City of Spies (4 page)

“I don't trust them. But I know Mama was up to no good,” Pagan said. “She was helping this Dr. Someone, or Rolf Von Albrecht, or whatever his name was. Mama's gone, but he might be down in Argentina, doing more bad things. If the CIA doesn't give me what I want, at least maybe I can help stop him, bring him to justice.”

Mercedes said nothing, her eyelids at half-mast as she stared at Pagan.

“What?” said Pagan.

“You were eight years old when this German man visited your house,” she said. “You were twelve when your mama took her life. A little girl.”

“I know,” said Pagan. “But I'm not little anymore, and if I can make a difference now...”

“If you can right your mama's wrong, you mean.”

“She was my mother!” Anger at her friend surged through her. How could she try to take away Pagan's strong connection to her mother, good or bad? “Everything she did had a big effect on me! And if she was a bad person...” She stopped, not knowing where that sentence was going.

Mercedes leaned forward, dark eyes ferociously intent. She tapped her index finger on the table with every word as she said, “What she did is not your responsibility.”

A surge of emotion flooded up from Pagan's chest. Her eyes filled with tears. “But what if Mama died because of me?”

Mercedes did not relent. She shook her head. “That woman had all kinds of things going on, way over your head. You could be risking your life here—again. Why are you doing that?”

Pagan got up and grabbed a kitchen towel, wiping her eyes. The cloth came away streaked black with mascara and eyeliner. “I don't know, M. But even if I never find out why Mama killed herself, I want to help them get this guy. My mother aided in a Nazi escape. Isn't that reason enough? Right now I'm the only one left alive who might be able to identify him.”

“Okay,” Mercedes said. “Let's call it patriotism and justice for now and see what happens. But I'm going with you.”

Pagan's mouth dropped open. “But school—that's really important to you. I wouldn't want you to miss...”

Mercedes considered this. “Okay, I'll go for the first week, as long as I can get the reading assignments in advance.”

The corners of Pagan's mouth turned up into a huge grin and she darted across the room to throw her arms around Mercedes's neck.

For once, Mercedes didn't grumble and pull away. She patted Pagan's arm awkwardly. “Guess that's okay with you.”

Pagan laughed and stepped back. “It's great with me! I promise I won't suck you into it too much. No violence.”

“We should review the self-defense moves I taught you back in reform school. And when we get back here, we should get a dog.”

“A big dog.” Pagan looked out the kitchen window at the backyard and switched off the lights. “And maybe some electric fencing, snares and booby traps.”

Thump!

Pagan jumped two feet in the air as something slammed into the front door of the house. Mercedes frowned. “They wouldn't be stupid enough to come back.”

They walked side by side down the hallway to the foyer. Mercedes sidled up to the side window and peered through the curtains. “A man's walking back down the driveway. Nobody I know. And there's nobody else.”

“Well, then, what...?” Pagan unlocked the door and tugged it open a few inches.

A large brown envelope flopped down from where it had been leaning against the door. In black marker someone had printed
Pagan Jones
on it.

Pagan stooped to pick it up, pulling up the flap.

About a hundred pages of three-hole paper slid out, bound together with metal fasteners in the top and bottom holes.

The print on the front page said Two to Tango. A Universal Pictures Production.

Pagan laughed. “It's the script for the Buenos Aires movie.”

“It better be good,” said Mercedes, and locked the door.

CHAPTER THREE

Hollywood,
California
December 16, 1961

SEGUIDILLAS

Tiny, quick steps, usually seen in
orillero
style tango.

The script had been written by monkeys pulling random phrases out of a hat full of Hollywood clichés. After reading a few pages, Pagan had trouble forcing her eyes over the hammy dialogue and overwrought scene direction.

The plot was something she'd seen a thousand times—a girl on the cusp of womanhood from the US goes to exotic Buenos Aires on vacation, where she can't decide between the two men vying for her affections. One was a tall handsome blond American—kind, but a little boring. The other was a darkly handsome Argentinean gaucho, their version of a cowboy, whose seductive tangos and moonlit serenades on his Spanish guitar were too much for the naive girl to resist.

Ten pages in, Pagan knew her character ended up with the American boy. It was too obvious that the “exotic” man was up to no good, and that his dangerous foreign ways and wandering hands would send the silly American girl scurrying back to the safety and security of the American boy.

Mercedes threw it down after five pages. “You're going to have to tango and sing and say these terrible lines. You're going to have to—” she grabbed the script and read from it out loud “‘—fall under the gaucho's tropical spell.'”

“Is Buenos Aires tropical?” Pagan frowned.

Mercedes snorted. “Don't you know? All dark-skinned people live in jungles.”

“I wouldn't count on his skin being all that dark. They've cast a Broadway actor named Tony Perry as Juan, the seductive Latin man who—” Pagan grabbed the script from Mercedes “‘—tangos with the dangerous stealth of an enormous black panther.'”

Mercedes let out a scornful laugh. “And plays the guitar while riding a horse.”

“Excuse me, but don't you mean—” Pagan read from the script again “‘—caresses the neck of his smooth wooden instrument with the consummate skill of a virtuoso'?”

Mercedes shook her head. “His instrument
'
s wood? Don't let him get anywhere near you with
that
.”

Pagan gasped with mock horror. “Dirty jokes before breakfast! I better make us some eggs.”

After breakfast, Mercedes went back to studying for her exams, nose in her astronomy textbook, while Pagan called her agent, Jerry Allenberg. “Tell them I'll do this
Two to Tango
movie,” she told him.

“I'm sorry, what?” Jerry said, speaking as if to an idiot or small child. “Have you lost your mind?”

“Maybe, but I'm doing it, Jerry. I'll need to brush up on my tango before it starts shooting in January.”

“And dance your way right out of a career? No way, Pagan. I'm not letting you do it.”

Pagan took a deep breath. Jerry's concern over her career went straight past paternal to pathological now that she was on the wagon and doing better. “You don't get to decide what I do, Jerry,” she said.

“But you're in the middle of a comeback!” Something in the background thumped, as if he'd dropped his feet off the desk to stand up and yell at her. “I never thought I'd say this after your disasters last year, but Bennie Wexler thinks you're gold and Tony Richardson loved working with you so much on
Daughter of Silence
he's talking awards at Cannes. Not for the movie, but for
you
. Did you hear me? You could be nominated for Best Actress at Cannes, Pagan! Somehow you're moving away from movies like
Beach Bound Beverly
into A-list material with the best writers and directors. It's a miracle! Don't do this turd of a script and mess it all up. I'm begging you.”

“Most people don't yell when they beg,” Pagan said. What he said made her uneasy. “You really think one mediocre movie could cancel out the good ones?”

“This could cost you the award at Cannes,” he said. “And, I didn't want to say anything, but they're talking about a possible Oscar campaign, too.”

Once upon a time, getting an Oscar had been Pagan's biggest dream. But now, when she weighed that against the chance to find out more about her mother, to help her country, to catch a Nazi who probably escaped from justice? The awards seemed like Tinkertoys.

Time for the trump card. “Do you remember our friend Devin Black?”

Silence. Then a thump and a squeak of chair springs as Jerry sat back down. Jerry had caved in to Devin before, when he'd negotiated Pagan's contract for
Neither Here Nor There
in Berlin in August. Pagan had never learned exactly what hold Devin had over Jerry, but it seemed to involve blackmail. Jerry probably didn't know who Devin worked for, but he was no fool. “Devin Black's involved in this tango turd?”

“He asked me to do it. And I want to do it,” Pagan said. And waited.

Another silence. “Okay. So. You're doing it,” Jerry finally said. “But if at any point you or Mr. Black wish to extricate yourself from this awful picture, you let me know. It'll be worth the penalties to your contract.”

“Thanks, Jerry,” Pagan said.

“Yeah, yeah.” He paused. “The studio's going to owe you big for this one. Anything special you want during the shoot I can demand? Caviar every day, maybe? A personal masseuse?”

Pagan glanced over at Mercedes, who was underlining something in her book. “I want to bring my best friend along with me for a week. They could pay for a nice hotel suite for the two of us, and her airfare as well as mine. If you think you can manage that.”

“Best friend, airfare, hotel suite,” he pronounced, as if writing it down. Sharply, he added, “Is Devin Black okay with her being there?”

Pagan hadn't thought of that. The CIA might not want her to have someone living in her suite with her, for secrecy's sake. Well, that was too bad. “If anyone kicks back over her being there, you tell them she comes or I'm out.”

“If we're lucky, they'll kick back,” Jerry muttered. “When producers ask me about this horrible movie later, can I tell them you were back on the bottle when you agreed to do it?”

“Jerry!” Pagan scolded.

“Yeah, yeah, that would be even worse for your rep. I know.” He sighed heavily. “You really okay with this, kid?”

Which was as close as Jerry Allenberg would ever come to making sure Devin Black wasn't blackmailing her into doing this movie.

“I'm great, Jerry. Really. If we're lucky maybe the movie will be so bad they won't release it.”

“Your lips to God's ears,” he said.

“Have the studio's dancing instructor call me so I can brush up on the tango, okay?”

“Sure, sure.” And he hung up.

“Jerry doesn't think it's a good idea,” Pagan said, setting the handset back in the cradle of the phone on the kitchen wall.

Mercedes didn't look up from her astronomy book. “Too late. You've crossed the event horizon.”

“Is that a tango step?” Pagan grinned.

“It's a boundary that surrounds a black hole.” Mercedes looked up from the book. “Do you know what a black hole is?”

“What Jerry Allenberg has instead of a soul?” Pagan shrugged off Mercedes's look, “Oh, come on, you know I was either drunk or distracted between the ages of thirteen and sixteen. My high school diploma's strictly ceremonial, thanks to Universal Pictures and all those lovely tutors fudging my scores.”

“A black hole is this area in space with gravity so strong it sucks everything, even time, into itself. Nothing, even light, can escape.” Mercedes wasn't reading from her book as she spoke, and her eyes lit up as she went on. “This physicist, Finkelstein, discovered the event horizon, which is like a boundary around the black hole. Once you cross the event horizon, you can't go back. You're trapped forever.”

“So you're saying I've been sucked into a one-way pit of darkness?” Pagan nodded. “Wouldn't be the first time.”

Mercedes went back to reading. “The constellations are different in the southern hemisphere,” she said. “Maybe I can find a telescope while we're there so I can see them.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Burbank, California
January 2, 1962

PATADA

A kick between the legs, usually executed by the follower.

The Warner Bros. studio lot lay shrouded in morning fog at the foot of the January-green Hollywood Hills. Pagan rolled down the window of the limousine as the guard waved them through the gate to inhale the crisp air and get a better view of the famous water tower perched like a long-legged heron over the blank-faced soundstages and trees still leafy for the California winter.

Pagan had always loved the bustle of the Warner lot, but she hadn't been there since they'd shot exteriors on its Western street for
Little Annie Oakley
, when she was ten. It was 7:00 a.m., and the studio was abuzz, an uncanny small town all its own, but one populated by time travelers and circus folk.

Transferred from the limo to a golf cart driven by an assistant in a Yankee hat, Pagan watched an eight-seat electric vehicle hum past, carrying a flock of flappers in feathered headbands and spit curls.

Her cart zoomed by the commissary, turned left and nearly smacked into a clutch of cowboys, guns at the hip. Nearby, three ten-year-old girls practiced a soft-shoe in an empty parking space. Their mothers sat in folding chairs nearby, knitting or watching critically. “One and two and ba-da
bam
!” one woman shouted, smacking her hand hard on her thigh. “Do it again.”

Hang in there, kid
, Pagan thought. She'd been that girl. Mama had been that woman. No tap dance had ever been good enough. No line reading was ever exactly right. That was how excellence was earned, Mama had said. She may have been right, but it was so very exhausting.

The cart purred onward. The soundstages loomed like windowless mausoleums on either side as grips and wardrobe assistants ambled along, paper coffee cups steaming.

“What are you shooting?” Pagan's driver asked.

“Not shooting yet,” she replied. “We've been rehearsing at a dance studio since Christmas, but now we need a soundstage big enough to choreograph this big number before we head to Buenos Aires to shoot.”

“All the stages at Universal taken?” He shook his head. “Didn't know they had such a busy slate.”

“Maybe yours are just better,” Pagan said. “But don't tell anyone over there I said so.”

He laughed as they pulled to a stop in front of Stage 16 and she alighted from the cart. “But I'll be sure to tell everyone here you said it.”

Smiling, she sailed through the door cut into the side of the soundstage with its Authorized Personnel Only sign, and stepped into the echoing dark of the stage. She stopped to let her eyes adjust to the spot of light along the back wall. A dusty piano crouched there. A wizened woman with a face like a walnut, her hair pulled severely back in a bun, sat on the bench smoking and flipping through sheet music.

“She's here!” More lights flickered and came to life, illuminating the empty cavern of the space and a tall, graceful man she knew, the movie's choreographer, gliding toward her. He wore flowing black trousers and a black turtleneck over his long, sinewy limbs, and he paused to extend one leg in front of himself, bowing with hands to his chest to her as if he were a courtier paying homage to the queen.

“Jared!” Pagan leaned in as he rose and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “You look marvelous. How was your New Year's?”

“Busy, my beautiful. Busy and scandalous and everything New Year's should be!” Jared said, taking her arm as they walked toward the piano together. “And yours?”

“Sober and boring and everything my New Year's should be,” she said.

He laughed. “Which means you won't have forgotten everything we practiced last week.”

“I better not,” Pagan said. She'd spent the week between Christmas and New Year's with Jared at his dance studio, learning the steps to the dances for
Two to Tango
, with him standing in as whatever partner she had in the dance. Today was the first time she'd be dancing with one of her costars. That must be him in the T-shirt, trousers and scuffed dance shoes, stretching out his calf muscles by the back wall.

“Do you know Tony Perry?” Jared left her to take the man by the elbow and tug him toward her. “Tony, you've heard of Pagan Jones, of course! Your delightful and delicious dancing partner.”

“Miss Jones,” Tony said, taking her hand in a grip that was a shade too tight. “I'm a big fan.”

Tony Perry was a hair under six feet, with thick hair dyed so black the bright stage lights didn't reflect off it. His dark tan, overlaid with a new painful pink burn, had been so recently acquired she could still smell the coconut oil. His lips disappeared when he smiled. It was a tight, fake, assessing kind of smile. His eyes did the elevator, riding up and down her body in a way that made her want to throw off her trench coat and yell, “How's this?”

She'd heard of him vaguely: he'd recently starred in some semipopular Broadway musical.
Two to Tango
was his first movie, and his overly curious, voracious energy announced that he was on a mission. He was going to be a big star if it killed him. Or her.

She hoped he'd relax a bit so they could dance together, but she didn't tell him to call her by her first name. “Miss Jones” was fine with this guy for now. “Hope I haven't kept you waiting.”

“Not at all, not at all!” Jared lifted a finger at the piano player, who carefully rested her half-finished cigarette on the edge of the piano before hitting a chord. “But shall we warm up a little? I have such plans for you, my lovelies.”

“Can't wait.” Tony lifted an eyebrow at Pagan and smirked. “Shall we?”

Pagan removed the trench coat and threw it and her purse into the corner. “Let's.”

Jared led them through a quick series of ballet warm-ups—pliés, ports de bra, coupés and posés, while the wizened one pounded out stately chords. Tony looked limber enough. But then the tango didn't require great kicks, leaps or lifts. It involved close, complex footwork between the two partners and perfect timing, but you didn't have to be a complete athlete to look good doing it.

Until Tony started pointing out how Pagan's turnout could be wider, how her extension was limited, how, when he'd danced with Gwen Verdon,
she
hadn't done it that way. He did it with long, lingering touches on her knee and thigh and in a patronizing “I'm here to help” tone low enough that Jared didn't overhear him as he paced in front of them, declaiming over the chords from the piano.

Pagan stopped herself from swatting Tony's hand and edged away from him. It was tempting to wonder out loud whether his bony arms were strong enough to lift her when required, but at this early stage of rehearsal, creating more conflict would only backfire. She was the one with the bad reputation. She was the drunk, the killer. So she had to continually earn everyone's trust and respect. She found a halfhearted smile somewhere and produced it.

“And now, the tango,” Jared said. “A labyrinth of emotion, as it is a labyrinth for your feet. To truly dance the tango, you must have experienced great sorrow, yet still be open to joy. You must surrender to the music, yet remain alert. The tango is relationship as movement. It is the most demanding of dances, the most intricate. Yet at bottom it is very basic—listen to the music, pay attention to your partner, and love. That's what the tango is—love. And we will use it to show how our characters may—or may not—be falling in love.”

He finished with his hands clasped in front of him, his head bent over them, as if in prayer.

Oh, the drama. Jared never failed to milk it for all it was worth, but that was part of a choreographer's job. She didn't mind it in small doses, but she couldn't help hoping the director would be a little more no-nonsense during the shoot.

The scene they were rehearsing involved Tony's seductive gaucho character, Juan, following Pagan's lonely character, Daisy, as she walks down a deserted street in Buenos Aires after she's left a party where no one would dance with her.

Pagan had been followed down empty streets before, but by men who wanted to kill her, so the idea struck her as the opposite of romantic. Nonetheless it was in the street that Juan would lure the reluctant Daisy into a passionate tango after a convenient accordion player shows up.

Jared used chalk on the floor to map out the lines of the “street” Pagan and Tony would walk and tango down, with the back wall of the studio serving as the line of buildings. Pagan had done this a hundred times with Jared in his cramped studio, but here in the soundstage she could take the longer steps he wanted up and down this pretend street in Buenos Aires.

Pagan began it seemingly all alone. The accordion would start (cue the wizened one at the piano hitting some mournful chords) and Daisy would do a few little dance steps sadly to herself, dreaming of doing them with a partner.

Jared put himself in front of Pagan and had her follow him as he reminded both of them how it went. Slow, slow, step forward, side. Then back, back, quick, quick, slow—and cross. The pace picked up as he did it again, moving into a forward ocho.

Pagan followed him easily. These were the basic steps of the tango, the first thing beginners learned, moving into slightly more complicated flourishes. She mimicked Jared's sad little slump in the shoulders and the dreamy tilt to his head, so that he clapped once, loudly, in approval. People always thought you were doing it right if you did it exactly like them.

“And that is when you—” he gestured to Tony “—take her hand and begin the dance for real. All right? Now, together at last!”

Tony stepped into Jared's spot and took Pagan by the waist with one hand, taking her other hand in his. His grip, like his handshake, was a little too firm. But she stepped backward in a surprised back ocho, as she'd rehearsed it, and Tony did a good job of keeping up.

Pagan's character went through a predictable series of emotions as her solo dance became a duet. Taken aback at first, she then tried to run away from Tony, only to have him interpose and show her a few more beguiling steps. Pulled in for a few seconds, she would reject him again, and again, as he pursued and persuaded, until at last she was swept up in the dance.

The more she thought about it, the more obnoxious Tony's character became.
If a girl doesn't want to dance with you, leave her alone!
The more she thought about the script, the worse it seemed. But she'd said yes to it. She was as much to blame for the darn thing as Jared, Tony and Universal Pictures. Might as well give it her all.

Clearly Tony had been rehearsing in New York with someone, as Pagan had been practicing with Jared here in LA. They promenaded smoothly through the first part of the dance three times.

However, Tony's eyes kept dipping down to her cleavage. His hands pushed and pulled her roughly. Whenever he could, his hot hands pulled her hips in so close his hip bones poked her waist, which was both nauseating and wrong, tango-wise. Jared had to keep correcting him.

But Tony seemed to think that because Pagan's character was playing hard to get, Pagan must be doing the same. He dug his thumbs into her waist and stroked her palm with a finger at odd little moments, and when she startled or pulled away, he treated it as part of the dance.

You didn't have to like your costar to act with them. But the more Tony Perry manhandled Pagan and flashed leering smiles at her neckline, the tenser and more resentful she became. Her shoulders tightened, her arms stiffened to keep him at bay.

Maybe it was good for the dance because the fifth time they did it, Jared clapped twice, nodding. “We are getting there. Your resistance is excellent, Daisy, but you need to melt more when we get to the sentada. Again, but with more feeling, please. Remember, Daisy—” he'd taken to calling them by their character names “—Juan here is the center of gravity, and you circle around him, like a planet around the sun.”

Or like a girl around a black hole, Pagan thought. She really did not want to cross Tony's event horizon.

Tony grinned, his lips vanishing against his teeth, which gleamed unnaturally against his newly tan skin. “I'll make sure she stays in my orbit.”

Men. Always the center of everything.

She did her damnedest to set aside her percolating dislike as they ran through it again. Pagan was a better actress than a dancer, but years of lessons and hard work enabled her to keep up with anyone and give it a bit of flair. She tried to make up for anything lacking in her dancing with her acting, lending her reluctance a subtext of longing and desire. Rex Harrison couldn't sing for beans, but he'd acted up a storm while he sang in
My Fair Lady
and it turned out wonderfully. Maybe she could do the same for dancing.

It finally started to flow. She was feeling confident, graceful, sexy, until Tony threw her backward into a deep, romantic dip, brought his cheek to hers and whispered, “We're gonna do it after this, right?”

Pagan's head reared back, and she shoved at him with her free hand, trying to get her feet back under her. His grip on her right hand tightened painfully, and they struggled, with Pagan still dipped over backward.

“Let me go!” Pagan snapped, and he dropped her. She thumped to the floor, flat on her butt.

“What is this?” Jared spread his arms wide. “It was going so well.”

Pagan got to her feet, roping a leash around her mounting rage to keep herself from striking Tony. “That,” she said to her costar between clenched teeth, “was not appropriate.”

“Oh, come on,” Tony said, pushing greasy hair out of his narrowed eyes. “You put out for Nicky Raven, and I'm better looking than him. No reason you won't put out for me.”

Pagan's stomach contracted; her throat closed. For once she had no smart remark. She was shrinking inside, getting smaller and smaller. Soon there'd be nothing of her left.