Red Rag Blues (9 page)

Luis wasn't interested in Indiana. “Where are we going, and why?” he asked.

“Staten Island,” Max said. “To see Billy Jago.”

“Who is?”

“Best writer-director I ever worked with.”

“Thank you. I think I see a rough sailor. I shall go and invite him to have energetic sex in the scuppers. I'm sure he'll know what they are.” He walked away.

“Why are we wasting our time with this clown?” Max asked.

“We have nothing better to do,” Julie said, “and he's going to buy us all dinner.”

“The man is a prince.”

Luis rejoined them half an hour later, as the ferry was docking. “I've been talking to the captain,” he said. “Staten Island is a dump. They grow potatoes and eat their young.”

“We should take some beer,” Max said. “To wash down the young.”

Luis bought two six-packs of Miller. They got a taxi and headed for the other side of the island. “Bloomfield?” the driver said. “That's marsh out there. Mafia bury their mistakes in Bloomfield.”

“I'll show you the turn-off,” Max said.

“This entire island's a turn-off,” Julie said. “No offense meant.”

“You should come in winter,” the driver said. “Gets real depressin'. On a good day, folks have to stand in line to shoot theirselves.”

“Good heavens,” Luis said.

“See that?” The taxi slowed and shuddered over a stretch of corrugated road. “Lousy Commies built this road on the cheap.”

“What do people do on a bad day?” Luis asked.

“A bad day? Folks go down their nucular bunker, practice getting A-bombed by Stalin.”

“Stalin's dead,” Bonnie said.

“Yeah, sure, that's what he wants you to think.”

Staten Island was dull. After Manhattan, everything seemed low and scattered. The weather was discouraging: a beige overcast hid the sun. Luis noticed that a lot of telephone poles were not quite upright. Even the seagulls were sluggish.

“Make a right here,” Max said. The taxi jolted down a one-track lane that had grass growing in the middle. After half a mile,
the jolts were harder and the grass was higher. “Hope you can swim,” the driver said. “We're gonna run out of island.”

“There it is,” Max said.

Billy Jago lived in a bungalow. Wind and rain had stripped the paint; now the place was bleached wood. The porch was trying to collapse. Some window panes were bust; curtains had been stuffed into the holes. A thin path went through weeds and brambles to the front door. When the wind blew, the path was lost.

Max asked the driver to come back in an hour. Luis paid him. There was no place to turn. He reversed down the lane, cursing steadily.

“This is what blacklisting does to people,” Max told Luis. “Bill refused to testify when HUAC subpoenaed him. They got him for contempt of Congress. He did six months in a federal penitentiary. Came out, none of the studios would touch him. He's been living here for a year and a half. If he was a horse, someone would've shot him. As it is … see for yourself.”

Max went first through the weeds and marsh grass. He rapped on the door and it swung open a couple of inches, so he pushed it and went in. “Hey, Billy!” he called. No answer. “Watch your step,” he muttered. “This ain't exactly prime real estate.” Some floorboards were split, some had snapped and left holes. Mildew was growing up the walls.

Billy was in the kitchen, at the back of the bungalow. He didn't hear them come in. He was standing by a window, watching something through binoculars, totally absorbed.

“Brought you some beer,” Max announced. Billy lowered the binoculars very slowly and turned like an old man, shifting his feet before he swung his body. It was a big body, which surprised Luis. He had expected Billy to be a skinny hermit, but the man was taller than Max. He seemed broader, too, although his shoulders slumped with the effort of carrying anything as heavy as binoculars. His face was the giveaway. It was gaunt. Deep vertical lines dragged the flesh together like accordion folds. The beard was thin and patchy and hid nothing. Jago had lost the beef that went with his height. His clothes were baggy.

“Brought you some beer,” Max said again. “You remember Bonnie? Julie? This is Luis. Just arrived from Venezuela, we're teaching him American history, reckoned he ought to see some famous monuments, Grant's Tomb, Chrysler Building, Billy Jago's hideaway.”

Luis dumped the beer and shook hands. The bony fingers would not let go. Billy peered down. “Luis,” he said. “As in the heavyweight champ.” His voice was light and husky from lack of use. At last he let go. “Good to meet you,” Luis lied. Billy's breath stank like a broken sewer. Luis backed off, pretending to take note of the kitchen. It was a dump. His hand was sticky where Billy had held it. He took out his handkerchief, wiped his nose and his fingers at the same time. They smelled faintly of shit.

“Didn't you write a movie script about boxing?” Julie asked Billy.

“Yeah. Wrote it for Brando. We were in discussion when I … uh … lost my way.” Behind the beard a smile flickered and died. “It's lying around here somewhere.” He waved the binoculars.

“What were you looking at, out there?” Max asked.

“Airplanes. Newark airport's a mile or so thataway. I watch the big birds come and go.” He ducked his head and raised his arms, and swayed to left and right, banking, climbing. “They sail on the air. Steel eagles. Show never stops. Free admission.”

“I hope you're taking care of yourself,” Julie said. She picked a couple of empty cans out of the sink. They were beginning to rust. She looked for a garbage bin. It was overflowing. She put the cans back in the sink. “You eating enough?”

“Women,” Billy said. “First thing they do is try to improve you.” His voice was being worn down; it wasn't much more than a whisper. Luis had been opening beers. Billy accepted one, used both hands to hold the bottle at arm's length like a new-born child. “Ah yes,” he said. “It has its father's face. I'd know it anywhere.”

With the beer to oil his throat, his voice strengthened. He showed them around the bungalow. One room was much like another: peeling wallpaper, broken ceilings, the spicy, musty smell of damp, cardboard boxes split and spilling clothes, books, scripts, reels of film, curling photographs, chipped plates, a football gone flat, a typewriter with no ribbon.

“Sorry about the mess,” Billy said, “we've got the Republicans in.”

They ended up in the kitchen again. Billy had found a leaking cushion and sat on the garbage bin. His visitors sat on the floor. Outside, the haze was developing into a thin fog. “This is fun,” Billy said.

“Luis doesn't believe in the blacklist,” Julie said. “We brought him along to improve his education.”

Luis smiled amiably. By sitting near the back door, which was permanently ajar, he avoided the worst of the smell: the sickly, cloying smell of a place too much lived in and never cleaned.

“Blacklist,” Billy said. “Oh, I don't know about that.”

“Just tell him about HUAC,” Bonnie said.

“Not much to tell.” He got up, rearranged his cushion, sat down. “All over very quickly.”

“You got shafted, Billy. How was prison?”

He scratched his neck and examined his fingernails. “Not like it is in the movies.” They laughed, and startled him.

“I saw one of your movies the other day,” Max said. “At the Biograph.
Low Society.”

“Ah …” Billy's eyes went into soft focus.

“You directed
Low Society?”
Luis said. “I saw it in Caracas. Very interesting film.”

“You wanted James Stewart for it, didn't you?” Max said. “You'd have got a nomination, with Stewart. Maybe an Oscar.”

“The studio had whatshisname on contract,” Billy said. “They made me take whatshisname.” His body was slack. Beer was dribbling down his leg.

“Well, it was still a hell of a movie,” Julie said. “I cried for a week.”

“The scene where the blind man walks over the cliff,” Luis said. “Superb. Comedy at it purest.”

“That scene wasn't funny,” Julie said.

“Well, they laughed in Caracas,” Luis said. Max scowled. Luis cocked his head. “I thought you people were hot for the truth,” he said.

“Oh, God save us from the truth,” Bonnie said. She got up and took the bottle from Billy's fingers before he soaked his pants, and put it within reach. “There's no truth, only shades of lying. You made a very good movie about that, Billy.”

“Sweet Cheat”
Billy said. “Based on my novel. I can't write. Best part was the title.” He peered here and there searching, not finding; took a deep breath; got up and shuffled out of the kitchen.

“Can't you see he's sick?” Max said to Luis. “You don't need to be so damned blunt.”

“What illness does he suffer from? We could get treatment.”

“He's blacklisted,” Bonnie said. “It's incurable.”

Billy came back with a copy of
Sweet Cheat.
“Good reviews,” he said. “Didn't sell.” He gave it to Luis. “Keep it.” He perched on the garbage bin again.

“You should write some scripts, Billy,” Max said. “You know people in England, France, they would …”

But Billy was shaking his head. “I'm just an old fart,” he mumbled.

“Forty-two. In your prime.”

“Tell you something.” He found his beer and took a long suck. “That Committee was right to throw me in jail. Not fit to make movies. Not fit to sharpen a pencil.”

“HUAC's full of shit,” Julie growled. He didn't hear her.

“A man is judged by his peers. That's right? My peers said … this man … not fit.” He was crying. “Sterling Hayden, damn good actor, he named me to the Committee. So did Lee J. Cobb. And Elia Kazan. What a director. Next to Kazan … I couldn't direct traffic. And Budd Schulberg. Now
he
can write. Schulberg named me. Oh Christ …” Snot was dribbling out of his nose and he didn't know it. “Those are the good guys. They
know
where I belong. In jail, that's where.”

Max cleaned up Billy's face and they took him to what passed as his bedroom. “Can we get you anything?” Bonnie asked. He lay on his stained bedding and looked frightened. “We'll come again,” she said. He didn't like the sound of that.

They walked out by the single-track lane and met the taxi, backing toward them. “Thank God,” the driver said.

*

Everyone was quiet until they were on the ferry again.

“Billy Jago gave me my first big break,” Max said. “Second lead in
The Devil You Know.
And he fought for me. Studio wanted to replace me, but Billy wouldn't budge, and he won. Billy liked a fight.”

“You wouldn't guess it now,” Bonnie said. The boat vibrated as it departed from Staten Island. Luis went and sat in a corner and read
Sweet Cheat.
After ten minutes Julie came and nudged him and pointed at the Statue of Liberty.

“Awfully small,” he said.

“And getting smaller every day.”

He though about that, briefly, and went back to his book.

Question the witnesses. Re-question the witnesses. Probe. Compare. Search. The FBI worked in much the same way as any police force. Lacking a crucial clue, or a friendly informer, what other way is there?

Fisk went back to the messengers. Sometimes a guy goes home, tells his family about the excitement, it brightens up their empty lives, all of a sudden he remembers something he didn't tell the cops. Tattoo, missing finger, steel teeth, lefthanded, smelled of fish, anything.

For Fisk the messengers remembered nothing new. Neither did their boss. It was possible, Fisk told them, the man they were looking for was British. They didn't think so. Hispanic, maybe. You know, the olive skin and all? Fisk asked what they thought a Britisher sounded like. Cary Grant, they said. David Niven, with that cute little mustache. Errol Flynn, too: there was another.

Flynn's Australian, the boss said.

This was hotly disputed. Flynn killed all those Japs in Burma: I seen the movie, and Burma ain't nowhere near Australia.

Fisk stopped the argument. “Are you saying the man we're looking for had a mustache?” Some said no, some said yes, some said depends what you mean by mustache, I mean take Clark Gable…

Fisk walked a couple of blocks, questioned the manager of the rented offices. “British? How should I know?” the man said. “I'm from Omaha. Are they the same as Irish? Brooklyn is lousy with Irish. This guy wasn't Irish.”

Fisk had a tuna sandwich and a glass of milk. He took the subway to Queens and visited the ex-cop who had done the black bag job. “Guy I saw was cleanshaven. As to racial origin … Could've been Caucasian with a good tan, maybe Hispanic, no tan at all. Not Arab, Jewish, or Negro. Help you any?”

“I'm trying to get a handle on this man,” Fisk said. “All I know is he left Venezuela. What's he doing in New York, apart from crime?” That was where Fisk learned about the telephone company's repairman's failure to find the life story which British Intelligence wanted to read. “You didn't report that,” Fisk said.

“You didn't ask for life stories. Gimme an extra fifty bucks, I'll tell you all the other stuff I didn't find. No striped giraffes in
that apartment. No lawnmowers. No naked blonds. Unfortunately.”

“I apologize,” Fisk said. “My remark was obtuse.” The ex-cop winced. “Is there anything else you can tell me? Any small detail, any tiny facet?”

“No,” the ex-cop said.
Obtuse,
for Christ's sake. Fucking FBI. They all had college degrees and they couldn't find their dick with a roadmap. Fuck 'em. “Not one tiny facet.”

It took Fisk the rest of the day to track down the landlord of the 84th Street apartment. The man had been to the ball game. Now he was in his favorite bar on York Avenue, telling the two old guys how the Dodgers blew it in the ninth. Fisk identified himself as a Special Agent. “Hell, we knew that,” one of the old guys said. “The haircut, the suit, the tie.”