Star Witness

by D. W. Buffa

  He started to answer with the same kind of evasive, indecisive testimony he had given when I had asked him before. Out of patience, I cut him off and changed the question.

  “Did they in your presence ever engage in acts of affection? Did they ever, for example, hold hands?”

  With an awkward smile, he said he was certain they had. He was also certain that he had seen them with their arms around each other. He admitted that on a number of occasions he had witnessed Mary Margaret Flanders kiss her husband.

  “Usually on the side of the face,” he added for no apparent reason. “Mary Margaret was a very affectionate person. She often kissed people on the side of the face.”

  “So they were—at least outwardly—affectionate?”

  “Yes, they were.”

  “Let’s come at this from another point of view,” I said, my head down, scuffing the floor with the tip of my shoe. I looked up. “Did you ever see him hit her?”

  “No,” replied Wirthlin, somewhat startled by the question.

  “Did you ever see him try to hit her?”

  “No.”

  Pulling my hands out of my pockets, I moved close enough to put my right foot on the step below the witness stand. I put my left hand on my hip and peered directly into his eyes.

  “Has Stanley Roth ever hit you?”

  His eyes darted past me to Stanley Roth at the counsel table and then, quickly, came back to me.

  “No, of course not.”

  “Has he ever tried to hit you?”

  There was a slight twitch on his lower lip, an involuntary reaction to the lie he was about to tell; but I was the only one close enough to see it. His eyes seemed to grow smaller, as if trying to withdraw to a place of safety.

  “No.”

  “Have you ever—even once—seen Stanley Roth engage in an act of violence?”

  It was all he could do to stop himself from blurting out the truth. I could see it in his eyes, how much he wanted to strike back: to tell the world what Stanley Roth had tried to do to him just the other night; to tell the world how violent Stanley Roth could be.

  “No, I have not.”

  Wirthlin had kept his end of the bargain he had made with Stanley Roth. It had not occurred to him—or to Stanley Roth, either, for that matter—that their agreement had nothing to do with me. I had not given a promise to anyone about anything, and I was far beyond the point where I had the least interest in helping either one of them keep theirs.

  I walked the few short steps to the counsel table and poured myself a glass of water. Everyone was watching, waiting to see what I was going to do next, when I finished drinking and resumed the cross-examination of Michael Wirthlin. My eye wandered around the courtroom. There were none of the blank stares seen on the upturned faces of a crowded movie theater; none of the dull-eyed vacancy of someone gazing at a television screen. These people were alive: interested spectators fully engaged by the questions, the answers; following not only the words, but the looks, the gestures that accompanied them and sometimes changed their meaning. As I put down the glass my eye settled for a moment on Louis Griffin, sitting in the same first row seat that seemed always to be waiting for him. A brief smile crossed his lips. I smiled back, and then, without quite knowing why, tried to warn with my eyes. I did not want him to be taken by surprise— or, rather, I did not want anyone to notice if he was—by the question I was now about to ask Michael Wirthlin.

  “Tell me, Mr. Wirthlin,” I said, slowly turning toward the witness stand, “are you familiar with Blue Zephyr?”

  He spread open his palms and shrugged his shoulders. “Could you be a little more precise? It’s a very large studio, and I’m not sure... ”

  “Not the studio, Mr. Wirthlin—the movie, or rather the screenplay for the movie. The movie Stanley Roth wants to make.”

  “Oh, that. Yes, I’m familiar with it.”

  “Have you read it?”

  “No. Stanley—Mr. Roth—has been working on that off and on for some time now. I believe he has shown parts of it to a few people at the studio; but, no, I haven’t read it.”

  “Do you know what the story is about?”

  Wirthlin waved his hand, a gesture of uncertainty, and then shook his head. “Something to do with the business—the movie business, I mean.”

  “Yes, you could say that,” I remarked as I stepped out from behind the counsel table and took a position at the end of the jury box farthest from the witness stand. “But he called it Blue Zephyr, didn’t he? You just now said that you’d heard of it. That suggests—doesn’t it?—that you must have known, or must have guessed, that it had something to do, not just with the movie business, but a very specific part of the movie business—a single studio, for example.”

  “I think it was just a working title. I doubt that is what he was going to call it if it ever actually got made,” explained Wirthlin with a dismissive air.

  “No, Mr. Wirthlin; it’s more than a working title. I’ve read Blue Zephyr.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Stanley Roth shifting position, leaning forward, resting his right elbow on the table. With his thumb under his cheekbone and the other four fingers of his right hand spread across his forehead, he stared straight down, trying not to show the jury or anyone else what he felt.

  “Blue Zephyr, Mr. Wirthlin, is the story of two men who are partners in a studio—a studio just like Blue Zephyr. It is the story of how one of them betrays the other: first by sleeping with the other’s movie-star wife; and then by pulling out his own financial support from the studio to create one of his own, one in which the woman he wants—his partner’s movie-star wife—can do what she likes. I have read it, Mr. Wirthlin. It’s an extraordinary story. It’s certainly the best thing I’ve ever read about how Hollywood really works. How much of it do you imagine is based on fact, on things that actually happened to Stanley Roth?”

  Wirthlin’s mouth stretched into a taut, thin line, like a rubber band ready to snap back, stinging whatever it hits.

  “I wouldn’t know. I told you: I haven’t read it.”

  Smiling and unperturbed, I wagged my finger.

  “But the first part is true, though, isn’t it? You did sleep with Stanley Roth’s wife, didn’t you?”

  His eyes still fixed on the table below him, Stanley Roth began to rub his forehead with his fingers.

  “Answer the question, Mr. Wirthlin! You’re under oath. Did you or did you not sleep with Mary Margaret Flanders while she was married to the defendant, Stanley Roth?”

  “Relevance, Your Honor!” demanded Annabelle Van Roten as she rather wearily got to her feet.

  “Relevance?” I exclaimed, casting a mocking glance in her direction. “Let me count the ways. First, it goes to the bias of the witness; second, it goes to the issue of who besides the defendant might have had a motive; third ... well, how many more reasons does the court require?”

  Honigman folded his hands in front of him, nodding thoughtfully, as if he had been asked to make some Solomon-like decision instead of rule on a simple, straightforward question of evidence.

  “I’ll allow it,” he said, nodding one last time to underscore the finality of it.

  I looked at Wirthlin and waited.

  “We were very good friends.” His voice, when he said it, was richer, deeper, than it had been. I had heard him use that voice before, the cultured, definitive sound of his considered judgment, the final statement that brought all discussion to a close.

  “Is that a yes or a no, Mr. Wirthlin?” I asked impatiently.

  “I think that’s all I care to say about it,” replied Wirthlin, sitting back in the witness chair.

  “Your Honor!”

  Honigman leaned across the bench. “The witness will answer the question.”

  Wirthlin did not move.

  “Or the witness will be held in contempt. That means, Mr. Wirthlin, that you will sit in jail until you decide to answer the question you have been asked.”


  “Yes,” angrily snapped Wirthlin. “I slept with Mary Margaret. What of it?”

  “You slept with your partner’s wife. So that part of the screenplay is true, isn’t it? Now, the second part, remember, is that this same partner—the one who slept with the other one’s movie-star wife—wants a studio for his very own. He doesn’t want a partner anymore, certainly not the one he has, the husband of the woman he wants. Tell us, Mr. Wirthlin, is this part true as well? You slept with Stanley Roth’s wife. Did you also want Stanley Roth’s studio?”

  “Your Honor!” cried Annabelle Van Roten. “This is... ”

  Honigman did not take his eyes off the witness. “No, I’ll allow it.”

  I bore in on Wirthlin, taunting him, daring him to deny it. “You did, didn’t you? You wanted the studio; you wanted Blue Zephyr. You wanted it so bad you were willing to do anything to get it, weren’t you?”

  “No, that’s not true,” protested Wirthlin vigorously.

  “That’s not true? You didn’t, just two days ago, demand that Stanley Roth resign? Didn’t you insist that because he was on trial for murder no one would want to do business with the studio: no investors, no important performers? You didn’t tell him that if he didn’t resign there wouldn’t be any more financing, that Blue Zephyr would go bankrupt?”

  Wirthlin was livid. He sat at the edge of the chair, grabbing the ends of it with all his might as if it was the only way to keep himself from flying out of it.

  “That isn’t the way it happened; that isn’t what happened at all,” he sputtered incoherently.

  “But it is a fact—isn’t it, Mr. Wirthlin?—that Stanley Roth has now done exactly what you demanded he do. Isn’t it true, Mr. Wirthlin, that just yesterday, your partner, Stanley Roth, the man whose wife you were sleeping with, resigned, and that you, Michael Wirthlin, are now, for all intents and purposes, in charge of Blue Zephyr?”

  Clenching his lips together as hard as he could, Wirthlin sat rigid on the edge of the chair, refusing to say another word.

  “In Blue Zephyr, the movie-star wife leaves her husband; but Mary Margaret Flanders did not leave Stanley Roth for you, did she? But it still all worked out for you, didn’t it? You didn’t get her, but neither did anyone else. She’s dead, and because she’s dead—and because her husband, and not somebody else, is accused of killing her—you get the studio. You get everything— don’t you?—the fame, the power, all of it. And Stanley Roth? He’s lost his wife, he’s lost his studio, and, if he’s convicted, he’ll never be able to make Blue Zephyr, the movie that tells everyone what you did to him. So it isn’t really too difficult to see precisely who benefited from the death of Mary Margaret Flanders, is it, Mr. Wirthlin?”

  Chapter Nineteen

  I SAT ON THE EDGE of the bed, staring at the telephone on the nightstand next to me. It was quarter past six in the evening and I told myself I had time to get out of my clothes, time to take a shower, time to collect my thoughts, time to talk myself into believing that I really did have too much work to do and that this weekend at least I had to stay here. I was supposed to be on the seven o’clock shuttle for the one-hour flight to San Francisco. Marissa always met me at the plane. I should have called from the courthouse during the lunchtime break, but my mind had been too full of the trial to think about the weekend or the lies I was going to tell. It had given me the perfect excuse to delay even longer the point at which I had to decide. It allowed me to indulge in the vain pretense that I would not make the call at all; that I would do what I was supposed to do—what part of me wanted to do—that I would get on the plane at seven o’clock, fly home for the weekend, and go on as if what had happened with Julie Evans the night before had not happened at all.

  I picked up the telephone, quickly dialed the number and while it rang took a deep breath. My dismal gaze wandered across the bedroom to the sitting room. Strewn over a table, the various notebooks and files I used each night preparing for the next day in trial had the aspect of something in progress, something only briefly interrupted. I tried to feel all the fatigue of my imaginary labors. By the time Marissa finally answered the only thought in my mind was the single juxtaposition of the arduous, lonely task that awaited me here and the relaxed comfort of the house in Sausalito overlooking the bay. I had to make an effort not to sound too sorry for myself.

  “I’m glad I caught you,” I said. “I was afraid you might already have left.”

  Marissa was understanding, sympathetic, and did not seem to mind too much that I had to spend the weekend away. In my pathetic self-absorption I discovered I would have liked her to mind just a little bit more.

  I lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling, relieved it was over and that it had not been nearly so difficult as I had feared. It had gone so easily it made me wonder whether Marissa might have suspected the truth, that I was seeing someone else. The thought seemed somehow unfair, as if it would somehow be more wrong of her not to trust me, than for me to deceive and betray her. But then I was used to my own imperfections and the way in which I had learned to overlook them. I suppose that was the reason I had not much liked the way Julie had asked whether I had to be in San Francisco when she invited me to Santa Barbara: it almost seemed as if she took a kind of pleasure, reminding me of my infidelity.

  Outside the Chateau Marmont, I put my overnight bag on the sidewalk and in the reddish warmth of the evening sun waited for the first sight of the shiny white Mercedes. Julie was going to pick me up at seven. We would be in Santa Barbara by nine. I ran my fingers across the thick, rough trunk of a palm tree, and then brushed away a few dull splinters from my hand. Lazily, I walked a few steps, stopped, looked down the street, and then walked back. With my foot, I nudged the overnight bag, pushing it just an inch or so across the smooth cement. I checked my watch. She was ten minutes late. In Los Angeles, she could still claim to be early. My mind a blank, I kept watching the curving shadows of the palm trees as they slowly lengthened under the lavender sky. After a while I went into the bar.

  A different couple than the one I had seen the night I had a drink with Julie played the same soft, laughing scene of seduction, eager to capture in the night all the illusions of their own enchantment. Before I realized it, I had finished a scotch and soda and ordered a second. I left the glass on the bar and went to the front desk.

  “A Ms. Evans called,” said the clerk with a cursory glance at the message. “She asked if you could call her at this number.”

  He handed me the square piece of monogrammed paper and pointed toward a phone booth opposite the far corner of the desk. I took two steps toward it, crumpled the message in my fist, and returned to the bar. I could grab a cab and catch a plane. I drank a little more scotch. There was a flight every hour, and though it was Friday, it was late enough that I could be sure of getting a seat. And if I didn’t get one on the first flight, I’d certainly get one on the next. Even if I didn’t get back before midnight, I would still have the weekend, and after everything that had happened—the trial, the collision with Stanley Roth, the concussion— it would be nice to be home for a few days. All I had to do was call the airline. I took another drink and checked my watch. It was eight o’clock. I finished what was left in the glass and went out to the telephone booth in the lobby.

  I dialed the number, hesitated, and then waited while it rang.

  “I’m sorry about tonight,” said Julie in a hurried voice. “Something came up. I couldn’t get away as early as I had hoped.”

  She did not sound particularly apologetic, and I did not feel especially understanding.

  “I’m still at the studio,” she explained when I made no reply. “I’ve got about an hour more I’ve got to do. I can be there by nine-thirty.”

  She paused, waiting for me to tell her that it would be all right.

  “We’ll still be up there before midnight,” she added rather tentatively, her voice growing indifferent as my silence continued. “Or we could wait and go in the morning ... Or not go at all.”<
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  “I have a lot of work to do myself,” I said finally. “Tomorrow might be better. Why don’t I call you then?”

  The silence now came from her end. I could hear the slow rhythm of a pencil, or a fingernail, tapping against something hard, something glass or metallic.

  “I think I’m going to go up tonight,” said Julie abruptly. “I need to get away, and I like driving at night.”

  We drifted through another speechless space, a silent test of will, measuring not so much what we wanted from each other, but how much we—or at least I—was willing to do to have it.

  “As I say, I have a lot of work to do myself and... ”

  “I’ll be here for another hour or so,” said Julie in a quiet, even voice. “If you change your mind.”

  There was still time to catch a plane to San Francisco. I looked at the overnight bag on the floor next to me, but suddenly the idea of going anywhere seemed to require more energy than I had left. I slid my shoulder under the strap and lifted the bag. Back in my room, I sat on the edge of the bed and stared glumly through the gauze-covered windows at the lights outside. With a deep breath that was nearly a sigh, I bent down and untied my shoes. Falling back on the bed, I closed my eyes, vaguely content that I was alone and had nothing I had to do. I let everything run out of my mind until the only thing I felt was a kind of warm, motionless ease as the tension, built up all day, slowly drained away.

  The room was dark when I opened my eyes, the only light that which was flickering in from the street outside. I did not know how long I had been asleep, whether it had been a few minutes, or more than an hour. Switching on the lamp, I saw that I still had time. I searched in my pocket for the crumpled piece of paper on which the number had been written. There was no answer. Julie was gone, and probably gone forever. She might wait for Stanley Roth, but she was not going to wait for me. There was nothing I could do about it now, and it was just as well. Though it was scarcely through any fault of my own, I had told Marissa the truth: I was staying in Los Angeles and I was going to spend all my time doing what I was supposed to do. While other people were out having a good time, I was going to be working on the defense of Stanley Roth, trying to find something that would help me save his life. Nothing is quite so comforting as the promise of your own virtue after you have just missed your last chance for vice.