“The night after?” The inspector stiffened. “You are lying, Fraulein. The manager said—”
She snorted. “He will say whatever you want him to.”
“Perhaps you are mistaken. The stage lights are harsh and blinding. Perhaps they were there. But you didn’t see them. They hid at the back of the theater until he left your room.”
Her eyes tracked him up and down. “No. I told you. They came the night after. Demanding to know if he was the Jew who worked at the University.”
The detective leaned his hands on the back of the chair.
“Please, Herr Inspektor. I beg you. Do not tell them I told you. They will surely kill me.” She covered her face with her hands.
ILSE NEVER CAME back to Der Flammen. For weeks the detective sifted through the reports of bodies that washed up from the river, or were found in the alleys, but none matched her description. He went back to the woman Ilse had stayed with, the cabaret manager, even the urchin he found on the street, but no one knew where she was.
He read up on uranium at the library, then, late one afternoon, met with a Berlin physicist. Afterwards, he took a walk. An icy wind slicing through him, he trudged down the Nollendorfplatz, ignoring a come-on from a young boy with eyes as heavily kohled as a woman’s. On the Kurfürstendamm he gazed at a church as if its gothic spires might tell him what to do. And on his wintry hike, he thought about the professor, his wife, his colleagues. The Brown Shirts and what they were doing. His own job, his family, his country. By morning he had made his decision.
He arrested the Brown Shirts and prepared to bring them to trial. Of course, there were heated denials. Even some threats on his life. His case, nonetheless, was solid: he had the manager’s story and Ilse’s friend’s. He also had the casings from the Luger, which everyone knew was their weapon of choice. He ignored Ilse’s claim that they came to Der Flammen the night after. She was a whore; she had fled. Dead or alive, her word would be suspect at best.
By the time it came to trial a year later, though, everything had changed. Hitler was in power, and the Brown Shirts were acquitted. The next day the detective told his wife to pack. They would go to Switzerland or Holland. Perhaps, if they were lucky, New York.
A LIGHT DUSTING of snow coated the streets. Hobbling on a cane, the former detective let his grandchildren drag him towards the skating rink. It had opened in Thirty-six, just after they came to New York. Now, twenty years later, it was a family tradition. Every December, he and his wife brought the children, and now the grandchildren, into the city to take in the tree, the glow of lights, the holiday glitter.
The children chattered excitedly, their cheeks red from the cold. They watched the skaters circle the ice, dipping and gliding to the music. His attention was drawn to a tall, graceful girl, whose helmet of bright hair gleamed as she twirled.
Shadows chased the sun away, and dusk settled over the rink. The skaters cut sharp silhouettes against the pale ice. But it wasn’t until the lights snapped on that he noticed the group at the next table. A tiny woman wrapped in a fur coat, her hair pulled back in a bun, surrounded by children and two adults.
“Oma.” A little girl squealed in delight. “You must taste the chocolate. Like Lindt’s, but hot.”
“You taste it for me.”
Steam rose from the cup. The little girl sipped and smacked her lips. Chocolate rimmed her mouth. Her smile revealing a deeply lined face, the old woman brushed her hand across the girl’s hair. Then, as if aware she was being watched, she turned toward the detective.
The old man blinked. He knew this small, birdlike woman. The steady gaze. The clear blue eyes that, after a moment’s appraisal, deepened in recognition as well.
“Herr Inspektor.” Her voice was serene and pleasant. “How delightful to see you again.”
His forehead wrinkled. “Madame, I apologize, but—”
“I am Frau Hesse, Herr Inspektor.” She smiled. “Wife of Friedrich Hesse.”
Her name burrowed into his memory, and the long ago case sprang into his mind. He rose and slowly made his way to her table.
“It is good to see you on this side of the ocean.” Her smile made it seem she’d been expecting him.
“We came from Holland.”
She nodded. “I came after the trial.”
He remembered the trial. He leaned his hand on his cane. “My one regret was that I did not bring them to justice, Frau Hesse. In failing them, I failed you. And your family.”
She looked at him for a long moment. “No. You did everything you could.” The thin smile on her face made him frown. This woman had the ability to surprise him, he remembered. Anticipate him. Say the unexpected.
“You see, Herr Inspektor, justice was served. The men who were tried, they were not guilty. They did not kill my husband.”
He chose his words with care. “Madame, please do not spare my feelings. We are both too old for that.”
“Deanna, take the children. I will follow.”
The young woman collected the children and walked them to the ice. She tapped the chair next to her. The detective sank into it.
“Do you remember what my husband was working on at the University?”
“Radiation, was it not?”
“Not quite,” she said, the teacher correcting a student. “Radioactive elements. Subatomic elements that could be isolated in uranium.” Her expression softened. “What neither I nor my colleagues told you was how far his work had taken him.”
The detective held up his hand. “No Madame. You are mistaken. It was not radioactive isotopes—uranium or otherwise. It was simple radiation.”
“Inspektor, do not presume to tell me about my work. I was a physicist, too, if you recall.”
“Yes, Frau Hesse. I remember. It was radiation. Not the other.”
She frowned, the lines at the side of her mouth tightening. “Perhaps you should tell me what it is you remember.”
He cleared his throat. “What I remember is that a group of Nazi thugs ambushed your husband. He was set up by a prostitute in a cabaret. Unfortunately, those type of incidents were all too common back then.”
She tapped her spoon against her cup. “But Inspektor, that was only part—”
He rode over her words. “No, Madame. You are wrong. You see, if it were any other way, if it were radioactive uranium your husband and his colleagues were experimenting with, I might have deduced something quite different.” She studied her tea cup. “I might have suspected they were trying to create nuclear fission.”
She jerked her head up.
“Which would mean they would soon be able to build a nuclear bomb.”
Her eyebrows arched. “Indeed.”
“I might also have suspected that word leaked out, as it always does in these matters, and that the Nazis demanded he turn over his work. Your husband would have refused, but it would have only been a matter of time. They would have blackmailed him, exposed his “activities,” perhaps even tortured him. And not just him. His colleagues, too. Your Friedrich would have—”
“We couldn’t allow that to happen,” she said quietly. “In the end, we had no choice. We had to protect the work. You must understand.” She drew in a long, shuddering breath. “It was decided I should come here.”
“Where you met with scientists who would later work on the Manhattan Project.”
She nodded.
“And let the Brown Shirts take the blame for his death.”
“So we hoped.” She shrugged her delicate shoulders. “Indeed, our biggest fear was you, Inspektor.”
“Me?”
“We were certain you knew. Or would discover it soon enough. You made us hasten my departure. Later, we were surprised by your silence. We decided you were a friend.” She paused. “And so you were.” She leaned back in her chair. “But how? How did you know?”
He hesitated. “His mistress confessed that the Brown Shirts came to the cabaret the night after he was killed. The rest was not difficult.” He
stared at the skaters. The tall blonde was now partnered with a dark young man. Arms entwined, they skimmed the surface of the ice, skating in perfect synchrony. “But my dear Frau Hesse, I have a question for you. How could you do it?”
Swallowing, she stared at her teacup for so long he wondered if she would reply. Then, she looked up and waved a hand towards the children. “There is your answer, Inspektor.”
He twisted toward the children, his and hers. Their eager young faces sparkling as they followed the skaters. Bright new stars shooting across a cold, dark heaven. He looked back at Frau Hesse. Her eyes filled.
“You see?” Blinking hard, she smiled her tears away. The gentle smile of a friend. “Perhaps you will join me for a schnapps, Herr Inspektor? It was my husband’s favorite.”
Goin’ West
CHARLES ARDAI
I
Arthur French, a man whose bearing and expression were not so much boyish as they were a failed attempt to appear so, looked down at the avenue outside his office and wished he had the guts to open his window and throw himself out of it.
But he hadn’t, so after a few minutes of staring at the traffic below while a cigarette burned itself to ash between his fingers, Arthur returned to his desk. The portfolio he had been going through when he had been overcome with his sudden attack of self-revulsion lay open on his blotter. Arthur stubbed out his cigarette and went back to work.
He had already discarded twenty-three women, turning the pages that held their hopeful eight-by-tens without so much as a stirring of interest. He had only pulled two photos from their plastic sleeves: Lisa Brennan, a striking blonde who’d have to look over her shoulder to see thirty, much less the twenty-seven she claimed, and Angela Meyer, a homely brunette—that nose!—whose bikini shot had nevertheless caught Arthur’s eye. He’d covered her face with his hand. Maybe she’d do for some body doubling, or for the shower scene establishing shot where they’d need extras. Nobody would have to see her face. Arthur had pulled the picture and dropped it face down next to his telephone.
Angela’s credits, listed on the back, read like a young actress’s dream: Cordelia in King Lear, the baker’s wife in Into The Woods. But that’s probably all they were—a dream. What she’d left out was that King Lear had been a showcase in someone’s apartment on the Upper West Side and that Into The Woods had been summer-stock in Connecticut. Or vice versa. Hell, Arthur told himself, a woman who wants to do Cordelia doesn’t send her agent around with a photo that shouts “playmate of the month” at the top of its lungs.
Brennan’s credits had sounded more realistic: bit parts on a couple of soaps, some commercials, guest spots on two short-lived sitcoms. Plus one feature a few years back where she’d played Goldie Hawn’s sister, a two-line part that had gotten her into SAG. At least she wasn’t as likely to embarrass herself in front of the camera.
Arthur flipped through the rest of the portfolio, his interest waning from minimal to zip. Bunch of hungry little tramps who’d push each other in front of a train for a line of their own in the end credits, especially as a character with a name instead of something like “Woman In Cab.”
Hell, they’d kill for “Woman In Cab,” too.
He closed the book and zipped it up, then slipped the two photos he’d selected into his project folder. Two appointments for Rose to set up, two distant, distant, distant possibilities for Goin’ West, and one less agent to deal with on the project. He stuck the portfolio in its mailer and started it on its way back to Jennifer Stein, the madam who had pulled this Kodacolor harem together and dropped it on his desk.
He fingered his lead-crystal ashtray, overflowing with Camel butts, then pulled a new cigarette from his pack and lit it. Somewhere halfway through the pack, Freddie Prinze’s agent blew Arthur off, followed by Jason Biggs’s and James van der Beek’s. Never mind Ashton Kutcher’s—it wasn’t worth the phone call. Not for a project that would get a five-week theatrical release, if that, on its way to video stores across the U.S. of A. James van der Beek was too big for this project, for God’s sake.
Arthur ran his hand through his hair, permanently damp from a steady diet of Grecian Formula and Nexus, then slid the project file into its pendaflex folder and left it for Rose to file. The women would be easy to cast—no star or even B-lister needed. The male lead and his buddies, on the other hand, had to be names that meant something to teenage boys.
If all else failed, he’d go after Corey Dunn or Jon Farrell. William Fitch, their agent, owed Arthur favors that had major price tags hanging all over them. Shame to call them in for a dog like Goin’ West, though.
He made one more phone call before cutting out early. Then he took the elevator down the thirty floors to street level, a slower method than the one he’d contemplated earlier, but at least you didn’t end up a stain on the concrete. He picked up his Audi in the building’s garage, spent a good half-hour in Manhattan traffic (a lousy half-hour, actually, city driving was always lousy), fought a traffic jam all the way out to Bronxville, and parked in front of his townhouse. Sandy was waiting for him when he got home and he got up a smile for her when he walked through the door. That was the most he could get up, though, and they went to sleep apologizing to each other.
All night Arthur dreamt about going through with his suicide, opening his office window and smashing to a jelly on the pavement. In a strange way, the dream didn’t feel like a nightmare. In it, he left a note to his wife saying, “It’s not you, honey, I can’t stand this stinking business.” Which was his dream’s way of making him feel better, because in his waking moments he knew it was her, as much as it was anything.
Sandy would never let him forget that “East Coast casting director” was a contradiction in terms, especially when it came to features. You had to be in California to really be in the business, unless you were Juliet Taylor and did the casting for Woody’s pictures, but he wasn’t, and he didn’t, and he never would come close.
Arthur French was a peripheral figure in the industry, a name people half remembered in connection with films they would just as soon have forgotten. He’d given up, years before, his original ambition to do work he was proud of and had become a whore for the mid-budget studios who were still willing to use him. Sandy would ask him from time to time why he’d pissed away such talent as he’d had when she’d met him—as though he knew the answer himself. Over the past few weeks Sandy had also started asking him about other women, stopping just short of accusing him of having an affair. Then she was surprised when he flopped worse than Waterworld in bed?
It didn’t help the situation that Arthur couldn’t divorce her, mainly because his townhouse was really Sandy’s townhouse and Goin’ West wouldn’t pay for a replacement. Twenty years of films like Goin’ West hadn’t, and twenty more wouldn’t.
Arthur sat up in bed next to where Sandy lay, blowsy and paunchy and forty-eight, and dragged on his first Camel of the morning, thinking about divorce and thinking about suicide. Suicide seemed simpler and less painful.
He tried to go back to sleep, but he found he couldn’t keep his eyes closed. He went to work instead.
ARTHUR MADE SOME more calls before the girls started filling Rose’s office, touching up their makeup and hiding their bra straps. The calls didn’t go well, but why should they? The script for Goin’ West had made the rounds and every agent Arthur called knew it was garbage. No agent would let his actors appear in the film. If Kreuger had been willing to cut the scenes on the beach, maybe, but the bastard had been stubborn. How can you fight a writer-director-producer who’s making his own film? On the other hand, how do you get any actor who’s got a sense of self-preservation to go in front of the camera and play the sort of scenes Kreuger wrote? He made the Farrellys look like Noel Coward.
Arthur ran his fingers through his hair, wiped his hand, threw the tissue out, smoked halfway through a cigarette, and buzzed Rose to start sending the girls in.
The female roles were interchangeable. Arthur kept a chec
klist and marked off character names one by one. Kreuger would have to approve his choices, of course, but that’s what callbacks were for. Arthur picked two women for each part, jotting down information on the Polaroids Rose had taken while the girls were waiting in the front office.
Angela Meyer showed up at eleven, uglier in person and less talented even than Arthur had expected. She did have a good body, though, and Arthur wrote her down for extra work: the shower scene, the skinny-dipping scene, wherever they needed background T&A. Angela’s face fell when Arthur told her this was all she could get, but what could he do? Ugly is ugly.
Lisa Brennan appeared after lunch, when the crowd had thinned out. Arthur was already numbed from the morning’s parade of spandex-and-silicone hopefuls, and he didn’t stand up when Lisa came in. He was tired of standing up. Lisa sat opposite him and handed him another copy of her headshot. Arthur dropped it on his desk and stared at her.
You could see the desperation in her face, and with thirty-plus showing around her eyes, Arthur wasn’t surprised. Her hands were twisted around one another in her lap. He glanced at Lisa’s credits again and noted that her last project was half a year old—which meant she hadn’t worked for the better part of a year, and that in turn was why she was in his office trying to get a part in a teen sex comedy.
Arthur launched into his spiel. “We’re casting a new film by Daniel Kreuger called Goin’ West. There are several parts for young women . . .” The words poured out of him on automatic, along with pauses during which he waited for Lisa to answer the standard questions. She answered them. The answers were standard, too. Arthur started to feel his stomach.
When Arthur told Lisa to undress, she stood, pulled her sweatshirt over her head, and undid the knot on her hip that held her wrap in place. Under it she wore an orange two-piece swimsuit. She turned in a circle, then bent to pick her wrap off the floor.
Arthur made a gesture with his hand. The gesture wasn’t any gesture in particular, just a tired wave of the hand that wasn’t holding his cigarette, but Lisa knew what it meant and she forced a smile as she unclasped her top in back and slipped it off her shoulders.
Show Business Is Murder Page 22