Joseph Kanon - Stardust

She put her hand on his forehead. “Never,” she said softly.

Ben stared at Lasner, hearing his words again, an echo effect. But not the way Danny had said them, meaning something else.

“I’ll come out with you,” Fay said, dismissing them, and for a second Ben saw a twitch in Bunny’s face, annoyed at their being lumped together.

Lasner managed a half wave from the bed. “Don’t be scarce,” he said.

In the hall, Bunny huddled for a minute with Fay, presumably getting a medical report, then joined Ben at the elevators. “I turn my back for two hours,” he said.

“There was nothing anybody could do. Even you. He knew what he was doing.”

“Mm. Putting himself in here. And Minot’s back tomorrow.”

“I don’t think so.”

“With a grudge. A little tantrum from Mr. L and you think he’s all taken care of.”

“He will be.”

Bunny looked up sharply. “What do you mean?”

“Read the papers tomorrow.”

Polly had suggested the Formosa, and when Ben got there she was already settled in a red leather booth, nursing a Gibson.

“I went ahead,” she said after he ordered. “Talk about a day for it. Gives you a turn, seeing that. I’ve known Sol a lot of years.” She looked up, narrowing her eyes. Her hat, the mesh veil thrown back for drinking, was tilted slightly. “You were at the hospital. How is he?”

Ben shrugged, noncommittal.

“They said stable. Stable could be dead. I should probably be there, in case. But they just stick you in the waiting room. Anyway,” she said, switching, “I have this meeting. Where you’re going to give me a story and I’m going to do you a favor. Surprise me. Tell me you’re not trying to get into somebody’s pants.” She finished off the drink and raised her finger for another. “So what do you want?”

“Want to hear the story first?”

“No. First tell me what it’s going to cost.”

“Minot fed you some material on Rosemary. I want you to kill it. For good.”

“Christ,” Polly said, picking up her fresh drink. “Her pants. That’s not even a surprise.”

“It would be to her.”

“So why- Anyway, how do you know he fed me anything?”

“Because he did. Jump page stuff, I’ve seen the file. You can do better.”

“With you.” She looked at him. “Now why is that? You don’t even like me, do you?”

“I think you’re a cunt.”

She stopped sipping her drink, then laughed into it, almost spitting. “Well, that puts it right out there, doesn’t it?”

“It got your attention.”

“No, I think you mean it. So why are we here?”

“To do a little business.”

“You’re lucky I don’t throw this drink in your face.” She stared at him for a second. “All right. What have you got?”

“You kill the Rosemary story.”

“You going to tell me or just sit there and play with yourself?”

“My brother worked for Minot. A supplier. Trouble is, his supplies were tainted. He was also a Communist. A real one, Party member. Still active. The Communists have been setting Minot up. A lot of the stuff he’s using he got from them. Some of the stuff he gave you, too, probably, but you don’t have to mention that. Minot had a Commie working for him and didn’t know it. To undermine the hearings, make him use bad information. Which could blow up in his face. Will. Unless somebody blows the whistle first.”

Polly said nothing, just sat looking at him, then raised the glass to her mouth, her head shaking a little. “Somebody like who?”

“Brenda Starr,” Ben said, opening his hand to her.

Another silence.

“And how do I back this up?”

“You have an exclusive interview with his brother. On the record. I can tell you how Minot’s files were set up, how they marked the information from him. He ever give you any files direct? I’ll show you how he sourced them. I can fill you in about Danny’s Party membership. Since Germany. How he gave Minot stuff only another Communist could know. Not ex-still. You want to back up further than that, you can source Riordan. Off the record, but he’ll back me up about the files.”

“You can prove this? Documents?”

“If I have to. But I won’t. Look where it’s coming from. His brother. I know. Straight from him. Anybody comes after you, they’re really coming after me. I’ll give you an escape hatch. But who’s going to deny it, the Commies? When I’m the source? Nobody else has this. Interested?”

She looked into her drink, thinking. “You didn’t like your brother much, huh?”

Ben looked away. “Not much. Not now, anyway. That I know what he was. If he hadn’t died, he’d still be doing it. Setting Minot up.”

“How do I know you’re not setting me up?”

“For what? Look, if you don’t want it, I can go somewhere else.”

“But you’re so fond of me.”

“You know you’re the first person I met out here? Union Station.”

“And I have some dirt on your girlfriend.”

Ben shook his head. “Not only that. You hate Communists, everybody knows that, so who better? And it’s your town. Maybe you deserve each other. But here’s a chance to show what the Commies are trying to do to it. Minot uses this net with all these holes in it and who gets away? Who wins?”

“Look at you. The all-American canary.”

“No, Minot’s the all-American. Too bad he’s also a fool.”

“This would- Ken’s a friend of mine.”

“Don’t make me laugh.”

She looked over at him, bristling.

“Don’t make me laugh,” Ben said, slower this time, a lead-in. “I was in that hearing room today. Know what I smelled? Blood. You smelled it, too, didn’t you? He’s finished there, he made a fool of himself, even before it comes out how the Commies were using him. Lasner’s going to die, and everybody’s going to blame Minot. The whole town. Including you. The big funeral piece. One of the giants of old Hollywood. You can even throw in that fucking barn where DeMille started. The old days with Rex. You won’t even have to say Minot bullied him to death, everybody already thinks it. They’ll thank you for showing him up before he could go after anybody else. You have a lot of friends in the industry, it’s where you live. He’s just passing through, see what he can get out of it. And he’s already on the floor bleeding.”

He waited another minute while she digested this, her eyes wide, calculating.

“You want to do the interview we should go to your office, not sit in a bar. Tape it, if you want. On the record. I’ve got some paperwork, too. So you won’t be nervous about using any of it. Do you want it? Part one?”

“Part one.”

“There’s more, but we don’t want to throw everything out there right away. It’s all page one, milk it. In fact, that’s part of the deal, you saying there’s more. Even more sensational. What Danny was doing beside feeding Minot. Exclusive from me. I’ll help you write it.”

“But you’re not going to tell me what it is.”

“I will.”

“How do I know?”

“Because I’m promising you. Or another story, just as big.”

“What?”

“A murder.”

“Yeah? Whose?”

“Mine.”

She blinked, then took up her glass. “Ha ha.”

“Don’t worry. I’m good for it. One or the other.”

“You’d better be. You hang me out to dry and I’ll kill you myself.”

“So we lose the Rosemary story?”

“There’s just one little problem with that. I gave it to Kelly. Not all of it, but enough to get him some space.”

“Then pull it back.”

“That doesn’t leave him with much.”

They met each other’s eyes, holding their glasses as if they were looking over cards.