"I have a hangover, Earl."
He pulled a folded Washington Star out of his pocket. "I have something here that'll sober you up. Have you seen the paper?"
"No. I haven't seen a damn thing."
He opened it. The headline read: STALIN ANNOUNCES SUPPORT FOR
ACES.
I sat on the bed and reached for the bottle. "Jesus." Earl threw the paper down. "He wants us to go down. We kept him out of Berlin, for god's sake. He has no reason to love us. He's persecuting his own wild card talents over there."
"The bastard, the bastard." I closed my eyes. Colors throbbed on the backs of my lids. "Got a butt?" I asked. He gave me one, and a light from his wartime Zippo. I leaned back in bed and rubbed the bristles on my chin.
"The way I see it," Earl said, "we're going to have ten bad years. Maybe we'll even have to leave the country." He shook his head. "And then well be heroes again. It'll take at least that long."
"You sure know how to cheer a guy up."
He laughed. The cigarette tasted vile. I washed the taste away with scotch.
The smile left Earl's face, and he shook his head. "It's the people that are going to be called after us-those are the ones I'm sorry for. There's going to be a witch hunt in this country for years to come." He shook his head. "The NAACP is paying for my lawyer. I just might give him back. I don't want any organization associated with me. It'll just make it harder for them later."
"Mayer's been on the phone."
"Mayer." He grimaced. "If only those guys who run the studios had stood up when the Ten went before the committee. If they'd shown some guts none of this would ever have happened." He gave me a look. "You'd better get a new lawyer. Unless you take the Fifth." He frowned. "The Fifth is quicker. They just ask you your name, you say you won't answer, then it's over."
"What difference does the lawyer make, then?"
"You've got a point there." He gave me a ragged grin. "It really isn't going to make any difference, is it? Whatever we say or do. The committee will do what they want, either way."
"Yeah. It's over."
His grin turned, as he looked at me, to a soft smile. For a moment, I saw the glow that Lillian had said surrounded him. Here he was, on the verge of losing everything he'd worked for, about to be used as a weapon that would cudgel the civil rights movement and anti-fascism and anti-imperialism and labor and everything else that mattered to him, knowing that his name would be anathema, that anyone he'd ever associated with would soon be facing the same treatment… and he'd accepted it all somehow, saddened of course, but still solid within himself. The Fear hadn't even come close to touching him. He wasn't afraid of the committee, of disgrace, of the loss of his position and standing. He didn't regret an instant of his life, a moment's dedication to his beliefs.
"It's over?" he said. There was a fire in his eyes. "Hell, Jack," he laughed, "it's not over. One committee hearing ain't the war. Were aces. They can't take that away. Right?"
"Yeah. I guess."
"I better leave you to fix your hangover." He went to the window. "Time for my morning constitutional, anyway."
"See you later."
He gave me the thumbs-up sign as he threw a leg over the sill. "Take care, farm boy."
"You too."
I got out of bed to close the window just as the drizzle turned to downpour. I looked outside into the street. People were running for cover.
"Earl really was a Communist, Jack. He belonged to the party for years, he went to Moscow to study. Listen, darling"-imploring now-"you can't help him. He's going to get crucified no matter what you do."
"I can show him he ain't alone on the cross."
"Swell. Just swell. I'm married to a martyr. Just tell me, how are you helping your friends by taking the Fifth? Holmes isn't coming back to public life. David's hustled himself right into prison. Tachyons being deported. And Earl's doomed, sure as anything. You can't even carry their cross for them."
"Now who's being sarcastic?"
Screaming now. "Will you put down that bottle and listen to me? This is something your country wants you to do! It's the right thing!"
I couldn't stand it anymore, so I went for a walk in the cold February afternoon. I hadn't eaten all day and I had a bottle of whiskey in me, and the traffic kept hissing past as I walked, the rain drizzling in my face, soaking through my light California jacket, and I didn't notice any of it. I just thought of those faces, Wood and Rankin and Francis Case, the faces and the hateful eyes and the parade of constant insinuations, and then I started running for the Capitol. I was going to find the committee and smash them, bang heads together, make them run gabbling in fear. I'd brought democracy to Argentina, for crissake, and I could bring it to Washington the same way.
The Capitol windows were dark. Cold rain gleamed on the marble. No one was there. I prowled around looking for an open door, and then finally I bashed through a side entrance and headed straight for the committee room. I yanked the door open and stepped inside.
It was empty, of course. I don't know why I was so surprised. There were only a few spotlights on. David's glass booth gleamed in the soft light like a piece of fine crystal.
Camera and radio equipment sat in its place. The chairman's gavel glowed with brass and polish. Somehow, as I stood like an imbecile in the hushed silence of the room, the anger went out of me.
I sat down in one of the chairs and tried to remember what I was doing here. It was clear the Four Aces were doomed. We were bound by the law and by decency, and the committee was not. The only way we could fight them was to break the law, to rise up in their smug faces and smash the committee room to bits, laughing as the congressmen dived for cover beneath their desks. And if we did that we'd become what we fought, an extralegal force for terror and violence. We'd become what the committee claimed we were. And that would only make things worse.
The Aces were going down, and nothing could stop it. As I came down the Capitol steps, I felt perfectly sober. No matter how much I'd had to drink, the booze couldn't stop me from knowing what I knew, from seeing the situation in all its appalling, overwhelming clarity.
I knew, I'd known all along, and I couldn't pretend that I didn't.
I walked into the lobby next morning with Kim on one side and the lawyer on the other. Earl was in the lobby, with Lillian standing there clutching her purse.
I couldn't look at them. I walked past them, and the Marines in their gas masks opened the door, and I walked into the hearing room and announced my intention to testify before the committee as a friendly witness.
Later, the committee developed a procedure for friendly witnesses. There would be a closed session first, just the witness and the committee, a sort of dress rehearsal so that everyone would know what they were going to talk about and what information was going to be developed, so things would go smoothly in public session. That procedure hadn't been developed when I testified, so everything went a little roughly.
I sweated under the spotlights, so terrified I could barely speak-all I could see were those nine sets of evil little eyes staring at me from across the room, and all I could hear were their voices, booming at me from the loudspeakers like the voice of God.
Wood started o$; asking me the opening questions: who I was, where I lived, what I did for a living. Then he started going into my associations, starting with Earl. His time ran out and he turned me over to Kearney.
"Are you aware that Mr. Sanderson was once a member of the Communist party?"
I didn't even hear the question. Kearney had to repeat it. "Huh? Oh. He told me, yes."
"Do you know if he is currently a member?"
"I believe he split with the party after the Nazi-Soviet thing."
"In 1939."
"If that's what, when, the Nazi-Soviet thing happened. '39. I guess." I'd forgotten every piece of stagecraft I'd never known. I was fumbling with my tie, mumbling into the mike, sweating. Trying not to look into those nine sets of eyes.