They separated them, taking Liesl down the hall, her eyes startled and jumpy, like a deer’s, and leading Ben into what seemed to be a lounge for the border guards, a big coffee urn in the corner. He sat at a table across from yet another agent answering questions, not complaining or hesitating, because he saw that was expected, the air hostile, and hoping the questions would tell him what had happened. All he knew was that the letter he’d given Riordan had set off an alarm in the Bureau, still ringing. After a while the questions began to repeat themselves, as if asking them again would produce different answers. But the agent was no longer bristling, settling in for the long haul. He offered Ben a coffee.
“Is this where you tell me I have the right to call a lawyer?”
“You don’t have any rights.”
“How about a cigarette then? That allowed?”
The agent put an ashtray on the table.
“Now can I ask you a question?”
“No.”
“You seem to forget. I called you. You wouldn’t be here at all if I hadn’t given you the letter. Last time I heard, we were on the same side.”
“So what’s the question?”
“Who are they? The names.”
The agent said nothing.
“Not even a day and you’re here jumping on me. I didn’t know the Bureau could act that fast. So they must mean something to you. They pop up in the files, or did you just know?”
He shook his head. “I can’t- You don’t have clearance.”
“Dennis didn’t-”
“Dennis doesn’t have clearance, either. Not even before. Not now.”
“Just you. Even though I’ve already seen them.”
“So why ask? Who do you think they are?” the agent said, turning it around.
“Communists.”
“Hardly,” the agent said, unexpectedly amused. “Let’s hope not, anyway.”
“Then how is this espionage?”
The agent looked at him over the rim of his coffee cup. “You’re in the Army. Know what an order of battle is?”
“Organization. Commanders in the field.”
“This is a kind of order of battle, okay? It’s important, that’s all I’m going to say. We need to know where it came from.”
“So do I.”
The agent raised his eyebrows.
“I think somebody on it killed my brother. Who, by the way, in case nobody told you, used to work for you.”
“I know that,” he said tersely.
“Which makes it all the worse, is that it? You think he was a spy, your own guy?”
The agent put down the cup, not responding.
“Neither do I. So you want to know two things: where it came from and where it was going. It didn’t end with Danny. What was he going to do with it? Anyway, he’s dead. And it still came. So who was it for? The only person you know it wasn’t for is me or I wouldn’t have given it to you in the first place. You following? Where it comes from I don’t know-that’s for you to figure out. But whoever it was on this end maybe I can help you with.”
The agent stared at him. “Help us how?” he said finally.
“Well, let’s talk about that. But first, can I assume that I’m not under arrest and we can start this over? Or do you want to keep grilling me?”
“For two cents I’d-”
“Except you’re flying blind here. I’ve been listening. You came all this way. Let’s talk.”
“Talk,” the agent said, his voice low, dragged out of him.
“First, Liesl. You’re not going to charge her, either-she knows less than I do-and you’re probably scaring her to death.”
“She was his wife.”
“Was,” Ben said. Is.
“And Mexico?”
“We were giving a friend a lift. Nothing illegal.”
“Dennis says-”
“Dennis isn’t even allowed to know who we’re talking about. And if he’s already told you about Kaltenbach, you know about Mexico, so we’re wasting time.”
“You don’t make friends easy.”
“Well, we started off on the wrong foot-you throwing me against a car and accusing me of things. It put me off. Can we get Liesl now?” he said, then, seeing the agent hesitate, “I’m the only shot you’ve got.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Whoever wants the letter thinks I have it. He tried to kill me for it. I think he’ll try again.”
The agent looked at him for a minute, then pushed back his chair with a scrape and walked over to the door. “I’m Agent Henderson,” he said, turning halfway.
Liesl was brought in a few minutes later, her face still pale, drained.
“You all right?”
She nodded, mute.
“I thought you’d better be here for this. It’s going to concern you.”
“Because of Heinrich?” she said, still puzzled.
“No. Danny. They think he was passing secrets.”
“What?”
“Well, receiving anyway.” He turned to Henderson. “Is that right?”
“Close enough.”
“Secrets?” Liesl said, confused, almost sputtering. “Like a spy? Daniel? No, it’s a mistake. What secrets?”
“Classified information was sent to him. By name. His address. We don’t know for how long. Once would be enough.”
“To the house?”
“The Cherokee,” Ben said. “His other name. The place was used as a mail drop.”
“I don’t believe it. How would he know-secrets.”
“He didn’t have to know them. He just had to pass them on.” Ben looked at Henderson. “Assuming he did.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“They were sent to him but we don’t know that he picked them up, do we?”
“We can assume.”
“But we can’t prove it. The guy who went over the balcony-my burglar. Ray. Police find a mail key on him?”
Henderson said nothing.
“You must have asked. Given your interest. Or didn’t anybody think of it?”
“We asked.”
“And? Great partnership,” he said when Henderson didn’t answer. “Look, I can find out anyway. But I thought there was some urgency here.” He stared at Henderson. “It’s important.”
Henderson nodded, then said, “Now tell me why.”
“Because he didn’t take mine. So he already had one. Danny’s. Which he either took from him, or which Danny never had. It’s possible somebody else picked up the mail.” He looked at Liesl. “It’s also possible Danny did. Either way.”
“And either way he’s part of it,” Henderson said. “He had to know.”
“About the mail, yes. Not necessarily what was in it.”
“Small difference.”
“Not to us,” Ben said, including Liesl. “Anyway, Ray had a key. Which means whoever hired him gave it to him. Which also means he doesn’t have it anymore. And that’s where we come in,” he said to Henderson.
“Back up,” Henderson said.
“Guy goes to the Cherokee, checks the mail but nothing’s there because I’d already picked it up. So he checks the apartment, still nothing, and after he knocks me out, he goes through my pockets and still nothing. Then he goes over. And now the police have the key. But not the letter, or all kinds of bells would be going off. So whoever hired him is stuck. No key, no letter. But he knows it was sent, so where is it?”
“You have it,” Henderson said quietly.
“Right. And the important thing is that he doesn’t know we’re having this little talk. He doesn’t know I gave it to you. Unless somebody leaks. We don’t know where he has friends.”
“Nobody’s going to leak.”
“Make sure, okay? Or he won’t move. He won’t take the bait.”
“The bait being you,” Henderson said.
Ben nodded.
“What are you talking about?” Liesl said. “Bait?”
“If the letter’s already here, I must have it. If it’s still on its way, then I’d get it. No other keys. Not to mention he won’t want to risk checking the boxes at the Cherokee. After what happened. Police might be taking an interest. So if he wants it, he has to get it from me. With any luck, before I start asking anybody about it. So he doesn’t want to see me with anybody.” He looked at Henderson. “No watchdogs. But Liesl’s a different story. That’s why I wanted you here, so you’ll know. I want you to put someone on the house,” he said to Henderson. “Not sitting out front in a hat, either. A gardener, maybe, something like that. But who’s there all the time. And somebody right behind, when she goes out. So she’s always covered.”
“You’re taking the case over now?”
“You were going to put some guys on me, weren’t you? Just switch them to her. He’ll watch me. He has to think it’s all right, to make his move.”
“Try to kill you, you mean,” Liesl said.
“Which he might do,” Henderson said. “And then we’re nowhere and you’re dead.”
“That’s the chance you’ll have to take.”
“You’re the one taking the chances,” Liesl said. “You don’t have to do this.”
“He’ll come anyway. He’s already tried once. Besides we have some names to protect,” Ben said, leading him.
“Protect.”
“You moved in hours. If you had files on these guys, criminal files, you’d be rounding them up. So they’re in the other files.”
“Which other files.”
“Security clearance is my guess. Of course, I’m not cleared to know.”
“Does it make any difference?”
“I’m putting myself in a gun sight for you.”
Henderson looked at him. “I’ll see what I can do. I’d need approval.”
“Protect yourself,” Liesl said. “Don’t act like this. You should have someone.”
“You wouldn’t even know he was there,” Henderson said. “We can do that.”
“He’d know. And then he’d know you were after him. He’d duck. We have to do it this way. I’ve got a guy looking into who hired Ray. It’s a back way in, but maybe we’ll get lucky. Otherwise-”
“What guy?”
“A reporter. Knows a lot of rats. Sorry I can’t say who-you’re not cleared.”
“Very funny.”
“How about the Bureau issuing me a gun?”
“A gun?” Liesl said, alarmed.
One of the other agents knocked and opened the door. “Phone,” he said to Henderson.
“In a minute.”
“It’s long distance. Berkeley.”
Henderson frowned, annoyed. “I have to take this.” He hurried out of the room, closing the door behind him, leaving them alone, the air suddenly thick with quiet.
“This is what you think, he was a traitor? It’s fantastische.”
“I don’t know.”
“How can you say that? I know.”
“Because you’re still in love with him.”
She jerked up her head, meeting his eyes for a minute, then looked away. “You take everything too seriously. I didn’t mean-”
“I didn’t see it. Maybe I wasn’t looking.”
“What difference does it make?”
“His widow, that’s one thing. His wife-”
She smiled grimly to herself, still staring at her lap. “Not seemly.” She was still for a minute, then got up, pacing to the other side of the table. “So now you want to get yourself killed to prove this? First an informer, now, what? From bad to worse. That’s what you want?”
“To get killed? No. I want to talk to him.”
“Talk to him.”
“I want to know what happened. What Danny did. Not guess. Know.”
“Why?”
He looked at her. “So I can let him go.”
She stopped, folding her arms across her chest, swaying slightly, holding herself in. “And me,” she said.
Before he could answer, Henderson was back, the same brisk hurrying.
“Any luck?” Ben said.
“With what?”
“The San Francisco postmark. Wasn’t that the call? Berkeley?”
Henderson shook his head. “Something else. We have other cases, believe it or not. Now, we were-”
“You were going to get me a gun.”
“We’re not a store. You’d have to be deputized.”
“Fine. It’s a family tradition, working for the Bureau. Maybe this time it’ll be for something worthwhile, not just chasing Communists.”
Henderson turned to him. “You’re a little mixed up on this,” he said.
“How?”
“I told you. Those names are like an order of battle. The only people interested in that now are the Communists. That’s who your brother was working for.”
Riordan shortstopped him in the hall. “You don’t want to go in there. Not even near. Not the way he is today. He’d do it with his bare hands.”
Riordan was carrying an envelope, in a rush, his eyes darting toward the parking lot.
“What’s the problem?”
“Are you kidding? Warning Kaltenbach? C’mon, before he sees you.”
“Then how about you going in there, quiet, and getting my copy of the list and I’ll be gone.”
“Forget it. Get it from the Bureau. Ever see him crossed?” He paused. “Why’d you do it, anyway? I mean, who was he to you?”
“Nobody. Just a friend of the family.”
They both turned as the door opened, Minot coming out so fast he almost bumped into them.
“You’ve got a hell of a nerve,” he said to Ben. “What are you doing here? Dennis, I thought you had something to do.” He slammed the door behind him. “Let’s go. Or do you want me to have Frank throw you out?” He began hustling everybody down the hall.
“Congressman-”
“I don’t want to hear it. Just get out. You come here again, there’ll be orders to call the cops. You hear that, Frank?” he said to the guard at the door. “Take a good look at this one. You want to remember, if he shows up.”
“Yes, sir.”
They were outside now, Minot watching his car pull up.
“He was an old man,” Ben said to him. “There wasn’t much to squeeze.”
“That’s not for you to decide, is it?” he said, his voice fast, a whiplash. “Or maybe you think it is.” He looked at Ben. “It isn’t. He was my witness and he’s gone. Dennis.” He nodded toward another car pulling into the lot. “Let’s get the subpoenas served before Paul Revere here has any more ideas.”
“What subpoenas?”
“You think I’m going to let this happen again? Once is a lesson. Twice is stupid. I learned my lesson. Thanks to you.” He stopped, his face breaking into a jagged smile. “That’s right, isn’t it? They’ll all owe it to you. Maybe we should let them know. Make you a popular guy.” He switched tone. “I didn’t want it like this. I wanted more time, do it right. Now I don’t have a choice, I have to use a net. But there’s something to be said for surprise.” He smiled to himself again. “Catch the lawyers off guard.”
“Mine too? You going to put a lamp in my face?”
“I don’t want to see it again. Ever. I trusted you.” He shrugged. “Another lesson in life.”
“You’re a lot upset over very little.”
“That depends. Maybe you’re right, maybe I don’t need him at all. But I sure as hell don’t need you. So I’m throwing you back.” Another smile. “We’ll let the others take care of you.” He opened the car door and got in. “Dennis? Make sure he gets out of here.”
“What others?” Ben said after Minot had left.
“What?”
“Taking care of me. He meant something by it.”
“He gets mad, that’s all. He likes to get even. In other ways.”
“Such as?”
“Targeting Continental. They get to go first. Kind of a payback.”
“To me? That’s crazy.”
“You shouldn’t have crossed him.”
“When is this?”
“As soon as the subpoenas-” He stopped. “Get out of here, okay? You don’t have to warn anybody. They’ll know soon enough. Maybe nobody’ll connect the dots.”
“To me. The dots in his head.”
The other car had pulled up.
“Hey, Kelly,” Ben said. “Still picking up Polly’s laundry?”
Kelly took the envelope from Riordan, a little embarrassed.
“Anything yet on Ray?”
“I just put out a feeler yesterday.”
“And then you got busy,” Ben said, looking at the envelope. “Is Polly getting a lead this time or still playing shill?”
“What’s it to you?”
“I like to see you get ahead.”
Kelly looked at Riordan, a thanks for the envelope. “I’m doing all right.”
“I’ll walk you to your car,” Riordan said.
“I can find it,” Ben said. “You’re busy.”
They watched Kelly drive away.
“So who were they? In the letter,” Riordan said.
“I don’t know. They wouldn’t say.”
“They wanted to find you in a hurry.”
“You know what I think? They don’t know. They were looking to me to tell them.”
Riordan made a face, skeptical. “Communists?”
“Haven’t you got enough?” Ben said, cocking his head toward the office.
Riordan didn’t bother to answer. “Maybe we’ll run into each other some time. Lunch at the Market.”
Ben headed for his car, then turned, watching Riordan go in. So who were they? Friedman. Someone the San Francisco operator didn’t have. A few names lodged somewhere in the back of his mind, the rest in a drawer, unavailable. He looked at the building, the guarded back door. Minot’s office would face the side street. He followed it toward the front entrance on Wilshire, trying to guess which windows were Minot’s. There, both open now, but locked tonight. High enough to require a jump to catch the sill. And then what? He saw himself dangling in the street, pulling himself up, breaking the window, the sound of smashing glass-impossible, something even the Partners would find absurd. The way into any office was through the door.
He skirted the building, going in through the Wilshire entrance. Also locked at night, presumably part of Frank’s rounds. He walked down the long hall to Minot’s office, then stood near the door. Behind the translucent glass he could hear voices, Dennis and the secretaries. Did they all go out to lunch together? But then they’d lock it. He looked at the doorknob, the keyhole in the middle. Something Frank could open with a master key, but not Ben.
A man came out of the next office and crossed the hall to the restroom, looking at him. Ben took the knob, pretending to enter, until he heard the men’s room door close, then noticed Frank turning the corner down the hall. He jerked his hand away and went into the next office. Statewide Insurance. An outer room with three secretaries.
“Yes? Are you here to see Mr. Herbert?”
“No, I–I think I’ve made a mistake. Congressman Minot?”
“Next door, on your right.”
“Thanks,” he said, hesitating, listening for Frank, then saw that she was waiting and that he had to move. He opened the door, and looked down, hiding his face. But Frank had passed. He hurried back to Wilshire, the files still behind him.
At the studio, people already knew Minot was going to make a move. The power of Hollywood gossip, Ben thought, impressed again, no warning flares needed.
“Bunny’s been with lawyers all day,” Hal said.
“But nothing’s happened.”
“It’s going to. Polly’s got a column tomorrow. She says it’s about time.”
“For what?”
“Housecleaning. Makes you think of a duster. Joan Leslie doing a little tidying up.”
Ben glanced at him, surprised at his tone. “But you’re all right. I mean-”
Hal nodded, smiling a little. “But you had to ask, didn’t you? Take a walk around the lot. You can feel it, people just waiting to see.”
Bunny came in without knocking.
“Oh good, both of you. How’s your head?” he said to Ben and then, at his expression, “You made the papers. Well, the burglar did. Some building.”
“Still a little sore.”
“Can you work? We need to get this wrapped up.”
“Sure. Why?”
“You think you’ve got a headache? Wait till the messengers get here with their little papers. Tomorrow? The next day? The suspense is killing us. Except it’s not going to. We stay on schedule.” He turned to Hal. “Two things. The overrun was not authorized. It’s an Army film, let Fort Roach do the processing.” He stopped, taking in Ben, too. “We bring it in on budget or we bail. I mean it. Second, I need to see you. In the office.” This to Hal, his voice lower.
“Me?”
“I want you to talk to the lawyers.”
Hal took a step back, his whole body a question mark.
“What’s going on?” Ben asked for him.
“You know Schaeffer, over at Fox?”
“We made a picture together,” Hal said, suddenly hoarse.
“Well, they’re going to want to know everything he ever said to you. The lawyers need to prep you.”
“Slow down a minute,” Ben said. “What’s going on?”
“A run-through,” Bunny said. “Rehearsal for taking on the majors. Minot wants to show them how disruptive this can be, what it can do to your business. Encourage them to be friendly. Just like we’re going to be,” he said, looking now at Hal. “All friendly witnesses. We understand the gravity of the situation. And he goes away and we close the door and we’re still here. Then it’s Jack’s turn and Zanuck’s and-and they won’t even have to be told. They watched him do it to us. Now, okay? My office. They’re waiting.”
Hal left without saying a word.
“Who else is going to be called?” Ben said.
“We’re not sure. We’re trying to anticipate.”
“Talk to him. I thought you were pals.”
“And what would I offer him? You? I gather you annoyed him. Even wounded.” He pointed to Ben’s head.
“I don’t want to make trouble for the studio. Do you need me to take a walk?”
“You’re not making trouble, he’s making trouble. We’re easy, the first bite. Small enough to chew and spit out. He thinks. You notice he’s not taking on Warners. Or Metro. Yet. Just somebody he can push around.” He looked up at Ben. “He wants to tear this industry apart. To make himself a star. So we help him. And then we help him move on.”
“You’re going to cooperate.”
Bunny glanced at his watch. “Now look at the time.” He raised his head, Ben’s eyes still on him. “I’m going to keep things going. Call Liesl, by the way, and get her in here. Sick day. We send somebody over there, and she’s off on some joyride with you. Don’t bother.” He held up his hand. “It wouldn’t even be good. The point is that we have to move up the picture. Tick, tock. We may have a hole in the schedule. We can’t go into Christmas without an A.”
“Why would you? Have a hole?”
“In case a picture’s in trouble,” Bunny said, turning away. “In case we had to shelve it.”
“If someone were testifying.”
Bunny looked at him, then put both hands to his temples. “Didn’t I tell you? It’s already starting. Why don’t you help and just save the questions?”
“Want an aspirin? You’ll feel better.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice?” Bunny said, heading for the door.
“Bunny? Before you go?”
“I can’t hear you.”
“Studio have a locksmith?”
Bunny stopped, surprised.
“I’m having trouble with my door.”
“That’s all? Lucky you. Rogers. Carpenter shop. Two hundred and forty-one.” No detail too small.
Rogers, like everyone else, wanted to be in the movies.
“What kind of lock?”
“Like this,” Ben said, touching the doorknob, similar to Minot’s. “The scene calls for the guy to pick the lock. Trouble is nobody knows how it’s actually done. So I figured you-”
“You don’t need a pro for that. Anybody could pick that. Get a Yale. Maybe a dead bolt. You can stretch the scene.”
“But this is what we have.”
“You only find these in buildings like this. Standard spring, the guards are the security. Hotels, sometimes. They’re cheaper. The door chain’s your real lock. This is a heist? They’d have to pick something a lot stronger.”
“No, just an office. So maybe he’s not a pro. How easy is it?”
Rogers took a slender rod from his tool belt and, holding the door ajar, inserted the rod, flicking it up in one quick motion that released the lock.
“That’s it? Show me.”
“This groove here. Put her in there, all the way to the right, then up. You’re going to do this in close-up? You’re better off with a Yale.”
Ben tried it twice before it worked.
“Can I borrow this?”
“Sure. Smooth slice up. You could jiggle, have it slip or something, but that’s not going to fool anybody. You should change the lock.”
B EN WAITED on the Wilshire side until just before closing.
“The problem isn’t getting in,” he said to Liesl. “It’s getting out. After six, everybody goes out the back. That hour, they’re heading for the lot. So I’d have to get past Frank.”
“Unless he’s not there. You’ve explained it.”
“I just need a few minutes. Keep him with you. Your boss?”
“Mr. Herbert. Who’s going to kill me if I don’t do those papers tonight. Why are you doing this?”
“Because the Bureau’s never going to help. What names? The only thing they’re willing to do is let me get killed. Okay, let’s go. Park on the side street.”
“And wait for the window shade. Then do my scene with Frank. Funny, now I’ll be you.”
He looked at her, puzzled.
“In the series. The one who helps. The good one.”
He went in through the Wilshire door, moving quickly down the hall, late for an appointment. There were only a few people around, stragglers or assistants doing last-minute jobs, cleaning ladies collecting waste baskets. Lights still on in Minot’s office, probably a secretary with a letter to finish. Riordan, he knew, had already left. He went into the men’s room, took the last stall, and sat down to wait. The building was alive with sounds when you stopped to listen: a typewriter click, footsteps, somebody laughing, then nothing for a while, just the creak of the building settling, the scrape of a chair. When someone came in, everything sounded loud, the splash of pee, the running water, a throat clearing. Ben imagined him-the insurance agent? — adjusting his tie. Then the thud of the door closing.
It got darker earlier now, even in California, and Ben watched the window over the sinks get dimmer. He got up and switched off the overhead light, then peeked out. No lights at Statewide, but somebody was still in Minot’s office. What if she stayed late? They’d come to clean the restroom soon, mopping everywhere. But then Minot’s door swung open. One of the secretaries with fresh lipstick, locking it behind her, then checking it by twisting the knob. Ben ducked back behind his door, listening to her high heels going down the hall. Give it a few minutes, in case she forgot anything. The hall needed to be clear. There was nothing suspicious about being in the men’s room, not yet. Once it got dark, though, no story would work.
He waited for what seemed like hours but was probably ten minutes, then opened the door again. No one, the only sound the clang of a pail near the Wilshire end, the cleaning ladies starting. He palmed the rod and crossed over to Minot’s door. Act as if you’re using a key. He inserted the rod, jagged right and up, but nothing happened. Again. Why did he assume they were all alike? It must be a different mechanism. He tried left, a variation, his hand tense, then stopped, taking a breath, feeling a bead of sweat on his upper lip. But it had been so easy at the studio. Don’t overwork it. Think of Rogers’s hand, the deft flick right, then upward. He tried it again, almost making a sound of relief when he heard the click.
Inside, there was barely enough light to see, the shades half-drawn. Liesl would be outside, watching. Minot’s personal office was in the next room, but all the files were out here, where the staff worked. For a second he was tempted, now that he was in, to go through Minot’s desk, but that would be actual theft, not just collecting something of his own. He crossed over to the file cases. What if Riordan had already taken it out? Something he didn’t want Minot to find? But it was still there, in Heinrich’s now useless file. Ben folded it quickly and put it in his jacket pocket. Now get out before the cleaning staff started working its way down the hall. He returned the file and went over to the window, pulling the shade, then raising it back into position, and waited by the door. It would take at least a few minutes for Liesl to talk to Frank, helpless and panicky.
Ben jumped, his skin tingling, when the phone rang. Was someone supposed to be here? For one terrible second he expected it to be picked up in the inner office, but it kept ringing, so shrill that everyone must hear, and then finally stopped. He breathed out, his ears still filled with sound, listening now to the hall. Why so worried? Everything was fine, what he’d expected. There were even footsteps now, a woman’s voice, Liesl on time. He put his ear near the edge of the door to hear better. Liesl was thanking Frank, slightly scatterbrained, someone likely to have forgotten her work. They were now at Statewide, Liesl thanking him again as he used his passkey. Take him inside. Two, three minutes and Ben would be out. He opened the door a crack. They were going in, Liesl still talking, keeping him busy. Now. He opened the door.
He saw them before he heard them, two shadows followed by the sound of footsteps, clunky, not furtive. He pulled back in, banging his shoulder, and listened. Closer. Then Frank was back in the hallway, alert.
“Congressman,” he said.
“Thought you were catching forty winks somewhere,” Minot said, genial.
“No, just helping next door. Little lady forgot something.”
Could Liesl hear or would she blunder out into the hall?
Ben slid his hand toward the knob, turning the lock quietly, hoping the sound would disappear under Frank’s voice. If it were open, Minot would wonder. He looked toward the window, frantic. Too late to fiddle with the sash lock. Under a desk? Did Liesl think he was already gone? But what choice would she have, once she’d got her papers? A new voice now, Minot’s guest. The shadows were larger against the glass. Another look around the office. Nobody hid under desks, something out of Mack Sennett. Minot was taking out his key. Ben tiptoed away from the door. Next to the filing cabinets there was a supply closet, not a real closet with a door you could close, just shelves covered by an accordion screen. He wedged himself behind, his back flush against the shelves, trying not to move anything.
“This won’t take a minute,” Minot said, opening the door. He flicked on the overhead light.
Ben glanced to his left-did he make a shadow?
“But I did promise. And you know people-think nobody’s busy but them.”
“I can imagine,” Bunny said.
Ben went still, his mind racing, almost jumping again when the phone rang.
“That’ll be him,” Minot said, picking up and talking, the words bunching together, slipping past Ben, just business.
A meeting with Bunny arranged by whom? Minot just another union, another negotiation? Bunny was walking around the room, politely distancing himself from Minot’s call. Maybe looking out toward the hall, where Liesl would be any minute. But she’d see the lights, realize people were here. Ben imagined her in the hall, being swept down toward the back door by her own story-she had the papers, why stay? Her voice now, to Frank. Don’t say any more. If he could hear it, Bunny could.
“You’re a peach,” she said. “You saved my life.”
Distinct to him, or was he the only one listening, Bunny preoccupied? Then the sound of her heels.
“Everything okay, Congressman?” Frank said, his head in the door.
Minot nodded and waved him off. Now he’d follow, let her out, and she’d go to her car, expecting to find Ben, alarmed when she didn’t. Don’t come back.
“Sorry about that,” Minot was saying. “Now where- Ginny was supposed to leave- Here it is.” Ben heard the ruffle of paper. “We can talk more in the car.”
“I think I know what you need. You understand, our records aren’t anything like this.” Ben imagined him waving to the cabinets.
“No, these are the best anybody has, thanks to Jack Tenney.”
“It’s understood that Mr. L won’t be called,” Bunny said.
“I see no reason for that at this juncture,” Minot said, oddly formal.
“He’s not Mayer. No real press value for you. And the studio heads might see it as an attack, close ranks.”
“We wouldn’t want that.”
“Besides, I’m not sure he really understands what this is about.” He dropped his voice. “He’s out of it. That’s understood.”
“He hired Schaeffer,” Minot said.
“So did Zanuck. Anyway,” he said, switching tack, “who talks to writers? People on the set, not the front office. We can help you there. What kind of charges are you going to bring?”
“Charges? This isn’t a criminal trial. I’m not looking to send anybody to jail. Takes time and then you make martyrs out of them. Of course, if he perjures himself-but I doubt that, don’t you? Especially with all the corroborating testimony. Schaeffer’s a Commie and he knows we know. I don’t want to put him away, I just want everybody to know he’s there. Anyway, the public isn’t going to care about Schaeffer. They’ll want-” He stopped, evidently aware that he was saying more than he needed.
“Actors,” Bunny finished. “Stars.”
“Well, let’s just say people they know. Not necessarily Reds. Maybe just people who are as concerned as we are. Friends.”
“I understand,” Bunny said, interrupting him. “Faces for the newsreels.”
“Well, just so we do understand each other,” Minot said, annoyed. “How mutual interests work. The studios. The committee. We want to be on the same side here. As I say, I’m not looking to put people in jail. I’m expecting the studios to do their own police work. You wouldn’t want one working for you, would you?”
There was a pause. “Not even a suspected one,” Bunny said quietly, taking this in.
“That’s right. And once people know the studios feel this way, that it’s about their jobs, I think we’ll have a whole different situation. You fire one, everybody sits up. They’ll know it’s not going to be tolerated. Not in American movies. You don’t want to employ people who are against everything you stand for. You get together on this, hell, you could put the committee out of business.”
“Their jobs,” Bunny said. “Then why not give us names. We can take care of it before you have to call them. Saves expense.”
“Maybe in time. But right now-I don’t have to tell you about the value of publicity to get things rolling. That’s mother’s milk to you people.”
“Preview of coming attractions.”
“That’s right. We understand each other?”
For a minute Ben heard only the clock ticking.
“Mr. L is out of it,” Bunny said. “And the union contract?”
“That’s not in my gift. But I can promise that Mr. Stein will be otherwise occupied. That should help things along. Funny how they’re always Jews, isn’t it? Well, I have to get going. Do me a favor, will you, and reach behind? Get me an envelope for this? There should be a box of manilas in there.”
Ben fixed his eyes on the edge of the screen. What an animal must feel, he thought, finally outrun, trapped, a rush of blood to the head, then an eerie stillness, everything stopped, waiting. A hand, then a body blocking the light, Bunny turning. Ben reared back, flattening himself against the shelves, as if he could disappear, out of Bunny’s startled gaze. He expected Bunny to jump but instead he put his hand to the shelf, maybe to steady himself, still staring. A second passed, then another, neither of them making a sound, so that of all the things racing through Ben’s mind, what stuck was Bunny’s control, a will stronger than shock. And then it was too late for him to say anything, the moment over, both thinking, not breathing, trapped by each other.
“The door slides,” Minot said. “They’re back there somewhere.”
Maybe coming to help. Ben made his eyes go to the shelf beside him, a direction, then repeated it, like a flashing light.
“I see it,” Bunny said, reaching to the box on the shelf, his hand grazing Ben’s shoulder, complicit now by his silence, suddenly Ben’s protector. They looked at each other, a whole exchange without words, beyond the obvious question.
“I’ll have Andy drop you home,” Minot was saying, his voice sounding closer.
“No, the studio,” Bunny said, still looking at Ben. “I have a meeting. Somebody I need to see.” His voice now pitched directly at Ben, unmistakable. He took the envelope, then pulled the accordion screen closed, hiding Ben. “Here you go,” he said, handing it to Minot, and it was only then Ben heard the first waver, Bunny’s nerves finally engaged, not wanting Minot to know.
“This late? Well, I know how that is. Come on, I’ll get you back. I feel good about this. I think we got something done tonight.”
Ben heard them cross the room and then the light went out and the door slammed. He breathed out, the blood coming back, and realized he was sweating. He nudged the screen back, trying to do it silently. Give them a few minutes. He looked around the dark office. He’d have to use the window after all.
He leaned against the wall, waiting, thinking about the conversation. Their jobs. He was going to get the studios to do it for him. And they would. Buying time, feeding him one piece at a time, staying 100 percent American. Even Bunny, who understood, would have to give him somebody, a face to start with. He thought suddenly of Bunny’s face as it had been, guileless, a Freddie Bartholomew tear running down his cheek. An orphan. If you were fired at one studio, you’d never work at another. It would be understood, the way Minot wanted it.
Some headlights went by outside the window. Minot’s or just another car? Not yet. He looked at the files. Any one of them. And then he knew who it would be, the pragmatic choice. The file was right here, easy for him to take. Would it make any difference? You could reconstruct a file. If you remembered the sources, knew the cross references, had the time. And Minot now was in a rush. Danny had tried to help her once, never reported a thing. She must have meant something to him. Ben glanced at the file drawer again. Right here. Be Danny one more time.
He went over to the files and flicked through the tabs. Miliken, Millard, Miller. He took it out, bulky, and put it in his jacket, feeling his blood rush again. He glanced around, a thief’s involuntary gesture, then closed the drawer and went over to the window, trying to estimate the drop. Not far, the first floor, but you’d have to dangle a second before you dropped or risk your ankles, just the second a car might be passing. But everything seemed quiet. Wilshire was always busy, but the side street mostly took the outflow of the parking lot. He waited another minute, listening, then opened the window and swung out. When he was over, still hanging from the lintel, he tried to reach up with one hand to bring the window back down, but it jammed and putting his weight on one hand made it begin to slip, so he brought the other back and let himself down, dropping slowly until he was a few feet from the ground. Now. He hit the ground just as a pair of headlights swung around from Wilshire. He was wincing from the dull shock of the jump, but forced himself up before the light could reach him. A crouch would be suspicious. Your body told the story. Somebody walking, heading for the lot. The car passed.
Liesl was still down the street.
“I didn’t know what to do. It was Bunny, wasn’t it? What was he doing?”
“Fixing things. He thinks. Drop me at the studio. I told him I’d be there.”
“He saw you? What did he say?”
“Nothing. He was more upset that I saw him. Kind of thing you like to do by yourself.”
“What?”
“Make deals.”
She was quiet for a minute, moving them into traffic. “What’s going to happen?”
“I don’t know.”
She fixed on the windshield, shivering a little. “It’s like before. Today, at the studio, I felt it. The way it was before the war. The quiet. Nobody talks. Everybody knows and nobody talks. So it’s like that again.”
There were a few lights on in the Admin building, but Bunny’s office was dark so Ben headed over to the screening room. He touched the letter in his jacket, aware suddenly of the shadows and the deserted alleys between the sound stages, a perfect place to wait. No shots, another crack on the head, fatal this time, Carl oblivious at the gate while someone went through Ben’s pockets.
Bunny was alone in the screening room, running a picture.
“Just a minute,” he said, motioning Ben to sit. “Watch this.” Not rushes, an old feature, Claudette Colbert in a gold lame evening dress, clearly gold even in black and white. “Watch her wiggle in the seat.” A society party, people listening to a classical singer. “She got in with a pawn ticket and now they’re onto her. Barrymore knows. Look at the way they size each other up.”
But Ben was watching Bunny, his face soft with pleasure, living in the picture even as he talked.
“Now Hedda makes the announcement. See the one with her back to us? That’s Polly.”
“Polly?”
“Mm. Her greatest performance. Hedda gave her her start, with the column. Watch Barrymore’s eyebrows. Nobody could ham like that. The way they play off each other. Her eyes. It’s perfect, isn’t it?”
Claudette was getting up, summoned by a butler, and Bunny picked up the phone.
“Stop it there, Jerry. Thanks.” His eyes were still on the screen as the lights came up. “One week at the Paramount and it’s gone. But it was perfect. That look, like a grace note. That’s what we’re supposed to be doing here, putting in grace notes. Making things better.”
“What’s the picture?”
“ Midnight. Before the war.” He got up. “There’s a sequence I wanted to see, a bit with taxis. But I don’t think we can use it.” He turned to Ben. “What were you doing there?”
“If you don’t know, you’ll never have to answer that,” Ben said, feeling the weight in his pocket.
Bunny looked at him, then moved away, running his hand over the back of his seat. “I suppose you heard everything, behind your little arras.”
“Faint mumblings.”
“I should have had a sword. Run you through. But I find I never do have one, when I need it.” He stopped. “Don’t interfere in this.”
Ben nodded, noncommittal.
“I mean it. Just put it out of your mind. We’ll both do that. What were you doing, though?”
“Catching up on my filing. They make interesting reading.”
“Not anymore. Stay out of it.”
“Don’t give him anybody.”
“You think I’m enjoying this?” He walked down the aisle, away from Ben. “It’s business, that’s all.”
“No. It’s going to get worse.”
“Not for us,” Bunny said quickly. “Look, I’m walking a tightrope here.” He lifted his arms from his sides a little, a balancing mime. “Don’t shake it. Don’t huff. Don’t puff.” He looked at Ben. “Don’t anything. Or you’re off the lot. Mr. L or no.”
The back door to the Cherokee was kept locked now, so he went through the front, past the new night clerk, attentive, maybe a Bureau man, planted too late. Upstairs he flicked on the light before going in and flung the door open, in case another Ray was waiting. He opened the French windows to let in some air, then went back to the door and wedged a desk chair under the knob. Would he really try here again? Dropping somehow onto the balcony?
Ben sat on the bed and pulled out the sheet of names. Wallace. Gilbert. No more recognizable than before. Not here, not in San Francisco. Friedman. He stopped. A name he had heard. Literally heard. A voice saying it. But whose? He tried putting it in people’s mouths to see how it would sound-Liesl, Bunny, anyone he knew, but nothing came. Still, he’d heard it somewhere. On the lot? Lasner’s party? Let it go. If you tried to force it, nothing came. You had to let it pop into your head.
He looked at the door again, barricaded, what his life was going to be like now. What if he never came? But he’d want the list. Unless he’d decided to write it off as a bad risk, move on. Still, he’d tried once, a man dead. A day, two. Or he’d have to use more bait.
Minot presented the hearings as a preliminary fact-finding inquiry, something local, but he was staging them like a full Washington investigation. The press had its own section in the hearing room, behind the newsreel cameras, but half were still outside covering the witnesses arriving, a premiere without the broad smiles. The public seats filled almost immediately, with a few front rows reserved for the witnesses, studio VIPs, and anyone with a friend on Minot’s staff. Ostermann, surprisingly, was in the press section, near Polly, who kept leaping up and down to talk to people, then scribble notes, a blur of eager restlessness. The committee sat at a long table, not a raised judge’s bench, but the arrangement, looking across at the witnesses and their lawyers, still had a courtroom effect.
What Ben noticed most was the noise. The galleries buzzed with talk. In the side rooms, telephones rang almost constantly and aides ran back and forth with messages. When Minot came out to take his place at the table the hum rose even higher, the room busy, anticipating. Ben thought of a Coliseum scene in the old silents, everyone in jerky motion, waiting for the lions.
The first bang of the gavel was startling, followed by a murmur, a second bang, quiet. Minot, his face flushed with confidence, gave the opening speech-a great industry undermined from within, the values and moral fabric of the culture itself at risk, the unwitting comfort extended to traitors in our midst-and then, just a few seconds before the audience could get restive, called Dick Marshall.
“I thought he was going to start with Stein,” Bunny whispered, half to himself.
A logical choice, the strike still daily news, and Stein’s sympathies so well known he would have been an easy first shot, but for once Bunny’s instincts were off, not the point Minot wanted to score. As Marshall approached the table, there was an audible rustling of interest. A movie star, someone, Ben suddenly remembered, who’d once actually played a gladiator.
It was clear from the first moment, Minot’s head nodding with respect, that Marshall had come as a friendly witness, there to add a glow and demonstrate that he was as American as everyone assumed him to be. There were soft questions and patriotic answers, more nods from the committee, Dick’s very presence, his concern, somehow affirming their own. Bunny watched carefully, head on his pyramid fingers. Marshall was Continental’s most valuable name, a marquee favor to Minot. But why call him? Ben looked at his tanned, smooth face. An arm dangling from a chaise. Minot, he saw, was ignoring the Continental row. There were complicit glances at the rest of the audience, direct appeals to the cameras, but he never met Bunny’s eyes, acknowledged the gift. Marshall was his.
“Now you yourself didn’t serve in the military?” Minot said.
“No, I was 4-F. Perforated eardrum.”
Bunny sat up but didn’t say anything, maybe a question not in the script.
“But of course you served your country in other ways.”
“I did what I could, yes. During the bond drive, we raised-”
“Well, I meant more just by doing what you do. Your pictures. I can tell you, when I was in the Pacific, there were times the boys thought you were winning the war single-handed.”
Everyone laughed and Marshall tilted his head modestly.
“I had a little help. About four million guys, in fact. They’re the ones who won it.”
“Christ,” Ben said under his breath.
“Don’t snipe,” Bunny said.
“But I think we can all agree,” Minot said, “morale’s important, too. As someone who did see active service, I can tell you those pictures meant a lot to us. Now I wonder if I can ask you about one of them. In 1943, you were in Convoy to Murmansk. You remember that?”
“Sure. I was in the Navy in that one.”
“Escorting a convoy of freighters, wasn’t it?”
Dick nodded. “Dodging U-boats.”
“Dodging U-boats. Now of course they were all over the Atlantic. And the book the movie was based on-were you aware of this? — was English, about convoys heading for England. Convoy it was called.”
“That was the original title of the picture, too. The first script, I mean.”
“Oh, the original. And were you going to England in the script?”
“Yes.”
“Then all the sudden, Murmansk. Now why is that, do you think?”
“I don’t know. That would have been up to the writer. The director. I just say the lines.”
“The director, the writer-same fella on this picture, is that right? On Convoy to — Murmansk,” Minot said, emphasizing the last word.
“Right. Milton Schaeffer.”
“You ever ask him why he changed it?”
“Just in a kidding way. Made things harder to pronounce, the places.”
“In a kidding way. And what did he say?”
“Well, at the time we were trying to show how all the Allies were in it together. He said this was a way of bringing Russia in.”
“Including a new Russian character.” He looked down at his notes. “Andrei Malinkov. Soviet Naval attache. Dick Marshall couldn’t get through the Baltic himself, is that it?”
Dick smiled. “The idea was, we were working together. He knew the mine fields.”
“Americans and Russians side by side. Just like they were any folks. Let me read you something.” He picked up a paper. “‘We’re not just carrying food. Equipment. We’re carrying hope. They’re taking a terrible beating. We have to help. How can we eat if they’re going hungry?’ Recognize that?”
“I said it. In the picture.”
“It’s in the book, too. Of course then you’re saying it about London. Now it’s-what? Leningrad? You think it’s the same thing? London, Leningrad? Is that what Mr. Schaeffer said?”
Dick gave a side glance to his lawyer, who nodded, a cue.
“He said the suffering there was even worse, in Russia, but nobody was doing pictures about it. This would help draw attention. That we needed to help the Russians.”
“Help the Russians,” Minot repeated. “Well, that we certainly did. The ships in Convoy — excuse me, Convoy to Murmansk — were carrying Lend-Lease. Millions and millions to help those people Mr. Schaeffer said were suffering so much. Know how much of it they’ve paid back? Not one cent. Not one kopek.” He looked up. “Did you ever suspect at the time that Mr. Schaeffer might be a Communist?”
“No, sir,” Marshall said, appalled.
“No, you don’t find that word in the script, not once. Just those friendly Russians. But they must have been, mustn’t they? Why not call them Communists?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe you’d have found that harder to say. Maybe everybody would have found it harder to watch. Better not to tell people what the picture is really about. That’s how they work. How would you feel now about Convoy? Knowing what you know today?”
Another glance to his lawyer, Bunny still, staring ahead.
“I guess I’d ask to be taken off the picture. If, like you say, it wasn’t good for America. All my pictures, I’ve always thought they were a hundred percent American.”
“Mr. Marshall, no one here is questioning your loyalty. We’re just concerned that some people might use it for their own ends. Maybe you need to be a little more careful in the future. Not just say the words. Think a little bit about what’s behind them.” A school principal to a truant.
“Yes, sir.”
Dick lowered his head slightly. Ben thought of him climbing into the fighter cockpit, eager to take on Japan, and saw that the nod had been the real point of the testimony, a kind of salute to the new commander at the long table.
“Anyone else on the committee have a question? If not, I think we can take a short break. You’ll be available to us later, if we need you?” he said to Dick.
“Congressman, I’m here to help. I believe in fighting for Americaand not just in the pictures.”
Ben glanced across at the press section. Everyone was scribbling but Ostermann, his eyes fixed on Minot.
“That was fine,” Bunny said to Marshall. His lawyers were gathering up papers from the witness table.
“Nice to say that about my pictures. Seeing them over there.”
“What he said was that he was in the Pacific and you weren’t. That’s all anybody heard.”
“Still.”
“Never mind, you were fine. The fight line was good. They’re all going to use it.”
“I meant it.”
“That’s what makes it so convincing,” Bunny said, not missing a beat. “I didn’t know where he was going with the 4-F, but it was fine.”
“Where he was going?”
“Well, we don’t want anybody poking lights in your ears, do we? Anyway, it’s done.” He put a hand on Dick’s shoulder. “Polly,” he said, spotting her.
“Dick, that was wonderful. Wonderful. Read the column tomorrow,” she said, patting him. “You’re going to be very pleased.” She turned to Bunny. “I have a bone to pick with you.”
“Oh, Polly, a very small bone, I hope.”
“You promised me an interview with Liesl.”
“And you’ll get it.”
“When, after the picture opens? I thought she’d be here today. Why isn’t she?” she said, her voice pointed now. “You’d think she’d want to be here with Dick.”
“Polly, she’s shooting. Some of us have to work. Of course she wanted to be here. She also wants to get the picture out.”
“You mean you do.”
“Because I’ve seen it. You won’t believe how good she is. Bergman.” He held his hand up, being sworn in. “Have I ever lied?”
Polly laughed. “You? No. You don’t have it in you.”
“A heart to heart, I promise. The kind you like. Just let her finish.”
Polly waved this off. “See where I’m sitting? Right next to the Other Mann. Maybe I’ll get him to ask. Somebody with influence.”
“Call my office in the morning. I’ll have Wendy set it up. Anyway, I thought you were doing Dick.”
“A companion piece. You should want this,” she said, tapping Bunny’s arm. “It makes her more American. Especially after today. I could tell Ken was pleased. It’s a great thing he’s doing.”
Bunny watched her trail after Dick, then turned to one of his assistants. “Where’s Rosemary? I thought she was supposed to be here.”
“Rosemary?” Ben said.
“She hasn’t been served yet,” the assistant said.
“That’s funny,” Bunny said, frowning, a detail out of place. “Go call and see what’s up.”
“Why Rosemary?” Ben said, walking out with Bunny.
“He can’t lean on Schaeffer all week. Where’s that going to get him? Murmansk?”
“Where’s Rosemary going to get him?”
Bunny looked at him. “Stay out of this.”
In the hall, people huddled in groups, smoking. Dick Marshall posed for a few more pictures. Ben made a circle, looking for Ostermann, and instead saw Henderson, leaning back against a fire extinguisher.
“What are you doing here?”
“Sure,” Henderson said, reaching into his pocket. “Right here.”
Then, in a lower voice, “Take out a cigarette. I thought you didn’t want us to talk.”
“I thought you weren’t going to follow me,” Ben said, leaning forward for the light.
“I’m just watching.”
“What?”
“Things. See who’s watching you. It’s a good place for it. Who’d know? I figure he’d like to keep tabs. I would, I was him.”
“And?”
“It’s early. Now you got your light.”
“Clearance come through yet on those names?”
“I’m working on it. You’re welcome,” he said louder, nodding.
Ben stood for a minute, stymied. “Don’t ruin this,” he said.
Henderson smiled. “What? Your unexpected demise? I’m looking forward to it. As long as I see who does it.”
He moved off, leaving Ben to watch the crowd. Could he really be here? Someone on his way to the men’s room. The photographer who wasn’t. Anybody.
When the hearings reconvened, Ben had Dick next to him, Bunny on his other side.
“Why start with you?” Bunny said to Dick, still preoccupied with the order of things.
“I’m just glad to get it over with.”
“But there’s no build. Here they come.”
This time Minot did look at them, an unexpected anger. At first Ben thought it was directed at him, the Kaltenbach grudge, but when Carol Hayes was called, a Fox contract player, Minot’s eyes were fixed on Bunny, gauging his reaction. Bunny, clearly surprised, shrugged back.
“He’s doing this wrong,” he said. “Why her?”
“Picture in the papers?”
“Below the fold,” Bunny said, dismissive.
Ben watched the newsreel cameras track her as she moved to the table, motors whirring. “Who is she?”
“Priscilla Lane. Diana Lynn,” Bunny said, casting.
“I mean here.”
“Probably a Schaeffer picture at Fox. But he just did that. There’s no build. Carol Hayes.”
“The cameras like her.”
Bunny frowned. “Something’s wrong.” He leaned across again to one of the publicity staff and whispered, sending him out of the room.
“And you talked to Mr. Schaeffer about the script?” Minot was saying.
“I didn’t want to,” she said. “You know, you don’t like to make trouble. But I just didn’t feel comfortable with some of the lines.”
“On the seventh take,” Bunny said under his breath.
“And why was that?”
“They didn’t seem- I don’t think it’s like that in this country. I mean, my dad was a businessman and he just wouldn’t have done that, what happens in the picture.”
Ben thought at first that Minot was heading somewhere with this, but after a while saw that he was just treading water. Everything Hayes said, her fear of being used to promote an underlying message, had been said. After she stepped down, another break, Bunny caught Minot as he passed.
“I don’t understand what you’re doing,” he said quietly, a private conversation as people passed around them.
“No? Not exactly what we agreed, is it? I don’t like sloppy seconds, either. You people,” Minot said, an undisguised contempt. “Look at that.”
Off to the side, Carol was smiling, her face lit up by flashbulbs.
“Then why did you-”
“You want to protect your property? That it? And I get this. So the surprise is on me. Live and learn. Who’d you use? Him?” He jerked his finger at Ben. “Handy Andy. No, he wouldn’t have the balls. One of your studio goons probably. But I’ll tell you something. The next surprise is on you. I can’t call her without the file-that’ll take a while to put together again. But there’s always another way. A little whisper and there’s no end to the shit they can stir up.” He turned his head toward the reporters. “You shouldn’t have done it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Minot dropped his voice. “Who do you think you’re playing with? You fix parking tickets. You don’t fix me. Not me.”
“I still don’t-”
“No? Then maybe she did it herself. Such light fingers,” he said, wriggling his. “It doesn’t matter. You’re both fucked.”
“Ken-”
“Can I get a word in edgewise?” A voice behind them.
“Polly,” Minot said, rearranging his face, stepping back. “You there all this time?”
“Now don’t run away. I’ve been trying to get you all morning. They’re running the column out front.”
“As the news?”
“In addition. Two stories. And a picture.”
“That’s a mighty good start,” Minot said, smiling.
“Mm. I’m doing the color. Bunny, you don’t mind, do you? I’ll bring him back in a minute. Who else are you calling? Schaeffer?”
“You bet.” He looked at Bunny. “And that’s just the first day.”
“What was that about?” Bunny said when they left. “Light fingers?”
“I don’t know,” Ben said, a little shaken, back in the supply closet, waiting to be caught. But she wouldn’t be called. Something for Danny.
“I’ve never seen him like that.”
“That’s who he is.”
Bunny’s face, ashen just a minute ago, hardened. “He’s not going to do a thing about the consent decree.”
“Then make it harder for him. Don’t give him people.”
Bunny looked up. “Well, now I haven’t, it seems. This isn’t your doing, is it? Is that what you were- But why would you?” he said, talking to himself. “You know what he’ll do now.” He turned toward the door, watching Minot leave. “He’ll feed her to Polly. Before we go into release.”
Henderson seemed to have disappeared, now just another hat in the crowd, but Ostermann was there, standing alone by a window, looking out.
“It’s usually gone by this time,” he said, nodding to the fog. “Not today. No sun. Dark times, eh?”
“You haven’t been taking any notes. Are you really going to write about this?”
“If he calls Germans, then it’s something for Aufbau. Brecht, at least, I would think, wouldn’t you? He’d make an interesting witness.”
“It’s a farce.”
Ostermann nodded. “It always begins that way. Nothing to trouble about. Then each day a little more. Well, that’s not so serious, either. And then one day-”
“You’re writing your piece,” he said, one eye still looking for Henderson.
A short man with wire-rimmed glasses, surrounded by lawyers, was crossing the hall, drawing photographers away from Carol Hayes. Schaeffer, he guessed.
Ostermann smiled. “Just thinking out loud.” He looked at the crowd. “They don’t see it. It’s new to them. But it’s the same. A farce. So say nothing and then it’s too late. Like us.”
In the hearing room, Bunny was still talking to the lawyers at the witness table so Ben was forced to take the open seat next to Dick. Their shoulders touched as he sat down, a slight brush, then a quick drawing away, and suddenly Ben was aware of him as a body, the height of his shoulders, his bulk filling the suit, hands placed on his knees, waiting. His tanned face oblivious to any change in the air around him, Ben invisible.
What had it been like? Had Dick stood by the pool’s edge, watching her legs open and close? Or had that scene been just for him? The sounds, the way she clenched him. Ben turned, facing the long table. Something that only happened to you, what everybody felt, each time. Was it over? Someone else she hadn’t loved. Still Danny’s wife.
The sound of the newsreel cameras made him look up. Minot was calling Milton Schaeffer. The tone in his voice, with its hint of blood sport, almost gloating, had made everyone sit up. Carol Hayes, even Dick, had just been there to set the stage-Schaeffer was actually a Communist. But as the cameras followed him, Ben’s attention shifted to them, the familiar whirring sound suddenly distracting, like someone whispering in his ear. Newsreel cameras.
Minot shuffled through papers, a promise of evidence to come, as Schaeffer approached the long table and was sworn in. He seemed slighter than he had in the hall, wiry and pale. Minot kept putting his papers in place, letting a hush fall over the room before he pounced.
“Mr. Schaeffer, are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?”
No one had expected a direct jab at the opening, and it might have worked, caused the excitement Minot had clearly been hoping for, if Schaeffer had been defiant or uncooperative or even evasive. Instead, he answered Minot’s questions with a resigned fatalism that seemed to diminish their importance. Yes, he had been a member of the Party. No, he had resigned in August 1939, after the signing of the Non-Aggression Pact. No, he had not attended meetings since. He knew the names of the national Party officers (known to everyone) but not any of those in the local chapter.
“Don’t know or don’t want us to know?” Minot said.
“Names weren’t used.”
“No names. But they had faces? You’d recognize them if you saw them?”
“I suppose. It’s been six or seven years.”
“You didn’t stay friends?”
“It was a discussion group. Not-well, just a discussion group.”
“What did you discuss?”
“Political theory.”
He still believed in the plight of the underprivileged, but no longer felt the CP was an effective tool to help them. His testimony was listless and damp, like the fog outside, waiting to be burned off. Minot had clearly been expecting something else and finally he saw that Schaeffer’s answers, easily given, made him seem no more threatening than the bank clerk he resembled. The cameramen looked disappointed, not interested in the quieter drama, Schaeffer politely ending his career.
“He’s losing them,” Bunny said.
“Are you seriously suggesting to this committee that for five years- five years-you were part of an organization that owed its loyalty to a foreign power and this was a youthful indiscretion?”
“I have never been loyal to any country except the United States. I am an American. At no time during my association with the Party was there any question of disloyalty. When the Party adopted a position that I felt was not in our interests, I resigned.”
“And up until then they acted in our interests?”
“What I thought should be our interests, yes.”
“Should be. A rude awakening, then, when you found out what the Party’s interests really were. A smart fellow like you ought to have known, don’t you think? Or are you trying to say-it’s some defensethat you didn’t know what you were doing?”
“I thought I did. I thought I knew when I got married, too. Things change.”
People laughed, grateful for a light second. Minot used his gavel.
“Mr. Schaeffer, do you think these proceedings are a laughing matter?”
Schaeffer looked around. “Not yet.”
Just a gentle poke to the side, a tap, but this got a laugh, too.
“I can assure you, you won’t be laughing when we’re finished. This committee doesn’t think subversion is a joke. This country-”
The rest was lost, background noise as Ben stopped listening again. The laughter, small as it was, was taken by Minot as an affront and Ben saw that Bunny was right, he was losing the audience, confusing them, his confidence turning petulant. Even his staging was off. He had kept the other witnesses in the room, but that meant they were now only a few feet away from Schaeffer, avoiding eye contact, their testimony suddenly personal, everyone smaller.
One of the publicity assistants, hurrying in, squatted down next to Bunny, leaning over to whisper in his ear.
“What?” Bunny said out loud.
Minot looked up, then smiled to himself.
Bunny left, huddled with the assistant, half the room watching.
“What did he say?” Ben asked Dick.
Dick shrugged. “Something about Lasner.”
A summons from the studio, Bunny on call even here. But when he came back ten minutes later his face was grim, disturbed. Something more than a studio crisis. Ben looked at him, waiting.
“They’ve called Mr. L,” Bunny said.
Ben took a minute, thinking this through. “He can get it delayed,” he said.
Bunny shook his head. “They’ll tell the papers he asked. Which means he has something to hide.”
“Does he?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. The only Reds he ever knew were fighting cowboys. Bastard,” Bunny said, looking toward Minot. “To drag him into this.”
Minot, noticing, smiled again.
Bunny left for another call, then two more, a small frenzy of activity, back and forth.
“I have to get to the studio,” he said. “The lawyers want to coach him. Hal, too.”
“Hal?” Ben said.
“He worked on Convoy. Bloody picture, we didn’t even make money on it.”
“We didn’t?” Dick said. “I thought-”
“In second release, yes.”
“The trades liked it. They said I-”
“Dick. Nobody could have done it better,” Bunny said, impatient, his tone weary, like rolling his eyes. “I have to get back.”
Before he could leave, however, Minot had called a break and they were trapped by the crowd in the hall.
“Bunny,” Schaeffer said, extending his hand. “Don’t worry. Nobody’s taking pictures.”
Bunny shook it. “I’m sorry, Milton. You know what it’s like.”
He looked around the hall. “I know what this is like anyway. How’s Sol?”
“They’re calling him, Milton.”
“Sol? What for?”
“What for.”
“Because I worked for him?”
“No, he’s doing a picture with Stalin. What for.”
“This wasn’t my idea, Bunny.”
“I have to run, Milton.”
“Bunny. They’re not going to pick up my option. Not after this. I can work quiet. No credit.”
“I can’t, Milton,” Bunny said, meeting his eyes. “I can’t.” He glanced over Schaeffer’s shoulders. “Look sharp. Here comes Judge Hardy.”
Schaeffer moved away without bothering to turn, as if Minot were a scent he’d picked up in the air.
“You said you wouldn’t call Mr. L,” Bunny said, his mouth clenched.
“We both said things.”
“Call it off.”
“The subpoena’s been issued.”
“Dismiss it.”
“You think the studios run this town, don’t you? Nobody elected the studios.”
“He’s not a good enemy to make.”
“Neither am I. Don’t get yourself in a swivet. You tell Lasner to behave. He cooperates, everybody’s fine. He gets to be a patriot and I get to send a message.”
“To whom?”
“You think it’s still twenty years ago, picture people can do anything they want. What did Comrade Schaeffer say? Things change.”
“Don’t do this. I mean it.”
“You mean it.” He made a face. “I appreciate the advice.”
“Want some more? Professional? You’re flopping in there.”
Minot blinked, then looked at him steadily. “Things’ll pick up tomorrow.”
Ben decided to leave before Minot had finished with Schaeffer. The testimony had grown repetitive, used up. Once Schaeffer had admitted to being a Communist, Minot was left with the less exciting story of what he’d actually done, discussion groups and petitions and rallies no one remembered. Still, a Red in the industry-how many more?
He found Hal in the cutting room, finishing the last of the camp footage.
“I thought you were with the lawyers,” Ben said.
“I was. Now I’m supposed to be thinking of anybody who could have been-you know. So I thought I’d get this done. In case things get busy. I hear Dick did a little flag waving.”
“It’s that kind of occasion. What did the lawyers tell you?”
“Be polite. Don’t volunteer. Make him work for it. Whatever that’s going to be.”
Ben leaned toward the Moviola. “Didn’t we already cut this?”
“I was just trying something.”
“What?”
“Seeing how it would work without the Artkino footage,” he said, self-conscious, trying to be casual.
“How does it?” Ben said quietly.
“You don’t want anybody saying-” He looked away. “It’s just in case. You have to pick your fights. You want this made.”
He ran into Lasner in the Admin men’s room, a surprise since his office had its own bathroom.
“Lawyers. It’s the only place I can get some peace,” Lasner said to him in the mirror, his face sagged, slightly withdrawn, the way it had looked during the street fight on Gower, trying to make sense of things. “So you were there? What’s he going to want?”
“Keep himself in the papers for a while.”
“No. From me.”
Ben joined him at the sink. “To go along. Treat him like a big shot.”
“That’s what Bunny says. It’ll blow over. What’ll blow over? I don’t know, a man comes, eats in your house, you make a party for him, and then this. So maybe Bunny doesn’t know what he’s talking about, either.”
“It worked with Dick. It was all right.”
“Did I know I was hiring Commies? Jesus Christ, Milt Schaeffer. If that’s what the Russians got, we don’t have a thing to worry about.”
“He’s not trying to make you look bad.”
“I thought you knew something about pictures.” He raised his hands, framing. “You argue with him, you’re a Commie-sticking up for them, same thing. You don’t argue, yes sir, you’re an idiot for using Milt in the first place. Either way, he’s a smart guy and you’re a putz.”
Ben said nothing.
“So that’s what everybody thinks? Bunny. You. Keep your head down. Be a putz.”
“He can make trouble for the studio.”
Lasner nodded, conceding the point. “When did that happen? I’ve been thinking about that. When did we let that happen, he wins either way?”
Ben looked at him, suddenly back with Ostermann. “A little bit at a time.”
The next day a steady drizzle came with the morning fog, blurring visibility, everything beyond the next block only half-seen through a gray scrim. Bad weather anywhere else was just part of life. Here it became disturbing, a form of disillusion. Wet palm fronds drooped, pastel stucco walls streaked grime. Without the lighting effects of sunshine, the city was shabby, the realtors’ promises turned into streets of disappointment. Traffic barely moved. The hearings would start late.
Ben turned on the radio to cover the dull squish of the windshield wipers and found Minot on the news, an interview from the federal building, predicting more revelations.
“Where’s the front line in this war? Not some ditch, some atoll in the Pacific. It’s in everything we see and hear, the values our children are being taught. The Commies don’t fight where we can see them. They’d rather sneak something in with the popcorn.”
Go to Berlin, Ben thought, there’s a front line there-machine guns and checkpoints, right out in the open. Talk to some of the DPs, the ones from the east, watch how they scuttle away from the Soviet soldiers, an animal fear. But Minot never brought up the genuine horrors, the show trials and mass executions. Communism was for him a purely domestic threat. The Russians, the visible menace, weren’t on trial- Milt Schaeffer was, who’d left the Party in ’39. Assuming anyone really left. Danny apparently hadn’t, working for them, according to Henderson, right up to the end. But doing what? Playing both sides against each other, or only deceiving one? Or had the loyalties become so tangled that he no longer knew? Ben grimaced, seeing Danny at the witness table, facing the committee, finally answering for whatever he’d done. Except that he had already answered.
Minot started with Hal Jasper. At first Ben thought, Bunny’s lesson taken, that Minot was building his case, then realized there was a pettier motive-he wanted to make Lasner wait. He had been the big draw earlier in the hall, Fay on his arm, both smiling for reporters. Now, wedged in the Continental row with Bunny and the lawyers, he was just another witness, with Minot calling the shots.
“Mr. Jasper, it’s our understanding that Mr. Schaeffer requested you for Convoy to Murmansk. Were you aware of this?”
“No.”
“In writing. There’s a memo to that effect.”
Ben glanced over at Bunny. Something that could only have come from him, in more cooperative times.
“Can you think of any reason why he would do that?”
“No,” Hal said again, not giving him anything.
“You’d never worked together before?”
“No.”
“Had you done any action pictures? Before Convoy?”
“One or two.”
“What were their names, do you remember?”
Hal looked puzzled, wondering where this was going. “ Apache Trail. One or two others.”
“These were Westerns?”
“Yes.”
“Not war movies. And yet Mr. Schaeffer requested you. Someone who had no experience with this kind of picture. Why do you think that was?”
“The process is the same. You’re still cutting action scenes.”
“I see. Posses, convoys, it makes no never mind.”
Hal said nothing, waiting.
“It couldn’t have been for your political sympathies, could it?”
“No.”
Minot smiled pleasantly. “Just your Western expertise. I’d like to show you a photograph. Put it up here on a screen so we can all see it.” Behind him, a slide was projected, Hal fighting in Gower Street. “Now that fellow there, center right, I think we can all agree that’s you?”
Ben saw Lasner shift in his seat, restless.
“Like to tell us where this is?”
“Outside Continental.”
“And what were you doing there?”
“Trying to get to work.”
“That’s quite a commute you have there from the looks of it,” Minot said, getting a laugh. “Now isn’t it a fact, Mr. Jasper, that the police were called in to break up a union riot? Isn’t it a fact, unless there’s something wrong with my eyes, the photograph shows you in that same riot? Fighting with a policeman, in fact. And isn’t it a fact you were later treated for injuries at Continental with Howard Stein-practically brought in together is my understanding? That’s the Howard Stein whose affiliation with the Communist Party has been under investigation for years. That Howard Stein. And that’s his union outside in the picture and you in it, throwing punches with the rest of them. Now,” he said, pausing for effect, “I don’t doubt that Milton Schaeffer, a self-confessed Communist, confessed right in this room, in fact, admired your skills with Western movies. But isn’t it just possible-I can’t help feeling there’s a chance of this-that he also liked to have people around who agreed with him politically? Requested people like that. Especially when he was about to make a few changes to the picture. Changes to make us feel a little better about the Russians. I’d just have to say this was possible. Now I’m not asking you to tell us which union you support or how you voted-that’s your business. I’m just saying things like this,” he said, pointing back to the screen, “might give somebody the impression you lean-” He broke off, covering the mike with his hand as an aide whispered in his ear. “Excuse me,” he said after the aide left. “Now let’s talk about Convoy. Yesterday we heard how all those Bundles for Britain ended up going to the Soviets instead. Was that already settled when you came on the picture or did Mr. Schaeffer discuss it with you?”
“No.”
“No, he didn’t discuss it with you?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, now, that’s interesting, because we have testimony, and we’ll get it sworn in later, that Mr. Schaeffer actually reshot scenes-a pretty expensive proposition I’m told-after consulting with you. Do you recall that?”
“We didn’t have enough reaction shots. He took a few more, that’s all.”
“Reaction shots of who?”
“Brian Hill.”
“That’s the fellow playing the Russian. Make his part bigger, that the idea?”
“In that scene, yes.”
“Quite a bit bigger, in fact. That’s where he talks about the Russian people, isn’t it. How they’re hungry because the Nazis took over their farms. Now some of us were under the impression that all started a little earlier, when the Soviets did it, forced them into collectives, but we’re not here to give history lessons and neither was Convoy to Murmansk, I guess. Just make the Russians look like all-around good guys. That was more the point, wouldn’t you say?”
Hal said nothing.
“Wouldn’t you say?” Minot repeated.
“I’m not sure I understand the question.”
“Well, not so much a question. More a general impression.”
“Of the picture? I thought Schaeffer did a good job, considering.”
“Considering what?”
“He had to shoot it in a tank. Technically, it’s a headache, Navy pictures.”
“I meant your overall impression of the story line. What the movie was saying.”
Hal shrugged. “It was a U-boat picture. A war picture.”
“Did Mr. Schaeffer ask you to feature the Russians, when you edited scenes?”
“No.”
“But you did in this scene.”
“You cut to whoever has the dramatic moment. Who the audience would want to see.”
“And in this case, they’d want to see Lieutenant Malinkov, our friend from Murmansk?”
“What the hell is this about?” Lasner said, his voice low, but loud enough to be heard in the row. Fay put a hand on his arm, shushing him.
“Were you aware at the time of Mr. Schaeffer’s political affiliations?”
“No.”
“I’ve been told that the editor is the unsung hero on a picture, the one who makes the real decisions. What we see up there, that’s pretty much what you want us to see. How you want us to feel about it. You agree with that?”
“You can only work with what they shoot.”
“A modest man. But Mr. Schaeffer put a lot of trust in you. From what I hear, he gave you pretty much a free hand. Easier when somebody knows what you’re after. Heart in the right place, so to speak. I’d like to return for a minute, if I may, to Mr. Stein. Your comrade, if I can use the word, in that little dustup on Gower Street. Was that the first time you’d met him?”
“No.”
“Oh, you knew him, then.”
“I’ve met him, I wouldn’t say I knew him.”
“Where’d you meet?”
“I don’t remember exactly. Somebody’s house. Socially.”
“Come now, Mr. Jasper, it was a little closer to home than that, wasn’t it? Would you like to identify the name Elaine Seitzman for the committee?”
“She’s my sister.”
“Seitzman’s her married name?”
“Yes.”
“A housewife. And a secretary. Isn’t that right?”
“Yes.”
“A paralegal secretary. Howard Stein’s secretary for a while, isn’t that so?”
“Her firm did some work for him once. That’s a lot of years ago.”
“Got arrested with him, in fact. A public disturbance. Or maybe she was just on her way to work, too,” he said, smiling to the audience. “It seems to be an unlucky family that way. She introduce you to Howard Stein?”
“She may have. I don’t remember. I only met him to shake hands.”
“Even though she was working for him.”
“Her firm worked for him.”
“All right, I’m not here to contradict you. Her firm. She stay with them?”
“No, she left after she got married.”
“But she kept working. This time for the government. Care to tell us in what capacity?”
“As a paralegal.”
“I meant which branch of the government. Turns out it was the NLRB,” Minot said, picking up a note. “That’s the National Labor Relations Board, for anyone here doesn’t know. Is that where they’re recruiting now? Howard Stein’s office?”
Ben noticed Ostermann raising his head at this, interested.
“This was eight years ago,” Hal said.
“All right, we’ll bring things closer to the present day, if you prefer. You know the public record’s a useful thing. Memory can play tricks on us, but when you’ve got something down in black and white-I’m thinking now about a paid ad in the Los Angeles Times. Open letter to President Roosevelt with your name on it. Ring a bell? Organization called the Motion Picture European Relief Fund. Decent size, I guess. Whole bunch of names on the letter. Would you like to tell the committee what the fund was for?”
“To help refugees get out of Europe.”
“Get them here, in other words.”
“Here, Cuba, Mexico, whoever would take them.”
“These were Jewish refugees?”
“Not all.”
“Not all. What were you asking the president to do?”
“Change INS regulations. To allow more refugees in.”
“And did he do this?”
“No. There was congressional opposition,” Hal said, looking directly at Minot.
“Maybe they were a little uneasy, seeing who was making the request.”
“Those people died,” Hal said simply.
Even Minot paused. “Well, now I doubt that was Congress’s intention.”
“They still died.”
Minot nodded. “I think everybody here knows that, Mr. Jasper. We fought a war to stop it. All of us. But right now I’d like to look at that letter you were sending the president. Remember who was on the steering committee?”
“No.”
“You don’t. Well, like I said, have something in black and white and it comes in handy. Let me refresh your memory.” He picked up a piece of paper. “Quite a list, but I’d like to draw your attention to the S’s. Milton Schaeffer. Howard Stein.” He looked up. “Maybe this is where you met him. To shake hands.”
“What, Hal’s a Red?” Lasner said to Bunny. “Jesus Christ, this is the guy you said was going to help us?”
“Was.”
Minot was reading more of the names. “Gus Pollock. Passed away, sadly, but I’m sure you know Mr. Pollock wrote more than letters. In fact, he got a cowriter credit on Convoy.” He paused for effect. “It’s a small world, isn’t it? Mr. Schaeffer. Mr. Stein. Mr. Pollock. And of course yourself. All in the same letter. We could go on with this,” he said, raising the paper, “but I think you get the point. A small world. But you and Mr. Schaeffer never discussed any changes. A small world. But you didn’t know Mr. Stein from Adam in that street brawl.” He shook his head. “It’s quite a memory lapse we’re talking about here.” He glanced at the aide. “Why don’t we recess now for a few minutes.” He looked at his watch. “Say, fifteen. Give it some thought, Mr. Jasper. Maybe something will come back to you.”
There was a rush for the phone booths in the hall, the sound of matches being struck.
“We can go in here,” Bunny said, indicating a large room that had been set aside for witnesses and lawyers.
“I’m not going to sit around here all day,” Lasner said.
“Take it easy,” Fay said. “It’s one day.”
“If he gets around to it. We’re looking at lunch next. Then what? Forget it. I’ll be at the studio. Tell him to call me when he’s ready.”
“You can’t,” Bunny said.
“What, I’m under arrest?”
“You could be, if you leave.”
“Sit,” Fay said. “I know you like this. Sit down before you break something.”
“They have coffee,” Bunny said.
“I’m awake,” Lasner said. “So we just wait till he’s good and ready? To ask me what? Is Milt Schaeffer a Commie? He already said so. So what’s the news? And what the hell’s this about Hal’s sister? Who’s she supposed to be?”
“Rosa Luxemburg.”
“Who?”
“Nobody. He wants to play sheriff, that’s all.”
Lasner looked at him. “Sheriffs are the good guys. This isn’t right. A cutter, for chrissake. We’re supposed to protect our people.”
“He’s got four lawyers, Sol. Ours. All he has to do is be polite. Yes, sir. No, sir. Thank you. And it’s over.”
“That’s our legal strategy.”
“Sol.”
“All right, all right.”
Ben watched him go over to Hal, Lasner consoling and blustery, Hal’s shoulders sagging.
“Keep an eye on him, will you?” Bunny said to Fay. “He’s not happy.”
“Because he has to roll over and play dead? He’s not good at that.”
“Just don’t let him pick a fight. What do we win?”
“I have so much influence.”
“Minot wants to embarrass the studio. If Sol doesn’t-”
But now he was distracted by one of the publicists with a small stack of phone messages, Continental not yet running by itself.
“He listens to you,” Fay said to Ben.
“Sometimes.”
She patted his upper arm, a kind of reply, then went to join Lasner.
Bunny was looking at the top message. “Now Breimer in casting. He’s going right through the studio. Everybody who worked on Convoy.”
“You gave him Schaeffer,” Ben said quietly.
“Schaeffer’s at Fox,” Bunny said, an automatic reply, then looked up. “I didn’t ‘give’ him Schaeffer. They already had him as a Party member. Your wonderful brother probably. If you want to be technical about it.”
“You gave him the paperwork to set it up. And now he’s using it against the studio.”
“He wouldn’t be if someone hadn’t-” He broke off. “Isn’t it a little late in the day to be splitting hairs like this? Or is it all supposed to be my fault? Funny how things go missing. Maybe next time they should check the closet.”
Ben said nothing.
“I still don’t understand what she is to you.”
“Who?”
“Who.”
“Does it matter? She doesn’t deserve this.”
“Who does? Hal? My god, reaction shots.” He stopped, as if his train of thought had run out. “All right, I thought Schaeffer would buy us a little peace in our time and now it’s biting us in the ass. And now I’m the one putting out fires.” He held up the messages.
“I’m just saying, don’t give him any more.”
“I don’t have any more. Do you actually think there are Communists at Continental? Or did you find someone else on your brother’s list?”
“His list?” Ben said, looking up.
“Whatever he was feeding Minot. If there are, let’s not keep our cards too close to the vest. I’ve had enough surprises. Oh god, Liesl’s father,” he said, spotting Ostermann over Ben’s shoulder. “Down here with the field hands. He thinks I’m ruining her. Her Von Sternberg or something. Imagine. Run interference-I’ve got to call Breimer before he throws a fit.” He paused. “Look, blame who you like. There’s plenty enough to go around,” he said, looking pointedly at Ben. “But right now we’re circling the wagons. I could use some help. Go keep an eye on Mr. L, will you? He trusts you. I can’t think why.”
Ostermann had been talking to Polly, his improbable new friend.
“She writes down everything,” he said to Ben, amused. “Everything he says. Her Cicero.”
“But you’re not. Still nothing for Aufbau?”
“No. Who’s on trial? For once, not the Germans. The Comintern? No. The New Deal, I think. A political exercise.”
“It’ll burn itself out,” Ben said, glancing toward the cameras in the hearing room.
“Not yet. The start only.”
Across the room, Hal was now standing with his lawyers, listening as he sipped coffee, his face pale, making his five o’clock shadow even darker. Schaeffer, who had requested him, sat farther back in the room, smoking, looking at the rain.
“So how do we stop it?”
Ostermann shook his head. “I don’t know. In books, a brave man does it. Fights back. But I’ve never seen that happen.”
They went back to their same seats, only Bunny missing, still on the phone. Schaeffer was on the other side of the aisle, quietly wiping his glasses, people talking around him. When he glanced over, presumably unfocused, not really seeing anything, Ben felt it had been to look at him, some reminder of Danny. Who’d fed Minot’s files. Could he really ever have imagined Schaeffer as someone dangerous, one of the old comrades who needed watching? Ben sat up. But he hadn’t known him then. Schaeffer had left the Party in ’39, before Danny had arrived. Which meant Danny had got the information from someone else. His reports always checked out, Riordan had said. If he said to look, there was something to be found. Because he’d been there, too, Ben had assumed, like the meeting with MacDonald. But not this time. So who had told him? The Party didn’t keep files to rummage through, like Minot. You had to know, be part of its secret world.
“Mr. Jasper, I believe you testified that Convoy to Murmansk was the first time you’d met Mr. Schaeffer.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No, I said it was the first time we’d worked together.” He nodded apologetically. “I’m trying to be precise.”
“We appreciate that, Mr. Jasper,” Minot said, but irritated, unable to spring some minor trap. “So you knew each other.”
“A little.”
“Could you quantify ‘a little’ for us, Mr. Jasper?”
“A few times.”
“More than once? Five times, ten times? To be precise,” Minot said, playing to the room.
Hal raised his head, not answering for a second, as if he were taking aim. “More than once. Less than five. Somewhere in between.”
“This was at his home?”
“Once.”
“And the others?”
“Around.”
“Around. Well, we’ll get to those later. Right now I’d like to go back to the meeting at his house.”
“It wasn’t a meeting. A party.”
Minot moved some papers in front of him. “Maybe we’re not talking about the same occasion. I’m referring to the evening of March 7, 1941. You were one of the guests, I believe.”
“That sounds right. I can’t be exact on the date.”
“The evening I’m referring to had people giving speeches for the European Relief Fund. Do the parties you attend usually include speeches?”
“It was a fund-raiser. And a party.”
“I see.” Minot picked up a magazine. “Are you aware that Red Channels lists the Relief Fund as one of their suspected Communist front organizations?”
“No.”
Ben saw Lasner take out a pad and begin to write, a memo he must have forgotten, trapped at the hearing.
“And how had you come to be invited to this party?”
“I was a contributor.”
“So you gave some money to this organization, and Mr. Schaeffer invited you to his home. This was in the nature of a thank-you?”
“Partly, I guess.”
“And the other part was to raise more money? Did they actually collect cash?”
Hal looked at him steadily. “Checks, mostly.”
“Not just spare change, then. Who else was at Mr. Schaeffer’s party?”
Hal glanced quickly at the lawyers, some code they’d been waiting for. “I don’t remember. Other people from the Relief Fund, I guess. The ones in the letter you have.”
“But you don’t remember which ones precisely?” Minot said, biting the last word. “Was your wife there?”
“Yes.”
“Your sister?”
“No. It was an industry event. People in pictures.”
“So you remember their occupations, but not who they were.” Lasner squirmed in his seat, jotting something down again, his breathing audibly impatient.
Minot pulled out a copy of the letter. “Let’s see. Mr. Schaeffer, of course. How about Howard Stein? Was he there?”
Another quick look to the lawyers. “I don’t remember.”
“Gus Pollock?”
“I think so, I’m not sure.”
“Not sure. Ben Friedman. Was he there writing checks?”
Friedman. Ben’s mind went to Danny’s list. Friedman. But not Ben, he’d remember his own name. Another Friedman. A voice saying it. He looked away from the table, trying to remember, hearing it instead. One of the newsreel cameramen was changing film, the other camera still whirring.
“Ben Friedman?” Minot said again.
No, Alfred. Alfred Friedman. He jerked his head toward the cameras, hearing the name, then stared, not moving, afraid even a blink would make it go away. Newsreel, a voice in a newsreel. Alfred Friedman. The camera panning across a group of men. Suits and uniforms.
Minot was talking again but his voice had become a background sound, like noises in the woods, Ben’s mind racing. What did it mean? A man in the group. Follow the logic. His thoughts ran everywhere at once, water rushing downward, separating, branching off until it was stopped, blocked, then backing onto itself. If he knew Friedman, he knew the others, who they must be. Follow the logic, like gravity, one step flowing down to another. Then a split, a whole branch that led nowhere, stopped at Paseo Miramar. Unless Genia had been an accident after all, something that didn’t need to fit. The cameras kept whirring but his mind was moving even faster, in a panic now, because while things snapped into place a dread was spreading through him, where all the logic led, Danny doing something that could not be forgiven. He felt himself growing warmer, as if the body could literally burn with shame. His brother. Someone Ben hadn’t really known at all.
“What?” one of Bunny’s assistants whispered, but Ben shook his head “nothing” and faced forward again. He tried to listen to Minot, something again about Schaeffer’s party, but kept hearing Friedman’s name in the newsreel.
Assuming it was the same Friedman. He needed to be sure, something more than instinct. One foot, then the other. But he kept moving in leaps. If he was right, then the list wouldn’t be enough bait. They’d run to ground, not take any risks now. He’d need to offer something more, a direct threat, exposure. He glanced toward the press section, Polly’s hand moving on a pad as she watched Hal testify. Ostermann looked up, his features suddenly Liesl’s, the fine stretch to the chin, and Ben met his eyes for a second, then quickly went back to Polly. Did he owe Danny anything now? Was there ever a good reason for betrayal? Anyway, how could you betray the dead? This one would be for the still-living.
Assuming it was the same Friedman. He got up, crouching, the way people left the theater halfway through. “Phone,” he said to the assistant, the all-purpose excuse, this time true. In the hall, he felt his pockets for change, heading for the phone booths.
“Long distance,” he said, getting the coins ready.
The call took a while to put through but only a few minutes once the connection was made. Afterward he sat in the booth, his hand still on the receiver. The first piece, but not everything, the water still running in too many directions. Even now, when he thought he knew what Danny had done, his mind kept drifting back to the Cherokee, to police details, instead of what he really wanted to know, why.
He looked up. Across the hall, Bunny was standing in the witness room, no longer on the phone, not doing anything, in fact, just leaning against the wall and staring. His chest moved in small heaves. Ben got up and went over, directly in his sight line, but Bunny seemed unable to see anything until Ben was in front of him. Then a quick blink, startled, his throat moving in spasms, as if someone were choking him, cutting off his air. He swallowed, constricted.
“You all right?”
He didn’t answer, just swallowed again, his eyes talking now, screaming somewhere, mute.
“What’s wrong?”
Bunny looked down at the phone, then back at Ben. “He’s gone,” he said, a whisper, all the sound he could manage. “Jack’s gone.” Then nothing, another swallow, trying to breathe, now that it was said.
“When?” Something to fill space.
“Last night. This morning,” Bunny said, vague, but less ragged.
Ben looked at him, not sure whether to touch his arm, a gesture that might seem too intimate. Instead he nodded. “Go. They don’t need you in there.”
But Bunny still didn’t move, mesmerized by his own news, all the echoes of it.
“They just called?” Ben said, trying to keep his attention.
“They had to wait,” Bunny said, mostly to himself, his eyes getting moist for the first time. “Until they got the next of kin. They have to do that, tell them first. They didn’t want to wake her.”
“Who?”
“His mother. In Oregon. They had to tell her first. He’s been there all morning.”
“Go,” Ben said again. “Really. There’s nothing you can do here anyway.”
“She wants the body shipped back. She can do that. Ship it up there. He hated it up there.” He looked at Ben, catching himself. “I have to see him. Before they do that.”
Ben nodded. “Go.”
“I can’t,” Bunny said, looking down at his hands, an invalid displaying his paralysis. “I don’t think I can drive.”
Ben looked toward the hearing room, then gripped Bunny’s elbow. “Come on.”
In the car, Bunny said nothing, staring blankly at the half-visible streets, as if the rain were in his head, not something outside the window. Ben had to hunch over the wheel, peering out, watching for lights and corners.
“Is there anyone else? Besides the mother?” he said, trying to draw him out, but Bunny didn’t even turn his head.
“Me,” he said. “They’re going to ship him up there.”
After that, Ben let him drift, his eyes fixed out the side window. They took Washington all the way out, through Culver City, past the white colonnades of MGM, maybe next on Minot’s list. More stars than there are in heaven. The rain stopped in Venice, leaving just patches of fog on the coast highway. At the Sunset turnoff Ben thought of Paseo Miramar, the sharp curves as slippery now as they had been when Genia had driven up. Why? An invitation to Feuchtwanger’s? But he didn’t know her. A convenient excuse for the other car, though, if anyone noticed. But no one had.
As they got nearer the hospital road he could feel Bunny stirring beside him, sitting up straighter, gathering himself. He even glanced into the side rearview mirror, a last-minute dressing-room gesture. Closer than blood. How close was blood anyway? More than obligation, scraps of shared memories? Were he and Danny even the same blood type? O-negative, the universal donor. Another thing he hadn’t known, that didn’t matter. But Otto’s blood had, binding Danny in a kind of loyalty oath, while Ben had been somewhere else. Or was that just another excuse, another out for Danny? What possible out could there be, to have done what he did?
“At least it wasn’t in action,” Bunny said suddenly. “They just send you the dog tags. At least he’s here.”
They went straight to MacDonald’s room, not bothering with the front desk, but it had been emptied out, the stripped bed not yet remade, the personal things in the bedside cabinet already taken away. Ben thought of his mother’s hospital room, another body whisked away before anybody could say good-bye, the white loneliness of it. Danny wouldn’t know until a cable reached him, an ocean away, and by that time Ben had arranged the burial, all the family gone now except for the thin stream of flimsy V-mail sheets, the last blood tie. But how close was blood?
“Where is he?” Bunny said to the nurse who’d hurried after them.
“He’s-downstairs. They’re preparing the body. He’s going to be-”
“I know. I want to see him.”
“We’re not supposed to-”
“I want to see him,” Bunny said, not any louder, but in control. Ben remembered that first day at Continental, people making way as Bunny walked by.
He waited in the room, smoking on Jack’s balcony while Bunny went downstairs. No mention of how it had happened. But people never liked to talk about that. How easy it had been to make Danny an accident, convenient for everybody. He touched the rail, thinking of the Cherokee. Why kill him if he were passing on the list? Unless he wasn’t, another Danny fast one, but not fast enough. Or unless they were just covering traces, wiping every pawn off the board, Danny not important enough to be worth the risk of what he knew. Better if it died with him, everyone safe.
He turned, hearing Bunny come back. “You okay?”
“Yes, fine,” Bunny said, his own voice again, embarrassed to be asked. “Thank you for coming.” A polite, receiving-line phrase, as if the panic choking and the drive out had never happened.
“It’s not easy. I’ve done it.”
“What?”
“Been with somebody. After.”
Bunny walked closer to the bed. “I had a scene once. In a picture. My grandfather, I think. Everybody upset, in floods. But it’s not like that, is it? They’re not really there. Just a body.”
“I’m sorry, Bunny.”
Bunny glanced up at this, then let it in, nodding. He touched the bed frame. “There wasn’t anybody here. When it happened. He was alone.” He stared at the bed for another minute. “Did I tell you? His playing-he had the lightest touch.”
“Mr. Jenkins? Sorry to intrude.” A woman in a suit, not a nurse. “Some papers to sign.”
She looked over at Ben, hesitant, someone she hadn’t expected, not next of kin, either, and for a second, less than a blink, Ben felt what it must be like to be Bunny, every quick disapproving eye movement, trying to explain him.
“Papers,” Bunny said.
“Yes, for the shipment. The additional charge. The expense isn’t covered in the monthly rate.”
“I pay to ship him?”
“I’m sorry. I understood you were the responsible party. My records say all expenses.”
Bunny looked at her, a final twist in. “Yes, that’s right. All expenses. Yes.”
He looked down at the bed again. For a minute everyone just stood there, not moving, and yet it seemed to Ben that he and the woman were disappearing, wisps of fog, the room itself receding, so that Bunny was completely alone.
“I’ll be with you in a minute,” Bunny finally said, an executive dismissal, then turned to Ben. “You’d better get back. Mr. L will want watching.”
“I can wait.”
“No, we have some things to do here,” he said. “Did his mother give any instructions?”
“She said, whatever you decide.”
“Did she. The navy blue, then, I think. The worsted. Not the uniform. Where did you put his ties?” He turned to Ben. “We’ll be a while.”
“But how will you get back?”
“I’ll have the studio send a car,” he said, in charge again. “It doesn’t really matter now. If anyone knows.” He stopped, glancing at Ben. “Still. It’s nobody’s business.”
Ben met his eyes. “Nobody’s,” he said.
He started back down to the coast highway but had to pull over at the second curve, unable to see through a new bank of thick fog. He felt back in the hospital room, everything white, gauze and empty sheets, Bunny standing in a void. But this white was moist air, beginning to drift, the other had been still, an absence. The dead are gone. And yet we hold on-a loyalty, a debt, to make up for something. Didn’t he owe Danny that much, to let it die with him, a crime that could only bring shame now. Paid for. But who had decided that? What do we owe the dead? Dress the body, the blue worsted, keep the memory intact. What did he owe Henderson, willing to use him as bait? There were all kinds of debts, even, finally, one to yourself. Do the expedient thing. Or the crime would go on, maybe taking him with it. Danny’s name was a price, but the dead never blamed you.
He sat for a few more minutes, trying to think. The list wasn’t supposed to stop at Danny’s mailbox. But nobody had moved yet, playing safe. He had to make them come for it. Something public, a spotlight they’d have to put out. Another car was coming up the hill, grinding slowly around the curves, the sound muffled, a little like the newsreel cameras. For a second he was back in the hearing room and then he was looking across to the press section, Ostermann watching quietly and Polly scribbling beside him.
He found Lasner with the lawyers finishing lunch at Ristorante Rex, the kind of place where they usually brought clients to celebrate deals, all black enamel and art deco ocean-liner trim. Today the mood was anxious, Lasner fidgeting, impatient.
“Where’s Bunny?” he said when Ben took a seat.
“Something came up.”
“Serious?”
Ben shook his head, knowing Lasner meant a studio problem. “He’ll be here later,” he said vaguely.
“So will we, by the looks of it,” Lasner said, glancing at his watch. “The goyim like a long lunch.”
“You should eat something yourself,” Fay said.
“Talking to Hal like that. He’s a Commie, his sister’s a Commie. Hal. He couldn’t wipe Hal’s shoes.”
“Nobody cares about Hal,” one of the lawyers said, an attempt to smooth things over.
“I care about him,” Lasner said.
“I didn’t mean that. I just meant he won’t be that way with you. He’ll want to play it friendly.”
“While he’s stabbing me in the back.”
“Where?” Fay said, running her hand over it, a calming smile.
“You hit the studio, you hit me. I built the studio.”
“He’s not hitting the studio, Sol,” the lawyer said patiently. “I told you. He’s making some noise. In a day or two, he’ll take it somewhere else.”
“Already we’re getting calls from the exhibitors. What’s going on? Why all these people from Continental? You know we depend-we don’t have our own theaters.”
“Well, neither will anybody else, the way things are going,” the lawyer said.
“They get nervous, we’re the first people they say no to. They’re going to fuck Mayer?”
“Some language. That’ll sound wonderful in there,” Fay said.
“He sends Eddie Mannix,” Sol said, ignoring her. “All the sudden they’re booking musicals again.” He paused. “You know how long I know Hal? His father was cutting for Sennett. Sennett, for chrissake, before that nose wipe was even thought of.”
“Well, they’re thinking of him now,” the lawyer said. “And listening, so let’s all just take it easy. You know what to do.”
“Yeah, I know,” Lasner said, still with a hint of defiance, but Ben could hear the nervous tremor under the bravado, as wary as anyone brought before a judge. “I never knew Milt Schaeffer was a Red. I’m as surprised as anybody. I would never have hired him. Continental doesn’t hire Reds. We’re certainly going to be more careful from now on. Thanks to you, Congressman. You want to see me hit my marks, too?”
They took studio cars the few blocks back.
“What’s with Bunny?” Lasner asked Ben.
“A little fire to put out. You know.”
“Everything’s a crisis with him. Sometimes you have to step back. See the whole thing.”
“That’s what you should do, step back,” Fay said. “You’re getting all excited.”
“You see Hal’s face?” he said quietly. “Why would you do that to him? Guy like that. You know him,” he said to Ben. “He try to sign you up for the Party? Labor agitator yet. Where? Fort Roach? You see the way he looked?”
The car pulled up to the curb.
“There’s Polly,” Ben said. “I’ll meet you inside.”
“That bitch,” Lasner said.
“Wonderful,” Fay said. “Be sure to say that when you’re on.”
Polly was surprised, then skeptical. “What kind of drink?”
“To talk. I have something for you.”
“What, something you tried to peddle to Ken? You’re not exactly flavor of the week there.”
“He didn’t level with me. He’s not leveling with you, either.”
She looked up at this, caught, suspicion part of the air she breathed. “What do you mean?”
“Six thirty?”
She hesitated for a minute, then started to turn. “Don’t waste my time. I’m not Ken. I’ve been doing this a lot of years. You have something for the column, call my assistant. It doesn’t check out, don’t call twice. I don’t just print things, they have to check out. Then we’ll see.”
“Not for the column. The news page.”
“Really. Just for me. And to what do I owe the favor?”
“I want something from you.”
“I’ll bet.”
“It’ll be worth it. One drink. You’ll want to hear it.”
“What did you mean about Ken?”
“That’s what we’re going to talk about.”
“He’s a friend of mine.”
“Polly.”
She looked at him. “What’s this all about?”
“Six thirty. You pick the place. You don’t want the story, at least you get the drink. I could give it to Kelly but I figure you could make a bigger noise. A hundred twenty-three papers.”
“A hundred twenty-seven.”
“On the other hand, he could use a break. He’s lucky he’s still got a job there, working for you on the sly. Not very nice of you.”
She narrowed her eyes, enjoying this. “Well, I’m not. Very nice.”
“That’s why I thought of you.”
Lasner was already seated at the witness table when Ben got to the hearing room. This time the lawyers sat behind, not flanking him, a subtle shift to suggest that he wasn’t on trial, as Schaeffer had been, just there for a friendly exchange. Minot started with a formal appreciation for Lasner’s giving up his valuable time to help the committee, implying that he’d offered to come, no subpoenas necessary. The approach was courteous, Minot’s way of signaling to the other studio heads what to expect, his conciliatory tone something their people would notice and report back. Nobody was out to get anybody-they were, after all, on the same side.
“Now, Mr. Lasner, you are the president of Continental Pictures. How long have you held that title?”
“Since nineteen fifteen. I started the company.”
“And before that it was Mesa Pictures?”
“That was one. There were a few others. We combined them to make Continental.”
“I see. So a mighty oak from several acorns, not just one.” He smiled, either at the line itself or Lasner’s obvious confusion over it.
“You could say that.”
“And how long have you lived in this country?”
“How long? All my life.”
“Well, not quite all your life.”
“Since I was a kid.”
“And before that? Where were you born?”
“Poland.”
Minot looked at a paper. “Yes, except then it wasn’t Poland, was it, where you were. It was part of Russia. From what I hear in Washington, it’s going that way again. Hard to keep them out.” This as an aside to the committee, but pitched to the audience. “So you were born in Russia.”
Lasner sat up straighter, his eyes now fixed on Minot. “We thought of it as Poland.”
“But not officially. And after you left Russia you came here and became a U.S. citizen?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And worked your way to the position you have now. A great American story.”
“It’s a great country,” Lasner said.
“And may I ask your religion?”
Lasner glared back at one of the lawyers, a can-he-ask-this? expression. “I don’t practice a religion,” he said.
“But you believe in God, I hope. Your parents, then. What religion were they?”
Lasner looked at him steadily for a minute, an assessment. “Hebrew.”
“Hebrew.”
“That’s right. Why do you ask?”
Minot leaned forward, as if he hadn’t heard. “What?”
“Why do you ask? Is this strictly a curiosity question or are you saying-”
“I’m not saying anything, Mr. Lasner, just trying to establish your background for the committee.
“I thought we were here to discuss Communists.”
One of the lawyers touched his back, the way you pat a horse to slow down.
“Indeed we are. Now if you don’t mind, let me ask the questions.”
“I don’t mind. That’s what you’re here for. But maybe I can save us both some time. You’re a busy man. So am I. I didn’t know Milt Schaeffer was a Communist when we hired him for Convoy. As a matter of fact, from what we heard here yesterday, he wasn’t, so I’m not sure what this is about.”
“He had been, Mr. Lasner. I’m sure you remember that testimony, too.”
“You mean it’s like having diabetes-once you get it, it never goes away?”
There was some laughter at this and Minot tried to ride with it.
“Mr. Lasner is known for being a colorful figure in the industry,” he said to the audience, then looked back to the witness table. “But I know he agrees these are serious matters. You say you didn’t know Mr. Schaeffer had been a member of the Communist Party. But you did hire him to direct a Russian-themed picture, is that correct?”
“It wasn’t about Russia when we hired him. That came later.”
“Why did you hire him, then?”
“He was available and he works fast. We had a deadline. You hire somebody like Wyler, we’d still be on the convoy.”
This brought enough laughter to make Minot bang his gavel.
“Mr. Lasner,” he said, wearily.
“All right. Why? He knows his way around a set. I liked his work. And I like him.” He turned his head slightly toward the row where Schaeffer was still sitting. Behind Lasner, the lawyers huddled.
“There were no political considerations, then?”
“What political considerations? It was a picture.”
“Now, Mr. Lasner,” Minot said, switching tack, “you may not think about politics, but Continental’s a big place. I don’t imagine you do everything yourself. Who exactly decided to hire Mr. Schaeffer? The line producer, wouldn’t it be?”
“A thing like that, it stops with me. It doesn’t matter who the line producer was. You think I wouldn’t know? You’re just trying to get me to say-”
“Mr. Lasner, I’m not trying to get you to do anything but answer the question.”
“No, you’re saying I didn’t know what was going on in my own studio. A bunch of Commies come in and pull a fast one, that’s where you’re going with this. Well, nobody pulled anything. Nobody was a Communist. Not that I knew of. Milt, I don’t know, he says ‘no’ under oath, I believe him. You make a big deal he requests Hal. Everybody requests Hal. He’s the best cutter in the business, something you’d know if-” He stopped, hearing himself, but only for a second, rushing now. “And Gus Pollock, you try to bring him in, make it seem-”
“Mr. Lasner.”
“Wait a minute.” He took up one of his papers with notes. “Passed away, you said. I hope it was just a mistake, your staff didn’t tell you how. Gus came home in a box. A Silver Star. You think he was working against this country? But you don’t mention that. And what’s all this business with Hal’s sister? We’re after the steno pool now?”
Minot banged his gavel again. “Mr. Lasner, you’re out of order.”
“I’m out of order?”
One of the lawyers rushed up to Lasner’s table, signaling at the same time to Minot, whose head had swiveled upward, as if he were literally scenting a change in the air. One of the cameras had moved closer, its motor drowned by the buzzing in the public section. Minot nodded to the lawyer.
“The witness’s counsel is requesting a recess.”
“We don’t need a recess,” Lasner said, his voice louder. “Let’s get this over with.”
Minot banged again. “We’ll recess for ten minutes.” He turned to the rest of the committee, who looked disoriented by the unexpected outburst, and shuffled some papers for the camera.
Sol’s table was now surrounded by lawyers, blocking him from sight. “Are you crazy?” one lawyer said.
“He’s an anti-Semite,” Lasner said, still boiling. “You think I don’t know when I see it? I know it like air.”
“So what?”
“So what?” He stared at the lawyer.
“You never met an anti-Semite before? Had to deal with one?”
“All my life. I never elected one.”
“You didn’t elect this one, either. Now listen to me-”
Sol held up his hand. “I’m listening to you. Are you listening to him? You don’t want to put a stop to this?”
“That’s not up to us.”
“Who is it up to, then?”
“Fay, talk to him.”
Fay put a hand on his shoulder. “You all right?”
“I’m great.”
She made a half smile. “I know. You’re enjoying yourself.”
“Gus Pollock, for chrissake. Comes home in a box.”
“Fay,” the lawyer said again.
“What can I tell you? He’s a grown man. Am I his mother? If you ask me, they’re with him,” she said, pointing to the public section.
“There’s a way to do this,” the lawyer said.
“What way?” Lasner said. “Wait for somebody else?” He looked at Ben. “You’re the one who showed me. What happened. We’re making a goddam picture, what happens everybody waits. Who did he bring down here? The country club? No, a Jew business. I know,” he said, catching Ben’s expression, “it’s not the same. But how different? You tell me. What? Wait for somebody else?”
Ben looked at him, then glanced quickly over to the press section, everyone standing and talking but Ostermann, who sat still, his eyes on the witness table, seeing something new.
“Not if you can do it,” Ben said finally.
“Ha.”
“Why do you say that?” the lawyer said.
“You don’t have to ask me,” Ben said to Lasner. “You’re going to do it anyway.” He paused. “He can hurt the studio.”
“More?” Lasner said. He turned to Fay. “How many times I worried about that before? It doesn’t change.”
“Neither do you. You think it’s still Gower Gulch.”
“Where do you think he gets all this from,” Lasner said, sweeping his hand to take in the room. “Pictures. He doesn’t even know where he gets it, but it’s pictures.” He looked at Ben. “I know pictures.”
“Then fight him with that,” Ben said.
When they resumed Minot was sitting up straight, the papers in front of him stacked, everything back in control.
“Mr. Lasner, have you had enough time with counsel?”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.”
Minot looked up at this, but played along. “Good. Now if we can continue.”
“Certainly. But first I’d like to apologize if I expressed myself-”
“No apologies necessary, Mr. Lasner.”
“It’s just that I appreciate the importance of these hearings and I didn’t want you to waste your time on-”
“We’re not wasting time, Mr. Lasner.”
“On Convoy. I mean, for all the people saw it, it wouldn’t have done the Russians much good anyway.”
“It was my understanding the movie was a success.”
“Well, that depends on whose accountants you talk to.”
There was an amused murmur, everyone in the press section now following closely.
Minot referred to a paper. “Mine said fifty thousand net.”
“With second release,” Lasner said smoothly. “Yeah, we made our costs back, I’m not saying that, but wartime that’s not hard to do. Everything gets an audience.”
“The military audience, you mean,” Minot said, not even aware he was following Lasner.
“Overseas? They get it free. Part of the war effort. The industry paid for the prints, those pictures you used to see,” he said, Minot suddenly a GI again, young. “The boys, we didn’t make a dime on them. Wouldn’t. Your gross was in the home market.”
“And not enough of them wanted to convoy to Murmansk,” Minot said, trying to be light, but sounding forced.
“Not until second release.”
“And yet you’re full of praise for Mr. Schaeffer-everybody who made it, in fact.”
“It was a good picture.”
“You say that even though-”
“There were timing problems,” Lasner said, going somewhere else. “They put out a Bogart early so all the sudden we’re up against that in the first run. Plus Cover Girl was still-you know, you’re going to do tremendous business with a Hayworth.”
Ben noticed that the names made the audience more attentive, as if the stars themselves had entered the room.
“Mr. Lasner,” Minot interrupted, sensing this, “the fact remains that millions of people saw Convoy to Murmansk. We’re not interested in the studio’s account books. We’re interested in what the movie had to say, how it was changed to say it. Now I can appreciate you want to make money, I guess most of us do, but we’re here to see how these people work, how they get their message out when the rest of us are just going about our business-you up there counting your money-” He broke off, seeing Lasner’s face grow tighter. “Now I also appreciate that as head of the studio, you want to take responsibility for everything that happens there, but one man can’t do it all. These are people who know how to play on sympathies. It’s not just what happens in the front office, who decides this or that, it’s what happens on the ground-I guess we’d say on the sound stage. And what happens off.”
“What happens off.”
“Social life’s an important part of the business, wouldn’t you say? Sometimes you want to know about a person, you can tell by who he knows.”
“You mean like you coming to my house?”
Minot said nothing, blindsided, barely noticing the ripple of interest in the press section, a new detour.
“I know what you mean,” Lasner said. “People listen to us a while ago-” He raised his hand slightly, deflecting an argument. “My temper, I know. But they wouldn’t think you’d been to my house. Had dinner. But maybe we have more in common than they think. This country, how we feel about it. Of course, I don’t know what it says about you and Milt Schaeffer. I mean, both of you being there, at the same party.”
“Mr. Lasner, we’re not here to discuss my social-”
“Just Milt’s, huh? I thought maybe the two of you had talked. You were the guest of honor. The point was to meet you. But there were a lot of people. Sometimes it’s like that, you don’t get to talk. At least this time it wasn’t a fund-raiser, unless you were raising funds I didn’t know about,” Lasner said playfully, the scene his now, as if the tables themselves had changed places.
“Mr. Lasner,” Minot said stiffly, “can we get back to-”
“I was just making a point. You said you can tell a lot, who people know, but, see, we can’t really tell anything about you by the fact that you and Milt were both there.”
“Your point being?”
“So Hal and Milt were at the Fund party. Does it mean anything, they were both there?”
“Those were very different occasions,” Minot said, defensive now.
“I’ll bet. I’ve been to Milt’s parties. You’re lucky, you get cream cheese on a Ritz cracker.”
Everyone laughed, even Schaeffer, a little color now in his cheeks. Minot waited it out.
“Mr. Lasner.”
“I’m just saying, we don’t even know if they talked. You just said they were there, is all.”
Minot stared at him, trying to close down the volley with silence. “Because if you don’t know anything more than that, there’s no reason to bring it up, is there? It’s just like you and Milt at the house.”
Minot covered his microphone and said something to the other committee members, a quarterback running through plays.
“Mr. Lasner, I’m not going to debate this with you. The event we were discussing is part of a much larger web of association.”
“What, like that letter in the paper?”
“Among other things.”
“I was wondering about that. I wanted to ask you-”
“Mr. Lasner, we’re asking the questions here.”
“I’m sitting here all morning, I don’t even get one?” he said, facing away from Minot to the rest of the committee, one of whom leaned over and whispered to Minot.
“Ask me what, Mr. Lasner?”
“That letter in the paper, for the European Relief Fund. You say Milt signed it. And Hal. Gus Pollock.”
“That’s correct.”
“And you think that means something.”
“ Red Channels has listed the Fund as a suspected Communist front organization.”
“What’s Red Channels?”
“It’s a publication that- Mr. Lasner, this is all beside the point.”
“Not to me. Who are they to accuse me-”
“Nobody’s accusing you of anything.”
“No? You’re pretty quick telling us Hal signed that letter. So they’re all in it together, Hal and Milt and- But you don’t say who else signed it. Take a look. Jack Warner, I remember. Selznick for sure. Even Mayer, I think, but I can’t swear to that. I know they asked. How? Because I signed it, too. And gave them money. Is that why you got me down here? With a subpoena. Under oath. Because I gave money to save some Jews before they were killed? Are you calling me a Communist, too?” All the cameras had now swiveled toward him, the entire room pitched forward, waiting. “Who’s Red Channels? Bring them here, so we can take a look. Let them call me that to my face.” His voice kept rising, then dropped. “Or is that what you’re doing? Calling me a Communist?”
“Mr. Lasner, this isn’t getting us anywhere.”
“No? Where are we going? I thought you got me down here to tell me there were Commies in the industry. Making trouble. And all you’ve got is Milt giving parties? Who’s paying for all this, by the way?” He threw his arm out, expansive. “You got a budget on this thing or do the taxpayers just keep forking it over till you dig something up? All right, I’m under oath?” He raised his hand. “I am not a Communist. I don’t even know any Communists. Milt wants to think it’s a paradise over there in Minsk, let him, I don’t care. I make pictures, that’s all.”
“That tell the American people what to think,” Minot leaped in, visibly angry now, finally drawn out of public politeness. “Nobody here has accused you of anything except possibly a political naivete so profound-”
“Naivete, what’s that?”
Minot stopped, flummoxed. “Innocence,” he said. “A political innocence, or indifference, that allows people, clever people, to exploit-”
“Now you’re calling me stupid?”
“To exploit an industry without your being aware of it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. But I guess that makes two of us because you don’t know what you’re talking about, either. Are we finished here?” He scraped back his seat, getting ready to go, startling the lawyers behind him. “Because I am.”
“Mr. Lasner, with all due respect, you are testifying before a committee of the United States government. This kind of-grandstanding will not be tolerated. This is not a theater.”
“No, a circus. A congressman. I expected better from you.”
Minot flushed, as if he’d been slapped. “You are out of order, Mr. Lasner,” he said, furious, his face twisting. “This is not Continental Pictures where you can strut around, make people jump just because you say so. This committee doesn’t work for you.”
Lasner looked at him, then stood up, a move so abrupt that the committee started with alarm. Two lawyers jumped up to hold him, but Lasner brushed them away, swatting flies, all the calculated restraint gone now, jabbing his finger into the air at Minot.
“That’s just where you’re wrong. You do work for me. I learned that in civics. That’s a class you take when you first get here. From Poland. Maybe you ought to take it. You work for us. We pay you. We elect you. Once, anyway. And as far as I’m concerned, you’re off the lot.”
“Sit down,” Minot said, rising himself, both glaring at each other.
“Or what? You going to put me in jail? Is that what happens when somebody stands up to you?” He turned to the room. “We should all watch this. What happens when you stand up to these people. Maybe you’ll be next. Any of us. Anybody in pictures.” He looked back at Minot, a beat while the room waited. Even Polly had stopped writing, looking around the room, disturbed. “What happens? Or do you think everyone will be too scared to stand up?”
Minot banged the gavel again, even though the room was quiet, mesmerized.
“You are still under oath.”
“You want to know about Convoy to Murmansk?” Lasner said, almost shouting, so worked up now that the committee seemed to draw back, out of the way. “I’ll tell you. Want to know who changed it? What Commie? Me. I asked them to change it. Want to know why? I got a phone call. From the president. We need your help. We’ve got an ally doesn’t think we’re pulling our weight. We’d like to show them we know what they’re going through. A picture would be a big help. Is there anything we can do? Asking me. I had tears in my eyes. He’s calling me. It was the proudest day of my life.” He looked around, emotional, shaking a little. “The proudest day. And this? What’s the opposite? I feel-shame here. Not of this country. I’ll never feel ashamed of this country. I’m ashamed of you in it,” he said directly to Minot. “I’m ashamed anyone listens to you. I’m going to work. You want to arrest me, do it here, because you won’t get on the lot. That’s me at the gate stopping you.” He pointed to his chest and it was then that Ben noticed the film of sweat on his forehead, a white fleck of spittle in the corner of his mouth. Lasner leaned on the table with both hands, under the heat of the camera lights, almost vibrating with emotion, the same sweat and tremor Ben remembered from the train. “You want to make fun of me, go ahead. You think I ‘strut’ around? I do. I’m proud of Continental. And I’m not letting you have it. You think I don’t know what you want?” He turned to the audience. “What he wants from all of us? He wants to take over. Tell us what to make. Who to hire. Who to fire. Well, I run the studio. Me. You don’t tell me who works there. Milt,” he said, turning to him, “you looking for a job? If he doesn’t lock you up, give me a call.” He turned back to Minot. “I run Continental, not you. Go tell Warner what to do. If he has any sense, he’ll throw you out, too. You’re finished here. If I can see it, with my- what’s it? naivete? — they can all see it. I thought this was about politics. About the good of the country. And what is it? Just another pisher wants my job. Not my studio. Not my-”
His hand went to his chest so fast that the room saw only the body slump forward, but Ben had been watching for it, waiting, so as he leaped out of his seat, pushing past the lawyers, he saw the hand clench, grabbing suit cloth, as if it could stop the pain by squeezing, then the head hitting the edge of the table as he fell over. There was a frozen moment of shock, then screams, gasps, everyone standing, beginning to surge toward him, but Ben was already there, turning Lasner over on his back, reaching into his pocket.
“Oh my god,” one of the lawyers said.
“Where are his pills?” Ben said, searching, not even aware he’d said it aloud.
“Here.” Fay, dropping to her knees next to him, clawing at her purse, behind them a roar of noise.
“Give him air! Call an ambulance,” Ben yelled to the circle around them, grabbing the pills and shoving two into Lasner’s mouth. “Water.”
A glass appeared out of the air and Ben forced water between Lasner’s lips, waiting to hear him choke, afraid the white, sweaty face was beyond responding. But there was a kind of hiccup, a faint sign of life, not yet gone. Ben undid the tie, tearing the collar open, as if the problem were air, not his heart. Lasner had cut his head in the fall, so now there was blood, too, seeping in a small stream, inching toward Fay’s nylons. She was clutching Lasner’s hand, watching Ben as he undid the collar, then massaged Lasner’s chest, the rhythm a makeshift substitute for the heart, a pretense that you could keep life going from the outside. He bent down to Lasner’s mouth, listening for air.
“Give him room.”
Behind them the crowd tried to back up without really moving, pressing against each other. Polly had wedged her way to the front.
“Oh,” she said, distressed, her hand at her mouth. “Is he dead?”
“Give him air,” Ben said.
Lasner’s eyelids fluttered open for a second, taking in Ben and Fay, the circle of faces, then closed again.
“Did you get them down?” Ben said to him. “Try one more.” He pushed the pill between Lasner’s lips. “Swallow. Try.”
Lasner opened his mouth a little, obedient, and Ben watched his throat move, his face tightening with the strain.
The committee had now reached them, Minot pushing his way through. He stood for a second looking down, appalled and confused, then stepped back when he felt the flashbulbs go off, catching him looming over Lasner, an unintended boxing ring pose.
Ben took out a handkerchief and wiped Lasner’s forehead, then held it against the cut to stanch the bleeding. “They need a minute to kick in,” he said to Fay, then grabbed a folded paper and started fanning Lasner’s face, forcing air toward him.
“Breathe,” she said to Lasner. “Sol, can you hear me? The ambulance is coming.” She tightened her hand on his.
Now that Lasner had responded, the crowd grew louder with talk. “All of the sudden, like that, ” someone said, snapping his fingers. Ben opened another button on Lasner’s shirt.
Fay glanced up at one of the studio people. “Did anybody call Rosen? Dr. Rosen. Bunny knows the number.” She turned to Ben. “You knew about the pills. What, on the train?”
He nodded. “It’s worse this time. We have to get him to the hospital.” He felt Lasner’s wrist. “It’s weak.”
“I’m not dead,” Lasner said, then winced.
The ambulance was there in a few minutes. As the crew lifted Lasner onto a stretcher, more flashbulbs went off. Fay grabbed Ben’s hand, drawing him along with her. Lasner opened his eyes, aware of the movement.
“They’re here,” Fay said. “Just hold on.”
Lasner struggled to say something, but managed only an indistinct sound.
“Don’t try to talk,” Fay said. “You’ve said enough.”
Lasner glanced at her and started to smile.
In the ambulance, Fay and Ben in the back with him, Lasner began breathing more regularly, his color better.
“That’s twice you’re there,” he said to Ben, his voice scratchy but intelligible.
“Shh. Don’t excite yourself,” Fay said.
“You see his face?” Lasner said.
“Quite a finish,” Ben said.
“I told you. He didn’t know how to play it. He’s done.”
“Don’t talk crazy,” Fay said.
“He should fucking go out and shoot himself. Like Claude Rains.”
Ben laughed. Fay shot him a look, but Lasner, pleased, smiled and closed his eyes again.
“What did you give him?” the doctor said as they brought the gurney into the emergency room.
Ben handed him the pills. “Two, three.”
The doctor nodded then said something to a nurse, ordering an IV, and after that nothing made sense, medicine its own foreign language. Ben and Fay were shunted aside into a waiting room, the air stale with smoke. Ben opened a window. Fay sat down, covering her eyes with her hand.
“Thank you,” she said, and then neither of them spoke, trying to slow things down, all the urgency of the last half hour finally wheeled away somewhere else.
Ben glanced around the room: a pastel seascape on the wall and a stack of Reader’s Digest s on a coffee table. No wonder people paced.
“How bad was it on the train?” Fay said finally.
Ben shrugged. “Not great. But he got through it.”
“How many times can you do that?” She started to cry quietly and Ben looked away, giving her room. “What am I supposed to do? A house that size?”
After they moved Lasner to a room, Ben and Fay were allowed to sit with him, a vigil, until Dr. Rosen arrived and put them in the hall while he conferred with the hospital doctors.
“Is he going to be all right?” Fay said, when he came back out to them.
“That depends what you mean by all right.”
“He’s going to live?”
“Not like now.” He looked at her. “No studio.”
“He won’t.”
“He’ll have to. This time it went off,” he said, pointing to Lasner’s chest. “It goes again, he’s gone. I’m sorry, Fay. I don’t mean to-”
She waved this away. “And that would buy him what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Odds?”
“I can’t answer that.”
“He’ll ask. A few months sitting around? Is that all he’s going to get anyway?”
“A month is a lot, if it’s your last. A year-? What’s numbers? Don’t go soft on me, Fay,” he said, seeing her face begin to tremble. “You’re the only one can talk to him.”
She flicked the corner of her eye, drying it. “Wonderful.”
Bunny arrived when they were sitting with Lasner, awake now but not talking much, preoccupied.
“Now he gets here,” Lasner said, but patted his hand, affectionate.
“Sol, I-” He didn’t finish, turning instead to Fay, putting a hand on her shoulder.
“I’m going to be out a few days,” Lasner said.
Bunny nodded, playing along, but his eyes were examining Lasner, appraising without the pyramid fingers, and Ben watched him grow paler, shaken, and knew that Lasner was dying, the doctor’s assessment just something to comfort Fay.
“He didn’t call Rosemary like we thought,” Lasner said, talking business.
“He might.”
“Let’s release the picture anyway. Fuck him.”
“Let’s talk about it when-”
“We’re talking about it now.”
“No, you’re not,” Fay said, playing nurse. “Doctor’s orders. Look at you. It’s not enough for one day?”
“What do the doctors say?” Bunny said, but Fay didn’t answer, instead rolling her eyes toward the door.
“What do they always say?” Lasner said. “Listen to them, everybody should go live in Laguna.”
“Watch I don’t take you there,” Fay said. “You look tired. Close your eyes for a while.”
“Don’t leave,” he said, a child’s voice.
She put her hand on his forehead. “Never,” she said softly.
Ben stared at Lasner, hearing his words again, an echo effect. But not the way Danny had said them, meaning something else.
“I’ll come out with you,” Fay said, dismissing them, and for a second Ben saw a twitch in Bunny’s face, annoyed at their being lumped together.
Lasner managed a half wave from the bed. “Don’t be scarce,” he said.
In the hall, Bunny huddled for a minute with Fay, presumably getting a medical report, then joined Ben at the elevators. “I turn my back for two hours,” he said.
“There was nothing anybody could do. Even you. He knew what he was doing.”
“Mm. Putting himself in here. And Minot’s back tomorrow.”
“I don’t think so.”
“With a grudge. A little tantrum from Mr. L and you think he’s all taken care of.”
“He will be.”
Bunny looked up sharply. “What do you mean?”
“Read the papers tomorrow.”
Polly had suggested the Formosa, and when Ben got there she was already settled in a red leather booth, nursing a Gibson.
“I went ahead,” she said after he ordered. “Talk about a day for it. Gives you a turn, seeing that. I’ve known Sol a lot of years.” She looked up, narrowing her eyes. Her hat, the mesh veil thrown back for drinking, was tilted slightly. “You were at the hospital. How is he?”
Ben shrugged, noncommittal.
“They said stable. Stable could be dead. I should probably be there, in case. But they just stick you in the waiting room. Anyway,” she said, switching, “I have this meeting. Where you’re going to give me a story and I’m going to do you a favor. Surprise me. Tell me you’re not trying to get into somebody’s pants.” She finished off the drink and raised her finger for another. “So what do you want?”
“Want to hear the story first?”
“No. First tell me what it’s going to cost.”
“Minot fed you some material on Rosemary. I want you to kill it. For good.”
“Christ,” Polly said, picking up her fresh drink. “Her pants. That’s not even a surprise.”
“It would be to her.”
“So why- Anyway, how do you know he fed me anything?”
“Because he did. Jump page stuff, I’ve seen the file. You can do better.”
“With you.” She looked at him. “Now why is that? You don’t even like me, do you?”
“I think you’re a cunt.”
She stopped sipping her drink, then laughed into it, almost spitting. “Well, that puts it right out there, doesn’t it?”
“It got your attention.”
“No, I think you mean it. So why are we here?”
“To do a little business.”
“You’re lucky I don’t throw this drink in your face.” She stared at him for a second. “All right. What have you got?”
“You kill the Rosemary story.”
“You going to tell me or just sit there and play with yourself?”
“My brother worked for Minot. A supplier. Trouble is, his supplies were tainted. He was also a Communist. A real one, Party member. Still active. The Communists have been setting Minot up. A lot of the stuff he’s using he got from them. Some of the stuff he gave you, too, probably, but you don’t have to mention that. Minot had a Commie working for him and didn’t know it. To undermine the hearings, make him use bad information. Which could blow up in his face. Will. Unless somebody blows the whistle first.”
Polly said nothing, just sat looking at him, then raised the glass to her mouth, her head shaking a little. “Somebody like who?”
“Brenda Starr,” Ben said, opening his hand to her.
Another silence.
“And how do I back this up?”
“You have an exclusive interview with his brother. On the record. I can tell you how Minot’s files were set up, how they marked the information from him. He ever give you any files direct? I’ll show you how he sourced them. I can fill you in about Danny’s Party membership. Since Germany. How he gave Minot stuff only another Communist could know. Not ex-still. You want to back up further than that, you can source Riordan. Off the record, but he’ll back me up about the files.”
“You can prove this? Documents?”
“If I have to. But I won’t. Look where it’s coming from. His brother. I know. Straight from him. Anybody comes after you, they’re really coming after me. I’ll give you an escape hatch. But who’s going to deny it, the Commies? When I’m the source? Nobody else has this. Interested?”
She looked into her drink, thinking. “You didn’t like your brother much, huh?”
Ben looked away. “Not much. Not now, anyway. That I know what he was. If he hadn’t died, he’d still be doing it. Setting Minot up.”
“How do I know you’re not setting me up?”
“For what? Look, if you don’t want it, I can go somewhere else.”
“But you’re so fond of me.”
“You know you’re the first person I met out here? Union Station.”
“And I have some dirt on your girlfriend.”
Ben shook his head. “Not only that. You hate Communists, everybody knows that, so who better? And it’s your town. Maybe you deserve each other. But here’s a chance to show what the Commies are trying to do to it. Minot uses this net with all these holes in it and who gets away? Who wins?”
“Look at you. The all-American canary.”
“No, Minot’s the all-American. Too bad he’s also a fool.”
“This would- Ken’s a friend of mine.”
“Don’t make me laugh.”
She looked over at him, bristling.
“Don’t make me laugh,” Ben said, slower this time, a lead-in. “I was in that hearing room today. Know what I smelled? Blood. You smelled it, too, didn’t you? He’s finished there, he made a fool of himself, even before it comes out how the Commies were using him. Lasner’s going to die, and everybody’s going to blame Minot. The whole town. Including you. The big funeral piece. One of the giants of old Hollywood. You can even throw in that fucking barn where DeMille started. The old days with Rex. You won’t even have to say Minot bullied him to death, everybody already thinks it. They’ll thank you for showing him up before he could go after anybody else. You have a lot of friends in the industry, it’s where you live. He’s just passing through, see what he can get out of it. And he’s already on the floor bleeding.”
He waited another minute while she digested this, her eyes wide, calculating.
“You want to do the interview we should go to your office, not sit in a bar. Tape it, if you want. On the record. I’ve got some paperwork, too. So you won’t be nervous about using any of it. Do you want it? Part one?”
“Part one.”
“There’s more, but we don’t want to throw everything out there right away. It’s all page one, milk it. In fact, that’s part of the deal, you saying there’s more. Even more sensational. What Danny was doing beside feeding Minot. Exclusive from me. I’ll help you write it.”
“But you’re not going to tell me what it is.”
“I will.”
“How do I know?”
“Because I’m promising you. Or another story, just as big.”
“What?”
“A murder.”
“Yeah? Whose?”
“Mine.”
She blinked, then took up her glass. “Ha ha.”
“Don’t worry. I’m good for it. One or the other.”
“You’d better be. You hang me out to dry and I’ll kill you myself.”
“So we lose the Rosemary story?”
“There’s just one little problem with that. I gave it to Kelly. Not all of it, but enough to get him some space.”
“Then pull it back.”
“That doesn’t leave him with much.”
They met each other’s eyes, holding their glasses as if they were looking over cards.
“Dick Marshall and Liesl. Inside the romance. Pictures at her place, by the pool. Exclusive.”
She nodded slowly, still looking at him. “I remember that train. You’re a quick study.”
“It’s an easy place to read.”
“Yeah, I guess,” she said, finishing the drink. “Union Station. And now here we are at the Formosa. They all go that way, don’t they? All the stories here.”
“Not all of them,” Ben said.
Polly worked for the afternoon paper so Ben spent the morning waiting, trying to keep busy. When he started stacking papers and arranging them in piles he realized that all this methodical make-work was simply a pretense, putting things in order while his stomach jumped, restless with nerves. He checked the gun in the drawer. Somewhere, miles away, paper had streamed through inked drums and been baled, thrown onto trucks. They’d have to come now. How long before they wondered what else Ben would say?
Bunny was already at the gate when Ben went down to check on the afternoon delivery. He glanced up briefly from the paper, then went back reading, handing Ben another copy from the pile.
“The phone’s been ringing,” he said, an explanation.
Lasner had made the front page with the picture of Minot looming over him, but so had Polly, the left lead. MINOT DUPED BY RED INFORMER. STAFFER WORKED FOR COMMIES SAYS BROTHER. Two columns with a jump to page eight, the entire story Polly had filed, including the more to come.
Bunny read through to the end, then folded the page under his arm. “My, what a big tongue it has,” he said.
“Minot had it coming.”
Bunny looked at him. “Every time I think we understand each other-we don’t.” He turned, Ben following. “There’ll just be another one. Maybe worse. It’s not going to stop.”
“It will for a while.”
“At least you kept Liesl out of it. Family feeling?”
“It’s about Danny, not her.”
“She was married to him.” He paused. “If anybody remembers. I gather you promised Polly some pictures. She’s already been asking. I didn’t realize you were running Publicity now.”
“I had to offer her-”
Bunny waved his hand. “Save it. I’m going to move up the release date. Before anybody remembers. So a spread will come in handy. By the pool, wasn’t it?”
“The picture’s ready?”
“Just the prints. I can pull a booking at the Egyptian.”
“Not Rosemary’s.”
Bunny looked over. “No, not Rosemary’s. We haven’t booked that yet.”
“You can. There’s not going to be any trouble.”
“Is that what this is all about? The girlfriend? Not both of you. Double dunking? You don’t find that a little tawdry?”
“I just said-”
“Like one of those loops where they leave their socks on.”
Ben just looked, waiting.
“As a matter of fact, we haven’t booked it because we’re doing some retakes. I think we can fix it.”
“No other reason.”
“No other reason. Now that you’ve chased all the storm clouds away. What else are you going to do for us? Just so I’m ready.”
“Mr. Jenkins?” A secretary came up to them. “The union’s here. About the musicians.”
“Right there,” Bunny said.
“Musicians? I thought Continental didn’t do musicals.”
“We didn’t have Julie before. She’s good. And we signed her cheap. It’s worth a shot.” Already head of the studio.
“Sam’ll be happy.”
“Well, there’s that, too,” Bunny said, dismissive, moving away. He opened the paper again, then shook his head. “No more stunts? Please.”
“He lied to you.”
Bunny handed Ben the paper. “Everybody lies to me. Mr. L will be pleased anyway. Like a one-two punch team, aren’t you?” He looked up at him. “Fay said you saved his life.”
“She’s exaggerating. I was just there.”
“He’ll be grateful,” Bunny said, his voice flat.
Henderson turned up an hour later.
“Everywhere I look, what do I see?” he said, tossing the paper on Ben’s desk. “You all over the page.”
The paper had landed with the bottom half faceup. A picture Ben hadn’t noticed before, pushed below the fold by the Minot story: Kaltenbach at a press conference in Berlin, surrounded by men in bulky suits.
“I didn’t know you guys read the papers,” Ben said.
“You’ve got a mouth for brains, anybody ever tell you? Let’s take a walk.”
“You can give me the lecture right here. Don’t worry, there isn’t any more. The Bureau isn’t going to come into it. If that’s what-”
“Give me a preview. Tomorrow’s edition.”
“This is it.”
“That’s not what it says.”
“We don’t need any more. Once they see this, they’ll come running. Look how fast you got here.”
Henderson stared at him. Ben picked up the paper, scanning the Kaltenbach piece.
“So he made it.”
“You didn’t see it? He denounced Ostermann. A real German would come back, build a new Germany. Ostermann’s a ‘cosmopolitan.’ Not even a German anymore.”
“They made him say it.”
“They’ll make him say a lot of things. Drove himself to Mexico. Funny, isn’t it, since he couldn’t drive.”
“Couldn’t he? Who told you that? Danny?”
Henderson motioned his head toward the door. “Show me the lot.”
Ben took him past the sound stages to the New York street, empty today, the brownstone fronts as silent as a ghost town.
“You’re trying to get yourself killed,” Henderson said.
“That was the idea, wasn’t it?”
“The idea was to find your brother’s mailman. Make him come after the list. Not after you.”
“When did you get all protective? They’ve already tried once. We both knew how this was going to work.”
“Not by going to the papers.”
“What are you worried about? That I’m going to embarrass the Bureau? Give away state secrets?”
“What state secrets.”
“That’s right. There is no list.”
“It’s classified,” Henderson said evenly. “It has to stay that way.”
“It will. You think I’d tell Polly? I’m that crazy?”
Henderson turned. “I’m not the one setting myself up as target practice.”
“Look, they know I have the letter. But nobody moves. Still safe. Even with you hanging around. But I go public, they’ve got to stop me. Come out where we can see them.” He opened his hand. “Then you go to work.”
“There’s talk of bringing you in,” Henderson said slowly. “Preventative custody.”
“To prevent what?”
“You talking out of turn.”
“That’s why you’re here?”
“I just said it’s been discussed. People are nervous. Kind of thing, nobody ends up looking good.”
“You forget, I came to you,” Ben said. “Well, let’s just say you got to us anyway.”
“Give it one more day. They’ll bite now. We’re on the same side here, aren’t we?”
Henderson had stopped, looking at the street set. “There’s nothing behind that, right? You look at those windows, you think there’s a room there. It’s something, how they do that.”
Ben waited.
“You know, it’s a funny thing, people in the field, I’ve seen it happen. They work so many sides, it gets confusing. They don’t know which side they’re on anymore. I think something like that happened to your brother.”
Ben shook his head. “You didn’t know him. We’re alike.”
Henderson raised an eyebrow.
“He knew. It just wasn’t the right side. That was the hard part, figuring that out.”
Henderson took this in, thinking, then started back. “I’m going to put a tail on you.”
“Somebody could pick us off right now, if he wanted. What good would that do?”
“Might make him work a little harder for it. Find a better spot.”
Ben glanced up at the set. “Unless he’s already found it.”
After Henderson left, Ben drifted back toward the Western set. Some workers were trimming branches off the giant cottonwood, the whine of their buzz saw drowning out the carpenters in the partial saloon, all the noises a comfort now, safety in other people. Beyond the cottonwood there was a stand of live oaks, where posses tied up horses for the night, and then the raised wooden sidewalk in front of the general store and the sheriff’s office, lined with hitching rails. Had the real towns been any more substantial? Thrown together in a few weeks, the same dusty clapboard fronts and fading paint. He was standing now in the street where gunfighters faced off, hands hovering near their holsters. He looked down to the corner, half-expecting someone to appear. But it was too soon. There’d be some better plan. From the top of the building, someone with a rifle could take him with a single bullet. One shot, then glide away in the confusion as the carpenters raced out to the street. But it wouldn’t happen that way, either. A hired pachuco at the Cherokee wasn’t enough anymore. How much did Ben know, what had he already told Polly, how far had the stain spread? What Henderson didn’t seem to understand, one reason Ben had set it up this way-first they’d have to talk to him.
He was still at his desk, waiting for the phone to ring, as the production units closed down for the day. He could hear people outside heading for their cars, the line of idling motors at the gate, the lot thinning out. He tried to imagine the call, wondered where the meeting would be set. Why not Paseo Miramar, a sentimental choice. But too public at this hour. When the door opened, no knock, he jerked his head up, every part of him alert.
“I was wondering how long it would take you,” he said.
Liesl hesitated, still holding the doorknob. “I didn’t think I was going to come at all.” She walked in and put the newspaper on his desk, a presentation gesture, Exhibit A.
“You got all dressed up.”
She glanced down at the bare-shouldered evening gown. “Publicity,” she said, offhand, distracted.
“For War Bride? In that? More like Dick Marshall’s bride. How’s that going? Or isn’t it?”
She stared at him, thrown, not expecting this.
“I told you. It didn’t mean anything,” she said finally.
“Well, neither did I.”
She looked surprised again, slightly lost. “Is that what you think?”
He met her eyes, not moving. “Go on, say it.”
“What?”
“What you were going to say. When you didn’t think you’d come.”
“Bastard. I was going to say what a bastard you are,” she said, emotionless, repeating lines. “To do this to him.”
“He’s dead.”
“And this is the memory you want for him? An informer? So everyone knows,” she said, pointing to the paper, her voice stronger. “And now you’re the good one. It means so much? To be better than him?”
“It’s true. He was an informer.”
“That’s not everything he was.”
“No. Worse.”
She stopped, dropping her hand to her side. “What do you mean, worse?”
“Treason? What every Russian wants to know. What did Henderson call it? Our new order of battle.”
“The list,” she said, ignoring his tone. “You found out who they are?”
He nodded. “It took a few calls. Of course some of them don’t have phones. They’re nowhere. New Mexico, I guess. Like in the newsreel. That’s when it clicked. I remembered Friedman. The Livermore lab. Berkeley. Bingo. In Danny’s newsreel. At home. Maybe you watched it together.”
“What are you talking about? What treason? You’re going to put this in the paper? Make it worse?”
“That depends on how you read it. The Communists will think he’s quite a guy. You do. Except for his love life. But maybe that was just a get-even screw. He didn’t take her there, you know. The Cherokee love nest. That was your idea. That’s not what it was for. Party business.”
“Party business.”
“You remember the Party.”
“Remember what?” she said, confused.
“You were in it, too.”
She said nothing.
“You came here to talk, didn’t you? Let’s talk. Don’t worry, I’m not running to Minot with it. And Bunny will keep you miles away. Not even a hint of red. No idea what Danny was up to. Somebody else he duped,” he said, looking at the paper. “But not over there. You’d have been a lot closer. Somebody he could trust. Doing what he was doing. You’d have to be one of them. I should have got that right away. Anyone from the outside would have been too risky. A death warrant. You’d have to be. Is that how you met?”
She looked down, shaking her head. “It was for him. A card even,” she said, her mouth suddenly crooked, almost in a smile. “He couldn’t. Too incriminating. They weren’t so worried for me.” She looked up at him. “I threw it away. A little ceremony. A new place, new start. For both of us. I thought it was anyway. He lied about that, too.”
“And not you? ‘Everybody was a little like that.’ Isn’t that what you said? The first night we went to bed, come to think of it. The first lie. One of them.”
“You think there were so many. It was-in the past. Why bring it up again?”
“And I bought it. And went around in circles for a while. I didn’t see a lot of things.”
She stared at him.
“Something gets in your eye, a little speck, and you miss things. I kept seeing you at Genia’s table, it kept coming back to you, and I’d look somewhere else. And then there we were drinking brandybrandy-and I saw the glass and started seeing other things. The Paseo. Just visiting Uncle Lion if anyone had asked. The balcony. I remembered that in a clip. Girl your size. You just need leverage. The hospital. He said, don’t leave me, but I did. I saw you there, too.”
“Stop it,” she said, her voice edgy, upset.
“Even then I thought I was just-seeing things. What could I prove? If I wanted to. It wasn’t going to bring him back anyway. But not after the list. Not after I saw that. You should never have let me leave the house. I suppose you didn’t think I’d move to the Cherokee. Right to the mail drop. That must have been-” He stopped. “You should have kept me close.” He looked at her. “It would have been easy to do.”
She met his eyes for a moment, then looked away, picking at the newspaper, something to do. “So now it’s this. I’m a-what? A murderer? That’s what you think?” She held her arms out. “Do you want to look? Maybe there’s a gun in my dress.”
“No, you just came to find out how much I told Polly. How far it’s gone. And I’d tell you, wouldn’t I?” He nodded. “The dress helps.”
“Stop.”
“Give me a name.”
“A name?”
“I don’t think you hired the kid at the Cherokee. A pachuco? That had to be someone else. Give me the next guy, who had the key. I can tell Henderson I got to him through Kelly, keep you out of it. They have him, they can roll up the rest. You retire. Unless they turn on you, but I’m betting they won’t. But you retire. For good.”
“Why would you do this? If I’m-”
“It’s enough damage,” he said, indicating the paper. “Right now Danny’s a Communist who made a fool out of Minot. Some places that even makes him a hero. But this is something else. I’m not going to do it to him. Make him carry that mark around. So let it stop here. Let the Bureau have the others. And there’s your career to consider.”
She raised her head, about to speak, but he cut her off.
“No one else knew I had it. And didn’t know what it meant. You saw that with Henderson at the border. Why didn’t anyone come after me? Even Henderson was surprised. One try at the Cherokee and thennothing. But by that time you knew it could stop there-Henderson didn’t know where to go with it. You were safe. No one else knew, Liesl.”
Her eyes opened wider at this, unsettled. “No one else,” she repeated, a little breathless, catching up with it.
“Give me a name.”
“How can you believe this?”
“What? Because of us? Let’s not do that again. I thought-” He broke off. “Tell me something, though.” He waited for her to turn to him. “Was any of it real? A few lines?”
She shaded her eyes with her hand. “A few.”
He said nothing for a second, letting it settle. “Give me a name. Then let’s talk about why.”
The phone rang and her hand jerked away from her face, a startled reflex. They both went still, looking down, the second ring louder.
“Yes?” he said, grabbing the receiver, just to stop the noise.
The night operator, sounding bored. “A message from Miss Eastman. She wants to see you on Sound Stage Four.”
For a second he didn’t respond, as if he were still waiting to hear, the sound out of synch.
“Miss Eastman,” he said, jarred, looking across at Liesl.
“That’s right. Sound Stage Four.”
Now he heard it, still looking at Liesl, his stomach beginning to slide. The floor itself seemed to move. He placed the fingers of one hand on the desk to steady himself.
“She just called?”
“The AD. Is there some problem? I called as soon as-”
“No. Thank you.”
He put the receiver back. Liesl was watching his face, confused, then alarmed.
“What?” she said.
But he could only look at her, the room still sliding, everything wrong.
He picked up the receiver again. “Get me Carl at the gate, will you?” He waited for the connection, Liesl still staring at him. “Carl? Ben Collier. I want you to close the gate. Nobody goes off the lot, not until I call back. Got that? Anybody asks, say it’s orders.” He put the phone down, now feeling eerily calm. “You’re asking for me on Sound Stage Four.”
“I’m asking-?” She stopped as he reached into the drawer and took out the gun, checking it.
“Stay here,” he said.
He went out the back of the building, then swung behind the writers’ wing. It didn’t have to be Sound Stage 4 itself, just anywhere on the way. He took a parallel route, away from the exposed main road, his eyes scanning side to side. A few grips were unloading flats from a truck down by the Western set, but otherwise the lot was quiet. The sun was almost gone, the dreary plaster walls now a light apricot. On the other side of the street, the prop building’s hangar doors were still wide open, spilling out bright light. Acres of tables and settees and mirrors, stacked chairs, all of it easy to hide behind if you’d planned it that way. He felt the gun in his hand. What could he say if anyone saw? Slinking behind buildings with a gun. But these weren’t real streets, people carried harmless guns between sets all the time.
The door to Sound Stage 4 was closed but not locked, the red light off. He opened it and stepped into a darkness so complete that he felt swallowed up in it, like a stray crack of light. He fumbled behind for a switch. The utility lights flashed on, not as bright as overhead stage lights, but enough to see the set, the wood-frame backing and ramps for wheeling the cameras. Ben blinked, disoriented for a second. It was the nightclub in Rosemary’s picture, the bar just where it had been but the dance floor repositioned, down a short flight of stairs, the tables dressed now in white cloth with center lamps, swankier. He stepped carefully toward the bar, using the long mirror to check the space behind him.
“Liesl?” he said, playing along. He moved his arm in a slow circle, the gun pointed, ready. “Liesl?” he said again, his voice the only sound in the big space. He stood for a second, just listening. Quiet enough to hear a watch, someone breathe, but there was nothing, then suddenly a creak, a foot on wood, and he turned to it, not expecting the explosion, the noise of the shot, his hand burning, a searing pain as his gun fell and he clutched his hand, already smearing with blood. He ducked, an instinct, to reach out for the gun on the floor, then reared back when another shot went into the wood next to it.
“The next one goes in your head,” a voice said, coming out of the shadow at the end of the bar. He waved his gun, motioning Ben back as he stepped forward, finally reaching Ben’s gun and kicking it aside.
“Dieter,” Ben said, still in pain, clutching his hand.
“Did you think we were going to play with guns? Like cowboys? Who is faster? Don’t be a child.”
“Dieter,” Ben said again, trying to focus, watching his hand run with blood.
“What a trouble you are, this family. This time it’s not so easy to arrange. Bullets. There’ll be questions.” He paused. “If they find you.”
Dumped somewhere, off the lot. Another accident? The thought darted in and out of his mind, not yet ready for it, still hazy with surprise.
“I don’t understand.” But even as he said it, he did, all the scenes coming back to him now with a different face. A brandy glass. Don’t leave me. Dieter also at the hospital, more than just family. Ben tried to remember the sequence-racing for the doctor, Liesl where? The nurses’ station? Just a minute or two, all that would be needed. Concerned. In Danny’s room. Don’t leave me alone.
“What?” Dieter said.
Everything snapping into place. His hand throbbing, just the first shot. Keep him talking.
“Who told you about Genia?”
Dieter moved his head, physically taken aback. “At such a moment that’s what you want to know?” he said.
“Liesl told you.”
“Liesl,” Dieter said, dismissive. “You told me.”
“Not Liesl,” Ben said, as if he hadn’t heard.
“You. On the beach. After Salka’s lunch. A great favor to me, to know that. I had to act. If she talked to you, she would talk to others. I was always secret. Only someone from those days would know and here she was, talking to-well, Otto’s son, maybe she thought it was all right. But no discipline. Even Otto’s son. Something happened to her in the war, I think.”
“So you killed her.”
“I had to,” he said easily. “Once you told me. So I thank you for that. You know, I have an idea that she knew. What had to be done. When I called her, she came, no questions. The old discipline.”
“Because she was a threat, just knowing you,” Ben said, still stitching things together.
“Do you have any idea what we are doing here? How important it is? They’re making weapons so powerful-well, that’s for another time.”
“I want to know.”
“Why? You’ll be dead. What can it matter to you? Or do you think someone’s coming to save you? Texas Rangers, maybe. The marshal,” he said, drawing the word out, sarcastic. He shook his head. “No one is coming.”
Ben glanced around. His gun had been kicked toward the door, too far away. Something else. A nightclub table to duck behind. A bottle to smash. Any kind of weapon. But what was real? If he smashed the bottle would he have jagged glass or breakaway Plasticine? The stage telephone, the fire alarm, everything useful, was behind him, impossible to reach. Keep talking.
“You’re not going to kill me yet.”
“No?”
“Not before you know how much I know.”
“It doesn’t matter what you know. You’ll be dead.”
“Or how much I told Polly.”
Dieter looked at him.
“You don’t want to kill her if you don’t have to. You don’t want that kind of attention.”
Dieter sighed, a mock concession. “So what did you tell her?”
“First you tell me.”
“What?”
“Why you killed Danny. I want to know.”
Dieter shrugged. “I said, it’s a difficult family. Always their own ideas.” He nodded to Ben. “Not in the beginning. Otto’s son. Anything we needed. But this place, it changed him. The life here. Liesl.”
“Liesl?”
“You know a wife changes things. In France, I thought, well, it’s good, he can get her out, he’ll make her serious. But it was the other way. Kino, this stupid Quatsch he makes. She was ambitious for him. No politics here, it’s another country. Well, what did she know about it? So he has to hide it from her, the work he does for me.”
“Hide it?”
“Of course. What would she think? Her father.”
“Slow down,” Ben said. “Her father.”
“That was the beginning. They wanted someone close to Hans.” He smiled. “Him they worried about. The Conscience of Germany. What did he think? Who did he see? So Riordan talks to Daniel, they know each other from those movies, he thinks Daniel’s a good American. Well, he was a good American. But also a son-in-law. Close, you understand. So he comes to me. What should I do? And of course I see at once what a thing this is. At first, even, suspicious-what if it’s a trap? But no, an opportunity. To work with the FBI. To have a man there.
Not high up, but still. Just how they make the files. The organization. Even this is valuable. They want to watch the German community? Good. Show them where to look. Imagine, Hans Ostermann’s son-in-law. Their man inside.”
“Their spy.”
“Well, what was there to spy on? Even Brecht. Daniel tells them about the girlfriend, and of course that’s all they can see after that. They even follow him to New York. Where does he sleep at night? How long does he stay? Quatsch.”
“But not you.”
“Me? I don’t have girlfriends. I don’t go to New York. I salute the flag. I’m happy to be alive. I think here it’s paradise. My colleagues. My numbers. It’s all I need, my numbers. Nothing else in my head. It’s more interesting, Brecht’s secretary.”
“And some of those colleagues are at Northridge.”
“Yes, some. And I know what some of them do. So that’s one piece. And of course they investigate us. Are we loyal? Can we be trusted? Look at my FBI file, a German, yes, but now American. It’s all in the file.”
“And Danny knew what you were doing?”
“There was a loyalty there, from Otto. He knew the FBI was watching the emigres-his family, his friends-why not protect them?”
“But not the other? The work at the labs? The weapons?”
“It’s so important to you, this distinction? He worked for us. He was one of us.”
“But he didn’t know.”
“You have to understand how this worked, ” Dieter said patiently, wrapped up in his story now.
Ben looked to the door again. The fire alarm. But he’d be dead before he pulled the lever. Get Dieter to take him off the lot, wherever he was going to stage a disappearance. There were still people outside. He wouldn’t want to be seen dragging a body to a car.
“No one knew,” he continued. “Just his piece. Daniel wasn’t at Livermore. Or Cal Tech. Not out in New Mexico with the Project. He was here, making these foolish reports. Making them look where there was nothing to see.”
“Away from you.”
“I was a messenger, that’s all. But nothing could come to me. I had my security clearance, but you couldn’t risk the mail. They still look. It had to go somewhere else.”
“What did he think it was? All the mail.”
“Party matters. A convenience, for me. I was always secret, you see. He understood that. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to work.”
“But why help Minot?”
“Another opportunity, to make them look somewhere else. He had credibility. Do you know how valuable that is? The Bureau could vouch for him. Anything he said-”
“But Minot was after Communists.”
“But which ones? Hollywood,” he said, his voice brushing it off. “Circuses. Of no importance. But think what it means. Minot asks the Bureau to help him. Investigate. Verify. They’re not supposed to do it, but of course they do. Time and men, all for this distraction. They catch one, they want more. You see? They were right. More time, more men. So give them another. But always the same kind. Of no importance to us.”
“Party members?” Howard Stein. Milton Schaeffer. Written off. Distractions.
“The Party here is never going to amount to anything. It’s not a political force in this country. A cover, sometimes, but now that’s difficult. So, another use. A small sacrifice. Old members. People who left in ’forty. Some actives. These people are of no consequence. So Daniel cooperates. It’s useful to us.”
“And what about the people he gives them?”
“What about them?” He looked at Ben. “Another sentimentalist. So you’re alike that way. ‘Why are we doing this to-?’ Well, whoever. To ask such a thing. No discipline. Not like before. Something changed for him here.”
“That’s why you killed him? You asked him to throw them somebody and he refused?”
Dieter smiled, the idea itself unlikely. “No, he started reading the mail.”
“And realized-”
“Not immediately. But then, yes. What we were doing. What he was doing, too, don’t forget.”
Ben saw him in the screening room, running the newsreel over and over, each time worse, smothering.
“So he decided to stop,” Ben said. The crucial point, the one redemption.
Dieter nodded. “And told me. Imagine the foolishness. I should stop, too. Not just stop. Give the Bureau names in exchange-for what? Clean hands? There are no clean hands. Foolish. But dangerous-all our work. What else could I do?”
“How, exactly?”
“How? What is the point of this? You know how.”
“Was he unconscious? When he went over?”
“It matters to you, to know this? Yes, on the head,” he said, hitting his own. “I thought the fall would kill him. A very strong head.”
“So you went to the hospital. To make sure.” Don’t leave me. A pillow. A minute.
“A long wait,” Dieter said, annoyed, as if the inconvenience of it still rankled. “Are you finished now?”
“How did you get out? The Cherokee. You locked the door-you had your own key, you must have-so everybody would think he’d been alone. And then what?”
“I left,” Dieter said simply, the question not worth raising. “Everyone was in the alley. So I went out the front. I had a story, if anyone asked. I was family, and I’d been worried about him and now, my god, too late- But nobody asked. So.”
“One more. How did you know I had the list? Did you miss a pickup?”
Dieter shook his head. “It was not so regular. It was late, in fact. But you had to telephone. First at the faculty lounge, then even on the mountain. What’s so important, I thought, to call from the mountain? And you’re living there, you said-Liesl never mentioned that. A worry. So I listened.”
“And then had someone waiting.”
“Another strong head, it turns out. But here we are. So. Did you tell Polly?” He tilted his head. “Or are you just trying to buy time. Waiting for the marshal.”
“No marshal. Just us. But you don’t want to kill me here.”
“No?”
“Carl has orders not to open the gate. My orders. So it would be a lot easier to have me drive you off the lot.” Picked up by Henderson’s tail. “You don’t want anyone finding bodies lying around.”
“More Kino, ” Dieter said, almost sneering. “And then the fight and you save yourself. Not with that fist anyway.” He nodded to Ben’s hand.
“You won’t get through the gate.”
“Change the orders. Call.” He jerked his head toward the phone behind Ben.
“What if-?”
“There are no what-ifs. Say one thing wrong and I’ll put a bullet in your head. Mine, too, if I have to. So it ends here. No need to explain anything.”
Ben looked at him, thrown. “Why?”
“Make the call.”
“You’d kill yourself? You can’t really believe in it anymore. Not after everything.”
“I did believe in it. So that’s something. You don’t-betray that.”
“Just your own people. And kill them. What did that feel like, killing Danny? All those years.”
“It will be easier to kill you. You wouldn’t keep out of this. Daniel-” He stopped. “I don’t know why he changed. ‘I won’t do that to my country.’ Foolishness. What country? We don’t have a country.”
“Not Russia?”
“Russia,” he said, a hint of scorn. “No, no country. The future. The rest is-politics. They want to scare themselves to death here. Look under your bed, what do you see? A Communist? No! So give the fools a few Communists. But not the weapons. You don’t give weapons to children. You can’t put guns in their hands.”
“Just yours.” He looked at Dieter, suddenly weary, something seeping out of him with the blood. “Do you listen to yourself anymore? The future.” He shook his head. “It was a mistake. You wasted your life on a mistake. Like my father.”
Dieter stared back, surprised, as if he’d been struck.
“And Danny.”
Dieter said nothing for a moment, then motioned the gun toward the phone. “Make the call. Slow steps. Not too fast.”
Ben turned, feeling Dieter following behind. A fire alarm lever he could pull, but that would be a suicide move, the bullet in his back before the lever was down. Overhead light switch, but not the master switch, a fuse box farther away. The phone itself, some kind of coded message out? But Dieter had already thought of that, reaching around to pick up the receiver himself, the gun close to Ben. He asked the switchboard for the front gate, then handed the phone to Ben.
“Carl? Mr. Kohler,” he said, a name all the emigres still thought he used. “You can open the gate again.” But would Carl hear the name change or simply recognize the voice and move on? “Sorry for the inconvenience,” Ben said, but Dieter was waving him to finish and hang up, and Carl didn’t reply.
“Over there,” Dieter said, indicating the stage door, the smaller one people used, not the huge sliding wall for the sets, activated by a button switch.
“You can’t hide a body in here,” Ben said.
Dieter pointed to one of the large black storage cases stacked by the wall. “Move the light out of the way.” A flood lamp, heavy.
Lights. He looked back to the nightclub set, the floods already set up, spotlights hanging in rows from the high rigging, a boom set up for a mike, the camera at the top of the ramp, pointed down toward the dance floor. Lights, camera, action. A phrase he’d never actually heard on set. All right, people, let’s go. Okay, Jimmy? Action. But never the full phrase. Why was he even thinking about this? A case big enough for a body. Do something. He’s going to kill you. Lights. Already connected, ready to go tomorrow. Action.
He flicked the switch on the lamp, swerving to face Dieter, a blinding light in his eyes, like a flashbulb that kept going, so that he raised his arm against it. An automatic response, a second, enough to let Ben duck and roll away to his right, into the set, hidden by one of the tablecloths.
“Don’t be stupid,” Dieter yelled, but the flash had disoriented him. He headed toward the door, the logical place for Ben to have gone. Ben moved farther into the set, a kind of desperate table hopping, until he was under the platform for the band, then out behind, moving slowly counterclockwise. Lath and plaster. Dieter moved over to the flood lamp, still bright, and tilted it down, beginning to search the tables, a lighthouse sweep to the bar.
“Come out,” he yelled, focused now on the bar, an easy hiding place.
Ben tried to remember where his gun had gone, slithering across the floor. Toward the door. Exactly in Dieter’s field of light. He had now reached the camera platform. Across the dance floor, the long shine of the mirror behind the bar. Dieter was still moving the light, shafts reflecting off the mirror, his back to Ben but still between Ben and the door.
Ben heard the sound of his own breathing, a ragged panting, and tried to close his mouth, holding it shut. A vacuum quiet. You could actually hear a footfall, the faint mechanical turning of the lamp. His whole body tensed with a feral alertness. Not like the war, people yelling over all the noise, shell explosions and the whistle of flying shrapnel. War was about luck. This was something else, a hunt, crouching with ears up, waiting to hear a twig snap.
He looked behind: the shadowy clutter of the sound stage, cables and dolly tracks, equipment that never appeared on screen. The sound console. A diversion. He breathed out a little and slipped over to the panel, trying to remember how it was operated. No time. He shoved a whole row of switches, hoping for anything, and got the squawk of feedback, then ran in the other direction. Dieter swung the light around, walking carefully now toward the sound, pausing at the foot of the ramp to peer into the dark behind of the stage, using the lamp as a kind of flashlight. Another sweep. Ben lifted himself up onto the platform, the upper tier of the nightclub, and crawled on his stomach toward the camera, his sounds still masked by the screech coming out of the console. Dieter took another step, wary, as if the sound were a trap, looking at each side of it, not hearing the clicks on the platform as Ben carefully unlocked the brakes on the camera wheels, the whole heavy weight now free. Action.
Ben rose slightly on one knee and pushed the camera to the edge of the ramp, the rubber wheels gliding smoothly, responsive, the way they would during a shoot, steady. It was only after they had tipped down the ramp, pulled by gravity, that they wobbled with speed, racing, finally loud enough to make Dieter turn and jerk away from a direct hit, so that only his leg was caught, the crash bringing him down, but not crushing him, knocking over the lamp, which crashed, too, sputtering out.
Ben rolled off the platform, running hunched over across the club floor, exposed now. He heard a grunt, Dieter trying to pick himself up, then a shot, louder than the sound console. He dropped flat, heard the smash of bar bottles as the bullet struck. Real glass, not breakaway. He lunged again for the door. The gun was here somewhere, but no time to look. Instead he reached up for the hangar door switch and pushed the button, then jumped away from it before Dieter could fire again, and moved along the wall, toward the console and heaps of equipment. Another grunt as Dieter got up, lurching toward the door, the obvious place, sliding open now, a loud clunking on its tracks. Where Ben would try to rush out.
But Ben burrowed deeper into the equipment pile, every sound hidden by the door motor, the console still squawking. He moved farther back. There had to be other exits, not yet lit up as this one was, the nightclub lights now spilling out in shafts onto the back lot. He raised his head to see Dieter standing in place, turning side to side, then reaching down to his leg, evidently hurt by the falling camera. The console would draw outside attention now, the soundproof stage open to the night.
Still aiming his gun at the door, Dieter started moving back to the panel to cut it off. There would be a fumbling with switches, just a few seconds, but a distraction. Ben kept moving back, picking his way over cables, afraid of knocking into something, an unexpected sound. Dieter was close enough now to hear, even with the door still winching open. It was dimmer here, almost dark, and then blank, a temporary wall thrown up to divide the stage. He followed it, feeling for a door. There must be another set behind, another outside door. His hand touched a knob.
He turned it carefully, hoping no light would shoot in to give him away, but the other stage was dark, the floor empty of clutter. Nothing was being shot here. He closed the door behind him and moved back to the outer wall. Suddenly the hangar door motor stopped, presumably all the way open now. The console feedback was lower, too, intermittent. In a second Dieter would find the panel switch, every sound Ben made audible again. Perfect for stalking.
He took another step and bumped into something waist-high, putting his hands out to steady himself, prevent anything from crashing over. A table? Some prop. He moved his hands over it. Big, a construction. Then, like Braille, plaster rising out of the smooth surface in jagged clumps, mountains. Japan. Continental’s contribution to the war effort. He tried to remember the layout, how near it had been to a door. An entire country lying on trestles, waiting to be photographed, what the bombers would see. The console stopped.
Ben looked up. The quiet had become physical again, something you could feel. He heard Dieter moving, then saw the ceiling get lighter. More lights in the nightclub, Dieter now obviously at the central switches near the stack of camera cases. Ben looked at Japan. Nothing else on this part of the stage, not even a spool of cable. A few footsteps, Dieter exploring. Don’t panic. He ducked down and slipped between the trestles, a hiding place. But all Dieter would have to do was shine a light underneath, catch Ben’s eyes. He felt above him. The whole frame was supported by slats lying across the trestles, nailed in place to prevent wobbling. The diorama itself was like an attic crawl space-if you managed to climb into it, you could lie on the slats, off the floor. Japan over your head.
The spaces were irregular. Ben tried to wedge up into one, but couldn’t get through. He tried to remember the shape, where the load-bearing sections would be. Think of it as a box spring, the springs clustered, not even. He moved toward the center, where the plaster would rise highest, allowing more wiggle room. A mountain range. If it worked anywhere, it would work here. He put his head through, then grabbed two of the slats to pull the rest of him up. His shirt caught, then freed itself with a tug. His feet were off the floor, another push with his elbows, then inching forward over the empty space onto another slat, trying to distribute his weight, slat, space, slat, space.
His head bumped into wood. Of course there’d be cross struts. His feet were still dangling, but he managed to draw them up a little, so that only his toes dropped over the slat. There was nowhere else to go, his body suspended now, his hands clutching hard to the slat on either side. The injured hand was still throbbing, and he tried to relax its grip. Maybe a bone had been smashed, shooting out darts of pain. But it wouldn’t be much longer. Dieter would check the sound stage, then inevitably be drawn back to the door and out, the logical escape. Just try to stop breathing. Become, literally, part of the woodwork.
The floor beneath him got lighter. Dieter must have found more switches. These would be the utility lights above the catwalks, making the stage visible while the gaffers arranged the set lights on the rigging. The light would come straight down through the open ceiling, flat, not strong enough to make shadows. Ben clenched his hand on the slat again. Keep still. Footsteps on the other side of the dividing wall, a shout, as if Dieter were testing the echo effect. Over his head, lights were shining down on the simulated hills. It occurred to Ben, a surreal idea, that his body was under Hiroshima.
“Can you hear me?”
The voice seemed nearer. Ben held his breath. The slats might creak if he moved. In the silence, there was a sound so small it might be inside his head, light as a bubble popping, no, a drip, an invisible tap, a single bead of water. He looked down. Not invisible. A red dot on the floor, now another. Frantic, he looked at his hand, blood seeping, a line moving down off the side, then falling. He relaxed his grip, turning his hand. The line changed course but kept flowing down, another drip. There was nowhere to move the hand without shifting his weight. Impossible. But you’d have to be on top of it to hear. And now it fell on the previous drip, muffled, not like a fresh drop on the floor. He stared at the hand, willing it to stop.
“It’s very foolish.” Dieter’s voice again, moving with him through the door, flicking on more lights.
Ben looked down. A tiny puddle, not a river. But still dripping, a little more quickly. Dieter had stopped, probably trying to figure out the map. Another minute, fascinated, like any set visitor.
“You know I have to do this,” he shouted finally. “It’s nothing to do with me.” His voice lower, reasonable. What everyone thought, dropping bombs, firing into streets. Years of it, something that couldn’t be helped. “You don’t use the door,” he said, loud again, not sure where Ben was. “Hide and seek. Shall I tell you my plan? It’s good-no bullets to explain.” He waited, as if expecting an answer back. Ben stared at the blood. “These places. They should clean up. Did you see the paint cans? Thinners. A hazard. One match. Well, a few, to make it all go at once. The door locked. It’s a good idea, don’t you think? A pity. A whole building for this. And such a way to die. To burn. What they say will happen in hell, it’s so terrible. Much easier, a bullet. Quicker. You decide. One or the other. Are you listening?”
Another silence, Ben watching the droplets on the floor.
“I know what you’re thinking. The fool leaves, I make an alarm. Ben. Not such a fool. It’s easy to disable. I’m a good mechanic, did you know that? No alarm. The door locked. Yes, they see the light maybe. But paint makes so much smoke. You know most people die from smoke in a fire. Before they burn. So by the time- Are you listening?”
But it was Dieter who suddenly paused, hearing a noise, indistinct, behind him. Ben could see his feet move back to the partition door. “Hello?” No answer. Dieter waited another minute to be sure, then moved back toward the map. “So is it fire?” he said to the rafters.
Ben went still, watching the blood run along the floor, a thin line, but moving.
“We don’t have time. With the barn door open,” he said, a forced joviality. “Before the horses get out.” Another pause. “So.”
Ben saw his feet turn back to the nightclub and the equipment piles, stepping carefully, still listening. The blood seemed to be following him, almost at the edge of the trestles now. Leave. Even a fire would give him a chance. Dieter couldn’t disable the sprinklers. Unless the heat didn’t reach them in time, high up, designed to save the building, not someone trapped in it.
Dieter turned, taking a last look around the stage, and stopped. He began walking back slowly, coming directly toward Ben, shoes getting closer, not stopping until they were at the trestles. Close to the blood, but not yet touching it. Ben waited. Then he saw a finger reach down, swiping at the blood and moving up again. Was he tasting it or was the look enough? All he’d have to do now was shoot through the plaster, leaving Ben’s body to hang, unseen for days, until someone followed the smell.
Instead his face suddenly appeared, crouched down. “So. Come out now.”
Ben looked at him, gulping air. “Why?”
“As you wish,” Dieter said, raising the gun.
Every second a bargain, maybe a chance. Ben began to wriggle back, dropping his feet, moving down to the floor and out from under the map. The line of blood streaked as he pulled himself up, now facing Dieter.
“The preservation instinct,” Dieter said. “It’s wonderful, yes?”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Then burn down the studio? Such a colorful ending.” He shook his head. “It’s a question of attention. Something quiet.” He motioned him toward the dividing wall, back to the nightclub. “A fire. Everyone wants to know. Questions.”
“They’re going to ask anyway. There are always questions.”
“Not always,” he said, nudging him with the gun into the nightclub. He swerved suddenly. “Who’s there?” He tilted his head, listening.
“You’re hearing things,” Ben said. “Conscience?”
A diversion. He reached down to nurse his hand, hurting again, then looked up and stopped. The wall phone, its receiver dangling. Someone here. He moved to his left so that Dieter would face away from it.
“Stay.”
A sound of movement, rustling, then a faint cling, something touching metal. Keep him talking.
“Hadn’t you better close the door? The whole studio will hear the shot.”
“Quiet,” Dieter said, listening.
“Security would come running.”
Dieter looked at him. “You’re right. There’s not much time.”
More footsteps somewhere, a whisper, then a hum of one of the studio carts passing outside. Night sounds. Air moving through the cottonwoods. Carpenters. No posse coming. Dieter held the gun out before him.
“They’ll hear it.”
“Yes, I heard it, too. Where do you think it came from? Shall I help them look? But not there.” He nodded to one of the camera cases.
A thump, unmistakable this time, inside the sound stage. Dieter swung toward the bar. “Come out!”
“I’m here,” Liesl said, coming up behind him.
He whirled around and froze, taking in the gun in her hand, the improbable gown, the whole moment inexplicable. “Liesl.”
“Stop. I can shoot.”
“Get out of here. You don’t know-”
“Yes. It was you. I know now. So you’d have to kill me, too.”
“Don’t talk crazy. Put down the gun. Where did you-?”
“By the door,” she said simply. “Someone dropped it.” She looked at Ben.
He started to move toward her, but Dieter stopped him with the gun. “No. We finish this.”
“What do you want?” Liesl said. “Everyone shoots?”
“You won’t.”
“Yes, I can do it. It’s loaded, I checked. I took the safety off. They taught me. For War Bride. I shoot a soldier who’s trying to rape me. It’s my secret. So I know how. Move away from him,” she said to Ben.
He took a hesitant step, but Dieter grabbed his upper arm, holding him, gun still raised.
“No,” Liesl said. “It’s enough, Dieter. It’s the end now. Not him, too.” She stepped forward to maneuver him away from Ben. “Not him, too.”
“You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“Yes. Now I do.” Her voice trembled a little, not as steely. “My god, do you know what I said to him? To Daniel. When he asked me? What to do? I said, ‘Go ask Dieter. He’ll know what to do.’ The sensible thing. I sent him to you.”
“And now what? You want to shoot me for that? A man who was unfaithful to you?”
She shook her head. “That? Little lies. But for you, big lies. To everyone. He didn’t betray me with her-with you.” She nodded at Ben. “Let him go.”
“I can’t do that,” Dieter said calmly. “What do you think this is? It’s real now, not acting.”
But for a second Ben felt, the gun still pointed at him, that they had merged. She was still moving, glancing up quickly as if she were hitting marks, positioning them for a take, under her key.
“Go. You don’t want to see this.” Dieter raised the gun higher, to Ben’s head.
“I’ll shoot,” she said, her voice not as steady, still moving.
“No. Shall I tell you what will happen? I have to shoot him. It’s not so nice, to see that. It’s better to leave now. You won’t shoot me.”
“My father was right. You never listen.”
“Now,” he said, then clicked back the hammer on his gun.
“Go!” she yelled to Ben, but all he heard was the explosion in his ear as his body jerked. For a second he wasn’t sure whether he had ducked or whether this is what it felt like to be shot, pushed away by the blast. But it was Dieter who was staggering, the gun no longer at Ben’s head, his hand clutching his chest. “Get away!” Liesl yelled. Ben dived to the floor, rolling to the side.
Dieter stood holding himself, his eyes disbelieving, and turned the gun toward Ben again, determined to finish. Ben saw the hand come up, the red patch on the chest, a sheen of sweat, still not dead. They stared at each other, the only people there. Then suddenly, with a whoosh of air, Dieter was crumpling, one of the overhead lights smashing down on him, a terrible thud as the heavy weight hit his body, pinning it to the floor. Ben heard footsteps running on the catwalk, Liesl’s name being shouted, but his eyes were fixed on Dieter, gun hand sprawling on the floor, the heavy block of metal sliding halfway off his chest, his head already open, leaking blood. He bent over and took the gun from Dieter’s hand, not yet trusting death, then looked up at Liesl. She was still holding the gun, her hand shaking now, eyes blinking. Behind her, someone was climbing down the catwalk ladder.
“Is he-?”
Ben said nothing, his head still pounding, everything around him slow.
She looked up to the empty spot in the rigging. “I tried to move him faster,” she said vaguely, to no one in particular.
“Darling, you got there,” Bunny said, visible now, a soft reassurance. “Are you all right?”
She handed him the gun. “So now I’ve done this.”
Bunny took the gun, looking at it, suddenly queasy. He put one hand to his mouth, collecting himself, seeing Dieter’s head in the pool of blood, then the gun again, his eyes darting. He breathed out. “Whose?” he said to Ben. “Yours?”
Ben nodded. “From the Bureau.”
Bunny began wiping it with a handkerchief. “So it’ll want explaining. You must have left it lying around. On your desk. So he-” He turned to Liesl. “Go and change. Before anyone comes. You were doing lines in your trailer, waiting for him. You know how people wander. When they visit.” He held her arms. “All right? I’m sorry you had to-”
She was staring at Dieter’s body. “We were fond of each other,” she said quietly. “All my life.”
Bunny glanced at her, alarmed at the trance quality of her voice, then held her arms tighter, almost a shake. “Well, that’s what makes it worse, isn’t it? These accidents-”
“Accidents?” Ben said.
“Darling, now,” Bunny said to her. “Before the Keystones. I’ll be there in a few minutes. Just stay calm. It’s over.” He looked at Ben. “Giving orders to the gate. Nobody gives the gate orders. Was that supposed to be a signal? Never mind. Off you go,” he said to Liesl. “It’ll hit you now, so be careful.” He looked at her gown. “Something simple. A blouse and a skirt. All right?” He was moving to Dieter, placing Liesl’s gun in his hand.
She came over to Ben, touching his bloody hand, then moving hers up to his forehead, brushing it. “So,” she said, a whole conversation.
“Please,” Bunny said.
“Come with him. I can’t do this alone,” she said to Ben, then left, slipping out onto the dark lot.
“Get rid of that,” Bunny said, nodding to Dieter’s gun, still in Ben’s hand. He looked down at Dieter’s body. “Are you finished now?”
Ben didn’t answer, staring, seeing the police photo again. The same twisted body, same dark blood around the head, soon even a crowd around it. Finished. What had he expected to feel? This void? I found him. I know. But now there was not even that to keep Danny with him, no hold.
Bunny twisted something on the metal frame, his hand still wrapped in a handkerchief. “I had a hell of a time with these bolts.”
“Accident,” Ben said.
“Just what we’re always afraid of,” Bunny said coolly, arranging Dieter’s body. “You should see the insurance premiums.” He looked up, gauging the fall’s trajectory. “People don’t know. They think the equipment- Of course, visitors.”
“He’s shot. He has a bullet in him.”
“Freakish, wasn’t it? The crash, setting that off. People who carry guns should keep the safety on.”
“You think they’ll believe that?”
“Why not?” Bunny said. “It’s what happened.” He looked at Ben. “Isn’t it?”
“You’re covering up a-”
“Now you listen to me. Liesl’s not going to be explaining anything. Is that understood? I mean really understood this time? She was never here. You came looking. People get lost on the lot at night. When they don’t know where they’re going.” He paused. “You might thank me. The gun was pointing at you. And here we are-”
“I have to tell the Bureau. About Dieter. It can lead them to the next.”
“I don’t care what you tell them as long as nothing leads here. It’s an accident in tomorrow’s papers. They’ll have to live with that. Make them,” he said, looking at Ben, then away. “She’s valuable to the studio. Anything else here needs taking care of?”
“Some blood under the Japan map. A camera got loose down the ramp.”
“I saw. Naturally one of the new ones.”
“Did she come to find you? Liesl? She was worried?”
“We found each other. Carl called. To check on the orders.” He gave Ben another look. “Your hand,” he said noticing it. “You better get over to the infirmary. Patch it up. Think how you got it, will you? That makes sense? Maybe you cut it trying to get the light off him. In your haste.”
“It’s got a bullet in it. How do we explain that? The doctor-”
“It’s the studio infirmary,” Bunny said, then held his look. “I’ll fix it.”