Liesl became Linda Eastman, suddenly swept up in a storm of wardrobe fittings and blocking rehearsals, and Ben moved out of the house. It wasn’t a question of propriety. He was family, easily explainable to the photographers, but why raise questions at all? She was supposed to be lonely, waiting for someone like Dick to come along.
He wasn’t superstitious about the Cherokee. Danny may have died there, but he had never actually stayed there, and there was still part of a month already paid for, with the next now paid in advance to Joel. It was convenient, just a few blocks’ walk to drugstore counters on Hollywood Boulevard if he didn’t want to eat in. Still, there was a haunted feeling to the place, especially at night when the thin sound of a radio playing downstairs came in through the window, like smoke. He never saw his neighbors and after a while he began to feel that no one really lived there-they were all just passing through, drinking or washing out nylons or memorizing lines, all waiting, the way they did in Hollywood, for the phone to ring.
Even with his things hung in the closet and books and papers in a small heap on the desk, the room seemed empty. He paced through it, door to kitchen counter to balcony, an animal staking out territory to make it his own. The balcony especially needed to be claimed, swept free of ghosts. He looked down, seeing the body in the photograph again, the huddled neighbors, Riordan hanging back, surprised. If he had been. If he hadn’t been upstairs, racing down with the others to gape. The photograph was real, but everything else was a story you chose to believe. You couldn’t be certain, not of anybody.
Even someone you thought you knew. He’d seen that going through Danny’s reports in Minot’s office, a paper trail of little betrayals, no one ever suspecting. Just listening and passing on, but violating, too. As Ben flipped through folder after folder, he felt he was no longer looking for leads, but for something else, a reason.
At first Riordan hadn’t wanted Ben in the files at all. “It’s not somebody we know, it’s somebody we don’t know, remember?” But Ben had insisted-it was his bargaining chip, a matter of trust-and Riordan finally agreed, but only at night, after everyone had gone. He steered Ben to files that used Danny’s reports-Ostermann, Brecht, the emigre circle. There were even notes on Werfel and Salka and Thomas Mann. Everyone. Danny appeared simply as the initial K in the margins, identifying him as a source on the memos Riordan had written up, Bureau style.
“Subject [Ostermann] requested sign position paper Latin American Committee for Free Germany sponsored by exile group, Mexico City (see Seghers, et al.).” Brecht’s sexual relations with secretary Ruth Berlau were known to wife, Helene Weigel. “Guest Viertel home Santa Monica (arranged Brecht). Numerous visits Brecht.” Kaltenbach had met with Kranzler, Aufbau. “Kranzler under Bureau surveillance after visit Eisler (known CP). Purpose: discuss English translation of subject’s works. No decision reached (K).” According to the files, Kranzler visited other German writers, then the Highland Lounge, “popular with deviants. Entertained US serviceman overnight at Roosevelt Hotel.”
There were more. Brecht’s arguments with Fritz Lang on Hangmen Also Die, Kaltenbach’s finances, Ostermann’s intention to apply for citizenship after the five-year waiting period. Could anyone have taken these seriously? Written down, recorded, sources put into code so that the files themselves became secrets about secrets. Were they all like this? Ben thought of the FBI, the GPU, any of them, with their archives and hundreds of legmen, filling folders with items no more damaging than onions in Winchell. But there were other items, too, from other sources, requests for surveillance, possible new informants, now vulnerable to approach, everyone caught in a fun house hall of mirrors. In Germany files like these had killed.
“None of these are recent,” Ben said.
“That’s what he used to give the Bureau-it’s just there as backup. You know, in case we ever need it. The congressman’s more interested in the industry.”
Riordan pulled another file.
“Subject [Schaeffer] suspected CP, Hollywood branch. K suggests verify with source G, ex-CP.”
“Who’s Schaeffer?”
“A writer. Fox. But you get one, you have a lead to someone else.”
“Did G verify?”
Riordan nodded.
“What happens to Schaeffer?”
“That depends what he says under oath, doesn’t it? When he testifies. How cooperative he is.”
“Who else?”
Riordan looked to the filing cabinets. “I told you, he’s not going to be here. Bring me a suggestion, a name in his desk. We can check that out. But here, it’s a needle in a- What’s that?”
“A guest list. People Danny knew. I thought-” He stopped. What could he tell Riordan? Another crime, with no connection except a shared past? Something Genia must have known. “Look, we’re flying blind here, I know. But I think he was going to put one of these names in here.” He pointed to the files. “Let’s see who’s already there.”
Riordan looked at him, then at his watch, then back again.
“Can I say something to you? I know this is personal with you. But make it too personal, you’re not going to get anywhere. You want to know everything he told us. What’s the point?”
“I want to know where he was looking. If there was a pattern. You think he just pulled names out of a hat?”
“Tell you the truth, I didn’t give it a thought. As long as the names checked out.”
“And they did. So where was he getting them?”
“His memory box, I always thought,” Riordan said, tapping his head. “These are people he knew, some of them.”
“But not all. So there’s another source, not just him. Someone else.”
Riordan stared at him, then got up, a weary shuffling.
“All right, you got an itch about this, scratch it. But-I don’t have to say, anything in here stays here. You know that, right?”
“You think I care whether Schaeffer’s Red or not? There’s only one Communist I’m interested in. You and Minot can have all the rest. I never even saw these, all right?”
Riordan said nothing for a moment, then picked up his hat. “The door locks behind you. I’m just saying, there’s a lot of privileged stuff here.”
“And I’m trying to get you more. One more friendly witness.”
“Just don’t do it solo.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll give him to you.”
“I didn’t mean that.”
“What?”
“You get too close, all by yourself, you could get hurt. He’d have to, wouldn’t he? Like before. Wouldn’t think twice.” He put on his hat. “Safety in numbers.”
When he’d gone, the room turned eerily silent, and Ben found himself moving quietly, too, as if he had broken in and had to make sure no noise reached the night watchman. He slid the file drawer out carefully, guest list in his other hand. The easiest way would be to eliminate the obvious names first, then move on to the ones he didn’t know, but it was hard to be methodical. Even when a name had no file he would bump up against another one, not on the list, that seemed vaguely familiar. Paulette Goddard was there, but only as an ex-wife cross-reference to the thick Chaplin file. Ben flipped through this-every speech he’d ever made, every interview, anonymous evaluations of his opinions, a full dossier of meaningless paper, flecked with little drops of professional envy. But someone had taken the time to compile it. Out of curiosity, he looked for his own name, but neither he nor Liesl had attracted anyone’s attention-nor Danny, for that matter, unless the sources had a special file drawer of their own. A Warners director had solicited contributions for the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, and his films had been reviewed for left-wing sentiments. Feldman, a front office crony Ben knew only by sight, had attended an Anti-Fascist League fund-raiser 1938, Ambassador Hotel, with Gail Simco, ex-CP, 1940. His girlfriend? A party seven years ago. It was when he found a file on Warner himself-production decisions made on Mission to Moscow — that the full craziness of it all struck him. He looked around Minot’s silent office, drawer after drawer of trivia and innuendo, put together during the war, consuming time and expense, to prepare for the war in their imaginations. And Danny a willing part of it. Had his sense by then been blunted, too? Crazy wasn’t necessarily harmless. The files were an arsenal. They were getting ready.