The Paper Dragon

15

The day was cold and clear.

A brilliant blue sky swept from horizon to horizon beyond the tall courtroom windows, cloudless, reflecting a cold light that caused tabletops and walls, benches and chairs, even pencils lying in repose to leap toward the eye in startling clarity. Each line of the American flag beside the judge's bench seemed inked with a thick pen, its alternating red and white stripes folded in bold black shadows. Driscoll's trained eye followed each wavering dark line, dipped to the point of the flag hanging low, retraced itself upward through crossing draped and overlapping patterns toward the creased blue field and crumpled white stars. He walked behind Ebie to the empty jury box, sat beside her, glanced at Willow, and then turned toward the plaintiff's table, where his eyes met Constantine's.

For a moment, the men almost nodded to each other, almost acknowledged each other's presence. Constantine seemed ready to lift his hand from the table in a short gesture of greeting, Driscoll seemed about to smile in recognition. And then one or another of them, or perhaps both by mutual, silent, and simultaneous consent, snapped the slender thread that hung invisibly in the air between them, severed all communication, and turned once more to the business at hand.

"All rise!" the clerk called, and McIntyre swept from his chambers, took his seat behind the bench, and signaled for everyone to sit. He was carrying with him the documents submitted to him earlier that morning by both plaintiff and defendants, in which they hoped to show findings of fact and conclusions of law to support their respective cases. He had gone through these briefly in his chambers, and he spread them on the bench top now and looked out over the courtroom, locating Willow and asking, "Are you ready with your argument, Mr. Willow?"

"If your Honor please," Willow said.

"You may proceed."

Willow rose from behind the defense table, a tall and impressive figure in a dignified blue suit, holding his prepared text in his left hand, putting on his glasses as he approached the bench. He glanced at the text for just a moment, and then lowered it, as though he had already committed it to memory and would not have to refer to it again during the course of his summation. He looked committed. The plaintiff has alleged that James Driscoll could barely hear him from the jury box, said, "If your Honor please, the matter before us these past several days concerns itself solely with whether or not a theft has been commited. The plaintiff has alleged that James Driscoll freely copied from the play Catchpole when he was writing his novel The Paper Dragon. But the plaintiff has testified that he has no proof, his allegations to the contrary, that Driscoll actually possessed the manuscript or even that he saw the play before writing his book. The entire case, therefore, rests on the alleged similarities between the two works. Now, I know your Honor is familiar with and has certainly studied the record of other cases where plagiarism was claimed. I know, too, that your Honor is aware of the great number of similarities brought before the courts in those other cases, a hundred similarities, two hundred, and in one case something more than four hundred supposed similarities. In most of those cases, however, despite the overwhelming weight of similarities, the courts found against a claim of plagiarism. I mention this, your Honor, because the plaintiff's case before us rests on only a very slender body of supposed similarities, all of which are insignificant.

"I do not intend to ask the Court's indulgence while I go over each and every one of these supposedly matching points, your Honor. The plaintiff has put a necessary stress upon them because, lacking any other proof, they are his sole hope of showing theft. But, your Honor, I think we have neglected the fact that most of these similarities — even if they were copied — would not form the basis for a plagiarism suit. They are not even copyrightable, your Honor. An idea is not copyrightable. A theme is not copyrightable. A plot is not copyrightable. Nor is a character copyrightable. The only thing an author may hope to copyright in his manner of expression. Judge Learned Hand has made this abundantly clear in the prevailing cases in this jurisdiction. Only the manner of expression can be copyrighted, and nothing else.

"Well, your Honor, you have read both play and novel, and you have seen the motion picture — which does not concern us at the moment, but which I believe, by the way, was written and filmed using only the book and related research as sources, and without reference to the play. You have also gone over the charts submitted by the plaintiff, and you have studied the trial transcript and I'm sure you have noted that any of these so-called similarities are due to the fact that both men were dealing with the same subject matter and the same background — the United States Army in time of combat. It would be impossible, your Honor, to present this topic without having similar conflicts springing from the very situation both writers independently chose. One cannot describe a seascape without mentioning the shore or the waves or the sky beyond, and the fact that two authors write of green waves or white foam or wet sand does not indicate one author copied from the other. Such similarities are inevitable.

"The astonishing thing about the plaintiff's claim, of course, is that there is a paucity of even these noncopyrightable similarities. I can only attribute this to the playwright's poverty of wit, language, insight, and imagination. Your Honor knows that Catchpole was badly received by the critics in 1947, and I believe I intimated that the reviews were really devastating that the play was all but laughed off the stage. The only remarkable thing about this play, in fact, is that it was produced at all, and that it managed to sell tickets even for twelve days. I would like to say, incidentally, that Mr. Constantine's testimony concerning the distribution of free tickets to Pratt Institute is one area where I can be critical of Mr. Brackman."

"Where does this testimony appear in the record?" McIntyre asked.

"It's in Mr. Constantine's direct, your Honor. I'll find it for you."

Willow walked back to the defense table and leafed through the transcript. Turning toward the bench, he said, "It's on page 11, your Honor." He picked up the bulky transcript and carried it to the bench with him. "He says, 'Yes, sir. There were a series of previews held while we were still rehearsing the play in a loft on Second Avenue.' And when asked which colleges received tickets to these previews, he says, 'C.C.N.Y., Hunter, Brooklyn College, L.I.U., Pratt Institute, and several others.'

"As your Honor knows, the plaintiff was examined at great length before trial by both Mr. Genitori and myself. Never once, your Honor, not once during all those pretrial examinations did he mention preview performances, or free tickets, or Pratt Institute. And yet, suddenly, we are presented with this startling testimony. And why was Pratt Institute so singled out? The answer is simple, your Honor. On the biographical questionnaire Mr. Driscoll sent to Mitchell-Campbell Books, and which was submitted to Mr. Brackman only after the pretrial examinations, he mentions that he was a student at Pratt Institute in 1947. So all at once Mr. Constantine remembers that free tickets were distributed to a number of colleges, including Pratt, thereby hoping to establish that Mr. Driscoll at least could have seen a performance of the play. I'm surprised, your Honor, I really am surprised that Mr. Brackman permitted his client to testify in such a manner. I'm sure Mr. Brackman did not create this testimony himself, but it was clearly an afterthought and might have been considered more circumspectly by him.

"In the long run, of course, it would not have mattered if a bushel of free tickets went to Pratt, because the play in rehearsal was performed without scenery and would not have afforded Mr. Driscoll the opportunity to see the magic number 105, upon which the plaintiff places such enormous stress — the fingerprints of the thief, Mr. Brackman has repeatedly said. Well, your Honor, we have Mr. Driscoll's testimony that he does not know where the number came from, and that is about as honest an answer as any man can give. He simply does not know. He has also testified that he did not see a performance of that play in 1947 when he was an art student and not at all interested in writing, and he has testified that he did not see a copy of the manuscripts until I gave him one several weeks ago. Moreover, the only man who worked with him in an editorial capacity on that book, Mr. Chester Danton, testified that he was abroad in 1947 when the play was produced.

"In his findings of fact, of course, Mr. Brackman emphasizes that there is no claim against Mr. Danton's contributions to the novel. If your Honor please, one of the specific similarities claimed, one of the specific similarities stressed by Mr. Constantine in his direct testimony, was the incident of a sniper killing an American soldier. This was supposedly one of the most amazing similarities between the play and the novel. I could understand Mr. Brackman's consternation at discovering the sniper was Mr. Danton's idea, a suggestion he transmitted to Mr. Driscoll, and not Mr. Driscoll's invention at all. I can understand why Mr. Brackman asked during his cross whether Mr. Danton had been trying to mislead him. I can understand all this, your Honor, but the fact remains that the sniper did not appear in the novel as originally submitted to Mitchell-Campbell Books.

"Let us examine that novel for a moment, if we may. I personally, your Honor, have always been fascinated by the creative process, the way in which a writer, a painter, or a composer goes about producing his work. When we strip it of the mystique surrounding it, when we pause to look upon the artist as a man rather than a vague symbol, when we accept the fact that there are no muses involved in honest creation, we must then also see, your Honor, that the true professional is as systematic as an engineer. Richard Strauss, for example, filled dozens of filing cabinets with outlines and ideas, developments of themes, partial scores, all recorded in a unique and personal manner. In much the same way, James Driscoll has provided us with a unique and personal record of the development of his novel, from inception to completion. We have seen his rough outlines and his detailed outlines, we have seen his schedules and his progress reports, his letters to his editor and his agent, as well as reminders to himself, questions he asked, answers he received. We have learned that he would not even write about an operation he had performed a great many times — the disassembly of a rifle — until he had first painstakingly checked on the exact technical language. We have learned that he would not write about the Chinese armies in Korea before learning which of them were in the battle area and in what strength. We have seen the care with which he drew his own map of the patrol route his fictitious squad took into enemy territory. As we go through all this material, your Honor, it becomes crystal clear that here is a man creating his own work, relying upon his own knowledge and background, and supplementing this with meticulous research. This is not the work of a copyist, a plagiarist, a thief. There is no question here, your Honor, but that James Driscoll created The Paper Dragon alone, independently, and without reference to any existing work of fiction. In fact, your Honor, I think that even a casual reading of both works clearly indicates that one was not copied from the other.

"Why, then, did I spend so much time during the course of this trial discussing these alleged similarities, some of which the plaintiff himself has labeled 'flimsy and absurd,' when a mere reading shows that there was no plagiarism? Why did I dignify each of these separate charges by examining them with such scrutiny? Why did I amass proof to show Mr. Driscoll's creative process? I would like to explain, your Honor, lest these so-called similarities seem to take on a significance they do not truly possess.

"There are large sums of money involved here, your Honor. We can suppose without a detailed accounting that the motion picture grossed upwards of ten million dollars, and we have heard testimony to the effect that the novel in its paperback edition alone sold more than two and a half million copies. And whereas it was not mentioned during the trial, I know that the book went into eleven foreign editions, each of which sold extraordinarily well because of the impetus provided by the film. So there is unquestionably a great deal of money involved. But there is more than money, and it is this further consideration that prompted my detailed probing of the similarities, your Honor. I speak now of the reputation of an extremely talented, diligent, and earnest writer, James Driscoll."

He turned to look at the jury box, and Driscoll read his face and his eyes, read them swiftly and in the brief instant it took Willow to glance at him and then turn back toward the judge. But he knew in that single sharp exchange that Willow did not believe a word of what he had just said. The knowledge startled him. He glanced at Ebie and saw that she was sitting with her hands clasped tightly over the pocketbook in her lap, her eyes intent on Willow.

"Now, your Honor, I could easily stress the legal argument, I could easily repeat that even if Mr. Driscoll had taken this material he is alleged to have copied, why none of it is copyrightable, the only thing a man may copyright is his manner of expression. And were I to stress the legal argument, and were I to win on that point alone, this would undoubtedly be a victory for Mitchell-Campbell and for Camelot Books, but what about this man James Driscoll? What about this man whose career lies ahead of him, who has written a brilliant first novel, this man who, in Chester Danton's words, 'will go on writing many more excellent books'? What about James Driscoll? Your Honor, we have been asked to believe, for example, that the use of the word 'Loot' when addressing a lieutenant in the United States Army is indicative of copying by this man, James Driscoll. Well, your Honor, I think that this sort of specious reasoning is indicative only of the groundless claim we have before us. We have cited, in our brief, one of Judge Hand's opinions in which he describes an obsessive sort of paranoia that attacks some authors, and I think we have exactly that syndrome here. Catchpole was a totally unsuccessful play on a theme which was later successfully explored by James Driscoll in The Paper Dragon. It is not difficult to understand how Mr. Constantine, unable to accept the failure of his work, attributed the success of Mr. Driscoll's work to copying. We have this throughout, your Honor. We have Mr. Constantine testifying, for example, that the use of obscenity is common in the armed forces, and then insisting nonetheless that the soldier in his play is a unique creation who must have been stolen by Mr. Driscoll. My friend Mr. Brackman looks troubled, so if your Honor wishes, I'll find the exact place in the transcript… "

"I'm not troubled, Mr. Willow. I'm merely very interested in what you're saying."

"Very what?" McIntyre asked.

"Interested, your Honor."

"Well, you looked extremely troubled there for a moment," Willow said. "I'll be happy to find the testimony if…"

"He doesn't look at all troubled to me, Mr. Willow," McIntyre said, "but I would like the exact page in the transcript if you have it."

Willow accepted the transcript from his assistant, leafed through it, and said, "It's on page 89, your Honor. This is Mr. Constantine's testimony. 'Question: Do you think they were rarities? Answer: No. Question: They were commonplace? Answer: They were to be found everywhere in the Army.' " Willow looked up from the transcript and said, "You understand, your Honor, that these questions and answers are referring to men using obscene language."

"Yes, I understand that."

"And later, on page 92, I asked Mr. Constantine. 'Yet you still maintain that your character's use of obscenity is unique?' and he replied, 'It is unique, yes.' That's an indication of what we're being asked to accept in this courtroom, your Honor. These clear admissions that the so-called similarities between the two works are really based on common material, and then the stubborn insistence that one work was nonetheless copied from the other. Well, your Honor, that soldier is not unique, and we know he is not unique. We know, in fact, that a soldier such as this is undoubtedly a commonplace, and it would be very easy to find against the plaintiff on the grounds that the material he claims was copied is not copyrightable material. That would be perfectly reasonable finding, your Honor, except that it would leave a stain on Mr. Driscoll's character, it would leave a stigma on his career. Such a finding would indicate that he did copy from another man, but only material that was in the public domain. And that would be a terrible injustice, your Honor. I ask you, therefore, to consider this in your decision, because I believe with all my heart that James Driscoll has done nothing to warrant this charge of plagiarism. James Driscoll is an artist, your Honor, who wrote a fine book in his own manner and using his own resources. For this, your Honor, we owe him only respect and gratitude."

The courtroom was silent. In the silence, Driscoll looked at Willow, and again knew without doubt that the lawyer had been mouthing words he did not believe. Willow returned the look, and then walked slowly back toward the defense table. Genitori, dressed in his customary pinstriped suit, had already risen, prepared text in hand, and was walking toward the bench. He smiled briefly at no one, cleared his throat, and said, "If your Honor please, concerning the first cause of action against Artists-Producers-International, I can say nothing that Mr. Willow has not already said, and I ask that his argument be adopted as my own. With respect to the cause of action claiming independent infringement, however, I would like to call your Honor's attention to page 127 of the transcript, where I moved for dismissal and assumed arguendo…"

Driscoll stopped listening. He was disturbed by what he had detected in Willow's manner, but Ebie's sudden agitation concerned him even more. He knew that she too had sensed the hollowness of Willow's praise — there had never been a time when they both did not react identically and simultaneously to any given stimulus — and he was now troubled to see her fingers working nervously on her handbag, fastening and unfastening — the clasp, a small deadly click punctuating Genitori's words, "spend this Court's time in repeating it now," click, "later called Ralph Knowles to the stand," click, "respected and honored director," click, "inconceivable to imagine he had the slightest need for copying any of the plaintiff's paltry work," click.

He did not know what Ebie would do, or even what she could do now that the case was officially closed and the arguments begun. He knew only that she was unpredictable, had always been unpredictable, and that she had openly threatened him only the night before. He knew, moreover, and this was what troubled him most, that she was the kind of woman who moved swiftly and directly once she had decided on a course of action. He had learned that in 1950, had learned it once and for all time, and he watched her nervous hands now as they worked the clasp, knowing that her mind was churning with possibilities, listening to each small click with rising anticipaton, "… the defendant API quite properly replied, Yes, Mr. Edelson and Miss Blake had indeed worked as story editors on those dates," click, "but for the studio, you understand," click, "and not in connection with The Paper Dragon, which possibility Mr. Knowles put to rout forever when he testified in simple, forceful English that neither Mr. Edelson nor Miss Blake had anything whatever to do with the production of his movie," click.

Genitori nodded, and then consulted his text once again, and then said to McIntyre, "I therefore ask you to find, your Honor, that Mr. Ralph Knowles did not see or read the play Catchpole before writing his movie, that the motion picture The Paper Dragon was written and produced independently of that play, and that the claim against Artists-Producers-International should be dismissed. Thank you, your Honor."

Sidney Brackman took a long while getting up from his chair and then moving past Constantine and around the plaintiff's table and into the aisle, where he walked slowly to the front of the courtroom. He turned to look first at Willow, and then at Genitori, and then he looked up at McIntyre and said, "Your Honor, I have been practicing law for twenty-two years now, but there's always something new to learn, I guess. Mr. Willow pointed out to me today, just a few minutes ago, that it was my duty as a lawyer to prevent a witness from giving testimony while he was on the stand under oath. Mr. Willow seems to feel that I permitted testimony which was at best questionable, but I would like to say that Mr. Constantine was never asked about preview performances at any time during the pretrial examinations. I can assure Mr. Willow that had the question been asked, it would have been answered honestly, the same way Mr. Constantine has answered every question put to him since this suit began. If Mr. Willow did not think to ask about any performances other than those on Broadway, I do not see why his oversight should then become a reflection on my integrity."

"I assure you, Mr. Brackman, that your integrity is unquestioned," McIntyre said.

"Thank you, your Honor. Thank you, and forgive me for taking the Court's time to clear up this seemingly insignificant matter, but it was important to me."

"I understand."

"Thank you. Mr. Willow has also commented on the scarcity of claimed similarities between Catchpole and The Paper Dragon, pointing out to your Honor that most plagiarism cases will have two hundred, or three hundred, or even four hundred claimed similarities. He also stated that most of these cases were lost by the plaintiff, and I would like to suggest that it was the very weight of the similarities that helped to defeat these claims. When there are so many, your Honor, when every word and every comma becomes a matter for debate, well, obviously the plaintiff is stretching the truth, obviously he is predicating much of his case on sheer imagination. We have not done that here, your Honor. We have claimed only similarities that are plain for all to see. Some of them are less important than others, yes, but they are all pertinent. They are all pertinent because they show that there was copying, and without copying there can be no charge of plagiarism."

"Excuse me one moment, Mr. Brackman," McIntyre said, "but is it your belief that Mr. Driscoll saw this play?"

"Your Honor, I know that Mr. Driscoll is now a highly respected writer, and I know that he has been acclaimed as a literary phenomenon, and I know that his novel is still being dissected in the literary journals and, for all I know, being taught in colleges and universities all across these United States of ours. But, your Honor, he was not highly respected before he wrote The Paper Dragon, he was not being lionized, he was in fact totally unknown. By his own admission, he had written only a few unpublished short stories before writing the novel, and he has written nothing since. The only reason for his reputation now, in fact, is that he stole another man's work."

"Mr. Brackman, do you think he saw the play?"

"I think he was in possession of it."

"Of what? The play?"

"I think he was in possession of the plaintiff's play, yes."

"Before he wrote his novel?"

"Before he wrote his novel, and perhaps while he was writing his novel."

"I see."

"Your Honor, the evidence cannot show otherwise. Mr. Willow took the time and trouble to amass a great deluge of trivia, a landslide of outlines and letters and maps and what-have-you, but what do these prove? If we believe Mr. Driscoll, then indeed all these collected scraps of paper were the result of personal work habits, and show that he was a diligent man with perhaps an eye on future historians, keeping as it were his own personal time capsule for posterity. But if we do not believe Mr. Driscoll, then he was only a clever thief seeking to hide his plagiarism by constructing a supporting body of evidence to substantiate a claim of independent creation."

"I don't wish to interrupt your argument further," McIntyre said, "but I would still like to know whether it is your belief that Mr. Driscoll actually saw this play. A minute ago—"

"I don't understand, your Honor."

"Well, you said you thought he possessed a copy of it."

"Yes."

"Do you think he saw it as well?"

"Do you mean in performance?"

"Yes," McIntyre said. "Do you think he saw the play on the stage?"

"I don't know."

"Very well."

"He says he did not, your Honor, he has testified to that. He has also testified that he never saw a copy of this play until, when was it, several weeks ago, when Mr. Willow gave him one to read. How then can we explain these similarities — and there are, if your Honor please, exactly twenty-six of them, plus of course the six that were found to exist only between the play and the movie. How do we explain twenty-six concrete and specific similarities between the play Catchpole and the novel The Paper Dragon unless Mr. Driscoll had access to this play, unless—"

"Mr. Brackman," McIntyre interrupted, "you said earlier that some of these similarities were less important than others. I would—"

"But all pertinent, your Honor. We've set them forth in our brief, and I think we've covered them extensively over the past several days. I certainly don't want to weary you with them again, unless you wish me to do so."

"I merely wanted to know which ones you consider important."

"They are all important, your Honor, they are all pertinent, including those we concede to be minor. For example, your Honor, we claim that there is a similarity of plot, and then we go on to show exactly how and where the plots are similar, even identical in some places. Well, Mr. Willow in his summation said that a plot cannot be copyrighted, and yet one of the cases Mr. Genitori cites in his brief—"

"Yes, Mr. Brackman, I don't think we need belabor the point. If two works have identical plots, even though 'plot' per se is not copyrightable, this would certainly be evidence of copying. Don't you agree, Mr. Willow?"

"Yes, your Honor, if the plots were identical."

"Or significantly similar," McIntyre said, and then paused. "Or inexplicably so."

"Yes, your Honor," Willow said.

"So let's not belabor the point."

"By the same token, your Honor," Brackman said, "my opponent has gone to great lengths to show that many of the incidents and events and characters, much of the language, the settings and so forth used in the novel are there only because it happens to be a novel about the United States Army. He says, in effect, that any novel about the United States Army, any play about the United States Army would necessarily have sergeants in it, or obscenity, or barracks, or what have you. All right, we concede this. Where there's an army, there are necessarily men in uniform, and there are rifles, and battlefields, and enemy soldiers, and wounded men, and nurses, all right, let us say all of these things are in the public domain. Nonetheless, your Honor, even material in the public domain may be so combined or compiled as to be copyrightable."

"Yes, I know that, Mr. Brackman. But while we're on this point, I'd like to ask another question. Neither you nor Mr. Willow have said a word about the differences between the play and the book, but it strikes me that there are tremendous dissimilarities, and I wonder now whether we shouldn't concern ourselves with these as well. I wonder, in fact, whether we are not dutybound to study these dissimilarities in trying to determine whether there was indeed any copying here."

"If your Honor please," Brackman said, "the plaintiff's b-b-b-burden would be to prove th-that the similarities, and not the dissimilarities, are so overwhelming that, your Honor, that there are enough of them to support a claim of plagiarism."

"Yes, but Mr. Willow admitted for the purposes of argument that even if all these alleged similarities were indeed copied, they would still add up to something too insignificant to be called plagiarism. Wasn't that his point?" "I believe that was his point," Brackman said. "Isn't that the point you made, Mr. Willow?" "It was one of my points, yes, your Honor." "Your Honor," Brackman said, "I do not believe any of these similarities are insignificant, nor do I believe someone can be guilty of just a little plagiarism, in much the same way a woman cannot possibly be just a little pregnant. How many of these similarities need we show before we recognize they cannot all be accidental? How else can we hope to prove plagiarism except by putting the works side by side and saying this corresponds to this, and that corresponds to that? Will the thief oblige us by admitting his theft? Of course not. So how else can we prove this theft, your Honor, except by comparing the works, by locating these seemingly unimportant and insignificant similarities, these so-called coincidences scattered throughout the work, and appearing far too often to be called coincidental? How else, your Honor? By inspecting what is dissimilar, as you have suggested? Would this support our claim? No, your Honor. It would only indicate that the work was not copied in its entirety, and that is not what we have claimed, nor is it what we have proved here in this Court. We have only proved that enough of it was copied to significantly deprive the plaintiff of his rights.

"Mr. Driscoll has claimed, your Honor has heard him testify, that the character Lieutenant Alex Cooper in The Paper Dragon is based upon himself, and yet when asked which specific incidents or events happened to him, James Driscoll, he was hard put to find any such events that were not common to both the book and the play. Lieutenant Cooper was idealistic, yes, but James Driscoll was not. Lieutenant Cooper was single, James Driscoll was not. Lieutenant Cooper had an affair with a nurse, James Driscoll did not. And all down the line, your Honor, we see this same disparity between what actually happened to James Driscoll and what happened to the officer supposedly based on himself. Did Mr. Driscoll ever have a man like Colman in his platoon? No. Was there a troublemaker in his platoon? No. Was there a homosexual? No. Was there a murder scheme? No. Was he ever the target of a planned murder? No. He claims first that the book is autobiographical, and then when pressed to tell us just how it is autobiographical, he can tell us only that he invented most of the incidents.

"I do not think I have to comment on the preposter-ousness of his Colman-iceman story, or the farfetched allusion to Eugene O'Neill's play, or Mr. Driscoll's* insistence that an obviously homosexual character in Catchpole was not at all homosexual and was not indeed the basis for the homosexual character in his book. We have Mr. Ralph Knowles's expert testimony — and was it not Mr. Genitori who said he was a highly respected and honored director? — we have his expert testimony that he did, in fact, combine two characters in the novel to form the single character of Colman in his film. And this, your Honor, is why James Driscoll insisted Colonel Peterson was not a homosexual, only because he knew very well that he had taken Peterson and Janus and combined them to form Colman, which process Knowles reversed in making his picture.

"And then, your Honor, we came to what I earlier called the thief's fingerprints and which I still maintain are the fingerprints of a thief, and I refer now to the labeling of the 105th Division."

A silence fell over the courtroom. In the silence, Driscoll heard the click of Ebie's handbag once again, and he turned to look at her and saw that she was straining forward in her seat now, leaning over at a sharp angle, her eyes on Brackman, her mouth drawn into a tight, narrow line.

"The 105th Division," Brackman repeated. "Here, your Honor, I do not think there can be any question whatever of coincidence. No one in this room would be willing to bet even fifty cents on correctly picking the same three digits in sequence, and yet that's exactly what Mr. Driscoll did, he picked three digits at random, one, oh, five, and they just happened to correspond with those same three digits in the play, even though the odds against this happening, as we saw, were a million to one. Now your Honor, that is too much to believe, and Mr. Driscoll knows it is too much to believe, and so he tells us he does not know how he hit upon those three digits, he honestly does not know how they happened to come to him, perhaps on the wings of a muse. Or more likely, your Honor, perhaps as the result of an error, the single error this thief made in his painstaking robbery. After the meticulous compilation of all his covering outlines and plots and maps, after the careful disguising of each and every character and event, here was the one mistake, here was the identifiable—"

Ebie rose.

She rose silently, with both hands tightly clutching her pocketbook, the knuckles white. It seemed for a moment as though she were simply going to leave the courtroom, as though she were unable to listen a moment longer to Brackman's accusations. But she did not move from where she stood in the jury box. She looked up at the judge. Brackman, seeing McIntyre's puzzled frown, stopped speaking and turned to face her.

"Your Honor," she said softly, "may I talk to Mr. Willow?"

Driscoll suddenly put his hand on her shoulder. She looked at him curiously, as though unable to read the gesture, and then turned again to the judge and plaintively inquired, "Your Honor?"

There was, for perhaps thirty seconds, total silence in the courtroom. Brackman did not object, although he was in the middle of his summation and any such interruption was forbidden and in fact unthinkable. Willow made no motion to recess, even though his client's wife had just asked if she could talk to him. The silence was complete, a stunned silence that stifled all action. Like children turning to their father for guidance when one of their peers has unforgivably transgressed, the lawyers looked toward the bench at the front of the courtroom, where McIntyre squinted in consternation, silent himself.

At last he said, "This Court will recess for ten minutes."

They returned to the courtroom at four minutes past eleven. McIntyre called the three attorneys to the bench, where they stood ranged before him, Willow in the center, Brackman and Genitori on either side of him. He fussed about in his chair, making himself comfortable. Then he folded his arms flat on the bench top, leaned forward, and brusquely said, "All right, Mr. Willow, what's this all about?"

"Your Honor," Willow said, "I would like to make application to reopen the case."

"For what purpose?"

"To submit additional testimony."

"Mr. Brackman?"

"Your Honor," Brackman said, "any additional testimony from the defendant at this point, after I've almost completed my summation, could only be injurious to my case. I respectfully submit…"

"That may be so, Mr. Brackman. I must say, Mr. Willow, that I have never had anything like this happen to me before."

"I believe we could find precedent for it, your Honor."

"Yes, I'm sure we could, Mr. Willow," McIntyre said, "especially if we looked at Section 31.45 of the Cyclopedia of Federal Procedure."

"Your Honor, I'm not familiar with that section."

"I am, Mr. Willow."

"Forgive me."

"The section states, Mr. Willow — and next time you might wish to consult it before asking that a case be reopened — the section states that even after testimony has been entirely closed, the Court may receive additional evidence in its own discretion."

"Your Honor," Brackman said, "if this were a case before a jury…"

"It is not a jury case," McIntyre said, "but even if it were, Mr. Brackman, the Court could in its discretion permit additional testimony."

"I'm sorry, your Honor, I was not aware of that."

"I would like to remind Mr. Willow, however, that such additional testimony cannot be allowed for light reasons, such as to let in cumulative or immaterial evidence."

"Your Honor," Willow said, "I believe this testimony to be exceedingly important, and I know the record would be incomplete without it."

"If your Honor please," Genitori said, "I do not see how in good conscience we can exclude any testimony that may shed light on the matter before us."

"Mr. Brackman?"

"Your Honor, my summation was predicated on what the record already shows. If additional testimony…"

"I would have no objection," Willow said, "to Mr. Brackman making a second summation after the new testimony is given."

"Your Honor, I know you can in your discretion — you have just informed me that you can in your discretion reopen the case, but…"

"Don't you feel the record should be complete, Mr. Brackman?"

"Indeed, I do, your Honor. But I also feel Mr. Willow should have called all his witnesses when it was time for him to do so, and not—"

"Your Honor, this was unforeseen, and as much a surprise to me as it was to the Court."

"Well," McIntyre said flatly, "I will reopen the case."

"Thank you, your Honor."

"Let the record so indicate. Mr. Brackman, I will allow you to make a new summation later if you so desire."

"Thank you," Brackman said.

"Call your witness, Mr. Willow."

"Edna Belle Driscoll," Willow said.

"Edna Belle Driscoll, please take the stand," the clerk said.

Ebie rose hesitantly, and looked inquiringly at Willow, who nodded. She put her bag down on the bench in the jury box, looked plaintively at her husband, and then walked to where the clerk was waiting with the Bible.

"Edna Belle Driscoll, you do solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to give to the Court in this issue shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?"

"I do," Ebie said.

Her voice was very low. She looked puzzled for a moment as she tried to find the steps leading to the witness stand. When she located them, she moved rapidly to the chair, and then hesitated again before sitting. She looked up at the judge once, and then turned away as Willow approached her.

"Mrs. Driscoll," he said, "are you familiar with the novel The Paper Dragon?"

"I am."

"How many times have you read it?"

"Many times. I don't remember the exact number of times."

"Would you say you've read it more than twenty times?"

"Yes."

"From cover to cover?"

"Yes, from cover to cover."

"Then surely you are familiar with the nurse in the book, the woman called Lieutenant Jan Reardon."

"Yes, I'm familiar with her."

"What color hair does Jan Reardon have?"

"Blond."

"Will the record show, your Honor, that Mrs. Driscoll's hair is blond. What color eyes does Jan Reardon have?"

"Blue."

"Will the record show, your Honor, that Mrs. Driscoll's eyes are blue. Where is Jan Reardon from originally, what part of the country?"

"The South."

"Where in the South?"

"Alabama."

"Where are you from, Mrs. Driscoll?"

"Alabama."

"Mrs. Driscoll, is Jan Reardon left-handed?"

"Yes."

"Are you left-handed?"

"Yes."

"Does Jan Reardon have a crescent-shaped scar on her thigh?"

"Yes."

"Do you have a similar scar on your thigh?"

"Yes. Yes, I have."

"What was your maiden name?"

"Dearborn."

"Your Honor, may I point out to the Court that the name Reardon with the single exception of the letter b contains the exact same letters as are in the name Dearborn, transposed."

"What was that again?" McIntyre said. He picked up a pencil and moved a pad into place before him.

"The name Reardon, your Honor, can be formed by dropping the b from Dearborn, and then transposing the letters."

McIntyre wrote silently for a moment, and then studied the pad. "Yes, I see that," he said. "Proceed, Mr. Willow."

"Mrs. Driscoll, can you tell us when and where you first met your husband?"

"At Pratt Institute in 1947."

"Were you a student there at the time?"

"I was."

"How long had you been at the school?"

"A year."

"How long had Mr. Driscoll been there?"

"He had just entered. He was a first-year student."

"And you were an upper classman?"

"Yes, I was in my second year. It was a three-year non-accredited course. The course I was taking."

"So the relationship between you and your husband, in terms of seniority at least, was similar to the relationship between Lieutenant Alex Cooper and Jan Reardon in the novel The Paper Dragon?"

"Yes, it was."

"Was it similar in any other respects?"

"Yes."

"In which respects, Mrs. Driscoll?"

"All of them. Everything."

"Would you explain, please?"

"It was our story."

"Whose story, Mrs. Driscoll?"

"Ours. Dris and me."

"Dris?"

"Yes, my husband."

"Is that what you normally call him?"

"It is what I've always called him."

"What does the nurse call Cooper in The Paper Dragon?"

"Coop."

"Your Honor," Brackman said, "I have remained silent until now because I wanted to see where Mr. Willow was heading. It seems to me now that he is introducing Mrs. Driscoll's testimony as that of an expert on the novel The Paper Dragon, and I must object to this."

"Your Honor," Willow said, "I am introducing her testimony as that of an expert on what actually happened between her and her husband beginning in the year 1947 and ending in October of 1950. I don't think, your Honor, that I'm going to have to elicit too many responses in order to show what The Paper Dragon was all about."

"Overruled. Go on, Mr. Willow."

"If I understand you correctly, Mrs. Driscoll, you are saying that the events in The Paper Dragon parallel certain real events, is that correct?"

"Yes."

"Can you give us any examples of this?"

"Well… for… for example when Dris and I first met, we had a fight, not a fight, a sort of an argument. He asked me out and I… I thought he was just a fresh kid, he was younger than I, you know, and a first-year student, so I tried to discourage him, but he kept insisting, said he was going to be a famous artist one day, all that sort of thing. And the… the same thing happens in the book. When the lieutenant first gets to Korea, he's sort of a… a brash person and he tries to get friendly with this nurse, who just refuses his advances. They have this terrible argument, and he tells her she'll be sorry because he's going to be a war hero with the Medal of Honor, you know, he goes on about how he's going to win the Korean war singlehanded, but she still refuses. Then… she's sent to Tokyo for a week's leave, and he tries to find her, but he can't until a senior nurse in the book—"

"What's her name?"

"The nurse's? Major Astor. Catharine Astor."

"Is she based on any real person?"

"Yes."

"Who?"

"An older girl at Pratt. Her name was Cathy Ascot, and she told Dris where he could find me. You see, I was sick in bed for a week or so after we met, and Dris didn't know where I lived or anything."

"And in the book?"

"In the book, Coop can't find her because she's in Japan, of course, on leave, and he makes contact with the major who tells him the whole story. Then he gives her a note to pass on to Jan when she gets back. So she's… she's instrumental in getting them together, you see. In starting their… their romance."

"Is there anything else you can tell us about Cathy Ascot?"

"Yes. She had a broken arm that November. She was always breaking something. She was accident prone."

"Is Major Astor accident prone in the novel?"

"No, but she's always predicting dire happenings and such."

"Are you familiar with the character Peter Colman?"

"I am."

"Is he based on anyone you or your husband knew?"

"He is based on someone we both knew."

"Upon whom is he based?"

"He is based upon a boy who used to live upstairs from us on Myrtle Avenue."

"What was his name?"

"Peter Malcom."

"Your Honor," Willow said, "may I again call the Court's attention to this same device of transposition, where a real name becomes a fictitious name. The letters in both names are almost identical, with the exception of substituting a final n for what would have been a final m."

"Yes, I see that," McIntyre said. "Please go on."

"Wasn't the fictitious Peter Colman an actor before going into the Army?"

"Yes."

"What was Peter Malcom's profession?"

"He was an actor."

"Now you said that you and your husband lived in the same building with this man…"

"Yes. Well, when we got married, Dris moved into my apartment. Peter had always lived upstairs, you see. So Dris knew him, too."

"Was Peter Malcom a homosexual?"

"No, he was not."

"The character Peter Colman in your husband's book is a homosexual. How do you explain this discrepancy?"

"Your Honor," Brackman said, rising, "I don't know what we're doing here, but earlier we allowed Mr. Driscoll to testify concerning the plaintiff's intent, and now it seems we are calling upon Mrs. Driscoll to speculate on her husband's intent. I don't see how she can possibly explain why or how her husband happened to conceive a character…"

"I can tell you exactly how," Ebie said.

"Your Honor, I have made an objection," Brackman said.

"Yes, Mr. Brackman. The objection is overruled."

"Mrs. Driscoll?"

"I was going to say… I was only going to say that Dris was very jealous of Peter and so he… he…" Ebie stopped.

"Yes?"

"He first conceived of the character as just a… a man, you know, and then later when Mr. Danton suggested the business about the major having been killed, well then it… it… he decided to make the character less of a man, a homosexual. Because, as I say, he was very jealous of him."

"Does the physical description of Colman in The Paper Dragon match the description of Malcolm in real life?"

"Exactly."

"In other words, Mrs. Driscoll, is it correct to say that The Paper Dragon is based on your husband's courtship of you, and subsequent marriage to you, and his jealousy of a real person you both knew?"

"Yes, and other things as well. His childhood background and the people he knew and thoughts he's had, and expressions he uses, and mannerisms… and… it's his book. It's him."

"Thank you, Mrs. Driscoll."

"Is that all?" Brackman said.

"That's all," Willow said.

Brackman walked slowly toward the witness stand. Ebie was suddenly frightened. Apprehensively, she watched as he moved closer to her, and then turned to look fleetingly at her husband, who was staring straight ahead, looking through the tall windows at the sky beyond.

"Mrs. Driscoll, when did you decide to reveal this information to the Court?" Brackman asked.

"Last night."

"What prompted your decision?"

"I felt that my husband might lose the case unless I spoke up."

"Did you discuss this with Mr. Willow?"

"No."

"You did not tell him you wanted to testify?"

"Not until just now. When he asked for the recess."

"I see. Mr. Willow, then, knew nothing of your plans until you surprised us all this morning."

"Yes."

"You did discuss this with your husband, however?"

"Yes."

"What did you say to him?"

"That I would tell."

"Tell what?"

"About… the book. Everything."

"And what did he say?"

"He asked me not to."

"Why would he do that?"

"He said the case was closed."

"As indeed it was," Brackman said dryly. "But why would he have objected to you giving testimony that would help him?"

"It was finished in his mind."

"What was finished?"

"The case. It was closed."

"You do feel this testimony will help your husband, don't you?"

"I hope so."

"It certainly won't injure his case, will it?"

"No."

"Then why would he have objected to it?"

"I don't know."

"Perhaps because it makes some of the testimony he gave earlier sound a bit suspect, could that be the reason?"

"Objection, your Honor."

"Sustained."

"Are you aware, Mrs. Driscoll, that your husband earlier claimed 'Peter' was a phallic reference and that the name 'Colman' was a literary pun on iceman, his mother's iceman, are you aware of that?"

"Yes."

"You were sitting in the courtroom when he gave that testimony, so I'm sure you are aware of it."

"I said I was aware of it."

"Yet your testimony seems in direct contradiction to what your husband swore to. You have just told us that there was a real person named Peter Malcom and that your husband based his fictitious character upon this individual."

"Yes."

"Well, Mrs. Driscoll, which of you are we to believe?"

"There was a real Peter Malcom. There is a real Peter Malcom."

"Then why didn't your husband mention him? Surely the existence of a real man who is so similar to the fictitious character would have been a stronger argument for independent creation than a story about an iceman. You do agree with that, don't you, Mrs. Driscoll?"

"Yes, I do."

"Then why would your husband have — I hesitate to use the word, Mrs. Driscoll, because perjury is a serious charge and a charge that can be prosecuted by the district attorney — why would your husband have sounded as though he were trying to, shall I say, mislead this Court? Do you think he simply forgot about Peter Malcom, the man who lived upstairs?"

"No, but…"

"You just testified that he was jealous of him. So how could he have forgotten him?"

"I didn't say he forgot him."

"You did say he was jealous of him."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because Peter and I were good friends. He was a very troubled person, you see, he was having difficulty getting the kind of acting roles he wanted and… we would discuss all this, he would tell me what his ambitions were and… and the problems he was having and. I would offer encouragement to him… I would listen to him."

"So your husband became jealous of him?"

"Yes."

"I see. And that's why he forgot all about him when he was testifying here earlier. Because he was jealous."

"No, he didn't forget all about him. I think it was both. I think he really was making a literary pun, in addition to the play on Peter's real name."

"The pun on The Iceman Cometh, you mean?"

"Yes."

"The 'Iceman' signifying Death."

"Yes."

"Did Peter Malcom ever try to kill your husband?"

"No."

"Or ever conceive a murder plot against him?"

"No, of course not."

"Yet Peter Colman in the novel does exactly that. In fact, he succeeds in causing the lieutenant's death."

"I know that. I'm quite familiar with the book."

"Since you're so familiar with it, how do you explain it, Mrs. Driscoll?"

"The lieutenant kills himself. He sacrifices himself."

"Yes, we all know that. But only because he recognizes Colman's plot."

"Yes."

"But you've testified that Peter Malcom, the man who is supposedly the source for…"

"He is."

"Yes, we have your word for that, Mrs. Driscoll, although it does seem to contradict your husband's word on several points. But nonetheless, we do have your testimony that this real man Peter Malcom never plotted against your husband's life. Was there ever any trouble between them?"

"Trouble?"

"Yes. Did he and your husband ever fight, or…"

"No."

"Or exchange harsh words?"

"No. Dris didn't like him and… he… he wouldn't have him in the house."

"Did they speak to each other?"

"I don't know. I don't think so."

"Did you speak to him?"

"Peter? Yes, of course."

"I see. Even though your husband disliked him?"

"Yes. Peter was… I told you. He was a very troubled person. You can't just turn your back on someone, you can't just let them… let them get lost or… or hurt. You can't just let people die."

"I see." Brackman sighed, walked back to the plaintiff's table, picked up a pencil there, walked to the witness stand again, pursed his lips, looked down at the pencil in his hand, and very quietly said, "Mrs. Driscoll, was there anything in your husband's past to suggest the 105th Division?"

"No," Ebie answered quickly, and then felt she had answered too quickly because Brackman looked up at her sharply, and then smiled.

"Nothing at all?"

"Nothing."

"None of his courses were numbered a hundred and five, were they? Design 105, or Illustration 105, or what ever your husband was studying?"

"No, the courses weren't numbered that way at Pratt."

"Did your husband ever make any reference to having seen a play called Catchpole?"

"Certainly not."

"Or to the division insignia in that play?"

"No."

"An insignia with the number 105 in yellow on a black field?"

"No."

"No reference to a hundred and five?"

"No."

"Then where did it come from, Mrs. Driscoll? Was it perhaps the apartment number on Peter Malcom's door?"

"No, he lived in apartment 47."

"Was it your apartment number?"

"No."

"Was it your husband's APO number perhaps? When he was overseas.?"

"No, it was none of those things."

"Well now, I was really hoping, Mrs. Driscoll, that you could clear up the mystery for us, since you seem to have cleared up so many of the other troubling points. It seems however, that the thief's fingerprints are still very much in—"

"Don't say that," Ebie warned.

"I beg your pardon, Mrs. Driscoll. But since the theft of another man's work is the matter before this—"

"My husband didn't steal anyone else's work!"

"Then perhaps he may have mentioned to you how he hit upon that number, Mrs. Driscoll, if not by seeing it on the stage?"

"He did not see the play."

"How do you know?"

"He told me."

"Where did he get the number, then?"

Ebie hesitated.

"Do you know, Mrs. Driscoll?"

"Yes, I know," she whispered.

"What?" the clerk asked. "I'm sorry, I…"

"She said, 'Yes, I know,' " Brackman said.

"What?" the clerk said again.

"Yes, she knows," McIntyre said.

"If you indeed know, Mrs. Driscoll," Brackman said wearily, "will you tell us?"

"Yes."

"Please."

"Yes," she repeated, and looked at Driscoll. He was still staring directly ahead of him. "The… the number isn't a… it isn't a hundred and five."

"Oh? What is it then?"

"Its… it's two numbers. It's a ten and… and a five."

"I see. It's a ten and a five," Brackman said, and smiled up at the judge. "But not a hundred and five."

"No."

"Mrs. Driscoll, perhaps you'd like to tell us the difference between a ten and a five in sequence, and the number a hundred and five."

"Yes."

"Please."

"The ten and the five are a date."

"What?" Brackman said.

"A date. It's ten slant five."

"I'm not sure I understand you, Mrs. Driscoll," McIntyre said. "By 'ten slant five,' do you mean 'ten virgule five?' "

"I don't know what 'virgule' means," Ebie said.

"Well…" McIntyre said, and rapidly scribbled onto the pad in front of him. "Is this it?" he asked, and held up the pad for her to see:

"Yes," Ebie said, "that's it. October 5th."

"October 5th," Brackman said musingly. "Of any particular year, Mrs. Driscoll, or just any year picked at random?"

"1950," Ebie said. She kept watching her husband, but he would not turn to meet her glance.

"October of 1950, I see," Brackman said. "October 5th in the year 1950. And what does that date commemorate? An anniversary, perhaps? Were you married on October 5th?"

"No."

"Did your husband go into the service on October 5th?"

"No."

"Was it your birthday?"

"No."

"Or his?"

"No."

"Or Peter's?"

"No."

"Or anyone's?"

"No."

"Then what was it, Mrs. Driscoll? Why did your husband attach such importance to this number, which you are now telling us is a date, ten virgule five, and not really a hundred and five? Perhaps you can tell us."

"October 5th was the date on a… a letter."

"What letter?"

"A letter I… a letter I wrote to my husband in Korea."

"I see."

"Yes," she said.

"Did you write your husband many letters while he was in Korea?"

"Yes."

"But he took the date from this one letter, is that it?"

"October 5th."

"Yes, that's quite clear. Did you also write to him on October 2nd, perhaps, or October 4th…"

"Every day."

"But this particular letter was the one he…"

"You… you asked if it was an anniversary."

"What?"

"Yes."

"What?"

"It was."

"Oh, it was an anniversary, I see. You remember now that it—"

"It was the anniversary of the… the death of our marriage," Ebie said, "the death he wrote about in his novel. He… he labeled his division the 105th as… as another one of his little jokes, a reminder that I had written my letter on the… the 5th of October… the letter that… that told what… what…"

"I think you have answered the question," Brackman said. He seemed suddenly alarmed. He turned from her swiftly and said, "Your Honor, I have no further—"

"I would like to hear the witness," McIntyre said.

"Your Honor…"

"You interrupted the witness before she had concluded her answer, and I would like to hear the rest of that answer now," McIntyre said. "Go on, Mrs. Driscoll."

"Yes," she said and nodded, but remained silent. She kept watching Driscoll, who would not turn to meet her gaze. The courtroom was silent.

"Mrs. Driscoll?"

"I wrote the letter because I loved him," she said. "I wrote it to explain."

She fell silent again. Driscoll did not look at her.

"I wrote and asked him to understand that I was… that I was telling him only because I loved him and… didn't want a lie between us for the rest of our lives. I asked him to understand."

Her hands were working nervously in her lap now, where only McIntyre could see them. She kept staring intently at her husband, but still he would not look at her. She shook her head as though sorry she had come this far, and then gave a small weary shrug, as though knowing she was committed and would have to go further. Her eyes were suddenly wet. She closed them immediately, and then lowered her head so that the judge would not see her tears. She did not raise her head again until she began speaking once more, and then she did so only to look at her husband. She cried soundlessly while she talked. The tears streamed down her face, but she did not wipe at them. She talked quietly and steadily, and she did not take her eyes from her husband, who never looked at her once during her long unbroken speech.

"I wrote to him because I had to tell him. We had been married that April, you see, and this was only September, the end of September. The truth was terrible, I know that now, I knew it then, I knew it was terrible but… in his book he described it as a plot to murder him, a theft of his life, his manhood, and it was never any of those things, never anything planned or schemed, only something that… one night… happened. He might have been able to understand, Dris might have, if only… but we had said 'forever' just that April, you see, and then he was gone in June, and this was… So how could it seem any less awful than it was, how could he believe I hadn't wanted it or expected it? I don't know, I don't know. We… were, I was upstairs in his apartment, I shouldn't have been there, I know it, I shouldn't have gone up when he asked me to. But I was lonely, Dris was gone, and he seemed so troubled, so in need. We talked, we… no, nothing explains it, nothing can explain it. It happened. Maybe I wanted it to happen, maybe Dris was right about that, I don't know. But it happened. I was twenty-two years old, and my husband was fighting a war in Korea, and I… I went to bed with Peter Malcom.

"I didn't love him, but I went to bed with him. So simple. So very simple. At first I thought I could live with the idea, forget what I'd done, forget I'd given myself to him. I'd always believed, you see, I'd been taught to believe it wasn't shameful to… to love someone. But this wasn't love, no. I couldn't deceive myself into thinking this was anything like love, the only man I ever loved was in Korea. I… I continued to write to him, I had to keep writing, my letters to him were the same for almost a week, lie after lie after lie, and then… then I couldn't bear it any longer, I knew I had to tell him the truth or allow the lies to destroy our marriage. Instead it was the truth that destroyed it.

"So… so you see the ten and the five are the date on that letter, October 5th was when I wrote it, and the man in my husband's book is Peter Malcom who… who made love to me… and… and… and I… the nurse in the book is only me, and the… the lieutenant is my husband, who… who testified in this courtroom yesterday that their love and their future are lost because of a single thoughtless act — isn't that what he said here yesterday? — their love is ruined because of a deception that… that causes a man to get killed. That's… I don't think that's Mr. Constantine's play. I don't think even Mr. Constantine can believe that's his play. My husband's book, you see, is about… about us, you see. That's what his book is about. And… I… I don't think I have anything else to say."

The courtroom was silent.

"Mr. Brackman, do you have any further questions?"

"No questions, your Honor," Brackman said.

Again, there was silence.

"Very well, thank you, Mrs. Driscoll."

Ebie rose, and wiped at her eyes. She looked down when she approached the steps, and then swiftly walked to the jury box. Her husband did not turn toward her as she sat.

"Mr. Brackman," McIntyre said, "I'll allow you to change or add to your summation now if you wish. Or, if you feel you need time for preparation in light of this additional testimony, we can set a date and hear your final argument then."

"I have nothing to add to what I have already said, your Honor."

"Very well. Does anyone have anything further to say?"

"If your Honor please," Willow said, "my opponent has suggested that Mr. Driscoll was attempting to mislead this Court. I have no comment to make on that except that I hope in the light of this subsequent testimony, you will take into consideration the personal elements involved. Thank you, your Honor."

"Anything else, gentlemen?" McIntyre asked. "Very well. I'd like to congratulate you on a good trial and argument. I want you to know that despite whatever moments of levity there were during the trial and in some of our discussions, I nonetheless consider this a most serious matter, and not only because of the large sums of money involved. So it's my intention now to reserve decision on the motions and on the entire case until such time as I can render the opinion a case of such gravity warrants. Thank you, gentlemen. I enjoyed it."

The judge rose.

Everyone in the courtroom rose when he did, and then watched in silence as he came from behind the bench. He walked to the door on his right, nodded briefly as it was opened for him, and then went into his chambers.

The door closed gently behind him.

The courtroom was silent.

There was — Arthur and Driscoll felt it simultaneously and with the same intensity — a sense of incompleteness. They both knew, and had known all along, that there would be no decision on the day the trial ended, and perhaps not for weeks afterward. But whereas this sense of an ending delayed, a final result postponed, was something both men had experienced before and knew intimately, they could not accept it here, not in the context of an apparatus as structured and as well ordered as the law. They sat in pained silence as though willing the judge to reappear, refusing to accept the knowledge that there would be no decision this day, there would be no victor and no vanquished. Instead, there would be only the same interminable wait that accompanied the production of a play or the publication of a book, the same frustrating delay between completion and inalterable exposure.

The judge did not return.

The door to his chambers remained sealed.

The writers stared at the closed door, each slowly yielding to a rising sense of doubt. No matter what Driscoll's wife had been induced to say, Arthur still knew without question that his play had been stolen; and Driscoll knew with equal certainty that he had not stolen it. But what were their respective opinions worth without the corroborating opinion of the judge? In spiraling anxiety, Arthur realized that if the judge decreed his play had not been copied, then the time and energy put into it had been lost, the play was valueless, the play was nothing. And Driscoll similarly realized that if the judge decided against him, then whatever he had said in his novel would mean nothing, he would be stripped of ownership, the book might just as well never have been written.

They each knew despair in that moment, a despair that seemed more real to them than anything they had felt during the course of the trial. In near panic, they wondered what they had left unsaid, what they had forgotten to declare, how they could prove to this impartial judge that there was merit to their work, that they were honest men who had honestly delivered, that they could not be summarily dismissed, nor obliterated by decree.

And then despair led inexorably to reason, and they recognized with sudden clarity that the judge's decision would really change nothing. The truth was there in the record to be appreciated or ignored, but it was there nonetheless, and no one's opinion could ever change it. If there was any satisfaction for them that day, it came with the relief this knowledge brought, a relief that was terribly short-lived because it was followed by the cold understanding that even the trial itself had changed nothing. Whatever paper dragons they had fought in this courtroom, the real dragons still waited for them in the street outside, snarling and clawing and spitting fire, fangs sharpened, breath foul, dragons who would devour if they were not ultimately slain.

The two men sat in silence.

Around them, there was not even a semblance of ceremony or ritual consistent with what had gone before. The attorneys were whispering and laughing among themselves, packing their briefcases, the paid mercenaries taking off their armor and putting away their weapons, and hoping to go home to a hot bowl of soup before hiring on again to fight yet another man's battle on yet another day. Genitori shook hands with Willow, and then Kahn shook hands with Willow, and Sheppard shook hands with both attorneys for API, and then Brackman and his partner walked over to where the defense lawyers stood in a shallow circle and offered his hand first to Willow and then to Genitori, and then introduced all the men to his partner, who beamed in the presence of someone as important as Willow, and then each of the men congratulated each other on how well and nobly the case had been fought, and Brackman said something to Willow off the record, and Willow laughed, and then Genitori told Brackman how wise he was not to have made a second summation, and Brackman in turn complimented Genitori on how expertly he had handled a conceited ass like Ralph Knowles, and they all agreed Knowles had been a very poor witness indeed.

Arthur and Driscoll, apart, watched and said nothing.

Briefcases packed, amenities exchanged, the lawyers again shook hands to show there were no hard feelings between any of them, to assure themselves once again that whatever vile accusations had been hurled in calculated anger within these four walls, they could still express an appreciation of courage and skill, they could still part in the hope that one day they might meet again as battle veterans to reminisce about that terrible week in December when they were fighting a ferocious plagiarism case. And then, because their clients were waiting for the reassuring words that would tide them over through the weeks or perhaps months before the decision came, they moved away from each other cordially and filed out of the courtroom, forming again into two tight, separate groups in the corridor outside, where they talked in low whispers.

They talked only about the trial.

It was easiest to talk about the trial because, for the most part, it had been orderly and serene, moving within the confines of a described pattern toward a conclusion, however delayed. They talked about the trial, and seemed reluctant to leave the corridor, letting several elevators pass them by while they continued to chat, unwilling to make the decisive move that would take them into the next car and then to the street below. Jonah told Genitori and Sheppard that he was positive they had won, positive, and his eyes were glowing even when he sincerely apologized to Driscoll for ever having thought he was guilty. Is that all you have to apologize for? Driscoll asked, and for a moment the corridor went silent, for a moment a pall was cast upon the abounding good fellowship, but only for a moment, only until Jonah grinned and clapped Driscoll on the shoulder and said, Come on, Jimmy, it's all over now, we can all relax. Sheppard grinned too, and chastised himself for having been so stupid, he should have known all along that Mrs. Driscoll was the girl in the book. He saw the pained expression that crossed Driscoll's face, and fell silent. Genitori swiftly said he too was confident they had won, and then speculated aloud on how much the judge would award them for counsel fees.

Near one of the other elevators, Sidney told Arthur that Mrs. Driscoll's testimony had sounded very phony to him, and probably would not affect the trial in the slightest, the case was still airtight, he was certain the judge would decide in their favor. Arthur nodded, seemingly preoccupied, and when Sidney's partner commented on the fact that he didn't seem terribly elated, Arthur said, Well, I've got my new play to think about, you know. Sidney's partner nodded and said, Of course, of course, and then suddenly remembered he had not called his wife to tell her how the trial had ended. He asked Sidney if he had a dime and while Sidney was fishing in his pocket for one, he said, Isn't there someone you have to call, Sidney? Sidney was silent until he located the coin. Then he handed it to his partner and, with a secret smile, said, Why, no, Carl, there's no one I have to call.

And then all the talking was done, there seemed to be nothing more to say to each other. The afterglow of the trial could no longer warm them, no longer generate a sustaining energy among people who were essentially strangers to each other. They shook hands again, and — still reluctant to get into the elevator that would take them down to the street — broke into smaller groups, lingering in the hallway, Genitori saying he wanted to talk to the clerk before he left, clerks were always infallible indicators of how a trial had gone, and Jonah saying he wanted to go to the men's room, and Sidney telling Arthur to run along, he knew how busy Arthur must be, he would wait for Carl to finish his call. The groups dispersed soundlessly, Driscoll and his wife avoiding Arthur, who took a separate elevator down.

The corridor was empty.

When Genitori came out of the courtroom he told Kahn that the clerk thought McIntyre would find in their favor. Kahn seemed extremely pleased. He confided to Genitori that he had known the plaintiff's case was groundless all along, but that he never ceased to marvel at how the American system worked, a man being able to have his day in court, and to settle his problems there.

God bless America, Genitori said.

16

He spent the afternoon alone.

He was in excellent spirits, walking along Fifth Avenue for a while, his coat open, his muffler loose around his throat, simply walking, and watching everyone, and enjoying himself. Then he sat on one of the benches in Rockefeller Plaza, still watching the people who went by, comparing all the pretty girls to Chickie and deciding, as he had a hundred times before, that he was the luckiest man in the world. He watched the skaters for ten minutes or so, and then crossed over to Saks to listen to the Salvation Army band outside the store, all the while feeling a sense of impending joy, as though his present good mood were only the prelude to something inconceivably better.

He attributed part of his mood to the fact that Christmas was almost here. As a Jew, he had never fully appreciated the religious aspects of the holiday, but he could not deny the excitement that swept over New York at this time each year, nor could he attribute it entirely to the increased activity in the business community, as his father did. Well, his father attributed everything to either good business or bad business, his father was an old pisher, and that was all that could be said for him. So he listened to the tinkling of the bells everywhere around him, and the voices singing, and the trumpets and tubas, and the high-heeled rushing click along the sidewalks, and he savored the bite in the air, and knew it was the joyous holiday spirit that accounted for some of his own happiness.

Another part of his happiness, though, had to do with the fact that the trial was over. There was pure relief attached to the completion of any trial, but expecially this one where his opponent had been someone like Jonah Willow; he had to hand it to the bastard, he certainly knew his stuff. As he walked, Sidney still wondered whether Mrs. Driscoll's testimony had really been a surprise. He couldn't believe it hadn't all been carefully planned beforehand by Willow, but my God, what a chance to take, suppose McIntyre had refused to reopen the case? Well, it was finished now, there was nothing to do now but wait for McIntyre's decision which would be God knew when, especially with Christmas just around the corner, and then New Year's, they'd be lucky if they heard before March. In the meantime, he didn't have to worry about preparations, and he didn't have to worry about catching every word Willow said lest he miss an important point that could later trip him up, he didn't have to worry about anything but one thing, and that wasn't bothering him at all. That, in fact, was what accounted for the major part of his joy on this fine December afternoon.

He had put off calling Chickie because he wanted to give her time enough to make her decision, but he knew now, he sensed intuitively that she would marry him. He could not have said how he knew, just a feeling, just a tiny little something inside that told him nothing could go wrong today, everything was being done for the benefit of Sidney Brackman. The beautiful weather, the music in the streets, the city all dressed up in her holiday clothes, this was all for Sidney Brackman who had handled himself pretty well throughout the course of a grueling trial, even if he had to say so himself, right, Sidney? Right, he thought, and looked at his watch, and smiled.

It was close to five o'clock, which meant Chickie would be leaving the office soon, and which meant he should start uptown. He wanted to catch her shortly after she got home, wanted to ask her for her decision, certain he knew what the decision would be — after all, if a girl isn't going to marry you, she doesn't say she'll think it over, does she? She just says No, I'm sorry, go peddle your papers. He would kiss her. Very gently. No sex, just a gentle kiss, and he would say Well, darling, now that it's all settled, put on your coat, sweetheart, and we'll stroll right over to Tiffany's and pick out a diamond for you, I'm sure they're open late every night of this wonderful holiday season. And then he would take her to dinner in one of the best restaurants in New York, he'd pick a real fancy one, something very nice and suitable to the occasion, and they would drink champagne and talk quietly about their future plans.

The lights were on in her apartment when he reached the building. He glanced up, smiled, and then went into the foyer and rang the doorbell. Chickie answered his ring immediately, he knew it, nothing could go wrong today, everything was perfect and fine and right. He was beginning to think he might even win his cockamamie case, despite Mrs. Driscoll's sob story, McIntyre would certainly see through a bleeding heart gambit like that one. He climbed the stairs rapidly, his step light, feeling very young, feeling the way he had in Boston with Rebecca Strauss, wanting to sing, sliding his hand along the banister, tipping his head jauntily, actually humming a little tune inside his head, if you knew Susie, like I know Susie, oh, oh…

He knocked on her door.

"Ruth?" she said.

"No," he said. He smiled. "It's me. Sidney."

"Oh. Just a minute, Sidney."

She opened the door immediately. She was wearing black slacks and a black sweater. The sleeves of the sweater were pushed up to her elbows. Her hair was pulled to the back of her neck, tied there with a green ribbon. She was wearing no makeup. She looked beautiful, but she did not look as if she had just got home from the office.

"Come in, Sidney," she said.

There was a curious disorder to the apartment, shoe boxes dumped on the living room floor, pieces of tissue paper trailing through the foyer, jackets and dresses draped over chairs and on the sofa, skirts hanging from doorknobs, blouses laid out in rows on table tops, bras and panties piled in stacks everywhere.

"Some mess, huh?" Chickie said, and smiled.

"Yes," Sidney said, amused. "What are you doing, cleaning out your closets?"

Chickie pecked him on the cheek and said, "Would you like a drink, Sidney?"

"All right," he said. "Where does a man sit in all this… this…" He gestured helplessly with his open hands, still amused, and feeling that he looked boyish and cute, putting a slightly exaggerated puzzled look on his face and hoping she would kiss him again.

"What can I get you?" she said. — I'm all out of bourbon, but I've got scotch and rye. Choose your poison."

"Well, you certainly sound cheerful," he said, smiling.

"Oh, I am very cheerful," she said.

"In that case, I think I'll have one of each, how's that?" he said.

"All right, Mr. Brackman, one of each it is. You asked for it."

"I asked for it, right," Sidney said, and laughed, and watched her as she walked to the bar. "Well, the trial's over," he said, and impulsively clapped his hands together.

"Did you win?"

"Who knows, who cares?" Sidney said. "It's over, and the hell with it."

"That's a good attitude," Chickie said. She was busy at the bar, her back to him.

"Have you made up your mind yet?" he asked, smiling. He knew for certain that her happiness, her cheerfulness, her busy puttering little female motions at the bar were all due to the fact that she had decided to marry him. So he smiled as he asked his question, asked it a trifle coyly and in the same boyish manner he had used when opening his hands wide at the mess in the room, even though she couldn't see him.

"Made up my mind about what?" Chickie said.

"You know," he said, still coyly, still confidently, feeling more and more confident all the time. He took off his hat and sat down on the arm of the big easy chair, avoiding her stacked underwear spread on the chair's seat, certain that Chickie was playing her usual teasing game with him, the game they always played together, and loving her for it. She turned from the bar, carrying a small tray just below her breasts, smiling as she came across the room to him. She offered the tray. There were two glasses on it.

"Scotch and rye," she said, and smiled, and curtsied.

"Thank you, miss," he said, "I think I'll try the scotch first." He lifted the glass and sniffed it. "Ahhh, excellent," he said, and drank. "And now the rye."

"You're going to get sick, Sidney," she warned.

"No, no, this is nothing for an old sailor, nothing at all." He sniffed at the second glass. "Is this any good?" he asked. "How's your rye, miss?"

"How's your eye?" Chickie said, and burst out laughing.

"You still haven't answered my question," he said.

"My eye is fine, thank you. Hey, get your hand off there, you fresh thing."

"Oh, excuse me, m'dear," he said, using a W. C. Fields voice, "excuse me, m'little chickadee, wandering hands, bad failing, here we are, let me taste this fine rye whiskey of yours."

He swallowed the second shot, feeling the whiskey burning all the way down to his stomach. "About my question," he said.

"What question?"

"You know."

"Oh," she said. "Yes."

"And, m'dear?"

"Sidney," she said, "I've decided to take a trip to Europe."

"Oh, really?" he said, smiling. "Well, now that's an interesting development, m'little chickadee, that's truly a very interesting…"

"Really, Sidney," she said.

"What?"

"Really," she said, and she stressed the word so strongly that he knew all at once she was serious. The smile dropped from his face.

"Wh… what do you mean?" he said.

"I'm going to Europe, Sidney. Ruth and I are going to Europe."

"What did you say?"

"I said we're going to Europe. Ruth and I."

"What?"

"Yes, Sidney."

"Europe?"

"Yes, Sidney. Italy and Greece. We're leaving for Rome tomorrow morning, the nine forty-five a.m. flight."

"You're… you're joking," he said, knowing she was not, and not at all surprised when she did not answer. "Chickie?"

"Yes?"

"You're joking," he said again.

"No."

"But… I thought…"

"What did you think, Sidney?"

"That… that… I don't know."

"You poor dear man," she said, "I'm going to Europe."

"Ch-Ch-Chickie?"

"I'm going to Europe, Sidney."

"But…"

"I'm going, Sidney. Really."

"You d-d-didn't tell me."

"I wasn't sure. I had to decide. Now I've decided."

"Wh-wh-what about me?" he asked. "What about me?"

"You poor dear man," she said. "Sidney, I must rush you out now, because you see I've got a million things to do before tomorrow morning."

She caught both his hands in her own, and pulled him gently off the arm of the chair.

"Now put on your hat like a dear man," she said, "and let me get all this packing done. I hate to pack. Don't you hate to pack, Sidney?" She had led him to the door, she was reaching for the doorknob, she was twisting the knob, she was opening the door.

"Chickie, wait!" he said sharply.

"Yes, Sidney?"

"I have to… Chickie, it's… it's im… p-p-p-portant to me to… Chickie, you've got to…"

"Sidney, dear," she said, opening the door wide, "what can I say? It's all arranged. Really, Sidney, I'm terribly sorry, but it's all arranged."

"Chickie, I love you," he said.

"Yes."

"I love you."

"Yes, Sidney." She stood silently just inside the open door. "Goodbye, Sidney," she said, easing him into the hallway.

"Chickie… what about me?" he asked. "What about me?"

"I hope you win your case," she said, and blew a kiss at him.

The door closed. He heard the lock turning, the tumblers falling.

"What about me?" he said again.

Behind the door, he heard her giggle.

It was 6:10 when Jonah got to Pennsylvania Station.

He did not expect the terminal to be so crowded because by all reasonable standards next Friday was to be the start of the Christmas weekend. But he had not counted on the scheduling vagaries of colleges and prep schools; the station was thronged with milling students and excited, waiting parents. There seemed to be an overabundance of servicemen as well, sailors carrying sea-bags, soldiers lugging duffles, everyone hurrying and intent, worlds colliding, separating, touching, dispersing, touching again, everyone in frantic, busy motion. He asked the man behind the information counter what track the train from Trenton would be on, and was told the train had been in for fifteen minutes already. Shouldering his way through the crowd, he hurried toward the gate.

She was waiting at the entrance.

She was wearing a plaid skirt and a black ski parka. A kookie leather Ringo hat rested lopsidedly on her dark head. She stood with her legs slightly spread, the Dun-seath posture, but there was a spring-tight tension in her body, and her eyes flashed searchingly at each passing face. A small suitcase rested near her feet. She was wearing black boots her mother had bought for her at Bendel. He walked up to her swiftly, and she turned to him immediately and mouthed the word "Daddy" soundlessly, and threw herself into his arms. He held her close to him, and closed his eyes, and kissed her cheek and said, "Hello, darling," and she said, "Oh, Daddy, how good to see you," and threw her arms around him again, and kissed him again, and hugged him to her and said, "Do you like my hat?"

"It's lovely," he said, "where'd you get it?"

"It's my roommate's, Yolanda's, did I tell you about Yolanda?"

"I think so. Is this all you have?" he asked, picking up her bag.

"I always travel light," she said, and wiggled her eyebrows, and then laughed, her mother's laugh, her grandmother's laugh, head thrown back, blue eyes flashing. He took her hand in his own, and they hurried through the station. He was tremendously proud of her, aware of her trim good looks, pleased when young college boys turned to look at her, their eyes traveling down over her youthful backside and to her legs. She walked with her mother's loping gait, hips thrust forward, wearing her nutty hat with all the authority of a Vogue model, talking to him animatedly as they came out onto Eighth Avenue and tried to find a taxi.

"… boy had a guitar, he got on at Philadelphia, and we just sang songs and were drinking…"

"Drinking? What do you mean?"

"Oh, just a little beer, Daddy, one of the senior boys had a six-pack."

"Honey, you're a little young, don't you think, to be…"

"Daddy, he was a senior boy, he must have been seventeen at least."

"I know, honey, but you're only twelve."

"I'll be thirteen in May."

"I know, but still…"

"Anyway, I only had a sip. What we did mostly was sing. It was such fun, Daddy, and we go there so faaaast, it seemed like no time at all. Have you ever seen such crowds, did you call Mother?"

"Yes, I called her. She's expecting you."

"I know, I spoke to her last night."

"Good."

"Are you going to come up?"

"I don't think so, Amy."

"All right," she said.

In the taxi, she said, "What are you working on now, Daddy?"

"We just concluded a trial today," he said.

"Something good?"

"A plagiarism case."

"Did you win?"

"I think so. We won't know for a while."

"How can you bear waiting?" she said.

"Well, there are always other things coming up. In fact, when I got back to the office today, there was a new case already waiting."

"What kind of a case?"

"An exciting one, I think. A man's been charged with income tax evasion, but he claims he's not evading anything, he's simply refusing to pay. He says he will not give money to support an undeclared war, and that unless Congress is allowed to decide whether we should or should not be at war, why then he's being deprived of representation. And without representation…"

"No taxation," Amy said, and nodded. "But doesn't everyone have to pay income tax?"

"Certainly, honey."

"Then he's guilty. I mean, if he won't pay…"

"Well, there are principles involved," Jonah said.

"Will you take the case?"

"I think so. Yes, I think so, honey." He grasped her hand and squeezed it.

"Oh my God, I almost forgot!" Amy said, pulling her hand away and reaching for her suitcase. She unclasped it quickly, burrowed beneath a sweater and a blouse and produced a small slim package wrapped in red and green paper, tied with a bright green bow. He remembered in that instant that he had not yet bought her the ring.

"I got this in New Hope," she said. "Merry Christmas, Daddy."

"Christmas isn't until next week, honey," he said.

"I know, but I wish you'd open it now."

"Shouldn't I wait?"

"Open it, Daddy. Please."

He nodded. Carefully, he slid the bow off the package, and then unwrapped it. It was an address book, black leather, his initials in gold on the cover, J.W.

"It's beautiful," he said.

"Do you like it?"

"Yes, very much."

He knew he should have had the ring to give to her now, knew that this was a very private and personal moment to Amy, this offering of her gift in a taxi speeding to her mother's apartment. He had nothing to offer her in return. He had forgotten to buy the ring, and so he sat and stared at the leather address book with his initials on the cover, J.W., and wondered what he could say, wondered how he could begin to make her understand that he had really intended to have a present for her, to meet her with it at the station, but instead had become involved the moment he got back to the office. Surely she would understand. Surely she would realize that Christmas was still more than a week away, there was still time, wasn't there? Wasn't there still time?

"There's something nice I plan on getting you," he said, and patted her hand.

"Oh, sure, it can wait," Amy said.

"I'll get it to you before Christmas," he said, "don't you worry."

"Oh, sure," Amy said, and was silent. Then, unexpectedly, she shrugged and said, "Christmas is all craparoo, anyway."

He did not call his uncle until eleven o'clock.

He did not know why he was calling, unless it was because he and Ebie were leaving for Vermont in the morning, and Vermont was more distant from Fort Lauderdale than New York City. His uncle's voice was just as he remembered it, gravelly, with a hint of a brogue; he recalled in a rush the living room on West End Avenue, the Chickering piano, his uncle's pink shirts.

"Hello, Uncle Benny," he said, "this is Jimmy."

"Jimmy? Jimbo? Where are you, Jimbo? Are you in Florida?"

"No, no, I'm in New York."

"Hey, Vera, it's my nephew," Uncle Benny shouted. "Hey, how are you, Jimbo?"

"I'm fine, Uncle Benny."

"Good, good. Vera," he shouted, "it's my nephew!" To Driscoll, he said, "She's upstairs in bed, Jimbo, hasn't been feeling too well."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that."

"Well, it's nothing serious, just a little cold."

"A little cold is what we have in Fort Knox," Driscoll said, and smiled.

"No, that's a little gold," Uncle Benny answered. "What you're thinking of, lad, is a tiny creature in a monster movie."

"No, that's a little ghoul," Driscoll said. "I hate to correct you, Uncle Benny, but I think you mean a small measure of unmitigated nerve."

"Unmitigated nerve?"

"That's right."

"A little gall!" Uncle Benny shouted, and burst out laughing. "Ahhh, Jimmy, Jimmy, it's good to hear your voice. How are you, boy? How are you?"

"I'm fine."

"And Ebie?"

"Fine. Fine."

"When does the trial start? Is that why you're in New York?"

"Well, yes, but it ended today, Uncle Benny."

"It did? Did you win?"

"I think so. Yes, I think so."

There was a silence on the line.

"What's the matter, Jimmy?" his uncle asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Why are you calling me at eleven o'clock at night?"

"I just wanted to talk to you, Uncle Benny."

"What about?"

"I just wanted to talk to you."

"Is something wrong?"

"No, no, I just felt I had to talk to someone I… someone who…"

"Isn't Ebie there?"

"Yes, she's upstairs. In the room. Upstairs."

"I see," Uncle Benny said, and was silent.

Wise old Uncle Benny, he thought, and listened to the crackling silence on the line, the seconds ticking away.

"Uncle Benny," he said at last

"Yes, Jimmy?"

"I don't know what to do."

"About what?"

"Uncle Benny?"

"Yes?"

"Uncle Benny?"

"Yes, boy, what is it? What is it, Jimbo?"

"Help me."

"How?"

"Help me, Uncle Benny."

"Is it Ebie?"

He nodded, and then realized his uncle could not see him. Very quietly, he said, "Yes, it's Ebie."

"What about her?"

He could not tell him. He sat in the phone booth in the lobby of the hotel, and looked at the receiver clutched tightly in his hand, and could not tell his uncle. The silence lengthened.

"Jimmy?" his uncle said.

"Yes, Uncle Benny."

"Jimmy, whatever it is…"

"Yes?"

"Face it. Face it, and it'll vanish."

"Vanish is when you kick somebody out of the kingdom," Driscoll said, and tried a smile.

"No, that's banish," Uncle Benny said automatically, but there was no humor in his voice.

"No, banish are guys who wear masks and go around stealing," Driscoll answered.

"Jim," his uncle said, "don't play games."

"What?" Driscoll said.

"I think you heard me, Jim."

"Yes, but…"

"Do you understand me?"

"Uncle Benny, I called because…"

"Yes, I know why you called, Jim, now you listen to me, Jim. Where are you?"

"I'm down here. I'm in the lobby. Near the drugstore. Uncle Benny…"

"Now you listen to me, Jim, and don't play games, do you hear me? You go right upstairs, do you hear? You go right upstairs and you face whatever it is that's waiting for you there, you face it, Jim, now that's what I'm telling you."

"Yes."

"Do you hear me?"

"Yes."

"All right, that's what you do."

"Yes."

"Good. I've got to go up to Vera now, I think I hear her calling me. Do you understand me, Jim?"

"Yes, Uncle Benny."

"Good. You keep in touch with me."

"Uncle Benny?"

"Yes?"

"Give my regards to Vera."

"I will."

"Uncle Benny?"

"Yes?"

"I… I hope she feels better."

"I'm sure she will. Good night, Jim."

"Good night, Uncle Benny."

There was a click on the line.

He stood holding the dead receiver, and then he looked at it in disbelief and slowly replaced it on the hook. Well, that was very helpful, he thought, who the hell called you to play games, Uncle Benny, would you mind telling me? That was really quite helpful, thank you very much, Uncle Benny, I'm certainly glad I called you all the way in Florida to listen to your homespun philosophy. Thank you very much, Uncle Benny, you've certainly set everything right with your words of wisdom, and as a matter of fact I happened to think the banish definition was very good indeed. The phone rang. He lifted the receiver.

"Yes?" he said.

"One moment for additional charges, sir," the operator said.

"Thanks," he said. Additional charges, he thought. That's exactly what I need for a call that I was crazy to make in the first place.

"That'll be thirty-five cents, sir," the operator said.

"Thank you," he said. He dug into his pocket, found a quarter and a dime, and deposited them in the box.

"Thank you, sir," the operator said.

"Sure," he said, and again hung up. He went out of the booth. Tomorrow morning they would leave for Vermont, back to the old hay, alfalfa, and oats, back to the farm he hated, the most insistent crop of which was rocks. What the hell was a city boy doing in Vermont, anyway, how far can you run? Face it, Uncle Benny had said, face it. Thank you, Uncle Benny. Thank you for all the good things if I seem ungrateful now for this singular piece of worthless advise.

She was asleep when he got back to the room, snoring very lightly, his charming wife. He undressed quietly in the dark, and then got under the covers and lay there silently with the green neon Sardi sign illuminating the black windowpane across the room, and Ebie snoring lightly beside him, her body warm, his hand lying close to the curving flank of her naked flesh. She never slept with a stitch on, his sweet Southern flower, never when he first met her and not now either. He wondered if she had slept naked with Peter Malcom, wondered, lightly snoring, and wondered why he did not leave her. Face it. The bed was strange, he did not like hotel rooms. In Vermont, you could hear the mice rattling away the night in the attic. They slept in separate beds in Vermont, twin beds are for Englishmen and other people with severe cramps Uncle Benny had said one night disgostingly drunk. Face it. He listened to her even breathing, the snoring had stopped now, felt the warmth of her close to him and wondered again why he James Driscoll the Cat did not leave her, sleeping side by side in the Vermont twin beds with the mice racing in the attic, face it, tickytackyticky tack their little feet on the ceiling, face it, and then wondered why she did not leave him, why Ebie did not leave him.

He touched her shoulder.

She did not stir. He touched her again, more insistently this time. She murmured something in her sleep, and then turned toward him. She sat up. He could not see her face in the darkness.

"Ebie," he whispered.

"What is it?" she said. "What's the matter?"

"Ebie," he said, "do you love me?"

"Yes," she said.

"I'll never understand," he said. "Ebie," he said, "I love you."

"I know."

"I love you very much, Ebie."

"I know."

"But, Ebie, I'll never understand. As long as I live, I will never understand."

"Do you have to?" she asked.

He closed his eyes. "Never understand," he said, "never understand," and was suddenly exhausted. He sighed heavily. As he drifted off into folds of unconsciousness, he thought Ebie, let's try, and then was not certain whether he had thought it or said it, and said aloud, certain that he was saying it this time, "Ebie, let's try, Ebie," and sighed again, and said, "I love you, Ebie," and fell into a deep sleep.

He could not seem to get drunk.

He had begun drinking shortly after dinner, sitting in his apartment alone, refusing to answer the telephone because he knew each time it rang that Stuart Selig or Oscar Stern would be on the other end, and he did not know what he wanted to tell them. The bottle of scotch was half empty now, and he still did not know what to do, except sit here alone in his apartment, the way he had been sitting alone in his life from the time he was eighteen and went into the Army, the result of which was Catchpole. He could not believe that Driscoll's wife hadn't been coached, could not believe her testimony had not been carefully prepared beforehand, and then sprung by Willow at precisely the right moment, the courtroom magician pulling a rabbit from his tophat, a cuddly Southern bunny with large wet eyes, he could not believe his play had not been stolen.

Well, he thought, it's because I let them do it to me in the first place, I let Freddie and Fielder talk me into making all those changes, I wrecked my own play, and Driscoll stepped in and made a success of it, it's all my own fault when you get right down to it. Which is why I should tell Selig and Stern to go screw, along with Hester Miers and Mitzi Starke, and Walter Kerr thrown in for good measure. Tell them all to go screw, I will not make the changes in my play, I'm going to win this damn case and produce the play myself, maybe buy the Helen Hayes, no, not the Helen Hayes, not that jinx Fulton of a theater, I'll buy something nice and cozy and lucky, and maybe I'll buy the New York Times as well, how much do you want for your little paper, Mr. Sulzberger?

He was tempted to call Julie in Minnesota, because what they were asking him to do, really, was obliterate his past by obliterating his family, his sister, and by rights she should have something to say about her own demise. He wondered what time it was in Minnesota, and he lifted the telephone receiver from its cradle and when the operator came onto the line, he said, "Operator, I'm thinking of making a long-distance call to Minnesota, can you please tell me what time it is there?"

"Well," the operator said, and hesitated. "Just a moment, sir."

He waited. He owed it to Julie to consult her on her own eradication. Too many things in life got eradicated without consent, 'what had ever happened to the Sunday feasts at his grandfather's house, who had ever decided that issue without a vote?

"Sir?" the operator said.

"Yes?"

"Sir, Minnesota is on Central Standard."

"What does that mean?"

"They're an hour behind us, sir."

"Well, what time is it there?"

"It's almost midnight here, sir, so I would imagine it's almost eleven there."

"I see. Thank you."

"Did you wish to place your call, sir?"

"Well, I don't know yet," he said. "Thank you."

He hung up. Eleven o'clock, he thought. That wasn't really so late, but Julie probably went to bed early, houseful of kids to get off to school, besides everybody probably went to bed early in Minnesota. I really should call her, though, he thought, how can I change her without first getting her permission? They want me to make you a social worker, Julie, he thought, I know you'll get a laugh out of that, it's really pretty comical when you think of it. A social worker who practices the flute in her bedroom next door with the pink curtains on the window and the beware vicious dog sign tacked crookedly on the white-painted wood, I don't know, Julie.

They told me nothing, Julie.

I thought they'd tell me something in that courtroom.

They told me nothing.

Julie, do you remember once, do you remember when we were walking to the library together one night? and you asked me not to walk quite so fast, my legs aren't as long as yours, do you remember that? and I said I'm in a hurry, do you remember? I was in a hurry to get there, Julie, to get where the words were, all the words.

Julie, honey, I never got there.

Julie, they told me nothing, I was hoping they'd tell me something.

Look, we've got to discuss this. Look, what's the sense, we've just got to discuss this.

He reached for the telephone.

What's the sense? he thought.

He waited, his head bent, his hand resting on the telephone. He sighed and lifted the receiver. Rapidly, he dialed. He heard the ringing on the other end, once, twice, and quickly he hung up. He stared at the phone a moment longer, his heart beating wildly, and then he reached for the bottle of scotch and poured himself another drink.

He placed his call at one-thirty a.m. He was very drunk by that time. "Hello!" he shouted into the mouthpiece.

"What? Who's this?"

"Well, I've been sleeping on it," he said.

"What? Who's this?"

"This is Edward Albee. Don't you recognize my voice?"

"Listen, who is this?"

"Every writer has a voice, didn't you know that?"

"Arthur?"

"Yes, very good, this is Arthur Miller."

"What is it, Arthur? Are you drunk, Arthur?"

"Why, Stuart, what a thing to say to a man of my talents and respect, what a thing to say. Would you say such a thing to Tenafly New Jersey?"

"I've been trying to get you all day," Stuart said. "Have you decided, Arthur? Is that it?"

"I have decided."

"What have you decided?"

"I have decided to sell out," Arthur said.

"What do you mean?"

"Again," Arthur said.

"I still don't know what you mean."

"I have decided, Stuart, to sell out again, I have decided to sell out because I'm afraid."

"Arthur, that's no attitude to…"

"I'm afraid I'll lose the case, Stuart, and I'm afraid if I don't grab Hester then Osborne'll get her, and I'm afraid my sweet little play'll die, Stuart, it'll curl up and die stillborn, never see the light of day, never have a chance to breathe at all. So I'm selling out, I'll do whatever the pants pressers want me to do, make any revisions they want, change little Julie to a whore with a line of sailors waiting outside her bedroom…"

"Julie?"

"Carol, whatever the hell her name is, who cares?"

"Look, Arthur…"

"Tell Mitzi Starke she just bought herself a writer."

"Arthur…"

"Tell Hester I'll fit the part to her like a tailored suit from wherever it is fine actresses like Hester Miers buy their tailored suits, tell them they got themselves a tailor, and when I finish the garment they can press it. Tell them."

"Arthur?"

"What?"

"Arthur, are you crying?"

"No," he said.