Paperback Jack, page 18
“If I make bail.” Jacob wore his good pinstripe under a light topcoat and a hat with a brim he thought narrow, but Ellen said that was the fashion. “You don’t want to look like one of those gangsters in the Kefauver hearings.”
The lawyer exuded confidence from every pore. “Don’t worry; they’ll start easy. Feel you out.”
“You mean lull me into a false sense of security.”
“We’ve been all through it. You know what to expect. If they throw you a curve, let me take a swing at it.”
The atmosphere in the vast building was like the first day of school: same ambient din of cross-conversations, same chill air, same smell of cheap floor wax.
Same fear of bullies.
He hung his coat in an open cloak room, found space for his hat in a line of them, like heads staked outside the Tower of London, and shambled on along the Last Mile.
The place was built to remind visitors of their own insignificance in the corridors of power: The ceilings even in the passages were a mile high, the stair treads so deep they made him feel like a small child tiptoeing to a floor from which he’d been banned, the size of the hearing room gargantuan despite the throngs of people who seemed crowded into it; whenever the door opened to let someone in or out, the glimpse inside made him sick at heart. Ellen snaked her arm inside his in what was no doubt an attempt to offer strength, but which felt as if she let go she’d be swept away by a riptide. He could feel her heart thud.
Or maybe it was his. He had butterflies in his stomach for the first time since combat.
Which was what this was; except he was armed only with an attorney, not a BAR he’d dismantled and put back together so often he could depend on it absolutely.
They sat in a waiting room that was possibly the smallest room in the building, but he felt naked in it. Ter Horst, seated next to him on a hard bench, smiled as Jacob fumbled out a cigarette, and offered him a light. His client had trouble keeping the cigarette in the flame.
The lawyer put away his pigskin lighter. “I didn’t know you smoked.”
“I don’t. I didn’t. But it was the only thing left to be driven to. I’m already a drunk.”
“My fault,” Ellen said. “I thought it would distract him from the bottle. We have a little girl, you know.”
“Indubitably I do. I intend to draw her like a gun if it becomes necessary.”
She glared. “You won’t drag her into this.”
“She won’t be subpoenaed.” He turned to Jacob. “You’re not a defendant. They’re only after publicity. No one wants to put anyone in jail. Give them a good show and they’ll all be after you to ghost their memoirs.”
“Tell that to Phil Scarpetti. He’s locked up in Atlanta for the rest of the session. If this had happened while he was still on parole, he’d be back in Sing Sing.”
“He was stupid. He should have hired an attorney, who would have stopped him from walking out. There’s nothing to be gained from making these people mad.”
“I tried to contact him before he packed his toothbrush. We parted badly last time and I wanted to apologize and offer encouragement. His phone number was discontinued, my letters were returned, and when I went to see him, he’d moved. He must’ve checked into one of those crummy hotels he’s always painting.”
“Embarrassed, I imagine. That ‘confirmed bachelor’ crack was low. It’s no small thing to be exposed as a homosexual coast-to-coast.”
“It wasn’t that. He told me what he was. That’s why we fought. He thought I was judging him and I guess I was.”
“You weren’t, Jakey,” Ellen said. “Phil just got tired of hating himself and decided to hate you instead.”
“Hates himself? He has—had—a great sense of humor.”
She smiled. “You can be such a child. Don’t be offended; it’s one of the reasons I fell in love with you.”
“I was hoping it was my rugged good looks.”
Ter Horst interrupted the domestic banter.
“If it means anything, Scarpetti’s the hero of the day. He did what a lot of blowhards swore they’d do, then chickened out in front of the microphone. The American Civil Liberties Union would elect him president tomorrow.”
“It wouldn’t mean anything to him.”
Ellen patted his hand. “Stop worrying about Phil. He’s a grown man, and he survived prison once. You need to concentrate on yourself.”
“Excellent advice,” Ter Horst said.
“This is the first time I’ve concentrated on anyone else since this thing started. I don’t know why I’m here. All I do is write books. I’m an entertainer—I can’t quite bring myself to say author—not a Fifth Column saboteur or a drug-pusher or even a guy who sells French postcards on a school playground. What do they want with me, anyway?”
Ter Horst got his lighter back out and lit a gold-tipped cigarette. “They don’t want you at all. As far as they’re concerned, you’re not even small potatoes. They want what you represent. And they only want that because they can show slides of half-naked women and steal the spotlight from Adlai Stevenson and Dwight D. Eisenhower.”
“I should’ve stayed in the army.”
“No refuge there. Joe McCarthy’s squawking about Communists in the armed services. Television’s got eighteen hours to fill and they’re running out of Charlie Chan movies. Sooner or later the viewers will get tired of looking at ugly politicians and demand more soap operas and quiz shows. We just have to wait this one out.”
“Like Scarpetti,” Jacob said.
The sergeant-at-arms, brush-cut and straight-backed, opened the door from the other side and called out a name. A man wearing a creased tie on a cheap cotton shirt got up from his bench and went inside. He looked like a patient going in for major surgery. The door drifted shut on the drone of voices within.
The occupants of the waiting room were a cross-section of America in Life magazine: Seamed-faced farmer types in Christmas ties and Sunday suits, Brilliantined used-car dealers in window-check sportcoats, librarians in buns and mannish suits, a nondescript party in blue serge with a briefcase on his lap who might have been a CPA or a hired killer for the Mob. Jacob couldn’t distinguish between the Friendly Witnesses and those who were on trial for their livelihoods; for their lives.
Ellen sensed his mounting panic. She patted his hand again. How quickly and thoroughly they all became mothers.
So far, Jacob and Phil were the only ones subpoenaed from Blue Devil; there were a dozen houses yet to be heard from, and summons-servers had only so much drive. Cliff Cutter was inaccessible, dragging his bones through desert sage aboard a tough little mustang in quest of source material. Hugh Brock, that strange little man, had committed himself to a private mental hospital to sweat out his demons, and Phoebe Sternwalter was probably too small and frail-looking to beat up on in public. The genteel whodunits of the Burt team could hardly be blamed for the salacious covers that had bought them comfortable homes in the country (in different postal zones, needless to say).
Robin Elk had returned to England; to administer his father’s affairs, he said, while the old gent was in hospital awaiting the Inevitable. There might have been some truth in the excuse, but it didn’t change Jacob’s opinion of him. He’d had the guts to survive a German POW camp, but not to face a housewife from the Midwest.
Damn the politicians. They made cowards out of people who under other circumstances might have been heroes.
No one seemed to know what had become of Hank Stratton. After his TV show was canceled, two low-budget movies adapted from his books were shelved pending results of the hearings. Rumors ranged from voluntary service in Korea to r-and-r in a whorehouse in Nevada. Jacob couldn’t fault him in either case. A blank page was frightening enough; when they took away your words, what was left?
He was putting out his third cigarette in a heavy stand when a man came in from the stairs and sat. He was slightly built in a brown suit cut for a heftier man—the knees bagged nearly to his shins—with smears of gray ash on each lapel and a burn hole in one sleeve. His clothes—weather-beaten hat, scuffed brown oxfords, a wide necktie with a hula girl painted on it—screamed pawnshop.
Pawnshop. It was like a blow from an open palm.
The man hadn’t aged. He saw him as remembered, behind a high old-fashioned counter in a room stuffed with old furniture, musty books, toasters in stacks, firearms—and a glossy black Remington Streamliner portable typewriter. A twentieth-century Bob Cratchit in sleeve-protectors and a green eyeshade, with a stumpy revolver in his fist.
He shuddered.
Ellen said, “What? Someone walk over your grave?”
“Close. I just saw an old acquaintance. Linus Pickering. You wouldn’t know him. I threatened him with a pistol once and threw a brick through his window.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Next to a doctor shaking his head, a polished attorney stiffening in his seat was as disconcerting as things could get.
“I don’t know how much time we have,” he whispered, “so you’d better talk fast. What window?”
“It was a long time ago, and I thought we were square.” As quietly as possible, he told about the typewriter in the window, his squabble with the pawnbroker, the weapons drawn, and the vandalism and theft afterward.
“Jake!” Ellen snatched away her hand.
“I made it right later, I thought. I paid for the machine and offered to cut him in on The Fence if he let me pick his brain for research. I came through on my promise: I don’t owe him anything.”
Ter Horst scowled. “If you’d cut him in on the advance from Hollywood, he probably wouldn’t be here.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying Washington made him a better offer.”
“They pay witnesses?”
“Not in money; at least not in a way it could be traced. But men in his line have been known to deal in stolen property. Once they’re of use to authority, poof! No more outstanding warrants.”
“So what do we do?”
“We profit from their mistake. They shouldn’t have let you see him before you testify. They could have asked if you’d ever committed a felony and if you said no, bring him in to refuse. Then they’d slap you with everything from lying to Congress to the contributing-to-delinquency charge.”
“I’ve been writing about the wrong bad guys.”
“Hold on. Now, you’ll say, ‘Yes, I once committed a felony,’ and explain it as you just did. It might buy you some sympathy as a recently returned veteran who regrets an error of judgment, most likely caused by the trauma of combat.”
“That could work,” Ellen said.
“But if this wasn’t a mistake, and they call him first, all bets are off. It will play like you cobbled up a phony story after you got caught with your hand in the cookie jar. You’re condemned before you sit down.”
“What are the odds it’s a mistake?”
Ter Horst’s smile pulled grimly at the corners of his mouth.
“Not great; but it wouldn’t be the first time a politician tripped over his own red tape.”
* * *
Please, God, let me be first.
He hadn’t prayed for such a thing since sandlot baseball.
Ellen pressed her hip against his.
“Whatever happens, happens,” she said. “It’s not in our hands.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I couldn’t stand the idea of you thinking I’m some kind of thug.”
“Anyone can be stupid, even an honest man. We’ve known each other a long time, Jake. I know you can be stupid.”
He laughed then, loud enough to draw the attention of all the people in the waiting room; including Pickering, who noticed him for the first time with a start. Jacob pretended he hadn’t seen him. He wiped his eyes on his handkerchief. What she’d said wasn’t that funny, but he’d kept his emotions pent up so long they burst through the first available opening.
Ter Horst grunted.
“I’ve had three wives. I’d trade them all for yours.”
Jacob barely heard him. Please, God, let me be first.
The door to the hearing room opened and the sergeant-at-arms stuck out his square head. “Jacob Heppleman.”
Gilbert Ter Horst smiled.
“Jack Holly, you were born under a lucky star.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Mrs. St. John smiled. She was so thoroughly the suburban Betty Crocker housewife—kids splashing in mud puddles and a tuna casserole browning in the oven—that she put Jacob on his guard as if she were J. Edgar Hoover.
“Thank you for agreeing to speak to this committee, Mr. Heppleman.”
He mumbled something polite in response; in thirty seconds the harsh lights of television burst pods of perspiration from all his pores. Ter Horst pressed his shoulder against his—a tiny nudge, invisible on camera.
“You served in Europe during the Second World War?”
“Yes, ma—Congresswoman.”
“‘Ma’am’ is fine. A veteran needn’t stand on ceremony.”
Already she’d sorted him out from Phil Scarpetti: ex-con, painter of naked women, and a pervert to boot.
To hell with that.
“Yes, Congresswoman. I served with the twenty-third infantry.”
“With distinction, I understand.”
“Congresswoman, everyone over there served with distinction.”
“Well put. What was your occupation before the war?”
“I spent six months loading steel coils onto trucks bound for factories in Detroit, Cleveland, and Gary, Indiana. When I left that job, I wrote for magazines.”
“Commonly called the pulps, is that correct? Publications produced on rough-cut paper and offered to the public at the price of ten cents apiece?”
“That is correct.”
“Did you write a story called ‘Chinese Checkers’?”
He felt a sudden impish impulse to take a page from Scarpetti’s book. “No, Congresswoman; I did not.”
Some confusion while the members of the committee buzzed among themselves, flapping open folders and sorting through closely typed pages.
Margery St. John peered through her glasses at a document before her. “We have a photocopy of the story as it appeared in a publication titled Double-Barreled Detective, with your byline.”
“It wasn’t a story. It was a novel, serialized in five issues of the magazine.”
“I fail to see the difference.”
“A story appears in one issue only, and in general pays a penny a word. A serialized novel involves a legal contract, and the author receives a flat rate. I don’t expect someone outside the industry to appreciate the difference, but I assure you it’s profound.”
Counselor Castor palmed St. John’s microphone and moved his lips almost against her ear.
“We’re not here to explore the inner workings of publishing, Mr. Heppleman. The purpose of these hearings is to determine the effect of stories of sordid crime upon impressionable youth, and whether they cross the line between license and licentiousness. You’re the author of a book titled The Fence, are you not?”
“I am.”
“Your main character, one Mike Moynihan, deals in illegal merchandise?”
“That’s what a fence does.”
“Is he based on a real person?”
He slid his eyes Ter Horst’s way. The attorney, concentrating on the panel, gave him nothing back.
He leaned into the microphone. “Partially.”
There might have been a murmur in the room; he wasn’t sure.
“What do you mean by ‘partially’?”
“Characters are usually an amalgamation of several real people and an invention of the writer’s.”
“Can you identify one of these real people?”
“A pawnbroker by the name of Linus Pickering.”
“How did you meet?”
“I tried to bargain with him over the price of a used typewriter. I asked if he’d consider my military service as an incentive. He said all we servicemen were spoiled and didn’t deserve any consideration just because we didn’t go to jail for dodging the draft.”
This time there was definitely a murmur, and a rustling as sitting positions changed.
“And what was your reaction?”
“I’m ashamed to say I took out my service pistol.”
Absolute silence.
“You threatened him?”
“I did not. I laid it on the counter and offered him ten dollars for the typewriter.”
“Mr. Heppleman, what you are describing is attempted armed robbery. The ten dollars is immaterial.”
Ter Horst covered Jacob’s microphone. “Don’t argue.”
“I never intended to take the machine at gunpoint. I said something like, ‘Just for that, ten, you son of a bitch.’ I was angry, not just for myself but for all the men who fought in the war, and I wanted him to know it.”
“What happened then?”
“He pulled a revolver on me and I left.”
St. John started to say something. Congressman Wellborn interrupted her. “Good God, Heppleman. You’re beginning to sound like one of your novels.”
“I’m sorry, Congressman. Is that a question?”
“No.” He sat back, crossing his arms.
St. John said, “Was that the end of the affair?”
There was a pitcher of water and a glass in front of Jacob. He poured the glass half full and drank. Then he set it down and leaned forward until his lips almost touched the microphone.
“No. Hours later, after I’d had too much to drink in a bar, I came back to the shop, smashed the window with a brick, grabbed the typewriter, and ran away.”
The room got noisy. A flashbulb popped; he felt the warmth on his cheek from several yards away. St. John worked her gavel until things quieted. She glared at Jacob with the stern expression of a disappointed parent.
Or maybe it was just disappointment.
“You were angry. You were drunk. Do you think that justifies your behavior?”
He said it did not, and that he regretted his actions for months. Then he told of his later meeting with Pickering and the agreement they made.
