The Troubled Air (30 page)

“First of all,” Archer said, “all five people have done their job well. Two or three of them have done it extremely well …”

“Understood,” said Mr. Sandler. For the first time, there was a note of impatience in his voice, as though he felt Archer was bringing in irrelevant material.

“Whatever their political opinions may be,” Archer said, “they’ve performed loyally for your company. As you put it in my case, they’ve earned their money.”

“I said that was understood.” Sandler stepped on the accelerator and the car lurched around a truck.

“Beyond that,” Archer said, trying to organize everything neatly, “they have just been accused. They haven’t been found guilty of anything. And the magazine that accused them has made some very queer charges in the past and has been forced to retract publicly when the people they’ve accused have been strong enough or wealthy enough to afford to fight. Also, the idea that any man who happens to run a two-by-four magazine can set himself up as a judge on a whole industry and prepare blacklists which force people out of work is an unpleasant one.”

“Unpleasant,” Mr. Sandler said. “Yes.”

“Each case is different, too.”

“It always is, Mr. Archer …” For the first time in the car, Mr. Sandler looked over at him. His face was grave and his eyes were cool. “For my own information, I’d like to know what your relationships to these five people are. To orient myself. Is that a fair question for me to ask?”

“Yes,” Archer said. “I think so. They vary.”

“Of course.”

“First—the composer. Pokorny. Professionally—I admire his music. He’s very good. You’ve heard his stuff …”

“Yes.”

“Personally—” Archer almost smiled. “I find him somewhat trying. He’s rather—emotional. Unstable. I pity him. He’s a Jew …” Archer saw the lids go down for a half-second over Mr. Sandler’s eyes. “He’s had a hard time. His parents were killed by the Germans. He’s terrified … He’s married to an obnoxious woman.”

“Member of the Communist Party,” Mr. Sandler said. “Very active.”

“Yes,” Archer said, wondering how much Mr. Sandler knew about the others, too. “Then there’s Frances Motherwell.”

“She was off the program this week,” Mr. Sandler said.

“Yes.”

“I thought you said they were going to have two weeks.”

“She quit,” Archer said. “She got an offer for a play.”

“I didn’t like the girl you replaced her with,” Mr. Sandler said. “When I was a young man I used to avoid girls with voices like that like the plague. Sex with marshmallows all over it. For the high-school trade.”

Archer grinned. “On the target,” he said. “She has cooed her last coo for University Town.”

“Delighted to hear it,” Mr. Sandler said. “What else about Frances Motherwell?”

“Professionally?”

“I know all about her professionally,” Mr. Sandler said. “Top-grade. The real thing.”

“Politically,” Archer said slowly. “Politically …” He hesitated.

“Go ahead,” said Mr. Sandler.

“Well, she’s a Communist. She admitted it.”

“The magazine was right about her, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” Archer said. “She doesn’t hide it. She’s proud of it. She’s very romantic. A man she knew who got killed in the war converted her. She’ll meet someone else finally and she’ll get converted to something else. Anyway, she’s out of the picture. She quit before she could be fired.”

“She’s pretty, isn’t she?” Mr. Sandler asked.

“Yes.”

“Damn fool.” Sandler made a decisive move between two cars. “What do you feel about her?”

Archer thought for a moment. “She scares me.”

Mr. Sandler looked surprised. “Why?”

“I’m a married man.”

Mr. Sandler chortled once, briefly. “Know what you mean,” he said. “We live in the damnedest world. Girls who look like that turning Red. Early marriage,” he said firmly. “Only solution. What about the colored man? The funny man?”

“Atlas?” Archer waited, realizing that he wanted to say something unpleasant about the comedian, and annoyed with himself for the impulse. “What do you think about him?”

“He makes me laugh,” Mr. Sandler said. “I’m going to miss him.”

“You’re not the only one,” said Archer.

“Did you talk to him?”

“Yes.”

“What did you get out of him?”

“Nothing. He just laughed at me. He’s hipped on the color thing. If your skin’s white you’re his enemy. He says he’s going to live in France.”

“Business is getting too complicated,” Mr. Sandler said. “Twenty years ago, your colored help didn’t threaten to go live in France when you asked them a question.”

“Twenty years ago they didn’t make twenty thousand dollars every thirty-nine weeks, either,” Archer said.

“I suppose not. You’re not fond of Atlas, are you?”

“Not very,” Archer admitted. “He’s a lot of trouble. And he makes it perfectly clear that he despises me. He’s not an engaging character.”

“Actors,” Mr. Sandler said. “Baffling. Too much for a drug manufacturer, really. He sounds so pleasant on the radio, you want to wrap him up and take him home with you.”

“Talent,” Archer said, “is the best disguise in the world.”

“What would you want to do with him?” Mr. Sandler asked sharply.

“I’d like to keep him,” Archer said. “He’s awfully important. And I have a feeling he’s not a Communist. He’s not anything. He’s out for himself and that’s all.”

“In the last presidential election he spoke for that feller Wallace,” Mr. Sandler said, “and he’s signed some very lively petitions of one kind and another.”

“Anything,” Archer said, wondering how Mr. Sandler had discovered these facts, “that means trouble for the white folks. That’s his motto. But I don’t think it’s even political with him. It’s a reflex action.”

“Can you replace the sonofabitch?”

“No.”

Mr. Sandler grunted, over the wheel of the car, and Archer for the first time had the feeling that he was getting somewhere.

“How about the others?” Sandler asked. “The Weller woman?”

“If she were on the stage,” Archer said slowly, “she would be what the critics would call adequate.”

“What does that mean?”

“Not especially good,” Archer said. “Not especially bad.”

“She’s replaceable, then?”

Archer hesitated. There’s no sense in this conversation, he thought, unless I’m absolutely candid with the man. “She’s replaceable,” he said, “but I don’t want to replace her.”

“Nice lady?” Mr. Sandler hooted his horn impatiently at a woman driver ahead of him. Waveringly, the woman swung over to the side and Mr. Sandler sent the Ford past her.

“Very nice lady,” Archer said. “The one thing against her that I’ve been able to find out is that she lent her name to a peace conference that was sponsored by the Communists.”

“That the only thing?”

Archer had a troubled feeling that perhaps Mr. Sandler knew some more damaging evidence against Alice, since his information seemed to be so complete about the others. “As far as I know,” he said.

“You wouldn’t hide anything from me about the lady, would you, Archer?” Mr. Sandler leaned forward, his hands manicured, plump and pink on the wheel.

“I’d be tempted to.” Archer smiled a little. “But I don’t think I would.”

“Uh,” Mr. Sandler said. “Why?”

“She’s a widow. She’s not getting any younger. She supports a fourteen-year-old son.” Archer spoke rapidly. “Her husband was a good friend of mine and I feel responsible for her.”

“Uhuh,” Mr. Sandler said. He turned and glanced at Archer. He looked serious, but approving, as though pleased with Archer’s honesty. “You still feel responsible for her?”

“I feel sorry for her,” Archer said, remembering the sagging face, the clumsy clothes, the sandy skin.

“What about the other feller,” Mr. Sandler asked, “Herres?”

“He’s a very good actor,” Archer said, feeling nervous for the first time since they had started in the car. “They don’t come any better.”

“That’s what my wife says. She listens every week. Religiously. She’s a good judge, too. She goes to New York and sees all the shows. Very smart woman. She thinks he’s a very handsome feller, too. Met him at a party somewhere last year. She’s social.”

Maybe, Archer thought, Victor Herres is going to be spared because of the effect he had over a drink on an aging Philadelphia housewife who came to New York to see all the shows. The close blond hair, the easy, white-toothed smile, the automatic good manners with ladies would pay off now. …

“What else do you know about Herres?” Mr. Sandler asked.

“He was in the Army,” Archer said. “He was discharged as a captain. He was wounded and he won the Silver Star in Sicily.” Mr. Sandler frowned over the wheel. “Silver Star, eh?” He drove in silence. Archer could see that this was news to the old man. “My youngest son was killed in the war,” he said. Archer had the feeling, listening to him, that Mr. Sandler gave that bit of information automatically as soon as any mention was made of the war. “Tunisia. I got a very nice letter from his captain. Said Arnold—that was his name, Arnold—was very well liked, very popular in the company. He was up to corporal by the time he died. Stepped on a mine, the captain wrote. Just walking along and stepped on a mine. I wrote to the captain to thank him for his letter, but by the time it got there, the captain was dead, too. Taft, the captain’s name was. Same as the senator’s. My wife blames me because the boy is dead.” Mr. Sandler was talking to himself now, staring out through the windshield, mumbling, going over this old loss and this continuing intimate injustice. “She said I forced him to join up. His draft number was high and he could have hung back a long time. But I couldn’t stand seeing him staying at home, sleeping till noon every day, with the war on. Make it or carry it, I said. Get a job in a war plant or pick up a gun. Never worked a day in his life, so he enlisted. My wife insisted on having his body brought home after the war. Goddamn fool sentimental thing to do, I told her, no wonder the income tax is up to eighty-six percent, disturbing the bones of the dead. But she wouldn’t listen for a minute. Nothing for it but a great big funeral, with relatives weeping by the dozen, all over again. Women get their satisfaction out of the God-damnedest things.”

Mr. Sandler lapsed into silence, his face aggrieved as he thought of elderly, bereaved, unreasonable women and dead, twice-buried sons. He seemed to have forgotten that Archer was sitting beside him and what they were talking about. But, a moment later, he said, “What else about Herres? You know him a long time?”

“Yes,” Archer said. “Fifteen years. He was a student of mine in college.”

“You taught in a college?” Mr. Sandler asked.

“History.”

“I know a couple of professors,” Mr. Sandler said. “That’s the life. They all live to the age of eighty.”

Archer laughed. “I guess I’m not interested in living to eighty.”

“You won’t in radio,” Mr. Sandler-said. “That’s a cinch. Neither will I.” He snorted. “My whole family dies at the age of sixty-five. Mother, father, grandfathers. On schedule. I got four more years. I ought to do something enormous with the next four years, I suppose. Only, I don’t know anything else but running a drug business.” He drove thoughtfully, reflecting on the next four years. “What about Herres?” He asked abruptly. “Is he a Communist?”

“No,” said Archer.

“How do you know?”

“I asked him and he told me.”

“Do you believe him?”

“He’s my best friend,” Archer said slowly.

“Oh.” Mr. Sandler considered this. “A little complicated for you, isn’t it?”

“No,” Archer said.

Mr. Sandler glanced curiously at him, his pale eyes puzzled. Then he jerked his head around and watched the traffic. “Now,” he said, “we get to you. You want to answer some questions about yourself?”

“Of course.”

“What are your politics?”

“I voted for Truman in the last election.”

“That was a God-damn fool thing to do,” Mr. Sandler said, the fires of previous Novembers flaring briefly within him. “Look where we are now. No … skip it, skip it. I’m not particularly proud of the Republicans either, although I’ve voted Republican all my life, except the first time Roosevelt ran. Thirty-two. Scared then. First deficit in the history of the concern. Ran for cover with the rest of the damn fools. I’ve paid for it, though,” he said darkly, thinking, Archer was sure, about his income-tax returns. “You had anything to do with the Communists?” He asked sharply.

“Let me think about that for a minute,” Archer said.

“Why?” Mr. Sandler looked at him suspiciously.

“Because I would like to figure out once and for all just what I
have
had to do with them,” Archer said.

“You just getting around to that now, Archer?” Mr. Sandler asked.

“In the last week or so. Until now I guess I haven’t had to. I suppose I was lazy. A little afraid. Ashamed, perhaps,” Archer said. “Unwilling to be engaged.”

“Well,” Mr. Sandler asked, his voice harsh for the first time, “what did you find out?”

“In the thirties,” Archer said slowly, “I guess I was mixed up with them a bit. In a college in those days, a great many people were. Especially the younger ones. A chapter of a teachers’ union was being started on the campus and I joined, and I imagine three or four of the leading spirits were comrades …”

“You imagine.” There was flat sarcasm in the old man’s voice now.

“I knew, I suppose,” Archer said. “I didn’t inquire too closely. They worked hard and the things they were asking for seemed reasonable enough. More money. Tenure. There didn’t seem to be anything sinister about that.” He half-closed his eyes, trying to remember what it was like in that distant time, twelve or thirteen years ago. “It seemed fairly respectable, then, remember.”

“Not to me it didn’t,” Mr. Sandler said.

“Well, it did to a lot of people,” Archer said mildly. “Perfectly decent Americans. There was no talk of revolution, then, remember. And there was something called the Popular Front in France. And they talked so loudly about democratic methods, collaboration against Fascism, all those old phrases. And then, during the war, everybody loved everybody else. Senators getting up in Madison Square Garden at Aid-to-Russia meetings. In the radio industry, on all those war-boards, the Communists seemed to work harder than anyone else to help, and I guess I didn’t see anything very wrong with them then, either. And after the war, everybody was so friendly with everybody else. All that talk about World Peace, One World …”