“Such as what, Herr–”
Mal cut in. “Mort Ziffkin, Chaz Minear, Reynolds Loftis and Claire De Haven. We’re interested in their activities, not yours. If you cooperate fully with us, we might be able to let you testify by deposition. No open court, probably very little publicity. You slid on HUAC, you’ll slide on this one.” He stopped and thought of Stefan, gone with his crazy mother and her new paramour. “But we want hard facts. Names, dates, places and admissions. You cooperate, you slide. You don’t, it’s a subpoena and open court questioning by a DA I can only describe as a nightmare. Your choice.”
Eisler inched his chair away from them. Eyes lowered, he said, “I have not seen those people in years.”
Mal said, “We know, and it’s their past activities that we’re interested in.”
“And they are the only people that you want to know about?”
Mal lied, thinking of Lenny Rolff. “Yes. Just them.”
“And what are these repercussions you speak of?”
Mal drummed the table. “Open court badgering. Your picture in the–”
Dudley interrupted, “Mr. Eisler, if you do not cooperate, I will inform Howard Hughes that you are authoring RKO films currently being credited to another man. That man, your conduit to gainful employment as a writer, will be terminated. I will also inform the INS that you refused to cooperate with a sanctioned municipal body investigating treason, and urge that their Investigations Bureau delve into your seditious activities with an eye toward your deportation as an enemy alien and the deportation of your wife and children as potential enemy aliens. You are a German and your wife is Japanese, and since those two nations were responsible for our recent world conflict, I would think that the INS would enjoy seeing the two of you returned to your respective homelands.”
Nathan Eisler had hunched himself up, elbows to knees, clasped hands to chin, head down. Tears rolled off his face. Dudley cracked his knuckles and said, “A simple yes or no answer will suffice.”
Eisler nodded; Dudley said, “Grand.” Mal got out his pen and notepad. “I know the answer, but tell me anyway. Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party, U.S.A.?”
Eisler bobbed his head; Mal said, “Yes or no answers, this is for the record.”
A weak “Yes.”
“Good. Where was your Party unit or cell located?”
“I–I went to meetings in Beverly Hills, West Los Angeles and Hollywood. We–we met at the homes of different members.”
Mal wrote the information down–verbatim shorthand. “During what years were you a Party member?”
“April ‘36 until Stalin proved him–”
Dudley cut in. “Don’t justify yourself, just answer.”
Eisler pulled a Kleenex from his shirt pocket and wiped his nose. “Until early in ‘40.”
Mal said, “Here are some names. You tell me which of these people were known to you as Communist Party members. Claire De Haven, Reynolds Loftis, Chaz Minear, Morton Ziffkin, Armando Lopez, Samuel Benavides and Juan Duarte.”
Eisler said, “All of them.” Mal heard the kids tromping through the living room and raised his voice. “You and Chaz Minear wrote the scripts for Dawn of the Righteous, Eastern Front, Storm Over Leningrad and The Heroes of Yakustok. All those films espoused nationalistic Russian sentiment. Were you told by Communist Party higher-ups to insert pro-Russian propaganda in them?”
Eisler said, “That is a naive question”; Dudley slapped the coffee table. “Don’t comment, just answer.”
Eisler moved his chair closer to Mal. “No. No, I was not told that.”
Mal flashed Dudley two fingers of his necktie–he’s mine. “Mr. Eisler, do you deny that those films contain pro-Russian propaganda?”
“No.”
“Did you and Chaz Minear arrive at the decision to disseminate that propaganda yourselves?”
Eisler squirmed in his chair. “Chaz was responsible for the philosophizing, while I held that the story line spoke most eloquently for the points he wanted to make.”
Mal said, “We have copies of those scripts, with the obvious propaganda passages annotated. We’ll be back to have you initial the dialogue you attribute to Minear’s disseminating of the Party line.”
No response. Mal said, “Mr. Eisler, would you say that you have a good memory?”