Beverly Hills Dead

22

Sid Brooks was packing for the trip to Washington when the phone rang. “Hello?”

“It’s Alice.”

“Finally.”

“There’s been a line for the use of the phones.”

“How’s the shoot going?”

“Fine. You’ll be pleased with how your lines sound. How was Alan’s memorial service?”

“It was about what you’d expect: the nineteen unfriendly witnesses were all there but not more than a couple of dozen other people, none of them well-known to the public. No actors, no writers, no producers or directors; no representatives of the studios.”

“I’m not surprised. When are you off to Washington?”

“I’m being picked up in an hour.”

“Are you still determined to be an unfriendly witness, Sid?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Isn’t that what caused Alan to kill himself?”

“No, I think it was his decision to be a friendly witness that made him do that. He was going to name me, among others. He said he had made a deal to name only people the committee already knew about.”

“So the committee knows about you?”

“Apparently so.”

“Sid, if you refuse to talk they’re going to destroy you.”

“No, they won’t; they’ll just convict us of contempt of Congress, then we’ll appeal and the Supreme Court will overturn the convictions. Then it will be over.”

“Over? Do you seriously believe that?”

“What else can the committee do to us?”

“Not the committee; the industry. Nobody’s going to give you work, if you do this. You’ll be branded forever as a Communist.”

“A lot of people will still give me work; there are sympathetic employers in town, you know.”

“You’re deluding yourself, Sid. You’ll be destroyed, and that will destroy us.”

“How will that destroy us?”

“I’m not a Communist, Sid, and I don’t want to be thought of as one. If you’re shunned in the community, I’ll be shunned, too, don’t you see?”

“Alice, I have some more packing to do, so let’s talk about this when I’m back from Washington. It shouldn’t be more than a week.”

“Good-bye, Sid, and good luck; you’re going to need it from now on.” She hung up.

Sid hung up, too, then the phone rang again. “Hello?”

“Sid, it’s Hy Greenbaum.” Hy was his agent and a powerful one.

“Good morning, Hy.”

“You’re off to Washington this morning?”

“In less than an hour.”

“We have to talk, Sid.”

“Okay, let’s talk.”

“I had a meeting early this morning with the chief investigator of HUAC.”

“I’ll bet that was a nice chat.”

“Did you know that Alan James was going to testify as a friendly witness?”

“Yes, he told me at dinner the night before he killed himself.”

“Did he mention that he was going to name half a dozen people?”

“Yes.”

“Did he mention that you were one of them?”

“Yes.”

“And you understand that means the committee already knows about you from some other source?”

“I understand that; all the people Alan was going to name are known to the committee to be party members.”

“Sid, if you walk into that hearing you’re going to be walking into a buzz saw.”

“I don’t think so, Hy; we’ve talked this through with our lawyers, and we think the Supreme Court will back us in this.”

“And what about when you get back out here? Do you think the studios are going to back you?”

“I think they’ll remain neutral.”

“Sid, I talked to two studio heads this morning. They’re leaving tomorrow for New York. There’s going to be a meeting of all the studio heads at the Waldorf in a few days, and the consensus is, they’re going to institute a blacklist.”

“But Hy, Eric Johnston, the head of their group, the Motion Picture Association, has already said publicly there will never be a blacklist.”

“Johnston doesn’t have a vote. I’m telling you what’s going to happen.”

“I can’t believe they’ll do that to us; we make them too much money, and that’s all they care about.”

“Sid there are other interests working hard to convince them that employing you or any of the unfriendly witnesses will cost them money. If they believe that, how do you think they will act?”

“Hy, I’m already committed to this.”

“Sid, there’s a way out for you. You can come out of this untainted if you’ll just listen to me.”

“I’m listening, Hy.”

“The investigator told me less than fifteen minutes ago that you can testify as a friendly witness in Alan’s stead, that you can make a statement for the record that you are or were a Party member, and you can state your reasons for staying in or getting out, whatever they are. Then, in the questioning that follows, you’ll name the five other people Alan was going to name. You’ll be on the stand for less than half an hour, and you’ll spout a few platitudes about what a great country this is and how you would never do anything to harm it. At the end, you’ll be dismissed with the committee’s thanks. That will be a kind of coded message to others involved in this, and you will not be blacklisted.”

“Hy, if I do that, no one I know will ever speak to me again.”

“Wrong. No Communist you know will ever speak to you again. How many people is that? And all of them will be disgraced; they won’t be in any position to harm you.”

“Hy, it all boils down to this: the committee has no right to demand of an American citizen that he explain his political views; they don’t have a constitutional leg to stand on.”

“Sid, the party has advocated the violent overthrow of the United States government. If you’re a member, then you’re tarred with that brush; that’s the leg they have to stand on.”

“Well, I don’t advocate the violent overthrow of the government, and I’ll be glad to tell them that.”

“If you cooperate with them they’ll believe you; if you don’t, they’ll just...”

“Hy, I’m not going to become a friendly witness; if I did, I might have to do what Al James did.”

“You’ll lose everything, Sid: your career, your home, your wife.”

“My wife? Nonsense, I just talked to her.”

“Did she offer her undying support?”

“Not exactly. In fact, she said pretty much what you’re saying.”

“Well, there you are.”

“Hy, if I begin losing things, am I going to lose my agent?”

“I hope not, Sid. You and Dalton Trumbo are the highest paid writers in Hollywood, and I want to see you both survive this. I think of you as my friend, and I’ll do everything I can to help you, regardless of what you say before the committee. Just don’t tie my hands.”

“Thank you, Hy. I appreciate that. When I get back from Washington, let’s have lunch and talk about where to go from here, okay?”

“Okay, Sid. I guess all I can do is wish you luck.”

“Thanks, Hy.”

Sid hung up and went back to his packing.