“I don’t like stuffed shirts who wave little lists around without ever showing what’s on them. And I thought this country was about letting people say, think, and believe what they wanted. If not, then how are we different from Stalin’s world?”
She glanced at him with a fresh look. “Did I misjudge you?”
“We’ll leave that for another time. And what I’m about to ask you might decide it one way or another.”
“Oh, great. Fire away,” she added wearily, rubbing her temple.
“Were you a member of the Communist Party at Wellesley?” She looked shaken by the question. “I need another drink.” She started to rise.
He said, “Just so you know, I don’t give a damn one way or another.”
She sat back down. “Then why did you ask me?”
“I asked you because I need to know if someone was blackmailing you because you were a communist.”
She stared at him with a resigned expression. “When did you figure that one out?”
He tapped his head. “It’s been percolating up here for a while. But I didn’t assemble enough pieces until about ten minutes ago. And then you said you thought I was here to blackmail you over the very same thing.” He paused. “Seventy-two thousand, five hundred bucks sound about right?”
She stiffened and then slowly nodded. “Yes, exactly.”
“When did Eleanor Lamb put the squeeze on you?”
“You’re smarter than I thought, Archer.”
“You mentioned that Lamb might have come into some money before. Only you knew she had. Yours.”
“She came to me when she decided to move to Malibu and needed the dough.”
“And you had all those trust funds handy and all.”
“That was one reason I started looking at alternative political theories in college, Archer. I didn’t lift a finger for all that money. I was just lucky enough to be born into the right family.”
“You could give it away.”
“I give what I can. But my grandfather tied up what I can do with it pretty tightly. I think he might have guessed how I was going to turn out. No trust-fund preening capitalist am I.”
Archer looked around. “Okay, but you don’t have to live like this, either.”
“You’re right, I don’t. Which shows that I’m much weaker than I think. And the draw of all that money is far stronger.”
“You still a card-carrying member?”
“It doesn’t matter if I am or not. If my history came out I’d be ruined. They’d probably find a way to take all my money away. And Danny’s career would be ruined, of course. They’d assume he was a communist and he’d be blackballed. So many already have been.”
“I didn’t think you cared all that much about his career.”
“Talk is cheap and I’m the queen of it. Sure I spoke ill of Danny with you. But it wasn’t because of his work, really. Okay, he’s no Frank Capra or Howard Hawks, but then who is? He did bust his ass to get out of poverty, something I never had to do. And then he had to bust his ass to make it in this town. Again, something I never had to do. I just came here and bought the penthouse. I actually admire my husband’s work ethic. His hustle. What I don’t admire is his cheating on me with every big-breasted skirt that comes within range of his pecker. Do you blame me?”
“Can’t say that I do. And his gambling?”
“Yes, I had to take care of that, and I did. And he’s now got a limit and the casinos know anything over that limit is his problem, not mine. And Danny knows it, too, so he’s a good boy. He wants to make films and chase women, not end up in the ocean with fish for friends.”
“How did Lamb get her hooks into you?”
She drew a cigarette from a bowl on a table and let Archer light it for her.
“Ellie was always smart, cunning, observant. I lied to you before. We did know each other. See, I was a political science major, too, and our friendship deepened in the Agora Society. She made me believe that she thought as I did. That she cared about the things I cared about. We... were very close. I liked her... very much.”
She stopped speaking and her eyes suddenly filled with tears.
Watching her closely, Archer said, “Were you more than just... friends? I’m just asking because when we talked before you seemed worried that she might have been killed.”
She fiercely brushed the tears away. “Ellie didn’t love me, if that’s what you want to know. She was using me, biding her time. She broke my heart because it turned out she fell in love with a man.”
“Do you know the man’s name?”
“No.”
“Then what happened?”
“The years passed. I didn’t even know she was in LA when I got here. But she obviously found out I was here. Because one morning I got a special delivery letter.”
“What was in it?”
“Copies of certain documents with my signature on them. Pictures of me at events and with people who... are on certain government lists now. And a letter addressed to me.”
“When did you know it was Lamb?”
“Oh, she made no attempt to hide her identity, Archer. The letter told me to meet at a certain place and time. And there she was. I don’t know where she got all the stuff, but she had the goods on me, all right. She hadn’t really changed, other than her hair was black and straight. She was naturally blond and curly in college.”
“So she made the blackmail pitch and you bit on it.”
“What else could I do? I had plenty of money.”
“And you weren’t afraid she’d come back for more?”
“That was the thing with Ellie — with all her faults, when she told you she was going to do something, she did it. The reverse was also true. She told me that would be the only touch. And she never came back for more. And she returned all the original documents and the negatives of the photos.”
“And the times you dropped by her place in Malibu that you mentioned, other than the dinner with the Greens? It wasn’t to take script notes, was it?”
Mars closed her eyes again, and Archer watched as her jaw trembled, but in a way that was probably jarring to her soul, the difference between feeling an earthquake tremor a hundred miles away and being at the epicenter of an entire undulating city. She didn’t look like a warrior now, he thought. She just looked human, like everybody else.
She put a hand to her face as if that would force the earthquake to stop. Eyes still closed she said quietly, “I know it sounds crazy. I mean, the woman did blackmail me. But... I... I hoped we might see each other again. She wasn’t seeing anyone, or so I thought...”
“But that was a no-go?”
“There... is apparently somebody else in her life now.”
“Do you know who?”
“No.”
Archer thought he knew who that person was, but he wasn’t going to tell Mars. The woman was hurting enough as it was. “I heard she bought the house in Malibu because she had a friend there.”
“Who told you that?”
“Your husband, right here on New Year’s Eve.”
She regained her composure and blew out smoke. “I don’t know anything about that. And I don’t know why Danny would know.”
“Have you ever met Peter or Bernadette Bonham?”
“Never heard of them.”
“Okay. Where do you think Lamb is?”
“I don’t know.” She looked at a wall and seemingly beyond it. “I hope she’s okay. I’ve never wished her ill.”
“Most people would not wish their blackmailers well.”