by Nina Revoyr
“Mr. Dreyfus,” I said, “I really don’t—”
“Let me finish.” He sounded more eager now, and I was growing uncomfortable. “Nora Niles’ mother wrote a letter to Leonard Stillman about two months after the murder. Without saying anything too overt, she practically admitted that she killed Tyler. Did you know that?”
I cleared my throat. “About Mrs. Cole? No. Well, I rather suspected.”
Dreyfus seemed to find this amusing; he smiled and shook his head. “I don’t know if you’re aware of the other part. Because the other thing she said was that she’d been furious with Tyler because she thought he’d gotten Nora pregnant. Did you know that?”
I shook my head no.
“Well. Nora was pregnant, and her mother thought that Tyler was the father, and it was only after he was already dead that she discovered it wasn’t him.” He paused, eyes bright with excitement. “She said it was you, Nakayama. She said that you got Nora pregnant. I couldn’t believe it. I mean, I still can’t quite believe it.”
I looked away, trying to formulate some kind of explanation. But Dreyfus kept on talking.
“I might have just dismissed it as the rant of some crazy woman out to ruin your career, which I guess she did—she threatened to go public with the whole thing if Perennial hired you again. Then the archive boys dug up Gerard Normandy’s journal, and it turns out he knew that Nora was pregnant, because Tyler, or whatever the bastard’s name really was, told him before he was killed. He also told Normandy who the father was.” He stopped here, whistled, and crushed out his cigarette. “Boy, was Normandy hot at you! You’re the one who couldn’t keep your pants on, and it’s Tyler who got killed, and Tyler wouldn’t have touched Nora anyway cause he was a fiaming queer.” He shook his head in wonder. “You almost brought the house down, Jun—the director, two actresses, not to mention yourself—and the whole town had to deal with the aftermath.”
I looked down; I didn’t bother to deny it. For while the truth sounded more lurid coming out of Dreyfus’ mouth, it was still, undeniably, the truth. All of my efforts to keep it at bay had come, in the end, to nothing. It was there, it had always been there, and now it had finally come to light. I had not been able to keep the errors of my past concealed, as I had hoped. I had not been able to keep them from myself.
“You were at the heart of a murder mystery,” Dreyfus said, not noticing my discomfort. “You had a half-breed baby with a leading actress, and no one ever figured it out! And now here you are, forty-odd years later, trying to make a comeback. Well, Nakayama, I have to tell you, I can hardly believe it. And there’s no question about your chances of getting this part.”
I forced myself to meet his eyes and accept the bad news head-on. It was only appropriate, I thought. It was what I deserved.
But then he grinned and said, “It’s perfect, Jun. It’s almost too good to be true. This story’s going to make our movie the hit of the year!”
I must have looked bewildered, for now he hit both palms on his desk excitedly and spread his arms out wide.
“We’re going to make it public, Jun! We’ll leak it! The whole damned thing! Don’t you see how brilliant it is? There’s an unsolved murder from the early days of Hollywood, plus a mystery child, and it all involves some of the biggest stars of the silent era! And now, forty years later, we’ve finally solved the murder. Because this is what else I found out, old man. I found out that the police and the District Attorney knew damned well who did it, and that they took payoffs from Harriet Cole for years! Travis Crittendon didn’t give a shit about clearing you or Elizabeth Banks; he hated Japs and he thought Elizabeth was a slut. I’m sure you heard that he killed himself twenty years ago, after he lost his last race for D.A. But did you know he did it with a pearl-handled .38 just like the one that Harriet Cole used to own? He probably got it from her and kept it as insurance, to keep the payments coming. She probably worried every day that he’d expose her.” He pounded on the desk again, closed-fisted this time. “Yes, this is a hell of a story, Jun. And the man who was at the center of it all—the man who got the actress pregnant and who should have been the target of the murder—is starring in a new film from Perennial!”
I was speechless. I stared at Dreyfus in complete disbelief.
“The press is going to eat it up,” he said. “And the public! Oh, we’ll make it sound like you and Nora were secretly engaged so we don’t piss off the church ladies in Iowa. But it’s going to be huge, and there’ll be such a tremendous buzz that they won’t be able to sell the tickets fast enough. We’re going to be a hit, Nakayama! You’re going to be a hit! If you think you were big before, that was nothing compared to how big you’re going to be now. Money, women, all kinds of attention. You’ve waited years to regain your glory, and now you’ve finally got your chance. You’re going to blow them away. You’re—”
“Mr. Dreyfus,” I interjected as my stomach sank, “I do not wish to revisit that particular time. If the film does not succeed on the basis of its artistic merit, then I’d rather that it not succeed at all.”
“Oh, it will, it will, don’t worry, old man. This other story will just make people pay attention.”
“I don’t want people to pay attention to that aspect of my life. I don’t want them to reduce our careers to a lurid scandal.”
He waved his arms, stood up, and then sat down again. “Oh, I know you’re shy about it, but really, Nakayama, don’t be such a prude. It’s a great story, actually, and it makes you kind of a rogue. It gives you a dangerous edge, a sex appeal.”
I swallowed hard. I wasn’t sure what kind of man this story made me, but it wasn’t a man I liked or wished for others to know. “Mr. Dreyfus, that was a very painful time. I don’t care to dredge it up, for any reason.”
“I’m sure it was difficult—but what better way to come to terms with it than by turning it into something productive?”
I felt like the walls were closing in around me; like the air was being sucked from the room. I felt an overwhelming urge to be out and away—not just from that room and that distasteful young man, but from his knowledge of my past and from the past itself. I couldn’t believe what he was proposing and I couldn’t stand to be in his presence, not for a moment longer. “Excuse me, I have to leave,” I said abruptly, and then I stood and turned to go.
“Well, call me in a day or two,” said Dreyfus, who was clearly nonplussed by my reaction. Perhaps he was accustomed to making awful proposals that people were first offended by and then ultimately accepted. I would have left the room without looking back, but then he added, “Don’t you want to know about your child?”
This froze me in my tracks, and I half-turned toward the desk. Of course Dreyfus would have tied up this final loose end; of course he would have followed that part of the story. On the one hand, if I stayed ignorant of the fate of my child—if I could hold on to the possibility that there hadn’t been a child—it was easier to deny the whole episode. But part of me desperately wanted to know, and now that he’d revealed that there’d indeed been a birth, I didn’t want Dreyfus to have more knowledge of my life than I did.
“It was a boy,” he said, almost gently. “You have a grown son. He lives in Seven Acres Residence in Pasadena.”
This little bit of knowledge made my entire body shake. I managed to ask, “What’s his name?”
Dreyfus smiled now, a nearly genuine smile. “Charles Riley. Charles Chaplin Riley.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
December 10, 1964
Until this morning, I hadn’t been to Pasadena since 1947, when I attended an exhibit at the Huntingtonton. The city looks surprisingly unchanged—the Craftsman bungalows are still in pristine condition; the public buildings are all stately and well-kept. Pasadena, unlike Los Angeles, has a reverence for its history, and does not appear determined to reinvent itself or to eliminate all vestiges of its past.
The Seven Acres residence is at the north end of the city, in the foothills. I obtained the
address from directory assistance, and rather than giving Charles Riley the chance to say no, I decided to appear with no warning. I was apprehensive, and even as I drove to Pasadena in the car I’ve been renting—my own car appears to have been stolen from in front of the theater—I wasn’t sure if I’d reveal my connection to him. I had no way of anticipating how I would react—whether I would maintain possession of myself, or be so undone by the presence of this man that I would be incapable of normal social discourse. As it turned out, I had little reason to worry.
The first thing I noticed about Seven Acres was its geographical isolation. As I said, it stood in the foothills, with the San Gabriel Mountains looming behind it. When I approached, I saw that the entire property was bound by a black iron fence. At the parking kiosk, a young security guard inquired as to the purpose of my visit, and I indicated that I was visiting Charles Riley. He nodded and handed me a parking pass. “You’re aware of all the rules here, I take it.”
I did not know what he meant, but I nodded yes. Entering the grounds—I was still several hundred yards from the main building—I saw a group of people walking on the grass. They were moving haphazardly toward the edge of the grounds, and sometimes one of them would try to wander off until a woman, who was clearly the leader, touched him lightly and redirected him to the group. Then the smallest one turned her face to the sky and released a blood-curdling shriek. At this point, I looked away and saw another group of adults seated around a table. Two of them were playing a board game, and the others appeared to be watching. Then one of the players took a handful of pieces and stuffed them into his mouth, which caused his opponent to hit the board and upset the rest of the game. I wondered what kind of place I had come to, and as I got closer to the building, I saw the sign: Seven Acres Residential Facility: Assisted Living for the Mentally Retarded.
After I parked, I sat in my car for a moment. I had no idea my child was in a place like this. In the weeks since I had learned of his existence, I had envisioned all sorts of things. He would be in his early forties now—what was his profession? Maybe he was a lawyer or businessman, a physician or a stockbroker. Or maybe he had followed in his parents’ footsteps and worked in entertainment, as an executive or writer or agent. Certainly at his age he would have a wife and children. Certainly, then, I would finally have grandchildren.
But as I sat in my car and stared at the sign, my visions of Charles Riley were altered. Or rather, the vision completely dissolved, for I could not conceive of what a grown man’s life would be like in a place like the one I had come to.
I got out of the car and entered the building through a large glass double door. At the front desk, an overweight woman greeted me heartily.
“I am here to see Charles Riley,” I said.
She smiled. “Really? Well, that’s a surprise. Charlie doesn’t get any visitors, other than the student volunteers from Pasadena City College. How do you happen to know him?”
I cleared my throat and tried to keep my voice steady. “I’m a friend of the family, you might say.”
The woman, whose name tag read Norma, pushed a pen and paper toward me. It was a visitors’ sign-in sheet, and after a moment’s hesitation, I wrote down my real name and address.
“Are you a friend of his birth parents?” Norma asked. “They abandoned him, you know.”
I looked down at my hands, uncertain of what to say, but Norma didn’t notice my awkwardness.
She leaned toward me and said in a theatrical whisper, “They say his parents were movie stars, and that he was a love child. Do you know if it’s true? We’ve always wondered who his parents might be. I’ll bet his daddy was Antonio Moreno; he has the same good looks.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “It was my wife who knew the details.”
Norma called for someone to take me back to see him. My escort, a young nurse named Miss Greer, was efficient and businesslike. As we made our way down the hallway, she explained the purpose of Seven Acres.
“What’s happened historically is that retarded adults have no real place to go. So we give them a place to live, and structured activities. Some of them are quite self-sufficient; a few even have jobs, doing things like being checkers at grocery stores.”
We walked by a middle-aged woman in a wheelchair whose eyes showed no comprehension of her surroundings. “Hello. Hello. Hello,” she said.
“Well, hello!” said Miss Greer. “How are you, Annie?”
The woman just grinned, and said even louder, “Hello! Hello! Hello!”
“Tell me,” I said, “how did Charles come to be in a place like this?”
Miss Greer sighed. “Well, often, when parents discover that their children are retarded, they don’t want them anymore. They grow up in orphanages—special orphanages for children who will never be adopted—and then when they’re eighteen, they’re sent here. Charlie’s a special case. His records indicate that his mother—a woman named Margaret Riley, although she went by something else—did all sorts of crazy things to induce a miscarriage. Someone beat her and kicked her in the stomach repeatedly. She drank heavily or maybe took opiates. This child wasn’t wanted, regardless of his mental state. In fact, her behavior during the pregnancy might have contributed to his condition.”
I didn’t reply. I thought of the long months that Nora spent in hiding, having no contact with anyone but her mother. As far as I knew, Nora had never been especially fond of drink, had not been one for drugs—what exactly had Harriet driven her to, or forced her to endure? What, in my cowardly absence, had I missed? We walked out through the back of the building and onto the grounds. Miss Greer surveyed the lawn, where several residents were sitting.
“What is he like?” I asked. “How aware is he of the world around him?”
Miss Greer smiled warmly. “Oh, he’s lovely. Very kind and good-spirited. He’ll hug you for no reason, pick you a fiower at the drop of a hat. He’s not incoherent like some of our other residents. It’s more like he’s permanently frozen at ten. The other residents love him, and the employees do too. He’s really quite a charmer. You’ll see.”
We set off down the lawn, toward a figure in a chair who was facing the mountains, watching something move in the grass. “Charlie?” she said, when we got within earshot. “Charlie, there’s someone here to see you.”
He turned around and smiled broadly, and my heart froze in my chest. This was my own fiesh and blood. And if I had harbored any doubt about his parentage before, it vanished in that moment. The curly dark hair, the full cheeks, the bright smile were Nora’s. But the square nose and high forehead, the olive skin and oval eyes, were clearly mine. His face was both shocking and completely familiar. It was as if I had contained the knowledge of that face for all of these years, and had spent my life waiting to find it. “Miss Greer!” he said happily. “There are kittens!”
“Oh, Charlie, how delightful!” We stopped at his side, and he pointed out toward the bushes, where several small kittens were scurrying about and climbing on top of each other.
“Charlie, I’d like you to meet someone. This is Mr. Nakayama.” Then, turning to me, “This is Charles Riley. He loves cats and big difficult puzzles.”
“And baseball,” he said, still watching the kittens.
“And baseball!” she added. “Sorry, I forgot. He watches the games on television, and last year we even took a group of residents to a game at Dodger Stadium. I’m not much of a sports fan myself, but Charlie talked about it for months.”
“Can you take cats to baseball games?” he asked, looking up at her.
Miss Greer laughed. “Oh, Charlie. I don’t think so.”
“Miss Greer,” I said, “do you mind if I spend a few minutes with Charlie alone?”
She hesitated for a moment, and I could see that in fact she did mind. In the end, however, she shrugged and said, “Just call out if you need anything.” Then she left me alone with my son.
I pulled a chair up beside him. He appeared younger than his f
orty-two years, as if the worries of life that normally cause gray hair and wrinkles had passed him by completely. I did not know what to say to him, and he didn’t seem to notice my presence. He hummed softly, a happy tune that I recognized but could not quite name. Finally, I ventured, “Who’s your favorite player?”
“Gil Hodges,” he said. I knew too little about baseball to formulate another question, so I asked, “What else do you like, Charlie?”
“I like puzzles, and cats, and baseball,” he explained again patiently. “And Bugs Bunny, and tacos. And movies.”
I moved a little closer and studied his face. In it, I saw bits of myself, and my brother, and even, faintly, my father. As I looked, my whole life, its choices and errors, seemed to lay itself out plainly before me. “What kind of movies do you like?”
“Pirates. Musicals. Cowboys. ‘We don’t need no stinkin’ badges!’” Then he sang, in a surprisingly beautiful voice, “Maria, I just met a girl named Maria!”
“You’re very talented, Charlie.”
“I know,” he said. “My parents were movie stars.”
I must have started to cry at this point, for now he looked at me with a worried expression. “Mister, are you all right?”
“I’m fine, Charlie.”
