Nina Berry - City Of Spies

For once, Mercedes didn’t grumble and pull away. She patted Pagan’s arm awkwardly. “Guess that’s okay with you.”

Pagan laughed and stepped back. “It’s great with me! I promise I won’t suck you into it too much. No violence.”

“We should review the self-defense moves I taught you back in reform school. And when we get back here, we should get a dog.”

“A big dog.” Pagan looked out the kitchen window at the backyard and switched off the lights. “And maybe some electric fencing, snares and booby traps.”

Thump!

Pagan jumped two feet in the air as something slammed into the front door of the house. Mercedes frowned. “They wouldn’t be stupid enough to come back.”

They walked side by side down the hallway to the foyer. Mercedes sidled up to the side window and peered through the curtains. “A man’s walking back down the driveway. Nobody I know. And there’s nobody else.”

“Well, then, what...?” Pagan unlocked the door and tugged it open a few inches.

A large brown envelope flopped down from where it had been leaning against the door. In black marker someone had printed Pagan Jones on it.

Pagan stooped to pick it up, pulling up the flap.

About a hundred pages of three-hole paper slid out, bound together with metal fasteners in the top and bottom holes.

The print on the front page said Two to Tango. A Universal Pictures Production.

Pagan laughed. “It’s the script for the Buenos Aires movie.”

“It better be good,” said Mercedes, and locked the door.

CHAPTER THREE

Hollywood, California

December 16, 1961

SEGUIDILLAS

Tiny, quick steps, usually seen in orillero style tango.

The script had been written by monkeys pulling random phrases out of a hat full of Hollywood clichés. After reading a few pages, Pagan had trouble forcing her eyes over the hammy dialogue and overwrought scene direction.

The plot was something she’d seen a thousand times—a girl on the cusp of womanhood from the US goes to exotic Buenos Aires on vacation, where she can’t decide between the two men vying for her affections. One was a tall handsome blond American—kind, but a little boring. The other was a darkly handsome Argentinean gaucho, their version of a cowboy, whose seductive tangos and moonlit serenades on his Spanish guitar were too much for the naive girl to resist.

Ten pages in, Pagan knew her character ended up with the American boy. It was too obvious that the “exotic” man was up to no good, and that his dangerous foreign ways and wandering hands would send the silly American girl scurrying back to the safety and security of the American boy.

Mercedes threw it down after five pages. “You’re going to have to tango and sing and say these terrible lines. You’re going to have to—” she grabbed the script and read from it out loud “‘—fall under the gaucho’s tropical spell.’”

“Is Buenos Aires tropical?” Pagan frowned.

Mercedes snorted. “Don’t you know? All dark-skinned people live in jungles.”

“I wouldn’t count on his skin being all that dark. They’ve cast a Broadway actor named Tony Perry as Juan, the seductive Latin man who—” Pagan grabbed the script from Mercedes “‘—tangos with the dangerous stealth of an enormous black panther.’”

Mercedes let out a scornful laugh. “And plays the guitar while riding a horse.”

“Excuse me, but don’t you mean—” Pagan read from the script again “‘—caresses the neck of his smooth wooden instrument with the consummate skill of a virtuoso’?”

Mercedes shook her head. “His instrument’s wood? Don’t let him get anywhere near you with that.”

Pagan gasped with mock horror. “Dirty jokes before breakfast! I better make us some eggs.”

After breakfast, Mercedes went back to studying for her exams, nose in her astronomy textbook, while Pagan called her agent, Jerry Allenberg. “Tell them I’ll do this Two to Tango movie,” she told him.

“I’m sorry, what?” Jerry said, speaking as if to an idiot or small child. “Have you lost your mind?”

“Maybe, but I’m doing it, Jerry. I’ll need to brush up on my tango before it starts shooting in January.”

“And dance your way right out of a career? No way, Pagan. I’m not letting you do it.”

Pagan took a deep breath. Jerry’s concern over her career went straight past paternal to pathological now that she was on the wagon and doing better. “You don’t get to decide what I do, Jerry,” she said.

“But you’re in the middle of a comeback!” Something in the background thumped, as if he’d dropped his feet off the desk to stand up and yell at her. “I never thought I’d say this after your disasters last year, but Bennie Wexler thinks you’re gold and Tony Richardson loved working with you so much on Daughter of Silence he’s talking awards at Cannes. Not for the movie, but for you. Did you hear me? You could be nominated for Best Actress at Cannes, Pagan! Somehow you’re moving away from movies like Beach Bound Beverly into A-list material with the best writers and directors. It’s a miracle! Don’t do this turd of a script and mess it all up. I’m begging you.”

“Most people don’t yell when they beg,” Pagan said. What he said made her uneasy. “You really think one mediocre movie could cancel out the good ones?”

“This could cost you the award at Cannes,” he said. “And, I didn’t want to say anything, but they’re talking about a possible Oscar campaign, too.”

Once upon a time, getting an Oscar had been Pagan’s biggest dream. But now, when she weighed that against the chance to find out more about her mother, to help her country, to catch a Nazi who probably escaped from justice? The awards seemed like Tinkertoys.

Time for the trump card. “Do you remember our friend Devin Black?”

Silence. Then a thump and a squeak of chair springs as Jerry sat back down. Jerry had caved in to Devin before, when he’d negotiated Pagan’s contract for Neither Here Nor There in Berlin in August. Pagan had never learned exactly what hold Devin had over Jerry, but it seemed to involve blackmail. Jerry probably didn’t know who Devin worked for, but he was no fool. “Devin Black’s involved in this tango turd?”

“He asked me to do it. And I want to do it,” Pagan said. And waited.

Another silence. “Okay. So. You’re doing it,” Jerry finally said. “But if at any point you or Mr. Black wish to extricate yourself from this awful picture, you let me know. It’ll be worth the penalties to your contract.”

“Thanks, Jerry,” Pagan said.

“Yeah, yeah.” He paused. “The studio’s going to owe you big for this one. Anything special you want during the shoot I can demand? Caviar every day, maybe? A personal masseuse?”

Pagan glanced over at Mercedes, who was underlining something in her book. “I want to bring my best friend along with me for a week. They could pay for a nice hotel suite for the two of us, and her airfare as well as mine. If you think you can manage that.”

“Best friend, airfare, hotel suite,” he pronounced, as if writing it down. Sharply, he added, “Is Devin Black okay with her being there?”

Pagan hadn’t thought of that. The CIA might not want her to have someone living in her suite with her, for secrecy’s sake. Well, that was too bad. “If anyone kicks back over her being there, you tell them she comes or I’m out.”

“If we’re lucky, they’ll kick back,” Jerry muttered. “When producers ask me about this horrible movie later, can I tell them you were back on the bottle when you agreed to do it?”

“Jerry!” Pagan scolded.

“Yeah, yeah, that would be even worse for your rep. I know.” He sighed heavily. “You really okay with this, kid?”