Jack of Spades

by Oates, Joyce Carol

  “Who? What?”

  “—a mystery writer who calls himself ‘Jack of Diamonds’—or maybe it’s ‘Jack of Hearts’—some sort of hard-boiled crime writer, definitely a misogynist, and a brute, like Mickey Spillane . . .”

  As if Irina had ever read a novel by Mickey Spillane!

  In my collection of first edition American mystery fiction there were a number of Spillane titles from the 1950s, purchased in secondhand bookstores; but no one in my family had touched these since we’d moved into Mill House and reshelved the books, I was sure.

  “Julia says there’s a scene in this ‘Jack of Hearts’ novel she just read that replicates almost exactly the time when she fell through that rotted pedestrian bridge in Battlefield Park, and might have been killed—except in the novel, the child was killed.”

  This was a melancholy memory! I would rather not have been reminded.

  Julia had been four years old. A lively, inquisitive little girl. We were living in Highland Park at this time, adjacent to New Brunswick; one day I took Julia to Battlefield Park a few miles away, and there (to my shame) I’d become distracted by taking notes, working on a scene in one of my novels, and Julia wandered off beside a creek following some quacking geese and without my noticing she climbed up onto a pedestrian bridge that was no longer in use; such a little girl, she had no trouble crawling through the blockade, laughing at how clever she was to slip away from Daddy though Daddy had told her not to wander off—Daddy had certainly warned her not to wander off. And suddenly then Julia’s little foot plunged through the rotted wood of the bridge. She screamed as part of the bridge collapsed, and she fell about twelve feet into the creek bed, her fall miraculously interrupted by underbrush so that she was unhurt except for scratches, bruises, and the trauma of the fall.

  “Julia says there’s a scene in this novel that is almost exactly like her accident, it’s even set in a place called ‘Battle Park’—not in New Jersey but upstate New York.”

  “A coincidence . . .”

  My voice was faint, quavering.

  Battle Park! How stupidly renamed, when the original had been Battlefield Park.

  “I told Julia, of course it’s just a coincidence. But it is strange and upsetting, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose it would be, if Julia takes it so personally. Is the little girl in the novel anything like her?”

  A strange question! Fortunately, Irina didn’t seem to notice.

  “Julia said that, in the novel, the little girl dies—her skull is broken in the fall. The father who has taken her into the park is an evil man who is in fact the little girl’s stepfather, not her father. He resents his wife’s children and plots to kill them, through ‘accidents.’”

  Vaguely I recalled the plot of A Kiss Before Killing. It was characteristic of the pseudonymous novels that, rapidly written as they were, in a kind of white-heat of inspiration in the early hours of the morning, I could not remember them in much detail even by the time they were published, let alone a few years later.

  “Julia said that the plot of the novel was very clever—but repulsive. The evil stepfather is never suspected of arranging any of the ‘accidents’—he is always stricken with guilt, it seems genuinely, and feels remorse; until another ‘accident’ happens to another child. Julia said she couldn’t continue reading the novel any further, to see how it ended.”

  “Well, good! Just throw ‘Jack of Spades’ out.”

  “‘Jack of Spades’? Is that the name of the—writer?”

  Irina blinked at me as if a bright blinding light were shining in her face. Though I love my dear wife very much there are moments when Irina’s very sweetness—the simplicity of her sweetness—is deeply annoying.

  “Yes, darling. You’ve been talking about ‘Jack of Spades’ for the past ten minutes—how Julia has been upset by a novel of his.”

  “Yes. Julia is upset. And I am upset, to think that a private, very personal incident in our lives has been exploited by a stranger . . . If that is what happened.”

  “Well, darling—that’s a big ‘if’! I doubt we could sue ‘Jack of Spades’ for invasion of privacy on such slender evidence.”

  “No one wants to sue anyone. But . . .”

  I was feeling edgy, impatient. I wanted to protest to Irina that I was in no way responsible for this latest crisis of Julia’s.

  Since they became teenagers, and now that they are adults, there are too often crises of some kind in our children’s lives. A call home, a conversation with Irina, the latest debacle, the latest disappointment or reversal of fortune or betrayal, a need for emotional support, a need for money—all too familiar.

  Though I am the quintessential American father—dear old Dad with open arms, dimpled smile, checkbook.

  Dimply-smiling Dad. Asshole.

  Hadn’t I warned Julia not to read Jack of Spades? Hadn’t I hidden the damned books away? Obviously, Julia had disobeyed me—as she, and her older brothers, had so often disobeyed their clueless Daddy when they’d lived in this house.

  I wanted to protest to Irina that I was not a friend of Jack of Spades and even if I were, I’d never have spoken to him about our little daughter’s near-fatal accident in Catamount Park. And in any case Julia hadn’t died—had she?

  How strange I was feeling! Perspiration on my face, beneath my arms, inside my clothes. Between my fingers a glass of wine—tart white wine, from a local New Jersey winery whose owner is a “great admirer” of Andrew J. Rush—which I didn’t remember pouring.

  Or maybe, Irina had brought me the glass of wine. To placate me, to make me less anxious.

  I was remembering now: not Catamount Park, but Battlefield Park.

  And Julia hadn’t died. Had not.

  Irina was telling me that Julia would be joining us for dinner that evening, but was really coming over to speak with me about A Kiss Before Killing. Irina didn’t plan to be part of the conversation—“It’s between you and her. You know how emotional Julia can be, and how she depends upon your advice. I hope you’ll be patient with her, Andrew.”

  This too was annoying. Subtly insulting for my wife to suggest that I am less patient with the children than she is.

  “Daddy, it can’t be just a coincidence! I don’t believe that.”

  Julia looked at me with an expression of childish hurt and exasperation. As if somehow, but how would Julia know how, Daddy was to blame.

  It seemed that, though Julia had forgotten to take the Jack of Spades novel with her last week, she’d remembered the unusual pseudonym and picked up A Kiss Before Killing on her own.

  Plaintively she was saying: “In the novel, the little girl dies when she falls and cracks her skull on the rocks in the creek bed. The stepfather is sorry—sort of—though he’d been imagining that she might fall. Then, later, there’s another ‘accident’ involving her brother—and her brother dies. I stopped reading at that point.”

  Smiling, I tried to console my daughter. Since childhood Julia had always been unduly serious.

  “It’s just fiction, Julia. By a ‘fictitious’ author.”

  “What do you mean, ‘fictitious’?”

  “I mean that ‘Jack of Spades’ is a pseudonym, as you know.”

  “You said you didn’t know him. The author.”

  “I don’t know him. It’s possible that ‘Jack of Spades’ is a woman, in fact.”

  Julia laughed. “Oh no, Daddy. ‘Jack of Spades’ is male—­sick-macho. No doubt about that.”

  Sick-macho. I felt a stirring of guilt, but also pride that I could disguise myself so thoroughly. My own family could not recognize me!

  I assured Julia that she was exaggerating the coincidence. Best to toss the offensive novel away, and forget it.

  “Could it really be a coincidence, Daddy? That’s all?”

  “That’s all.”

&
nbsp; “So strange! I hate it.”

  “Well. I do, too.”

  “This ‘Jack of Spades’ is no one you know—you’re sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have any idea who he is?”

  “It’s said that he’s a ‘retired professional’ who lives in the New York City area. He’s a relatively new and very minor noir writer with a small following. Not worth your concern, Julia.”

  “He’s a vicious person, you can tell.”

  “Really? I’ve never been able to get through one of his novels, which his publishers send to me for blurbs. They’re so crude, violent—evil isn’t sufficiently punished. Like action films for teenaged boys.”

  “Oh no, I don’t think so, Daddy. Not teenaged boys. These are novels to make you think—but not nice thoughts.”

  Julia spoke shrewdly. This was an astonishing revelation to come from her, which I was reluctant to believe.

  Julia persisted: “What I think, Daddy, is that this writer is someone who knows you, and our family. He based the ‘accident’ in A Kiss Before Killing on what happened to me. I just feel so weird.”

  “Julia, many people are certain that they’re in works of fiction. It’s like seeing a reflection in a mirror, believing it’s you when it isn’t.”

  My smile felt twisted as a corkscrew, burrowing into my face.

  “Daddy, come on! If you stood in front of a mirror and saw a reflection, it would be you.”

  Julia laughed. But why was this funny?

  I had only the vaguest memory of A Kiss Before Killing. I don’t even know how it ends. I wanted to protest to Julia—But in actual life, I am your loving father. And you did not die, after all.

  8 “I Will Have Justice”

  And then, on Monday morning I could not stay away from the hearing after all.

  I know, I had promised Elliot Grossman. He’d advised me expressly, more than once, to stay away. But I could not.

  I was too anxious to remain at home. The fearful thought came to me that Grossman had misinterpreted the summons and Andwer J. Rash would be expected to be in the courtroom after all, under penalty of arrest for contempt of court.

  And partly, I was obsessively curious about C. W. Haider. No one had ever issued a formal complaint against me for anything, let alone “theft” and “plagiarism.” I had been awake much of the night miserably anticipating the hearing. I had to see the enemy.

  Hecate County Municipal Court is a handsome old limestone building retaining most of its original eighteenth-century facade though totally renovated inside. Almost, the courthouse resembles an old church, set amid a grassy square you might expect to be a churchyard. The interior suggests a tastefully decorated private club or historic inn with mahogany-paneled walls, white-plaster ceilings, dark tile floors, recessed lighting. Unlike the abrasive and amplified atmosphere of a large urban courthouse, the atmosphere here is subdued, courteous.

  Since court hearings and cases are open to the public I was not required to present ID at security. The line moved forward affably and without haste and it was a great relief, no one recognized me.

  The courtroom in which the hearing was held was a small amphitheater the size of a moot court holding only six rows of seats which (as I rapidly calculated) could contain a maximum of seventy-two persons; by the time Judge Carson entered the courtroom, and proceedings began, this space was scarcely one-quarter filled. In the first two or three rows individuals summoned to the court and their legal counsel were seated; as hearings were adjudicated individuals left the courtroom, and others entered. Though the atmosphere was formal there was a continuous coming-and-going; those of us who’d taken spectator-seats in the last row had a clear view of the entire room.

  (Trying not to appear self-conscious, or suspicious, I made it a point of not glancing around at others in my row and partially shielding my face. Indeed, like some characters created by Jack of Spades who never went out in public except in some sort of disguise, however minimal, I was wearing prescription sunglasses with heavy black frames that subtly distorted my features as well as a beige seersucker sport coat plucked from the back of my closet, which I had not worn for probably twenty years. For I was in dread of the local media “covering” this pathetic hearing, and Andrew J. Rush exposed as a thief and a plagiarist, or worse.)

  Haider v. Rush was the third case on the docket. While the first two cases were being adjudicated I had time to figure out who Elliot Grossman was—a “New York”–looking (i.e., Jewish) lawyer who might’ve recognized me from author photographs if he’d glanced around the room, which he did not. I had time to contemplate the distinctive-looking woman who was seated conspicuously by herself in the front row, directly below the judge’s bench.

  No doubt, this was “C. W. Haider”—the complainant. It was uncanny how, at a first glance, she resembled a white-haired Ayn Rand, with that writer’s mannish features and jutting jaw and an air both aristocratic and aggrieved. She appeared to be in her mid- or late sixties with wild white crimped hair barely tamped down by a maroon beret, and expensive-looking though ill-fitting clothing of a bygone era: shoulders padded to give her frame a muscular bulk, a gray pin-striped pants suit with double lapels and large bone buttons, leather shoes with stubby toes. She had taken possession of more than one-third of the first row, having spread out to discourage others.

  In profile, C. W. Haider resembled a predator bird. If she’d cast her gaze about the courtroom I would have shrunk away guiltily.

  As the first of the cases was taken up, C. W. Haider made no attempt to disguise her impatience. Conspicuously she sighed and muttered to herself, shifting in her seat, rummaging amid her things—an ungainly large reptile-skin handbag, an even larger tote bag comprised of panels of a shimmering metallic material, a stack of manila folders and a single four-foot cardboard file. Her restlessness verged upon rudeness and drew sharp frowns of annoyance from Judge Carson; it was clear that the bailiff and other courtroom staff knew the wild-white-haired Ms. Haider though in her haughtiness she didn’t condescend to know them.

  Grossman had told me, over the phone, that so far as he could determine, Ms. Haider had no attorney—“Probably, she hadn’t been able to hire anyone for such a ridiculous case”—and so would be acting as her own attorney which would be sure to further exasperate Judge Carson.

  (Though I hadn’t thought initially that I knew Owen Carson, a longtime judge in Hecate County, in fact the two of us were tangentially acquainted—our wives had both served on the same Harbourton Public Library fund-raiser gala committee and were, to a degree, friends; certainly I had shaken Owen Carson’s hand more than once, and seemed to recall a gratifying remark of Irina’s, or Mrs. Carson’s—Owen is an admirer of your work. He loves mystery fiction though he forgets it all almost as soon as he finishes reading it!)

  By the time Haider v. Rush was at last called, at 10:58 A.M., Ms. Haider was in a state of pent-up frustration and ire. Excitedly she rose to her feet—(she was a surprisingly short, squat-bodied and compact woman whom padded shoulders and the dull gray pants suit did not flatter)—and identified herself to the judge as the plaintiff—“The plain-tiff”—as one who’d been “stolen from for years”—“plagia-rized”—in a petulant, nasal, childish voice immediately recognizable to me as the voice on the telephone.

  It was evident that Judge Carson was acquainted with the plaintiff. When he inquired of her, carefully, courteously, if she did not have an attorney to represent her, Ms. Haider responded in a vehement outburst, “Sir, I do not have an attorney because I do not want or need an attorney and because no one can speak for me. I have justice on my side this time as last time. You will see.”

  Through the courtroom, a ripple of surprise, amusement. The staid proceedings were livened as if someone had switched a TV volume on high. Coolly and courteously Judge Carson reprimanded the white-haired woman for calling him sir and
not Your Honor; and the white-haired woman said snappishly, “‘Honor’ is something that must be earned, sir. We will see if your court deserves it.”

  You could see at once—(I could see at once)—that Ms. Haider’s case was a lost cause, as Ms. Haider herself was a lost cause: a crank whose right to file a legal complaint against a fellow citizen was being humored pro forma in the courtroom but would be dismissed by the grim-faced judge as quickly as possible.

  I had caught the remark—This time as last time. Haider had been a plaintiff in this courtroom before.

  At once, I was feeling relieved. C. W. Haider was a madwoman, as I’d thought. She could not prevail over me.

  Even Elliot Grossman, the big-city lawyer presenting the world-famous publishing house, had difficulty with Haider, who interrupted him before he could complete a sentence; several times Judge Carson resorted to using his gavel with the frustration of a TV judge trying to restore order in a comically rogue courtroom. Spectators who’d been semi-dozing through previous hearings were awake now and greatly entertained.

  Indignant Ms. Haider seemed not to possess what might be called a normal or conventional sense of public behavior. The woman hadn’t a clue, or disdained such, for how grating her voice was, how annoying and exasperating her superior manner; how she was sabotaging her case by her failure to conform to courtroom procedure. Even as exasperated Judge Carson was ruling her out of order she continued to speak loudly as if making herself heard was all that mattered—as if she were appealing to a justice higher than the justice of Hecate County Municipal Court. “Sir—I mean, ‘Your Honor’—I have come here as a citizen to seek damages and an injunction against further theft, plagiarism, and invasion of privacy by that scoundrel ‘Andrew J. Rush’ who doesn’t have the courage to confront me today but chooses to hide behind a lawyer. I will prove my case against ‘Andrew J. Rush’ and I will have justice.”

  It was to Judge Carson’s credit that he allowed Haider to present the rudiments of a case instead of dismissing at once as another, less gentlemanly judge might have done. With the indulgence of a slightly younger relative to an elder—(Carson was in his late fifties, perhaps: with a shiny-bald head, mild myopic eyes)—he allowed the incensed plaintiff to speak at length, and to display a battery of “evidence” she’d brought with her—yellowed, typewritten manuscripts; a dozen ledger-sized journals; several copies of books of mine, with passages annotated in red. (It was a shock, before Haider identified the books, to see the dust jacket covers at a distance, and to recognize them; to realize that these were indeed my books—as if a portion of my private life were being exposed in the courtroom by someone bent upon destroying me.) The typed manuscripts were identified by Haider as “not-yet-published” stories and chapters from novels of works-in-progress by C. W. Haider; the journals were hers, dating back to 1965, when the plaintiff was eighteen years old; the hardcover books were indeed by Andrew J. Rush, containing heavily annotated passages that, Haider was claiming, had been “stolen” from her.