Beverly Hills Dead (19 page)

"Wow. It's beautiful, Vance."

"Come on. Let me show you the master suite." He led her upstairs and showed her the sunny bedroom and the two dressing rooms and baths. "Think you can fit your stuff in here?" he asked, waving an arm at the shelves and closets.

"Are you kidding? I'd have to shop for a month to half fill it."

"You'd better get started, then."

She turned and looked at him. "What does all this mean, Vance? You're not asking me to...I mean, it's way too soon to..."

"I'm not suggesting anything permanent; we have a lot to learn about each other. I just thought we'd learn it faster if we moved in together full time." He kissed her.

"We can't let anybody know about this. If the columnists ever got hold of it they'd be telling the world we're living in sin, and my parents would read about it in the Atlanta paper."

"The studio publicity department will handle all that. You think we'll be the only couple in pictures living together?"

"Come on," she said. "Show me the rest."

He showed her the two guest rooms. "Plenty of room for your parents to visit."

"Are you kidding? They'd take one look and return me to Delano under armed guard!"

"Okay, okay. I get the picture."

They looked at the study, the dining room and the kitchen.

"I can cook here!" she enthused.

"You cook? I thought you were only good at acting and sex."

She punched him in the stomach. "Come on, let's see the backyard."

They went out the kitchen door, rounded a hedge and were confronted with a pool and a tennis court.

"Holy cow!" Vance said. "I didn't see this before!"

"Who's going to keep the place looking like this?"

"Oh, it comes with a housekeeper and a Japanese gardener."

"I'm going to have to take tennis lessons," Susie said.

"So am I. I've been working since I was fourteen, so I've never had time to learn."

"By the way, buster," she said, "I got a look at your passport the other day."

"Uh-oh."

"I got the shock of my life. Do you know I'm five years older than you?"

"Well, if it's any consolation, it's only four years, because today is my birthday."

"I know it is," she said, reaching into her handbag and coming out with a small, beautifully wrapped gift. "I saw your passport, remember?"

Vance took her back into the house, they sat on a living room sofa and he unwrapped it. "A Cartier watch!" he said, surprised. "It's beautiful."

"It's called the 'tank' watch, because it was designed for the tank corps in the first war or something like that. Now, will you please throw away that ratty thing you've been wearing since I met you?"

Vance unbuckled his five-dollar watch, tossed it into a nearby wastebasket and put on the new one. "Gorgeous."

"Now the watch is as nice as that one suit of yours," Susie said. "By the way, it's time you went shopping for clothes; you can't rely on the Centurion wardrobe department to dress you for every occasion forever. I'll go with you, if you like."

"That one I can handle on my own," Vance said.

"Well, if the one suit is any example, I guess you can."

Vance scooped her off the sofa, carried her upstairs and tossed her on the bed. "Let's christen the place," he said, peeling off her sweater.

"You betcha," she replied, working on his buttons.

34

As
Bitter Creek
was being completed, Vance's and Susie's days were largely taken up with meeting newspaper editors from all over the country who were flown to L.A. for individual meetings and big press conferences. They were all housed at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and Vance and Susie had suites reserved where they did the interviewing. Once, they had nearly been caught in bed together by an editor who arrived early for his interview.

Vance had moved his things into the house, including new clothes he had bought or had had made, but Susie had not yet moved in. They had been sleeping at the Beverly Hills, anyway, for convenience's sake. Vance was a little troubled that Susie had not yet moved into the house, and he asked her about it.

"Oh, I've been too busy, just like you. Anyway, we're living at the hotel for the moment. I thought I'd wait until you leave for New York, then I can move in and take my time doing it, without you looking over my shoulder."

"Have you taken your things out of the flat you were sharing with...the script girl from RKO?"

"Hank. Henrietta Harmon. No, not yet. She's not going to like my moving out, and I don't want a scene if I can help it. I plan to go by there one day when she's working and get all my stuff. I'll do it while you're in New York."

"New York should be fun," Vance said. "We'll have adjoining suites at the Plaza, and we'll be on the expense account the whole time."

"And I can get my Christmas shopping done, too. I can send my parents' presents home directly from there. I'm giving them a big television set; they don't have one, and Daddy loves college football and baseball."

"It occurs to me that we don't have one for the Beverly Hills house," Vance said. "I'm not sure there's anything worth watching. What do you think?"

"I think it would be nice to have one for the times when something special comes on. And there's more and more programming all the time."

"All right. I'll order one. Where do you want it placed?"

"How about the bedroom?"

He smiled. "As long as it doesn't replace other bedroom functions."

"Don't you worry your head about that," she said, laughing.

Sid Brooks found his posthearings life radically changed from what he had been accustomed to. He wasn't being invited to dinner parties and cocktail gatherings by his non-Communist friends, although he had kept his old phone number, and he didn't really feel like seeing the old leftie crowd, not that he heard much from them, unless they needed money. He had stopped going to Chasens and other places popular with movie people, doing most of his dining in Santa Monica, not far from his apartment. He was working twice as hard, making a third of the money he was accustomed to, and with the divorce now final, he was having to pay Alice five thousand dollars a month in alimony for ten years. After taxes and his agent's commission were paid he found himself subsisting on about twenty percent of his former disposable income, and yet he worked constantly, cranking out treatments and screenplays and polishing or adding dialogue to the work of others, in addition to his own output--anything that would bring in a few hundred dollars.

Hy Greenbaum called him and invited him to meet at the Brown Derby, where Hy habitually lunched. Sid arrived at the restaurant and was greeted warmly by the headwaiter but hardly anyone else. Heads turned away and eyes shifted as he made his way to Hy's table and sat down. "How are you, Hy?"

"I'm okay, but I know you're not so good, Sid, and I'm worried about you."

"I'm getting by," Sid replied.

"I'm sorry I can't get you more money for scripts and treatments, but that's just the way it is at the moment."

"It's not your fault, Hy; you've been great all the way. I'm hearing that some other agents are not being so great to their clients. I heard a story about Paul Kohner running into Duke Wayne at a bull-fight in Tijuana, and Wayne wouldn't shake his hand. Allegedly, he said, 'I don't shake with people who represent Commies.'"

"That's a true story," Hy said. "Paul himself told me about it. Times like these don't bring out the best in people."

"Well, I hope things will get better after we get our Supreme Court hearing; then, at least, we won't have to worry about the contempt of Congress citation. I certainly don't want to go to jail."

They ordered lunch, and when it came, Hy leaned in closer and spoke quietly. "Sid, I've been talking to some people, and there may be a way to make all--well, most of this--go away."

"Well, I'd certainly like to hear about that," Sid said.

"There's a kind of process you can go through that would...what's the word?"

"Rehabilitation?"

"Right."

"What would I have to do?"

"You'd meet with an investigator from HUAC and agree on your testimony; then you'd go back before the committee, be contrite and give your testimony. Then the committee would thank you--that's the code word--and you'd be able to work again under your own name."

"You mean I'd have to crawl."

"I guess there's no other word for it."

"And my testimony would entail naming names?"

"You wouldn't have to name anybody the committee doesn't already know about."

"I could name the five names Al James was going to name?"

"Well, no, since they were all among the Hollywood Ten. You'd have to name others from your past, people you saw at Party meetings and other events, but they would all be known Communists. It's not like you'd be ratting anybody out."

"I'd be ratting just the same, Hy, and nobody would ever speak to me again."

"Who's speaking to you now, Sid? You getting a lot of support from your Party acquaintances?"

That stung. "Well, not so's you'd notice it."

"I'll tell you who would speak to you, if you do this: the studios would speak to you; the directors and producers would speak to you. These are the people who've always given you the opportunity to earn a good living. What have the fucking Communists ever given you?"

"Not a lot," he admitted.

"So you're going through this hell to protect a bunch of people who can't even benefit from your loyalty, because they've already been exposed for what they are. And these are people who've never done anything for you, except give you bad advice on how to defend yourself."

"The Supreme Court is going to fix this," Sid said.

"Do you read the papers? Have you noticed that Truman has recently made two new appointments to the court and that those two gentlemen are a lot more conservative than their predecessors and a lot less likely to rule in your favor?"

"That remains to be seen."

"You're taking a big risk, Sid. What happens if you win in court? Well, you might feel vindicated, but that's not going to change what the producers' association has said about not employing Communists; it's not going to change what the American Legion and Red Channels and a dozen other outfits are doing to enforce the blacklist. Can't you see how difficult your situation is?"

"Hy, that's a very clear delineation of my position, I know, but..."

"One other thing: if you spend a year or two in prison they're not going to let you write screenplays there. All the while you're inside, repairing roads or making license plates, the payments to Alice will still have to be made, and nothing will be coming in. It's going to eat up your part of the divorce settlement, and by the time you get out, you'll be in a deep hole."

"Do you think I haven't thought about that, Hy?" In fact, he had not thought that far ahead; he had been dreaming of a favorable Supreme Court decision, which was now in doubt.

"Promise me you'll think about this some more, Sid."

Sid sighed. "All right, Hy. I promise to think about it." He would, in fact, think of little else.

35

Vance flew to New York with Rick, Glenna and the Radio City print of
Bitter Creek
a week before the opening. By the time the airplane was off the ground, he was missing Susie. They broke the flight in Chicago, landing at Meigs Field on the lake, and he attended a screening for the midwestern critics and answered questions from the group at a late supper. The following morning they continued their flight to New York and landed at LaGuardia.

The suite at the Plaza was high on the north-facing side of the hotel, with spectacular views of Central Park. Rick and Glenna took him to "21" for dinner and introduced him to the management there. Beginning the following morning, daily showings of the film for the press took place at a rented screening room, followed by the group question-and-answer session. He had at least two interviews daily with selected press: those with columns, like Ed Sullivan and Walter Winchell, or feature writers with the New York papers. Since he was, invariably, asked the same questions each time, his answers became more and more polished, funnier and, thus, more quotable.

Back in L.A., Susie was undergoing the same procedure with the West Coast press, and she found it tiring. She kept meaning to go to Hank Harmon's apartment and pack her things, but there were more and more demands on her time. She and Vance talked daily, usually in the early evening.

"How are you, Sweetheart?" Vance asked on Friday evening.

"Exhausted, to tell you the truth; I never knew what hard work it is, being a movie star. In fact, I'm going to postpone my flight until Monday, just to have a day to rest. Do you mind?"

"Of course, I mind," Vance replied, "but I understand. I don't want you to have to spend your first days here in bed, except with me, of course."