"Too serious a business," Driscoll said.
"Law is a very serious business, too," Norman said. "Let's open a whore house."
"I wish you gentlemen would try to be properly serious," Jonah said. "There's a great deal of stakes here. At stakes. Stake."
"Jonah is drunk," Norman said.
"I will concede that, your Honor," Jonah said.
"Thank you," Driscoll said to the waiter, and then lifted his glass. "Gentlemen, I give you the play named Maypole and the novel named The Paper Asshole, and I defy you — I defy you, gentlemen — to find any real difference between these two oeuvres, which is French for eggs. In the play we have a degenerate leper who writes to Dr. Schweitzer, asking 'how he can cure his vile leching after twelve-year-olds. This same pervert is present in the novel, only this time he writes to Graham Greene for advice, and Greene being an expert only on leprosy advises him to write to Vladimir Nabokov, who is an expert on lechery. The similarity stands. In the novel, on page seventy-four, the girl enters, and she has two breasts — two breasts, gentlemen — exactly as in the play. I submit that a girl with two breasts is a unique invention, and I defy you to explain this remarkable coincidence, these footprints left in the sand by the thief. Now, I am not an expert on such matters, but I am willing to bet that the possibility of finding two young girls in the same room, both of whom have two breasts — gentlemen, this staggers the imagination. That is the plaintiff's case, your Honor, and I drink to it."
"All right, what about this 105th Precinct?" Jonah asked briskly.
"Division."
"Yes, what about it?"
"It's there," Driscoll said.
"Where?"
"In my book."
"It's also in the play," Jonah said. "So how about it?"
"How about it? It's there, and we're here, so the hell with it."
"I wish you could explain it," Jonah said. "I seriously wish you could explain it."
"I won't."
"What?"
"I said I can't."
"You said you won't."
"I meant I can't."
"Jimmy," Norman said, "do you know why you labeled your division the 105th?"
Driscoll looked across the table and said, "No, I do not. And that's the God's honest truth."
As the big jet orbited Kennedy in a holding pattern, Ralph Knowles wondered if the field were still open, and once again conjured an image of the giant airliner skidding around on the runway as it braked to a stop. The forecasters early that afternoon had reported heavy snowstorms all along the Eastern seaboard, and he had called Kessler collect from the Coast to ask whether it was still imperative that he come east today.
"Can't it wait till tomorrow?" he had asked. "I don't want to die in a goddamn airplane skidding around in the snow."
"That's not funny," Kessler had said, even though Knowles hadn't been trying to make a joke. "You will probably be called to testify tomorrow afternoon, so you get on that plane and come east like a good boy, and stop worrying about a little snow."
"It's a lot of snow, from what I hear," Ralph said.
"They always exaggerate out there," Kessler answered. "It's to make you appreciate California."
"But is it still snowing?"
"Just a little."
"Well then maybe…"
"Ralph, this trial is important," Kessler said. "Now you just get on that plane — what plane are you getting on?"
"The four-thirty flight."
"You just get on it, and let me worry about the snow."
"I knew you could move mountains," Ralph said, "but I didn't know you could also stop snow."
"That's not funny, either," Kessler had said. "Do me a favor, and don't ever direct a comedy for us."
He could see lights below. It was never like Los Angeles, where the approach to the city was beautiful, truly beautiful, reds and greens and whites spilled across the landscape, he sometimes felt like weeping as the plane banked in over the airport, not the same here at all. He had never liked New York City, too damn big and dirty, noisy people rushing around all the time, business deals over breakfast and lunch and cocktails and dinner, no nice backyard barbecues, never any sunshine, rotten place New York, he hated it.
He shouldn't be coming here now, either, should be going in the opposite direction to meet Matt Jackson in Japan where they'd be shooting the new picture, not coming east to testify at a stupid trial, as if the trial meant anything anyway. Specious case according to what he'd heard at the studio, absolutely groundless, should have kicked it out of court, bring a man all the way east for something as dumb as this, waste of time. Only reason he was bothering was because Kessler seemed to be making an important thing of it, couldn't antagonize Kessler, not now, not when the Samurai picture was going to cost so much. Had to hold hands with the old man, six million dollars wasn't cornflakes.
The stewardess was walking up the aisle checking seat-belts, nice knockers on her, Ralph thought, how would you like me to film those beauties, honey, in wide-screen Technicolor, she doesn't even know who I am. It disturbed him that nobody ever knew who the hell he was. He always got the choice seat on a plane only because API's transportation department made sure of it, but every time he boarded the plane he could see the disappointed look on the face of the stewardess. Since API had reserved the seat, the airlines people always expected a movie star or a director they could recognize, like Hitchcock or Huston or Preminger. He knew he was a better director than any of them, but who ever recognized his face, nobody. Or, for that matter, did anyone outside the industry even recognize his name, seventeen movies to his credit, all of them hits, well, most of them. Anyway, ten of them. Ten resounding box-office successes, shattering spectacle Variety had called one of them, and this Samurai thing would undoubtedly be another big blockbuster, provided Kessler didn't balk at the six million price tag, well why should he? He wanted a hit, didn't he? Everybody in America, everybody in the world wanted a hit. I know how to deliver hits, Ralph thought, ten of them in a row, twelve if you count the critical but not box-office bonanzas, you have to spend money to make money, Kessler knows that, he'll be very sweet about the whole thing, he's a sweet old Jew bastard. God, this trial is a pain in the ass, should be heading for Tokyo, wonder if Matt has set everything up, those Japanese do good work, even Kurosawa has his face in the magazines more than I do. Open any magazine, there's Huston grinning up at you, it makes me want to puke. Hitchcock? don't even mention him. Supposed to begin shooting next week, can't be wasting all this time in New York, still I'll talk to Kessler about the money, getting the money is important.
"Why aren't we landing?" he asked the stewardess. "Is there snow on the field?"
"No, sir."
"There's snow on the field, isn't there?" he whispered. "You can tell me."
"No, sir, there are just several airplanes ahead of us, that's all."
"That's all, huh?"
"Yes, sir."
"How old are you?"
"Twenty-two, sir."
"That's a good age."
"For what?"
"For anything."
"Are you going to put me in pictures?" she asked, and then smiled and went up the aisle to talk to the other stewardess.
Bet she knows who I am, Ralph thought. What the hell, I'm not that anonymous. Maybe she saw the article they did on me in the Saturday Evening Post, the one that had that good shot of me when we were on location down there near Juarez, man it gets hot as hell down there in Mexico, those mules, what a stink. Must have seen that piece on me, the shot wearing the white ducks, bare-chested, all brown, the gray hair, that was a good picture of me. Have to ask her what her name is, look her up maybe, show her a good time. Must know who I am, otherwise why the crack about putting her in pictures, I'll put you someplace all right, baby.