Douglas Kennedy - The Pursuit of Happiness

'"I would never dream of..."

'"Bullshit, Bert. You've got two ex-wives and three kids in private school. All you kvetch about is how you haven't got enough money to pay for those showgirls you like to bang..."

'"Keep your fucking voice down..."

'"They're destroying me, and you want me to fucking whisper?"

'"All right, all right," Bert said quietly. "This is awful. This is shit. I can't agree with you more. But Eric, I have no influence with these assholes. Nobody does. They have their own rules..."

'"Unconstitutional rules."

'"That may be... but everyone's too scared to say that."

'"Bert, you've got to tell me: did you give them my name?"

'"Hand on my heart, on my children's lives, I swear to you: no, I didn't."

'"But you did cooperate with them, didn't you?"

'"Eric, please..."

'"Answer me."

'He pressed the heels of both hands against his eyes. When he pulled them away, his eyes were wet. "Yeah," he said softly. "I gave them some names."

'"Some?"

'"Two or three... maybe four. But honestly, Eric - the names I gave... they were people who were going to get investigated no matter what. I mean, I was telling them stuff they already knew."

'He looked at me, begging for understanding, for absolution. I didn't know what to say. He saw this. "Don't give me that contemptuous silent shit," he said, suddenly angry. "I had no choice. I have mouths to feed, responsibilities to meet. If I'd refused to cooperate..."

'"I know: you would have lost everything. Now if the guys you named refuse to cooperate, they'll lose everything. I think it's called passing the buck."

'"Go on then," he hissed at me. "Play the goddamn saint. Win a fucking Oscar for virtue and nobility."

'"They're going to fire me anyway - now that they know my dirty little secret."

'"If you cooperate with the Feds, the network won't fire you."

'"You don't know that."

'"Yes, I do. Because Frankel and Golden in Legal Affairs assured me that, as long as you helped Agent Sweet, NBC would turn a blind eye to... uh... your domestic arrangements."

'"You have that in writing?"

'"Are you nuts? They're not going to put that in writing, because they're holding all the cards. But I know for a fact that if you help them out, they won't fire you. As I said upstairs, no one wants to lose you. You're valuable to the network. And, personally speaking, I hope I can still call you my friend."

'That's when I stood up and walked right out of the deli. That was, what? Five yesterday afternoon. I've been walking ever since'.

I reached for the bottle of Hiram Walker and poured another slug into his coffee cup.

'You've not been home since?'

'Nah. I just kept walking around. Finally ended up in one of those all-night movie houses on Forty-Second Street. Trying to blot everything out'.

'Where's Ronnie?'

'Out of town for a couple of nights - as part of a band that's backing Rosemary Clooney down at Atlantic City. I was going to call him at his hotel... but I didn't want to upset him yet. There'll be time enough for that. Anyway, I couldn't bear going back to the apartment... knowing that the fucking Feds had actually gone to the trouble of interviewing a couple of maids about...'

He lifted his coffee cup and tossed back the bourbon.

'Am I that important, S? Am I such a threat to national security that they have to grill a couple of maids about who sleeps in my bed?'

'I can't believe it either'.

'Oh, believe it, S. Because these bastards are dead serious. It's cooperate with them, or commit professional suicide'.

'You need to get a lawyer'.

'Why? What's some overpriced legal eagle going to tell me that I don't already know? Anyway, even if the lawyer was able to work a miracle and somehow get the Feds off my back, the network would then be pressured into axing me on the grounds of "extreme moral turpitude". Once that was made public, my career would be beyond dead. I'd be finished'.

'You must find out who named you'.

'What good would that do?'

'Maybe you could exert some ethical pressure on them to retract their denunciation...'

'Ethical pressure. You're a bright lady, S... but right now, you sound like Pollyanna. There are no ethics to this game, S. None. It's every man for himself - and that's what Joe McCarthy and his asshole cronies are playing upon: that basic adult fear of losing everything you've worked so hard to achieve. Bert Schmidt is right: when faced with the choice of losing your livelihood, or shopping your friends, you're going to screw your friends'.

'So you're going to cooperate?'

'Don't look at me that way', he said, suddenly hostile.

'I'm not looking at you any way, Eric. I was just asking...'

'I don't know. I've got... what?.. two and a half days to make a decision. I've also got no money in the bank'.

'What do you mean, no money? You made over sixty thousand last year...'

'Yeah, and I spent over sixty thousand'.

'How the hell did you do that?'

'It's easy. So damn easy that I now also have something called debt'.

'Debt? On your paycheck? How much?'

'I don't know. Seven, eight thousand, maybe...'

'Oh my God...'

'Yeah: oh my God. So you see my problem here. If I don't cooperate, not only am I branded a Commie and a pervert, but NBC also turns off the money faucet. And I am bankrupt on all fronts'.

'So what are you going to do?'

'I haven't a fucking clue. What would you do?'

'Honestly?'

'Yes, honestly'.

'Honestly...' I said, 'I don't know'.

Seven

THE NEXT TWO days were nightmarish. I insisted that Eric see a lawyer. Naturally enough, he turned out to be Joel Eberts. As soon as nine o'clock arrived, I called Eberts' office. He answered the phone himself, and told us to come downtown immediately. Given his union background, Mr Eberts was completely sympathetic with Eric's dilemma. But after trawling through his contract with NBC - and also hearing about the FBI's information on Ronnie - he said he could do nothing except offer moral support.

'Of course, we could fight this in court. But - as the NBC counsel told you - they can well afford to have this thing drag on for years. In the meantime, you'll be branded a Red. And - although I don't give a damn about who sleeps with whom - I'm afraid they can hang you on the morals clause. Worst yet, if you do take them on, they'll leak stuff to some slimeball like Winchell. Next thing you know, the dirt'll be dished in his column. You'll be through'.

'So what am I supposed to do?' Eric asked.

'My friend - that is completely your call. And I don't envy you your options one bit. Because, either way, you lose. The real question here is: what do you want to lose least?'

Eric shifted anxiously in his chair.

'I simply cannot turn stool pigeon on people who were guilty of nothing more than the same dumb idealism which I once shared. Jesus Christ, even if these people were the Rosenbergs, I still couldn't turn them in. I'm probably not patriotic enough'.

'Patriotism isn't the issue here', Joel Eberts said. 'Joe McCarthy and that clown Nixon are probably two of the biggest patriots imaginable. And they're both swine. No, the question here is a harder one: can you harm yourself to save others... even though you also know that, eventually, they're going to be harmed anyway. Of course, it's easy for me to sit here and tell you how I might react. But I'm not in your situation. I'm sure Hoover and his henchmen have a file on me as well, but they can't get me disbarred for my politics. Or, at least, not yet. They can't ruin my life. But they can ruin yours'.

I watched as Eric kneaded his hands together. Without realizing it, he kept rocking back and forth in his chair. His eyes seemed vacant, haunted. He desperately needed sleep - if only to escape this ordeal for a couple of hours. I so wanted to help. But I didn't know how to help him.