“As the news?”
“In addition. Two stories. And a picture.”
“That’s a mighty good start,” Minot said, smiling.
“Mm. I’m doing the color. Bunny, you don’t mind, do you? I’ll bring him back in a minute. Who else are you calling? Schaeffer?”
“You bet.” He looked at Bunny. “And that’s just the first day.”
“What was that about?” Bunny said when they left. “Light fingers?”
“I don’t know,” Ben said, a little shaken, back in the supply closet, waiting to be caught. But she wouldn’t be called. Something for Danny.
“I’ve never seen him like that.”
“That’s who he is.”
Bunny’s face, ashen just a minute ago, hardened. “He’s not going to do a thing about the consent decree.”
“Then make it harder for him. Don’t give him people.”
Bunny looked up. “Well, now I haven’t, it seems. This isn’t your doing, is it? Is that what you were— But why would you?” he said, talking to himself. “You know what he’ll do now.” He turned toward the door, watching Minot leave. “He’ll feed her to Polly. Before we go into release.”
Henderson seemed to have disappeared, now just another hat in the crowd, but Ostermann was there, standing alone by a window, looking out.
“It’s usually gone by this time,” he said, nodding to the fog. “Not today. No sun. Dark times, eh?”
“You haven’t been taking any notes. Are you really going to write about this?”
“If he calls Germans, then it’s something for Aufbau. Brecht, at least, I would think, wouldn’t you? He’d make an interesting witness.”
“It’s a farce.”
Ostermann nodded. “It always begins that way. Nothing to trouble about. Then each day a little more. Well, that’s not so serious, either. And then one day—”
“You’re writing your piece,” he said, one eye still looking for Henderson.
A short man with wire-rimmed glasses, surrounded by lawyers, was crossing the hall, drawing photographers away from Carol Hayes. Schaeffer, he guessed.
Ostermann smiled. “Just thinking out loud.” He looked at the crowd. “They don’t see it. It’s new to them. But it’s the same. A farce. So say nothing and then it’s too late. Like us.”
In the hearing room, Bunny was still talking to the lawyers at the witness table so Ben was forced to take the open seat next to Dick. Their shoulders touched as he sat down, a slight brush, then a quick drawing away, and suddenly Ben was aware of him as a body, the height of his shoulders, his bulk filling the suit, hands placed on his knees, waiting. His tanned face oblivious to any change in the air around him, Ben invisible.
What had it been like? Had Dick stood by the pool’s edge, watching her legs open and close? Or had that scene been just for him? The sounds, the way she clenched him. Ben turned, facing the long table. Something that only happened to you, what everybody felt, each time. Was it over? Someone else she hadn’t loved. Still Danny’s wife.
The sound of the newsreel cameras made him look up. Minot was calling Milton Schaeffer. The tone in his voice, with its hint of blood sport, almost gloating, had made everyone sit up. Carol Hayes, even Dick, had just been there to set the stage—Schaeffer was actually a Communist. But as the cameras followed him, Ben’s attention shifted to them, the familiar whirring sound suddenly distracting, like someone whispering in his ear. Newsreel cameras.
Minot shuffled through papers, a promise of evidence to come, as Schaeffer approached the long table and was sworn in. He seemed slighter than he had in the hall, wiry and pale. Minot kept putting his papers in place, letting a hush fall over the room before he pounced.
“Mr. Schaeffer, are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?”
No one had expected a direct jab at the opening, and it might have worked, caused the excitement Minot had clearly been hoping for, if Schaeffer had been defiant or uncooperative or even evasive. Instead, he answered Minot’s questions with a resigned fatalism that seemed to diminish their importance. Yes, he had been a member of the Party. No, he had resigned in August 1939, after the signing of the Non-Aggression Pact. No, he had not attended meetings since. He knew the names of the national Party officers (known to everyone) but not any of those in the local chapter.
“Don’t know or don’t want us to know?” Minot said.
“Names weren’t used.”
“No names. But they had faces? You’d recognize them if you saw them?”