(1961) The Chapman Report

by Irving Wallace

  “This is Mr. Radford. Room twenty-seven. Do you have the Sunday papers?”

  “Only one left, sir. The other is sold out.”

  “Can you send it up?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Also, tomato juice, two eggs sunnyside up, coffee black.”

  “Will that be all?”

  “Don’t forget the paper.”

  “Very well.”

  After returning the telephone to the table between the beds, Paul untied the cord of his pajama trousers, let them drop to the floor, lifted one foot free, then, with the other, kicked the trousers upward into his hands. He folded both halves of his pajamas and set them inside his open wardrobe, already packed. He checked the apparel he had hung out for his last day in The Briars. Gray sharkskin suit. Check. Blue dacron shirt and knit tie. Check. Shorts on the chair, socks and shoes on the floor. Check, check. He went into the bathroom to brush his teeth, shave, and shower.

  When he had finished the cold shower and begun to dry himself with the abrasive surface of the white Turkish towel, he finally reviewed the events of the night before.

  He had intercepted the two detectives in time, introduced himself, shown them Cass Miller’s letter, and replied to a dozen questions. They had been excited about the letter, grateful to Dr. Chapman and himself, and had driven down the hill recklessly to deliver the confession to their chief and, Paul assumed, eventually to the district attorney. Returning to the pool, he realized at once that Dr. Chapman was nowhere in sight. Later, having packed, Paul had learned from the desk clerk that Dr. Chapman had departed in the Ford, leaving word for the press that he would not have a statement until the following day. The series of violent and sad events that had warped the entire day had finally had their effect on Paul, and he had gone off to the Beverly Wilshire bar in Kathleen’s car. During a long evening, he had consumed five Scotches and fallen into a conversation with an Englishman on the next stool who had recited the history of Mount Everest, being particularly affecting in the passages pertaining to Andrew Irvine and George Leigh-Mallery. At midnight, Paul had returned to the motel and slept at once.

  Now, thoroughly dried, and dressing, Paul wondered if this last day in The Briars were not the last day of Dr. Chapman’s entire project. He tried to imagine the consequences of Cass Miller’s letter. Certainly Sam Goldsmith would be released by now-to what?- and the press notified. The newspapers, this Sunday morning, would be full of the sensation. He imagined the headlines: “Dr. Chapman Protege Goes Sex Mad; Slays L.A. Housewife … Mother of Two Murdered by Sex Crazed Chapman Associate … Chapman Co-Worker Commits Suicide after Killing Woman He Had Interviewed … Chapman Sex Expert Strangles Society Matron; Destroys Himself … ‘She Was a Sinner!’ Cries Dr. Chapman Colleague after Garroting Actress.”

  Paul had no doubt that already the hound dogs of virtue and retribution had been loosed on Dr. Chapman. A telegram from the Zollman Institute, withdrawing. A phone call from the president of Reardon, suspending. A letter from the publisher, canceling. The coded questionnaires of more than three thousand married women would rest, untouched, in the bank safes until the curiosity of another age found them. A Sex History of the American Married Female would join the population of creative works stillborn, like Lord Byron’s Memoirs and Sir Richard Burton’s The Scented Garden. And millions of women, young and old, unmarried and married, awaiting liberation from fear and ignorance, would continue to stagnate in that darker part of the soul. Yet, Paul told himself, other great men had survived lurid scandals. He tried to recollect their names. Henry Ward Beecher for one, yes. But not Shoeless Joe Jackson. Say it ain’t so, Joe. No, not Shoeless Joe.

  Paul felt sorry for Dr. Chapman, and as sorry for himself, for having been the agent of his mentor’s destruction. Judas had done it for money, unforgivable, and all those atomic traitors, Fuchs, the rest, for love and money, unforgivable, but at least he had done it to save an innocent life. You’re welcome, Sam Goldsmith.

  He was dressed, except for his shoes, when the knocking on the door came. He opened the door, and a bald-headed dining-room waiter entered with the breakfast tray and the thick Sunday newspaper. Paul signed the bill, gave the waiter a half dollar, and closed the door after him.

  Alone again, he peeled through the endless sections beneath the colored comics, located the news section, and yanked it free. Drinking his orange juice, he opened the front page wide on his lap.

  The banner headline: President Says Berlin something.

  Photograph and caption: Singer Elopes Las Vegas.

  Smaller headline: Earthquake Razes Mexican something.

  Smaller photograph and caption: Dr. Chapman Associate Dies.

  Smaller headline: Sex Historian Miller Killed in Auto Accident.

  Quickly, Paul read the half-column story. “Losing control of his rented sedan high on a mountain road in Topanga Canyon, Cass Miller, thirty-two, bachelor authority on sexual behavior and associated with Dr. George G. Chapman in the current Reardon College survey of married woman, plunged one thousand feet to his death. According to police, the accident, the sixth such …”

  Paul sat back, incredulous. The fact of death was a fact, but all of the rest, a parcel of lies by omission. Not one word was there about Cass’s murder of Sarah Goldsmith, not one word of confessed suicide, not one word referring to or quoting from the letter.

  Paul scanned the rest of the front page, then the next page, and the next, and continued until page seven, where he found the two-inch story.

  Smaller headline: Briars Housewife Found Dead.

  Paul read on. Sarah Goldsmith, thirty-five. Kitchen. Broken neck. Police investigating. Husband held for questioning. Sarah Goldsmith. Born in. Member of. Survived by.

  Again, no reference to Cass’s confession of rape and murder. Again, only the implication of accidental death.

  Two strangers had been extinguished in the vast city by sheerest chance. Accidents happen. They happened yesterday. They would happen tomorrow. Two strangers, the first interred on page one, the other on page seven. Relationship, none. Cause and effect, nil. Case closed. Almost closed. Dr. Chapman? Intact. Sam Goldsmith? Interrogated. Cass Miller’s confession? What confession?

  The letter, Gass’s letter, was a fact, Paul decided. No matter who had quashed it, or how, it had been seen by persons official. Certainly they knew Sam Goldsmith was innocent. In the end, they must dismiss him. But would they? What of the coroner’s report, the autopsy, the vaginal smear indicating intercourse before death? But no microscope could separate voluntary intercourse from involuntary. Who would be the indicated partner? Sarah’s anonymous lover, of course. Sam had come upon them, or upon her as the lover left, and so it would be Sam. But if Cass’s confession had been ignored, so, too, might the coroner’s report. Or perhaps he could be brought into the conspiracy of silence. How many children did he have? And, if so, Sam would be safe; Sarah’s death, an accident.

  Paul’s mind reeled. He tried to think of direct action. At once, he recalled the detective’s name, the one to whom he had entrusted the letter. His name had been Cannady. Paul threw the newspaper aside and went to the telephone. He dialed the operator, and she gave him information, and information gave him The Briars’ police department branch number. Paul dialed one-one-one. A sergeant answered, and when Paul asked for Cannady, he was transferred to a lieutenant. No, Cannady wasn’t around and wouldn’t be for a week. He was in New Mexico on an extradition case. Paul asked for Cannady’s partner, the other detective. He was in Encino, and wouldn’t check in until evening. Paul tried to explain about the letter, but soon realized that the lieutenant was treating him like a crackpot. Paul asked if Sam Goldsmith was still being held in custody, in the matter of his wife’s death. The lieutenant explained that Paul would have to call downtown about that, but information in such matters was usually not given out over the telephone.

  After the receiver was back on the hook, Paul tried to consider the various possibilities. At once, he saw clearly wha
t he had refused to see the night before. The crack in the armor.

  He asked himself if it were possible, and the probability of it chilled him.

  He glanced at the clock. Forty minutes to air time. He had promised to join Horace and Naomi in viewing the television show. After pulling on his shoes and slipping into his suit coat, he hurried to the car Kathleen had loaned him. He decided that he would not miss the guest of honor for anything. Last night, in a matter of life and death, he had played the role of the Omnipotent. But he had been an ineffectual Zeus, with powers limited, after all. Now, he would see the original, the still undefeated and still champion Jehovah, the King of Kings.

  Borden Bush’s weekly half-hour program, “The Hot Seat,” originated every Sunday morning from a former legitimate theater, purchased by the network and located two blocks from the giant glass and steel buildings that housed the network itself. The theater had a seating capacity of fifteen hundred, so the network executives had assigned it to Bush, because his show had been exploited to saturation among institutions of learning. On Sunday mornings, the auditorium was jammed full with teachers, older students, and their families. The network regarded the show as prestige and the papered house as good will.

  This Sunday, as usual, every seat in the theater was occupied. The one difference was that there were also spectators standing along the walls and in the rear. The drawing power of the guest of honor, Dr. Chapman, was setting a new record. This Sunday, too, as usual, Borden Bush found it necessary to defy the instruction on his bottle of Donnatal and take another pill, the second within the hour, in an effort to moor his stomach.

  At thirty-four, Borden Bush, tan, thin, frenetic, possessed a Pea-body and an Emmy, but was prouder still of a skin rash and ulcer, both of which he wore like campaign ribbons. On the strength of having been a distant cousin to a network vice-president, of having done a thesis on communications, of having directed a book review show that no one had ever seen, and of having told a columnist on Variety that he had read Seutonius in his search for story springboards, he had been handed “The Hot Seat” two years before and had made it a social requisite among television snobs and university undergraduates. Now, having washed down his’ white pill, he waited unhappily for the discomforting moment ahead.

  As producer of one hundred and seven of these egghead shows, he was used to temperament. He had learned early, and had always said afterward, that this program had taught him one thing -that the big names of the academic world possessed twice the temperament of any thespian, diva, or dancer alive. Now, here again, was Dr. George G. Chapman, a case in point. Borden Bush had regarded Chapman, from the first, a box-office plus and a personality minus. He had seemed to project about as much irascibility as an elderly sheep and had even been agreeable to the network censorship memo demanding that the word coitus not be spoken on the air. Therefore, his sudden thunderclap of temperament, an hour before, had been doubly unexpected and had thrown the entire production staff into a frenzy of telephone calls. But now that difficulty was settled, and there was only the last disagreeable task left.

  There was a knocking on the door, and Borden realized that it had been going on for some seconds.

  “Come in!” he shouted.

  Sheila, his secretary, was holding the door open. “Dr. Victor Jonas is here, Mr. Bush,”

  “Show him in.”

  Borden leaped to his feet and came quickly around the desk as Dr. Jonas, carrying his thin leather portfolio of notes and statistics, appeared in the doorway and entered the room.

  “Dr. Jonas!” exclaimed Borden, pumping his visitor’s hand.

  Dr. Jonas smiled uncertainly. “How are you? Forgive me, if I’m somewhat breathless. That climb-“

  “I’ve fought them two years for an elevator… . That’ll be all for now, Sheila… . Two years, but no, you can’t put it on the screen, so it’s a waste of money. Here, sit down, right here.” He succeeded in shoving Dr. Jonas into the chair across from his desk. “Cigar?”

  “No, thanks.”

  Borden Bush returned behind the fortification of his desk, hands jittering. “Used to be some singing queen’s dressing room up here -that’s why the tall, steep stairs-all backstages have them.” He

  waved his hand at the room. “We’ve done a nice job, don’t you think?”

  Dr. Jonas observed the room. It was painted a restful pale green, with indirect lighting, and the office furniture was all shining walnut and pale yellow leather. On the walls, matted in narrow black frames, were advertisements of past programs. A glass-front book case, partially filled, held orange television almanacs, Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet, Mildred Cram’s Forever, Walter Benton’s This Is My Beloved, and Who’s Who in America.

  “Attractive,” said Dr. Jonas.

  “Doctor, we’re almost on the air, so I won’t waste your time or mine,” said Borden Bush with a briskness that belied his stomach’s embarrassment. “I don’t like to tell you what I have to tell you. It’s never happened before. But here goes-I’m afraid we can’t use you on the show today.”

  Dr. Jonas said nothing for a moment. A feeling that had already been inside him, prepared for this, absorbed it now. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said quietly. He took out his corn cob and filled it.

  “Something came up.”

  “You mean, Dr. Chapman came up?”

  The wind was out of Borden’s sails, and the sheets went limp. “Something like that. How’d you guess?”

  “Dr. Chapman’s afraid of me. I was puzzled, from the start, that he would allow me to be included on a panel of interrogators.”

  “That’s just it,” said Borden, relaxing a little. “He didn’t know. We never inform our guests who the panelists will be until they arrive in the studio. That’s so they can’t anticipate questions. It makes for spontaneity.”

  “What happened when you showed him my name?”

  “Bam. Went up like Krakatoa. Said he wouldn’t appear on any platform with you-you were out gunning for him, et cetera, et cetera. Said either you went, or he went. I don’t mind telling you, I was stunned. Well, I’m sure you can be realistic about this. It’s just like pictures. He’s the star. Everyone else is little people. I tried to get you at home, but-“

  “Did you tell my wife?”

  “No.”

  “Too bad. She was having friends in to watch me. What did you do about a replacement?”

  “Oh, we’ve got a couple of garrulous old hacks, stand-bys at the

  local schools. I caught one at home, an anthropology associate-he’d do this just to get Chapman’s autograph. I am sorry, Dr. Jonas. You will be paid, of course. Maybe we can use you another time, on another show.”

  “I’ll be quite busy. We’re opening a clinic-“

  “Maybe we can plug it,” said Borden Bush.

  “I’ll leave that to you.” He rose and extended his hand.

  Borden Bush grasped the hand with his right hand, covering both with his left hand, and encouraging his eyes to moisten slightly, a physiological talent that had given him a widespread reputation for sincerity.

  “You’re aces, Doctor,” he said.

  After Dr. Jonas had closed the door behind him, he slowly descended the precarious, winding staircase, holding the railing all the way down. Once on the lower landing, backstage, he surveyed the chaotic preparations. He studied the masses of cabling, coiled like sleeping pythons, and the unwieldy cameras on rollers and tracks, and the monitor sets, and so many people in shirt sleeves hastening about, seeming to do nothing.

  Thinking of several glimpses he’d had behind the scenes, he wondered why it was that show business was the one business where so many hurried so frantically amid such disorder to accomplish so much less than was accomplished in the Pentagon, Johns Hopkins, General Motors, the United Nations, where activity was relatively quiet and unhurried. The answer, he decided, was that most personnel in show business did not come to their positions, originally, out of dedicated and careful apprent
iceship, and, in contrast to those in other fields who did, were mightily overpaid and over-publicized, and therefore had an exaggerated sense of self-importance. They hurried because they believed the myth, created by their own hands in print, that if they didn’t, the earth would stand still, and everyone would fall off. To an outsider, the gaudy flea circus, unable to relate its true proportionate size to outside worlds, was pathetic, and somehow, Dr. Chapman had allied himself with this circus, and that was the worst part of him.

  Dr. Jonas could observe the stage now, and a small portion of the sea of faces beyond the footlights. Two cameras were being rolled into position. Someone was vigorously dusting the panelist’s table. Dr. Jonas turned to leave, and then he saw, near a flat depicting a forest, the bulky figure made familiar by hundreds of periodicals, newspapers, newsreels, and telecasts. Without rancor, he watched the enemy: the broad, smiling countenance, Indian red with make-up, as an elderly woman dabbed a Kleenex against the forehead and cheeks.

  When the elderly woman left, Dr. Jonas replaced her. “George Chapman?”

  The bulk was all affability. “That’s right.”

  “I’m Victor Jonas.” He did not offer his hand.

  The broad face, darkening, hid nothing. “Well,” he said. The tone was clearly that of estate gamekeeper, rifle under the arm, to the poacher.

  Dr. Jonas touched his leather portfolio. “I had looked forward to questioning you-“

  “Questioning me? You mean, trying to execute me. You’d like nothing better in public.”

  “You’re quite wrong there,” Dr. Jonas said mildly. “I don’t have the cruelty to-well, to use a television stage as arena for the showdown between our philosophies. I never intended that this be the place to expose the fallacies in your approach. My paper to the Zollman Foundation will be the proper medium for that. No, what I had hoped was, as one scientist to another-“

  Dr. Chapman snorted his interruption. “Scientist? You still have the effrontery to call yourself scientist? I’m glad you’re here now. I’m glad to tell you what I think, to your face. You’re an academic hitchhiker, Jonas, offering nothing, taking the free ride on the accomplishment of others-like that small thing that clings to sharks, to feed-the barnacles that cling to the hulls of vessels-“