Dangerous to Know

by Renee Patrick

  “Typically the captain frowns on us talking suspects out of their confessions.”

  “Then you’ve got to hold Simon. At best, he’s an anti-Semitic lunkhead who’s taken an unhealthy and inappropriate interest in Felix Auerbach.”

  “How is that grounds for arrest? If I took in every anti-Semite the jails would be packed. And if snooping under false pretenses is a crime you’d be apprehended for your ongoing Mata Hari routine. I’ll do what I can, but I already know it won’t be much.”

  We sat next to each other, listening to the clink of dishes from the kitchen. Abigail kept a lovely home. It was more than two conjoined apartments crammed with clothes. Any man would be content there.

  “Why were you in Fischer’s apartment?” Gene asked. “Was it to investigate him? Or because you wanted to be?”

  A question he was entitled to ask. Instead of replying, I volleyed with one of my own. “Why are you at Abigail’s again?”

  “Because you were at goddamned Bund headquarters!” Gene vaulted off the porch and stalked around Abigail’s tiny yard. I couldn’t tell if he was upset or wanted to continue the conversation away from open windows. “I checked on her, she was alone, I said I’d stop by. We’ve talked about this.”

  “I know. Yet I don’t know anything. About us, I mean. You’d think I’d be an expert on the subject.” I hadn’t planned on broaching this thorny topic. Now we rushed headlong toward it. In for a penny, in for a pound. “What are we doing? Are we together? Are we a couple?”

  “You know how I feel about you.”

  “If I did, would I ask? How do you feel about Abigail?”

  “Like she needs me.”

  “Do you know that? Have you talked to her about it? Maybe she doesn’t want to say no when you ask her to come out with us. Maybe she can’t.”

  “I’ve known Abigail my whole life. I’m trying to help her.”

  “It’s possible your help is keeping her from getting on with her life.”

  Gene seized my hand, pulling me to my feet—and away from Abigail’s house. He spoke in controlled tones that papered over his anger. “Suppose she’s fine with how things stand. Suppose I am, too. Where does that leave you?”

  Facing my biggest fear, I thought. Why shouldn’t they be pleased with the status quo? Gene got to feel noble and Abigail protected, leaving only me dissatisfied. “The squeaky wheel, I guess.”

  “Are you making this a choice?” Gene asked. “You or her?”

  YES! I screamed in my heart. I want you to choose. And I want you to pick me.

  “Of course not,” I said. “I want to know where we stand. I want to know we’re together.”

  Grabbing me by the shoulders, Gene pulled me into the shadows at the side of the house. He pressed his hand to the small of my back, his lips to mine. The kiss was at once deeply welcome and wholly unsatisfying, meant to prove something to me, not reveal a truth about him.

  Or perhaps, again, I was the problem. Thinking too much, feeling too little. I allowed myself to fall into the moment.

  We separated, Gene a mere outline in the deepening dark. “You’re my girl. Abigail is my friend. Maybe I don’t balance everything as well as I could. But you can’t blame a guy for being confused. Not when his girl goes to another man’s place.”

  He had me there.

  * * *

  MY FACE STILL burned when I entered the house alone. Abigail sat in her parlor, sipping coffee. Her open smile made me feel like a louse.

  I sat down for some civil discourse. “Has”—What was that silly memory trick? Leaping rabbit!—“Warren called you? He asked for your telephone number.” More like I forced it on him after our disastrous bridge foursome, but he had it.

  “Not yet. Maybe he’s taking his time. He certainly had patience with your bidding.”

  What prompted that wholly deserved dig at my poor bridge play? Was she annoyed I’d horned in on her evening with Gene? Or was she gently ribbing a woman she regarded as her friend? Was I once again my worst enemy, forever in my own way?

  I stood up, startling Abigail. “Long day. I should go.”

  “What? No! Let’s all take in a picture. You’ve seen most of them, so you should choose.”

  “Pick one you’d like. Have fun.” I retrieved my purse and headed for the door the way Marlene would. Back straight, head high, exalted in my suffering.

  Abigail was right. I had seen a lot of pictures. Maybe too many.

  * * *

  I WALKED TO a streetcar stop to regain my composure. I boarded too preoccupied to notice the queer condition of the sky—low-hanging clouds tinted a bright orange from below—until the frowzy woman sitting nearby pointed it out. “Heavens! Something huge is on fire!”

  “Right. They’re burning Atlanta tonight.”

  The woman peered at me. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Not Atlanta, obviously. It’s the gate from King Kong, some other sets. I still don’t see why when there’s no Scarlett.”

  After a moment the woman moved farther down the car. Who could blame her?

  I paused in the lobby to holler a hello to Mrs. Quigley. My landlady bustled out in a peach kimono, her hair and humor high. “I’ve had the loveliest evening with your friend!”

  Simon appeared in her doorway. Head tilted down toward Miss Sarah, eyes locked on mine.

  Mrs. Quigley babbled like a particularly oblivious brook. “Such pleasant company! And after taking a nasty blow to the head in my building.”

  “Couldn’t let that delicious stew of yours go to waste,” Simon said.

  “You didn’t eat downtown?” I asked.

  “No. Don’t care for the food there.” He said good night to Mrs. Quigley and for once she took the hint, leaving us in the lobby. “Can we go to your apartment?”

  “Right here is fine.”

  “We have to talk about tonight.”

  “No, we don’t. You’re allowed to believe what you want. It’s a free country, unlike Germany. We’ll be fighting them soon enough, apparently. But you and I don’t have to fight. I’d rather you just leave me alone.”

  Simon closed the distance between us in an instant, his eyes now blank, his demeanor icy. “You don’t understand. We have to talk about you. We know why I was at the Deutsches Haus. But why were you there? Are you following me?”

  “No. I had other reasons.”

  He edged closer. “Name them.”

  I couldn’t have concocted a lie if I’d wanted to. “I was meeting someone. A detective investigating Jens’s murder. It’s a coincidence you were there at the same time. Like you and Peter Ames turning up together.”

  Simon’s smile had me backing toward the stairs. He lowered his head again, brandishing the nasty scar he’d acquired from Peter, goading me with it. “So I arranged this myself, did I? Good. Keep thinking that. Think whatever will keep you away from me.” He retreated a step, clicked his heels together and offered a heil Hitler salute before turning to the door.

  I scampered to my apartment, defying the instinct to flick on the lights so I could peek out the window. I drew the curtain aside to see Simon climbing into his car. A match flared as he lit a cigarette. He sat smoking under the vivid orange clouds for a moment before his car pulled away. I pressed my head against the glass.

  It was still there when a blue Ford rumbled to life and followed him.

  Los Angeles Register

  December 11, 1938

  LORNA WHITCOMB’S

  EYES ON HOLLYWOOD

  Early birds at Mines Field report George Burns is Gotham-bound once more. Expect Gracie’s husband to commute to New York’s halls of justice as often as a Long Island lawyer. We hear Monday will bring big news out of the Big Apple. Something about the Chaperau smuggling case, George?… All of Culver City joined in Saturday night’s chorus of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes as David O. Selznick incinerated his carbon copy of Atlanta. Some residents caught unawares jumped in their automobiles to flee the flames … Foreign film director L
eni Riefenstahl is in town to preview her latest picture, not parley politics, but the fetching fräulein’s visit has been marred by anti-Hitler protests. She’s even been heckled in the street, she says. So much for Hollywood hospitality.

  27

  MY EXPEDITION TO the Deutsches Haus had annexed my subconscious. After a restless night dreaming of storm troopers choreographed by Busby Berkeley, I awoke craving linzer torte. I sought out Miss Sarah, who benignly tolerated my presence.

  The regal feline accompanied me to the ringing telephone. Edith sounded like she’d been downing coffee since sunup. “Am I rousing you from slumber?”

  “No, the Germans took care of that.”

  “You can explain that comment over lunch. We discussed the possibility the other day. Do you have plans?”

  “Nothing but mass. Father Nugent works Pat O’Brien into his homily every Sunday. I’m always curious how he’ll do it. When and where should I meet you?”

  “The studio at your convenience. No rest for me, alas.”

  “Even God rested on Sunday.”

  “Yes,” Edith said, “but I have it on reasonable authority his tailor still toiled away.”

  * * *

  A ROYAL-BLUE DRESS with a shirtwaist top cinched by a belt of dark pink suede—and a matching pink hat, of course—seemed appropriate for communing with powers celestial and terrestrial. After Father Nugent’s reading from the Gospel According to James Cagney, I headed to the studio.

  The whole lot seemed mid-doze, my footfalls echoing as I ascended to Edith’s office. Still, I heard the susurration of sewing machines, the wardrobe building’s ceaseless heartbeat.

  Edith greeted me at her door. “I heard you coming. It’s impossible to sneak up on anyone around here on Sunday. Are you ready to eat?”

  “Always. Is the commissary open?”

  “Lunch has been arranged,” Edith said.

  Together we lugged a picnic basket outside. “My housekeeper Cora packed a lunch,” Edith said. “More economical than going to a restaurant. Saves time, too.”

  “Meaning you can slave away at your desk while you eat.”

  “If I’m going to come in on a Sunday, I’m going to be efficient about it.”

  She unpacked our repast while I jockeyed two chairs into the shade. Fried chicken wrapped in waxed paper, creamy potato salad, dark brown homemade bread, and enough oranges for a chamber of commerce advertisement. I thumped the basket on the bottom, but nothing else tumbled out. “No partridge in a pear tree?”

  “In the second basket. Cora worries I don’t eat enough.”

  I wondered if the bounty truly was due to Cora’s concern, or if I was understudying for a guest who had canceled. Then I saw Edith tackle a piece of fried chicken with gusto. Fearing I’d be left with scraps, I dug in, too.

  Around mouthfuls of food, I recapitulated my jaunt to Little Germany and Simon’s surprise appearance on my doorstep. “You were right about him,” I admitted. “Gene was right. Everybody was right about Simon except me.”

  “And what exactly did you think, dear? Did you think he was innocent, or interested in you?”

  Only Edith could be incisive while inhaling a picnic lunch. “Both, I suppose. Now I know it’s neither. Simon has to be involved. He knew Jens and the Auerbachs, he lied about his relationship with Felix, and he’s hiding his affiliation with the Bund. I can’t understand why Gene won’t arrest him.”

  “There’s no evidence, for one thing, and Mrs. Auerbach’s confession complicates matters enormously. I imagine Detective Morrow doesn’t want to move until he knows why she turned herself in. When he can act, he will, and decisively.”

  Edith’s levelheaded empathy, her innate ability to view situations from every perspective, undoubtedly helped her navigate the treacherous shoals of her job. It could also make talking with her maddening. Because as usual, she was right.

  A man with his trilby cocked at a jaunty angle spotted us. “Look at all this food,” Billy Wilder marveled. “Are there refugees coming?”

  “Tuck in, Billy,” Edith said. “You remember Lillian Frost. What brings you to the lot on a Sunday?”

  “An aborted script conference was the excuse. The true reason is the couch in my office. I sleep better there than anywhere else, except the theater during DeMille’s pictures.” He appraised the serving plate and rubbed his stomach through a shabby sweater vest nearing the lint stage of its career.

  “Help yourself,” Edith encouraged again.

  “We can play that word game you were all fired up about in the commissary,” I said.

  “What fun!” Edith said. “I wouldn’t mind a crack at it.”

  “That game can’t be played in the out-of-doors. Entirely too much fresh air. Perhaps after my nap, I could be persuaded otherwise. And a spot of lunch, if you’re being so kind.” He grabbed a plate and selected a piece of chicken. Then a second. He heaped potato salad between them, which he shielded from scavengers with a slice of bread. “I shall seek you good ladies out later.”

  “He took the biggest pieces,” I said as he strolled off.

  “A sure sign he’ll become a director. And we ate the big pieces before he got here. We’ve dealt with the matter of Simon. How are you otherwise? How’s work?”

  “Addison’s talking about scaling back on parties and devoting himself to research. Plus the Santa breakfast debacle reminded me I don’t really know how to do my job. It’s like I’m constantly auditioning for it.”

  “That feeling never goes away.”

  “Charlotte said the same thing. That can’t possibly be true for everyone in Hollywood. Even you?”

  “It’s not just Hollywood.” Edith set down her plate, eyes shifting to the surrounding buildings before continuing. “Do you know why they gave me this job?”

  “Because you deserved it.”

  “Because I was the cheapest alternative. By far. The studio pays me a fraction of Travis’s salary. And every few weeks they bring in prospective replacements. I’m doing all I can to solidify my position, like dragooning you into helping Marlene. I need everyone I can get on my side.”

  “You didn’t dragoon me—”

  “Sometimes I’m tempted to chuck it in,” Edith said flatly. “Stop fighting for this job. Call Walter Plunkett, who’s designing all those glorious costumes for Gone with the Wind, and throw myself on his mercy. ‘Let me sketch for you, Walter, anything, just to be part of what you’re doing.’ Because I’ll never get such an opportunity here.”

  I had no idea what to say, so I did what I usually do in such situations. I tried changing the subject. “Speaking of Selznick, did you see the fire last night?”

  Edith’s gaze moved to the wardrobe building. “They hate me, you know. The girls. And not just because I’m making them work on Sunday.”

  “Nobody hates you, Edith.”

  “Resent me, then.”

  “It’s not that, either. They…” I trailed off, marshaling my thoughts. “Did you really forbid the girls from singing and chewing gum?”

  “Someone told you that, did they?”

  “You won’t get a name out of me, copper.”

  “I had to impose discipline. Travis had let things become entirely too lax. He could get away with that, being a genius.”

  “That’s not how the girls see it. They don’t understand how someone who came from their ranks could concoct a rule so—”

  “Draconian?” Edith smiled.

  “I was going to say silly.”

  “Point taken. But you’ve identified my problem. I did come from the ranks. Meaning everyone, from the girls to the executives, views me as a sketch artist who’s risen above my station, nothing more. Somehow, I have to make this job my own. And I don’t know how to do it.”

  Had I any advice, I wouldn’t have the chance to offer it. Barney Groff dispelled the notion he might have favored more casual attire on the weekend, shrouded in a black suit that likely came gratis with a coffin of his native earth. “
At least somebody’s working,” he said to Edith, once again paying me no mind. “I need to talk to you.”

  In private went unsaid. I helped Edith pack the picnic basket while Groff batted a newspaper against his hand.

  “Might this pertain to the Chaperau matter?” Edith asked.

  “Only damn thing I’ve dealt with for days. To think this all started with some loose-lipped Kraut. All while the goddamn Nazis are blitzing through Europe. Bad enough they already interfere in our operations. That bastard Gyssling insists on weighing in on movies before we make them. Can’t upset the Germans or they won’t approve our pictures. They’re not approving them anyway, so who the hell cares what he thinks?”

  Groff tossed his newspaper onto the grass, more trash for me to collect. I reached for it. GYSSLING MUM ON RIEFENSTAHL TRIP. The photograph below the headline showed a balding, pudding-faced man in an ill-fitting suit—identified as German consul in Los Angeles Dr. Georg Gyssling—being hustled out of a building by numerous grimly determined men. Not surprisingly given their nationality, every member of this flock of flunkies was blond.

  But only one of them I’d seen before.

  Peter Ames stood at the edge of the frame, his face angled away from the camera as if aware of its presence—and, by proxy, mine. Peter, whatever his right name, was a Nazi. A servant of the Reich.

  I wanted to alert Edith but Groff had already started walking. I handed her the basket, keeping the newspaper. “We’ll talk later,” she said, and strode after Groff. Leaving me alone in the Sabbath tranquility of the lot with my discovery.

  28

  THE WELCOME MAT outside Gustav Ruehl’s house surprised me. The ill-tempered writer didn’t seem the type to put a premium on hospitality. Another surprise was Ruehl’s house itself, a charming imitation saltbox more befitting a New England parson.

  But the biggest shock was my presence at his home in the first place. I paced outside it, venturing from the door to Addison’s car, where Rogers studied me in bafflement. I was uneasy about bearding Ruehl in his den. But I needed to know more about Peter Ames, and Ruehl, with his rabid insistence the German artists of Los Angeles were under observation, was the only person I could think of, despite and perhaps because of his decision to despise me.