Gilbert Ter Horst resembled a professional wrestler. His head was naked skull and sat square on his shoulders without benefit of a neck. Although his suit was cut to his measure, the way he stood to shake hands, in a sort of crouch, suggested he’d look more at home in tights.
He specialized in Constitutional law.
“I’ll be honest, Mr. Ter Horst,” Jacob said. “We can’t afford you. I swallowed my pride and asked Robin Elk if the firm’s lawyer would take my case, but he said it would be a conflict of interest.”
“Of course he did. It means if things look bad for the company, he intends to shift the blame to you.”
Ellen gripped Jacob’s hand with one of hers wearing a white cotton glove. “I can’t believe that of Robin,” she said. “He’s always been a gentleman.”
They sat facing the lawyer’s desk in his office overlooking Central Park. The room was done in copper and leather.
“Gentlemen don’t last long in a hearing room, Mrs. Heppleman. Don’t worry about my fee. I’ve waited for this case. We’ll work out a payment plan we can all live with.”
Jacob said, “Forty a year for forty years would be ideal. We had to take out a loan to pay the babysitter.”
“Hang on to that sense of humor. You’ll need it. Do you know what to expect?”
“We’ve been watching the hearings on TV.”
“So far the witnesses have all been friendly to the government’s case. It will be far different when the representatives and their attorney take the gloves off.”
“Can I invoke the Fifth Amendment?”
“You can try, but if the committee doesn’t agree the answers would be self-incriminating, they’ll jail you for contempt. They have the advantage of a gray area in the First Amendment.”
“I wasn’t aware it had one. I read up on the Bill of Rights after the subpoena came. It seemed pretty specific.”
“It can be interpreted a variety of ways. There are exceptions, such as yelling ‘fire’ in a crowded theater, and any police officer can arrest you for public profanity. In recent years such exceptions have been expanded to include pornography, but since Congress hasn’t the authority to enforce laws, the argument can be made that you won’t be incriminating yourself.”
“My God,” Jacob said. “That’s Kafkaesque.”
“There’s also the possibility you could be charged with contributing to the delinquency of minors, but that’s a fight I can win. Writing a scurrilous book and handing a teenager a loaded revolver aren’t the same thing.
“On one hand,” he went on, “they’re saying the right of free speech doesn’t cover the dissemination of prurient material, while on the other they’re saying it does, and therefore no laws have been broken—for their purposes.”
“Scratch Kafka. That’s Orwellian.”
“I’d counsel you against using literary allusions on the stand. They’ll think you’re pompous and turn up the heat.” He looked at Ellen. “Will you be attending?”
“I don’t think we can afford it. The government is only paying Jacob’s expenses.”
“Try. It makes a good impression when the witness’s loyal wife is sitting behind him; the cameras pick her up whenever they cut to the testimony. It helps that you’re attractive; but not too attractive.”
“Thanks. I think.”
“Don’t be offended. Too much glamour sends a carnal message rather than a domestic one. Dress nice; but dress down, and go easy on the powder and paint.”
Jacob said, “She’ll be sitting behind me? Are the seats assigned?”
“You let me worry about that.”
“Mr. Ter Horst,” he said, “are you going to bribe a page?”
“An incentive. They’re not public officials.” He opened a drawer in the desk and pushed a dog-eared paperback across the blotter with the cover facing up. It was the movie edition of The Fence. “Will you sign it?”
“You’re a fan?”
“My wife found it under our son’s mattress. We joked about shipping him off to military school. Then I read it. I’m no judge of literature, but it’s hard to put down, and based on what I’ve heard from my colleagues in criminal law, quite accurate as to detail.” His smile was abashed. “It fell right open to the scene depicted on the cover.”
Ellen, blushing, murmured to Jacob: “I’m so glad Phil replaced me with Grace Kelly.”
His testimony was scheduled for January 1952. He spent two months being mock-interrogated by Ter Horst, who shed his office manners to assume the role of a member of the House Select Committee on Pornography and Juvenile Delinquency. Jacob wondered if he rehearsed his bully act in private.
“Mr. Heppleman, would you tell us which of your books you’d recommend to someone unfamiliar with your work?”
“I suppose that would be Katt’s Alley.”
“Not Chinese Checkers? I believe that was your first.”
“It was good enough at the time I wrote it, but my work has improved a great deal since then.”
“I should hope so. I read Chinese Checkers. Can you tell us what Katt’s Alley is about?”
“It’s about a teenage tough named Billy Katt, whose gangland empire occupies the alley behind his apartment house. He sells drugs, leads brawls against rival gangs, sexually assaults a female prep-school student, and shoots himself in the head when the police come to arrest him.”
“And you consider this an improvement over your earlier work?”
“It’s a cautionary tale.”
“But the young man doesn’t really pay for his crimes, does he?”
“I’m sorry. I thought I said he committed suicide.”
“But that’s closer to divine intervention than the right and proper exercise of law enforcement by officials sworn to keep the peace, is it not?”
“I don’t understand, Congressman. I—”
“Congresswoman.”
He grimaced. “How was I to know you’re Mrs. St. John now? You were Roger Wellborn of Massachusetts last time.”
“Don’t break character. What don’t you understand, Mr. Heppleman?”
“The boy put a bullet in his skull. It wasn’t God with His finger on the trigger. What’s the difference, so long as he paid for his poor choices? It would prevent most young people from making the same mistakes.”
“I fail to see how. They would just shrug and say they won’t shoot themselves. Can you tell us about the warehouse burglary?”
“What warehouse burglary?”
“Can it be that I’m more familiar with your work than you are, or have you committed so many sins against decency you can’t keep them all straight?”
“I object.”
Ter Horst smiled. “That’s my job, although I won’t be exercising it as often as I’m sure you’d like. It loses its edge through repetition.” He switched personalities again. “I’m referring to the warehouse burglary in Katt’s Alley. Not only do you provide a detailed plan of the crime, but your publisher saw fit to diagram it on the back cover. Frankly, this strikes me as a primer for crime.”
“I made up the warehouse. It doesn’t exist. The plan was a product of my imagination. I’ve never robbed a warehouse.”
“And you don’t consider this contributing to the delinquency of minors.”
“Excuse me, Congresswoman, but is that a question?”
“Counselor,” Ter Horst corrected. “Now I’m Brian P. Castor, attorney to the committee.”
“Is that necessary? In the hearing room I’ll know who’s asking the questions.”
“Would you rather I made the rehearsal easier than the real thing, or harder? Answer the question.”
“Counselor, I would never consider contributing to the delinquency of a minor. I have an infant daughter.”
“And when your daughter is, say, age thirteen; would you recommend she read Katt’s Alley?”
“Why not? I’d like her to know what her old man does for a living and whether he’s any good at it.”
“Mr. Heppleman, you and I differ significantly in our interpretation of what’s good.”
“Who are you now?” Jacob said.
“Does it matter?”
He came home from these sessions wrung out, with no energy to make the rewrites Elk had insisted on in Coal-Blooded Murder. He fought with Ellen, shouted at Millie when she wouldn’t stop crying. He drank more. Many nights he passed out in his chair in front of the TV test pattern.
Ellen and Millie moved out after the first month.
“Not permanently, Jake. This isn’t the environment for Mildred. Call me at Mom’s when you want to get together. But not when you’re moody or drunk. That isn’t the environment for me.”
“You said you’d stay by my side through this.”
“I’ll give you encouragement when you need it, and I’ll be in the hearing room. Mom can look after Mildred while we’re in Washington.”
“Without you here, things will just get worse.”
“Don’t act like you have no choice. You’re an adult, not one of the kids who sneak your books into their rooms.”
“Now you sound like Ter Horst trying to sound like the literature police. This is a nightmare.”
She smiled and took both his hands in hers. She had on her traveling suit, which fit her again at last. She’d been working out with Jack LaLanne on television.
“They can’t do anything to you, dear. It isn’t as if you ever actually broke the law.”