The Magician's Wife

23

But next morning Mr. Pender took a setback when the stuttering boy took the stand, the parking-lot attendant who had heard the brawl that night and told in exact detail how Buster had said: “I’ll k-k-k-kill you!” He was not cross-examined, for the reason, as Mr. Pender explained at lunch: “I couldn’t risk getting into the position of deriding a physical infirmity. Taking him over the jumps could easily have looked like that and only have made things worse. And, Clay, it’s bad. That damned K-K-K-Katy stuff, I’ll k-k-k-kill you,’ is the kind of thing that stays in your ear when other stuff is forgotten — and it worries me. If it wasn’t for that, this jury would vote an acquittal without even leaving the box — I could feel it yesterday that I had ’em. If only someone would come, would sit down at the table with us and whisper he heard that row, that he was out there parked in his car and could testify under oath that it didn’t happen at all the way that clown said! A fat chance. All kinds of people have come — like that guy I’ll put on the stand, the one who was run off the road, the one who’ll shoot holes in the cops’ report, and others, friends of Buster, offering to speak for her, be her character witness, believe it or not. But this one guy that I need won’t show.”

“Nat, he has showed,” said Clay.

Startled, Nat stared, and Clay stared too, at his fingertips, as though a bit startled himself. “May surprise you, but I was parked out there myself, alongside the lot, and heard the whole thing. She was furious, but she didn’t say she would kill him.”

“Lean back, Clay, quick! I might kiss you!”

“Nevertheless, it’s a fact.”

“But what were you doing there?”

“Calling on Mike Dominick — I sell him meat, don’t forget. After the row I decided it wasn’t the night and drove home. Just the same, I was there.”

“Brother! It’s in the bag, we can’t lose!”

And so it seemed, not only to Mr. Pender but also to Grace, when Clay called for a quick confab, from a courthouse pay station, just before court convened. “Oh, certainly!” she exclaimed. “If there’s anything, anything at all, that you can truthfully say, to offset it, what that crazy boy said, by all means do it! Clay, the time is now, and the point of it is, get her off! Get her off, get her off, get her off! You’re going to testify anyhow, and there’s no sense at all in withholding the one thing that’s going to count.” So in midafternoon, when the state had finished its case, with a thick-faced electrician who told of the ladder incident, with Buster “bugging the guy, keeping at him to climb up and look” — so the threats on the parking lot was ominously prereinforced, redoubled in depth, so to speak — Clay took the stand to lead off for the defense, following a brief, solemn statement by Mr. Pender as to what his case would involve. Clay gave his name in his best big-shot manner: brisk, crisp, and importantly amiable. At once he hit a nice note of disbelief, of amused contempt, even, for the accusation against Buster, quickly disposing of the ladder incident. “For that I guess I’m responsible,” he admitted in an easy, offhand way. Then, after telling of the visit from Mr. Alexis and Buster, the greetings from Mike, and so on, he said: “I warned Mr. Alexis — as he called himself to me — of the importance of getting his rails level, else his cradle, with Miss Conlon dangling from it, might go rolling off somewhere and land her behind the eight ball.” He repeated the Mexico City anecdote, and Mr. Pender interrupted: “Did they test the rails at all?”

“They did. He, and later she.”

“How did she test, Mr. Lockwood?”

“I lifted her, and she swung on them.”

“How did he react to this?”

“He got sore that I should be touching her — he certainly didn’t act like a guy that would ever desert her and—”

“Object,” said Mr. Kuhn.

“Sustained,” said the judge. And then to Clay: “Tell what he said or did, not what you think it meant.”

“Yes, your honor,” said Clay.

“The reporter will strike, the jury disregard, this last remark of the witness. Mr. Pender, please—?”

“What did he say when you lifted her?”

“That she should get down by herself — or something like that. I told him, not in my place — she might fall and break her leg, and Grant’s, Inc., could be sued.”

“And then?”

“I lifted her down.”

“His manner, then, was jealous?”

“Object.”

“Sustained.”

So far Mr. Kuhn had shown no surprise, and he seemed aware already of what Clay related. But from the way he looked up, the next question obviously caught him off balance. “This visit,” asked Mr. Pender, “did it have an aftermath?”

“It did, in a way,” said Clay.

“Will you tell what it led to, then?”

“Well, there was Mike, who had sent his best regards by Alexis, and who I’d done nothing about all summer. But he buys my meat, after all, and I thought it was just about time for me to show some interest — in his reconditioned club and his plans for ten-ounce steaks.”

“By interest, you mean you decided to call?”

“To drop in for a chat.”

“At his club?”

“The Lilac Flamingo, that’s right.”

“And you did drop in?”

“I did — drove up there one night and parked.”

“On the Lilac Flamingo lot?”

“On the street, next to the lot. Well, there was space there at the curb, and why waste a buck? On that parking attendant of Mike, who spatters spit when he talks — and I didn’t have my umbrella.”

“Object.”

“Sustained.”

Clay’s crack got a laugh from the courtroom, but Mr. Pender didn’t smile. “Mr. Lockwood,” he said piously, “the boy can’t help his affliction.”

“He can help his l-l-l-lies,” said Clay.

He sounded like Frank Fontaine, and this time the crowd gave a roar, with hand-clapping mixed in. Plainly they liked this big, good-looking witness, and their sudden silence was hostile as the judge said to Clay: “Mr. Lockwood, you’ve already been warned about gratuitous opinion. I fine you one hundred dollars for contempt.”

Clay, patterning his behavior after Mr. Pender’s, got up, took out his wallet, counted some bills, and handed them to the bailiff. But his face reddened, and before resuming his seat he said: “Your honor, if I showed contempt for this court, I did so unintentionally, and apologize. But, if this be contempt, to louse this silly case up by letting the truth in, I can only repeat: someone primed this little jerk up, filled him full of lies, as nothing took place that night resembling what he said here in this place today. I was there. I know. If I’m again in contempt, I have more cash in my pocket.”

He sat down, and the judge thought a long time. Then, to Mr. Kuhn: “Are you going to move a mistrial?”

“Or a dismissal?” asked a grinning Mr. Pender.

“... I’ll let it ride,” said Mr. Kuhn.

“Mr. Lockwood,” said the judge, “this court is so impressed by your sincerity that I’m remitting your fine and instruct the bailiff to hand it back.” Waiting until Clay had taken his money, he went on: “However, the law is the law, and if there’s one more lapse on your part, cash will not be enough. I intend to send you to jail.”

“Yes, your honor,” whispered Clay.

“How long were you parked?” asked Mr. Pender.

“Only a few minutes — I meant to go in the club, but then Mr. Alexis came out, by a back door.”

“In the dark you could recognize him?”

“Dark? The lot has floodlights on it.”

“He was in costume, or what?”

“He was in dinner coat, black tie, and pink tarboosh, I believe it’s called.”

“Describe the tarboosh, please.”

“Like a hat, in the form of a silk turban.”

“You left the car then, or what?”

“I stayed where I was, beside my parked car — after my brush with him that day down at the shop I wanted no piece of this guy. I waited to see what he’d do, and sure enough he spoke to the boy, who trotted to a car and in the next minute or two backed it out in the middle.”

“All right. Then what?”

“Miss Conlon piled out of the door.”

“She was in costume, too?”

“She was in tights, trunks, and jacket.”

“And what happened then, Mr. Lockwood?”

“They had this comedy brawl.”

“Object.”

“Sustained.” The judge’s manner was kind as he turned to Clay. “Tell what they said, tell what they did — omit your interpretation.”

“He was laughing at her,” snapped Clay at the judge, “and where I come from, that makes a comedy brawl. I tell it as well as I can. Do you want the truth out of me or not?”

“Objection withdrawn,” said Mr. Kuhn.

“Tell it your way,” said the judge.

“You tell it according to law,” growled Mr. Pender at Clay. “I request the jury to disregard ‘comedy brawl,’ and pray the court to instruct the reporter to strike it.”

“So ordered,” said the judge.

“What did they say?” asked Mr. Pender.

“She said it was all a fake, what he had said to her about going home early to talk about divorce. She said: ‘You’re going back to her, that’s what you’re up to, you louse — so go on, see who gives a damn!’ She screamed it, and he started to laugh. He said: ‘So O.K., I’m lying, I’m the world’s original louse — but come on, see for yourself! It’ll cost us a million bucks, but anything to please!’ And she said, ‘Well, maybe I will,’ and jumped in.”

“Did she threaten to kill him at all?”

“No. At least, not that I heard.”

“Did she make any threats of any kind?”

“Well — I guess she did, in a way. She said: ‘O.K., go back to her, but don’t you come back to me! You try coming back to me and see what happens to you!’ ”

“Did she say what she meant by that?”

“God knows what she meant. Maybe nothing.”

By then it was nearly five, and when Mr. Kuhn, asked if he meant to cross-examine, said yes he certainly did, the judge adjourned until morning. Mr. Pender, leaving the courtroom, was exultant. “Boy, did you smash ’em up!” he whispered, grabbing Clay by the arm. “And with comical stuff yet! That ‘l-l-l-lies’ was worth all the rest put together!” He led Clay over to Buster, who was waiting for her policewoman, and she patted his arm, her eyes soft, her nervous fingers grateful. Home, he told it all to Grace, including his fine for contempt and its inexplicable remission. “It was remitted to you,” she said, “because even that judge knew that you were telling the truth and that truth’s day had come — it was entitled to be heard.” They both laved themselves in the healing balm of the truth, it seemingly occurring to neither of them that the truth had not been told — that he had scarcely heard twenty words before leaving that night and that Mike had formed no part of his purpose. But, in their twisted, left-handed way, they had helped basic justice, and so were warmed for one night.

“Mr. Lockwood, where did you dine the night in whose early morning hours you drove to the Lilac Flamingo?”

“... Well, I don’t just offhand recall. I generally dine at the Channel City Yacht Club and no doubt did that night.”

“Alone?”

“I do as a rule, Mr. Kuhn.”

“And then you went home?”

“I assume so, yes.”

“You drove?”

“I always do.”

“In your own car?”

“Of course.”

“What did you do with it then?”

“Just a moment, please.”

Mr. Pender got to his feet, saying: “Your honor, I don’t like to clog up a trial with objections that merely obstruct, but I must say I don’t see the point of all this. We’ll stipulate the car if it makes any difference, and it’s assumed, I would think, that Mr. Lockwood did something with it — after all, it won’t go in his pocket. So unless there’s some reason for this I don’t see, I must object at this point.”

“So.”

Mr. Kuhn was very quiet and then went on: “Perhaps it’s just as well, your honor, that counsel has raised the question, but before I answer, I suggest that the court exclude the jury.”

“Very well.”

Waiting until the bailiff had shoed the jury out, Mr. Kuhn went on, still in his quiet way. And he had hardly said ten words when Clay’s head began to reel, for he knew his perfect alibi was rising up to destroy him. “What he did with his car,” said Mr. Kuhn, “what he did with his night, these commonplaces which my colleague would have me assume, are actually of the essence, for they prove that Mr. Lockwood, in spite of his outbreak yesterday, his noisy appeal to Truth, was actually lying out of hand in all that he told this court, of his trip to the club that night, the reasons he had for taking it, what he heard, and what he saw. I’ll bring incontrovertible evidence that he spent the night at home, that he never left his apartment, that his story was pure invention. In fact, so overwhelming is this evidence that I intend to charge him with perjury and ask that he be held, when he leaves the witness stand, for the action of the grand jury.”

He produced a paper, approached the judge’s desk, and, when Mr. Pender had joined him, let him read. Then, in a low tone, he went on: “Your honor, when that insurance came to light, when Mrs. Gorsuch rang in about it, the police checked this girl out — the defendant, Miss Conlon, especially the men she’d been seeing. There were four, including this man Lockwood, who had been the subject of a thinly veiled newspaper item, which coupled him with the defendant. What he did the night of the crime was thoroughly investigated, and so far as complicity went, he was cleared one hundred percent. And in fact, until he took the stand yesterday, he hadn’t figured in this case. Now, however—”

“Your honor,” asked Mr. Pender, “what is this, anyway? Here’s a man, a community leader, president-elect of one of our biggest corporations, who takes the stand for a girl he thinks falsely accused, and his reward, on the basis of still another police report, is to be charged in this court with perjury without any—”

“Yes, Mr. Kuhn,” said the judge. “I’m disturbed.”

“Then I hold the charge at this time.”

“Perjury is easy to allege when a witness won’t say what we want him to. And here, it seems to me, you’re less concerned with a violation of the law as such than with winning this other case — or in other words, you seem to be using it tactically, as a means of smoking this witness out, as the saying goes. That I can’t have.”

“If so, I wasn’t aware of it.”

“Of course if the cross-examining develops evidence of a substantial kind, the court itself must take cognizance of it.”

“Then I await your honor’s decision.”

“Bailiff, bring in the jury.”

Mr. Kuhn then began his dreadful drumfire, and Clay could feel himself sweat. He brought out the visit to the garage, the arrangements about the car; Clay’s parking it outside, snug to the curb on Spring Street; his little scene with Doris, and her putting the keys in his box; his arrival in the apartment, his call to Pat, his call to Miss Helm, and her call to Atlantic City. “And then?” asked Mr. Kuhn.

“She called me to check on the rate.”

“And you told her?”

“That forty a day was all right.”

“And then?”

“I started to take off my clothes, but was restless and didn’t feel like going to bed. Then I remembered Mike, and he seemed as good an excuse as any to get out of the house again and go somewhere. So I went.”

“Out through the lobby, of course?”

“No — after all that hocus-pocus about putting the keys in the box, I would have felt kind of silly asking Doris to start over again. So I dropped duplicate keys in my pocket and went out the back way. I keep three or four sets around, ignition keys and trunk keys, on little spiral rings.” He took out a pair and clinked them at Mr. Kuhn. “I took a set from a bureau drawer and drove off without telling Doris.”

“Straight to the Lilac Flamingo?”

“That’s right — to the side street by the club.”

“When was this?”

“At a guess, I’d say I left at eleven-thirty.”

“And then you came back?”

“I did.”

“Parking where?”

“Same place as before.”

“The same way as before? Snug? To the curb?”

“Mr. Kuhn, I haven’t the faintest idea. I always park according to law, or try to — and in this case I suppose I followed habit. But if independent recollection is what you want, I don’t have any.”

“What time was this?”

“One-thirty, one-forty-five.”

“And you went in the back way, as before?”

“No, I went in through the lobby.”

“Being checked in? By the late man? On the desk?”

“No — Frank was asleep.”

So far, having had his moment of warning, while the lawyers wrangled, Clay had made lightning improvisations, and feeling they might be believed, had regained his big-shot manner, a combination of cold civility and slightly annoyed impatience. But it all began to wear thin when Mr. Kuhn abruptly asked: “Isn’t it true, Mr. Lockwood, that you stayed home that night, that you didn’t leave at all, by the front door, back door, or any door, and that you’ve told this incredible tale simply to help Miss Conlon — that you’ve been her paramour and are trying to get her off, at any cost, even a breach of the truth?”

“No, Mr. Kuhn, it’s not true.”

“You’ve been a visitor at her home?”

“I’ve never been to her home.”

“Mr. Kuhn picked up his report and, elaborately letting the jury see, asked Clay: “You deny that on August eighteenth last you went to her home, leaving around dusk?”

“Her apartment house, not her home.”

“Explain this distinction, please.”

Clay’s mouth, disconnected from his mind, began to talk, explaining his concern for Buster, her safety in the projected act, and “I wanted to check on it, what had been done with the rails — and I wanted no piece of Gorsuch, or Alexis, as he called himself with me. So, being in Baltimore one evening, I decided to look her up, and after finding her in the phone book drove over to that part of town. I located her place, went in, and checked the mailboxes, lighting a match to look, as I’m sure your report says. Her box was there, but then I decided I’d better call, rather than barge out of the blue. So I went up the street, looking for a call box, and, not finding any, came back. Then, to my surprise, she came bouncing out of the doorway and down the steps. So we had our talk, right there on the sidewalk, and I found everything had been done in the way I had said it should be. But then we went on to other things and stepped into a vestibule — of an office building nearby. You want the details of what we said?”

“Not particularly,” said Mr. Kuhn.

“WHY DON’T YOU WANT THE DETAILS?” thundered Clay.

His mouth having come up with a tale that at least steadied his nerves, he summoned courage to take the offensive, and sounded once more, as he had the day before, like the big, overbearing, self-righteous business executive, determined to be heard. “Or do you only want part of the truth? The part that’ll burn this girl.”

“Then — the details,” said Mr. Kuhn.

Clay told of Buster’s concern over Mr. Alexis, that he was ‘giving me the air, so he can go back to her — out of gratitude for what she did, helping his father die, at least as he thought, and bringing him all that money.’ Pointing at Sally, whose eyes looked like fragments of glass, Clay explained: “She meant that lady there, Mrs. Sally Gorsuch — though of course, Mr. Kuhn, your police reports cover it. I hope you’ve referred to them — I know of course you wouldn’t suppress anything.”

“Mr. Lockwood, you’ve been warned,” snapped the judge.

“If you’re trying to shut me up, I won’t shut!”

Clay looked at Judge Warfield, as utter recklessness swept caution aside. It was his great moment at the trial, and for a long interval silence hung on the courtroom. Then Mr. Kuhn resumed: “So even then, on August eighteenth, the defendant, Miss Conlon, had her mind on revenge?”

“On a replacement, I’d say,” Clay told him.

“... Replacement? What do you mean?”

“Some guy — in Alexis’ place.”

“Ah! Meaning you?”

“Yeah! We kidded along about it!”

“And you kissed her?”

“You bet I did. She kisses nice.”