Sol Stein - Other people

"I bet you'd have to go back to baby days to find a picture of Francine without anything on."

Oh how I would have loved to tell this Brady person about my treasured photograph and then hang up. "We don't take baby pictures in our family," I said.

"Mr. Widmer, this picture of your baby was taken this week."

I must keep him at a distance. "To what end?" I asked.

"You mean why did she take her clothes off?"

"No. I meant why did she have the picture taken."

"Oh," said Mr. Brady. "I don't think she wanted this picture taken. It was through a window. At some risk to the photographer. It's an expensive picture, Mr. Widmer, and I think you should see it."

I thought it best to ignore this kind of extortion ploy.

"I'm really not interested in seeing pictures of my daughter nude," I said. "Goodbye, Mr. Brady."

Before I could hang up, he said, "One moment, Mr. Widmer. There is one element in this photograph that may make it of special interest to you."

My "yes?" was hesitant.

"It was taken in a man's apartment."

"My daughter is twenty-seven years of age, Mr. Brady, and is free to do as she chooses. Goodbye, Mr. Brady."

"Don't hang up! This is George Thomassy's house the picture was taken in."

I was silent for a moment. I could hear him breathing on the line. Then I said, "Is he in the picture, too?"

"You bet."

It was as if someone had announced that I was in the picture of Francine that I had secreted away. George Thomassy was closer to my age than to hers.

"Mr. Brady, is the object of your call to sell that photograph?"

"Oh no, no. I want to give it to you. After we discuss one or two things."

"Do I get the negative also?"

"There is no negative, Mr. Widmer. It's a Polaroid. Avoids questions from whoever's doing the developing. Can you come up to my office at four this afternoon?"

He gave me his address. It was out of the way.

"I'd feel safer in my office, if you don't mind, Mr. Brady."

"Oh Mr. Widmer, I'm a lawyer."

"Yes, well, could you make it here at four?"

"Of course," said Brady. "Anything to oblige a colleague."

He knew I would be offended by a word suggesting that he and I had anything in common. Time passed as slowly as an inchworm till four o'clock.

Mr. Brady turned out to be a very short man. On my couch, he had to sit far forward so that his feet could touch the floor. In person, he seemed far less menacing than on the phone.

He held up the snapshot by the top corners, close enough for me to see that Thomassy was fully dressed. I thought Francine looked as graceful as an odalisque. The photo was anything but pornographic. I guess I had expected to see them copulating.

Brady put the snapshot in his pocket. "I want you to have that," he said, "as soon as we agree on a course of action concerning the case."

"What case?" I wasn't going to help.

"The Grand Jury has handed down an indictment charging that my client, Harry Koslak, forced his attentions on your daughter. I have a good deal of information that it may well have been otherwise. Hold on, Mr. Widmer, maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. The point is that Koslak is married, has two kids, and if he goes to jail because of your daughter's complaint, you're not going to feed those kids, and I'm not going to feed those kids. I don't want to see an injustice done here to either party. You know how rough a rape trial can get. And believe me, for the sake of those kids, this one's going to be plenty rough. I don't think the judge will be able to bar the press. Through a friend I've already arranged for coverage from the Daily News . Broadcast media won't be hard to get for a sensational trial involving the daughter of a prominent attorney."

"What do you want, Mr. Brady?"

"I wish you'd give me a ring by the close of business tomorrow and tell me that the charges have been dropped. Cunham'd be relieved not to prosecute. We'd all feel better, wouldn't we? I'd give you the picture now. I trust you. But just in case you can't persuade your daughter, I'll need it along with the others for the trial. I'm sure you understand."

I must explain something about my temperament lest you think that my hesitation about the next step was a personal failing; it was a failing of my heritage. I made no attempt to avoid active service during the war, and though I spent a good deal of it behind a desk, I had no fear of seeing action. In boarding school I was in brawls repeatedly. When Priscilla's cat was the merest kitten it once got itself out onto the overhang of the roof from which it could not retreat, nor did it yet dare spring. I don't know whether it was my neck or my limbs I was risking, but I did crawl out there without anything solid to hang on to, to rescue the damned cat. You can see I am not a coward about ordinary hazards to life and limb. It is the embarrassments that I usually seek to avoid, the phone call to someone who may hang up on me, the near stranger to whom I should volunteer an apology, above all, the confrontation on the kind of subject matter I would choose to be sheltered from. In some respects life has prepared Priscilla better than it has me for such encounters; perhaps it is the leavening power of Gristede's that has accustomed her to the occasional necessity of overriding her heritage. Yet I cannot ask her to speak to Francine in my stead while I hide in the closet. And suppose it is not only Francine but Thomassy as well who has to be confronted?

It took forever tracking her down at her office. With staff available from all of the bloody United Nations, I had to connect with an American black who pronounced the name "Wimmer" and kept asking me to call back when I explained as tactfully as possible that I was Miss Widmer's father and that I had to reach her now. Finally, her familiar voice, a bit breathless, was on the phone.

I should have rehearsed what I was going to say because my head was a sudden jumble of questions which I reduced to a simple appeal to see her at once.

"Oh I can't, Dad, I really can't," she said. "I've got hours to go before I can get out of here tonight."

On my desk I have one of those baseball-sized glass balls with a country scene in it. If you shake the ball, as I did now with one hand, you have a snowstorm in the ball, hundreds of minute white flecks whirling about, falling on the house and barn and miniature farm animals. I like to watch the artificial snow settling when I think.

"Dad, I really can't hang on long now."

"That photo that was taken of you recently…"

A second's delay, then "Yes?"

"It was just offered to me."

"Blackmailer?"

"The lawyer who's representing Koslak. Will I see you?"

"Can I pick you up right after work?"

"Of course."

"If George can come down, shall he join us?"

"George?"

"Thomassy."

"Shouldn't we have our chat first?"

"I don't have any secrets."

"We have confidences, Francine. But do as you wish."

She would always do as she wished in any event. I was curious to see if she would bring Thomassy or not.

I'm sure everyone gets a queasy feeling when you're about to meet with someone for the first time after they and you know you've been fucking a relative of theirs. I could have done without that trip to Widmer's office, but better office than home.

I got there after Francine arrived. The secretary showed me in. Widmer was behind his desk. Francine was slouched on the couch across the room. I don't know what the hell was said before I got there, but the twenty feet between was jumping with family electricity.

"Hi, Ned," I said.

He reached across the desk to shake hands. Christ, I bet he usually comes around the side of the desk to greet a visitor. He's keeping that big piece of furniture between us.