(1961) The Chapman Report

by Irving Wallace

  Always, before, when Mary McManus had played tennis with her rather on Sunday mornings, he had seemed marvelously youthful to her. Even after a hard-fought set, in the most intense heat, his sparse hair lay neatly in place, and his strong face remained dry, and his breathing regular. His white tennis shirt and shorts were always spruce and creased and dapper.

  But today, going to the net to retrieve the two balls-she had double-faulted on her first serve-and picking them up, she observed him through the mesh as he stood at the far base line, and she saw that he had changed. He’s old, she told herself with incredulity. His hair was out of place, in wet knots; his face was beet red with sweat; his chest heaved beneath his damp, wrinkled shirt; and his belly was distended in a potty, unathletic way that she had

  not noticed before. He’s an old man, she told herself again. But why shouldn’t he be? He’s my father, not my boy friend.

  She walked slowly back across the baking asphalt court, her thick white tennis shoes making squashing and sucking sounds on the surface, toward her base line. Calculating backward, Mary tried to fix on the period when these weekly Sunday games at The Briars’ Country Club had begun. Probably in her last year of junior high school, she decided, shortly after she had started taking lessons. Her father had always taken her along to the club, those Sunday mornings, and settled her on the terrace with a Coke, and gone below to play his doubles match, two out of three. One Sunday, Harry Ewing’s partner had telephoned that Tie was held up, and Mary had been invited to play alongside her father. It had been a thrilling morning-she had acquitted herself stoutly and was highly praised-and soon after, her father had abandoned his weekly doubles to concentrate on singles with Mary. Except for those periods when he was out of the city on business, or one of them was ill, the weekly Sunday game had been continued all of these years.

  Even after her marriage to Norman, when she had been so anxious for her father to know that she was not forsaking him, she had gone on with the Sunday match. At first, of course, Norman had been invited to join them, so that she and Norman alternated against her father. But Norman, able as he was at most sports, had neither the finesse nor the training for tennis. As a youngster, he had batted the ball about on various cracked public courts, and he still wielded the racket like a baseball bat. He was not a match for Harry Ewing, nor even for her, and though Mary encouraged him and complimented him, he eventually withdrew. Now it was his custom to sleep late Sunday mornings, while she enacted the traditional liturgy with her father. Most often, Norman was at breakfast when they returned home, and she was twice as attentive as usual in the afternoons.

  “Are you all right, Mary?” Harry Ewing called out.

  Mary realized that she had been standing at the base line for some seconds, staring at the two balls in her hand. “I’m fine!”

  “If you’re tired, we can call it quits.”

  “Well, maybe after this set, Dad. What’s the score?”

  “Five-six. Love-fifteen.”

  She had lost the first set, three-six, and now she decided to lose this one, too, and have it over, legitimately or not. Sometimes, in

  the last half year, she had felt that with extra exertion she could soundly drub him. Her game was sharp, and recently he had been covering the court more slowly. But somehow she had never been able to bring herself to run him around and humiliate him. Especially on a day like today-when he was old.

  “Okay,” she said. She tossed a ball aloft and went high on her toes and into it, whacking down hard with her racket. The ball streaked an inch above the net, and then bounced. But Harry Ewing had it on the rise, off his forehand, and slammed it cross-court. Mary twisted to her right, watching the ball nick an inch into the alley and out, and then she ran after it.

  “What was that?” he called. “Out?”

  She snapped the ball off the asphalt with her racket, and caught it. “Right on the line,” she said. “Love-thirty.” She double-faulted on her next service, and her father advised her to let up a little on the second ball. Then, with the set at match point, they rallied briskly, until she charged the net, and he passed her for the win.

  With relief, she congratulated her father and went into the subterranean women’s locker room, welcoming the cement chill, and washed her face and neck and held her wrists under the faucet. After combing her hair and freshening her make-up, Mary locked her racket in its press and climbed the stairs to the terrace.

  Harry Ewing, still red-faced and breathing heavily, was seated at a metal table, waiting. She sat dutifully beside him, observing by her watch that it was near eleven and wondering if Norman was awake yet.

  “Well, you gave me quite a run for my money, young lady,” Harry Ewing said. “I’ve worked up an appetite.”

  ‘When it’s hot like this, don’t you think doubles would be more sensible?”

  “Nonsense. When they put me out to pasture, I’ll take up doubles again.” He snapped his fingers at the colored waiter clearing the next table. “Franklin-“

  The colored waiter bobbed his head. “Yes, suh, be right there, Mistah Ewing.”

  “I have worked up an appetite,” Harry Ewing said to his daughter. “Are you going to eat anything?”

  “Mother’ll be angry about lunch. I’ll have lemonade.”

  The colored waiter came with his pad, and Harry Ewing ordered lemonade for Mary and a plate of thin hot cakes with maple sirup and iced tea for himself.

  As Mary watched the waiter leave, she saw Kathleen Ballard come up the stairs from the courts, followed by a tall, attractive man. They were carrying rackets, and Kathleen was wearing a short, pleated tennis skirt. Mary guessed that they had been playing on one of the rear courts, which were out of sight. Her escort said something, and Kathleen laughed.

  “Kathleen-” Mary called out.

  Kathleen Ballard stopped in her tracks, searched for a familiar face to go with the voice, and finally located Mary McManus. She lifted her hand in greeting, said something to her escort, and then they both approached.

  “Hello, Mary.”

  Harry Ewing pushed himself to his feet.

  “You know my father, Kathleen,” said Mary.

  “We’ve met. Hello, Mr. Ewing.” She stood aside to expose Paul Radford fully. “This is Mr. Radford. He’s visiting from the East. Mrs. Ewing-” She caught herself. “I’m sorry. Mrs. McManus, I should say, and Mr. Ewing.”

  The men shook hands. Kathleen insisted that Harry Ewing be seated, but he remained standing.

  “Where’s Norman?” Kathleen wanted to know.

  “He’s been working like ten dray horses,” said Mary quickly. “He’s so exhausted, we felt he should have one morning.”

  “Now there’s a perfect wife,” said Paul to Kathleen.

  Kathleen beamed at Mary. “I won’t disagree,” she said to Paul.

  After a few moments, they moved on to an empty table nearby, and Mary was alone with her father.

  “Who is he?” asked Harry Ewing.

  “I haven’t the faintest idea,” said Mary, “except he’s attractive.”

  “I didn’t think so,”

  “I don’t mean like a movie star. I mean like a frontier scout-the tall in the saddle type-except-” she glanced off-“he looks like he also reads by the bonfire.”

  Presently, the lemonade appeared, and then the hot cakes and iced tea. While her father ate, Mary drank the lemonade and surreptitiously spied on Kathleen and Mr. Radford. They were sitting close to each other, he packing his pipe and speaking and she listening attentively. There was an air of intimacy suggested that gave Mary a wrench of loneliness. She and Norman had not been together like that, not really, since their brief honeymoon. She missed Norman now, and didn’t give a damn about tennis, and wished that Kathleen had seen her with Norman.

  Harry Ewing had eaten as much of his hot cakes as he wanted, and now he shoved the plate aside and brought the iced tea before him. stirring it. “I suppose,” he said, “Norman told you about the trial.” �
��Yes. Friday night.” “What did he tell you?”

  “He said you had a poor case, and he did his best, but there wasn’t a chance, and so you lost.” “You believed him?”

  Mary was surprised. “Of course. Shouldn’t I?” “Well, I don’t want to, contradict your husband outright, or run him down. He’s a fine young man, a promising attorney, a little wet behind the ears yet, and rash, but he’ll develop. Right now, his problem is one of loyalty.” “What does that mean?”

  “He lost our case not because it was poor-any one of our other men would have managed it properly-but because he didn’t believe in it. He’s still got a black-and-white mind-that’s what I mean by professional immaturity-and he went into that court telling himself it was capital versus labor.” ‘Wasn’t it?” Mary asked aggressively.

  “Only to an obvious mind. No, it wasn’t. Because an employee brings suit doesn’t mean he’s automatically right because he’s an employee-the downtrodden-with a billion-dollar thug union behind him. Employers have their legal rights, too. Why does wealth automatically have to suggest piracy?”

  “Because the history books are filled with the Commodore Van-derbilts, and Goulds, and Fisks-and a couple of guys named Krapp and Farben-and that’s just the beginning.”

  “It seems to me there’s a few words there about the Bill Hay-woods, and McNamaras, and anarchists like Sacco and Vanzetti-” “Oh, Dad-“

  “But that’s not the point. My son-in-law thinks my money good enough to accept every week. Therefore, he must earn that money. But to go into court, pretending to represent me, my firm, and knuckle under to those labor bullies-” “Who says he knuckled under?” “I have my means of hearing what goes on. I’m not blind.”

  “You mean your spies are not blind.”

  “Mary, what’s got into you? A transcript of the case is available. Norman didn’t use all his ammunition.”

  “He said most of it was unsubstantiated character assassination.”

  “I’ll be the one who determines what’s substantiated and what isn’t. And that’s not all. His final summation was filled with concessions, vacillating-“

  “He was trying to be fair. He told me so. He’s no gallus-snapping redneck, no rabble-rouser.”

  Harry Ewing was silent a moment. He wanted Mary to simmer down. She was like her mother, all unreasoning, when she was emotional. “When you go into court on a thing like this, Mary,” he said, his intelligent voice at its softest, “you are going into an arena of combat, do or die and no quarter asked or given. It’s not a debate society or bull session of eggheads. It’s for keeps. If Norman has too many left-wing prejudices to undertake such a case, he should withdraw before it starts, or tell me so. I’ll confine him to paper work, where he’s more useful. But to go in, on my behalf, with his secret sympathies on the other side-that’s too much.” He paused. “I gave him the case only because you said he was restless and wanted to flex his muscles in court. Well, he’s had his chance. I’m appealing, and I’ve taken the case away from him. I think that’s best all around.”

  Mary felt a sickness in the pit of her stomach. She could not look at her father. “Do what you think is best,” she said at last. “Only try to be understanding and fair.”

  “When it comes to you, I always lean over backward, Mary-always will. As a matter of fact-well, I’ve told you I think he’s capable-I’ve often told you that, haven’t I?”

  “Yes, you have.”

  “I’m sincere. I want to do what’s good for both of you. I want to get the most out of the boy for all our sakes, make him live up to his potential, be proud of what he does. Yes, I’ve been giving Norman a good deal of thought. I think I’ve come up with something extremely interesting.”

  Mary looked up. Her father was smiling, and it softened him, and she felt a wave of relief and the old affection. “What is it, Dad? Is it something good for Norman?”

  “Something wonderful, for a boy his age. You’ll be pleased, too, I assure you. Give me a day or two. I’ll have it worked out by the end of the week.”

  “Oh, Dad, I hope so.” She reached across the table and sought her father’s hand, as she always had when she was a little girl. “Try to be tolerant of Norman. He’s really so sweet.”

  Harry Ewing squeezed his daughter’s hand. “I know he is, dear. Don’t you worry. I want you both to be happy.”

  Benita Selby’s journal. Monday, June 1: “… is Gerold Triplets and he’s an economist who works for a private company in San Francisco that has contracts with the Air Force. After I ate dinner with the others last night, I went out to the pool to cool off, and he was there again. We sat and talked until almost midnight. I didn’t tell him exactly what I did, because when men find out you work for Dr. Chapman, they treat you like a nurse. I said I was visiting relatives in Pacific Palisades. He’s here for three more days consulting with someone in Anaheim. He wanted to go to a concert tonight at the Philharmonic, but I haven’t said yes, though I will. Gerold said he will be in Chicago for several weeks in August and wants to see me. Fate works in curious ways. We shall see. I had two letters from Mom this morning and only had time to read them hastily, since I overslept. She’s slipped a disk, and Mrs. McKassen is helping her out. The Lord never made Job suffer more. Dr. Chapman is with Horace and Paul doing interviews today, because Cass had a relapse this morning. The virus, we think, and he’s in bed. I called him a half hour ago to see if he’s still alive, bat the desk said he drove down to the drugstore to get something to keep from throwing up… .”

  Cass Miller sat behind the wheel of the Dodge sedan, parked alongside the curb of the side street, and brooded and waited.

  He did not feel ill, really, except for the giddy and faint sensation when he tried to walk. The migraine usually came and went, throughout the day, although he did not suffer from it now. Perhaps he did have a touch of the flu, as he had told Chapman. More likely, it was fatigue. He could trace it back definitely to that Thursday-morning interview. When it had ended, he remembered, he had felt unhinged and irresponsible, and uncontrollably resentful, as he had that time in Ohio when the doctor called it a nervous breakdown, and he had been forced to take a month’s leave of absence on some more acceptable pretext.

  The street around, though merely two blocks from Wilshire Boulevard and the Beverly Hills shopping district, was incredibly empty and quiet. Far ahead, he could see the toy cars inching noiselessly forward, but no sound of their screeching and jamming and horns reached him. Momentarily, he was conscious of a stout mailman treading past, shuffling eternally through his envelopes. When the mailman was gone, he saw a tall, young, redheaded girl start out of the apartment beyond his door window. He twisted and watched her approach the sidewalk as she pulled on her white gloves. She glanced at him only briefly, then turned resolutely toward Wilshire. He continued to observe her as she meandered away, and then he deliberated on the fourteen months that had gone by.

  The cumulative effect of those thousand interviews-there must have been a thousand or more that he had listened to personally-gave Cass Miller his own private mental image of the American married woman: a female beetle, turned on her back, legs in the air, legs waving in the air, wriggling and squirming but still on her back-until impaled.

  In the streets of the cities at night, when he walked alone, and this he had done frequently and everywhere, Cass Miller had always watched closely the young women who promenaded ahead of him. He pictured them again: their full bottoms rotating provocatively beneath their tight skirts, their calves indecently encased in sheer nylon to thighs unseen, their high-heeled whorish pumps tilting them forward, steadily forward, to some vicious assignation. Sometimes they would halt to gaze into a window and thus give their profile to him, and he would have eyes only for the shameless protrusion of their unfettered busts. On such occasions, he would halt, too, and regard them with boiling hatred. They were harlots all of them, subtle and secret sluts. Not one of them was decent or trustworthy or faithful. They smelled of mu
sk and body heat and the sick odor of sex, and you had only to touch them, and they would quickly lie on their backs, female beetles, wriggling bitch insects, wriggling. He hated women, and he lusted for them, and the emotions were one.

  Absently rubbing the warm wheel of the Dodge, staring straight ahead, waiting for the sight of her, he recognized that the compulsion was not usual or widespread. Unconsciously, his mind gave it a vague rationale that was permissive. He was here because she was there, and she was misled and illused and wanted direction. He was here to meet her and give her his hand, and he would promise not to punish her too harshly. It was the least he owed his father, broken old bastard, racked by life and the beetle lust.

  He waited with ruthless patience.

  He had just consulted his wrist watch, and calculated the passage of nearly one hour and ten minutes, and allowed the unreasoning wrath to mount and possess him, when he looked up blindly-and there she was.

  She had emerged from the apartment four doors ahead, patting the bun of dark hair behind her head, and hastened to the curb. For a moment, she glanced up the sidewalk, in each direction, and then began to cross over to her station wagon, parked on the same side as his car and faced in the same direction. She walked heavily, her legs full against the bright rayon dress, and then she went behind the car and opened the door and slid inside. She sat in the front seat a moment, occupied with something that he could not see, and he decided that she was lighting a cigarette.

  He heard her engine sputter and catch, and then he watched, in a detached, dreamy way, as her vehicle floated forward. He waited until it had gone a block, slowing for the cross street, when he started the Dodge and unhurriedly followed her.