Peter thought about it as he ate his last two French beans. “Let us consider the options,” he said. “It could be bluff. No book exists. Or he’s written the Double Cross story, despite having signed the Official Secrets Act.”
“American publishers don’t give a toss about the Act.”
“True. Or he’s truffled up some juicy new secrets which he thinks British Intelligence might pay not to have published.”
“Then why isn’t he in London?” Kim propped his head in his hands. He scarcely noticed when the plates were removed.
“One further possibility,” Peter said. “He’s found some damaging stuff about you personally. Blackmail.”
“Double buggeration in spades,” Kim said gloomily.
“Another scandal is unthinkable. I caught a lot of flak when Burgess and MacLean did a bunk, scuttling away on a cross-Channel ferry in the dead of night. They weren’t very welcome in Moscow, I can tell you.”
“If they hadn’t done a bunk they’d be in the Tower by now. Or under it.”
“Well, we’ve got to keep you out of there, at all costs.”
“That sounds like bad news for Mr. Cabrillo,” Kim said.
“It’s the only option,” Peter said, “and in many ways the tidiest. Yummy. Here comes pudding.”
AN OSCAR FOR IRONY
1
They slept in separate beds, in separate rooms, in separate frames of mind.
Luis was happier now than he had been since the war ended. He was rediscovering the many pleasures of treating the whole world as a badly written farce which deserved to be rehashed for his private benefit. One of the benefits was money. He’d swindled the Abwehr. Milked them vigorously. He’d do it again to someone else. Just a question of finding another rainbow with a pot of arrogance at the end. Arrogance always paid well.
Julie puzzled him, but that was nothing new. All through the war, their love affair had been a roller-coaster ride. The longer it lasted, the faster and fiercer the ups and downs became. It trundled to a halt in 1945. The war stopped and so did they; in a curious moment of flatness and anticlimax they decided to love each other from afar. Peace made him nervous. He had seen himself married, pruning roses, selecting schools, organizing holidays. It was a ghastly outlook. He fled to Venezuela, spent money as if he could buy his future, and never once woke up without thinking of her.
Julie felt differently.
For eight years Luis had been a ghost hovering in a corner of her mind. When her life was busy, the ghost faded until there were whole months when she could barely remember his face. Then she would glimpse the reflection of a man in the window of a crowded, jolting subway train, and Luis would spring back to life. He wasn’t as splendid as he thought, but he was fun in the sack and his idea of good citizenship was to make the world dance to his tune. She missed that. Then the train stopped. The stranger turned. He was nobody. She got off the subway and New York reclaimed her.
She reveled in the place. New York was full of fizz. It had every kind of food at all hours, every kind of manners provided they were bad, and the sort of humor that drew blood and didn’t wait for a laugh. Manhattan was awash with young men out of uniform, glad to have survived, ready to celebrate. Boyfriends came and went like the weather. She was clever, got jobs, made money. Fell in love a couple of times. Being in love was like plunging down a ski slope, almost out of control. Jokes were funnier, the air tasted fresher, nothing was impossible. Soon she fell out of love. “Who are you kidding?” she asked herself.
The years hustled by. Being a New Yorker suited her; she had enough friends, enough money, no problems. The bigots in America didn’t bother her. It was a big country, there was room for a few loudmouths. Give them time and space and they’d fall on their faces. And then one day she ran slam-bang into McCarthyism, and she was the one who fell on her face.
It was a shock. Suddenly she was out of work. Suddenly the America she’d depended upon no longer existed. Friends faded away. Nobody said anything, and that was the trouble: her phone didn’t ring, she wasn’t asked to parties, movies, days at the beach. She was on the blacklist. She was dangerous.
No job, little money, few friends. And now Luis had blundered back. She needed a pal, someone with sympathy and compassion and tact, and fate had sent her Luis. He hadn’t changed. He never faced reality. He altered it, faked it, dodged it. He was a joker. On the other hand, one small push would have been enough for her to tumble into bed with him. She knew it, and her guard went up like steel shutters in the path of a riot.
2
Max Webber wore aviator glasses for the audition. They were so black they made him look blind. He’d borrowed a leather flying jacket and a pair of cavalry breeches. He made a strong impression when he arrived at the hall, a disused gym in Brooklyn. The audition was for a modern-dress version of Henry the Fifth that would tour schools and colleges in New England, and he was to read for the part of the king. “I’m David Meyer,” he told an assistant. “Yup,” she said, and ticked his name.
When he was called, he took a chair with him onto the makeshift stage. He sat calmly until the last whisper, the last cough, the last fidget and shuffle, had faded to an expectant hush. Then he let another ten seconds pass. Ten seconds is a long time when everyone is watching a man who is watching them.
Finally Max stood and spoke. He began the king’s speech to his troops before the battle of Agincourt. He had the voice of a king and the bearing of a warrior, but within a couple of lines, everyone knew that this Henry was drunk. Not stupid-drunk; every word was clear, every phrase made sense. It was the clarity of the guy in the bar who should have gone home an hour ago, the guy who is impressed by his own eloquence. The longer he spoke, the drunker he got. At one point Max seized the chair one-handed and used it like a sword to emphasize his words, thrusting and slashing and fending off the enemy with a parry so fierce that he lost his grip and the chair sailed away to a splintering crash. He gave it a look of royal contempt; clearly he blamed the chair. By now everyone was laughing. This was no longer an audition; this was a performance. It won him a roar of applause.
“Can’t use your interpretation,” the producer told him, “and you know I’ve got to hear the other guys, but believe me, you’ve got the part. Stick around.”
Max drank coffee, read a day-old Times, talked with an old pug who had wandered in from the street, thinking the gym was back in business. “I’m lookin’ for easy work,” the pug said. “Actin’ … After the fight game, it don’t look too heavy.”
“Piece of cake,” Max said. “Nobody hardly ever hits you real hard.”
The producer came back, and took him aside. “You’re Max Webber. I can’t use you.” He was half-accusing, half-apologizing. “Somebody just recognized you.”
“I’ll wear a beard,” Max said. “You want, I’ll grow a beard.”
“And it’s my ass when you get exposed.”
“Who’s to expose? Your show ain’t Broadway. It’s touring New England schools, for God’s sake! Nobody’s heard of me in Frozen Hollow, Maine. Christ, nobody there’s heard of Shakespeare.”
“They’ve heard of Joe McCarthy,” the producer said. He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Personally, I wish someone would shoot the sonofabitch. Until then … I had to bust a gut to get funds from educational trusts. They find out I’ve hired someone who’s listed, they’ll cut me off at the knees. Can’t take the risk, Max. It’s not fair on the others.”
The ex-pug saw him leave and said, “Looks like you stopped one below the belt, pal.”
“Belts are bein’ worn real low this season,” Max said. “I got mine down around the ankles.”
3
Julie showered and dressed, and left Luis still reading Sweet Cheat. She ate breakfast at a coffee shop. She walked across the park and shopped at Saks Fifth Avenue for underwear. That took most of her pay from Mooney’s. She changed in Saks’ ladies’ room and dumped her old, frayed, graying underwear in a trash can. Now she felt b
etter. Cleaner, stronger, smarter. She could be hit by a taxi and die with pride.
The day was bright, with enough breeze to cut the sunshine. Manhattan glittered. It was full of people in a hurry to do business. She had no business and she was in no hurry, but to loiter on Fifth was to be jostled. Get on or get off: that was the motto.
She got off—off the avenue, off the island, nearly off the city. She took the subway north, the IRT line right up through the Bronx until the tracks ended at Pelham Bay. The ride took an hour and cost a nickel. Worth it. She walked into Pelham Bay Park, where a lot of nothing was happening in all directions. Good. Now she could really relax, stop worrying. About what? About Luis. Being with Luis was like being part of a magnetic field that might attract or repel, you never knew which. Either way it never lost its grip. Here she was, as far from Central Park West as you could get for a nickel, and he was still as close as ever. There was no escape. She’d known it as soon as she saw him standing on the sidewalk in Hoboken. She was still in love with him, and he was still in love with her. It was a dismal prospect. It foretold a double dose of stress and folly; and the knowledge that these would be laced with moments of astonishing happiness was no consolation. “Why can’t the stupid bastard love somebody else?” she cried aloud. “And why can’t I love some other stupid bastard?” She knew the answer; she’d found it years ago, inside a Chinese fortune cookie: The heart has its reasons which the reason does not know. Smarter than your average fortune cookie. “So explain!” she commanded her heart, but her heart pleaded the Fifth.
She wandered across the park and found a boatyard quietly baking, littered with hulls that would never float again and broken motors rusted solid. She walked down the slipway and checked the bay for Russian submarines. Nothing. Wrong time of day. They were all on the seabed, lunching on black bread and borscht. Everyone knew that. She went back up and got a whiff of fried onions.
Floyd’s Bar was held together with old Schaefer beer signs. The floor was last washed by the great tidal wave of nineteen ought five. Floyd was frying onions in Castrol Extra Plus. Nothing was too good for his clientèle.
They were two white-haired men in painter’s dungarees that should have been framed and hung in the Museum of Modern Art. Floyd was thirty-plus, built like a welterweight. The right half of his face had three days’ growth. The left half would never need shaving again. A sweeping burn had turned the skin to something like pale pink plastic. The left eye was sealed shut.
Julie asked for a beer and listened to them arguing amiably about last year’s Miss America competition, and whether the results were fixed by the Mafia or the Catholic church. Floyd gave the men hot dogs slathered with onion. They paid and went out.
“We should of asked you,” Floyd said. “You bein’ a gorgeous dame of the opposite sex. You got an opinion?”
“Yeah, sure,” she said. “You ever hear of a priest say anything nasty about Frank Costello, or Carlo Gambino, or Lucky Luciano, or Carlos Marcello, or anyone with an O at the end of his name and blood on his hands?”
“Jeez,” he said. “I never thought of it that way.”
“I’m not saying all priests are bad. But you’ve got to be a very, very stupid Mafiosi to get excommunicated. Fix me a burger, would you? Well-done. No onions.”
While he busied himself, they talked about relative levels of corruption in the city. “The health inspectors could close me down in ten minutes,” Floyd said. “I make sure the right guy gets a dimple Haig once in a while. Must be dimple. The man has his standards.”
“Scotch? That’s un-American,” she said. “What’s the guy got against bourbon?”
Floyd grunted, and turned the burger.
“Ask me, he’s a Commie,” she said. “He’s out to cripple Jim Beam and Jack Daniels and those other good ol’ boys.” Still no response. “Looks like a case for Senator McCarthy. Send for Tail-Gunner Joe.”
Floyd hit the burger so hard with his clenched fist it turned star-shaped and bits spattered all over the grill. “That sonabitch comes through my door I’ll blow his head off!” He reached down and slammed a shotgun on the bar. His one surviving eye glared.
“Ah …” Julie was startled. She’d strayed into a minefield. She moved cautiously. “I guess you had a raw deal, too,” she said.
“Okinawa. Last island hop before Japan. I was a Marine. Just a grunt, just a number on a pair of dog tags. Weather stunk, jungle stunk, and the Japs … would … not… die.”
She almost said I read about it and then had the smarts to shut up.
“Squadron of Marine bombers was based on that island. Some those pilots had to be blind or dumb or drunk. Marines bombed Marines. Fly-boys don’t care who they dump on. Japs, grunts, all the same to them. Marine bomb hit a flamethrower and I caught a splash in the face. What the army calls friendly fire.” He patted the shotgun. “This punk McCarthy tells everyone he was a Marine flier. He’s full of shit. I’m ready to blow him apart, him and every other lying, cheating, treacherous Communist faggot stinking up this country.”
Julie blinked. What had he said? He’d said what he said. “You sure you got that right?” she asked.
Now he was very angry. “You ever seen Okinawa?” he demanded. She shook her head. “You got no right to put me straight,” he said.
Julie gave up the discussion. “My burger’s burning,” she said.
Floyd swept the charred meat onto the floor with the back of his hand. “Bar’s shut,” he growled.
*
Luis took them all out to dinner. Enrico’s restaurant was padlocked; the old man had gone to stay with his daughter in Schenectady. Bonnie recommended a steak house on Houston Street. They went late, so as to let Herb Kizsco finish his shift. It was midnight before they ate. The steaks arrived still sizzling. The sound was music before they invented music.
Nobody said much until the waiter cleared the plates and the frivolity of ordering dessert was done.
“Well,” Max said, “it’s tomorrow now, so I can tell you. I got subpoenaed. This afternoon I take the stand before the House Un-American Activities Committee, in Washington.”
“Oh, shit,” Julie said.
“Slice it where you like, that’s what it’ll be,” Max agreed.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Bonnie said. “When did it happen?”
“Couple of weeks ago. Didn’t want to tell anyone. Fact is, I’m sorry I’ve told you now. Spoils a good steak.”
“I thought everyone here had been subpoenaed already,” Luis said.
“Hell, no. Only me,” Bonnie said. “Max and Herb got named, and Julie got screwed in some private witchhunt. Nobody gets subpoenaed unless HUAC reckons there’s pay dirt to be found.”
“So if you haven’t been subpoenaed,” Luis told her, “there’s no official reason why you should be on the blacklist.”
“The blacklist isn’t official, you klutz. You can’t go and look it up in the public library, for God’s sake. The blacklist is unofficial.” She was angry because of Max having to go to Washington.
“It’s unofficial but everyone knows,” Julie said.
“That’s not quite true,” Herb said. “There’s also the Attorney General’s List of subversive organizations. If you can’t prove you haven’t been linked with any of them, you can’t have a job where federal funds are involved. That’s how I got kicked out of the university. I signed too many petitions when I was young and idealistic. Or, as the FBI would say, subversive. So that List is published. Anyone can use it to accuse somebody else of negative loyalty.”
Luis was amused. “Negative loyalty? How do you prove positive loyalty?”
“Get yourself killed fighting the Reds in Korea,” Max said. “That’s a good start.”
“What are you going to say to them?” Herb asked. “You got a strategy ready?” This led to a rambling discussion of the Committee’s techniques. Ideally HUAC wanted a witness to admit he’d been a member of the Communist Party. But it also welcomed confessions li
ke attending a Party meeting. Subscribing to a left-wing magazine was good. Writing for it was excellent. Stated admiration for the Soviet people was really juicy, never mind that the battle of Stalingrad was raging at the time. It could make you a security risk. Security against what? That wasn’t HUAC’s territory. HUAC’s task was to identify the guilty before they could do any damage. Not easy. The guilty were a slippery bunch. “Actor called Lionel Stander,” Max told Luis. “Hell of a talent. Got subpoenaed. Committee asked him if he’d name un-American subversive types, and he said he certainly would. But the way he said it, everyone there knew he meant the members of HUAC. Now that took guts.”
“More guts than Cary Cooper had,” Herb said. “He crumpled like a wet paper bag when they questioned him.” Sterling Hayden couldn’t wait to sell out his pals. Ronald Reagan gave HUAC all the help they asked, and more. Walt Disney too. Scared stiff the Reds might sneak their propaganda into Tom and Jerry. The bigger the name, the louder they sang. They had too much to lose.
“I’ve got nothing to lose,” Max said. “If Paul Robeson can live on the blacklist, I’m in damn good company. Right?”
They had been over this ground a dozen times before. Now it was being covered for Luis’s benefit. He listened closely.
“You might end up in even better company,” Julie said. “Ring Lardner Jr. went to jail. Dashiell Hammett’s still inside.”
“Writers,” Herb said. “They’re vulnerable, they write things. The Committee doesn’t jail actors.”
“They might start with Max,” Bonnie said. “HUAC’s kind of desperate for publicity.”
“I’ll give the goddam Committee some headlines,” Max said. “I’m going to tell ’em they’re worse than the KGB and the Gestapo rolled together.”
“You’re not going to plead the Fifth?” Herb asked, sharply.
“Why should I? I got nothing to hide.”
Red Rag Blues Page 8