The Golden Calves Read online

  He stared. “Do we have them?”

  “Yes. He always sent copies to the museum files.”

  “And what will I find?”

  “Oh, that’s your affair. I think I’ve done quite enough already. More than enough, as a matter of fact. Now let’s get to work on your testimony for the examination before trial. For that’s all we have these days, you know. The best lawyers never get to trial.”

  Mark found himself, in the days before the hearing, in a strange, hollow state of mind. It was as if his life had become a kind of villa by the sea, fine and handsome but vacated and boarded up for the winter, in which he had been left behind by “others” to roam in solitude its unheated halls and corridors. Everything had been cleaned and put in order for the cold season, the rare books in old gold bindings neatly arow on their shelves, the Venetian lacquered chairs with their backs to the wall, but the objects seemed to be waiting for him to leave so that they could take up some strange life of their own. Yet he couldn’t leave. He could only pace the floors and store out the windows at a bleak garden that didn’t need him, didn’t want him. Until a spring that might never come.

  He wondered whether he had been too greedy about his life. He had chosen to enter the monastery of museum routine, but he seemed to have brought the world in with him, unless he had found it already there. He had had the temerity to worship success in the very temple of art, and Lucifer, in the fancy dress of Claverack, was laughing at him. Oh, screeching with laughter! He had everything he had asked for and didn’t need to go to hell—he was already there! For what was hell but nothingness, deadness, the empty villa on the seashore? What else, in the name of all that was holy, if anything was, should he have expected?

  The hollow days ended in the brown-paneled courtroom only faintly illuminated by the summer sunlight that peered in from high windows. Mark was conscious of nothing but the round features of the massive Harold Stein, whose shifting eyes seemed to bar forever the possibility of sympathy between men of Stein’s rectitude and the witness’s meanness. Mark knew that Chessie, sitting below him, was planning no objections. Her scheme, as she had told him, was to let the “great litigator” hang himself with his own oratory. Her client had been exhaustively coached. It was up to him now.

  “On your visits to the late Miss Speddon, you had frequent occasion, did you not, to talk to Miss Vogel?”

  “Certainly.”

  “I believe you were sometimes alone with her?”

  “I was.”

  “And that you even took her out for dinner?”

  “On one occasion.”

  “On what is called a date?”

  “What is called a date, Mr. Stein?”

  “We’ll pass that. What did you and Miss Vogel usually talk about?”

  “Oh, general things. Miss Speddon in particular, I guess.”

  “Not Miss Speddon’s will?”

  “No.”

  “Why not? That was the reason, was it not, for your visits to the decedent? To discuss the terms of a new will?”

  “It was.”

  “Would it not have been natural for you to enlist Miss Vogel’s sympathy in seeking a grant of wider discretion to the decedent’s executors?”

  “I had reason to believe that Miss Vogel was opposed to such a grant.”

  “I see. Then your relations with her were purely social?”

  “We were associates at the museum.”

  “Was it to discuss museum matters, then, that you took her out to dinner?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “Why then, if it was not to discuss either the museum or Miss Speddon’s will, or, seemingly, for a ‘date,’ did you make such a point of cultivating Miss Vogel?”

  Mark decided it was now time for that prepared show of indignation. “Because we were friends, Mr. Stein! Because Miss Vogel had a weary time looking after a sick old lady, and I wanted to supply her with some diversion and relaxation.”

  But Stein, too, was ready for the change of tone. “And was it to relax Miss Vogel that you kissed her?”

  “I never kissed her.”

  “You didn’t kiss her in the taxicab, coming home from the restaurant?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “And you never kissed her in your office at the museum?”

  “Never.”

  Mark was careful to make his tone plain, matter-of-fact, as if, anticipating this line of questioning, he was only doing his simple if tiresome duty of setting the record straight for a court that could not be expected to know how infamous the plaintiff’s allegations were. Chessie had suggested that he taint his tone with a faint repulsion at the mere idea of physical intimacy with the plaintiff’s witness, but he would not do that. He did not look at Anita, but he had seen her when he came into the chamber, sitting on a bench with Mrs. Pinchet, very stiff and still, her face a long blob of white with two deep black circles.

  “What would you say, Mr. Addams, if I were to tell you that a stenographer in your office had wit nessed one such kiss and that we were on the trail of a taxi driver who had seen another?”

  “I’d say you were bluffing, Mr. Stein.”

  When he left the stand a few minutes later and took his seat beside Chessie, he could tell, by the very rigidity of her posture, that she was pleased by his performance.

  Her turn came that afternoon when Anita was on the stand. Chessie seemed to tower over the hunched, nervous witness, her arms folded, a faintly sneering smile lurking about her lips.

  “Miss Vogel, you have professed a great concern for the fate of the Speddon collection. Would you say that has been your principal interest in the past three years?”

  “I think so.”

  “Could you please speak a little louder?”

  “Yes, it has.”

  “And of course you have felt that inadequate care and attention have been given this collection by the Museum of North America. But have you ever had occasion to consider what would happen to it if Miss Speddon’s will were overturned?”

  “Objection, Your Honor. Miss Vogel’s speculations about the effect of intestacy on the decedent’s possessions can hardly be relevant.”

  “I am attempting to impeach the witness’s earlier testimony. I contend it would have been different had she had knowledge of certain facts.”

  Counsel were now summoned to the dais, where a whispered conference took place. Chessie evidently won her point, for when she returned to the witness stand she repeated her last question.

  “I’m not a lawyer, Miss Norton. The estate would go to Mrs. Pinchet, would it not?”

  “It would go to the heirs at law. Of whom Mrs. Pinchet is only one. Is that better, do you think, than having it go to a museum of which Miss Speddon was a devoted trustee and supporter most of her life?”

  “Mrs. Pinchet has assured me that she would turn some of the collection over to the Colonial Museum.”

  “Assured you? And only some of it? And only some of her share? Is that better than having all of it go to the institution that her aunt surely favored in her lifetime? Is that what you intended to accomplish, Miss Vogel?”

  This was followed by another stormy whispering session at the dais. Mark noted the deepening air of bewilderment on Anita’s drawn countenance. Her eyes were fastened on Chessie’s back and gesticulating arms. She seemed hypnotized. And he realized suddenly that Chessie had based all her tactics on the use of one terrible weapon: her assurance that Anita would tell the truth and that he wouldn’t! She returned now to the witness.

  “Tell me this, Miss Vogel. Did Mrs. Pinchet promise you that she would use her influence as a donor to the Colonial Museum to get you a job there looking after the Speddon things?”

  “I think she did say something to that effect.”

  Mark almost jumped from his seat. How in God’s name had Chessie known that? Or was it a wild gamble?

  “I believe you were discharged from the Museum of North America?”

  “I was. But—”


  “Just answer the question, please. So, Miss Vogel, in return for a job supervising a mere handful of your patroness’s artifacts you were willing to manufacture testimony that would destroy her entire testamentary plan. Quite a nice little revenge, isn’t it, on the museum that fired you?”

  This time, in answer to Stein’s outraged objections, the judge reproved Chessie. But there was no repentance in her demeanor as she continued.

  “Miss Vogel, you have read the deposition of Mrs. Kay?”

  “I have.”

  “You will have noted, then, that she is of the firm opinion that the decedent was of sound mind to the very end. Is Mrs. Kay also, in your opinion, senile?”

  “Oh, no. Not at all.”

  Chessie glanced significantly at the jury before continuing with a new attack.

  “You have testified that Mr. Addams made love to you in an effort to worm his way into Miss Speddon’s confidence. Had any other man so presumed on your affections during the time that you lived at Thirty-sixth Street?”

  “At Miss Speddon’s? Certainly not.”

  “That sounds emphatic. How long did you live there?”

  “Three years.”

  “A good long time. So it was unusual for a male visitor to come to the house to pay you that kind of attention?”

  “Oh, yes. Most of Miss Speddon’s visitors were ladies.”

  “And very ladylike, I’m sure. It was an orderly household, was it not?”

  “Very orderly.”

  “And not seeing men there, being isolated in the company of your own sex, would you say that you might have lost touch, to some extent anyway, with the usual behavior of attractive young males in society?”

  “I don’t think so. I wasn’t always at Miss Speddon’s.”

  “But didn’t you usually go straight to work from there and straight home from work?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you ever have a date in all that time?”

  “I don’t suppose I did.”

  “Then might it not have been possible for you to mistake the normal gallantries of a young man in society for something more serious?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t? I suggest that your experience in romantic matters has been limited, Miss Vogel. Did you not once, before you came to Miss Speddon’s, break your engagement to a man because he was unkind to a cat?”

  “I wasn’t engaged to him!”

  “Excuse me. Did you decide not to become engaged to him because he was unkind to a cat?”

  “He left it out in the street to starve!”

  “Wasn’t that because he had no place to keep it?”

  “As if that was an excuse!”

  “That will be all. Thank you, Miss Vogel.”

  Mark cursed himself for having told Chessie the silly story. He even hoped the jury might contain a cat lover who would take the episode as something other than a token of Anita’s inexperience with men. But what a tigress Chessie was! To remember such details, to store them away in the law library of her mind for possible use in a court to stun some helpless mouse of a witness! When Anita passed in front of his bench, he could see that she was weeping. The judge recessed for the day, and Mark slipped out of the room without speaking to anyone.

  But that night Chessie called him at his apartment, victory ringing in her voice.

  “Oh, Mark, I’ve the most wonderful news! It seems Anita Vogel went bananas in Harold Stein’s office and they had to cart her off to a sanitarium. I’m sorry if I was rough with her at the deposition, but all’s fair in love and litigation.”

  “My God, poor Anita! Is she really in a bad way?”

  “Oh, it’s just a fit of nerves. They say she’ll be fine in a day or so,”

  “Really? You were rough on her, Chessie.”

  “Well, she started it all. She was the one who got Pinchet to sue. And you know what they say about ill winds. This one may blow us right into port.”

  “You mean win the case?”

  “I’ve already called Stein. I told him how concerned we were about Miss Vogel and that if the strain was too much for her and they wanted an honorable out, how about a settlement? How about their withdrawing their suit in return for the museum’s pledge to name the new wing the Evelyn Speddon Gallery of Modern America?”

  “You think they’ll buy that?”

  “Why not? Stein must know his case is shot. This gives his client the chance to claim a moral victory and issue a press release saying that all she really wanted was a proper recognition of what her aunt had done for the museum.”

  “And how will Claverack take it?”

  “Well, he didn’t like it. I’ll tell you that. I’m sure he was planning to get his own name on that wing. But he saw that it fitted the bill. He had to go along.”

  “But Anita! What we’ve put her through.”

  “What she’s put you through! From where I sit you two are even-steven.”

  He sighed. “Well, I guess there’s one thing we can all agree on. That you, my dear, are a great lawyer.”

  “Oh, that tone! I guess I know what you think of lawyers, great or otherwise. How about coming over for a victory drink?”

  He looked critically at the receiver and then shrugged. “Why not?”

  She greeted him at the door, as in the old days, in pajamas under a black Chinese robe embroidered with gold flowers. In one hand she was holding a glass of champagne, which she pressed into his.

  “To victory!”

  “Any more word about Anita?”

  She made a face. “I knew you’d ask, so I called the hospital. She’s going to be fine. Just a slight collapse. She probably did it on purpose. Witnesses like that often do.”

  He stood by the fireplace and pensively drank the champagne while she watched him from the divan. On the round table between them was a plate of caviar. Chessie was obviously planning more than a celebration. Well, again, why not? Didn’t she deserve it? Maybe poor Anita was only the egg that had to be broken for the making of Chessie’s fluffy omelette. And if Anita really was going to be all right…

  “You were hard on her.”

  “I was only doing my job. She shouldn’t start things she can’t finish. Don’t be soppy about her, Mark. She did her best to do you in.”

  “I guess she had some reason.”

  “Well, shut up on that score. I don’t want to hear any more about that.”

  “Oh, you lawyers! You do keep your fingers clean. Can I have some more champagne?”

  “Take the whole bottle! And there’s another on the ice. Unless you prefer whiskey. Oh, Mark, just think: the museum’s safe, and you’re safe, and I shall have my just reward, and everything’s for the best in the best of all possible worlds!”

  “Can this be the stern, realistic Miss Norton talking?”

  “Oh, Miss Norton has her human moments. Just because she doesn’t crumple up and burst into tears under cross-examination doesn’t mean she has no feelings. But damn it all, let’s not waste this wonderful evening talking about a drip like Vogel. Can’t you and I get together again? I’ve missed you frightfully. There, it’s out, and I’m glad of it. There hasn’t been anyone since you, either. What really broke us up? What but my lousy temper? Well, you see I admit it! Come back, lover, and I’ll be good, I promise.”

  He had never seen her so warm, so inviting. Perhaps she had been drinking before he arrived; otherwise she might not have been able to humble herself. And it began to seem to him, as he strolled across the room to replenish his glass, knowing he had plenty of time to answer her, that it might be fun to be once more in bed with this large, splendid creature and to know that her hard nipples and tossing bare limbs depended more on his organ than on her own forensic triumph. And didn’t he need it? Hadn’t there been enough humiliation, private and public?

  “I think you may have a point.”

  She jumped up. “Then what are you waiting for?”

  The image in h
is mind, as he took her in his arms in her bed, was of the naughty little boy taking a vigorous revenge on the lady teacher. And then the image of Anita’s shaking shoulders interfered, and he knew the bliss would fade away and with it his manhood, and there would be nothing, nothing at all. He tried desperately to lose himself in the generosity of Chessie’s tense embrace, to become a part of her better existence. But he knew it was no use. For all her frantic and prolonged efforts it was no use.

  The light by the bed flashed on. She was up and pacing the chamber, tying and tightening the belt on her long black robe.

  “Get dressed and go home!”

  “Chessie, it’s not my fault. After what happened today—”

  “I didn’t say it was your fault,” she interrupted fiercely. “I know when I’m not wanted. Oh, I don’t say you don’t want to want me. You feel obliged to me. You feel sorry for me, damn you. And why shouldn’t you? Big, brassy castrator that I am!” Here she actually heaved a sob. “Oh, my God, I’m getting as mushy as the Vogel woman. Get the hell out of here, will you? Get up and get dressed and get out!”

  He hurried to comply. As he buckled his belt and pushed his feet into his shoes, he tried once more to assuage her. “I’ll call you in the morning. You’ll feel better then.”

  “Don’t call me. You and I are through. I prefer abrupt, clean endings. I knew this wasn’t going to work. I just hadn’t faced it. Well, now I have. Go!”

  And he went. In the rainy street, walking home, he was surprised at his own resilience. If he had, in the past months, come to accept the fact that Chessie was right about virtually everything, maybe he could now accept the most humiliating fact of all: that she was right about him. But however humiliating, he at least had his life back—for whatever that was worth.

  He found a message on his answering service when he arrived home. It was from Carol Sweeters: “You and Miss Norton should be glad to learn that the doctors have saved Anita Vogel from the overdose she had taken before arriving at the hospital. Their timely action has also saved you both from my charge of moral manslaughter.”

  12

  CAROL went every evening, when he left his office, to see Anita in the hospital. She was calm again, but it was the calmness of detachment, perhaps of indifference. She sat immobile in her bed, her hands resting on the border of the neatly drawn spread, and gazed at him with wide eyes which seemed faintly to question his being there, but more on the ground of the loss of his time than of hers. There was a tepid friendliness in her manner that seemed to accept his status of the person most nearly interested in her fate. And she was surprisingly candid about what she had done.