“I thought you liked it. If I recall, you even praised my review, saying that I captured the ‘spirit of the dispirited.’”
The piece of lamb on her fork never made it to her mouth. Putting it down, she remarked, “I really do think we need a film industry that is more even-handed and hires fewer foreigners.”
This was an Arietta he had never seen before. “What about the Jews?” he asked sarcastically. “Most of the big movie companies and producers have names like Goldwyn and Warner and Selznick.”
She bit her lip and apologized. “I really didn’t mean what I said. Just ignore it.”
He knew then that Arietta had undergone a sea change. Thinking about the implications, he concluded that what mattered was not the source but her impressionability. Or were the two causally related?
For the remainder of the dinner, they ate in virtual silence, neither one of them venturing to say anything that could be misconstrued or that could lend itself to a political interpretation.
At the Riviera Hotel, in no mood to be jovial, he plunked down in the parlor chair. Arietta sat on the piano bench, the lower part of her body turned toward him but the upper facing the piano, which she lightly teased with her right hand. He took the News from the coffee table, which separated them, and crouched over to read it. Clearly, neither of them had any interest in making love. To anyone looking in, his indifference and her aloofness would have conveyed a picture of profound sadness. The wistful loneliness of the scene stood in dour contrast to the first night they had become lovers. Although neither of them spoke, Jay was sure that she wished as earnestly as he to be somewhere else, apart.
That evening, they neither sang nor danced. After a short while, he sent her home alone in a cab. A few days later came the murder. Axel Kuppler was found dead in Margie’s apartment. During Margie’s absence, someone had shot him. Spitefully, Jay persuaded the paper to run a headline that read: “Pimp Killed!”
The day of the killing, he had called the Magliocco house to ask Arietta if she knew anything about it. But no one had answered the phone. For the next two days, he failed to get a reply. Borrowing a car, he drove to her house. The place stood completely dark and the doors locked. He looked in the garage. Mr. M.’s Waterhouse was gone. His instincts told him that if he ever saw Arietta again, it would not be in Newark. In his bones, he knew she and her father had fled.
Quite naturally, the police questioned him. He was becoming a regular on their list of suspects, to the despair of his parents, who had hoped that journalism would change his life. The police knew that Arietta had bolted and asked if he knew why and where. He refused to talk about her “friendship” with Axel, even when the police said they had evidence that the two of them in the past had spent nights together in the Robert Treat Hotel. As to the whereabouts of father and daughter, he swore in complete honesty that he had no idea where they had gone.
The same day, to his great surprise, Gerry Catena telephoned; the “big man” wanted to see Jay that very evening, if possible, and Gerry would collect him at the hotel. “Sure,” he gulped. He shaved, slapped on some aftershave lotion, and changed into his best suit, the black one that he’d worn the last time he saw Arietta. Catena arrived twenty minutes later and drove them to an opulent apartment in West Orange. All the furniture, in different pastels, had a Parisian look. The end tables and lamps reminded him of ads in fashion mags; the mahogany coffee table held a hand-carved chess set, and the mantelpiece African carvings, some in ebony, some in ivory, others in stone. Longie, dressed in a tie and jacket and exuding cologne, was sitting on the couch talking to a beautiful blonde, leggy woman who spoke with an Italian accent. On the coffee table was a silver tea set and a book, The Heart of Darkness. When he and Gerry entered, Longie introduced him to his guest, Signorina Francesca Bronzina, asked him what he wanted to drink, and sent Gerry to the kitchen to fetch it.
“Miss Bronzina sings opera,” said Longie. “Her father was arrested in Rome for opposing Mussolini.”
“I work for the underground,” said the singer.
Gerry returned with Jay’s ginger ale.
Thinking of the Italian connection, he asked, “Are you and Arietta Magliocco friends?”
“No. I’m here to watch someone and discover his contacts.”
As Jay rocked the ice cubes in his glass, he wondered what her specific assignment could be. But before he could ask, Longie nodded to Gerry, who left the room in the company of Francesca.
At first, Longie said nothing. Jay began to feel like an insect under glass, as Longie eyed him. Finally, the big man said, “Until recently, you spent a lot of time with Arietta, around town and at the Riviera.”
Everyone who worked for Longie said that he made it his business to know who sneezed, where and when. Jay had just become a believer.
“For a while I was really sweet on her.”
“No more?”
He used an English expression he had heard. “It seems to have gone off the boil.”
Longie chuckled. “The police who came to see you . . .”
“Which time? There were several.”
“When they told you about Arietta’s being seen at the Friends’ meeting hall.”
“I’m listening.”
“They questioned you because I sent them.” Jay’s jaw went slack.
“They reported everything you said.”
“But why?”
“To make sure you didn’t know enough to upset the apple cart.”
“I don’t understand.”
Longie stood and, leaning against the mantelpiece, picked up one of the ivories. Fingering its polished surface as delicately as he might a flower petal, he remarked aimlessly, “A fertility goddess,” returned it to the mantel and said, “She worked for me, and now, as you probably know, she’s disappeared. Why?”
“Worked for you?”
“She kept an eye on the Friends. And she served as a courier.”
If she had been a courier for Longie that would explain her frequent absences. “What kind of courier?”
“She carried cash to people around the country who are running ads and sending out letters to promote the boycott. We could hardly have sent checks that the feds and tax men could trace.”
He could see where Longie was heading.
“We owe her, and we always look after our own. I’m worried about her safety. She was threatened by a Nazi hit man that I wanted to take out immediately, but she asked us to wait, hoping to pump him for information about other German agents in the country. I begged her to watch her step, and also her language; you know, sound sympathetic to the swine.”
That would explain her recent changes in attitude, Jay thought. Protective coloration. Longie was behind it. Then he remembered the words in the cablegram: “You have the list.” What list? Did Arietta know about it?
“Kuppler’s death really complicated matters. The Nazis put a price on her head. They’re convinced that she killed him or arranged it.”
A conscience-stricken Jay exclaimed, “How many more reasons do you need for her taking a powder?” A moment later, he nervously asked, “Did she in fact kill him?”
“I don’t know. All I can tell you is we didn’t and she’s disappeared . . . and I’m worried.” Longie opened a pocketknife and began to clean his fingernails. “The question running through my mind is will she shun her old contacts, approach them for help, or continue her efforts on behalf of our cause? I do admit: She’s tough. Once she agrees to do a job, nothing stops her.”
At that moment, Jay experienced both a rush of guilt and exhilaration. While she had been risking her life, he was thinking only of romance; but he also felt in a strange way that if he could find her, he could find himself. “I want to help,” he volunteered. “If there’s anything I can do, just ask.”
“Her and her father,” Abe added.
“At the moment, Longie, I haven’t a clue. I wish I did.”
“When she started seeing you, Kuppler threatened her. He said she belonged to him. ‘Belonged’ was his word.”
The story had started to take on a new dimension that left Jay not only confused but frightened. “I’m not following you.”
“I originally employed her because I knew that Kuppler had broken off their romance, and that a spurned woman would be a perfect source of information. And she was.”
Jay tried to sort out these revelations. How in the world had Longie learned about Arietta’s personal life? “I’m listening.”
“She told us what she’d known about Kuppler during the time of their affair and, more important, what she found out later, when she kept on attending Friends meetings and reporting on him and his associates.”
“If Kuppler tried to woo her a second time . . .”
Longie interrupted. “He did. We were bugging his home and his whore’s place, as well as Mr. Magliocco’s house. Arietta was furious with his pimping and demanded he give it up.”
It occurred to Jay that if Margie’s place had been bugged, Longie might have the murder scene on his recorder.
“All we have are a few words: ‘Believe me . . . I can explain.’ Then a shot and a muffled cry. It sounds like he double-crossed someone, maybe his whore.”
Knowing Margie as a true soldier, he felt called upon to defend her. “Margie hates violence. She’d be the last person in the world to kill him. Maybe the Friends did. It was whispered that he questioned Hitler’s sanity.”
“If so, he was damn discreet about it. But I’m glad you’re willing to help us find her. It’s what I hoped.”
“Any living relatives?”
“None in Piero’s family. Two aunts of hers, an Amalie in Wildwood, New Jersey, and an Agna in Milwaukee.”
“Their addresses could be useful. Anything else?”
“Here’s what we know. The Bundists think she killed Kuppler and want to get their hands on her. The Nazi who threatened her presumably entered the country to suppress the Olympic boycotters. We’re looking for him now. It’s my guess he’s behind the three recent murders at the Chink restaurant. We have good reason also to believe that Arietta is a prime target. She has to be protected from both: the Bundists and this guy.”
“You sound as if you know who he is.”
“I don’t, but Francesca does. She’s part of the Haganah, fighting for an independent Palestine.” Longie cracked his knuckles. “She thinks his name, which may not be his real one, is Rolf Hahne. Francesca can describe the man for you. Women are always better at that sort of thing than men. If I had a picture of the guy, I’d give it to you. She’ll fill you in.”
“Do you have any married names for the aunts?”
Longie shook his head no and handed Jay an envelope. “Here’s a record of the telephone calls Arietta and her father made in the last several months. Two are to Wildwood, one to Kansas City, and three to Milwaukee. If we can get this information, so can others. You’ll also find the names and addresses of people supporting the boycott—those we funded. They too could be in danger, especially our man in K.C., J. L. Wilkinson, the owner of the Kansas City Monarchs. Arietta may well seek him out.” Longie reached into his pocket. “And here’s a key to the Magliocco house. Maybe you can find something we missed.”
“Just for the record, I’m prepared to do whatever I can, even though it means quitting the paper, but what makes you think I can find her when you can’t?”
“Two reasons. One, you’re a member of the Friends. If I were in your shoes, I’d plead ignorance about her and Kuppler and try to learn something from them. Second, you know her habits better than anyone else. As to the job, I promise it will be there when you get back.”
Mentally calculating what it would take to find the Maglioccos, Jay said that he would need money, a car, and an assistant. When Longie asked if he had anyone in mind, he suggested Francesca.
“She works alone, always has and always will. I promise: She’ll keep an eye on you. Can you think of anyone else?”
“T-Bone Searle, a friend of mine, a Negro. We play pool checkers together.”
“A schvarze?”
“He speaks Yiddish better than you, and oozes muscle. He’s also got an eye for spotting trouble.”
Longie thought a moment and grinned. “Maybe he’s from one of the lost tribes.”
“Believe me, a lion of Judah. Do you want to meet him?”
“No, I trust you.”
He and Longie shook hands, and the very next day, Wednesday, May 22, Jay began what was to become an odyssey of self-discovery through an America that he had never seen before, swept along by events not of his own making. Free will? Impossible. Most people are nothing more than picaros propelled by jobs and romance down winding roads, hoping that each new encounter will be more promising than the last.
Jay’s first step was to attend a Friends meeting. The hall in Irvington, seething with conspiracy theories about Kuppler’s death, grew silent when he entered. He quickly learned that these creeps thought that Arietta had killed Axel because he had tried to end her affair with Jay, a.k.a. Richard Wagner. To Jay’s disclosure that Axel and Arietta had once been lovers, they puritanically held that Axel Kuppler would never have polluted his body with such filth. When Jay reminded them that Axel had of late been working as a pimp, they accused him of spreading “Jewish propaganda.”
A particularly evil-looking fellow with a vicious habit of slapping his wife and kids across the face to command discipline poked his index finger into Jay’s chest and informed him that sexual crimes were the province of Jews, and that a friend of his at the News had told him that the story about Axel’s pimping had been concocted by some unnamed Jewish reporter. By any chance, did he, Mr. Wagner, know him?
“This is the first I’ve heard of it.”
A crowd slowly encircled Jay.
“You and the Ewerhardt woman,” said a guy shaped like a water hydrant with a bullet head, “often attended our meetings. The two of you spied on us to undermine the German-American cause—and to kill Axel.” By trying to implicate Jay, the fireplug had immeasurably increased the danger.
Jay argued that at the time of the killing, he was at a bowling alley and that ten witnesses would bear him out.
“Probably all Jews!” a thin-lipped fellow sneered.
“As a German faithful to the Fatherland, I make it a point to surround myself only with Aryans.”
When his antagonists shifted their focus back to Arietta, again accusing her of being complicit in Kuppler’s death, Jay insisted that even after the breakup, she regarded him fondly.
But they scoffed at the very idea of the two having been romantically involved.
How could one argue with their Nazi logic? At least they hadn’t accused him of having played a part in the riot. Axel had done him a good turn, probably to ingratiate himself with Arietta, by not voicing his suspicions.
The man who claimed to have a friend at the News knew that Jay was employed at the paper.
“In what capacity?” he asked.
“I write movie and theater reviews.”
“Filth!” a man missing his upper front teeth whistled.
How often had he heard the Friends urging their members to see German movies and to boycott American ones? Probably every meeting. He really felt in no position to start extolling Jean Harlow or Mary Astor, whom they regarded as whores. Ransacking his memory, he mentioned a German play he had reviewed, Georg Kaiser’s From Morn to Midnight. But the moment he mentioned Kaiser’s name, he remembered that he had been critical of Germany during World War I. Sure enough, they greeted his statement with expletives. It was time to get the hell out of there. But what could he use as an exit line?
“Gentlemen, let me remind you,” he said in his best tutori
al manner, “Kaiser’s play satirizes the cheapness and futility of modern society. Isn’t that a position we all share? Aren’t we trying to bring about a better one?”
A particularly intractable Friend, Friedl Kretch, objected that true patriots of the Fatherland found Kaiser’s work contemptible and unworthy of production in the new Germany.
He decided it was now or never. “Had I known about this feeling coming out of the Fatherland, I would never have agreed to review the play.” Before they could react, he requested a list of works that they would like to see treated in the News. As their suggestions tumbled forth, he assured them that he would be as good as his word. Taking the omnipresent pad from his pocket, he scribbled down the titles. “Don’t forget,” he prompted, “Leni Riefenstahl’s brilliant new movie The Triumph of the Will.” That seemed to turn the tide in his favor, as they oohed and aahed with orgasmic pleasure. Judging the moment ripe for an escape, he pushed through the circle and left the hall.
As he rode the bus back to the office, he ruminated about the uses of art and Leni’s mesmerizing film: its stark beauty, its terror, its power to make evil look good, and the zero demands it made on one’s intelligence. How could one combat such effective appeals to pure emotion? The bus passed a billboard with a catchy phrase, advertising Fisk tires: “I know when it’s time to retire.” Puns were clever, but the best propaganda hit people in the gut. Deutschland über alles told the Germans that they and their country mattered most. Add a midnight torchlight parade, martial music, uniforms, choreography, and an exaltation of the spirit (not the mind), and you could understand why the population took to the streets. Yes, he had to admit, Leni’s film was art. Not great art—that engaged the head as well as the heart. But since the public preferred not to think, great art was in short supply. He began to see the frightening nexus between sentimentality and totalitarianism. What was he doing spending his life reviewing saccharine films that aimed no higher than the groin? At that moment, he wondered whether he wouldn’t be better served attending law school. But what was he thinking? He wouldn’t be sitting in any classrooms or writing reviews again until the Maglioccos were found.
Dreams Bigger Than the Night Page 15
