by Joseph Kanon
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 thoug
ht 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. Tr
affic 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?”