The House Select Committee on Pornography and Juvenile Delinquency convened in Washington in October 1951, and heard opening remarks by Margery St. John, the chairman:
“Events of the past several years have brought to the attention of this committee the necessity to identify and isolate a disturbing trend in the publishing industry.
“As a public servant, this is my sworn duty. As a widow and mother, it is my moral obligation to search out the sources of this threat and bring them under control.
“We will begin with smut.
“A decade is brief in terms of time, yet in the past ten years we have fought and won a world war, split the atom, set our sights upon the conquest of outer space—and seen a deluge of filth spill directly from the printing press into our children’s bedrooms. In my opinion, some of the worst offenses against decency have taken place in the cheap publications called ‘pocket books,’ with the dismal implication that those wares which were once sold from seedy back rooms wrapped in brown paper to mature adults are now so small and lightweight that they may be concealed in the hip pockets and purses of impressionable youngsters, where parental supervision is difficult if not impossible. I ask, is this postwar progress, or a serious challenge to the future we will one day hand over to our children?”
“Portable porn,” Jacob said. “What a concept.”
Ellen, breastfeeding the baby, shushed him. On the twelve-inch screen, Representative St. John turned to a fresh page.
She was a pudgy forty, dressed like a frumpy hausfrau in an oatmeal-colored sweater, a knitted scarf, and owlish glasses. The camouflage was a failure. Next to her colleagues, seated behind pitchers and tumblers of water and bulky microphones, wattle-necked men in comb-overs, she looked almost glamorous.
The committee counselor, Brian P. Castor, was the youngest person present. He wore his dark hair to his collar, slicked back from a high forehead, and seemed to like his suits patterned and his neckties jazzy. The top half of his face was almost handsome, but he had a weak chin and his small mouth was placed too close to his nose. He never spoke except to address Mrs. St. John with a hand cupped over her microphone.
“Eve, meet Serpent,” Jacob muttered. “Serpent, Eve.”
“Jake, shut up!”
He looked at her. “You, too? Hollywood shelved The Fence. The last royalties didn’t cover the loan I got from Ira. We’re in hock up to our eyeballs, and all because a bunch of politicians want their kissers on camera.”
“Patience. So far it’s only campaign rhetoric.”
“This is just the prologue. They’ll start with friendly witnesses. We public enemies will get our turn, after sentence is passed.”
“Keep your voice down. Mildred’s asleep finally.”
They’d named her after Ellen’s mother; Irene was never a serious contender. He called her Millie. She had her mother’s eyes and nose, and tragically her father’s rat trap mouth, but her hair was coming in fair like Ellen’s. He tried to picture her at age sixteen, smuggling a copy of Guns of Gotham into the house. Would she have him sign it?
The first witnesses called were as predicted: A baby-faced Baptist minister from Dayton, Ohio, who had gained national recognition when he hosted a comic-book burning in his church parking lot; a child psychologist from Oregon, whose authoritative German accent had been heard in an expert capacity testifying in juvenile delinquency trials in thirty-seven states; a Boston bookseller named Persons, who’d opened a carton of books he’d ordered from the Wombat Press, saw they were paperbacks, and sent them back unexamined; a series of schoolteachers from scattered districts who’d noted a disturbing change in certain students’ classroom conduct between sixth and seventh grades—after they’d written reports on what they did during summer vacation and mentioned reading paperback novels; a convict serving twenty years in Atlanta for bank robbery (accompanied by a federal marshal), claiming he got his M.O. from Hugh Brock’s Mobsters from Mars; and a grieving middle-aged woman wearing a dead fox around her throat, whose teenage son had been shot to death fleeing a candy-store robbery, and in whose bedroom she’d found a veritable crime library under the mattress.
“Ell,” Jacob said, “if I’m arrested, please throw away all those complimentary books I got from Elk.”
She shook her head. “And get myself arrested for tampering with evidence? You’re on your own, Dillinger.”
It seemed funny then.
“We need to talk, old boy.”
Jacob lowered the receiver, sighed, raised it. “Robin, those are the four scariest words in the language.”
“Nothing so alarming. I only want to suggest some changes in Coal-Blooded Murder.”
“I hope it’s the title. I called it Philly Girl. You said it sounded like the story of a horse. You underestimated the spelling skills of the reading public.”
“Lunch at the club. Tomorrow at one?”
“Make it O’Hara’s Grill. I always come away from the Staghunters wanting to shoot a redcoat.”
The restaurant, walking distance from Blue Devil, purported to be an Irish pub. There were tankards on display and a dartboard. Jacob ordered corned beef, cabbage, and Guinness on tap. Elk frowned at the menu and asked for scrambled eggs and a vodka martini.
“Who is that man singing?” He tilted his head in the direction of the tenor voice issuing from a loudspeaker.
“Dennis Day. What changes are we discussing?”
“Let’s wait until our drinks arrive.”
Scarier words yet.
When the drinks came, Elk sipped, put down his glass, and touched his lips with a silk handkerchief. “I’m concerned with just one character in the book.”
“Which one?”
“Micah Rudd.”
“Ah.”
“‘Ah’ means what?”
“‘Aha!’ in English. He’s only the main character. Is it the name? It means ‘Like unto the Lord.’”
“It’s not the name, but his behavior.”
“You were fine with it when you read it.”
“It’s just that he’s so—well, aggressive is the term that comes to mind. You catch my drift.”
“No, Robin, I don’t.”
The blond bland features twisted into a rictus.
“You’re being difficult on purpose. He’s so—so—”
“Radical?”
The face went smooth. “The very term I sought. I should know better than to bandy words with a writer.”
“What’s radical about a coal miner asking for humane treatment from his boss? Seven fellow workers suffocated because of inadequate ventilation. Rudd warns the owner the men might strike if he refuses to discuss improvements. He has no part in the riot. My God, Robin! Rudd’s not Robespierre; he’s Thomas Jefferson.”
“You see, that’s just the thing. If Jefferson were alive today, he’d be summoned before Congress.”
Their meals arrived. Jacob shoved his plate away and ordered a double Scotch.
“What do you suggest I do?”
Elk became lively.
“I hoped you’d ask. Suppose you shift the aggressive activity to a disgruntled miner with a personal grudge against the owners? It’s he who pushes for the strike. I foresee a physical confrontation—the obstreperous laborer being the aggressor—ending in victory for Rudd as the voice of reason. The mine owner, after civilized discussion, agrees to the improvements, and everyone’s the victor.”
“The owner’s the villain!”
Elk poked at his eggs.
“Jack—”
“Jacob.”
“Jacob, I don’t see how we can publish Coal-Blooded Murder without the changes I suggested.”
Jacob drank, to tamp down the response he wanted to make.
“I’d like Phil Scarpetti to be in on this discussion,” he said. “He’s already submitted preliminary sketches for the cover.”
Elk smiled; an uncomfortable expression on his face at the best of times.
“Mr. Scarpetti is no longer employed at Blue Devil.”
“What?”
“It was his decision, although I confess it was not met without some expression of relief from the executive end.”