(1961) The Chapman Report (37 page)

“He lost our case not because it was poor-any one of our other men would have managed it properly-but because he didn’t believe in it. He’s still got a black-and-white mind-that’s what I mean by professional immaturity-and he went into that court telling himself it was capital versus labor.” ‘Wasn’t it?” Mary asked aggressively.

“Only to an obvious mind. No, it wasn’t. Because an employee brings suit doesn’t mean he’s automatically right because he’s an employee-the downtrodden-with a billion-dollar thug union behind him. Employers have their legal rights, too. Why does wealth automatically have to suggest piracy?”

“Because the history books are filled with the Commodore Van-derbilts, and Goulds, and Fisks-and a couple of guys named Krapp and Farben-and that’s just the beginning.”

“It seems to me there’s a few words there about the Bill Hay-woods, and McNamaras, and anarchists like Sacco and Vanzetti-” “Oh, Dad-“

“But that’s not the point. My son-in-law thinks my money good enough to accept every week. Therefore, he must earn that money. But to go into court, pretending to represent me, my firm, and knuckle under to those labor bullies-” “Who says he knuckled under?” “I have my means of hearing what goes on. I’m not blind.”

“You mean your spies are not blind.”

“Mary, what’s got into you? A transcript of the case is available. Norman didn’t use all his ammunition.”

“He said most of it was unsubstantiated character assassination.”

“I’ll be the one who determines what’s substantiated and what isn’t. And that’s not all. His final summation was filled with concessions, vacillating-“

“He was trying to be fair. He told me so. He’s no gallus-snapping redneck, no rabble-rouser.”

Harry Ewing was silent a moment. He wanted Mary to simmer down. She was like her mother, all unreasoning, when she was emotional. “When you go into court on a thing like this, Mary,” he said, his intelligent voice at its softest, “you are going into an arena of combat, do or die and no quarter asked or given. It’s not a debate society or bull session of eggheads. It’s for keeps. If Norman has too many left-wing prejudices to undertake such a case, he should withdraw before it starts, or tell me so. I’ll confine him to paper work, where he’s more useful. But to go in, on my behalf, with his secret sympathies on the other side-that’s too much.” He paused. “I gave him the case only because you said he was restless and wanted to flex his muscles in court. Well, he’s had his chance. I’m appealing, and I’ve taken the case away from him. I think that’s best all around.”

Mary felt a sickness in the pit of her stomach. She could not look at her father. “Do what you think is best,” she said at last. “Only try to be understanding and fair.”

“When it comes to you, I always lean over backward, Mary-always will. As a matter of fact-well, I’ve told you I think he’s capable-I’ve often told you that, haven’t I?”

“Yes, you have.”

“I’m sincere. I want to do what’s good for both of you. I want to get the most out of the boy for all our sakes, make him live up to his potential, be proud of what he does. Yes, I’ve been giving Norman a good deal of thought. I think I’ve come up with something extremely interesting.”

Mary looked up. Her father was smiling, and it softened him, and she felt a wave of relief and the old affection. “What is it, Dad? Is it something good for Norman?”

“Something wonderful, for a boy his age. You’ll be pleased, too, I assure you. Give me a day or two. I’ll have it worked out by the end of the week.”

“Oh, Dad, I hope so.” She reached across the table and sought her father’s hand, as she always had when she was a little girl. “Try to be tolerant of Norman. He’s really so sweet.”

Harry Ewing squeezed his daughter’s hand. “I know he is, dear. Don’t you worry. I want you both to be happy.”

Benita Selby’s journal. Monday, June 1: “… is Gerold Triplets and he’s an economist who works for a private company in San Francisco that has contracts with the Air Force. After I ate dinner with the others last night, I went out to the pool to cool off, and he was there again. We sat and talked until almost midnight. I didn’t tell him exactly what I did, because when men find out you work for Dr. Chapman, they treat you like a nurse. I said I was visiting relatives in Pacific Palisades. He’s here for three more days consulting with someone in Anaheim. He wanted to go to a concert tonight at the Philharmonic, but I haven’t said yes, though I will. Gerold said he will be in Chicago for several weeks in August and wants to see me. Fate works in curious ways. We shall see. I had two letters from Mom this morning and only had time to read them hastily, since I overslept. She’s slipped a disk, and Mrs. McKassen is helping her out. The Lord never made Job suffer more. Dr. Chapman is with Horace and Paul doing interviews today, because Cass had a relapse this morning. The virus, we think, and he’s in bed. I called him a half hour ago to see if he’s still alive, bat the desk said he drove down to the drugstore to get something to keep from throwing up… .”

Cass Miller sat behind the wheel of the Dodge sedan, parked alongside the curb of the side street, and brooded and waited.

He did not feel ill, really, except for the giddy and faint sensation when he tried to walk. The migraine usually came and went, throughout the day, although he did not suffer from it now. Perhaps he did have a touch of the flu, as he had told Chapman. More likely, it was fatigue. He could trace it back definitely to that Thursday-morning interview. When it had ended, he remembered, he had felt unhinged and irresponsible, and uncontrollably resentful, as he had that time in Ohio when the doctor called it a nervous breakdown, and he had been forced to take a month’s leave of absence on some more acceptable pretext.

The street around, though merely two blocks from Wilshire Boulevard and the Beverly Hills shopping district, was incredibly empty and quiet. Far ahead, he could see the toy cars inching noiselessly forward, but no sound of their screeching and jamming and horns reached him. Momentarily, he was conscious of a stout mailman treading past, shuffling eternally through his envelopes. When the mailman was gone, he saw a tall, young, redheaded girl start out of the apartment beyond his door window. He twisted and watched her approach the sidewalk as she pulled on her white gloves. She glanced at him only briefly, then turned resolutely toward Wilshire. He continued to observe her as she meandered away, and then he deliberated on the fourteen months that had gone by.

The cumulative effect of those thousand interviews-there must have been a thousand or more that he had listened to personally-gave Cass Miller his own private mental image of the American married woman: a female beetle, turned on her back, legs in the air, legs waving in the air, wriggling and squirming but still on her back-until impaled.

In the streets of the cities at night, when he walked alone, and this he had done frequently and everywhere, Cass Miller had always watched closely the young women who promenaded ahead of him. He pictured them again: their full bottoms rotating provocatively beneath their tight skirts, their calves indecently encased in sheer nylon to thighs unseen, their high-heeled whorish pumps tilting them forward, steadily forward, to some vicious assignation. Sometimes they would halt to gaze into a window and thus give their profile to him, and he would have eyes only for the shameless protrusion of their unfettered busts. On such occasions, he would halt, too, and regard them with boiling hatred. They were harlots all of them, subtle and secret sluts. Not one of them was decent or trustworthy or faithful. They smelled of musk and body heat and the sick odor of sex, and you had only to touch them, and they would quickly lie on their backs, female beetles, wriggling bitch insects, wriggling. He hated women, and he lusted for them, and the emotions were one.

Absently rubbing the warm wheel of the Dodge, staring straight ahead, waiting for the sight of her, he recognized that the compulsion was not usual or widespread. Unconsciously, his mind gave it a vague rationale that was permissive. He was here because she was there, and she was misled and illused and wanted direction. He was here to meet her and give her his hand, and he would promise not to punish her too harshly. It was the least he owed his father, broken old bastard, racked by life and the beetle lust.

He waited with ruthless patience.

He had just consulted his wrist watch, and calculated the passage of nearly one hour and ten minutes, and allowed the unreasoning wrath to mount and possess him, when he looked up blindly-and there she was.

She had emerged from the apartment four doors ahead, patting the bun of dark hair behind her head, and hastened to the curb. For a moment, she glanced up the sidewalk, in each direction, and then began to cross over to her station wagon, parked on the same side as his car and faced in the same direction. She walked heavily, her legs full against the bright rayon dress, and then she went behind the car and opened the door and slid inside. She sat in the front seat a moment, occupied with something that he could not see, and he decided that she was lighting a cigarette.

He heard her engine sputter and catch, and then he watched, in a detached, dreamy way, as her vehicle floated forward. He waited until it had gone a block, slowing for the cross street, when he started the Dodge and unhurriedly followed her.

Sarah Goldsmith became fully aware of the Dodge at Westwood Boulevard. Its grill, reflecting the sun, and the dark, sullen face behind the windshield filled her rear-view mirror with a pounding remembrance and fear, and after that, for twenty minutes, it did not leave her mirror.

By the time she reached her street-with the safety of small children playing on someone’s lawn, and a gardener guiding a power mower over another-she saw that her rear-view mirror was free of M. Javert (she had seen the movie on Sam’s television, not read the book), and that only the placid, receding landscape was in sight. The choking fear was at once alleviated, and she began to feel that it was either a coincidence or a trick of hallucination.

She swung into the carport, parked, found her purse, and stepped out. She realized that there was no grocery bag, that she had forgotten to shop, but decided that the freezer would serve them adequately. She had started across the paved area toward the door when she was aware of a sedan wheeling into the street. She stopped short, staring off, and the white needles of dread and calamity punctured her forearms and legs. The Dodge came to a halt three doors away, scraping the curb, and the engine idled. The face in the recess behind the glass was indistinct but pointed toward her. Even without seeing it plainly, she knew that it was dark and involuntarily, she gasped. Her legs were wooden, anchored. And then they moved. She stumbled, half running, to the door, shook frantically through her key ring, then opened the door, banged it behind her, and hysterically hooked the chain.

Her first illogical instinct was to call Sam, preserver of home and property, and then the police, and then the next-door neighbor, Mrs. Pederson, or Kathleen Ballard around the corner, and finally she saw the absurdity of all these impossible collaborations. Although her body was chilled rigid, her mind, so practical, reasoned out an explanation of M. favert, and she knew that there was only one number she dared call.

In the kitchen, after hastily checking the service porch door, she snatched the receiver of the wall phone, making communication operative and rescue imminent, and she dialed Fred Tauber’s number. After the first ring, she prayed that he was still on the bed. After the second ring, she was sure that he was in the bathroom. After the third ring, when her heart was sinking, he answered the phone.

“Hello,” he said with incredible calmness.

“Fred!”

“Hello?”

“Fred-it’s Sarah!”

“Yes-it’s Fred-what’s the matter?”

“I’m being followed,” she gasped; “someone’s following me-he’s outside.”

“What do you mean, Sarah? What are you talking about?”

“A man.”

Fred’s voice was steady, steadying her, but tense. “What man? Do get hold of yourself. Are you in danger?”

“No-I don’t know, but-“

“Then calm down. Tell me as quickly as possible what is wrong.”

She held the mouthpiece in one hand and drew closer to it. “When I left you, I noticed the car parked near, and then I started, and I guess it started. I was halfway home when I noticed it again, right behind, and then I kept watching, and it/was still behind. And now it’s two doors down-“

“Who’s driving it? Did you see?”

“I couldn’t tell very well. He’s got black hair and a cruel face.”

“Have you seen him before?”

“No-I mean, yes, I have. Saturday, I remember now. He was parked across from your apartment, the same car, and it came into

the block here, but I didn’t pay any attention then. Fred, who is he?”

“I don’t know,” he said slowly. “Is he still outside?”

“I suppose-“

“Go and look. I’ll wait.”

She let the receiver dangle and went into the living room. For a moment, alarm held her, but Fred was waiting, he was with her, and so she went out to the big window, the drapes partially drawn against the sun. She moved to the edge of the drapes and pulled one back slightly, and in this way hidden, she peered outside.

The street was before her. The Dodge was gone. She exposed herself more fully, the drape covering her like a broken tent, and searched the street. No car was in sight.

She freed herself of the drape and ran back into the kitchen.

“Fred-“

“Yes, I’m here.”

“He’s gone.”

‘You’re sure?”

“I looked everywhere.”

“Curious.”

Threat was supplanted by mystery, and the anxiety in her voice was shaded by a subtle difference. “Fred, who can it be? Can it be about us?”

“It might be.” He did not try to conceal his concern. “You’re sure about the car shadowing you-Saturday and today?”

“Positively. I mean, if he got out and went someplace, or pretended to do something else, why, maybe I wouldn’t be sure. But outside your apartment, and then right behind me, and parking here, just watching me, not pretending to be going anywhere else-“