The House of Rumour

by Jake Arnott

  Speculative fiction continued to be on the rise. There were reprints of our old stories in magazines and anthologies as well as a demand for new ones. And although Larry’s ‘proper’ novel was roundly rejected, a New York publisher reissued Lords of the Black Sun as a paperback original that summer. Our once-beloved Astounding may have gone into decline (John W. Campbell had got taken in by a new therapy idea that L. Ron Hubbard was peddling, something called ‘Dianetics’, and was devoting the main pages to it) but we learnt that Tony Boucher was going to edit a new title: The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. And Boucher had just made the first English translation of Jorge Luis Borges, the Argentine writer that Nemo had told us about all those years ago at Robert Heinlein’s house. ‘The Garden of Forking Paths’ made its first appearance in English in the Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine in 1948.

  We were about to go into pre-production with Fugitive Alien. I had taken what Larry and Nemo had done and edited it into a shooting script. We had cast the leads: Trey Anderson, an ageing juvenile with an other-wordly charm as the alien; Sharleen Stirling, a seventeen-year-old newcomer, as the earthly blonde ingénue who falls for him. A crew was being assembled and we were using the designer from Zombie Lagoon. All we really needed was a director. Dexter told me that he had somebody in mind but he wouldn’t say who. Instead he suggested that we take the weekend off and go to Palm Springs together.

  ‘But we really need to confirm who’s directing,’ I said.

  ‘Well.’ He gave me a sly smile. ‘We can do that right now, can’t we?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I can’t think of anyone who could do it better.’

  ‘You mean…’

  ‘You know this trade inside out. All good script girls do. And I saw you taking over on the zombie film, remember?’

  ‘But I couldn’t—’

  ‘Why not? Because you’re a woman?’

  ‘No, it’s just…’

  ‘Don’t worry, of course everyone is going to try to hold you back but just don’t do their job for them. Okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Right. You’re hired. We’ve got a lot of prepping to do this week and I’ll want your input. As a director.’

  All at once I felt ridiculously happy. At last things were going right for me. I went over and kissed Dexter on the mouth. He pulled away from me and smiled.

  ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘you better get to work. I’ll pick you up on Friday afternoon.’

  I was packing an overnight bag on Thursday evening when the phone rang. I assumed it would be Dexter. It was Jack. His voice was hoarse and slurred, tragic. Candy had left him. He needed to see me. He was staying in a motel out on 53rd and Western.

  For an instant I was overwhelmed by a sense of relief. That finally I could say no to Jack Parsons, that everything in my life would be turned around by my saying no to him. This would be my way of getting over all the hurt I had been carrying around since he came back from the Mojave Desert that day. All I had to do was say a few words and put the phone down. But I couldn’t speak and the receiver stayed in my hand as I heard Jack tell me his room number.

  ‘Okay,’ I mumbled and the line went dead.

  I felt all the mad passion and desire come to claim me once more. And suddenly I knew that a luxurious weekend in Palm Springs with the kind and charming Dexter was nothing compared with a night in a seedy motel room with my fallen angel.

  I called Dexter and told him that I had a family crisis. My mother was sick and I needed to go to the hospital. I was sorry but I couldn’t go away with him that weekend. Then I finished packing and drove out to see Jack. He came to the door wearing a grubby singlet. Unshaven, wild-eyed and dishevelled, he’d put on a bit of weight but he was still beautiful. He was doomed, I saw that even then. Jack was a real romantic, full of danger and self-destructiveness. I knew that, like a drowning man, he would drag down those who came close to him. My love for him could ruin me but I didn’t care.

  As I moved into the room I saw an ashtray on the bedside table with reefer butts in it, and a bottle of tequila on the dresser. Jack went to the window, nervously fingering the slants on the blind.

  ‘Did anyone see you come?’ he asked. ‘I’ve got to be careful. They’re watching me.’

  Jack explained that he had been investigated over his past activities. He’d managed to get security clearance for a job at Hughes Aircraft in Culver City, but he was sure that he was still under surveillance.

  ‘It’s only temporary. I’m just a pen-pusher in their rocket propulsion department. But I’ve got plans. I’m going to make a fresh start, Mary-Lou.’

  He came over to me, his hands held out plaintively.

  ‘What about Candy?’ I asked.

  ‘She’s in San Miguel de Allende, south of the border. Some kind of artists’ colony. She never really understood me, not the way you did.’

  ‘I waited for you, Jack. All that time that you were with Betty. Then out in the desert with Ron. I waited for you and then you went off with her. It wasn’t fair.’

  ‘I know, Mary-Lou, I know. I’ve been bad. Everything’s gone wrong.’

  He poured us both a drink and told me how, left on his own, he had descended into madness and horror, conducting strange ceremonies on peyote and mescaline, hiring hookers to perform sex magic rituals with him. The Babalon Working had failed, he groaned; he had lost his Scarlet Woman and a chance to conjure a moonchild.

  ‘Maybe it’s all nonsense anyway,’ I said.

  He laughed. I wanted to free myself from all my beliefs and delusions. I wanted to obliterate my desire for Jack and break the spell that he still held over me. But the strangest mystery of all is how we can be utterly taken in by our own stupid emotions. Jack lit a reefer and sat on the bed.

  ‘I’ve got a new quest,’ he said. ‘I’m getting out of this wretched place. I’m going to make the Black Pilgrimage.’

  ‘What’s the Black Pilgrimage?’

  He started to explain about Chorazin, a cursed ancient city near the Sea of Galilee, with a black temple built of basalt. I tried to follow as he talked of a journey to a place where, it was said, the Antichrist would be born. But by then he had passed me the reefer and I was on my way to getting as drunk and as high as he was.

  ‘Come with me,’ he mumbled as he pulled off what remained of his clothes.

  I undressed and got into bed with him.

  I got back to my flat on Sunday afternoon. I had been there for only half an hour when my buzzer went. It was Dexter.

  ‘How’s Mother?’ he asked breezily as I let him in. He had a briefcase with him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Oh it doesn’t matter. I know where you’ve been.’

  His tone was at once flat and cold.

  ‘Dexter, what’s all this about?’

  ‘I know you were with Jack Parsons.’

  I felt a shiver in the pit of my stomach.

  ‘But how did you know?’

  ‘Maybe I have psychic powers, Mary-Lou. I certainly have access to hidden knowledge.’

  Dexter’s mouth twisted into a parody of a smile.

  ‘Look,’ I struggled to appear calm, ‘this isn’t funny. If you’ve been snooping around me—’

  ‘Shh,’ he shushed me, a finger to his mouth.

  He patted the couch.

  ‘Sit, Mary-Lou.’ His voice was all soft authority. ‘I need you to listen to me.’

  He stared me down, his eyes hard and impassive.

  ‘You want occult wisdom?’ he went on, leaning over me and pulling something out of the briefcase. ‘Take a look at this.’

  He handed me a loosely bound sheaf of papers. New pages for the script, that was my first thought. Then I looked at it. Bureau File was the heading on the title page, then Subject: Mary-Lou Gunderson; File No. 67-59674. As I flicked through, strange details about my life leapt up at me: Reported to have attended CP meetings and study groups in 1940… Whilst residing at 1003 Orange Grove Av
enue, Pasadena, California, she was a member of a religious cult believed to advocate sexual perversion… known associate of Nemesio (‘Nemo’) Carvajal, Cuban national, union organiser at Lockheed Corp., Burbank, California, and known communist agitator…

  It was as though I was in an awful waking dream. Dexter patted me gently on the shoulder in a delicate gesture of possession.

  ‘You’re a lucky girl,’ he murmured. ‘Not everyone gets to see their FBI file.’

  ‘You work for the FBI?’

  Dexter’s laugh was dark and soft.

  ‘God, no. My department is more, let’s say, strategic. But we have a reciprocal relationship with the Bureau.’

  ‘The film, that’s just some sort of front?’

  ‘Oh no. It’s an important project. And I really do want you to direct it, despite your duplicitous behaviour. And this,’ he tapped the file in my hands. ‘Well, some things could be added, some things could be taken away. It all depends on what you tell me.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘No. But you will. What did Larry say about you? That you wanted to know everything, yes, that was it.’

  ‘You talked to Larry about me?’

  ‘I talk to everybody about everybody. It’s my job. Now, I need some answers. About Jack Parsons.’

  He went into a brisk interrogation routine. Demanding to know what had happened, what we had talked about. I found myself telling Dexter everything. I mentioned the Black Pilgrimage.

  ‘What’s the Black Pilgrimage?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s something about a city, I can’t remember its name.’

  ‘Try to remember.’

  ‘It was somewhere in Galilee.’

  ‘Galilee?’

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘Are you sure he said Galilee?’

  ‘I don’t know. Yes.’

  ‘Did he mention Israel?’

  ‘Israel?’

  ‘Yes, Israel. Specifically the newly founded State of Israel, keen to develop its own rocket programme.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I want you to ask him about Israel, Mary-Lou.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, the next time you see him. Soon, I hope.’

  ‘And if I don’t?’

  ‘Oh, I think you will. Besides anything else, you’re intrigued. The file, please.’

  I handed it back to him.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he told me. ‘Do this right and I’ll explain everything.’

  I went back to work on Monday but Dexter was nowhere to be seen. I tried working on the script but I couldn’t think. I called the motel. Jack had checked out. I phoned some of the Lodge members that I still had numbers for but no one seemed to know where he was. In the end I thought of Astrid. She had a fortune-telling stall on Sunset and Vine so I went there.

  ‘You’re looking for Jack, aren’t you?’ she said.

  ‘Well, you’d hardly need second sight to know that, Astrid.’

  ‘He’s in trouble, isn’t he?’

  ‘He’s been in trouble all his life.’

  ‘I know, dear.’ She closed her eyes. ‘I’m getting some sort of a fix on him. I see the sea. Don’t worry, I’ll find him for you.’

  Astrid phoned me two days later to say that the rumour was that he was renting a place in Redondo Beach on the Esplanade, a strange Moorish-style villa with arches and crenellations all rendered in concrete. I found it but it was empty. I left a note and went down to the shore. There he was, staring out at the sea. I called out through the crash and hiss of surf. He smiled as he saw me. We walked along the beach together.

  I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. I thought that I could warn him, even save him in some way. I had this mad dream that we would run off to Israel together and live on a kibbutz. But first I had to know what he intended to do.

  ‘You’re planning to go away, aren’t you?’ I asked.

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘To that place in Galilee?’

  He laughed.

  ‘Well,’ I went on, ‘you could visit there, couldn’t you?’

  He stopped. He turned and frowned at me.

  ‘What do you mean?’ he demanded.

  ‘If you went to Israel.’

  ‘Who says I’m going to Israel?’

  ‘I worked it out. I’m a clever girl, you see. The Black Pilgrimage was a clue, wasn’t it?’

  He looked around anxiously.

  ‘No one’s supposed to know. Not even Candy. You see, I’ve been approached by the Israelis and they want a detailed breakdown of equipment costs for a rocket programme. So I’ve borrowed the proposal document I put together for Hughes Aircraft.’

  ‘What do you mean Candy’s not supposed to know?’

  ‘The thing is, I’ve taken that and some details about rocket fuels and propellants. It’s all my work, but it kind of belongs to the company.’

  ‘Jack, why does it matter if Candy knows or not?’

  ‘What? Well, it could get me into trouble over my security clearance.’

  ‘But Candy’s not even here, is she? Is she?’

  ‘Well—’

  ‘She’s coming back. That’s it, isn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t know yet.’

  ‘But that’s what you want, isn’t it?’

  ‘Mary-Lou, wait—’

  But I had already turned and walked away.

  It was a small gallery on Wilshire Boulevard. A private viewing, the opening of a new exhibition, a sophisticated crowd. Dexter floating gently through space, one hand holding a wineglass, the other stroking his chin thoughtfully. I walked over and stood next to him.

  ‘What do you think?’ he said.

  Large unframed canvases with abstract blocks of shimmering oil, jagged sprays of colour.

  ‘I saw Jack.’

  ‘Good, good,’ he muttered absently, gesturing at the artwork. ‘But what do you think of this? You wouldn’t say this was un-American, would you?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘It’s democratic, that’s what I’d say. And the good thing about abstract art is that it’s empty. It’s politically silent, you know? Though there are some people who actually believe that there are hidden messages in stuff like this, even maps of our secret defence complexes. That’s wonderfully mad, isn’t it?’

  ‘Dexter, we need to talk.’

  ‘I know, I know. Look, if you ask me, America really does have to establish its own modern movement. You can’t be a great power without the great art to go with it. Right,’ he declared, handing his wineglass to a passing waiter and clapping his hands together. ‘Let’s get out of here and get a proper drink.’

  We went to a bar and Dexter ordered cocktails. I remember him getting drunk, him talking: not the way I imagined the evening would run. He was enjoying himself. This was his entertainment, his delight in invention.

  ‘Here’s to mass culture, Mary-Lou,’ he announced, holding up his martini glass. ‘So much more important than that long-hair stuff. And no one can deny that it’s all-American. It’s what we do best and I’m proud of it. Now, you have some information for me.’

  I told him about Jack stealing documents from Hughes Aircraft to support his application to work for the Israelis.

  ‘Good work, Mary-Lou. I’ll pass it on.’

  ‘But don’t you want any more details?’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry. The Bureau will follow it up. And they’ll be appreciative, too. We can get them to sheep-dip your file. What?’

  I was transfixed, staring at him, not knowing quite what to say.

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ he continued. ‘Of course, it’s the moment, isn’t it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The moment. You’ve just sold somebody out. No big deal, Mary-Lou. Everybody named names and snitched on their buddies. You loved the guy. I take it that you’re through with that now, huh?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Good. Believe me, disillusionment is a marvellously liberati
ng experience.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Yes. You’ve done the right thing. You’ve proved that you can work for us.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘We’re the good guys. Psychological strategy, that’s our remit.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Pax Americana, Mary-Lou. This is our century now. So, we have to win the Cold War in terms of culture. The Soviets fund high art heavily. We need to try to match them, but through the private sector, with the fruits of capitalism. Then there’s the obvious propaganda, the Technicolor stuff, our version of socialist realism, you know, the bright, cheerful, our-way-of-life-is-best attitude. Hollywood can deal with that; it polices itself, blacklists anyone out of line. With modernism, meanwhile, we’ve got to have the appearance of a liberal agenda to win over the European intellectuals. Now look, what’s down here at the bottom of the pile? B-movies, horror and fantasy double features, all the stuff people tend to think of as junk. But it’s as important as any other part of the culture. You know, I got sent to Poverty Row just to keep an eye on the greylist. But I’ve been able to clear our little project with my higher-ups. I told them that science fiction is the best propaganda of all. Why? Because it’s prophecy. Yes. It’s about the future and if you can imply that your future is better than your opponent’s, what could be better than that?’

  ‘So you really do want the film to go ahead?’

  ‘Of course! We’ve got a great team. Nemo’s better at the anti-Soviet stuff than any right-winger. He’s got a more nuanced sense. And the good thing about Trotskyists is they really know how to split left-wing opinion. It’s like nuclear fission with those guys. Larry, well, he’s disaffected, but it’s the kind of disaffection that neutralises itself. Deflects it somewhere else. He understands the popular instinctively, how it tends towards conspiracy and suspicion.’

  ‘And me?’

  ‘You were always something of a wild card, Mary-Lou. But occult knowledge is extremely useful, especially when it gives you an understanding of your enemies’ superstitions. When I was with the OSS in London during the war I worked with British Intelligence. We learnt so much from them about counter-intelligence and disinformation. They were masters of the black arts. They knew that so many of the top Nazis had mystical leanings. You know, they forged this German astrological magazine and managed to distribute it behind the lines. Some copies were antedated so they appeared to include astonishingly accurate forecasts of events that had already happened and from then on the magazine was used to question everything from the choice of Hitler’s doctor to the timing of U-boat launches. They played around with the unknown, the unseen.