Stardust (31 page)

“He’s going on trial?”

Minot made another half smile. “No. The industry is.”

Ben looked at the broad, handsome face, remembering his hand on
Jack Warner’s shoulder, Bunny eager to please, everyone taking up positions in the chess game of the consent decree. Minot leaned forward.

“I assume all this is in confidence?”

Ben nodded, fascinated, a different game board.

“Hollywood has done a lot for this city,” Minot said. “Nobody knows better than I do. I even know the figures, which is more than you can say for most of them. And the figures are big. Since the war—” He trailed off, letting the obvious finish itself. “So now it’s like a rich widow—everyone wants something out of her. The unions want their piece. The East Coast bankers. Let’s not even think about the payoffs, let’s just pretend they don’t happen. But the Commies want something else, they want to use her to get
ideas
across.” He caught Ben’s skeptical expression. “They don’t have to be blatant. Nobody’s making
Battleship Potemkin
here. Good thing,” he said, flashing a smile. “Who the hell would go see it? Nothing that obvious. You don’t attack America. You just chip away at it. Some doubt here. Suspicion. But how do you stop them? First you have to find them.” He nodded, somehow including Ben with Danny. “Then you get them to lie. Actually show them lying. Not even their fans are going to trust them after that. You know, you can’t put someone away just for being a Commie. Conspiracy to overthrow? You spend years making a case like that. But perjury’s quick, and it’s right there. They’re lying or they’re not.” He paused. “As long as you have evidence. So you get some. You ask about files, Tenney’s got files. And Jack can be a little hasty, so god knows what he’s got in them. But we have to be more careful. We’re not just some committee in Sacramento. We’re a congressional committee. Subpoena power. You lie at the hearing, you just bought a ticket inside.”

“And if they do come across,” Riordan said, “you still have a shot at contempt.”

Ben raised his eyebrow, waiting.

“Nobody’s a Red alone,” Riordan said. “But they’re usually reluctant to say who their friends are. Even under oath.”

“So either way,” Ben said.

“Assuming we’ve got the goods on them in the first place.”

“And that’s what Danny was doing for you? Giving you movie stars for show trials?”

“No, we’re a little shy in the star department,” Minot said with a stage modesty, not catching the Moscow reference, something that had happened far away. “But any kind of friendly witness here can be something—you still get the press. There’s lots of ways you can use information. Your brother wasn’t going to testify, anything like that. I told you, he liked to play things close to the vest. Of course, if I’d really had to, I could have subpoenaed him, but why would I do that? He played fair with me. He gave me background. And you can use background in different ways. Sometimes, like I say, to set up a perjury charge. But sometimes to get people to cooperate, lead you somewhere else.”

“Give you other names.”

“That, or help in other ways. Be a friend to the committee. You know, we don’t want to hurt the industry. We want to help it protect itself.”

His voice earnest, without a trace of irony. Was it possible he really believed this? Saw himself as a savior, not just another of the rich widow’s cynical suitors, borrowing her limelight?

“So, are you going to be a friend to the committee?” he said casually, bringing his hands together, fingers touching, putting a question.

But when he looked at Ben, not smiling, his whole body seemed to tense, expectant, as if he were waiting for the snap of the ball, and Ben saw that the rest of the lunch didn’t matter, just this moment. He sat fixed by Minot’s gaze, in a kind of quiet panic, feeling exposed, like the second before you leaned forward to a woman, crossing a line. He thought, wildly, of the first night with Liesl, being drawn in, no going back.

“He was my brother,” he said finally, hoping his voice sounded steady, plausible. “I want to know who did it. I think we both owe him that.”

Minot said nothing, assessing, then nodded, the bargain struck, that easy.

“Everything goes through Dennis, understand? Not through my office.
When we’re ready for subpoenas, we want them to come as a surprise.”

“Like an ambush.”

Minot hesitated for a second, then smiled. “That’s right. By the good guys this time.”

“Ben, how nice. You’re
every
where.”

Paulette Goddard on her way in. He stood up, taking her offered hand.

“Paulette. You remember Congressman Minot?”

“Of course, at the Lasners’. Nice to see you again.” An efficient smile, not overlong.

“Dennis Riordan.”

“Mr. Riordan,” she said. “Goodness, you all look so
serious
.”

“That’s what happens with just Dennis to look at,” Minot joked, a compliment to her. She was wearing lunch jewels, a solitary drop and a diamond bracelet, everything about her shiny.

“I’m here to eat humble pie with Polly,” she said. “Apparently I owed her a train interview and she’s been seething. Nice if they had told
me
. But I’m the one in the doghouse.”

“Not for long, I’ll bet,” Minot said, smiling.

“My god, is that chili? At this hour. Men.” She rolled her eyes. “I don’t suppose you have anything I can give her,” she said to Ben. “Otherwise she’ll just go on about Charlie again, and what am I supposed to say?”

“Just kiss and make up,” Ben said.

She giggled. “In Chasen’s. Wouldn’t they be surprised. Well, I’ll let you get back to business. Three men, it’s always business. Don’t sign anything,” she said, putting a finger on Ben’s chest. “That’s my motto. Ken.” She nodded to Minot, remembering his name. When she left, there was a trace of perfume.

“That’s some good-looking woman,” Riordan said.

“Hard to believe she was married to him,” Minot said.

“Chaplin?” Ben said. “That was a while ago.”

“When he wanted to open a second front. Just a little earlier than
Ike did. I’d like to get him in front of a microphone now. Tell us all about his Russian friends.”

“I can’t help you there,” Ben said, moving him away from it. “Never met him. Anyway, I doubt they ever talked politics. Would you? With her?”

“Not me,” Riordan said, grinning.

“I don’t want you to expect too much,” Ben said to Minot. “I don’t know the people Danny knew.”

“They’ll know you,” Minot said. “They’ll want to know if you’re sympathetic. His brother. They’ll come to you.”

“But I’ll have no way of knowing whether they’re really— How far it goes.”

“Leave that to Dennis. We’re just looking for background. Sympathies.”

“It would help if I knew who he’d already—”

Minot nodded. “Dennis can help you with that, too. Keep in mind, some of those people agreed to be friends. Protected friends. Even from you. We promised them that.”

Ben looked at his smooth, untroubled face, the careful eyes. What had those conversations been like? No one will know if—not blackmail, just a sensible arrangement to keep information coming. A friend to the committee. What he’d promised now, too. He shifted in the booth, feeling suddenly hemmed in. You can do business with anyone, Otto had said. Until he couldn’t. Across the room, Paulette was ordering a drink. Don’t sign anything. He could still say no, go over to her table, stay in the bright world.

“You understand,” Minot said.

“What you want to do,” Riordan said, “now that we think it’s like this, is go through everything again, calendars, things like that, who he was seeing. He’s not going to pick a name out of the blue. What you want are the contacts. Who’d he take to that room, anyway? Any idea?”

Ben shook his head, surprised at how easy it was to lie. Just another move on the board, protecting your pawn.

“You take a room, it’s somebody to you. You’d talk.”

“You know,” Minot said, slowing them down, “to kill someone, you’d have to have an awful lot at stake. Something important to protect. The people we know about—they’re writers, studio people who wrote a few checks to send an ambulance to Spain, people like that. So who else?” His voice more excited now. “Who had a reputation so big you’d kill to protect it?”

A reputation, Ben thought, you could showcase in a hearing room, newsreel cameras turning while you pounded a gavel.

“You mean a star,” Ben said.

“It’s possible.”

“But everyone thinks his reputation’s important. If somebody’s threatening you, everything you have. Something like this, exposing people—you set up conditions.” He looked at Minot. “You have to be careful.”

“Do you mean me?”

“I meant Danny. But let’s face it, Congressman, you keep going, a few people might think they had a reason to kill you.”

“What kind of talk is this?” Riordan said.

“Just making a point.”

Minot reached over to sign the check, a house account. “Some point. Are we done here, gentlemen?”

They made their way out the door, through another round of nods and waves, and almost collided with Polly rushing in. She was tottering in her heels, the way she had been that morning at Union Station, but came to a dead stop when she saw Minot.

“Congressman,” she said, flustered, a hesitation Ben took as a sign of respect.

“Polly, I’ve been meaning to call you.”

“Me?” she said, almost girlish.

“That piece Sunday. I just hope everybody reads it. Stars still in the service. You know my office gets calls every day—the war’s over, when is he coming home? Now we can say, look at this. Did you read Polly Marks? Is Bob Montgomery home yet? Movie stars. But they’re not
bellyaching. They’re doing what we all need to do, hang in there till the job’s done.”

Ben watched, fascinated, as this rolled out in what seemed to be one breath, effortless.

“Congressman—”

“I take my hat off to you. What’s Winchell say? Orchids? An orchid for that one. You know Dennis, I think. My friend Ben Collier here? He’s still in the service, come to think of it. Still working for Uncle Sam. Making one of those great pictures the WAC’s been putting out this year. It’s not over for them.”

“Yes, at Continental. Of course. Good to see you again,” she said, her eyes almost doing a double take. Someone she hadn’t quite got the measure of before, a friend of Minot’s. “I hear Sol Lasner thinks the world of you.”

Ben shrugged, not knowing how to respond.

“Awful about Fay’s cousin, isn’t it? I heard you were there.”

“Terrible,” he agreed, noncommittal, avoiding her eyes.

“You’d think they could’ve met at Sol’s, not have her drive way out there. Road like that. Probably feels terrible about it now.”

“Who?”

“Whoever she was meeting. The one who called.”

“What?” he said, everything stopping for a second, his whole body rooted.

“Somebody called her, that afternoon. They think that’s why she went out.”

“I hadn’t heard that.”

How had she? Fay? Lorna? The Hollywood switchboard.

“And in the rain. You’d think—but you never know about people, do you?”

“Well, you do,” Minot said, “that’s for sure. There’s not much Polly misses, or so they tell me.” A wrapping-up voice, ready to leave. Riordan, hearing it, handed a stub to the parking attendant.

“I get paid not to miss anything,” Polly said, smiling again, flattered.

“Well, you keep writing pieces like Sunday’s, they’d better give you a raise. You can tell them I said so, too,” he said, a verbal wink. “That was fine work. Nice to run into you.” Moving her through the door before she could say anything else.

Ben stood still, only vaguely aware of them. Who would she have been meeting? Not Feuchtwanger. Had she been peering through the rain, looking for house numbers? But the houses stopped and she had gone on. But not necessarily lost, or alone.

“That’s a powerful lady,” Minot was saying. “Do you know how many people—first thing they do in the morning, turn to Polly? Millions.”

“One hundred twenty-three newspapers,” Ben said dully, still preoccupied.

Minot looked at him, surprised, then let it pass. “And the radio,” he said. “A good friend to have.” His car was being brought up. “I’m glad we could do this,” he said to Ben. “I think we can do some good work. You know the MPC?”

Ben shook his head.

“Motion Picture Council. For the First Amendment.”

“Pinks,” Riordan said.

“But not a front group. Legitimate. You might think about joining it. Show them where your heart is. What you might be ready for. Let them approach you.” He paused, an interior debate. “How well do you know Kaltenbach?”

“I’ve met him. He’s close to Ostermann. I thought you weren’t interested in the Germans.”

“Only if they’re in the industry.”

“He had a lifesaver contract at Warners in ’forty-one. One year. He hasn’t worked since.”

“At a hundred dollars a week. That still sounds like a lot of money to some people. Hollywood money.”

“He’s nobody.”

“The Germans don’t seem to think so. The East Germans.”

“He’s a famous writer there. Nobody’s heard of him here.”

“Maybe he’ll be better known.”

Ben watched him hand some money to the attendant.

“How?” he said, apprehensive.

“Be a help to us if you could let us know what his plans are.”

“I thought you said—”

“The State Department’s unreliable. People write them—influential people—and they do things they shouldn’t. If it were me, there wouldn’t be a hope in hell he could go anywhere, but it’s not up to me. So we need to keep an eye on him. I don’t want him taking any trips. Not before the hearings.”

“You’re going to call him? He’s a Communist?”

Minot shook his head. “No, just two meetings. A little window shopping. But we can put him at the meetings. That means he can tell us who else was there.”

“I don’t think he’ll do that.”

“He’ll have a lot of incentive under oath.”

“Who put him at the meetings?” Ben said, queasy, already knowing.

Minot looked at him, not saying anything.

“Danny saved his life, in France.”