(1969) The Seven Minutes by Irving Wallace Read Free Book Online

him to be reasonable.’
    ‘Mike, you don’t know how much I appreciate this favor -‘
    Barrett wanted to interrupt and tell Sanford that this was no favor, merely the smallest down payment on a debt that he had long owed Sanford, and which he had not forgotten. But he said nothing. He allowed Sanford to go on.
    ‘ - because I was really worried about this, but now I feel better, much better. Mike, you’re a miracle man.’
    ‘Not yet,’ said Barrett wryly. ‘Not until I get cooperation from our District Attorney. 1 think I can manage it. Tell you what. I’ll phone Elmo Duncan and try to make an appointment for this afternoon. Then I’ll get hold of a bail bondsman I know down on Hill Street, and I’ll see that he springs your bookseller. Then I’ll look in
    on your bookseller - ‘ he was making notes on his scratch pad now - ‘Ben Fremont in Oakwood, right ? - and I’ll find out exactly what happened and learn what he said and calm him down. Then, hopefully, I’ll be seeing the District Attorney. As soon as I have something definite from him, I’ll telephone you. It might not be’ until tomorrow.’
    ‘Whatever you say, Mike. Just as long as I know you’ve taken over.’
    ‘I’ve taken over. In forty-eight hours we’ll be able to talk about other things.’
    “Thanks, Mike.’
    Til be in touch,’ said Barrett.
    After hanging up, he thoughtfully finished his root beer. Putting the empty glass aside, he realized that he was hungry. Then he remembered his lunch date with Abe Zelkin. They had agreed to meet at the Brown Derby in Beverly Hills, a convenience to both of them since it was twenty minutes from Barrett’s apartment and only fifteen minutes from Zelkin’s new office, a suite in a recently opened high-rise building on the east side of Beverly Hills.
    Before making his calls to the bondsman and to the District Attorney, Barrett decided to telephone Zelkin’s secretary. He would request that she have Zelkin make the lunch date a half hour later, and that Zelkin bring along a photocopy of the section of the California Penal Code fhat dealt with the purveying of obscene matter. At least that would give him something else to talk to Zelkin about before he faced the moment of truth. It was going to be tough, this meeting. He wished that he could simply explain the facts of life to Zelkin: Abe, listen, honest and poor is good, very good, but believe me, Abe, honest and rich is better, far better.
    He wondered whether Zelkin would understand - or, at least, would forgive him.
    They were sitting in a comfortable semicircular booth, beneath the framed caricatures of show-business personalities, finishing their drinks, and had not talked very much at this point. The Brown Derby was crowded and noisy, and they were among the silent few. Mike Barrett, pretending to reread the photocopy of the censorship section of the California Penal Code, could see Abe Zelkin across from him, sipping a martini, absorbed in the large menu. He looked relaxed and cheerful, which increased Barrett’s guilt. Of course, as Barrett knew, Zelkin always looked relaxed and cheerful, and like an innocent - deceptively so, for nature’s face masked a tiger, especially when he was tracking evidence for a case in which he believed. Barrett had once thought, and was now reminded, that Abe Zelkin’s head had the appearance of a small, happy pumpkin, if the pumpkin were adorned with an unruly sprout of black hair and a tiny egg of a nose upon which were perched oversized black-rimmed bifocal spectacles. He was short, potbellied, and there was
    always a trace of cigar ash on his lapels. Big men wanted to protect him, and big women wanted to mother him, unaware that this lovable toy-sized human had a brain one part missile detector, one part rocket launcher.
    Zelkin had two eccentricities and one obsession. His eccentricities were: absolute honesty - toward others, toward himself - no matter what the consequences and total purity of