(1969) The Seven Minutes

by Irving Wallace

  From die recess of the waiting room, Barrett heard two women’s voices growing louder. He pivoted around in time to see the nurse and a girl with a boyish haircut and the shirttails of her blouse hanging out over her dungarees come into view. The two were absorbed in conversation.

  The nurse was saying, ‘I sure envy you, Darlene. The Underground Railroad, that’s my favorite fun place whenever I can get

  the time. I’d give anything to be there at that opening.’

  ‘It’ll be jumping this week and next, so any night’ll be as good as tonight. It’s just a pity poor Sheri isn’t well enough.They’re having her favorite group there. She’s got all their albums.’

  ‘She’ll get well.’

  ‘Fingers crossed.’

  The nurse had gone, and Darlene Nelson was approaching Barrett with a quizzical expression.

  ‘I’m Darlene Nelson,’ she said. ‘Are you the one who wanted to see me?’

  “That’s correct. I -‘

  ‘Do I know you ?’ She had a nervous habit, a flick of her hand as if brushing her hair off her shoulder, but she touched nothing, because her hair was cut short. Perhaps the haircut was a recent idea, thought Barrett.

  ‘I’m Michael Barrett,’ he said. This brought no recognition. “The lawyer representing Ben Fremont, the owner of the bookstore, who -‘

  Recognition came. ‘The dirty book,’ she said. Suspicion followed. ‘What do you want with me?’

  ‘Just the answers to a couple of questions,’ said Barrett. ‘Would you like to sit down?’

  She made no move to sit. Her hand brushed past her ear. ‘What questions?’

  ‘Well, for one thing, had Miss Moore or yourself, either of you, had any acquaintance with Jerry Griffith before the night he - ?’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘All right,’ Barrett said. ‘What about any of Jerry’s friends? Did you know any of them?’

  ‘How would I know who his friends are? Even if I’d met one by accident, I wouldn’t know it.’

  ‘Well, Miss Nelson, I’m thinking of one in particular. He’s a student at UCLA and. lives in Westwood. His name is George Perkins. Did you ever hear Miss Moore - Sheri - mention him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What about yourself? Do you know George Perkins?’

  ‘No. No, I don’t.’

  “There’s another thing I hoped you could tell me. On the night you found Sheri -‘

  ‘Mr Barrett, I don’t think I should be talking to you. I can’t tell you a thing. Besides, there’s nothing to tell. I told it all to the police, and it’s been hashed over in the papers. I better go now. Excuse me.’

  Darlene Nelson had been backing off, and now she rushed out of the room.

  Barrett shrugged, emptied and pocketed his pipe, and headed for the elevator.

  A few minutes later he descended the rear staircase of the hospital and went into the parking lot. Starting toward his car, he heard someone running behind him.

  He wheeled around to find a stocky, brawny man, older than himself, with a large head and almost no neck, coming toward him. The man was upon him, gasping for breath, face livid, hands knotted into fists.

  ‘Are you the guy named Barrett?’ the man demanded. ‘The lawyer defending that goddam dirty book?’

  Recoiling before the other’s fury, momentarily stupefied, Barrett nodded. ‘Yes, I -‘

  ‘You listen to me, then!’ the man bellowed, shooting both hands forward and clutching the lapels of Barrett’s jacket angrily. ‘You listen to me, you rotten bastard, because I’m going to tell you something -‘

  He wrenched Barrett toward him, and in self-defense Barrett struck at the man’s arms to free himself. For a moment they were apart, and then the wild man lunged at him again. Barrett threw out his hands to fend him off as the man swung a powerful right-hand hook at his face. Barrett tried to duck backward, but the arcing fist grazed his chin, rattling his teeth, and, off balance, he went reeling backward, falling, landing on his haunches.

  The suddenness of the assault, more than the force of it, had dazed Barrett, and he sat on the tarred surface of the lot, holding his chin, as powerless to rise as a paraplegic. Above him loomed the distended face of his assailant.

  ‘You listen to me, you bastard,’ the man panted, hands still clenched. ‘I’m Sheri’s father, see - I’m Howard Moore - and I’m telling you there’s more where that came from, see - there’s lots more. And I’m warning you to keep your goddam nose out of our private affairs. My poor girl’s on the critical list, and all because some little prick was made crazy by your goddam dirty book - and anybody standing up for that kind of book is going to get it from me. So you remember this, mister - you keep your snotty nose out of my affairs - or next time I’ll beat you up until you’re in worse shape than my poor girl is in now. You just remember that!’

  Howard Moore whirled around and went stalking off. - His head clearing, Mike Barrett struggled to his feet. Anger at this attack, at the gross unfairness and injustice of it, began to shake him, and his immediate instinct was to go after Moore and give him back some of the same. But then, watching the pathetic figure slow down at the door of the hospital, watching the older man open the glass door and for an instant hang his head and press it against the door, Barrett’s anger gave way to a surge of pity and reason. The man was a father, helpless, and up there five stories was the daughter he had spawned, his little girl, violated, unconscious. And, what the hell, he had to strike out at something, someone.

  Barrett reached for his handkerchef and touched it to his mouth.

  A faint bloodstain showed on the white linen. The inside of his lower lip had been cut. Well, so be it.

  Going slowly, dusting himself off, he returned to his car.

  Not until an hour later, when he was once more secure in his office and Donna had returned with disinfectant from the pharmacy downstairs, did he ask her the question that he had been waiting to ask. He had remembered hearing Darlene Nelson and the nurse as they talked in the hallway of the hospital, and here was Donna, the office secretary who always read the entertainment pages and gossip columns and who tried to keep young by reading about the young.

  ‘Donna, my pretty, it seems to me I’ve heard of it, but I just can’t remember exactly - forgetting the Civil War, meaning right now, today - what’s a place called The Underground Railroad?’

  ‘Boy, are you the straight one. That’s the leading hangout for all the youngsters. It’s out on Melrose. Strictly rock groups, dancing, near beer and nothing stronger.’

  ‘I understand there’s a group opening there tonight?’

  ‘Well, now, maybe you’re not so straight. Yup. Gregorian Chant.’

  ‘Gregorian what ? I’m not talking about medieval ecclesiastical music or choirs. I’m -‘

  ‘Straight, straight, straight, that’s what you are, boss. Gregorian Chant. They used to be called Chauncey and the Snow Shoes until they merged with the L.A. Heat. They’re the hottest rock group in the country right now. And they’re opening at The Underground Railroad at seven tonight. What have you got in mind ?’

  ‘Closing the generation gap. What’s the opposite of straight, Donna? Curved?’

  ‘Groovy.’

  “That’ll be me at seven-thirty tonight.’

  Even in the darkness of the parking area behind the gigantic hardware store that had been converted into a rock haven, Mike Barrett could hear the incessant, cacophonous music blaring through every window and wall of The Underground Railroad.

  When he paused under the street light on Melrose Avenue, he could make out the time on his wristwatch. It was twenty minutes after seven in the evening. Across the street there were two other teenage water holes, one called The Limbo and the other The Raga-Rock, but tonight they were nearly deserted. The real population explosion was occurring thirty feet from him, where two orderly lines of bizarrely costumed youngsters were moving steadily into The Underground Railroad.

  Barrett made his way
to the end of one line and fell in, and he was relieved that he had followed Donna’s advice and not worn a suit and a tie. Actually, his crew-neck cotton pullover and corduroys were still conservative enough to label him, if not exactly an

  octagon or a rub - oh, he had done some homework - then at least a partial square. But then it wasn’t his attire that made him self-conscious, he knew, but his age, and for the first time he believed that half of America’s entire population was under the age of twenty-five.

  Following the swaying line of youngsters toward the roughhewn log-cabin entrance, he was satisfied that he had not told Faye where he was going. She would have wanted to come along, as one goes to the zoo, and, man, that would have been too much. This was one of his standing-date nights with Faye, the special one of the week, the physical one, and he hadn’t had the courage to cancel or postpone it. Instead, he had telephoned Faye to explain that they’d have to skip their regular dinner, because a research lead had turned up. He had promised to meet her at his apartment at eleven o’clock.

  There was no research lead, of course. There was only his knowledge that this was a happening night at The Underground Railroad, and that Darlene Nelson would be here, and perhaps one of the happenings would be George Perkins. A hunch, no more. If George appeared, he would have friends, and they might also be Jerry Griffith’s friends. A fuller roster of Jerry’s friends was what Barrett wanted.

  ‘Let’s have some green, man,’ he heard someone say above him, and he realized that the speaker - who resembled Lincoln, assuming Lincoln had been black - was in the doorway collecting the entrance fee. He paid the man the two dollars and proceeded inside.

  At once, caught up in a swarm of chattering and singing customers who were seeking tables, he was lost.

  He tried to orient himself to the scene and adjust himself to the sound. Before him lay a mad house of tables around which were packed the music lovers. Then he could see the dance floor, as animated as a bucketful of writhing worms, and, facing the dance floor, the bandstand, over which a giant kaleidoscope kept turning and turning, and, beyond, more tables.

  The lighting that came from the rotating stroboscope produced a spinning rainbow of psychedelic colors. On the dance floor, boys and girls of white, black, brown, yellow skin in micro-skirts, capes, hussar uniforms, relating not to one another but to the dissonant music, were going through their highly individual frenetic dance undulations. Yet there was a single movement to the tribal dance: every male native gyrated his pelvis and torso, every female native thrust forward her bust and wiggled her butt, as they paid homage to the howling voices and pinging electric guitars of Gregorian Chant.

  Barrett focused upon the group on the bandstand. It consisted of four boys dressed like cotton-picking slaves, and presumably the Gregorian part consisted of the three shaggy-haired whites loosely chained together, strumming away, occasionally joining the

  Chant, a fat young Negro, in his solo.

  Hemmed in on all sides, Barrett began to feel faint. And his ears rang. And his heart yearned for the sweet security of Dave Brubeck and Gerry Mulligan and Davey Pell.

  He needed a more isolated lookout post, and then he saw, to his left, past the aisle, the long oak bar. A portion of it was relatively free of humanity. Turning, pushing, excusing himself, pushing, going sideways, he made slow progress toward the bar, and after several minutes he reached it.

  ‘Scotch and water,’ he gasped.

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ said the moustached young bartender. ‘We’ve got only near beer - and of course any soft drink you can think of.’

  Barrett had forgotten they had no hard liquor here. ‘Okay, a near beer.’

  As the beer foamed into the stein, Barrett scanned the scene. The performing group had segued into a new number. This one was less discordant, less onomatopoeic, less thwacking, less jarring. The number seemed to owe its ancestry to the ethnic music of Bessie Smith, sort of Negro blues and gospel mildly crossed with hillbilly. It was sad and it was message, and it echoed a generation’s disillusionment, skepticism, protest, and it called for love of man for Man. And at once Barrett welcomed and enjoyed the sounds and sights and the lost love children on the floor. Somewhere he’d read Bob Dylan’s explanation: The only beauty’s ugly, man. Yes. But it was beauty neverthless, its own beauty.

  He reached for his near beer, sipped it slowly, looked up at the big posters above the bar - Harriet Beecher Stowe, John Brown and his body, Dred Scott - and he listened to the music.

  After a short respite, putting down his beer mug, he faced the entire room once more, determined to search it for his quarry. In a few moments he realized that he had undertaken an impossible assignment. There were simply too many young men, and too many of these who looked like the bearded George Perkins, and not one of them could he distinguish as being George himself.

  He decided to scan the club a final time, from the entrance doorway to the farthest reach of the room. His eyes shifted to the entrance, and, to his surprise, standing there inside it was a newcomer whom he recognized instantly.

  The newcomer was a slim, haggard boy, neatly combed hair, sallow complexion and pinched features, sport jacket and sport shirt and pressed slacks. He was the one Barrett had never met, yet he was as familiar now as the countless pictures of him that had appeared in the press. Filled with amazement, overlaid by confusion, Barrett stared at the newcomer. Here, within distance of his voice, was Jerry Griffith, searching the club as he himself had been searching it. Barrett wondered, What in the devil was this boy, even though free on bail, doing in this public place? He couldn’t imagine Maggie Russell, let alone Frank Griffith, permitting Jerry

  to leave the house and come to this place. Or didn’t they know? Had Jerry slipped out?

  This was a perfect opportunity to confront him, to speak sympathetically to him, question him, yet Barrett did not move. As a person he was kept in his place by some sense of decency, and as an attorney he was kept back by some instinct that detected possible good fortune. He maintained his watch over Jerry Griffith and he waited with undefined expectancy.

  Barrett tried to read Jerry’s eyes. At first they were furtive and afraid, like those of a wanted man on the run who was fearful of being recognized. Then, as if he had realized that the very numbers gave him safety, melted him into the mass, Jerry’s eyes lost their fear and became those of the hunter rather than the hunted. Plainly the boy was looking for someone, some specific person.

  He was on tiptoes, examining the occupants of each table, when his head gave a short jerk of recognition and he started to wave and then apparently thought better of it. At once his entire expression had become purposeful. He had found the one he wanted.

  Jerry Griffith started toward Barrett, abruptly veered between two tables, and then nimbly threaded his way between more of the seated patrons toward his objective. Picking his way forward, he slowed, and at a table of three young men and two girls he halted. He reached out toward the broad-shouldered young man who had his back to him, and he tapped the boy on the shoulder. The young man’s head swiveled around, and the bearded profile revealed itself to be George Perkins.

  Squinting in the ever-changing light, Barrett tried to catch George’s reaction. In all, there were three reactions, one following the other with amazing rapidity. First, surprise. Second, worry. Third, annoyance.

  From the distance of the bar, Barrett continued to follow the silent drama.

  Jerry was trying to speak to George Perkins. And George wanted nothing to do with him. Jerry gripped George’s shoulder several times, whispering to him, and each time George shrugged him off. At last Jerry’s persistence appeared to win, for George came heatedly to his feet and, hulking over his friend, shook his head, refusing to listen to him further. Still, Jerry continued speaking against the din. Finally, as if in exasperated agreement, George nodded, and looked around. Just as the music stopped and a member of the performing group announced an intermission, George pointed off, and his finger was directed
at a couple who had left the dance floor and were making their way to a table set on an aisle.

  Automatically Barrett’s attention shifted to the couple. For a moment, the boy blocked the view of his female partner. The boy was clean-shaven except for his long sideburns, and he was husky, Then the girl was in the open. She was Darlene Nelson, none other.

  still wearing the dungarees and loose shirttails she had worn earlier, during her hospital visit.

  Now a third figure crossed swiftly into view. It was that of Jerry Griffith again, almost bowling over customers as he fought his way through the returning dancers to catch Darlene Nelson. Just as Darlene approached her empty chair, Jerry Griffith intercepted her.

  Once more, for Barrett, dumb show.

  Jerry was blocking the girl from her seat, seeming to introduce himself, trying to address her. Darlene’s displeasure was even more clearly visible than George Perkins’ had been moments before. She tried to ignore Jerry, push past him to reach her chair, but still he tried to impede her progress long enough to get her to listen to him. With a final effort, she slipped past him. He had begun to follow her, still speaking, when she stopped and did an about-face. She appeared to be speaking sharply, curtly, in an undertone, her face close to his. Whatever she said to Jerry had the effect of a slap in the face. Jerry recoiled, looking stricken, then he tried to say something to her as she sat down, but no words seemed to come. Instead, there was only a kind of breathless mouthing and gesturing in place of the missing words.

  Suddenly Jerry seemed to petrify, features livid, and he stared down at her as she gaily resumed conversation with her companions. For a second, Barrett wondered whether Jerry might strike her or attempt to strangle her, but he did neither. His arms went slowly down to his sides. His face went slack. His body appeared to wilt. Dazed, he backed away, turned away, wandered into the passage between the tables, until he seemed to remember where he was and who he was. Then, as if galvanized, in a spurt, he charged past new arrivals and dashed to the entrance and was gone.