The Bonfire of the Vanities: Chapter 9 Summary & Analysis

Later that week, Fallow wakes up to the sound of the phone again. Once again, he’s hung over. With shame, he recalls what happened the night before. He’d been at Leicester’s and said something that offended one of the people he was with, Caroline, who was there with an artist friend named Chirazzi. After Caroline said she was offended, Fallow tried to rebut her but ended up falling over. While standing up, he grabbed onto Caroline to steady himself, and Chirazzi took offense to that. He shoved Fallow, which caused both Fallow and Caroline to fall onto the floor.

Fallow picks up the phone. It’s a lawyer named Al Vogel, who is a minor celebrity and is well-known for defending political causes, including radicals and pacifists. Fallow isn’t exactly excited to hear from Vogel, but after Vogel says he has a story for Fallow and offers to buy Fallow lunch, Fallow agrees to meet him. When Fallow arrives at the restaurant, Vogel talks at length about visiting college campuses on a speaking tour. Fallow stops paying attention until Vogel asks Fallow if he’s heard of Reverend Bacon.

Vogel then explains the story of the hit and run involving Henry Lamb and tells Fallow how Reverend Bacon is involved. Fallow says that it all sounds awful, but he’s not sure what the story would be. Vogel says there’s a story about the hospital’s negligence for initially releasing Henry Lamb without checking for a concussion. And the second part of the story is that the District Attorney’s office is refusing to act on the case and is claiming that they need a witness to look into the case further.

Vogel adds that Reverend Bacon is staging a protest about the lack of an investigation into the case. Vogel also says that Reverend Bacon is a kind of revolutionary whose tactics might be considered illegal by those in power but that purported illegality doesn’t make those tactics less effective or less worthy of praise. Fallow is skeptical about covering the story and says it isn’t the kind of thing he usually covers. But when Vogel says that it will keep Fallow from getting fired regardless of how different it is from his general beat, Fallow feels compelled to act. He calls an editor at the paper, who gives him the okay to look into the story.

Meanwhile, Kramer is at the police department and is on call for the District Attorney’s office. His pager beeps, and he calls back to the office. The DA press secretary, Milt Lubell, wants to talk to him. Lubell tells Kramer he just got a call from a reporter named Fallow from The City Light. Fallow was asking questions about the Henry Lamb case and had quotes from Reverend Bacon about the case. Lubell wants to know what he should tell Fallow. Kramer explains the case to Lubell. He says that at this point, without a witness, there essentially is no case. Kramer says that in his opinion, the hit-and-run probably never happened. Instead, Henry probably got into a fight or something and then came up with the hit-and-run story to tell his mother.

On Saturday, Fallow works with fervor at The City Light offices. He calls someone named Mr. Rifkind on Long Island. After Fallow gets ahold of Rifkind and persuades Rifkind he’s not selling him anything, he asks about Henry Lamb. Rifkind doesn’t know who Fallow is talking about at first. Fallow then explains about the hit-and-run and says that Henry Lamb had been one of Rifkind’s students. Rifkind remembers Henry and says that he was as nice of a student as he’s had. Fallow tries to get Rifkind to say something about Henry’s ability in school. Rifkind says that Fallow seems to want to know if Henry was an honor student, but in the school where Rifkind teaches, he divides students into those who come to class and those who don’t. Fallow asks if, by that metric, Henry would qualify as an honor student, and Rifkind says yes.