Joseph Kanon - Stardust

“They’re calling him, Milton.”

“Sol? What for?”

“What for.”

“Because I worked for him?”

“No, he’s doing a picture with Stalin. What for.”

“This wasn’t my idea, Bunny.”

“I have to run, Milton.”

“Bunny. They’re not going to pick up my option. Not after this. I can work quiet. No credit.”

“I can’t, Milton,” Bunny said, meeting his eyes. “I can’t.” He glanced over Schaeffer’s shoulders. “Look sharp. Here comes Judge Hardy.”

Schaeffer moved away without bothering to turn, as if Minot were a scent he’d picked up in the air.

“You said you wouldn’t call Mr. L,” Bunny said, his mouth clenched.

“We both said things.”

“Call it off.”

“The subpoena’s been issued.”

“Dismiss it.”

“You think the studios run this town, don’t you? Nobody elected the studios.”

“He’s not a good enemy to make.”

“Neither am I. Don’t get yourself in a swivet. You tell Lasner to behave. He cooperates, everybody’s fine. He gets to be a patriot and I get to send a message.”

“To whom?”

“You think it’s still twenty years ago, picture people can do anything they want. What did Comrade Schaeffer say? Things change.”

“Don’t do this. I mean it.”

“You mean it.” He made a face. “I appreciate the advice.”

“Want some more? Professional? You’re flopping in there.”

Minot blinked, then looked at him steadily. “Things’ll pick up tomorrow.”

Ben decided to leave before Minot had finished with Schaeffer. The testimony had grown repetitive, used up. Once Schaeffer had admitted to being a Communist, Minot was left with the less exciting story of what he’d actually done, discussion groups and petitions and rallies no one remembered. Still, a Red in the industry-how many more?

He found Hal in the cutting room, finishing the last of the camp footage.

“I thought you were with the lawyers,” Ben said.

“I was. Now I’m supposed to be thinking of anybody who could have been-you know. So I thought I’d get this done. In case things get busy. I hear Dick did a little flag waving.”

“It’s that kind of occasion. What did the lawyers tell you?”

“Be polite. Don’t volunteer. Make him work for it. Whatever that’s going to be.”

Ben leaned toward the Moviola. “Didn’t we already cut this?”

“I was just trying something.”

“What?”

“Seeing how it would work without the Artkino footage,” he said, self-conscious, trying to be casual.

“How does it?” Ben said quietly.

“You don’t want anybody saying-” He looked away. “It’s just in case. You have to pick your fights. You want this made.”

He ran into Lasner in the Admin men’s room, a surprise since his office had its own bathroom.

“Lawyers. It’s the only place I can get some peace,” Lasner said to him in the mirror, his face sagged, slightly withdrawn, the way it had looked during the street fight on Gower, trying to make sense of things. “So you were there? What’s he going to want?”

“Keep himself in the papers for a while.”

“No. From me.”

Ben joined him at the sink. “To go along. Treat him like a big shot.”

“That’s what Bunny says. It’ll blow over. What’ll blow over? I don’t know, a man comes, eats in your house, you make a party for him, and then this. So maybe Bunny doesn’t know what he’s talking about, either.”

“It worked with Dick. It was all right.”

“Did I know I was hiring Commies? Jesus Christ, Milt Schaeffer. If that’s what the Russians got, we don’t have a thing to worry about.”

“He’s not trying to make you look bad.”

“I thought you knew something about pictures.” He raised his hands, framing. “You argue with him, you’re a Commie-sticking up for them, same thing. You don’t argue, yes sir, you’re an idiot for using Milt in the first place. Either way, he’s a smart guy and you’re a putz.”

Ben said nothing.

“So that’s what everybody thinks? Bunny. You. Keep your head down. Be a putz.”

“He can make trouble for the studio.”

Lasner nodded, conceding the point. “When did that happen? I’ve been thinking about that. When did we let that happen, he wins either way?”

Ben looked at him, suddenly back with Ostermann. “A little bit at a time.”

The next day a steady drizzle came with the morning fog, blurring visibility, everything beyond the next block only half-seen through a gray scrim. Bad weather anywhere else was just part of life. Here it became disturbing, a form of disillusion. Wet palm fronds drooped, pastel stucco walls streaked grime. Without the lighting effects of sunshine, the city was shabby, the realtors’ promises turned into streets of disappointment. Traffic barely moved. The hearings would start late.

Ben turned on the radio to cover the dull squish of the windshield wipers and found Minot on the news, an interview from the federal building, predicting more revelations.

“Where’s the front line in this war? Not some ditch, some atoll in the Pacific. It’s in everything we see and hear, the values our children are being taught. The Commies don’t fight where we can see them. They’d rather sneak something in with the popcorn.”

Go to Berlin, Ben thought, there’s a front line there-machine guns and checkpoints, right out in the open. Talk to some of the DPs, the ones from the east, watch how they scuttle away from the Soviet soldiers, an animal fear. But Minot never brought up the genuine horrors, the show trials and mass executions. Communism was for him a purely domestic threat. The Russians, the visible menace, weren’t on trial- Milt Schaeffer was, who’d left the Party in ’39. Assuming anyone really left. Danny apparently hadn’t, working for them, according to Henderson, right up to the end. But doing what? Playing both sides against each other, or only deceiving one? Or had the loyalties become so tangled that he no longer knew? Ben grimaced, seeing Danny at the witness table, facing the committee, finally answering for whatever he’d done. Except that he had already answered.

Minot started with Hal Jasper. At first Ben thought, Bunny’s lesson taken, that Minot was building his case, then realized there was a pettier motive-he wanted to make Lasner wait. He had been the big draw earlier in the hall, Fay on his arm, both smiling for reporters. Now, wedged in the Continental row with Bunny and the lawyers, he was just another witness, with Minot calling the shots.

“Mr. Jasper, it’s our understanding that Mr. Schaeffer requested you for Convoy to Murmansk. Were you aware of this?”

“No.”

“In writing. There’s a memo to that effect.”

Ben glanced over at Bunny. Something that could only have come from him, in more cooperative times.

“Can you think of any reason why he would do that?”

“No,” Hal said again, not giving him anything.

“You’d never worked together before?”

“No.”

“Had you done any action pictures? Before Convoy?”

“One or two.”

“What were their names, do you remember?”

Hal looked puzzled, wondering where this was going. “ Apache Trail. One or two others.”

“These were Westerns?”

“Yes.”

“Not war movies. And yet Mr. Schaeffer requested you. Someone who had no experience with this kind of picture. Why do you think that was?”

“The process is the same. You’re still cutting action scenes.”

“I see. Posses, convoys, it makes no never mind.”

Hal said nothing, waiting.

“It couldn’t have been for your political sympathies, could it?”

“No.”

Minot smiled pleasantly. “Just your Western expertise. I’d like to show you a photograph. Put it up here on a screen so we can all see it.” Behind him, a slide was projected, Hal fighting in Gower Street. “Now that fellow there, center right, I think we can all agree that’s you?”