The Big Nowhere (24 page)

Eisler kept squirming, shifting his arms and legs. “Yes, but he was just being satirical, poking fun. He did not—”

Dudley shouted, “Don’t interpret, just answer!”

Eisler shouted back, “Yes! Yes! Yes! Goddamn you, yes!”

Mal gave Dudley the cut-off sign; he gave Eisler his most soothing voice. “Mr. Eisler, did you keep a journal during the time you worked with Chaz Minear?”

The man was wringing his hands, Kleenex shredding between fingers pumped blue-white. “Yes.”

“Did it contain entries pertaining to your Communist Party activities and your script work with Chaz Minear?”

“Oh God, yes.”

Mal thought of the report from Satterlee’s PIs: Eisler coupling with Claire De Haven circa ’38–’39. “And entries pertaining to your personal life?”

“Oh, Gott in himm…yes, yes!”

“And do you still have that journal?”

Silence, then, “I don’t know.”

Mal slapped the table. “Yes, you do, and you’ll have to let us see it. Only the germane political entries will be placed in the official transcript.”

Nathan Eisler sobbed quietly. Dudley said, “You will give us that journal, or we will subpoena it and uniformed officers will tear your quaint little abode apart, gravely upsetting your quaint little family, I fear.”

Eisler gave a sharp little yes nod; Dudley eased back in his chair, the legs creaking under his weight. Mal saw a Kleenex box on the windowsill, grabbed it and placed it on Eisler’s lap. Eisler cradled the box; Mal said, “We’ll take the journal with us, and we’ll put Minear aside for now. Here’s a general question. Have you ever heard any of the people we’re interested in advocate the armed overthrow of the United States government?”

Two negative shakes, Eisler with his head back down, his tears drying. Mal said, “Not in the way of a formal pronouncement, but that sentiment stated.”

“Every one of us said it in anger, and it always meant nothing.”

“The grand jury will decide what you meant. Be specific. Who said it, and when.”

Eisler wiped his face. “Claire would say ‘The end justifies the means’ at meetings and Reynolds would say that he was not a violent man, but he would take up a shillelagh if it came to us versus the bosses. The Mexican boys said it a million different times in a million contexts, especially around the time of Sleepy Lagoon. Mort Ziffkin shouted it for the world to hear. He was a courageous man.”

Mal caught up on his shorthand, thinking of UAES and the studios. “What about the UAES? How did it tie in to the Party and the front groups you and the others belonged to?”

“The UAES was founded while I was out of the country. The three Mexican boys had found work as stagehands and recruited members, as did Claire De Haven. Her father had served as counsel to vested movie interests and she said she intended to exploit and…and…”

Mal’s head was buzzing. “And
what
? Tell me.”

Eisler went back to his finger-clenching; Mal said “
Tell me
. ‘Exploit’
and what
?”

“Seduce! She grew up around movie people and she knew actors and technicians who had been coveting her since she was a girl! She seduced them as founding members and got them to recruit for her! She said it was her penance for not getting subpoenaed by HUAC!”

Big time triple bingo.

Mal willed his voice as controlled as Dudley’s. “Who specifically did she seduce?”

Eisler picked and plucked and tore at the tissue box. “I don’t know, I don’t know, I honestly do not know.”

“A lot of men, a few men, how many?”

“I do not know. I suspect only a few influential actors and technicians who she knew could help her union.”

“Who else helped her recruit? Minear, Loftis?”

“Reynolds was in Europe then, Chaz I don’t know.”

“What was discussed at the first UAES meetings? Was there some kind of charter or overview they worked on?”

The Kleenex box was now a pile of ripped cardboard; Eisler brushed it off his lap. “I have never attended their meetings.”

“We know, but we need to know who besides the initial founders were there and what was discussed.”

“I don’t know!”

Mal threw an outside curve. “Are you still hot for Claire, Eisler? Are you protecting her? You know she’s marrying Reynolds Loftis. How’s that make you feel?”

Eisler threw his head back and laughed. “Our affair was brief, and I suspect that handsome Reynolds will always prefer young boys.”

“Chaz Minear’s no young boy.”

“And he and Reynolds did not last.”

“Nice people you know, comrade.”

Eisler’s laughter turned low, guttural—and supremely Germanic. “I prefer them to you, obersturmbahnführer.”

Mal held his temper by looking at Dudley; Mr. Bad Guy returned him the cut-off sign. “We’ll overlook that comment out of deference to your cooperation, and you may call this your initial interview. My colleague and I will go over your answers, check them against our records and send back a long list of other questions, detailed specifics pertaining to your Communist front activities and the activities of the UAES members we discussed. A City Marshal will monitor that transaction, and a court reporter will take your deposition. After that interview, providing you answer a few more questions now and allow us to take your journal, you will be given friendly witness status and full immunity from prosecution.”

Eisler got up, walked on rubber legs to his desk and unlocked a lower drawer. He poked through it, pulled out a leather-bound diary, brought it back and laid it on the table. “Ask your few questions and leave.”

Dudley moved a flat palm slowly down:
Go easy
. Mal said, “We have a second interview this afternoon, and I think you can help us with it.”

Eisler stammered, “Wh-what, wh-who?”

Dudley, in a whisper. “Leonard Hyman Rolff.”

Their interrogee rasped the single word, “No.” Dudley looked at Mal; Mal placed his left hand over his right fist:
no hitting
. Dudley said, “
Yes
, and we will brook no argument, no discussion. I want you to think of something shameful and incriminating indigenous to your old friend Lenny, something that other people know, so that we can put the blame of informing on them.
You will inform
, so I advise you to think of something effective, something that will loosen Mr. Rolff’s tongue and spare you a return visit from myself—without my colleague who serves so well to restrain me.”

Nathan Eisler had gone slab white. He sat stock-still, looking way past tears or shock or indignation. Mal thought that he seemed familiar; a few seconds of staring gave him his connection: the Buchenwald Jews who’d beat the gas chamber only to sink to an early grave via viral anemia. The memory made him get up and prowl the bookshelves; the dead silence kept going. He was scanning a shelf devoted to Marxist economics when Dudley’s whisper came back. “The repercussions, comrade. Refugee camps for your half-breed whelps. Mr. Rolff will receive his chance for friendly witness status, so if he’s an obstreperous sort, you’ll be doing him a favor by supplying us with information to convince him to inform. Think of Michiko forced to keep body and soul together back in Japan, all the tempting offers she’ll receive.”

Mal tried to look back, but couldn’t make himself; he fixed on
Das Kapital—A Concordance, Marx’s Theories of Commerce and Repression
and
The Proletariat Speak out
. Quiet sank in behind him; heavy fingers tapped the table. Then Nathan Eisler’s monotone: “Young girls. Prostitutes. Lenny is afraid his wife will find out he frequents them.”

Dudley sighed. “Not good enough. Try harder.”

“He keeps pornographic pictures of the ones—”

“Too bland, comrade.”

“He cheats on his income tax.”

Dudley ha! ha! ha!’d. “So do I, so does my friend Malcolm and so would our grand savior Jesus Christ should he return and settle in America. You know more than you are telling us, so please rectify that situation before I lose my temper and revoke your friendly witness status.”

Mal heard the kids giggling outside, the little girl squealing in Japanese. He said, “Goddamn you, talk.”

Eisler coughed, took an audible breath, coughed again. “Lenny will not inform as easily as I. He has not so much to lose.”

Mal turned, saw a death’s head and turned away; Dudley cracked his knuckles. Eisler said, “I will always try to think I did this for Lenny and I will always know I am lying.” His next deep breath wheezed; he let it out fast, straight into his snitch. “I was traveling with Lenny and his wife Judith in Europe in ’48. Paul Doinelle was making his masked series with Reynolds Loftis and hosted a party to seek financial backing for his next film. He wanted to solicit Lenny and brought a young prostitute for him to enjoy. Judith did not attend the party, and Lenny caught gonorrhea from the prostitute. Judith became ill and returned to America, and Lenny had an affair with her younger sister Sarah in Paris. He gave her the gonorrhea. Sarah told Judith she had the disease, but not that Lenny gave it to her. Lenny would not make love to Judith for many weeks after he returned to America and took a cure, employing various excuses. He has always been afraid Judith would logically connect the two events and realize what had occurred. Lenny confided in me and Reynolds and our friend David Yorkin, who I am sure you know from your wonderful list of front organizations. Since you are so concerned with Reynolds, perhaps you could make him the informant.”

Dudley said, “God bless you, comrade.”

Mal grabbed Eisler’s journal, hoping for enough treason to make two silver bars and his boy worth the price. “Let’s go nail Lenny.”

They found him alone, typing at a card table in his back yard, clack-clack-clack leading them around the side of the house to a fat man in a Hawaiian shirt and chinos pecking on an ancient Underwood. Mal saw him look up and knew from his eyes that this guy was no pushover.

Dudley badged him. “Mr. Leonard Rolff?”

The man put on glasses and examined the shield. “Yes. You’re policemen?”

Mal said, “We’re with the District Attorney’s Office.”

“But you’re policemen?”

“We’re DA’s Bureau Investigators.”

“Yes, you are policemen as opposed to lawyers. And your names and ranks?”

Mal thought of their newspaper ink—and knew he had no recourse. “I’m Lieutenant Considine, this is Lieutenant Smith.”

Rolff grinned. “Recently portrayed as regretting the demise of the would-be City grand jury, which I now take it is a going concern once again. The answer is no, gentlemen.”

Mal played dumb. “No what, Mr. Rolff?”

Rolff looked at Dudley, like he knew he was the one he had to impress. “
No
, I will not inform on members of the UAES.
No
, I will not answer questions pertaining to my political past or the pasts of friends and acquaintances. If subpoenaed, I will be a hostile witness and stand on the Fifth Amendment, and I am prepared to go to prison for contempt of court. You cannot make me name names.”

Dudley smiled at Rolff. “I respect men of principle, however deluded. Gentlemen, would you excuse me a moment? I left something in the car.”

The smile was a chiller. Dudley walked out; Mal ran interference. “You may not believe this, but we’re actually on the side of the legitimate, non-Communist American left.”

Rolff pointed to the sheet of paper in his typewriter. “Should you fail as a policeman you have a second career as a comedian. Just like me. The fascists took away my career as a screenwriter; now I write historical romance novels under the nom de plume Erica St. Jane. And my publisher knows my politics and doesn’t care. So does the employer of my wife, who has full tenure at Cal State. You cannot hurt either of us.”

Out of the mouths of babes.

Mal watched Lenny Rolff resume work on page 399 of
Wake of the Lost Doubloons
. Typewriter clack filled the air; he looked at the writer’s modest stone house and mused that at least he saved more of his money than Eisler and had the brains not to marry a Jap. More clack-clack-clack; Page 399 became pages 400 and 401—Rolff really churned it out. Then Dudley’s brogue, the most theatrical he had ever heard it. “Bless me father, for I have sinned. My last confession was never, because I am Jewish. I will currently rectify that situation, Monsignors Smith and Considine my confessors.”

Mal turned and saw Dudley holding a stack of photographs; Rolff finished typing a paragraph and looked up. Dudley pushed a snapshot in his face; Rolff said, “No,” calmly. Mal walked around the table and scoped the picture close up.

It was fuzzy black and white, a teenage girl naked with her legs spread. Dudley read from the flip side. “To Lenny. You were the best. Love from Maggie at Minnie Robert’s Casbah, January 19, 1946.”

Mal held his breath; Rolff stood, gave Dudley an eye-to-eye deadpan and a steady voice. “
No
. My wife and I have forgiven each other our minor indiscretions. Do you think I would leave the pictures in my desk otherwise?
No. Thief. Fascist parasite. Irish pig
.”

Dudley tossed the photos on the grass; Mal shot him the no hitting sign; Rolff cleared his throat and spat in Dudley’s face. Mal gasped; Dudley smiled, grabbed a manuscript sheet and wiped the spittle off. “
Yes
, because fair Judith does not know about fair Sarah and the clap you gave her, and I just played a hunch on where you took your cure. Terry Lux keeps meticulous records, and he has promised to cooperate with me should you decide not to.”

Rolff, still voice steady. “Who told you?”

Dudley, making motions:
verbatim transcription
. “Reynolds Loftis, under much less duress than you were just subjected to.”

Mal thought through the gamble: if Rolff approached Loftis, all their covert questionings were compromised; the UAES might put the kibosh on new members—terrified of infiltration, blowing Danny Upshaw’s approach. He got out pen and pad, grabbed a chair and sat down; Dudley called his own bluff. “Yes or no, Mr. Rolff. Give me your answer.”

Veins pulsed all over Leonard Rolff’s face. He said, “Yes.”

Dudley said, “Grand”; Mal wrote
L. Rolff, 1/8/50
at the top of a clean sheet. Their interrogee squared his glasses. “Open court testimony?”