(1969) The Seven Minutes

by Irving Wallace

  here to live with his family in Connecticut and kept you in New York? And you didn’t like it, being kept or being in America or having him go back to his family again? Is that what you were trying to say ?’

  Cassie McGraw’s expression was one of bewilderment. Her fingers worked at the Kleenex, but her iips did not move.

  ‘Cassie, Cassie,’ he implored her, ‘we were so close to it, almost there. Please try, try to remember, try to finish or at least explain what you started to say. Tell me, please, did Jadway commit suicide in Paris, or is that a lie? Did he return to live in this country healthy and well? Please remember!’

  She had become fascinated by Barrett’s intentness, as if it were an offer of devotion and love, but her sweet smile was like a non sequitur.

  ‘Cassie - Kate - try, try,’ he pleaded. ‘Just tell me this. Was Jadway alive after he was supposed to be dead ? Is he - is he alive today?’

  Her eyes had become vacant, and her mind, what was left of it, had returned to limbo.

  There would be no more, he knew. The promise of lightning and thunder, and then only the silence of the senile which was like the silence of the dead, only worse.

  He pushed the chair away from the table and stood up as Avis Jefferson came to her feet.

  ‘She was trying to tell you something,’ said the nurse, ‘but I suppose she couldn’t. It flew away. She just got lost. Or did she tell you something?’

  ‘Not enough, really, nothing I could count on, considering her condition.’

  ‘Well, I was going to suggest, maybe if you could stay around here a week or two, you just might catch her on one of those good remembering days, like when she dictated that postal card.’

  Barrett smiled wanly. ‘If I were writing history, I’d stay. But I’m conducting a trial, and I’ve run out of time. The trial may end the day after tomorrow. I guess we’re just cooked.’ He looked down at the old lady. ‘She was nice. She tried. She tried very hard. She’s a fine lady. She must have been a remarkable young woman.’

  He saw his wilting bouquet of red roses. He went to get them and brought them back. ‘She deserves this, at least.’

  He bent, and gently he placed the bouquet in Cassie’s lap. She looked up with a flicker of surprise, then looked down, touching the rose petals, then raised her head once more, and for the first time her smile had another characteristic. It was impish.

  ‘Flowers,’ Cassie McGraw said. ‘Is it my birthday?’

  Miss Jefferson laughed gleefully, and Barrett chuckled, and finally Cassie McGraw began picking the petals off the roses and was lost to human contact again.

  Miss Jefferson was still laughing, shaking her head, as they

  walked away. ‘She’s a card, that one. Did you hear her? “Is it my birthday?” she says. You see, she can remember, she can remember some things. Once a year she gets flowers on her birthday, that’s the only time, just on her birthday, and I guess that’s what flowers mean to her now, and so she thought it was her birthday.’

  Barrett’s inner ear heard his inner voice. He repeated its question aloud. ‘I thought she was alone? You say she gets a bouquet of flowers on every birthday ? From whom? Who sends them?’ And another question. ‘And by the way, who’s footing the bill for her in this sanitarium?’

  ‘I asked Mr Holliday about that once. He says the money comes from her estate, what was left when she was confined.’

  ‘And the flowers on her birthday? From her daughter? From Sean O’Flanagan ? Any name to the card?’

  ‘Mr Barrett, they come with no card, no card at all.’

  They had left the recreation room and were in the corridor once more.

  Barrett was not satisfied. ‘If there are flowers, someone has to send them.’

  ‘I don’t know who, Mr Barrett. All I know is they’re delivered every birthday morning, each year, from Milton’s Florists.’

  “Where is Milton’s Florists?’

  ‘Here in Chicago, on State Street.’

  ‘You’re sure that’s where they come from?’

  ‘Sure I’m sure, and I’ll tell you why. The delivery boy for that florist, he’s in and out of here, and he’s a cute one. Him and me, we’re always kidding around. And whenever he brings in the once-a-year bouquet for Katie - your Miss Cassie - he always insists on going along when I give her the flowers, so he can sing Happy Birthday. What a kook.’

  Barrett had his wallet out. He extracted five twenty-dollar bills. He pushed them into Miss Jefferson’s palm. ‘Your reward,’ he said.

  ‘That’s mighty nice, but you didn’t have to, considering -‘

  He held up one more twenty-dollar bill. ‘How’d you like to earn this ? What I want you to do is call your friend, that delivery boy at Milton’s Florists, and find out where Cassie’s - Mrs Sullivan, I should say - where her birthday flowers come from every year. Want to do that?’

  Miss Jefferson plucked the bill from his fingers. ‘You wait right here, Mr Barrett.’

  She hurried around the corner, and he waited, too overwrought to smoke his pipe.

  In less than five minutes, Avis Jefferson was back and breathless. ‘I still got my friend on the phone, because I wasn’t sure I got the right kind of answer you wanted.’

  ‘What answer did he give you?’

  ‘He looked it up and he said the flowers for Katie Sullivan are a standing order from the Capitol Hill Florists in Washington, D.C.

  That doesn’t tell you who they come from, and that’s what you want to know, isn’t it ?’

  ‘That’s what I want to know. Who pays for the standing order in Washington, D.C.?’

  ‘Just what I thought. That’s what I asked him, and he said he doesn’t know. But seeing as how I think you’re so nice and generous, I suggested you’d pay for the longdistance call - you can leave the money for him with me - if he’ll phone the Capitol Hill Florists in Washington, D.C., and since he’s alone in the shop now he can say he’s the boss and he can try to find out for you. Do you want him to try ?’

  Quickly Barrett drew a ten-dollar bill out of his wallet and pressed it into Miss Jefferson’s hand. ‘Tell your friend to call Washington, D.C.’

  ‘It might take like ten or fifteen minutes.’

  ‘I’ll be here.’

  Once again she was gone. And once again he was waiting.

  He would not allow himself to think. He remained standing, numbed.

  Less than ten minutes had passed when he saw the ungainly figure of Avis Jefferson loping down the hall toward him. Her countenance was wreathed with joy.

  ‘He got it for you, Mr Barrett. That smart black boy got it. He went on like he was the boss and made up some fib about their being in the exchange business together and this being so important - and they looked it up there in that Washington florist’s - and they said all they had was to where they should send their bill so’s to be paid once a year, a woman’s name with a recent changed address and phone number, because she’s the one who pays the bill every year with her check. Here it is. I wrote it down.’

  She handed him a slip of paper.

  Barrett looked at it. On the slip was written: ‘Miss Xavier, United State Senate, Old Building, Washington, D.C. To reach by phone, call Capitol exchange Area Code 180, number 224-3121, then ask for Miss Xavier’s number, 4989.’

  He folded it and put it in his pocket.

  ‘Miss Jefferson, I could kiss you for this.’

  ‘Don’t you dare.’

  ‘Where can I get a cab?’

  And then he was off.

  Twenty-five minutes later, at the telephone in his room in the Ambassador East, he had dialed the Capitol exchange operator.

  He knew all that was to be known now, all that he had sought from Cassie McGraw. She had told him part of it. And then she had said, Is it my birthday ?, and with that she had told him the rest.

  He had rhe Senate operator in Washington, and he asked to speak to Miss Xavier and gave the special number 4989, in the Senate’s Ol
d Building.

  ‘One moment, please. I’ll try to put you through.’

  There was an interminable buzzing, but no answer.

  At last the operator was on the line again. ‘Sorry, sir Miss Xavier must have gone home. There seems to be no one in Senator Bainbridge’s office -‘

  Senator Bainbridge, was it ?’

  ‘ - but if it is of any urgency, I can try to contact Miss Xavier or the Senator at home for you.’

  ‘It’s the Senator I really want to speak ot. It is urgent, very urgent.’

  I’ll try to contact him, then. Who shall I tell him is calling?’

  He thought quickly, and then he said as businesslike as possible, ‘Advise him that Mr Michael Barrett is on the line. Tell him Mr Barrett, a friend of Miss Cassie McGraw’s, is phoning him from Chicago.’

  ‘Michael Barrett. Friend of Cassie McGraw’s. Very well, if you’ll hold on, please, I’ll see what I can do.’

  The receiver went dumb, except for darts of static, and Barrett held the receiver to his ear and hoped his last hope.

  The operator was on again. ‘Mr Barrett?’

  ‘I’m here.5

  ‘I have Senator Bainbridge for you. He’ll speak to you now. Go ahead, please.’

  There was a beat of silence, and then a gruff voice at the other end. ‘Hello, there.’

  ‘Senator Bainbridge? This is Michael Barrett. I am the attorney defending the Jadway book in that Los Angeles trial.’

  There was a long pause.

  When the voice on the other end was heard again, the gruffness had gone out of it.

  The voice was weary. ‘Yes, Mr Barrett, we’ve been wondering how long it would take you, Jadway and I - we’ve been expecting to hear from you… for a long time.’

  Miss Xavier proved to be a small, compact, reserved woman in her thirties, with shining black hair hanging to her shoulders, a bronze complexion suggesting American Indian ancestry, and unrouged lips, and she was waiting for him beside the escalator inside the Capitol.

  The moment the Senator’s chauffeur had left to return to his car, she said, ‘Senator Bainbridge was not sure last night if he would see you here or in his office in the Old Senate Building. He had to rearrange two appointments first. But I am to bring you to his office, where he can give you twenty minutes.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Mike Barrett.

  ‘We’ll take the motor stairs down to the Senate subway.’

  ‘After you, Miss Xavier.’

  She stepped on the escalator, and Barrett stepped on behind her.

  Remembering his brief conversation with Senator Bainbridge last night, he realized that he had learned nothing from it except that a chauffeur would pick him up before the Mayflower Hotel at a quarter to eleven in the morning. Still, what he had learned before his call to the Senator had been enough. All of his mounting suspicions - beginning with Dr Hiram Eberhart’s anachronism of dates, and Sean O’Flanagan’s quoting from a discussion with an author after the author’s supposed death - had finally been confirmed.

  Darkness had given way to blinding light.

  J J Jadway was alive.

  After that, from Chicago, he had arranged a conference call with his associates in Los Angeles, and he had announced his astounding discovery to Zelkin, Sanford, and Kimura simultaneously. Hearing him, they had been speechless, and then uncontrollably excited and wildly enthusiastic.

  ‘Golly, golly,’ Zelkin had kept chanting, ‘you pulled off Operation Lazarus!’ He had sung out as if it were an incantation, ‘You cried, “Jadway, come forth!” and he that was dead came forth! Mike, you’ve raised Jadway from the dead!’

  And the other three, like maniacs on the transcontinental wire, had bellowed in chorus, ‘Amen!’

  For thirty minutes, reviewing every step of Barrett’s hunt, weighing every word concerning his find, they had speculated upon the celebrated Jadway’s resurrection and their new life. At last Barrett had succeeded in restoring some semblance of calm to his colleagues. He had begged Zelkin to bring him up to date on the trial, so that he would know exactly where he stood when he came face to face with Bainbridge and Jadway short hours from now.

  Zelkin had reported that the defense witnesses had been more effective during the afternoon. They had got off to a shaky start when the Contessa Daphne Orsoni, who had been imported from the Costa Brava in Spain to attest to Jadway’s good character and motives, had been forced to confess under the fire of Duncan’s crossexamination that she had met Jadway only at the masked ball she had given in Venice, and Jadway had never once removed his mask, and no, she could not swear under oath that her guest had been Jadway or that she had ‘seen’ him. Then the Swedish sex-survey expert, Dr Rolf Lagergren, had given a brilliant discourse on modern community standards and the average man’s attitude toward the sex act, but the doctor had been manhandled during Duncan’s crossexamination.

  After eliciting a statement from Dr Lagergren that The Seven Minutes was an accurate representation in fictional form of the feelings and behavior of the majority of women in real life, Duncan had quoted the report of the sexologist’s most recent survey to challenge his statement. In this survey of one thousand married and unmarried females, Dr Lagergren had discovered that three out of

  four women, a solid majority of women, reached orgasm not in seven minutes, but in from one to six minutes, and that only one out of four women took seven minutes or longer - from seven minutes to as much as twenty minutes - to attain orgasm. Realizing that his statements about female orgasm were in conflict, Dr Lagergren had lost his cool briefly, and quickly stated that Jadway had structured his novel on an earlier and less comprehensive sex survey, and yes, perhaps the author had taken some literary license. Recovering his poise, Dr Lagergren had insisted that even if Jadway’s heroine did not qualify as average, using the recent survey’s orgasm timetable, still Jadway’s portrait of a woman’s sexual feelings reflected that of most women. Following the Swedish expert’s appearance, the librarian, Rachel Hoyt, had taken the stand and had been magnificent in her eloquent proclamation about the book’s essential purity and worth.

  Tomorrow there would be more witnesses, articulate ones like the novelist Guy Collins, to speak on behalf of the merits of The Seven Minutes. And the next day there would remain only Dr Yale Finegood to attempt to prove that it was not reading that provoked violence in young people like Jerry Griffith.

  ‘And after that, we’re through,’ Zelkin had said on the longdistance telephone. ‘After that we have to rest our case, and what we’re leaving with the jury just isn’t enough, Mike. We’ve gained some ground, but we haven’t caught up. As it stands, Ben Fremont is going to wind up in jail and The Seven Minutes is going to end up in a bonfire. We need one -just one - smashing witness to put us over. And if that witness is Jadway himself, we’re in - we’ve made it. You’ve pulled off a miracle, Mike. You’ve proved he’s alive. But can you bring him here to testify for us ?’

  ‘1 don’t know,’ he had said, ‘but now that he’s been found out, I can’t see why he would refuse to come forward.’

  ‘Was there any indication that Jadway would be there when you meet the Senator tomorrow?’

  ‘None whatsoever. Jadway may very well be there. I’ll have to wait and see. As for Bainbridge, I don’t know his role, but he apparently handles, or has handled, some of Jadway’s affairs. It’s strange, considering the fact that he is a senator, that I don’t know a damn thing about him. I’d like to know something before talking to him.’

  They had agreed that Kimura would drive immediately to the Los Angeles Public Library and then visit the newspaper morgue of The Los Angeles Times, and whatever he dug up would be reported to Barrett later in the evening.

  After the conference call, Barrett had telephoned his apartment and spoken at length to Maggie Russell. She had been thrilled that her lead to Cassie McGraw had in turn led to the discovery of J J Jadway resurrected. And she had been proud of Barrett, and had

  spoke
n affectionately, and promised to be waiting for him when he returned.

  Two hours later, Zelkin had telephoned back to read him Kimura’s hastily garnered notes, and the information had been scanty.

  ‘The reason you haven’t heard much about Senator Thomas Bainbridge is that he’s been in public life only a short time,’ Zelkin had reported. ‘One of the Senators from Connecticut died - I remember that now, it was only four months ago - and the Governor appointed Thomas Bainbridge for the unfulfilled term of office. Bainbridge was Dean of the Yale School of Law at the time, and he had some kind of connection with a law firm in Washington, and a second home there. Before that, let me see, he was a judge for the State Court of Appeals. And before that, president of a big manufacturing firm - doesn’t say here what they manufactured. No matter. As for his educational background, he graduated from Yale, and then in 1932 got his LL.B from their law school.’

  That had been it last night, and before midnight Barrett had boarded a flight from Chicago to Washington, and then he had taken a taxi from National Airport to the Mayflower Hotel.

  This morning, promptly at a quarter to eleven, a liveried chauffeur had picked him up and driven him along Pennsylvania Avenue to Capitol Hill and then turned him over to Miss Xavier.

  Miss Xavier’s voice now brought him back to the present. They were beneath the Capitol, in the private congressional subway, and Miss Xavier was indicating a minature train. The Toonerville Trolley,’ she said without smiling. ‘It’ll take us six hundred feet to the Old Senate Building.’

  A half minute later they had got off the pygmy train, and seconds after that they were riding up in an elevator. It was a short walk to Senator Bainbridge’s suite.

  In the reception room there were two secretarial desks, and the walls were decorated with scenic photographs and a huge relief map of Connecticut. To his right Barrett could see two more rooms filled with desks and files and members of the staff, male and female, Negro and white. Barrett loitered before the relief map, wondering whether it would be the Senator alone or the Senator and Jadway, and he listened to Miss Xavier, at her telephone, announcing his arrival. He tried to hide his anxiety.