“We couldn’t allow that to happen,” she said quietly. “In the end, we had no choice. We had to protect the work. You must understand.” She drew in a long, shuddering breath. “It was decided I should come here.”
“Where you met with scientists who would later work on the Manhattan Project.”
She nodded.
“And let the Brown Shirts take the blame for his death.”
“So we hoped.” She shrugged her delicate shoulders. “Indeed, our biggest fear was you, Inspektor.”
“Me?”
“We were certain you knew. Or would discover it soon enough. You made us hasten my departure. Later, we were surprised by your silence. We decided you were a friend.” She paused. “And so you were.” She leaned back in her chair. “But how? How did you know?”
He hesitated. “His mistress confessed that the Brown Shirts came to the cabaret the night after he was killed. The rest was not difficult.” He stared at the skaters. The tall blonde was now partnered with a dark young man. Arms entwined, they skimmed the surface of the ice, skating in perfect synchrony. “But my dear Frau Hesse, I have a question for you. How could you do it?”
Swallowing, she stared at her teacup for so long he wondered if she would reply. Then, she looked up and waved a hand towards the children. “There is your answer, Inspektor.”
He twisted toward the children, his and hers. Their eager young faces sparkling as they followed the skaters. Bright new stars shooting across a cold, dark heaven. He looked back at Frau Hesse. Her eyes filled.
“You see?” Blinking hard, she smiled her tears away. The gentle smile of a friend. “Perhaps you will join me for a schnapps, Herr Inspektor? It was my husband’s favorite.”
Goin’ West by CHARLES ARDAI
I
Arthur French, a man whose bearing and expression were not so much boyish as they were a failed attempt to appear so, looked down at the avenue outside his office and wished he had the guts to open his window and throw himself out of it.
But he hadn’t, so after a few minutes of staring at the traffic below while a cigarette burned itself to ash between his fingers, Arthur returned to his desk. The portfolio he had been going through when he had been overcome with his sudden attack of self-revulsion lay open on his blotter. Arthur stubbed out his cigarette and went back to work.
He had already discarded twenty-three women, turning the pages that held their hopeful eight-by-tens without so much as a stirring of interest. He had only pulled two photos from their plastic sleeves: Lisa Brennan, a striking blonde who’d have to look over her shoulder to see thirty, much less the twenty-seven she claimed, and Angela Meyer, a homely brunette-that nose!-whose bikini shot had nevertheless caught Arthur’s eye. He’d covered her face with his hand. Maybe she’d do for some body doubling, or for the shower scene establishing shot where they’d need extras. Nobody would have to see her face. Arthur had pulled the picture and dropped it face down next to his telephone.
Angela’s credits, listed on the back, read like a young actress’s dream: Cordelia in King Lear, the baker’s wife in Into The Woods. But that’s probably all they were-a dream. What she’d left out was that King Lear had been a showcase in someone’s apartment on the Upper West Side and that Into The Woods had been summer-stock in Connecticut. Or vice versa. Hell, Arthur told himself, a woman who wants to do Cordelia doesn’t send her agent around with a photo that shouts “playmate of the month” at the top of its lungs.
Brennan’s credits had sounded more realistic: bit parts on a couple of soaps, some commercials, guest spots on two short-lived sitcoms. Plus one feature a few years back where she’d played Goldie Hawn’s sister, a two-line part that had gotten her into SAG. At least she wasn’t as likely to embarrass herself in front of the camera.
Arthur flipped through the rest of the portfolio, his interest waning from minimal to zip. Bunch of hungry little tramps who’d push each other in front of a train for a line of their own in the end credits, especially as a character with a name instead of something like “Woman In Cab.”
Hell, they’d kill for “Woman In Cab,” too.
He closed the book and zipped it up, then slipped the two photos he’d selected into his project folder. Two appointments for Rose to set up, two distant, distant, distant possibilities for Goin’ West, and one less agent to deal with on the project. He stuck the portfolio in its mailer and started it on its way back to Jennifer Stein, the madam who had pulled this Kodacolor harem together and dropped it on his desk.
He fingered his lead-crystal ashtray, overflowing with Camel butts, then pulled a new cigarette from his pack and lit it. Somewhere halfway through the pack, Freddie Prinze’s agent blew Arthur off, followed by Jason Biggs’s and James van der Beek’s. Never mind Ashton Kutcher’s-it wasn’t worth the phone call. Not for a project that would get a five-week theatrical release, if that, on its way to video stores across the U.S. of A. James van der Beek was too big for this project, for God’s sake.
Arthur ran his hand through his hair, permanently damp from a steady diet of Grecian Formula and Nexus, then slid the project file into its pendaflex folder and left it for Rose to file. The women would be easy to cast-no star or even B-lister needed. The male lead and his buddies, on the other hand, had to be names that meant something to teenage boys.
If all else failed, he’d go after Corey Dunn or Jon Farrell. William Fitch, their agent, owed Arthur favors that had major price tags hanging all over them. Shame to call them in for a dog like Goin’ West, though.
He made one more phone call before cutting out early. Then he took the elevator down the thirty floors to street level, a slower method than the one he’d contemplated earlier, but at least you didn’t end up a stain on the concrete. He picked up his Audi in the building’s garage, spent a good half-hour in Manhattan traffic (a lousy half-hour, actually, city driving was always lousy), fought a traffic jam all the way out to Bronxville, and parked in front of his townhouse. Sandy was waiting for him when he got home and he got up a smile for her when he walked through the door. That was the most he could get up, though, and they went to sleep apologizing to each other.
All night Arthur dreamt about going through with his suicide, opening his office window and smashing to a jelly on the pavement. In a strange way, the dream didn’t feel like a nightmare. In it, he left a note to his wife saying, “It’s not you, honey, I can’t stand this stinking business.” Which was his dream’s way of making him feel better, because in his waking moments he knew it was her, as much as it was anything.
Sandy would never let him forget that “East Coast casting director” was a contradiction in terms, especially when it came to features. You had to be in California to really be in the business, unless you were Juliet Taylor and did the casting for Woody’s pictures, but he wasn’t, and he didn’t, and he never would come close.
Arthur French was a peripheral figure in the industry, a name people half remembered in connection with films they would just as soon have forgotten. He’d given up, years before, his original ambition to do work he was proud of and had become a whore for the mid-budget studios who were still willing to use him. Sandy would ask him from time to time why he’d pissed away such talent as he’d had when she’d met him-as though he knew the answer himself. Over the past few weeks Sandy had also started asking him about other women, stopping just short of accusing him of having an affair. Then she was surprised when he flopped worse than Waterworld in bed?