Kathryn threw a wooden spoon into her kitchen sink. “I am working for an insane person!” she told Marcus and Oliver. The spoon bounced out of the sink and clattered to the floor. “He’s going around naming names while he’s building a casino with mob money. What if he starts naming mob names?”
The day after Billy Wilkerson accused twenty-three screenwriters of being Communists, Kathryn could tell she was falling prey to that ridiculous sort of female hysteria that her male counterparts found sneerworthy. But she was dealing with a boss who seemed to have lost his grip on what constituted acceptable risk, so a part of her felt justified.
She strode into her living room, leaving Marcus and Oliver to trail in her wake. “I can’t even bear to look at this thing!” She rolled the Hollywood Reporter into a baton, yanked open her front door, and threw it onto the landing. She kicked the door closed and headed for her purse on the telephone table. It was too early for a drink, so a cigarette would have to do. She lit a Chesterfield and took a deep drag. “After he published that Stalin column, I held my tongue for nearly a whole month. Then yesterday he made the mistake of asking what I thought of it.” She rolled her lighter around in her hands. “We’ve gone ten rounds before, but that was a darn-tootin’ doozie. And when I told him how disgraceful he was, being so cavalier with the professional livelihoods of so many people, he said I ought to be grateful. What the hell for? I asked him.”
“What did he say?”
“That he was tempted to include the name of Marcus Adler—”
“What?!”
Kathryn tried to take another drag but found she’d already finished her cigarette. She flicked the butt into an ashtray. “He said he’d learned about the Simonov affair.”
“It’s officially an affair now?” Oliver asked.
“That’s why I called you over here. Because Charlie Chaplin and John Garfield were at that party onboard a Russian ship, he strongly suspects you’re a Commie. But—and this is where I’m supposed to be grateful—he omitted your name in deference to me.”
She took comfort in the way Marcus suddenly looked like he could do with a drink, too.
“What did you say to that?” he asked.
“I started throwing around How dare you? and How could you? when he cut me off with marital advice!”
Oliver grunted. “From a guy who’s on his fifth marriage?”
Kathryn didn’t remember lighting another Chesterfield. “He said that marrying you was a mistake that could lead to professional ruin, and that I ought to start divorce proceedings immediately.”
Kathryn flopped onto her armchair and Marcus joined Oliver on the loveseat. She closed her eyes. If he wants to run his company like a fascist, then he can find someone else to fill his paper. “What time is it?”
“Nearly noon.”
Kathryn leaped to her feet. “Already?” She started straightening the newspapers and magazines sprawled over her dining table. “My mom’s coming over.”
Francine had called earlier that morning saying there was something she wanted to tell her. Kathryn tried to put her off, but Francine ignored her blatant hints.
She shooed the guys out of her apartment and was wiping down her kitchen counter when she heard her mother and her husband and her husband’s lover greet each other at the bottom of the stairs. She walked into the living room just as Francine let herself in the door.
“Hello, dear.” Kathryn’s mother was starting to look every inch the late-fifties matron now. She’d taken to wearing conservative dresses in somber browns and muddy yellows with lace lapels and no jewelry save for her double strand of pearls. She started pulling off her gloves. “Who was that with your husband?”
Kathryn flinched. She could never tell whether Francine was still miffed at not being invited to the wedding or just disapproved of Kathryn’s choice of spouse.
“Some new pal,” Kathryn said, crossing the room to hug her mother hello.
“A fellow writer?” There was that tone again.
“You can put your gloves back on. We’re not staying in.”
“You said you’d make us a bite of lunch.” Francine regarded the fallen wooden spoon with disapproval.
Kathryn picked it up and dropped it into the sink. “I’m not in the cooking mood.”
“A grilled cheese sandwich will be fine.”
“I need to get out of here. We’ll go to the Cock’n Bull.”
“That British place?”
“They serve Welsh rarebit. It’s like a grilled cheese sandwich, British style.” She picked up her handbag. “I’ve been fighting with my boss over—well, everything. I need sunshine, I need exercise, and I need . . .”
Francine stopped at the front door. “What else do you need?
“Either a stiff drink or a bicarbonate. Maybe both.”
* * *
Kathryn was in no particular rush to get to the Cock’n Bull—she wasn’t sure they even served Welsh rarebit—but the Saturday afternoon strollers and window shoppers crowding the Sunset Boulevard sidewalk conspired to annoy the hell out of her. All she knew was that she needed to keep moving. She half-led, half-dragged Francine around oversized baby carriages, errant dogs, and women loaded with so many shopping bags that they took up half the goddamned space.
“Gracious!” Francine panted, “if I’d known we were in training for the London Olympics, I’d have worn different shoes.”
It took some effort for Kathryn to slow down.
“Isn’t this lovely?” Francine nudged her toward an arty window display of fifty-one silk scarves arranged like flags to represent the recently convened first General Assembly of the United Nations.
Kathryn barely took it in. An overloaded shopper ahead of them had a man in tow who reminded her of Nelson. She couldn’t stop thinking about that kiss in the alley.
“You are in a mood,” Francine said. “You going to tell me what’s on your mind, or is it something you only share with your husband?”
Oh, that tone! Kathryn could normally glide over it, but today it felt like her well of patience had run Death-Valley dry. They arrived a the three-story building with a matching pair of chimneys right before Sunset curved into Beverly Hills. “Have you tried their Moscow Mule? Scott Fitzgerald introduced me to it. They call it ‘the Drink with the Velvet Kick’ and boy, do I need one of those.”
* * *
Kathryn had forgotten how dark it was inside the Cock’n Bull. The owner had tried to mock the place up as an English pub with straw scattered on the floor and antique hunting prints and brass plaques decorating the walls. Most of the seats were wooden armchairs called captain’s chairs, which Kathryn didn’t find terribly comfortable, but rumor had it that they kept the drunks from falling out.
The weekend lunchtime crowd was drinking tall glasses of a dark brown Irish beer called Guinness, which Kathryn had heard about but never tried. When the waitress warned Kathryn it was a tad strong, she ordered one, plus a Moscow Mule for her mother and a couple of Welsh rarebits.
Across from them sat a pair of nattily dressed studio executive types—fashionable suits, tasteful ties, gold pinkie rings, and jackrabbit eyes that were perpetually in motion. On their table lay a copy of yesterday’s Hollywood Reporter. Kathryn looked away. “So,” she said, “you have news?”
Francine shook her head. “No, dear, I didn’t call you because I have something to tell you. There’s something I want to ask you.”
Kathryn could feel a headache coming on, and rubbed her forehead.
“I finished that book.” Francine said, thin-lipped. “I assume Eugene Markham and Beatrice Kahn are supposed to be you and your husband?”
“It’s the general consensus.”
“Not very flattering, I must say.”
“The whole book is not very flattering.”
“I’d have thought it’s the last thing your husband needed, what with all these Communist allegations flying around town.”
“That hideous book is half the reason for all those Commie rumors.”
The waitress arrived with their drinks. Kathryn was surprised how thick and creamy her Guinness was. There was a hint of chocolate, but bitter and dark, like a cold, foggy night. She wasn’t sure she liked it, but she didn’t hate it enough to send it back. “We’re just trying to ignore the whole thing.”
“That can’t be easy,” Francine said. “Not when your boss is the one pointing his crosshairs at all those Pinkos. I do hope it’s not placing a strain on your marriage.”
“What’s with that tone you always use whenever you mention Marcus nowadays?” Francine looked at her as though she didn’t understand the question. “You said it just now. The last thing your husband needs; a strain on your marriage. Are you still miffed I didn’t ask you to the ceremony? Because I explained that to you. It was all very spur of the moment.”
“It was your ceremony, Kathryn, you’re allowed to conduct it in any way you please.”
“You didn’t miss anything. Just the four of us with a justice of the peace.”
“My beef isn’t that you didn’t invite me to your wedding.”
“But you do have a beef.” Kathryn took a third sip and decided she enjoyed the yeasty, molasses flavor. “Just come out and say it.”
“Do you think your husband is a Communist?”
“Oh, mother, if you only knew how laughable that is.”
“They’re saying the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League is a Communist Party front, and we both know that it was founded by Don Stewart and Dorothy Parker, both of whom have lived at the Garden of Allah. So it’s not entirely outside the realm of possibility.”
“Marcus is no Communist, I know that for damned sure.”
“All I know is that your husband is no heterosexual.”
Kathryn gaped at her mother.
The waitress appeared with their lunch, giving Kathryn a minute to consider how to handle this curveball. It turned out that Welsh rarebit was an extra-thick slice of toast smothered with a gooey cheesy-mustardy sauce. Not quite a grilled cheese sandwich, but close enough.
Francine spoke again. “That chap he was with when he came out of your apartment, is that his special friend?”
The blood pounded Kathryn’s temple. She scrambled to formulate a response that wasn’t a lie and wouldn’t compromise Marcus’ private life, but the words evaporated somewhere at the base of her throat.
Francine drew herself up ramrod straight. “I’ve sat on the sidelines withholding my opinion about your marriage, but this Communist thing has brought out all the daggers. When I read your boss naming names in his column, I felt it was my duty to say what none of your friends have the courage to.”
“Which is what?”
“You’re lucky to live in Hollywood, because this is one of the few places where it’s not the worst thing in the world to get a divorce.”
“A divorce?” Kathryn nearly had to spit out the chunk of rarebit. “We’ve only been married a year!”
“In the eyes of God, you haven’t been married at all.”
“Since when do you care about the eyes of God?”
“I’ve started to attend services lately.” Francine wiped the edges of her mouth. “The Church of the Good Shepherd.”
That was the one in Beverly Hills with the most celebrity worshipers west of Central Park. Everybody from Valentino to Bing Crosby went there, some of them to be seen rather than to be pious.
“Thank you for your advice, Mother, but I’m not about to get a divorce because your vicar’s been preaching from his pulpit—”
“He’s not a vicar,” Francine cut in, “he’s a priest, and give me some credit, please. I’m telling you because this anti-Communist thing has every sign of becoming a witch hunt. Don’t forget—I hear things. Not intentionally, of course, I don’t go snooping, but I do hear things.”
Francine was the head telephone operator at the Chateau Marmont Hotel. “What sort of things?”
“Suffice it to say that if the House Un-American Activities Committee comes to Hollywood, they’re going to start digging around. If you’ve got any skeletons in your closet, now is the time to sweep them out.”