Ellroy, James – Big Nowhere, The THE BIG NOWHERE

“Don’t patronize me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not.”

“All right, I’m not.”

Mal got up and paced the room, advance man for his decoy. He noticed a bookcase lined with picture frames, examined a shelf of them and saw a string of handsome young men. About half were Latin lover types–but Lopez, Duarte and Benavides were absent. He remembered Lopez’ comment to Lesnick: Claire was the only gringa he’d met who’d suck him, and he felt guilty about it because only whores did that, and she was his Communista madonna. On a shelf by itself was a picture of Reynolds Loftis, his Anglo-Saxon rectitude incongruous. Mal turned and looked at Claire. “Your conquests, Miss De Haven?”

“My past and future. Wild oats lumped together and my fiancé all by himself.”

Chaz Minear had gotten explicit on Loftis–what they did, the feel of his weight downstairs. Mal wondered how much the woman knew about them, if she even guessed Minear finked her future husband to HUAC. “He’s a lucky man.”

“Thank you.”

“Isn’t he an actor? I think I took my son to a movie he was in.”

Claire stubbed out her cigarette, lit another one and smoothed her skirt. “Yes, Reynolds is an actor. When did you and your son see the movie?”

Side 73

Ellroy, James – Big Nowhere, The Mal sat down, juggling blacklist dates. “Right after the war, I think.

Why?”

“A point that I’d like to make, as long as we’re talking in a civil manner. I doubt that you’re as sensitive as you portray yourself, but if you are I’d like to illustrate an example of the hurt men like you cause.”

Mal hooked a thumb back at Loftis’ picture. “With your fiancé?”

“Yes. You see, you probably saw the movie at a revival house. Reynolds was a very successful character actor in the ’30s, but the California State Un-American Activities Committee hurt him when he refused to testify back in

’40. Many studios wouldn’t touch him because of his politics, and the only work he could get was on Poverty Row–toadying to an awful man named Herman Gerstein.”

Mal played dumb. “It could have been worse. People were blacklisted outright by HUAC in ’47. Your fiancé could have been.”

Claire shouted, “He was blacklisted, and I bet you know it!”

Mal jerked back in his chair; he thought he’d had her convinced he wasn’t wise to Loftis. Claire lowered her voice. “Maybe you knew it. Reynolds Loftis, Mr. Considine. Surely you know that he’s in the UAES.”

Mal shrugged, smokescreening a lie. “When you said Reynolds, I guessed that it was Loftis. I knew he was an actor, but I’ve never seen his photograph.

Look, I’ll tell you why I was surprised. An old lefty told my partner and me that Loftis was a homosexual. Now you tell me he’s your fiancé.”

Claire’s eyes narrowed; for a half second she looked like a shrew in waiting. “Who told you that?”

Mal shrugged again. “Some guy who used to hang out and chase girls at the Sleepy Lagoon Committee picnics. I forget his name.”

Shrew in waiting to nervous wreck; Claire’s hands shaking, her legs twitching, grazing the table. Mal homed in on her eyes and thought he saw them pinning, like she was mixing pharmacy stuff with her vodka. Seconds dragged; Claire became calm again. “I’m sorry. Hearing Reynolds described as that upset me.”

Mal thought: no it didn’t–it was Sleepy Lagoon. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said it.”

“Then why did you?”

“Because he’s a lucky man.”

The Red Queen smiled. “And not just because of me. Will you let me finish that point I wanted to make?”

“Sure.”

Claire said, “In ’47 someone informed on Reynolds to the House Committee–hearsay and innuendo–and he was blacklisted outright. He went to Europe and found work acting in experimental art films directed by a Belgian man he’d met in LA during the war. The actors all wore masks, the films created quite a stir, and Reynolds eked out a living acting in them. He even won the French version of the Oscar in ’48, and got mainstream work in Europe. Now the _real_ Hollywood studios are offering him real work for real money, which will end if Reynolds is hauled before another committee or grand jury or kangaroo court or whatever you people call them.”

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