‘No bother at all,’ said Henrietta Lott. ‘Let me see what I can find out.’
What she found out was that George Perkins, like Jerry, was a junior, a geology major, and he had a class at this very time. If he was attending his lecture, he could be reached. Mrs Lott wrote a note to the class instructor, requesting that he ask George Perkins to remain behind after the class was dismissed, and she suggested sending the note with an office secretary, who would bring him to meet Barrett.
Fifteen minutes later, Barrett stood at the edge of Dickson Plaza, the quad west of the old UCLA library building, overlooking the seemingly endless pitch of brick steps leading down toward the gymnasiums, and he tried to remain undistracted by the scrubbed, healthy girls swinging by as he watched for the return of his guide and hopefully the sight of George Perkins.
Suddenly he made out the secretary coming up the patterned walk before Royce Hall, and slouching along beside her was a big ungainly young man with tangled sandy hair and a shrub of beard, dressed in a turtleneck sweater, corduroy trousers, army fatigue boots. The girl halted, and Barrett realized that she was pointing
him out to the young man, and the young man nodded, and then she waved at Barrett and he waved back as she hurried away.
The young man was clumping across the quad, making his way toward Barrett. He shitted his textbooks from one arm to the other, and as he came nearer, Barrett could see that his beefy face was puzzled.
‘Hiya,’ he said. ‘I’m George Perkins. They said somebody wanted to see me. They didn’t tell me what about.’
‘I’m Michael Barrett. I’ll be glad to tell you what about.’ At the mention of Barrett’s name, George’s brow puckered, as if trying to place it. ‘You may have read my name in the papers,’ Barrett went on. ‘I’m the attorney for Ben Fremont, the bookseller who was arrested for selling The Seven Minutes’
“That’s right,’ muttered George Perkins. ‘Well, well -‘ But something had crossed his mind, and his expression became wary. ‘What do you want with me?’
‘Answers to a few questions, nothing more. I thought you might be able to help me out on something. I’m trying to get a fill-in on Jerry Griffith’s background. I was told you’re a friend of Jerry’s.’
‘No more than lots of others,’ said George, his manner guarded and suspicious. ‘I know him a little, see him around here once in a while. A couple of times he gave me a lift to my apartment. And that’s it.’
‘I was told you were close friends.’
‘Mister, you were told wrong. Naw, nothing like that. Sorry.’ He squinted off. ‘Look, mister, if you’ll excuse me now, I’ve got a chance to get a ride to my place. I better get down there.’
George Perkins started for the brick steps that brought one to the private street along the athletic fields, but Barrett caught up with him and then kept in stride with him. ‘Mind if 1 keep you company to your ride?’ said Barrett. ‘Maybe you can give me some leads.’
‘You’re wasting your time.’
‘Well, it’s my time, so let me waste it,’ said Barrett cheerfully, as he began descending the stairway alongside George Perkins. ‘So at least you know Jerry a little. Ever meet any members of his family ?’
‘Naw.’
‘Did you ever hear Jerry discuss his father?’
‘Nope.’
‘What did you hear Jerry talk about? Any favorite topic or subject?’
‘Nothing special. He’s a listener. We’re all listeners. Haven’t you heard, mister? We’re the generation that’s soaking it all in, so’s we know what not to do.’ He cast a mocking sidelong glance at Barrett. ‘We let others do the yakking.’
Barrett nodded good-naturedly. ‘Bully for you. Maybe listeners are also readers. I was told Jerry Griffith read a lot.’
‘Everybody reads a lot if they want to stick in school.’
‘Did you ever see Jerry reading or hear him discuss The Seven Minutes?’
‘Maybe. I don’t remember. He was big on Hesse the Hermann. But that Jadway thing, that just came out, didn’t it? I probably haven’t seen Jerry since that came out, so how would I know if he discussed it ? The paper says he read it, so you know as much as I know.’
‘When did you last see Jerry Griffith ?’
George Perkins went down the remaining flight of stairs silently. Then he said, ‘Maybe about a week before he hopped that broad.’
‘Have you seen him since, George?’
‘No, and I wouldn’t want to very much, either.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because he’s given sex a bad name. What kind of guy is it -with all the pussy around - who tries to get it that way ? Imagine getting it that way today ?’
“That’s what mystifies many of us.’
‘Well, I gotta go along with Jerry on what he says. He says that book of vours sent him off into orbit. Well, they’re always yakking about the power of the press, so here we see the power. Sounds like that book of yours can give a guy a better trip than LSD.’
They had reached the bottom of the stairs. Barrett saw that any further talk would be useless. ‘I guess that does it, George. I appreciate your help.’
‘You’re putting me on. What help?’
‘At least I’ve learned Jerry hasn’t got any friends - now.’
‘Oh, yeah.’
‘Maybe one of his professors can tell me a little more. I understand he had a class with Dr Hugo Knight. Know anything about Knight?’
‘Fagsville. And a horse’s ass besides.’
‘How do I get to bis office from here?’
George Perkins jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “The same way you came down. Only this time up. I hope you had a cardiogram lately.’
‘Don’t worry. Thanks for your time, George.’
‘Mister, one second…’
Barrett hesitated. ‘Yes?’
“‘You’ve been asking questions. Maybe I ought to ask one or two. Like who told you that me and Jerry Griffith were buddy-buddy? Did Jerry himself tell you that?’
‘No. I’ve never met or seen Jerry. I got it from an employee of the Oakwood Library who saw you with Jerry several times.’
George seemed at once relieved and for the first time amiable. ‘Oh, that’s who. Well, that explains it. But she was wrong. Well, sorry I couldn’t make your day, but good luck anyway.’
Barrett watched him go slouching off past the men’s gym, and he decided he would not be learning much about Jerry Griffith from
his contemporaries. For one like himself, the Union of the Young would remain a closed shop. Ruefully he peered up at the Everest of stairs soaring skyward before him. Was a fag named Dr Hugo Knight worth it ? Well, he had come to UCLA in search of higher education, so it was worth at least one more college try. Laboring, he started to ascend the steep brick staircase.
It was an hour and a half before Mike Barrett returned to his temporary office in the suite Abe Zelkin had leased. Their rooms were on the fifth floor of a recently constructed high-rise building, which was located between Robertson Boulevard and La Cienega Boulevard just before Wilshire Boulevard’s Miracle Mile.
Barrett’s deeply carpeted corner office had an enlivening, unused feel - one could still smell the fresh pale-green paint on the walls -and Barrett liked its oversized oak desk placed near the large scenic window, the new leather-covered occasional chairs, and, somewhat apart, the cushioned sofa and the two classic lounge chairs surrounding the huge disk of a coffee table. There were not yet any framed college diplomas, civic citations, Impressionist reproductions, or celebrity photographs on the walls. But, hanging on the wall near his desk, he had four small framed quotations which he had paid an art student to reproduce in cursive script. These were among his long-time favorites. The first was to remind him of the enemy without: “The dispensing of injustice is always in the right hands. - Stanislaus Lec.’ The next two were amulets against vanity. One read: ‘Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all. -Shakespeare.’ The other read:
‘Perhaps in time the so-called Dark Ages will be thought of as including our own. - Georg C. Lich-tenberg.’ The last, recently penned, was to remind him of the unsolvable problem basic to all censorship: ‘Who shall stand guard to the guards themselves? - Juvenal.’
Three doors broke the monochrome green of the walls. One door opened onto the corridor that brought visitors to him from Donna Novik’s spacious reception room. Another door led to a communal area that included a bathroom and shower, a small dining area, and a kitchenette. The third door led to the conference room, which also opened into Zelkin’s office, beyond which were Kimura’s quarters, Zelkin’s law library, and a spare office used as a storeroom.
In Barrett’s office only his desk gave evidence of the activity that had been generated in this suite these last days. It was piled high with file folders filled with the typed notes and findings concerning the Ben Fremont case, representing the defense’s paper arsenal against the assault being prepared by the prosecution. But what also gave Barrett’s desk the appearance of a craggy mountain landscape were the bound court reporters’ transcripts of previous English and American censorship cases. Among these, all filled with a forest of paper markers, were Regina v. Hicklin, London,
1868; the Crown’s prosecution of The Well of Loneliness, London, 1928; the United States government’s trial of One Book Entitled Ulysses, 1934; the trial of the Grove Press against Postmaster General Christenberry over Lady Chatterley’s Lover, 1959; the trial of the State of California against bookseller Bradley Reed Smith over Tropic of Cancer, 1962; the Massachusetts trial of Fanny Hill, 1964. Then there were full decisions and opinions of the United States Supreme Court: Roth v. U.S., 1957; Jacobellis v. Ohio, 1964; Ginzburg v. U.S., 1966, and numerous others. Lost somewhere in the desk landscape was the record of Hearings on Control of Obscene Material garnered by a Senate subcommittee investigating juvenile delinquency in 1960.
Upon his return from UCLA, Barrett found added to this mass of material on his desk several memorandums from Leo Kimura, and one was important.
A cable had arrived from Monte Carlo requesting Kimura to telephone the private detective, Dubois, at the Hotel Gardiole in Antibes at five o’clock. This was enigmatic, since Dubois was supposed to have intercepted Jadway’s French publisher, Leroux, at the Hotel Balmoral in Monte Carlo much earlier. In his memorandum Kimura did not attempt to speculate on the meaning of the cable. He stated only that he was on his way to Philip Sanford’s suite to interrogate Sanford further, but he would be making the overseas call from there and the moment that he had any word, good or bad, he would be in touch with Barrett.
Now it was five o’clock, and Barrett determined to ignore the clock and his suspense about the results of Kimura’s call to the Riviera in order to finish his verbal report to Abe Zelkin. For the last fifteen minutes, seated behind his desk, puffing his pipe, Barrett had been summarizing his afternoon interviews for Zelkin who had been pacing back and forth before him. Barrett had reviewed his meetings with Ben Fremont, Rachel Hoyt, Henrietta Lott, George Perkins, and now he was giving an account of his interview with Dr Hugo Knight, of the UCLA English department.
‘Then I was a little surprised when Dr Knight told me that Rod riguez, of the District Attorney’s Office, had already been by to see him. I think it was some time yesterday.’
‘No kidding?’ said Zelkin. “Well, those boys aren’t missing a thing. I suppose Duncan wanted the professor for a witness?’
‘Well, they wanted to find out his attitude toward the book,’ said Barrett. ‘Rodriguez wanted to know whether the professor had read the novel, what he thought of it, if he encouraged his students to read it. Dr Knight had read it, had read the copy kept in the UCLA library’s department of special collections. He’d never encouraged students to read it, because, until Sanford decided to publish, there were no circulating copies available. As for the book itself, Dr Knight loved it. So that ended any interest Rodriguez had in the professor as a witness. There was one more thing. Dr Knight
said that Rodriguez kept bugging him to find out whether Jerry Griffith had shown special interest in The Seven Minutes. Dr Knight explained that his classes were so large - a hundred or more in a lecture room - that he often didn’t know an individual student by name. Only after Jerry’s picture appeared in the newspapers did he half remember him as one of his students. Also, as far as he could recall, Jerry had never expressed any special interest in that book or any other book mentioned in the lectures. At last, he’d never raised a hand or come forward to discuss one. Anyway, Rodriguez made it clear that the District Attorney’s Office had no further interest in him.’
Abe Zelkin, hands in his hip pockets, stood over Barrett. ‘What about us ? Do we have any interest in Dr Knight ? He sounds like he can be helpful.’
Barrett grimaced. ‘I don’t know. That kid, George Perkins, was right. Dr Hugo Knight is a bit of a horse’s ass. I wanted to find out what he says about The Seven Minutes in his lectures. Apparently he says very little. He just touches upon it as one more example of the great writings produced by American expatriate authors. Still, he seemed to be personally well informed about Jadway and the novel. So I asked him, “Do you know anything about Jadway that has not been in the newspapers lately?” He answered, “Very few people know Jadway as I know him. 1 know everything about him.” Well, I tell you, Abe, my hopes rocketed. But in a few seconds they fizzled. It turned out he knew everything about Jadway simply from interpreting the novel. Our professor saw the book as a masterpiece of allegory. Maybe it is, although I find it hard to believe that the characters in that book were really allegorical portrayals of the Seven Deadly Sins.’
‘He said that?’
‘That and more. I think Leda and the Swan got into it somewhere, too.’
Zelkin laughed. ‘I can see twelve good men and true on a jury buying that.’
‘That wasn’t the worst of it. When I challenged the symbolism, tried to make the professor consider the book as a piece of realism, he regarded me as if I were an absolute cretin. He got very supercilious and condescending about the inability of unlettered laymen to comprehend symbology, to comprehend the artistic inventions used to reveal intangible truths. Well, I stopped being contentious, because I realized that so many of those academic double-domes require their little private preserve of superiority and that there was nothing to gain by challenging it.’
‘What did you decide to do about him?’
‘Abe, beggars don’t choose. We need witnesses who think The Seven Minutes is a literary marvel. I decided that, whatever Dr Hugo Knight’s shortcomings - a manner that might prove offensive, a predilection for speaking in gobbledygook - he was one man
with proper credentials who had enthusiasm for The Seven Minutes. I asked him whether he would appear as a defense witness. He was thrilled.’
Tm not surprised,’ said Zelkin. ‘At the universities it used to be publish or perish - now it’s appear as a witness or wither.’
‘My hope is we can have a few sessions with him pretrial and persuade him that the symbolism angle won’t pay off in a public -‘
The telephone buzzer sounded, and Barrett shrugged at Zelkin and picked up the receiver. It was Donna on the intercom. She announced that Philip Sanford was on line one.
Barrett pressed down on the lighted button. ‘Hi, Phil.’
‘Good news, Mike, the best! We’ve got our star witness, Jad-way’s old publisher, got him locked up! Isn’t that great?’
‘We’ve got Christian Leroux for a witness?’ repeated Barrett, beaming at Zelkin. ‘That’s wonderful. Now what did he - ’
‘Here, let me put Leo on. He’ll give you the details. I just had to let you know first. Here’s our genius investigator.’
Kimura’s voice came on. ‘Mr Barrett -‘
Tm here with Abe. He’s picking up the extension across the room. Okay, don’t skip anything, give us every detail.’
‘There is not much detail,’ said Kimura in his precise e
nunciation. ‘What there is to tell is highly favorable. I have just finished speaking to Dubois in Antibes. He was waiting in the lobby of the Hotel Balmoral in Monte Carlo when Christian Leroux arrived from Paris to check in. Our man immediately accosted Monsieur Leroux and explained why he was there - the exact nature of his business. Monsieur Leroux indicated at once that it might be possiblefor him to cooperate if he had even more information. But it fast became apparent to Dubois that what our French publisher desired was not information about our case but information about what we were prepared to pay him as a witness. Leroux was put out of business several years ago when pornographic or banned books, his speciality, began to be publ ished openly by the bigger and more legitimate houses throughout the world. Ever since then Leroux has been trying to make a comeback, raise sufficient money to start a new publishing firm in Paris, one featuring a line of annotated bawdy classics. Dubois presented him our initial offer, as agreed - transportation plus living expenses to and from Los Angeles plus three thousand dollars. Leroux balked at this, mumbling about his time’s being worth more than that. Immediately Dubois upped the offer to our top price, transportation and expenses plus five thousand dollars. That was more like it, and Leroux agreed to become our witness.’
‘You landed a big one,’ said Zelkin.
‘One thing,’ said Barrett. ‘Did Leroux indicate what he might say that would be favorable to us ?’
‘Not exactly. However, he left no doubt in Dubois’s mind that he understood what he was being paid for. He wanted to know what
was expected of him. After all, he told Dubois, there are facts and there are facts, and truth has many sides. His implication was that he could put in or leave out facts to suit our case. So Dubois told him, from his own limited knowledge, what we were after. He told Leroux that we hoped to prove that J J Jadway had not written The Seven Minutes merely as a commercial enterprise, as a pornographer out after quick money, but, rather, as an artist writing with honesty and integrity. To this Leroux replied, “Voila, then I can give you what you require, for I was his only publisher, was I not ? I was the only one besides himself to believe in the book, was I not ? I will provide your defense with whatever it needs.” ’
(1969) The Seven Minutes Page 21