"What we're asking you to do," Jonah said, "is to reconstruct the events that led to your calling your division the 105th. That's all we're really trying to do."
"The hell with it," Driscoll said.
"No, we can't say the hell with it," Jonah said.
"We're having a good time here," Driscoll said. "The hell with it."
"We won't have such a good time if we lose this case," Norman said. "That's why we're asking you to try to remember, Jimmy. Try to remember how you hit upon those three digits."
"I just did," Driscoll said.
"But how?"
"I don't remember."
"Well, think about it."
"I am thinking about it."
"Maybe you've got some notes on it," Norman said. "You've supplied us with a lot of other material, so perhaps…"
"No, I wouldn't have kept notes on anything like that."
"All we're trying to do is trace the origin, that's all."
"It's a coincidence, plain and simple," Driscoll said.
"I think I'm getting drunk," Jonah said suddenly.
"I know I'm getting drunk," Driscoll said, and laughed. "That's good. Relax from the trial."
"We can't relax," Norman said.
"I can relax," Driscoll answered.
"I wish I could relax," Jonah said, and removed his glasses and wiped his eyes. His eyes were a pale blue. He pressed them with thumb and forefinger and then replaced his glasses.
"Brackman is going to harp on that 105th Division," Norman said, "and unless you can come up with a reasonable explanation, I feel we're going to be in trouble. I think those are Jonah's feelings as well, aren't they, Jonah?"
"Let me say that the coincidence unless explained will seem extraordinary."
"Well, it is extraordinary," Driscoll said. "I think a great many of the similarities between my book and the play are extraordinary."
"On Monday afternoon, I drove up to Vassar," Jonah said. "To see a friend of mine who teaches World History there. Now, I know your novel takes place during October and November of 1950, and that the action you describe was against the Chinese — but is it possible you also ran into some North Korean troops?"
"No."
"You did not?"
"I did not."
"Is it possible you overheard talk about engagements with North Korean troops?"
"It's possible, I suppose. Most of the talk was about Chinese intervention, though. We kept wondering when it would happen — even after it did happen."
"Would you recall anyone mentioning the North Korean 105th?"
"No. Should I?"
"Well," Jonah said, and shrugged. "You never heard it mentioned, huh?"
"Not to my knowledge. Was it an infantry division?"
"No, it was an armored brigade."
"Then that lets it out, doesn't it?"
"Not necessarily," Norman said. "If we could show it was involved in—"
"It wasn't," Driscoll said. "The major battle in the book is against Chinese troops. And even the patrol is into territory held by the Chinese."
"Well, that's the end of that possibility," Norman said.
"That's what I thought on Monday," Jonah answered. "But I was hoping Jimmy would say, 'Why, yes, of course! I had a long discussion with some veterans of the June-July fighting, and they told me all about the 105th Armored Brigade and their Russian-built T-34 tanks."
"Why, yes, of course!" Driscoll said, grinning. "I did have a long discussion with some veterans of the June-July fighting, and they told me all about the 105th Armored Brigade and their Russian-built T-34 tanks."
"Chicane," Jonah said, "for which I could be disbarred." He shook his head. "You'll just have to remember where the 105th really came from."
"How can I? I don't know where it came from."
"Did you steal that play?" Jonah asked suddenly.
"I never stole anything in my life," Driscoll answered.
"Good," Jonah said.
"Do you believe me?"
"Yes."
"That's nice, because I don't give a damn whether you do or not," Driscoll said, and burst out laughing. "Here're our drinks. Let's forget the trial for a minute, can't we?"
"Brackman has already brought up this matter of the thief leaving his fingerprints," Norman said, "and I can assure you…"
"I'm not a thief," Driscoll said.
"Nobody said you were."
"Brackman said I was. And Constantine said I was. I didn't steal his play."
"Well, we know you didn't steal it," Norman said.
"How does it feel to be colored?" Driscoll asked.
"Fine," Norman said. "How does it feel to be white?"
"I only asked because Sergeant Morley in my book is colored, and I often wondered while I was writing it how it feels to be colored, how it really feels to be colored."
"Listen, Jimmy," Jonah said suddenly, "you'd better start thinking about this because I'll tell you the truth I'm very concerned about it, very very concerned."
"So am I," Norman said.
"So am I," Driscoll said.
"So start thinking about it," Jonah said.
"About what?"
"The 105th."
"Oh."
"Yes."
"I have been thinking about it."
"What was your serial number?"
"What?"
"Your Army serial number."
"714-5632."
"Where did you live before you went into the Army?"
"On Myrtle Avenue in Brooklyn."
"The address?"
"61 Myrtle."
"What was your telephone number?"
"Main 2-9970."
"Were you married at the time?"
"I got married two months before I was drafted."
"What was your wife's address?"
"Well, the apartment on Myrtle was hers, you see. I moved in with her after we got married."
"Where were you living before then?"
"With my parents."
"Where?"
"West End Avenue. 2426 West End."
"What floor, what apartment?"
"Apartment 12C."
"And on Myrtle Avenue?"
"Apartment 37."
"Your life seems singularly devoid of the number 105," Jonah said sourly, and lifted his drink.
"Did you have a car?" Norman asked.
"Yes."
"What was your license plate number?"
"Who the hell remembers?"
"Have you ever been to 105th Street?" Jonah asked.
"No."
"What high school did you go to?" Norman asked.
"Music and Art."
"Did you have a locker?"
"What?"
"A locker. For the gym."
"Oh. Yes, I had a locker."
"With a combination lock?"
"Yes."
"What was the combination?"
"24 right, 17 left, 14 right."
"How can you possibly remember that, but not your license plate number?"
"I didn't have to open my license plate every day of the week," Driscoll said.
"You will have to think harder," Jonah said.
"I don't have to think harder if I don't want to," Driscoll answered. "I don't have to think at all, if I don't want to." He picked up his glass and drank from it, and then put the glass down and stared into it, aware of the sudden silence at the table. Well, the hell with you, he thought. You sit here and throw questions at me, don't you think any of this means anything to me, Ebie's apartment on Myrtle Avenue, and the telephone number I called maybe ten thousand times, or the old Buick I used to drive when I first started at Pratt, and my locker at Music and Art, or the apartment on West End Avenue?
I can remember every inch of that apartment the way it used to look when Pop was still alive and before my mother sold all the furniture and brought in that Danish modern crap which my father would have thrown out of the house in a minute. But her new husband Mr. Gerald Furst is in the furniture business, so what else do you do but throw out all the old mahogany stuff and bring in a sleek new line to go with your sleek new husband? The piano, too, getting rid of that. Well, nobody played it but Pop, and he's been dead for five years, so I suppose she was right in giving it away. Christ, the way he used to sit at the piano with a tumbler of whiskey resting on the arm, banging out those Irish songs while Uncle Benny stood there singing at the top of his lungs. Pink shirts. Uncle Benny always used to wear pink shirts. And Pop would offer me a sip of booze, and I'd turn my head away, pulling a face, things sure change. Here I am getting squiffed in a bar, thirty-seven years old, things sure change. Everything changes. Even Uncle Benny finally got married and moved off to Fort Lauderdale.