Chapter 35
Chapter 35
“Would you like a cup of coffee?” Detective Miller asked solicitously.
It was early. Very early, in fact. Lena had awakened with the dawn to go down to the police department in city hall, not wanting to be late to work and give Higgy another reason to be upset. She shook her head in answer to Miller’s question. “No thank you. Why did you want to see me, Detective?”
The little room was close. A small fan spun in the corner but didn’t lend much movement to the air. Miller gave it an annoyed look. “I’m sorry. It’s not very comfortable in here, I know. The new building is supposed to be air-conditioned.”
“That will be nice for you.” Lena spoke politely and eyed the clock. She didn’t care about the nearly finished new LAPD building a block away.
“We got the coroner’s report back on Walter Maynard. What do you know about poisons, Miss Taylor?”
Lena tried to look surprised. “Is that what killed him? Poison? I know rat poison, like everyone else.”
“Did you consider Walter Maynard to be a rat?”
“No. Was it rat poison?”
Detective Miller sighed. “As it happens, no. It was curare.”
Lena gave him a blank look.
“Walter Maynard died badly.” Miller watched her closely as he spoke. “It would have taken him almost fifteen minutes. Curare would have paralyzed and suffocated him slowly. He would have been aware that he was dying and been unable to do anything to stop it. The only thing that might have saved him is if someone had happened upon him and given him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Maybe.”
“Oh my God.” Lena didn’t have to feign horror. The vision he presented was terrible. She wouldn’t have wished a death like that on Walter, or any death, especially, beyond that fleeting moment in the tavern, which she felt guilty for, and hoped that Detective Miller couldn’t see it resting uneasily upon her.
Miller said, “Have you been in a hospital recently?”
The question startled her with its incongruity. “A hospital? No. Why?”
“Have you been to Canada?”
“No.”
“Not shooting a film there?”
“Lux has no films shooting in Canada. Why?”
Miller rubbed his nose. “Curare comes from South America. It was used by Indians there to poison arrows.”
“I haven’t been to South America either,” she said.
“A Canadian doctor began using it as an anesthetic about fifteen years ago.”
That explained Canada.
“But do you know what I find most fascinating about curare, Miss Taylor?”
She shook her head. “I can’t begin to guess.”
“The Russians use it as a poison. They inject it.”
“The Russians,” Lena said faintly. “How interesting.”
“Don’t you think so?” Miller’s blue gaze held her tightly. “Do you know any Russians? Have you any Russian friends? Anyone you can think of who might wish harm to Walter Maynard?”
Lena’s mouth went dry. Now Michael Runyon’s questions last night held a heavy resonance. Russian friends, Russian spies. Paul’s politics and her own. Revolutionaries. Julia’s other last name and the fact that Lena knew exactly who had poisoned Walter. With curare, a poison the Russians used.
Julia Keane’s bosses were Russian. Which meant ... Julia was a Russian spy.
The realization sank into Lena slowly, all the things that she’d denied until that moment, the suspicions she’d pushed away, falling into place. She’d thought Julia a communist, yes. But a spy? She had not allowed herself to believe it, though of course, of course , she’d known it. The scars on Julia’s collarbone, on her hands, the haunted look in her eyes, prison—what prison? A Russian prison? An American one? “She has a few names.”
Was it true, and if it was, what did it mean, and what really was this record Lena had given to Harvey and Charlie that Julia wanted back so badly? The FBI agents who’d approached her in her car, the men Julia had said were following her. Was this what they’d wanted to talk to her about? She was beginning to think she shouldn’t have raced away.
Lena needed time to think. Time away from Detective Miller’s shrewd gaze. She didn’t know how to answer him or what to say or what to do. All she knew was that her instincts screamed danger, and she wanted out of this close little room with its clicking fan and Detective Miller’s questions.
“I don’t,” she managed to croak. “I don’t know any Russians. Unless they’re actors. And actors ... well, you know, they could just be pretending to be Russian to get a part.”
Miller was quiet for a moment. Then, finally, he said, “I understand you were assaulted on Rodeo Drive the day before yesterday.”
“It was hardly that. The gossips made more of it than it was.”
“What was it then? You didn’t file a police report?”
“I didn’t think it was worth it. Two men followed me in a car. They approached me. I got scared and drove off. I’m afraid I caused a bit of a scene. It was stupid, but I thought then it was private investigators, and I still think it was.”
“Why would someone hire private investigators to follow you?”
She gave him a weary look. “Gossip columnists, Detective. Since all this with Walter, I’ve been a bit of a target.”
“Ah. I see. I’m sorry.” He did not sound particularly sorry.
She smiled thinly.
“Just one more thing.” He reached into the folder on the table before him and drew out a photocopy of some kind of form. Lena didn’t recognize it. Not until he turned it and put it in front of her. It was the lease for the duplex in Edendale. She knew already that Walter had put her name on it because Hedda Hopper had told her so, and sure enough, here was Detective Miller, pointing to the front page, the cover page, where, beneath the fancy-fonted Lease , the form stated that the duplex was rented to Walter Maynard and wife, Elsie . “Did you know Maynard’s wife? This Elsie?”
Lena said, “Before my time.” It wasn’t exactly a lie.
Detective Miller nodded. “Very well. That’s all then, Miss Taylor. We’ll let you know if we have any more questions.”
Lena did not delay in leaving the room, or city hall. It was all she could do to keep from running.
Julia called incessantly throughout the morning. Lena found a hundred reasons not to take her calls. Finally she told Shirley to tell Julia Keane that she’d left for the day. It wouldn’t work for long, Lena knew that. She half expected Julia to burst into her office. But for now, she needed time to think. What was the usual course of action when one discovered a friend was possibly a Russian spy, especially when you’d been involved with her in running—what? Secrets? What kind of secrets? The kind that had something to do with the Italian government, or British assistant attachés to the Vatican? Or those involving the US government? Was this what the carabinieri had accused Lena of being part of? Those men in the Cinquecento? It wasn’t just a game she’d been playing. It was treason .
What was this record that Julia needed so desperately?
Lena remembered the drink she’d had with Michael Runyon yesterday with discomfort, the things he’d implied. How close he’d come; how had he come so close? It was curious, wasn’t it, the questions he’d asked. Not the usual questions from a censor. What had he said about Soviet spies? That they didn’t just come up and announce themselves. “They try to blend in. That is, if they’re successful, they do.”
Wouldn’t that be true of American spies too? CIA agents, maybe? Men who were maybe working to make propaganda films for the army, or for the Motion Picture Alliance. Men like Michael Runyon, for example, or maybe ... just maybe ...
Like Paul.
Lena fought the thought. She had no reason to believe it. Maybe Paul had once written propaganda films for the army, but he’d been singularly uninterested in continuing to play that game now. He’d fought every change for The Doom of Medusa . He didn’t like Michael Runyon, and that Runyon thought Paul harbored communist sympathies was clear. But then, why hadn’t Paul ever told her about the propaganda films? And why was Runyon working so hard to instill doubts in her about her fiancé?
Who was Michael Runyon, anyway? Why did he care so much about her associations or her friends?
The questions were a distraction, she knew. It kept her from thinking about Julia, and what to do about her old friend who worked for Russians— the friend who’d tried to save the British attaché, the friend who had saved Lena’s life —but the drink she’d had with Runyon still troubled her, and here, at least, was something she could do, some action she could take that didn’t cause any moral dilemma.
Lena grabbed the sketches she’d worked on that morning. She told Shirley she was off to soundstage six to get costume approval, and to tell Connie where she was.
The lot was furiously busy. Prop masters carried sheets of sugar plate glass to the set for the newest Bob and Mikey adventure, an animal wrangler wrangled a herd of dogs, raising clouds of dust and getting in the way of everyone. Lena wove her way through the actors and crew, focused singularly on reaching the soundstage. She got there during the rehearsal for the first scene. Ruby sat with the script pages, her assistant trying desperately to appease Kit with a donut while Richard Widmark looked as if he were desperately trying not to strangle the dog. George Gardner consulted with Paul near the actors.
Paul frowned as she came in. She waved to him with the sketch pages, and then pointed to Runyon, who sat alone at the writing table, and Paul nodded and went back to his consultation with the director.
It was just as she’d hoped. She didn’t want to involve Paul in this, not yet. Though she had questions for him too, they were private ones, and she understood that accusing him of keeping secrets from her was an irony she had best tread carefully around. But for now, Runyon was who she wanted.
She marched to the table.
“Miss Taylor,” Runyon said coolly. “New costume sketches? How gratifying.”
“Yes, but that’s not why I’m here. Do you mind if we have a chat?” She motioned to the door. “Outside?”
“I’m very busy at the moment.”
“Doing what? There don’t seem to be any un-American ideas for you to wrestle just now, or spies for you to corner—unless of course you consider me to be a spy, which I think you do. Or Paul. Or maybe he’s one of you. I honestly don’t know. But I would like some answers.”
She’d alarmed him, she was gratified to see. He rose without a word and led the way outside, across the road from the soundstage to the Roman Forum set—how strangely appropriate, Lena thought, as Runyon went into the relative shade of the Basilica Giulia, in its wrong place. Runyon turned to face her and crossed his arms over his chest.
“Assuming I can give you answers,” he said. “What do you want to know?”
“Why are you on my back?”
“Do your job and I won’t be.”
Lena regarded him grimly. “That’s not what I mean, and you know it. You’ve practically accused me of being a spy. Why?”
“Because I don’t think you’re who you say you are.”
“I wasn’t aware production censors were trained to spot spies.”
“We have many jobs.”
“You’re not a production censor.”
“Now why would you say that?”
“Because I’ve worked with many, and while all of them are as irritating as you, none of them have shown such interest in my associations or my past, Mr. Runyon. I think you’re with the CIA. Or you’re a spy. Or maybe both. So maybe you could tell me why you’re so interested in me, and we can stop with all the games.”
He contemplated her, one long minute. Lena said nothing. She had no idea whether he would admit to it or deny it, but she had no doubt she was right. She didn’t know why she hadn’t seen it before.
Runyon took her arm lightly, pulling her behind one of the arches, out of sight.
“You’ve been a target of the CIA for a long time, Miss Taylor,” he said. “Or should I say, Miss Gruner? Ever since Rome.”
She was stunned. Stunned and frozen. Whatever she had expected, it wasn’t this. Deny it. That was her first thought. Pretend she didn’t know what he was talking about.
“Don’t bother to lie. Do you think we stop tracking people who have been involved in communist spy rings?”
She swallowed hard. “Does Paul know?”
“Paul.” Runyon let out a breath. “Carbone is complicated.”
“Maybe you could tell me why that is.”
“I’m not getting involved in lovers’ affairs,” he said.
“Just”—she hated how desperate she sounded—“does he know who I am? Does he know about Rome?”
Runyon shook his head. Lena closed her eyes for a moment in sheer relief. “But he will, soon enough. He has his own suspicions.”
“Is he a CIA agent too?”
Impatiently, Runyon said, “You’ll have to ask him that yourself. Look, Miss Taylor, I want one thing from you: you’re in possession of a very important document. You left Rome with it.”
Lena laughed. “If you mean the record, I don’t have it.”
Runyon looked surprised.
“I don’t have it,” she repeated. “The Duke Ellington record, or whatever it is. I gave it away years ago. I have no idea what’s on it or where it is now. I’m sorry to tell you that you’ve all been watching me for no reason, and if you don’t mind my saying, it’s ridiculous that you’ve gone to all that trouble for it. Taking a job as a censor and all ... all this? You could have just asked me for it.”
Runyon looked amused. “Do you really think you’re our only target? Or that the CIA spends so many resources on you? You’re only one spoke on a very big wheel, Miss Taylor. I’m not the only CIA man working for the pictures, for one thing. The Psychological Warfare Workshop has many arms, and monitoring communists in Hollywood is only part of it. The record is one of my objectives, but only one.”
“The Psychological Warfare Workshop?”
“The best way to fight communist propaganda is with our own campaign for truth. The movies are only one way to do that. Don’t you agree? Where’s the record?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying.”
“No. I have no idea where it ended up.”
“You know we could destroy you. One phone call to HUAC ...”
The idea was terrifying. “Is the FBI all part of this too?”
“The FBI?”
“They approached me the other day in front of Flavio’s shop.”
“That was the attack reported in the papers?”
Lena nodded. “They wanted to talk to me. I don’t know why.”
“Damn FBI,” Runyon said. “They are a pain in my ass. They probably got word of your friend. Speaking of which, Julia Keane is another part of this mission. How well do you know her?”
Lena eyed him warily. “Why ask questions you already know the answers to?”
“She’s a Soviet spy. Her job is to find you and get this document back.”
“What happens once she gets the document?”
“We’re not sure. It depends upon your loyalties, we think.”
“My loyalties?”
“Yes. We, of course, are aware of her every move. Will you help us retrieve this document, capture her, and testify against her?”
“You’re asking me to betray a friend,” Lena said slowly. The scars on Julia’s hands, on her collarbone. That haunted look. The execution of the Rosenbergs was not such ancient history. “What happens to Soviet spies, Mr. Runyon?”
He said nothing, but she didn’t need him to.
“You’re asking me to condemn her to death.”
“Are you a patriot, Miss Taylor? We have reasons to doubt it, you know.”
“What’s on this Duke Ellington record anyway?”
Runyon only smiled.