The Magician (25 page)

“Well, it goes into the patient’s nostril, it’s taped, actually, to the face above the lip, and the tube goes down the gullet into the stomach, and serves to drain the digestive fluids that accumulate in the patient’s stomach while he is being fed intravenously.”

“He was that sick?”

Thomassy started to get up.

“Let me rephrase that. Why was the patient being fed intravenously?”

Thomassy was standing. “Your Honor, shouldn’t that question have been asked of a doctor?”

Brumbacher said, “The witness may be able to provide us with a competent answer. The jury can judge. Would you answer the question, please?”

“About why he was being fed that way?”

“Yes.”

“Because of the throat injury. It was hard for him to swallow food.”

Cantor, greatly relieved, said, “Your witness.”

Thomassy took his time getting over to Miss Murphy, collecting the attention of each member of the jury.

“Miss Murphy, did you see the tube being cut?”

“Well, I…”

“Please answer yes or no.”

“No.”

“Miss Murphy, to your knowledge, did anyone see the tube being cut? That is, did anyone report to you they saw the tube cut?”

“No. Just that it had been cut.”

“So that neither you nor any member of your staff, and to the best of your knowledge, no other person actually saw who cut the tube drain in Mr. Japhet?”

“That’s right.”

“Did you see the short man well enough to be able to identify him without any doubt whatsoever?”

“No.”

“Is there anything, anything at all, that you personally saw or heard that night in the hospital that has any bearing on whether or not the defendant was present in the hospital or attempted to harm Edward Japhet in any way whatsoever or not? Never mind, strike that, no more questions for this witness.”

Without so much as a glance at Miss Murphy, Thomassy stalked to his seat, leaving the nurse, mouth ajar, suspended in astonishment.

Cantor pitched his voice so that it would be heard by the judge and Thomassy. If the jury or the spectators heard, he thought, that couldn’t be helped. “Your Honor,” he said quietly, “I’m sure Mr. Thomassy forgot himself, and that last question was unintentional.…” He glanced at Thomassy as if to say it was damn well intentional. “Nevertheless, would it be appropriate for the court to consider instructing the jury on comments stricken from the record?”

Judge Brumbacher beckoned for Thomassy and Cantor to approach the bench.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “I am not about to be sucked into delivering a sermon, because what I would say about the conduct of adversary proceedings just might be overheard and misinterpreted as a libel of the legal profession. I am going to instruct the jury.”

Judge Brumbacher turned to the ten men and two women in the jury box. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said in a quiet voice, and they all immediately inched forward in their seats and cupped their attention to catch his soft-spoken words. “When a question or an answer is stricken from the record, either by the person speaking, as just happened, or by me, it is as if the question were never asked. Yet you heard it. Therefore, the last question asked by counsel for the defendant should be erased from your minds as well, and not taken into consideration. Thus the record of the last witness, Miss Murphy, will end with the penultimate question, the next-to-last question, and her answer, and that is all. Would the court reporter please read that question and answer?”

The court reporter held up the punched tape coming out of her machine and in a flat voice read, “Question: Did you see the short man well enough to be able to identify him without any doubt whatsoever? Answer: No.”

As the judge recessed the trial until the following morning and instructed the jury in the ground rules for their overnight behavior, Thomassy had to forcibly restrain himself from chuckling at how effective that second reading of the crucial question and answer turned out, just as he had planned.

Chapter 26

That evening, before dinner in the Japhet home, Mr. Japhet mixed vodka martinis in a pitcher, poured some over ice for himself, and a smaller quantity for his wife, then asked Ed if he would like to sample some.

“I probably won’t like the taste,” Ed said.

“How will you know until you try?”

“Never mind, Dad. Some other time.”

The three of them sat quite far apart from each other, points of a triangle.

“I wish we knew what went on in court today,” said Mr. Japhet. “Ed, you do know why we can’t be there?”

“No,” said Ed.

“I guess the assumption is that we’ll both be witnesses further along, and a witness isn’t supposed to hear what the other witnesses say.”

“Oh?” said Ed.

“According to Mr. Cantor, I’m on call tomorrow. You will come, won’t you, Josephine? And, Ed, why don’t you drive there with us? I’m sure they’ve got some place you can stay until you’re called.”

“I’d just as soon stay here. I’ve got all that catchup reading to do for school.”

“I’m sure your teachers will make allowances for what happened.”

“They’ll make allowances because you’re my father.”

Mr. Japhet recognized the source of the hostility, but that didn’t ease the sting.

“How will you get to White Plains if they call? There might not be time enough for me to come and get you.”

“I’ll think of something. I can always call a cab.”

“What’s the matter, Ed. You seem depressed.”

Ed looked at his father unblinkingly.

“I mean, this isn’t a pleasant matter, but I’ve seldom seen you quite so down.”

Mr. Japhet put his martini on the coaster.

“Is there something special?”

“Not really.”

Mrs. Japhet put her drink down also and came over to her son’s chair. “Ed,” she said, touching his cheek, “you seem so far away.”

“I’m right here, Mom.”

She retreated to her chair, brushed away.

After a silence Mr. Japhet said, “We are due to eat soon, aren’t we, Josephine?”

“No rush, Dad.”

“I was thinking,” said Mr. Japhet, “that Ed and I might go to Vermont for a few days when this is over. Skiing is what I had in mind.”

“Neither of us has ever skied, Dad.”

“It’s time we learned,” Mr. Japhet said, forcing enthusiasm into his voice. “We could go on a Friday and come back Sunday night so we wouldn’t have to miss any more school, right?”

“Let it alone, Dad.”

Let what alone?
Mr. Japhet had a sudden vision of Ed in his chair moving back rapidly as if seen through the wrong end of a telescope, becoming smaller and smaller in the distance, until he was only a colored dot, and then vanishing completely over the horizon, leaving Josephine and himself in this living room alone, without the one child they had managed to produce, who didn’t need them anymore.

“Dad?”

“Yes, Ed?”

“Do I have to be a witness?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do I have to testify?”

“They can subpoena you.”

“They can’t force me to say anything.”

“That would be contempt of court.”

“I guess.”

“Contempt is a fairly serious offense.”

“I thought that other bit in court was pretty offensive, the whole thing.”

“This is nothing to joke about.”

“I’m not joking.”

“All you’ve got to do is answer the questions you’re asked truthfully.”

“I don’t
have
to do anything.”

“I know you wish all this hadn’t happened. So do I. But, Ed, now that the processes of justice are in train…”

Ed laughed. “I’m sorry, Dad, I didn’t mean to laugh, but remember when that police car made an illegal turn in front of us on North Highland, and if I hadn’t had my seat belt on I would have gone into the windshield, and you reported it to the chief—we found out about the processes of justice, didn’t we?”

“Well, if I had been willing to pursue it to the end…”

“You were willing. They just made it so goddamn difficult it became too much trouble to do anything, right?”

Mr. Japhet said nothing.

“Remember the kid with the knife you chased, and they told you even if he tried to mug you, if he fell on his knife while you were chasing him, it would have been your fault?”

“What are you getting at?”

“You were quoting the processes of justice at me.”

“Ed, all I hope is that somewhere along the line I have taught you how to make the most of your life, that’s all.”

“That’s a joke.”

That’s not a joke.
“In what way have I embittered you, Ed?”

“Nothing.”

“What do you mean, ‘nothing’?”

“Let’s drop it.”

It was Mrs. Japhet leaning forward in her chair now, afraid to go over to Ed, in dread of being rebuffed again. “Dinner should be ready now.”

“Ed, I don’t care if you testify or not. It’s your decision.”

“You are testifying, aren’t you?”

“Of course.”

“On your hind legs?”

Slapping his face would accomplish nothing. Mr. Japhet, stung, went to wash his hands. He looked at himself in the bathroom mirror, especially at the gray of death in his hair.

During the silence of dinner, with only the clink of silver on dishes and “Please pass…” and “Thank you,” Ed thought about the nightmare last night in which he and Urek were the only living persons left in the world.

*

Thomassy looked up Joe Cargill’s number and dialed. He tried to remember what Cargill looked like. They had met six or seven years ago in Washington. Cargill called himself an investigator, but he talked like a lawyer. Thomassy suspected he had been one once. Disbarred? A secretary answered.

“This is George Thomassy calling from New York.”

“One moment, please.”

When the gravelly voice got on, the image of the man came with it, short, plump, watch chain across the vest.

“Thomassy, how’re you doing?”

“You remember me?”

“Sure do.”

“There’s a schoolteacher up here by the name of Terence Japhet, J-A-P-H-E-T, age forty-seven, teaches biology. I’m calling on the off chance he might have applied for a government job or a grant somewhere along the line.”

“Xerox is all I can get.”

“Xerox is fine. What would it cost?”

“Nothing classified here, say, one-twenty-five.”

Thomassy whistled. He was prepared to whistle, whatever the figure.

“Well,” said Cargill, “we can round it off at a hundred. How soon?”

“Soonest. Need anything more?”

“Not with an oddball name like Terence Japhet. I’ll call collect to say yes or no. It’ll come first-class special delivery, plain envelope. No attribution.”

“No attribution. What’s the charge if we draw a blank?”

“No charge.” He asked for Thomassy’s phone and address.

Thomassy was startled to get the collect call in less than an hour. “You’re on,” said Cargill. “It’ll mail tomorrow if we get your check by then.”

Thomassy laughed. “No credit?”

“Cash and carry. Make the check out to B and G Delicatessen, if you don’t mind.”

“Wonder what Internal Revenue will think I did in court with a hundred dollars worth of ham.”

“It’s a Jewish delicatessen. No ham. Just don’t get audited.”

“Thanks.”

“Anytime. I really should have stuck to one-twenty-five.”

“What agency?”

“State Department. Turned down, too.”

“Beautiful.”

“Any time.”

*

Bob Ferlinger said to Cantor, “If we could prove Thomassy got to Ginsler…”

Cantor tried to be patient with Ferlinger, who was three years younger. “Look, suppose you’re a doctor and a patient comes to you because he’s got a cough and his chest hurts and he’s running a fever and he’s been to his regular doctor who’s told him to take aspirin and nothing’s happened so he comes to you and you say, ‘Did you have an X-ray?’ and he says, ‘No,’ and you get him X-rayed and it turns out he has pneumonia, you don’t go urging him to file a malpractice suit against the first doctor. Cranks do that. If Thomassy got to Ginsler, he got to Ginsler. We just work around that. How the hell would you prove it?”

“We subpoena her, we get her on the stand and ask her if Thomassy offered her anything or put the squeeze on her not to testify.”

“She’d lie.”

“Under oath?”

“If Thomassy got to her, he didn’t pay her, he’s got something on her. She wouldn’t even have to lie. She could plead the fifth.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Bob, Thomassy isn’t on trial. Let’s get a conviction on the Urek kid. You understand, don’t you?”

Ferlinger didn’t, but said he did.