Joseph Kanon - Stardust

“What’s wrong?” she said, her hands fluttery, nervous. “What’s happened?”

“I had a drink. A real eye-opener. With Dennis Riordan. Mean anything to you?”

She shook her head.

“Ex-FBI. They worked together. Danny was keeping an eye on all of you for the Bureau.” He gulped down the rest of the drink, angry at the sound of his own voice.

“All of who?”

“The Germans. All of you. Your father, I suppose. I don’t have the exact list. I’d like to get it, see how far he went. What do you think he told them about Alma? Talk about suspicious characters.” He looked up at her. “You really had no idea?”

“What, that people watched us? Of course, all during the war. My father always said. We had to be careful on the phone. They listened. You had to expect that.”

“But not from your husband. But who better? He was practically a refugee himself. He’d know everyone in the German community-he married into it. Be the most natural thing in the world for him to know what everyone was up to. Just not so natural telling the FBI about it.”

“I don’t believe you. It’s a lie.”

“Riordan told me himself. Why would he lie? What for? Why would I?”

“A man who breaks into the house-you believe him?”

“They got together again later. After the Bureau. Riordan catches Reds for Minot and Danny helped him with that, too. A name here and there-I don’t know how many. But enough to keep Riordan interested. Partners in crime.”

“It’s not true.”

“But he thinks there must be one more name. Somebody Danny didn’t get to tell him about. Whoever killed him. So he had the desk searched. A little clumsy, but he wanted to know. He sends apologies if it frightened you.”

“No, you,” she said, suddenly white, her face drained. “You frighten me.”

“Me?”

“You’ll say anything now, to make me hate him. Any lie. Daniel wouldn’t do that.”

“Yes, he would. He just wouldn’t tell you about it. Like a lot of things.”

She glared at him. “That makes it easier for you? If he was like that. Then it doesn’t matter what we do?” She went over to him, putting her fists on his chest. “Stop it.”

“You think I’d make all this up to go to bed with you? I didn’t have to, remember? I didn’t have to force you, either.”

He took her hands, holding them, close enough to feel her breathing, until she pulled them away. She looked at him, then slumped onto the couch, half-sitting on the back.

“No, you didn’t,” she said quietly. “So it’s another thing I’ve done in my life.”

He touched the side of her face, tentative, waiting for her to turn away, but she leaned into it, letting him work down to her neck.

“I’ll never force you to do anything,” he said.

“No?” she said, staring at the carpet.

“No.”

“No,” she said wearily. “That wouldn’t be-seemly.” She looked up at him. “The good brother. But not always.”

He took his hand away.

She said nothing, then got up and went over to the window again, pacing.

“And the bad one, who was supposed to do all these things-who was that? I didn’t know anybody like that.”

“Riordan saw the reports.”

“Your friend.”

“For the moment. He wants to know who killed Danny, too. His own reasons, but so what? He can help. He’s-”

“Expedient,” she said, a test answer.

“A chance. A lead.”

“It was better when it was Rosemary,” she said, picking nervously now at her fingers. “One push. You could believe it.” She paused. “What did he say about my father?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Yet?”

“I don’t know what he said about anybody. But we need to, now,” he said, including her, still together. “We need to know what he gave them. See who might have been next.”

“Oh, and they’ll tell you. How are you going to do that?”

“I thought, the way he did.”

She looked over at him.

“Work with them. Be like Danny. The one we didn’t know.”

Minot had suggested Chasen’s for lunch and Dave Chasen himself took them to the table, one of the front booths reserved for regulars and recognizable faces. Greer Garson, near the door, seemed not to know who Minot was, but most of the others parading past the table did, and the lunch was interrupted by a series of hellos and handshakes. A surprisingly public place for such a meeting, but what had he expected? Raincoats in an alley? A murky room, drapes drawn? In real life you talked at Chasen’s, hoping for a mention in the columns.

“The chili here is great,” Minot said, ordering it. “Some people never have anything else.”

“Best in L.A.,” Riordan said, a chorus.

“You notice how good Dave is? Smooth. You’re in, he’s gone. He lets you get on with it. Romanoff, he’s all over you, you can’t get rid of him. The Russian prince. Harry Gerguson, Brooklyn.” He had leaned his football shoulders forward, confiding. “That’s the real name.” He shook his head. “There’s a lot of that element here.”

“What element is that?” Ben said, on guard, as if someone had just stamped a J in his passport.

“Phonies. I like to know who people are.”

“You picked the wrong town then,” Ben said, easier. “Half the people in Hollywood have changed names.”

“Well, in the industry sure. That’s just part of the territory, isn’t it? But a waiter pretending to be-”

“A waiter,” Riordan said, amused.

“Anyway, I didn’t pick this town, you know, I was born here. Native Californian, one of the few. I’ve seen it change. A small town in those days-well, small compared-then the phonies and smart guys start coming in. Spoilers. A couple of years ago it was still just oranges here. Like a Garden of Eden. Now you have to be careful you don’t step on the snakes.” He smiled, pleased at the turn of phrase, something he could use again.

“A big city’s bound to have crime.”

“Not crime. Police can handle that. But what do we do with the others? They want to spoil what we’ve got here, where we’re going, and I still don’t know why. Some idea. Have you been down to Long Beach? You see what’s happened there since the war? We can have the biggest port in America, big as New York, and I’ll be goddamned if we’re going to let somebody like Harry Bridges close it down. San Francisco, all he’s got to do is snap his fingers and nothing moves. We don’t want that here. Man’s not even a citizen and he can push a whole city around.”

“He’s not a citizen?”

“Australian. A break for us. You can’t bust a union, but you can sure as hell deport troublemakers. Cheryl, dear.” He rose to greet a grayhaired woman in a feathery hat and fur stole. “How’s George?”

“The flowers meant so much to him, Ken, thank you.”

“Never mind about that, you just get him home. You get the best at Cedars but it’s still not home.” He patted her hand.

“At least they keep him in bed. You know what he’s like. He’ll be a bear.”

“You’ll have a nurse?”

“He says he wants Laraine Day, so I guess he’s getting better,” she said, almost winking. “Well, enjoy your lunch. I’ll tell him you asked.”

“A massive heart attack,” Minot said after she’d gone. “Richfield Petroleum. Not everyone here’s in the movies. Just the ones everybody knows about.” He took a drink from his water glass. “That makes them special. People are interested in the movies. You can get their attention.”

Ben said nothing, waiting for him.

“Dennis here tells me we might have some mutual interests.”

Ben nodded.

“I like the sound of that. That’s how I like to work. What government’s all about. Mutual interests. I don’t believe in isms. Any of them. Just getting things done. But you’ve got people out there, they have a different idea. Not to your face. A fair fight, they know they’d lose. They get underneath. Hide. That’s the way they work. We need to know who they are, get them out into the open.”