by Joseph Kanon
Ben said nothing, turning back to the gate.
“Right,” Riordan said slowly, doing a sum in his head. “Your pal at the Market. Little Jimmy Olsen.”
“Did Bunny know why?”
Riordan shook his head. “Just a favor.”
“So Danny’s a drunk. Another studio mess. But not a snitch.”
“Snitch. He was your brother. What do you want to beat him up like that for?”
“I beat him up?” Ben said, looking over at Riordan.
“You’re doing it now. What he did-”
“You’re right,” Ben said, tired of it. “Maybe you didn’t, either. Maybe he beat himself up.”
“He didn’t do anything to himself. That’s the point. Somebody else did. So who?”
“Check your files.”
“You didn’t listen before. If I know, it’s too late. Somebody wanted to stop him. It’s somebody he hadn’t told me about yet.”
Ben watched the tail lights pass through.
“We could help each other out,” Riordan said.
Ben turned to him, meeting his eyes.
“That’s what you were looking for in his desk,” he said finally. “Another name.”
“It’s the same one you want, isn’t it?”
He walked through the gate and heard music, people singing around a piano. The door of Sound Stage 4 was open, light pouring out onto the wet pavement. To one side, holding an umbrella, Bunny stood watching, his figure oddly poignant, like one of the waifs he used to play, nose pressed against the glass.
He was in a belted raincoat, dressed to go-where? Ben had never imagined him off the lot. But he must have a life somewhere, maybe a house on the beach, a bungalow in one of the canyons. Where he took phone calls at night, doing favors. Something he must have done a dozen times, just putting things right. A call the police understood, coming from him-studio business, another embarrassment to keep out of the papers. Not asking Riordan why, just holding the favor in his hand like an IOU. Not talking about it, either, certainly not to the unexpected brother, who kept poking at it.
Ben stopped. According to Riordan. It was still a call to the police, not something Bunny would do without knowing why. What had Riordan said to him? Or didn’t he have to say anything?
“It’s stopped raining,” Ben said, coming up to him.
He looked at Ben, distracted, then up at the dark sky and closed the umbrella. “So it has.”
“You’re not going in?”
On the nightclub set everything was still in place, but the gowns had been traded in for ordinary skirts, the men back in casual trousers and V-neck sweaters, even the cocktail glasses replaced by bottles of beer. Platters of food had been set up along the bar.
“No, you don’t want to barge in on a wrap party. Breaks the mood.”
The piano player shifted to a new song, the small knot of singers laughing as they picked it up.
“No fun with the boss around?”
Bunny shook his head. “Ever work on a picture?” he said, smiling a little, his voice distant. “For six weeks, eight weeks, whatever the shoot is-the minute this door closes everything else goes away. Everything. There’s just the crew, what you’re doing that day, getting the take right. That’s all. Like family. Closer. Then it’s over.” He nodded to the set where Rosemary was being lifted onto the bar next to the piano. “And you pretend you’re relieved, but-now what? You don’t want outsiders, not at the end. Well,” he said, catching himself, “listen to me.”
“You must miss it.”
“Well, of course you miss it. It’s the whole point. All the rest of it-” He waved his hand. “Remember Castaway? My first picture. A hundred years ago. We opened at the Pantages. My first time. I’d never seen anything like it before-the flashbulbs, people yelling your name. I was on the radio. And I thought, well, this is all right, this is it. But it wasn’t. This was it,” he said, looking at the set. “You can get things right. Perfect, sometimes. A perfect take. You can never get things right out here.” He looked down at his watch. “Still, here we are. And I’m late, I’m late,” he said, doing the White Rabbit.
“No rushes tonight?”
“Not tonight,” he said, closing down, moving back into the life Ben knew nothing about, as secret as Danny’s. Ben looked over at him. The one Riordan had called.
“You’re all wet, by the way,” Bunny said, starting to move. “Better get dried off.”
“I got caught. I was having a drink at Lucey’s with a friend of yours.”
Bunny stopped.
“Dennis Riordan.”
Bunny turned, trying to read his face.
“What a busy little bee it is. Buzz, buzz,” he said slowly. “And what did he have to say?”
“Not much. He knew my brother.”
“Oh yes? His nickel or yours?”
“His. A condolence call.”
Bunny took a second, fiddling with the umbrella. “You want to have a care there. You know who he is?”
Ben nodded. “One of Minot’s field hands. Don’t worry, I told him you said the Pledge of Allegiance every morning.”
“That’s not funny. What did he ask you?”
“About you? You didn’t come up.”
“Then why did you say he was a friend of mine?”
Ben shrugged. “I figured you’d know everybody on Minot’s staff.”
“Not everybody.”
“We just talked about Danny.”
“Was this after your chat with Rosemary?” Not making a point, just letting him know. “Quite a day for old times.”
Ben hesitated. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why the big mystery? You knew what I was looking for-”
“Tell you what?” Bunny said, then looked away, switching gears. “It wasn’t mine to tell. Yours, either.”
“You said you didn’t know him.”
“I said I’d never met him. I knew who he was. Hard not to, considering.”
“So it must have been a relief.”
Bunny peered at him. “Are you trying to get me to say something unpleasant? Why? I’m sorry for your loss, all right? Let’s leave it at that.”
“All I wanted was to talk to her. I knew there’d been someone.”
“And do you feel better now? Any more skeletons in the closet or are we ready to move on?”
“I don’t know, are there?”
But Bunny didn’t rise to this. “Usually. People are disappointing once you get to know them. I find. You’d do better remembering the good times. I assume there were?”
“A few.”
“Well, hold on to those,” he said archly, patting Ben’s upper arm. He glanced through the door. “Now let’s let her have her party in peace. Anyway, I’m late.” He began to move away again.
“Why’d you make the call?”
Bunny was quiet for a second. “ Les freres Kohler, ” he said finally, rhyming. “One was trouble. Now two.”
“You didn’t answer.”
“All right. What call?”
“The one you made to the police.”
“Again? You’re like a record with a skip. Back and back.”
“The one Riordan asked you to make. Why you?”
“Did he? Tell you what, now that you’re chums, why don’t you ask him?” he said, an end move. He let out a breath with an audible weariness. “Look, we’re stuck with each other for a while. Mr. L insists. Let’s make the best of it.” He nodded toward the sound stage. “For a start, we’ll keep Rosemary to ourselves, shall we? What’s done is done. No need to upset anyone. There’s the grieving widow to consider.”
“Is that why the screen test? Something for the wronged party?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Bunny said, genuinely put out. “Screen tests aren’t favors. Not mine. You think we’re all Sam Pilcer?” He looked up, feeling the drizzle begin again, cooling his mood. “I think she has something.”
“Besides an accent.”
“So did Bergman, when sh
e started. You can work with an accent, if there’s something there.” He looked again at the sound stage. “Whatever it is. Some quality.”
“And you think she has that?”
“Haven’t the faintest. She moves well, that’s what I noticed. But you can’t know anything until you see film. It’s not what you see, it’s what the camera sees. What quality it brings out. You have to have that.”
“What was yours?” Ben said.
Bunny looked at him, then smiled, amused. “Innocence, I think.”
After Bunny left, Ben stood for a while watching the party, invisible in the dark outside. There was a cake, somebody’s birthday, with candles to blow, then whoops and applause. He wondered if Bunny had had a cake on his set, eleven candles, surrounded by beaming grips and the family closer than family. Years like that, closing the world out with a door, until he was outside, too.
He darted back to Admin B, then sat at his desk looking at the photos in the manila envelope. Riordan peering over someone’s shoulder, maybe already planning how to clean up. Not a stranger to it. You’d see things at the Bureau, maybe another informer, tired of it. Except Danny had stayed with Riordan, not yet tired, wanting to-what? Protect the country? From whom? What names had he actually given? It was possible, wasn’t it, that he’d just told them things they already knew, some nimble card shuffle to protect his own flanks and bank a favor or two. But there he was, lying facedown in the alley, evidently not harmless. The same boy who’d been in the bed across the room, talking late into the night. Ben looked at the pictures again, feeling a heaviness in his chest. An informer.
And what about the boy in the other bed? No longer all ears, the eager audience. Now he’d seen things himself, stacks of bodies, a shocked face watching blood gush out. Not a boy anymore, either. Someone who knew the camp guards might be anybody, might be us- and where did we go from there? Now that we were capable of anything? They’d both done things they’d never imagined they’d do. Who was he to blame Danny, making love now to his wife? Maybe he would have helped Riordan, too, done the same thing under the circumstances-which were what exactly?
He shoved the pictures back in the envelope and put them in the drawer. Who knows what Danny’s reasons had been, some twisted apostasy. The point was he’d ended up in the alley. Nothing he could have told Riordan deserved that. A career jeopardized, a reputation? Not a real war, with real casualties. You didn’t kill people yet for name-calling.
Hal had asked him to stop by the cutting room on his way out, a quick check-in, he assumed, but some of the enlarged clips had come back from the lab, so a few minutes became an hour, then two. By the time he headed out to his car, he was already late for the roast chicken, the sort of absentmindedness they wrote into the Blondie series, cut to a scolding or an exasperated sigh at the door. He opened the car door. What were they doing? It’s too soon, she’d said, but done it anyway, gasping. If he thought about it, things flooded in, all the awkward questions. But if you didn’t think about it, it was simple again-the feel of skin. He wanted her because he wanted her. And she clutched him when she came, him, not someone else. No need to go deeper than skin. You could feel alive in it.
“Thank god.” An out-of-breath Lasner, upset, his eyes slightly frantic. “Where the hell’s Bunny?”
“He went off the lot.”
“Where? There’s nobody home. I tried. What, does he have a date for chrissake? Henry took Fay to her cards. So now what? Call a cab?”
“What’s wrong?”
“Your car?” Lasner said, eyeing it. “You mind? I appreciate it.”
“You need a lift?”
“Hurry,” Lasner said, opening the passenger door. “Come to think of it, you can talk to her. If she can talk. They didn’t say.”
“Who?” Ben said, getting in.
“The cops called. There’s a crash. The Buick. Lorna said Genia took it out. I didn’t even know she could drive.”
Ben started the car and backed it out. “Where?”
“Go out Sunset. The Palisades. So who does she know out there? She doesn’t know anybody. What’s she doing there?”
At the gate, Lasner leaned over Ben to talk to the guard.
“Carl? Henry comes, tell him I got a lift home, will you?”
“Sure thing, Mr. Lasner,” he said, saluting, a Dick Marshall-army gesture.
“He takes Fay to the cards,” Lasner said to Ben, “and then she likes him to stay. I’m here late anyway, so what the hell. Then something like this happens.”
They went up Gower and made a left on Sunset.
“They got the name off the registration. Lucky Fay’s not home- you imagine, she gets the call? So Lorna says call here. Now the car’s a wreck, I guess. Not that you mind the car. I mean, family. I don’t know, you try to do something nice for somebody and she just sits there. Then it rains, she takes the car out. A night like this.”
“Maybe she was going to see somebody.”
“Who does she know?”
They had passed through Hollywood, then the long featureless stretch before Fairfax, slowing now as they came to the heavier traffic on the Strip, bright from the neon signs over the clubs.
“Who knew she could drive? Who has cars over there? Look at this,” he said, indicating the slick street. “She goes tonight, roads like this.”
“What about the other car?”
“They didn’t say. Maybe she went into a tree, I don’t know. Just come. It’s serious.”
Lasner was quiet for a minute.
“It’s a hell of a thing, isn’t it? You get through all that business, survive Hitler, and then you come here and-bam.”
“They didn’t say she was dead, did they?”
“No. Just there was an accident. But they don’t on the phone, do they? Christ, imagine how Fay’s going to feel-”
“Let’s wait till we get there.”
Lasner fidgeted as they snaked around miles of houses. When they climbed into the Palisades, he pulled a note out of his pocket.
“Paseo Miramar. On the north side, they said. After Palisades Drive, into Topanga.”
“I know it.”
“What do you mean, you know it? You just got here.”
“Feuchtwanger lives there. A friend of Liesl’s father. I had to drop him off there.”
A Mediterranean villa spilling three stories down the cliff.
“And that’s where she goes for a drive? Christ, look at it.” They had started up the narrow, twisting road, slowing on the sharp curves. “And they put houses here.”
“For the views. That’s the ocean.” He nodded to the string of highway lights in the distance, the dark sea beyond.
They passed Feuchtwanger’s house, dark except for a single light in the study, not expecting visitors. But why even suppose they knew each other? A convenient turnoff up into the hills, maybe even picked at random. He imagined her at the wheel, deliberate, her eyes still blank, the light left somewhere in Poland.
“She comes up here? You know what I’m thinking?” Lasner said, a kind of echo. “It’s a hell of a thing. To do that.” He looked over at Ben, suddenly embarrassed. “Well, I don’t have to tell you.”
“No.”
At the top there was another turn, then a swarm of lights at the end of a stretch, just before the road looped back. Ben saw an ambulance and a cluster of police cars, lights trained on a splintered section of a wooden barrier fence at the edge of the cliff. One of the policemen was holding back a group of curious neighbors, the same extras, Ben thought, who’d appeared in the Cherokee alley. A flashbulb went off- maybe even the same police photographer. Now a few more shots, catching the group of ambulance workers carrying a litter up the side of the hill and onto the road.
“I made the call,” the policeman in charge said. “Sorry to bring you out, but we need an ID on her. It’s your car.”
Another cop drew back the sheet. Lasner looked down at the body, his face growing slack, then turned away, squeamish.
>
“A friend?”
“Cousin,” Lasner said, almost inaudible.
“You’re next of kin?”
“My wife.”
“Close enough. You’ll need to see the ME over there, make the ID. I’m sorry, but we need to do it.”
“What happened?” Ben said, staring at her face, torn by shards of glass where she must have hit the windshield, her hair matted with blood. Her eyes were closed but her mouth was open, as if it were still saying “oh.”
“She went through there,” the cop said, pointing to the broken fence. “Into the canyon. The car didn’t catch fire, so that’s one thing, but a drop like that, be a miracle you survive it. You just get knocked to hell.” He looked up at Lasner. “Sorry.”
Ben looked at the length of road, almost straight after the hairpins coming up.
“What do you think?” he said. “She swerved to avoid another car?”
The cop shook his head. “No sign of that. No skid marks either side. Course the rain didn’t help there. But you get a slippery patch here, you take it a little fast-” He raised his hand, letting them fill in the rest. “We had a hell of a time getting her out. The door stuck.”
But the curve wasn’t sharp, a gradual arc that anyone should have handled easily-unless you hadn’t driven a car in years, or never intended to turn. He looked down at the body again, trying to imagine the last minute, through the fence and then suspended in nothing, waiting for it to be over. Something no one else ever knows, the desperation for release. But what prompts it? Ben wondered, an awkward second, whether he had been part of it, the unexpected reminder, ghosts coming back.
“Reuben, it’s you?”
He turned to find Feuchtwanger, a raincoat over his jacket and tie, the slicked-back hair and wireless glasses formally in place.
“Herr Feuchtwanger.”
“Such a commotion. We saw the lights.” He looked over at Genia’s body, clearly not recognizing her. “Poor woman. Oh, these roads. Marta says it’s no worse than the corniche but me, I think a death trap.” He paused. “But what are you doing here?”
“She’s a cousin,” Ben said, indicating Lasner, huddled now with the ME.
