Free Eve in Hollywood by Amor Towles

(in any jury box in the country, for that matter), one could expect to find a sample of the human condition: a patchwork of intellects and experiences, personalities and prejudices. To convince these twelve disparate souls of an argument’s merits, an attorney could not rely on logic, or science, or even justice. After all, Socrates couldn’t convince the elders of Athens of his innocence, anymore than Galileo could convince the pope, or Jesus Christ the people of Jerusalem. To convince the men of a jury, one must instead draw them into the course of events.
    One must show that they have not been called to the courthouse to fulfill some civic obligation—to observe and assess. Rather, they have been called to participate. Each juror is a principal who must play his part in the trial as one plays his part at a family gathering, or at the supper table of a friend, or in the pew of a church—those places where consciously or unconsciously we know the frailties and strengths of our neighbors to be inseparable from our own.
    That is how Marcus extricated David from his little problem back in Arkansas. Thanks to the papers, weeks before the trial the good people of Little Rock already knew that Selznick was a Hollywood mogul. They knew he was a millionaire, a city slicker, a Jew. And this was the essence of opposing counsel’s case. Thus, acknowledging that all of this was true, Marcus (his suit a little rumpled, his hair a little unkempt) took the jury back to the beginning. Calling David to the stand, Marcus inquired about his youth in a blue-collar corner of Pittsburgh; he inquired how David at the age of twenty-one had helped his family make ends meet when his father fell on hard times; overcoming objections of relevancy, Marcus inquired how David had fallen in love with the cinema at the age of ten—tucked among his fellow citizens in a crowded theater, thrilling to the sound of the upright piano and the flicker of celluloid, imagining a day when the Lone Ranger would call
Hi ho, Silver
aloud . . .
    Six months later, Marcus found himself pursuing a similar line of questioning in Los Angeles County Court.
    When David had called, Marcus demurred. But David had been characteristically persuasive: It would only take a few weeks, he said; he would make it worth Marcus’s while; and there was no one else in the whole country he could rely upon. As an added enticement, David sent a plane. With Marcus seated by himself in the passenger cabin (a glass of his favorite bourbon in hand), the plane inscribed its dotted line from Little Rock across the dustbowl, over the Grand Canyon and Death Valley, to the airstrip in Culver City where David waited at the side of his Rolls Royce. And when they arrived at Selznick International and walked into Building Two, David opened an oaken door with an elaborate flourish to reveal . . . Marcus’s office in Little Rock.
    With a bit of help from the property department, the Selznick International set designers had engineered a facsimile—right down to the louvered shades, the antiquated map of eastern Arkansas, and the Roman bust on the book shelf (albeit a papier-mâché Caesar standing in for a marble Cicero.)
    That was four years ago.
    Marcus surveyed the top of his desk. Neatly arranged along its edge were seven stacks of paper, one of which stood a foot tall.
These
weren’t from the prop department. They were an essential component of the industriousness of his client—a man for whom no slight was too offhand, no promise too in passing, no penny too thin to wage a battle on its behalf. Selznick versus a Studio. Selznick versus a Star. Selznick v. Temperature, Time, and Tide.
    â€”Mr. Benton, sounded an electronic voice. A Miss Evelyn Ross here to see you.
    Marcus put the dossier in the drawer and pushed the button on the intercom.
    â€”Please, show her in.
    As was his habit, Marcus came around the desk ready to greet his guest