’m driving at. You’re smart enough. That’s why I want you with us.’

  Osborn came out of the chair and shoved it aside. He appeared at ease and benign once more. He offered his daughter a slight smile, and then he gave Barrett a broader one.

  ,T know I can depend on your sense of values, Michael,’ he said. ‘All things considered, that trial should have no place in your resume of achievements. There are more vital, and more attractive, affairs to concern you. My advice is that you forget that courtroom diversion. You can tell your friend Sanford that you made a try on his behalf, but that I was absolutely immovable. You can say that I could not find any way of sparing you, and that you had to honor your earlier commitment to Osborn Enterprises. Once you’ve told him that, and he realizes you mean it, he’ll make no further effort to use you. He’ll do what he should have done in the first place. He’ll find himself the kind of back-room attorney who specializes in defending the licentious and the lewd, he’ll find someone with less integrity than you have. As for you, Michael, I want you on our team, among men of stature, where you belong. I want you among men who are going places. I’ll expect to see you bright and early Monday morning. So, off you go, both of you, and enjoy yourselves. After all, you’ve a lot to celebrate.’

  The Russian ballet had ended to a dozen curtain calls twenty minutes before eleven o’clock. There had been the usual wait trying to leave the parking area, and the usual jam on the freeway, but once Barrett had made the off ramp he was able to make better time. Now, as his convertible moved along the Sunset Strip, it was a quarter after eleven.

  Once again Faye Osborn was chattering about Sleeping Beauty and extolling the marvels of the Bolshoi troupe. He realized that he could recall little of what she was describing. Throughout the ballet, he had been inattentive. While the corps de ballet lightly soared and pirouetted on the stage, Barrett’s mind had been rilled with heavier, more disquieting, images that had pranced and skipped through his head.

  “That new ballerina,’ Faye was saying, ‘the one who was Princess

  Aurora -I can never remember those ghastly Russian names - do you remember her name, Mike?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Anyway, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a more beautiful performance. The program said that’s the part that made Ulanova famous overnight. Well, I think this girl is going to be even more famous, don’t you, Mike?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s positively inspiring. It makes one want to float, or at least swing…. There’s Whisky a Go Go. Do you feel up to it, Mike ?’

  ‘What? Up to what?’

  ‘Dancing. You weren’t even listening. I guess you’re not in the mood.’

  ‘No, not tonight, darling. We’ll do it next time.’

  They had entered Beverly Hills, an
d he lapsed into silence.

  Her hand had reached out, and he felt it touch his arm. ‘Mike, dear…’

  He glanced at her. Faye’s flawless brow was marked with concern, strange, like a delicate porcelain plate with a crack in it.

  ‘Mike, what is it ? You’ve been locked inside yourself the entire evening. What’s troubling you ? Is it Dad ? Did he upset you?’

  She was her father’s daughter, and he was always careful about Dad. Not that he’d had much reason to be critical of her father before. Willard Osborn had always treated him graciously. But, on a personal level, he had known Osborn only as father of the fiancee, as host, as career patron. The rest of Osborn, the human Osborn, he had divined only through the conductor that was Faye. Sometimes - rarely, but sometimes - he wondered. For maybe that wasn’t Osbom, but Faye alone. It was difficult to strain a bloodline and separate it into two identities. That was why, on the few occasions when Faye had made remarks or shown prejudices that annoyed him, providing no evidence as to whether the biases were her own or parentally derived, he had always been careful.

  But tonight he had lived with Osborn throughout the evening, and his resentment had not lessened. He wanted to speak his mind, to rid it of Osborn, and he determined to do so now. He would not be careless. He would simply be forthright. After all, there was an intimacy between Faye and himself, even if they were not yet close. Intimacy counted for something.

  ‘Well, did he?’ Faye asked. ‘Is that what’s on your mind?’

  ‘Yes, I guess it is,’ he said. T guess I’ve been thinking of what he said after dinner. And that made me think of other things. So it’s not just your father.’

  ‘Well, what about my father?’

  ‘I don’t think I expected an ultimatum from him. Either or else. When I spilled out my whole dilemma, my friendship and debt to Phil Sanford, I thought he would understand my position. But he didn’t. Or at least he chose not to.’

  ‘Be fair, Mike. I was there. Despite his feelings about that book, the trial, his own sorrow for Frank Griffith, Dad was sympathetic to your own problem. He was ready to relax his terms, give in a little. That’s because he does like you and wants to see you achieve the success you deserve. Mike, he did ask you how much time you wanted for the trial.’

  ‘Exactly the point,’ said Barrett. ‘He was ready to give me only the time that he thought I required. Had the trial been over some other matter, I’m sure he would have been more flexible. Because it was this trial, about this book, he placed a limit on his magnanimity. He made the gesture. Yet he made the terms as impossible as they had been from the start. He knew very well one can’t prepare for a trial and go to court and get it over with in a few days or a week. He knew I’d need a month or more. When I said so, he pulled back and said no. Why ? If he really needed me on Monday, and in Chicago a week later, he wouldn’t have been prepared to release me from the negotiation at all. But he knew, and I know, that you don’t make a man a vice-president simply because of one immediate project. If a man is really valuable, then he is valuable to you for years, for a lifetime, and you take the longer view. That’s why I say, if I’d asked him for time off to help a friend over some civil matter, a tax case, a corporation suit, some clean, businesslike, red-blooded, Waspish American litigation, he’d have been considerate and given me a break. What he disliked was the issue I wanted to become involved in. So he made it impossible for me to contest that issue - unless I was prepared to give up the position he’s offered me.’

  Faye had heard him out, biting her lower lip, and when he was through she spoke immediately. ‘Mike, you’re torn, and therefore angry, and that’s making you distort the whole thing. No one knows Dad the way I know him. You can believe me, he wasn’t trying to bludgeon you into standing for what he stands for. He was looking out for you, for your future. He knows how people use people, and he could be more objective than you can and see more clearly how Sanford was manipulating you. He didn’t want your reputation hurt by his allowing you to associate yourself with a dirty book.’

  ‘Well, I’m not -‘ Careful, Barrett, careful, he told himself, you’ve spoken your piece. Now easy does it. ‘Well, maybe you’re right, Faye. It’s not fair to guess at someone else’s motives. Let’s say what disturbed me was his strong prejudgment of a book he’s never read, knows nothing about, except what a publicity-minded District Attorney sees fit to release in the press.’

  ‘Mike, what about you ? You admitted you hadn’t read the book, yet you’re also making a prejudgment of it, aren’t you? You’re making a prejudgment in its favor.’

  He doffed an imaginary hat to her. ‘Right you are, my dear. I eat my words, although only some of them. Anyway, your father

  knows nothing about the book, and through Phil Sanford I’m at least familiar with -‘

  ‘Mike, reading it or not reading it shouldn’t be the issue. I’m surprised at you. We’re warned off certain things by the reputation that precedes them, or because people we trust tell us they’re bad. If people who know label a bottle “Poison,” isn’t that enough? Does everyone have to sample the poison to be convinced he should stay away from it?’

  ‘Not the same thing,’ said Barrett. ‘Poison can be scientifically tested and classified as dangerous beforehand. A work of literature cannot, at least not so simply.’

  ‘Oh, please, Mike. This polluted book has been scientifically tested right under our very noses. A human guinea pig was used in the experiment. Jerry Griffith. And he was poisoned.’

  ‘You say Jerry Griffith. Let’s look at Jerry Griffith more closely. I’m an attorney, Faye. I’ve been taught not to take people and their actions at face value. You probe, you question, and more often than not you find motives that are quite different from those that first appeared on the surface. Maybe The Seven Minutes was solely responsible for Jerry’s crime. Again, maybe there were other reasons for his behavior, and the book was only the final thing that tripped the trigger. If it hadn’t come along, there would have been something else to trip the trigger. How do we know, how does even Jerry know, unless we look deeper ? I’m not prepared to judge the book, condemn it, because of this one piece of evidence. And what surprises me, and upsets me, is how many educated people, like your father, yourself, thousands of others around town, are ready to curb freedom of speech without conclusive evidence.’

  Faye took her gold holder and a cigarette from her purse. ‘Well, you’re surprised at us, and frankly, Mike, I’m surprised at you. I thought your main motive in wanting to defend that dirty little book was to do a favor for an old friend. That was something I could comprehend. Now, all at once, it’s not friendship but freedom of speech.’

  ‘I guess I was turned on tonight. I’d long since forgotten I was once an idealist. I didn’t believe I had those feelings any more.’

  ‘Well, I wish you’d have them over something more deserving, something worthwhile. Not over a piece of incendiary trash.’ She held up her cigarette holder. ‘I know, I know, I’m not supposed to say that until I taste the poison.’

  He tried to contain his pique. ‘Or at least until you’re sure, Faye dear, that the bottle hasn’t been mislabeled.’ An acid tone was creeping into his voice, and he hastened to sweeten it with reasonableness. ‘Faye, one thing for sure, as you’ve pointed out, none of us has read the book. You haven’t. Your father hasn’t. I haven’t. So none of us knows first hand whether it is a work of hard-core pornography or a work of erotic art. So how can we discuss it further?’

  ‘A work of art. Ha. You can read it, not me. You read it and tell me. Subject closed. The ballet was more fun.’ She sat back low, smoking. Then, as Barrett turned the car off Sunset Boulevard, she suddenly craned her neck and sat upright. ‘Hey,,-where are you taking me, Mike?’

  ‘Home.’

  She swung around. ‘Isn’t this something new? Weren’t we going to your place? Don’t tell me you’re peeved with me because I disagreed with you?’

  ‘Of course not. You know
me better than that, Faye.’

  ‘Then why aren’t we going to be together longer?’

  ‘Because tonight I’m going to have other company. Tonight I’m going to bed - with a book.’ He guided the car into the Osborn driveway. ‘I’m going to practice what I’ve been preaching. I’m going to find out whether the poison was mislabeled or not.’

  ‘Well, if that’s all.’ She seemed relieved, and suddenly cheerful. ‘Just remember, if it overstimulates you, you don’t have to go galloping out to waylay and rape some poor child. I’m ready, willing and available.’

  ‘I’ll keep that in mind.’ He drew up before the impressive Spanish structure, set the shift in ‘Park,’ stepped on the emergency brake, but allowed the engine to idle. He was starting to get out, to see her to the door, when she stopped him with a question.

  ‘Mike, are you even considering turning down Dad’s position to take on Sanford’s case?’

  ‘I don’t know what I’m considering. No, the odds are I won’t sacrifice your father’s job. I probably wouldn’t have the guts any more. Besides, I wouldn’t want to lose the chance to keep you in the manner to which you’re accustomed.’

  ‘But you haven’t turned down Sanford yet, either. And you are going to read the book.’

  ‘That’s right, darling,’ he admitted. ‘Because I don’t want to grow rich and fat and old always carrying the niggling and perhaps romantic regret that I once didn’t do something important that I should have done. A sage long ago said - there is nothing as futile as regret. Another sage, namely me, said - there is no burden heavier than regret. I want to anticipate and put down that albatross and join the team Monday morning, guiltless and vigorous.’

  ‘Silly,’ she laughed, and then she sobered. ‘No, seriously, Mike -‘

  ‘Very well, seriously. I’m afraid I don’t have much choice about what I can do. Still, there’s a little bit of my conscience, frightened at an early age by Qarence Darrow, that demands explanations of me for certain moves I make. It’s not vociferous, that little bit, but it is there, and it niggles. Before I turn down Phil Sanford tomorrow, before I close the book on that book, I feel it deserves one hearing, one chance to speak for itself, one opportunity to be fairly judged. Then my bit of conscience will be satisfied that I’ve awarded the defendant due process. When I’ve read The Seven Minutes tonight,