by Sol Stein
Mr. Japhet recognized the source of the hostility, but that didn’t ease the sting.
“How will you get to White Plains if they call? There might not be time enough for me to come and get you.”
“I’ll think of something. I can always call a cab.”
“What’s the matter, Ed. You seem depressed.”
Ed looked at his father unblinkingly.
“I mean, this isn’t a pleasant matter, but I’ve seldom seen you quite so down.”
Mr. Japhet put his martini on the coaster.
“Is there something special?”
“Not really.”
Mrs. Japhet put her drink down also and came over to her son’s chair. “Ed,” she said, touching his cheek, “you seem so far away.”
“I’m right here, Mom.”
She retreated to her chair, brushed away.
After a silence Mr. Japhet said, “We are due to eat soon, aren’t we, Josephine?”
“No rush, Dad.”
“I was thinking,” said Mr. Japhet, “that Ed and I might go to Vermont for a few days when this is over. Skiing is what I had in mind.”
“Neither of us has ever skied, Dad.”
“It’s time we learned,” Mr. Japhet said, forcing enthusiasm into his voice. “We could go on a Friday and come back Sunday night so we wouldn’t have to miss any more school, right?”
“Let it alone, Dad.”
Let what alone? Mr. Japhet had a sudden vision of Ed in his chair moving back rapidly as if seen through the wrong end of a telescope, becoming smaller and smaller in the distance, until he was only a colored dot, and then vanishing completely over the horizon, leaving Josephine and himself in this living room alone, without the one child they had managed to produce, who didn’t need them anymore.
“Dad?”
“Yes, Ed?”
“Do I have to be a witness?”
“What do you mean?”
“Do I have to testify?”
“They can subpoena you.”
“They can’t force me to say anything.”
“That would be contempt of court.”
“I guess.”
“Contempt is a fairly serious offense.”
“I thought that other bit in court was pretty offensive, the whole thing.”
“This is nothing to joke about.”
“I’m not joking.”
“All you’ve got to do is answer the questions you’re asked truthfully.”
“I don’t have to do anything.”
“I know you wish all this hadn’t happened. So do I. But, Ed, now that the processes of justice are in train…”
Ed laughed. “I’m sorry, Dad, I didn’t mean to laugh, but remember when that police car made an illegal turn in front of us on North Highland, and if I hadn’t had my seat belt on I would have gone into the windshield, and you reported it to the chief—we found out about the processes of justice, didn’t we?”
“Well, if I had been willing to pursue it to the end…”
“You were willing. They just made it so goddamn difficult it became too much trouble to do anything, right?”
Mr. Japhet said nothing.
“Remember the kid with the knife you chased, and they told you even if he tried to mug you, if he fell on his knife while you were chasing him, it would have been your fault?”
“What are you getting at?”
“You were quoting the processes of justice at me.”
“Ed, all I hope is that somewhere along the line I have taught you how to make the most of your life, that’s all.”
“That’s a joke.”
That’s not a joke. “In what way have I embittered you, Ed?”
“Nothing.”
“What do you mean, ‘nothing’?”
“Let’s drop it.”
It was Mrs. Japhet leaning forward in her chair now, afraid to go over to Ed, in dread of being rebuffed again. “Dinner should be ready now.”
“Ed, I don’t care if you testify or not. It’s your decision.”
“You are testifying, aren’t you?”
“Of course.”
“On your hind legs?”
Slapping his face would accomplish nothing. Mr. Japhet, stung, went to wash his hands. He looked at himself in the bathroom mirror, especially at the gray of death in his hair.
During the silence of dinner, with only the clink of silver on dishes and “Please pass…” and “Thank you,” Ed thought about the nightmare last night in which he and Urek were the only living persons left in the world.
*
Thomassy looked up Joe Cargill’s number and dialed. He tried to remember what Cargill looked like. They had met six or seven years ago in Washington. Cargill called himself an investigator, but he talked like a lawyer. Thomassy suspected he had been one once. Disbarred? A secretary answered.
“This is George Thomassy calling from New York.”
“One moment, please.”
When the gravelly voice got on, the image of the man came with it, short, plump, watch chain across the vest.
“Thomassy, how’re you doing?”
“You remember me?”
“Sure do.”
“There’s a schoolteacher up here by the name of Terence Japhet, J-A-P-H-E-T, age forty-seven, teaches biology. I’m calling on the off chance he might have applied for a government job or a grant somewhere along the line.”
“Xerox is all I can get.”
“Xerox is fine. What would it cost?”
“Nothing classified here, say, one-twenty-five.”
Thomassy whistled. He was prepared to whistle, whatever the figure.
“Well,” said Cargill, “we can round it off at a hundred. How soon?”
“Soonest. Need anything more?”
“Not with an oddball name like Terence Japhet. I’ll call collect to say yes or no. It’ll come first-class special delivery, plain envelope. No attribution.”
“No attribution. What’s the charge if we draw a blank?”
“No charge.” He asked for Thomassy’s phone and address.
Thomassy was startled to get the collect call in less than an hour. “You’re on,” said Cargill. “It’ll mail tomorrow if we get your check by then.”
Thomassy laughed. “No credit?”
“Cash and carry. Make the check out to B and G Delicatessen, if you don’t mind.”
“Wonder what Internal Revenue will think I did in court with a hundred dollars worth of ham.”
“It’s a Jewish delicatessen. No ham. Just don’t get audited.”
“Thanks.”
“Anytime. I really should have stuck to one-twenty-five.”
“What agency?”
“State Department. Turned down, too.”
“Beautiful.”
“Any time.”
*
Bob Ferlinger said to Cantor, “If we could prove Thomassy got to Ginsler…”
Cantor tried to be patient with Ferlinger, who was three years younger. “Look, suppose you’re a doctor and a patient comes to you because he’s got a cough and his chest hurts and he’s running a fever and he’s been to his regular doctor who’s told him to take aspirin and nothing’s happened so he comes to you and you say, ‘Did you have an X-ray?’ and he says, ‘No,’ and you get him X-rayed and it turns out he has pneumonia, you don’t go urging him to file a malpractice suit against the first doctor. Cranks do that. If Thomassy got to Ginsler, he got to Ginsler. We just work around that. How the hell would you prove it?”
“We subpoena her, we get her on the stand and ask her if Thomassy offered her anything or put the squeeze on her not to testify.”
“She’d lie.”
“Under oath?”
“If Thomassy got to her, he didn’t pay her, he’s got something on her. She wouldn’t even have to lie. She could plead the fifth.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Bob, Thomassy isn’t on trial. Let’s get a conviction on the Urek kid. You understand, don’
t you?”
Ferlinger didn’t, but said he did.
“Good,” said Cantor. “Now, let’s bring Japhet’s father in and go over the ground. He’s the key. The jury’ll identify with him.”
“You think so?”
“It’s the preparation that counts. I hope he’s a quick study. Let’s go.”
Mr. Japhet was appalled at the idea of rehearsing for his testimony. Cantor explained how usual it was. Mr. Japhet was surprised at his own naiveté. He had supposed that witnesses testify cold.
*
“How come you didn’t plead that kid guilty to a misdemeanor?” said Cantor to Thomassy when they were arranging their paper on the adjoining counsel tables before the next day’s session.
“You heard of Percy Foreman?”
“Sure.”
“He’s defended more than a hundred murder cases.”
“And?”
“Fewer than six percent ever spent a day in jail. Only one got executed.”
“I still think you should have had the Urek kid cop a plea.”
“They didn’t need me for that. They could have hired anybody.”
Cantor was nervous about Mr. Japhet’s appearance on the stand. During their earlier meeting, intended to prepare him, Cantor had tried to make it clear that as a prosecution witness, Mr. Japhet was on his side, the side of the law, et cetera, but the man seemed to have his mind elsewhere. When Cantor heard that Ed might refuse to testify, he decided not to press the father more and to proceed to trial without the benefit of a proper rehearsal. It might work to his advantage. An extemporaneous recital of the crime might be more effective. In any event, he would begin by putting Mr. Japhet’s testimony at the arraignment into the record of the trial.
Cantor was surprised when Judge Brumbacher refused. “Counselor,” he said, using the term at Cantor for the first time, “the point of having a witness is for the jury not only to hear the words but to judge, from the witness’s manner, the truth of what he is reporting. Previous testimony elsewhere can be referred to if inconsistencies show up. Do your work, please, for the benefit of the jury.”
Cantor, humiliated, turned to the witness.
“Mr. Japhet, will you tell us in your own words what happened on the evening of January twenty-first.”
Terence Japhet looked at his wife, sitting among the spectators. He wondered if he could buy a copy of the transcript so that Ed would have a permanent record of what transpired. Probably not.
“Yes,” he said. “I drove my son and his friend Lila Hurst to the dance. He refused to let me help him with the suitcases in which he carried his magic equipment.” He saw the impatience in Cantor’s face. “Yes, yes, I’m coming to that. He was giving a performance for the students. I picked him up afterward. He and I and Miss Hurst were on our way out of the building—I believe it was empty except for the janitor—it was snowing, and we saw four boys sitting in my car. The Urek boy attacked first Miss Hurst and then my son, knocking him to the ground, then falling on him, and choking him. I beat the attacker on his back, trying to get him to let go, and when I pulled his hair hard, he did. He smashed the two suitcases of equipment and then broke the windshield of my car with the tire chain.”
“And then what happened?”
“My son seemed to have great difficulty in breathing. I learned once that if there is difficulty in breathing, or bleeding that you can’t stop, you have to get to a hospital right away, so I drove as fast as I could, given the snowstorm and the broken windshield.”
“Did the defendant attack your son with his bare hands?”
“He had a chain.”
“Is that the same chain with which he later smashed the windshield of the car?”
“Yes.”
“Did he use that chain against your son?”
“Yes.”
“Was Miss Hurst hurt badly?”
“No. Just my son.”
“How do you explain this attack against your son?”
Mr. Japhet clenched his hands on the arms of the witness chair. “The United States is now in a state of war.”
Judge Brumbacher leaned forward.
“What I mean,” said Mr. Japhet, “is that there is open armed conflict between factions in this country, several kinds in many locations, blacks in open and armed revolt, police counter-attacking and even initiating battle, Weathermen, militant students dynamiting and destroying, National Guardsmen and police killing students black and white, and much less publicized, violence in the secondary schools, serious incidents in every part of the country requiring the occasional closing of schools, armed guards in the schools, the centers of cities a no-man’s-land—if this is not civil war, we had better change the definition in dictionaries.”
Josephine Japhet had never heard her husband talk this way.
The rumbling among the spectators was overwhelmed by Thomassy’s standing shout, “Objection! Objection!” and then when the judge turned to him, he said, “Your Honor, we are trying one sixteen-year-old individual, not a nation.”
“Mr. Cantor?” asked the judge.
Cantor couldn’t think of anything he might say which wouldn’t endanger his career. He shook his head.
“Well, now,” said Judge Brumbacher, “I’m not so sure that’s all irrelevant, though it is out of the ordinary.”
“Your Honor,” said Mr. Japhet.
“Yes?”
“May I clarify? I don’t want my remarks misunderstood.”
“Your Honor, I object!” said Thomassy.
“I’ve noted your objection and will consider it after the clarification. Proceed, Mr. Japhet.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so emotional. This whole affair has been terribly upsetting. It has a background. The Urek boy has been involved in an extortion racket in the school—”
“Objection!” said Thomassy, striding toward the bench.
“Please take your seat, Mr. Thomassy.”
“The defendant is not charged with extortion.”
“It can all be stricken, once we’ve heard it out.”
“But the jury—”
“I will instruct the jury, Mr. Thomassy. Continue, Mr. Japhet.”
“This country has been saddled with organized extortion for at least four decades, since Prohibition, and during this entire long period, nearly half a century, law enforcement has not been able to deal effectively with this organized extortion, and as a consequence, youngsters in school emulate the condoned rackets of their elders. My son, the worse for him, resisted this extortion by refusing to pay the monthly charge for leaving his locker alone. If he were an adult in business and did the same thing, he would have been attacked, as he was attacked in the school, and that is my explanation, my answer to the question that was asked of me.”
“Are you finished?”
“Yes.”
Thomassy was standing.
“Mr. Thomassy,” said the judge, “if this case is ever appealed to a higher court, it is possible that my ruling will jeopardize the results of this trial, but I consider the question relevant and material. I think the jury can consider the pertinence of the reply, which I am letting stand. Please continue, Mr. Cantor.”
“I have no other questions.”
As he approached the witness stand, Thomassy was damn glad he had done his homework.
“Mr. Japhet, you took an oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth in this courtroom. Is it your habit to tell the truth under oath?”
“I’ve never had to be a witness before.”
“Please answer the question. Is it your habit to tell the truth if you take an oath?”
“I tell the truth whether or not I am under oath.”
“Will you please tell the court the names of the foreign countries you have visited?”
Cantor was quick to object. “Your Honor, this line of questioning is irrelevant.”
“Overruled.”
“But your Honor—”
�
��Let us see where it leads. You may proceed, Mr. Thomassy.”
“The question was, please name the foreign countries you have visited.”
“I’ve visited England and France several times, Germany once, Italy briefly.”
“Is that all?”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever visited any other foreign nation at any time?”
“No.”
“Now, Mr. Japhet, have you ever at any time visited the Soviet Union?”
“I have not visited the Soviet Union.”
“Have you ever visited any part of China?”
Cantor couldn’t take it. “Your Honor, is defense counsel trying to imply that the witness is a Red spy or something?”
“Your Honor, will you please instruct the district attorney to sit down?”
Judge Brumbacher nodded for Mr. Cantor to do just that.
“Have you ever visited any part of China?”
“No.”
“Have you ever visited Ireland?”
Mr. Japhet moistened his lips.
“Please remember that you are under oath.”
“I have never visited Ireland.”
Thomassy removed Cargill’s Xerox from his briefcase on the counsel table.
“Mr. Japhet, did you ever seek employment with any branch of the federal government?”
“I may have.”
“As a matter of fact, you once applied to the Department of State in Washington for employment, did you not?”
“Yes.”
“In order to apply for that position, you had to make a written application under oath, sworn to before a notary public, isn’t that correct?”
“I don’t know.”
Thomassy slowly unfolded Cargill’s Xerox and put it before Mr. Japhet.
“Would you please tell the court what this document is?”
“It’s an application for employment in the Department of State.”
“An application, or your application?”
“It’s a facsimile copy of an application I made some years ago.”
“Would you please read question number twenty-three aloud?”
Thomassy was wondering when Cantor would object, just as Cantor got to his feet. “Your Honor, is defense counsel going to put that paper into evidence?”
“Certainly.”
“Have it marked,” said the judge.
“I want to question the propriety of the evidence, your Honor. If it’s a confidential application for employment in a government agency—”