“No. Who’s on trial? For once, not the Germans. The Comintern? No. The New Deal, I think. A political exercise.”
“It’ll burn itself out,” Ben said, glancing toward the cameras in the hearing room.
“Not yet. The start only.”
Across the room, Hal was now standing with his lawyers, listening as he sipped coffee, his face pale, making his five o’clock shadow even darker. Schaeffer, who had requested him, sat farther back in the room, smoking, looking at the rain.
“So how do we stop it?”
Ostermann shook his head. “I don’t know. In books, a brave man does it. Fights back. But I’ve never seen that happen.”
They went back to their same seats, only Bunny missing, still on the phone. Schaeffer was on the other side of the aisle, quietly wiping his glasses, people talking around him. When he glanced over, presumably unfocused, not really seeing anything, Ben felt it had been to look at him, some reminder of Danny. Who’d fed Minot’s files. Could he really ever have imagined Schaeffer as someone dangerous, one of the old comrades who needed watching? Ben sat up. But he hadn’t known him then. Schaeffer had left the Party in ’39, before Danny had arrived. Which meant Danny had got the information from someone else. His reports always checked out, Riordan had said. If he said to look, there was something to be found. Because he’d been there, too, Ben had assumed, like the meeting with MacDonald. But not this time. So who had told him? The Party didn’t keep files to rummage through, like Minot. You had to know, be part of its secret world.
“Mr. Jasper, I believe you testified that Convoy to Murmansk was the first time you’d met Mr. Schaeffer.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No, I said it was the first time we’d worked together.” He nodded apologetically. “I’m trying to be precise.”
“We appreciate that, Mr. Jasper,” Minot said, but irritated, unable to spring some minor trap. “So you knew each other.”
“A little.”
“Could you quantify ‘a little’ for us, Mr. Jasper?”
“A few times.”
“More than once? Five times, ten times? To be precise,” Minot said, playing to the room.
Hal raised his head, not answering for a second, as if he were taking aim. “More than once. Less than five. Somewhere in between.”
“This was at his home?”
“Once.”
“And the others?”
“Around.”
“Around. Well, we’ll get to those later. Right now I’d like to go back to the meeting at his house.”
“It wasn’t a meeting. A party.”
Minot moved some papers in front of him. “Maybe we’re not talking about the same occasion. I’m referring to the evening of March 7, 1941. You were one of the guests, I believe.”
“That sounds right. I can’t be exact on the date.”
“The evening I’m referring to had people giving speeches for the European Relief Fund. Do the parties you attend usually include speeches?”
“It was a fund-raiser. And a party.”
“I see.” Minot picked up a magazine. “Are you aware that Red Channels lists the Relief Fund as one of their suspected Communist front organizations?”
“No.”
Ben saw Lasner take out a pad and begin to write, a memo he must have forgotten, trapped at the hearing.
“And how had you come to be invited to this party?”
“I was a contributor.”
“So you gave some money to this organization, and Mr. Schaeffer invited you to his home. This was in the nature of a thank-you?”
“Partly, I guess.”
“And the other part was to raise more money? Did they actually collect cash?”
Hal looked at him steadily. “Checks, mostly.”
“Not just spare change, then. Who else was at Mr. Schaeffer’s party?”
Hal glanced quickly at the lawyers, some code they’d been waiting for. “I don’t remember. Other people from the Relief Fund, I guess. The ones in the letter you have.”
“But you don’t remember which ones precisely?” Minot said, biting the last word. “Was your wife there?”
“Yes.”
“Your sister?”
“No. It was an industry event. People in pictures.”
“So you remember their occupations, but not who they were.” Lasner squirmed in his seat, jotting something down again, his breathing audibly impatient.
Minot pulled out a copy of the letter. “Let’s see. Mr. Schaeffer, of course. How about Howard Stein? Was he there?”
Another quick look to the lawyers. “I don’t remember.”
“Gus Pollock?”
“I think so, I’m not sure.”
“Not sure. Ben Friedman. Was he there writing checks?”
Friedman. Ben’s mind went to Danny’s list. Friedman. But not Ben, he’d remember his own name. Another Friedman. A voice saying it. He looked away from the table, trying to remember, hearing it instead. One of the newsreel cameramen was changing film, the other camera still whirring.
“Ben Friedman?” Minot said again.
No, Alfred. Alfred Friedman. He jerked his head toward the cameras, hearing the name, then stared, not moving, afraid even a blink would make it go away. Newsreel, a voice in a newsreel. Alfred Friedman. The camera panning across a group of men. Suits and uniforms.
Minot was talking again but his voice had become a background sound, like noises in the woods, Ben’s mind racing. What did it mean? A man in the group. Follow the logic. His thoughts ran everywhere at once, water rushing downward, separating, branching off until it was stopped, blocked, then backing onto itself. If he knew Friedman, he knew the others, who they must be. Follow the logic, like gravity, one step flowing down to another. Then a split, a whole branch that led nowhere, stopped at Paseo Miramar. Unless Genia had been an accident after all, something that didn’t need to fit. The cameras kept whirring but his mind was moving even faster, in a panic now, because while things snapped into place a dread was spreading through him, where all the logic led, Danny doing something that could not be forgiven. He felt himself growing warmer, as if the body could literally burn with shame. His brother. Someone Ben hadn’t really known at all.
“What?” one of Bunny’s assistants whispered, but Ben shook his head “nothing” and faced forward again. He tried to listen to Minot, something again about Schaeffer’s party, but kept hearing Friedman’s name in the newsreel.
Assuming it was the same Friedman. He needed to be sure, something more than instinct. One foot, then the other. But he kept moving in leaps. If he was right, then the list wouldn’t be enough bait. They’d run to ground, not take any risks now. He’d need to offer something more, a direct threat, exposure. He glanced toward the press section, Polly’s hand moving on a pad as she watched Hal testify. Ostermann looked up, his features suddenly Liesl’s, the fine stretch to the chin, and Ben met his eyes for a second, then quickly went back to Polly. Did he owe Danny anything now? Was there ever a good reason for betrayal? Anyway, how could you betray the dead? This one would be for the still-living.
