Joseph Kanon - Stardust

“Sure I can’t give you a lift?”

“No, my car’s over there,” Ben said, nodding to the dark parking lot.

Minot reached out for the door handle then hesitated, turning. “Have you seen Kaltenbach?” he said, lowering his voice. “I keep hearing things. We don’t want to have to move too early, tip our hand. One subpoena too soon, it’s like scaring birds, they start flying all over the place. You want to get the timing right.” He hesitated again. “I’d appreciate it if you spent a little time with him. I know you’ve got something else on your mind and that’s fine, but right now we could use someone inside. I’d think of it as a favor.”

Ben watched his car go, then started over to his own, thinking. A friend of ours. But how willing? Danny said it had cost him a job. He looked toward the dark building then suddenly, with a wheel click, he was back on the Chief. Something that hadn’t worked out. Sol couldn’t remember why.

Frank looked up from a magazine when Ben tapped on the glass.

“Like a dummy, I forgot something and Ken took the key. Do you have a pass? Take me a second.”

The first name did it. A man who’d asked about his wife. Frank led him down the hall and found the key on his ring.

“Thanks. Appreciate it,” Ben said, but Frank stayed with him, just inside the door.

He went over to the bottom drawer and flipped through the tabs. There might have been other jobs, not necessarily- But there it was, Jenkins, so thin he almost missed it. He slipped the file under his arm.

“I owe you one,” he said to Frank, putting on a relieved expression, his homework safe in hand.

In the car he flicked on the overhead light. A studio bio sheet, innocuous, presumably there for reference, and a single report sheet.

“Subject JENKINS attended discussion group 1940, CP Westwood, guest of J. MacDonald.”

Source initial K in the margin. One meeting. Not enough to suggest any serious political window shopping, much less something to use against him later. Maybe it had been nothing more than a courtesy drop-in for MacDonald’s sake. Why even bother to keep the report, now that he was a friend? But why look for logic in any of it? Why report that Kranzler had asked a GI up to his room, that Brecht had arranged trysts at Salka’s, that Rosemary read Collier’s? The peeping, like any compulsion, was an end in itself. No information was useless if the point was the gathering. A brief word from Danny, now permanently on file. To hold over Bunny’s head, keep him friendly? But Bunny had reasons of his own to get close to Minot. Why would he care about this?

Still, he had-enough to be angry with Danny. Maybe it was nothing more than the startled, uneasy feeling of someone who realizes he’s being watched through the window, anger a natural reflex. Maybe it had to do with MacDonald, a name to check the next time he got into the files. But not angry enough to kill. A job denied, no more. I knew who he was, he’d said to Ben. No explanation necessary when Riordan asked him to make the call. Maybe even a touch of satisfaction, bringing source K to an end.

Ben switched off the light and lit a cigarette. Rosemary’s file was more damaging-not a summer camp the studio would want to see written up in Photoplay. Ben wondered if Bunny knew about the report-more interesting, if Rosemary knew about it. Her moment, with everything at stake. There was nothing to indicate that Danny had ever betrayed her. What if she’d thought he had? But Bunny hadn’t made the call for her, he’d made it for Riordan.

He looked up, his eyes caught by the headlights sweeping into the parking lot. Not Minot again, a smaller car. It pulled up to the door, and the driver ran up the steps, tapping on the glass. It was only when Frank turned on another light that the driver became more than a shadow. For a minute Ben still didn’t recognize him-a natural lag, seeing something unexpected, out of place. Frank opened the door and handed over Minot’s envelope, then Kelly started back down the stairs. Ben watched, moving pieces around in his head. Kelly playing messenger. For Minot? But at the Farmers Market he hadn’t known Riordan. The connection must be at the other end.

There wasn’t time to sort it out. Kelly’s lights came on again, the car starting for the street. Almost without thinking, Ben turned the key. Kelly. Getting something for the paper? But at Wilshire he was turning away from downtown, heading toward Beverly Hills. Just keep a few lengths behind. No one ever noticed a tail if he wasn’t looking for it. Kelly was leaning forward to turn the radio knob, just going about his business, whatever it was.

After El Camino, Kelly turned right, passing blocks of stores and then crossing Santa Monica to the horseshoe-curve streets of the flats below Sunset. Ben slowed, dropping farther behind. The streets were empty, dark between the corner lights, half-asleep. Just stop signs now, not enough traffic for lights. Another right turn.

The house was halfway up the block. Ben parked a little way down and across, killing his lights, the car swallowed up in the shade of a big pepper tree. Kelly was walking up the curved pavement. He rang the bell, waited, looking up at the fanlight. A brighter light, then the door opened and Polly Marks stepped out, a drink in one hand. Running an errand for Polly. Not for the first time. A few familiar words, the envelope delivered, and she was turning back to her drink, all in one gliding movement, something they’d done before. In time to get it into the typewriter, a leak from the files. More kindling. He watched Kelly drive away, then sat for a minute looking at the quiet street-shrubs and lawns and even a trellis of flowers. No sound but crickets, peaceful and unaware, not a flame in sight.

He was surprised when Riordan answered the phone.

“You’re there early.”

“Ken likes it. Navy hours or some shit,” Riordan said, his voice husky, only half-awake.

“Studio hours, too,” Ben said, looking at the pile of paper already on his desk. Outside, technicians with coffee cups were heading for the sound stages. “Anyway, I’m glad I caught you.”

“What I hear, Ken caught you. You don’t want to surprise him like that. He gets riled up.”

“I was just checking names.”

“Not anymore,” he said, a thud in his voice. “Files are closed.”

“Great. Open one for me then, will you? See if you have anything on a J. MacDonald. M-a-c. Even a cross-reference.”

“Who is he?”

“That’s what I’m asking you. His name came up, that’s all.”

“Came up how?”

“Dennis, are you going to do this or not? Just see what you have.”

A hesitation, then an exaggerated sigh. “Give me a sec.”

Ben heard the receiver being laid on the desk, the sharp metallic scrape of a file drawer opening. A meeting five years ago.

“Music department. Universal,” Riordan said, reading.

“CP?”

“Not in here. Fellow traveler, though. Lots of organizations, the usual pink. Went into the Army ’forty-two. That’s the last thing we have. Want me to check some more?”

“Check what?”

“Army records. Friend of mine has access. See if he was discharged. Died, maybe.”

“Who was the source on the file?”

“No source, just a general. Stuff you can pull from the papers. This goes back some, nothing recent. You think your brother knew him?”

“Maybe just a loose end. I mean, if there’s been nothing for years-” But he must have known his name. At least well enough to mention it in Bunny’s file. “You have an old address?”

“Uh uh. Nobody ever wrote him up. He’s just a guy on some lists, so they made a file. Strictly what he joined. Anti-Fascist League, things like that. How’d you say he came up?”