“It already has, considering what happened with Alan James. The hearings start tomorrow morning.”
“I have this really ominous feeling,” Glenna said. “Is that why you offered me the associate producer’s job? To give me something to do If I got caught up in a political scandal?”
“Of course not; there’s no reason to think that will happen.”
“There’s got to be a reason for somebody sending you that card.”
“If it comes up again, I’ll deal with it, don’t worry.”
She put her hand on his cheek and kissed him. “I know you’ll protect me, but I’m going to worry anyway.”
When they were back at the ranch house, Rick walked over to Leo Goldman’s trailer and found him, as usual, working.
“Hi, Rick. Come in,” Leo said.
“You ought to take a day off now and then,” Rick said, settling into a chair.
“I’m happier working,” Leo said. “I don’t ride horses or square dance.”
“Well, I won’t argue with you. There’s something I want to ask you about, though.”
“Shoot.”
“A few weeks ago, right after I bought the Bitter Creek script, I got two pieces of internal studio mail, on successive days: each of them was an envelope containing a photostat of a Communist Party card, one in the name of someone I’ve dealt with who might very well be a party member; the other, in the name of someone I know for sure is not a member.”
“Who were they?”
“I’d rather not say. Since I know one of them was a fake, the other may be, too. I just wondered if you had received anything like that in the interoffice mail.”
Leo shook his head. “No. If I had I would have come to you about it. God knows, I don’t want any Reds on the productions I work on.”
“You’re anti-Communist, then?”
“Damn right. Aren’t you?”
“I don’t really care much about the politics of the people I work with, Leo; all I expect from them is talent, ability and hard work.”
“You don’t care if they’re trying to get propaganda into our scripts?”
“I think I’d spot it if they did, and I’d take it out.”
“So would I. I went over the Bitter Creek script very carefully,” Leo said.
“Did you find anything suspect?”
“Not a word.”
“Well, then, we know that Sid Brooks is not trying to use our productions for propaganda.”
“I guess not. Is Sid a Communist?”
“I don’t know; I’ve never asked him, and he’s never volunteered that information. You know that he’s been subpoenaed by HUAC and that he’s testifying this week in Washington.”
“Sure, I read the papers and the trades.”
“Leo, when Sid gets back, are you going to have any problem working with him?”
“I guess that depends on his testimony before the committee.”
Rick nodded. “Thanks for being frank with me, Leo, and if you come across anything like the internal mail I received, please bring it to my attention.”
“Sure, I will, Rick.”
Rick walked back to the ranch house for dinner, wondering what he would do if two people who worked for him wouldn’t work with each other because of their political views.
24
Sid Brooks had stewed in Washington for a week. He had attended some of the committee hearings, but he had stopped going after hearing the testimony of screenwriter John Howard Lawson, who, he thought, had made such an ass of himself by upbraiding the committee that he had been an embarrassment to the cause of the others. By the time Sid was called to testify, he was convinced that, under the influence of two Party lawyers sent to advise them, the unfriendly witnesses had taken the wrong tack. Sid resolved to change that, if he could.
Finally, he was called before the committee and was sworn. The committee’s chairman, J. Parnell Thomas of New Jersey, began the questioning.
THOMAS: Mr. Brooks, are you a screenwriter?
BROOKS: Yes, Mr. Chairman, but I hope I may read a short statement before being questioned.
THOMAS: You may not. You may answer our questions.
BROOKS: It won’t take more than five minutes, sir.
THOMAS: I asked you if you are a screenwriter.
BROOKS: Yes, sir.
THOMAS: How many motion pictures have you written?
BROOKS: Fourteen that have been produced, sir. May I say that I have never inserted in any of them any propaganda of any sort? I am only concerned with the drama or comedy in the work when I write, not politics.
THOMAS: Are you saying that you are not now nor have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?
BROOKS: Mr. Chairman, I believe it has already been pointed out to you at length that this committee has no right to question an American citizen about his political beliefs. The First Amendment...
THOMAS: That’s it; this witness is dismissed.
BROOKS: Mr. Chairman...
THOMAS: I’ll have the sergeant-at-arms remove the witness, if he doesn’t go quietly.
Sid stood up, humiliated, folded his written statement and stuffed it into a pocket. A uniformed man appeared at his side and showed him the door. For this, he had flown across the country and spent ten days in a hotel?
In the hallway outside there was a barrage of questions from the gathered press. “Here’s my statement,” he yelled, shoving the typed pages into the hands of the nearest reporter. “That’s what this committee wouldn’t allow me to say.” He elbowed his way through the crowd and somehow got out of the Capitol, into a taxi and back to his hotel.
When he walked into his room the phone was ringing, but he didn’t answer it. When it stopped, he called the operator and told her not to put any calls through. He had a bottle of Scotch in his bag, and he poured himself a stiff one. Shortly, he was asleep on his bed. He didn’t wake up until the following morning.
He ordered breakfast and read the New York Times and the Washington Post, both of which had fairly complete summaries of the hearings. He was about to start packing for his return flight when someone knocked on the door. “Who is it?” he shouted.
“Special delivery letter, Mr. Brooks,” a young voice replied.
“Shove it under the door.” He picked up the letter and looked at the return address. It was from Higgins & Reed, a Los Angeles law firm he had never heard of. He opened it and began reading and thus learned that his wife had filed for divorce; that she had removed his belongings from their home and sent them to an empty apartment in the Santa Monica building that they owned; that a key to the apartment was enclosed; that she would decline to speak to him directly in the future and that all their communications must be conducted through their respective attorneys.
Sid sat down on the bed, picked up the phone and placed a call to his Beverly Hills home. Five minutes later, the operator rang him back and told him that the number had been disconnected. Then he noticed a second page of the letter which said that the locks and telephone number of his home had been changed. In addition to the key to the Santa Monica apartment, a receipt from a dry cleaner’s was enclosed, listing a suit and a sport jacket.
Sid finished packing in a daze and went downstairs, carrying his own luggage. He was waiting for a taxi when another writer who had been an unfriendly witness got out of a cab. “Sid, did you hear that after Bertolt Brecht testified, he went straight to the airport and left the country?” The playwright had been one of the unfriendly witnesses.
“No, I didn’t.”
“They’re calling the rest of us the ‘Hollywood Ten.’”
“Swell,” Sid said and got into the vacated cab. “National Airport,” he said.