The Chelsea Girls

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Hazel

June 1950

First thing tomorrow, I’m going to go right uptown and confront Mr. Canby. How dare he put you in that position with Butterfield?”

“No, you can’t.” Maxine grabbed Hazel’s arm, pleading. “He made me promise not to tell you any of this.”

It had taken only a couple of drinks for Hazel to get Maxine to spill the beans as to what was going on. Hazel had known something was up when she came down from the mezzanine level earlier that day, having just checked the sight lines for the play’s final scene, and spotted Mr. Canby and Maxine slipping out of the house manager’s office, neither saying a word to the other and practically tiptoeing away. They were up to some kind of intrigue, and Hazel was determined to find out what.

So she’d invited Maxine to El Quijote that evening, where they’d gossiped for a bit before Hazel asked her directly what was happening. Eventually, Maxine had filled her in on her meeting with Mr. Canby, followed by the one with Mr. Butterfield. Hazel shook with anger. What the hell had Canby been thinking, sending Maxine into the lion’s den like that? Maxine had assured Hazel that she’d slowed him down and sweet-talked him into backing off, and he’d even opened up the possibility of Hazel getting “cleared” from all charges.

“So you see, it was a good idea after all,” said Maxine. “First thing tomorrow, you can go down and get your name taken off the list.”

Hazel called for another drink. “Still, the two of you had no right to go behind my back.”

“I know, and I’m sorry. Look, once the show’s open and ticket sales are through the roof, Butterfield will have lost what little power he wields.”

They simultaneously knocked on the wooden bar with their knuckles, and laughed. The knot of worry in Hazel’s gut released and she assured Maxine that she’d not turn on Canby for using her leading lady in his attempt to make nice.

First thing the next morning, after a sleepless night, Hazel headed to the offices of American Business Consultants, located in a skyscraper across from Bryant Park.

She took the elevator up but paused a moment outside the door, unsure. Anger would only inflame the problem, not help it. She took a couple of deep breaths and reminded herself of the goal: to clear her name, not create more drama. Face-to-face, they wouldn’t be able to deny the inconsistencies and inaccuracies. She hated to stoop to their level, but she wanted to save the show from even the threat of picketers, from being shut down.

As the director and playwright, she was accountable for over a hundred jobs, another reason she hadn’t been able to sleep the night before. She didn’t want to disappoint anyone.

Secrets were dangerous. Better to have it all out in the open.

A secretary took her name and disappeared. The place wasn’t particularly grand or bustling, the floors scuffed and the walls empty. Hazel counted only four office doors off the small waiting area, where copies of Red Channels were fanned out on a glass table. Hazel stifled the impulse to snatch them up and bury them in her purse.

“Miss Ripley. In here.”

The secretary held open a door with the name Vincent Hartnett on it. Mr. Hartnett had thinning hair that had been unartfully draped across his scalp, a coiffure that probably took longer to arrange than her own.

“What can I do for you?” He closed a folder and placed both elbows on it, hands under his chin.

No handshake, no niceties. Fine. Hazel sat in the chair opposite. “My name is Hazel Ripley. My name is listed in Red Channels, and Mr. Butterfield suggested I come by. The entry about me is erroneous and I wish to clear things up.”

“I see.” He opened a desk drawer and took out the booklet. “Ripley, did you say?” He rifled through the pages until he found the right one, and then took a moment to study it while she stayed silent.

Someone knocked on the frame of the open door. “Mr. Hartnett, just wanted to let you know I’m heading out.”

Hazel turned her head and let out a small “oh.”

Charlie—the man from the roof of the Chelsea, looking much healthier than when she’d seen him last—stared back at her.

Hazel had assumed he was a Fed, but obviously not. He hadn’t been lying when he said he worked in the private sector; he was one of Hartnett’s lackeys. Judging from the shocked look on his face, he was as stunned as she was.

Charlie gave her a barely perceptible nod before turning to Mr. Hartnett. “I didn’t know you were with someone. Sorry to interrupt.”

“Do you two know each other?” Mr. Hartnett eyed Hazel.

“No, we don’t know each other.” Charlie’s answer was firm.

He was probably more than eager to keep the rooftop episode from his employer. This was the only hand she had, and she had to play it. “Are you sure? You seem quite familiar.”

Charlie looked as if he was about to have another fit. He blinked a couple of times at her and she knew exactly what he was trying to convey, a desperate plea not to tell his boss about his illness. “No, I don’t think so.”

For now, she relented. “I guess not. Although, as a writer, it’s my job to notice things, observe people. I rarely forget a face.”

Mr. Hartnett shrugged and made the introductions. “Miss Ripley, this is Charlie Butterfield. Why don’t you join us, Charlie? Miss Ripley is interested in getting cleared.”

Butterfield. He shared the same name as the supermarket monster. Hazel took a deep breath, absorbing the news.

Charlie Butterfield took the seat next to her, carefully, as though the room were a minefield, as Mr. Hartnett read off the list of Hazel’s so-called offenses. When he was finished, he closed the booklet and stared hard at her. “What do you have to say about this?”

“Almost all of those occurred before the war, when it was a very different time.” She paused. “My older brother was quite active in political causes and I followed his lead.”

“Your brother, you say?” Mr. Hartnett picked up a pen. “What is his name?”

“Ben Ripley.” She let Mr. Hartnett scribble it down before adding, “He died in the war.”

“I see. A soldier?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m very sorry to hear it.”

“Mr. Hartnett, if you don’t mind my asking, how did you compile the information in Red Channels? Some of it is incorrect, you see.”

Given Hazel’s assumed status, the man was surprisingly willing to share his methods. “We study old photos of May Day parades and peace marches, see who we recognize and who comes up over and over. Or we look at people who have signed petitions fighting the good work of the HUAC, and unveil their hidden agendas.”

“But what if what you gather is incorrect? For example, I never even heard of the World Federation of Democratic Youth, and it says I ‘sponsored’ activities for them, whatever that means.”

“No, no. Nothing is incorrect. I served in the naval intelligence, I know how to tell facts from fiction. Besides, we have staff”—he looked over at Charlie Butterfield—“who do reconnaissance out in the field.”

Right. What a pigheaded dolt Mr. Hartnett was. “You have to give those you’re accusing the chance to defend themselves before you publish, I would think.”

“We do, we do. The more-well-known ones, we’ll send a letter and ask if they have changed their views. If they have, I give them an opportunity to clear their name.” He cleared his throat. “Have you changed your views, Miss Ripley?”

“That fascism is bad and that refugees should have coats to keep them warm? No. I haven’t. And also, that American democracy is the best form of government there is? Again, no.”

He gave an irritated sigh. “You clearly don’t get it. I’ll spell it out for you, how to exonerate yourself. Do you want to know? Or do you want to quibble with me?”

She made herself sit back in her chair, as if this was just any other business negotiation. “I want to know how.”

A pomaded strand of hair had fallen across his forehead. He licked one finger and smoothed the lock back into place. “I’ll review your file again, and we will have a conversation. Once you convince me that you are not a member of the Communist Party and have never been, I will pass your file on to the FBI. They’ll interview you, and you’ll tell them anyone else you think might be a communist sympathizer. Once we’re all on the same page, I’ll take your name off and give the green light that you’re hirable.” He paused. “It costs two hundred dollars.”

She sat quiet, stunned. The fury built back up, unstoppable. “You’re telling me that you created this list of names of people who can’t get work because of rumors and innuendo you disseminate, who then have to come to you and pay you”—she raised her voice—“pay you, to get cleared off the list? This is a racket. A moneymaking scam, plain and simple.”

“How dare you, Miss Ripley. We aren’t playing games here. There are subversives out there in the entertainment industry tainting the minds of innocent, God-fearing Americans. People like Uta Hagen, Judy Holliday, Dorothy Parker.”

His list consisted only of women, a warning if ever she’d heard one. She should never have come. This was a labyrinthine trap and she’d fallen right into it. But this scheme was outrageous. Someone had to say something.

Hazel addressed Charlie, hardly concealing the threat in her voice. “You’ve been awfully silent. I’m surprised you don’t have anything to say about this.”

Charlie avoided her gaze, but turned to his boss. “Mr. Hartnett, I’m sure there’s another way to approach this. Miss Ripley seems to be on the up-and-up. After all, she came here of her own volition.”

Mr. Hartnett looked from Hazel to Charlie, curious. “I’m surprised at how easily you’re swayed, Charlie.”

“I have nothing to hide, nothing to defend,” said Hazel.

“I have an idea.” Charlie broke through the icy silence and stared hard at Hazel, as if he were trying to send a signal, some kind of warning. “If you truly have nothing to hide, if your production isn’t a cover for subversive behaviors, then perhaps you wouldn’t mind allowing it to be monitored.”

“Monitored?”

He nodded. “Observed, if you like. I’ll drop into rehearsals and production meetings, and report back any untoward behavior, any suspicious contacts. Or the lack of same.”

“What? No. Absolutely not.” Hazel wanted to slap him. After practically saving his life, this was how he repaid her?

“Yes. Brilliant.” Mr. Hartnett jumped on the idea. “Why would you say no if you have nothing to hide?”

“Because it’s ridiculous.”

“You may think so, but I’m sure Mr. Canby would be happy to reach a compromise.”

Mr. Hartnett was right on that count. Mr. Canby would agree in a heartbeat. Anything to take care of this threat and get into the good graces of Daddy Butterfield and his minions. She had to get something out of it, though. “If Mr. Canby and I consent to being observed, then you tell Laurence Butterfield to back off, and take me out of Red Channels.”

Mr. Hartnett considered the idea, taking his time before answering. “If you agree to our plan, I’ll request that Laurence Butterfield ease up and consider taking you out of Red Channels, depending on what sort of feedback we get.”

With that, he stood and dismissed them both. The meeting was over.

Hazel had hoped to lose herself in the mob of office workers churning along the sidewalk, but Charlie Butterfield caught up with her before she crossed Sixth Avenue.

“Look at you, still unable to trail someone without tipping your hand.” Her words came out with a caustic edge.

“I’m not following you. I’m attempting to walk with you. Please, slow down.”

She did so, only because she didn’t want him to have another fit in front of her. Hazel made a sharp right and he followed suit, as if a magnet joined them together. “Why did you make that ridiculous suggestion?”

“I don’t know if you’re just completely out of it or deliberately chose to ignore the facts, but Hartnett was ready to throw you to the wolves. What on earth were you thinking, talking back to him like that? That’s not the way it’s done.”

“I thought I’d be clearing up a misunderstanding. I didn’t expect to be shaken down for two hundred dollars.”

“It’s not like that.”

“No? How is it not?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “I could have told him everything, by the way. About your epilepsy, that we’d met before. I should have.”

“I just did you a huge favor, Miss Ripley.”

“You really think so? You’ve got to be kidding, Mr. Butterfield.” She ground to a halt as a crowd gathered outside a theater at intermission stymied her progress.

“You can call me Charlie. And I just bought you a huge amount of leeway.”

“First off, I’m not calling you anything. Second, rehearsals are closed, for a reason. We don’t need the actors worrying about what they’re saying or doing. It’s a free space, a creative space. Having a minder will get in the way of that.” She peered into his face. “How are you related to the supermarket guy?”

Charlie swallowed. “I’m his son.”

“Great. Just great.”

A dinging sound echoed from inside the theater, the signal that the intermission was over. Hazel changed direction, joining the theatergoers inching their way inside.

“Where are you going?”

“Away from you.”

“No, you’re not.”

The crowd crammed though the front doors, like a squirrel squeezing through a tight opening in a fence and miraculously emerging out the other side intact.

“But we don’t have tickets,” whispered Charlie from behind her.

Hazel didn’t answer. She needed time to think and figure out her next steps, and the cool interior of the theater beckoned. Luckily, her brother had showed her how to “second act” a play when they were young. They’d wait until the lights went down, and then grab any empty seat. It didn’t matter that they’d missed the first act. As struggling actors in New York City, they took what they could get. She dashed up to the mezzanine level and scanned the rows of seats as an usher walked by.

Hazel turned to face Charlie, as if they were a couple of ticket-holding audience members just stretching their legs. “Your father is making serious trouble,” she whispered. “I don’t see how you can be part of that.”

“Make no mistake, there are people out there trying to forward the Communist Party’s agenda. They may not be official members, but they’re most certainly fellow travelers.”

“Fellow travelers. That’s a ridiculous term. Same with friends. You have all this code-speak for treason. No more euphemisms. Why not just call all us artistic types ‘traitors’ and be done with it? Here’s why: Because then we could fight back. Instead, you throw out insinuations, get the rest of America good and paranoid, and watch as the country turns on itself.”

“You’ve got your head in the sand. There’s a giant network, a conspiracy forming out there. Heck, it’s already formed. Open your eyes before it’s too late.”

“If you’re so sure about that, why aren’t you with the FBI instead of slumming it with the likes of Hartnett?”

“Actually, I’ve already applied and am waiting to hear back.”

The news just kept getting better and better.

The lights dimmed, saving Hazel from further conversation. She spied an empty box seat and darted over, taking the one in front as Charlie shuffled into the one behind her. This had been a stupid idea. Now she had him staring at the back of her head for the next hour. For a fleeting moment she wondered if her hair looked all right, before dismissing the thought as frivolous. Still, she reflexively lifted a hand to smooth it into place as the curtain rose.

What to do? She couldn’t see any way out of it. Mr. Canby would get the call from Mr. Hartnett about having Charlie lurk about, and not be bothered one whit. Not if it meant no picketers, no controversy. Of course, she had nothing to hide. But it was the principle of the matter, the slippery slope into censorship, that irked her to no end.

By the end of the matinee, which turned out to be a riveting opera about fleeing European refugees, Hazel’s racing thoughts had finally settled down. Her play, like this opera, was timely and powerful, and audiences were obviously eager to be challenged. Hazel’s sole purpose was to get Wartime Sonata staged, and if that required Laurence Butterfield’s son to lurk about during the rehearsals, so be it.

She turned to face him as the rest of the audience filed out. “So, what did you think of the play? Russian propaganda?”

“I’d already seen it before, to be honest. I loved it then and I loved it today. You should catch the first act next time.”

“You go to the theater?”

“I do. I see practically everything that comes out.”

“What does your father think of that?”

“He doesn’t know.”

So Butterfield’s son was a theater buff. Maybe this would work, after all. Hopefully, he was dopey enough that she’d be able to manipulate him into giving the production a green light, while also putting her in the clear in terms of the blacklist. “Not that I have much choice, but I’ll allow you to sit in on the rehearsals. See you tomorrow morning, ten o’clock, sharp.”

“See you then, Miss Ripley.”

The next day, at rehearsal, Mr. Canby briefly introduced Charlie Butterfield as a consultant, one who was helping him assess various protocols. Perfectly vague and innocuous. Hazel had to hand it to him, Mr. Canby’s success in the cutthroat world of Broadway was in no doubt due to his ability to obfuscate when needed, either sweet-talking investors or puffing up the egos of the talent.

Most of the cast didn’t give Charlie a second glance, but Maxine bristled with anger. She shot Hazel a dark look and followed her to the table where a coffee urn stood. “I don’t like this idea one bit. Wolf guarding the sheep and all that.”

Hazel poured herself a cup and added some milk, keeping her voice low. “We have no choice. Trust me, this is the last thing I want. But we have to live with it, at least until opening night. Try to keep your Bolshevik declarations to a minimum.”

Maxine cracked a smile, in spite of herself. “Very funny.”

“Better to have him in sight, to be able to control what he hears and sees. Don’t you think?”

“You’re acting like you’re the guilty party.”

“Right. I’m a spy.”

Maxine’s eyebrows raised. “Stop it. You’re going to get yourself into even bigger trouble.” She sighed and poured herself a cup as well. “But I guess you’re right.”

“I am. Besides, he’s a big theater buff, apparently, sees everything.”

“Interesting. His father bragged to me about shutting down a theater company upstate. There must be a lot of friction there.”

“Let’s see if we can’t use it to our advantage.”

The run-through was rough, to say the least. The actors kept on having to call out “line” and have the stage manager feed them their words, and two of the men playing soldiers fumbled their prop guns. To be expected, Hazel knew. At this point in rehearsal, the actors were overloaded with sensory information: where to stand, what the overall arc of the scene was, and the fear of forgetting the next line. Which of course made them forget the next line. Over the next week, Hazel hoped, the stage directions would become second nature, the lines would become embedded in their pretty heads, and the acting would feel less forced.

As a playwright, to hear her words mangled was painful enough, but she tried to keep her director hat on and let the mistakes go. Right now the cast needed confidence.

Charlie sat in the very back row of the theater for the entire morning. But that afternoon, as they returned from lunch, he plopped himself in the seat next to her.

“Yes?” She was scribbling some notes in her script and didn’t look up.

“Is it all right if I sit here?”

“You are the consultant, you can sit wherever you like, I suppose.” She wasn’t about to give him an inch.

The cast launched into the final act. Whether they’d been energized by lunch, or the break, the scene took off with a bang. Maxine was on fire, and her energy invigorated the other actors. Finally, the play in Hazel’s head was beginning to match the one being performed on the stage.

“Fantastic, everyone. Take fifteen.”

“Wow. Just wow.” Charlie remained motionless, still staring at the stage.

“No subversive dialogue for you to report?”

“It’s amazing. That’s a great finale to the whole thing. Poor Lina . . .” He didn’t finish the thought. “Terrible, but it makes perfect sense.”

“Well, thank you.” She hated to admit it, but his praise pleased her to no end. If she could impress this guy, then the audience of ticket payers would be a breeze.

“Although I have to say the second lieutenant was facing upstage too much. There were times I didn’t hear what he said.”

Hazel tried, and failed, to bite her tongue. “Everyone’s a critic, I guess.”

“No, no. I’m not saying anything bad. I mean, you probably knew that already.”

She didn’t let up. “I get it now. You’re a budding artist yourself, aren’t you? Let me guess, you acted in a couple of your high school plays.”

Even if she didn’t know it already, his bright red cheeks gave him away.

“I was in the drama club. I couldn’t do sports with my condition, so ended up building sets, hanging lights, that kind of thing. I even got cast in Waiting for Lefty at a community theater upstate.”

Now she understood his father’s fury. The Odets play was all about striking cabdrivers and communists. Talk about making Laurence Butterfield’s blood boil. Her respect for Charlie went up a notch. “That was very brave of you.”

“Not really. My father had the company shut down and banned from ever performing again. Everyone hated me.”

“Your father, as I have said before, is a beast.” She stood and walked up to the stage, leaving him to stew. She wasn’t here to babysit, there was a job to be done, a play to put on.

Poor kid, though. The humiliation obviously still stung.

She gave some notes to the cast and then they ran the final scene one more time. The juice wasn’t there, not like the last time, but that was fine. Ups and downs were to be expected.

As the second lieutenant walked onstage and delivered his lines, she braced herself. She’d told him to not upstage himself, and moved him farther away from Maxine so that he’d naturally have to speak up.

Charlie turned his head to look at her. Even though she kept her eyes glued on the stage, there was no avoiding his triumphant grin.