The Chelsea Girls

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Hazel

March 1967

Once backstage, Maxine was swept up in a sea of handlers, leaving Hazel in the wings. Soon enough, though, the stagehands surrounded her, thanking her for her rousing words and shaking her hand. If anything, that was the most gratifying moment so far at this insane awards show, that she’d made the crew proud.

More than ever, Hazel wanted Charlie to have a chance to confront Maxine. Especially now that Hazel had figured out the truth. But any kind of confrontation was sure to be noticed and covered by the press. This had to be played out very carefully.

“Hazel.”

Charlie appeared, and she’d never been more relieved to see his face. She waited until they were safely in a taxi, on their way to the post-awards party at the Plaza Hotel, to fill him in.

“Maxine was part of it.”

“Part of what?”

“Arthur’s spy ring. Silver’s spy ring. Whatever you want to call him. Arthur is Silver, I’m certain. And Maxine was a spy, too.”

Charlie frowned. “Maxine Mead, a spy?”

“That evening, July the third, when we went to the theater, Maxine wasn’t with me the entire time. I only realized it when I was onstage giving my speech and saw the empty seat next to you. I remembered that Maxine never returned after the intermission, leaving me alone for the entire second act. I saw her later, outside. I spotted Arthur across the street, watching us, and insisted we all go to dinner so I could finally meet Maxine’s mysterious beau.”

“Slow down. I’m not understanding the connection.”

Hazel started again, thinking it through as she spoke. “When we were first entering the theater, a fan waylaid her, a rude one. After that, she seemed flustered, like something was bothering her. She got up as soon as the curtain fell for intermission, told me she was going to the bathroom, but never came back. Later, she said she’d missed the bell and didn’t want to make a fuss scrambling back to her seat in the dark. But I think the fan was connected to Arthur in some way, and had told her to get back to the hotel and let Arthur in through the tunnel. I remember the second act of that play was interminable, which means Maxine had more than enough time to grab a cab and help Silver-slash-Arthur escape by disappearing into the town house, through the tunnel, and out the hotel’s front door. Then they jumped in a cab back to the theater district.”

She sat back, pleased.

“What if she just missed the bell?”

When he said it like that, the story did seem improbable. Still.

“I don’t think it’s just a coincidence. Arthur treated Maxine terribly, he hit her, abused her. But she never left, which didn’t seem like Maxine at all. The Maxine Mead we knew would have dumped a loser like that in an instant. Whenever I questioned her, she’d say that she loved him, but there was something empty in the words, like she didn’t really believe them. I always thought there was something odd going on, but I could never put my finger on it. Now it makes sense. Arthur and she were more than lovers, they were both spies. Which was why she couldn’t escape his clutches. Or maybe she really didn’t want to.” She let out a sharp laugh. “To think I just made a speech chastising those who were paranoid about spies, when one may have been standing right beside me.”

“What did you say to her, as you were going offstage?” Charlie asked.

“I told her that I knew the truth.” She should have never let on, but she couldn’t help herself. “Do you think I’ve ruined your opportunity? What if she runs for the hills?”

He considered it. “She’s too famous. She has to show up at the party, and probably thinks it’s safer in a crowd. We have to figure out a way to get her alone.”

“It’s better if I do it. It’s the only chance that she’ll open up.”

“You’re not trained, no way.”

“She’s emotional, vulnerable, and we have a long history. I’ve got this, I promise. Inside the ballroom, there’s a long balcony that overlooks the room. I’ll lead her up there for a private talk, and you take the opposite stairs and sneak over. Don’t let her see you, though, or we’ll lose our chance.”

A band played as they entered the grand ballroom of the Plaza Hotel, a space that would have looked at home in Versailles, with its gold leaf plaster and mighty columns. They were escorted to a table where Lauren Bacall and Carol Burnett sat engrossed in conversation.

“Well, this will be easy.” Hazel pointed to the placards, where she and Maxine were seated next to each other. For a brief moment she doubted herself. Maybe she was just jazzed up with adrenaline from the unexpected turn of events, indulging in conspiracy theories. But the guilty look on Maxine’s face after she’d spoken the words out loud was undeniable. She’d known what was going on, one way or another.

“Excuse me, coming through.” An older man Hazel recognized as Maxine’s agent pulled out a chair. Maxine, behind him, didn’t take it. Instead, she froze when faced with Hazel and Charlie. Her mouth opened and closed a couple of times but no sound came out.

“Max, it’s been too long.” Charlie leaned over and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

Maxine responded with an enigmatic smile. “Look at that, the gang’s back together. Lovely to see you, Charlie.”

Just then, a couple of photographers pushed Charlie aside. “We need a photo of the two of you, Miss Ripley and Miss Mead.”

Hazel put her arm around Maxine’s waist and drew her close. “Say ‘cheese.’”

After a couple of flashes, Maxine tried to pull away but Hazel spoke through gritted teeth. “Come with me. We have to talk.” To her surprise, Maxine softened in her arms.

“Fine.”

They cut through the surging crowd and up a wide set of stairs. Hazel unhooked the velvet rope that limited access to the balcony and let Maxine through, before clicking it back in place behind them.

Once they reached the top, Maxine moved into the shadows, out of the view of the crowd below. “I’m so sorry about this evening, Hazel. I had no idea they were going to pull that stunt. I would have never agreed if I’d known. But your speech was marvelous. I hope you know that.”

“Don’t flatter me.”

“I’m not. It’s the truth.” Her hand fluttered to her hair, a nervous tic Hazel knew well.

Better to get straight to the point. “Maxine, I know about your activities with Arthur.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Charlie approaching. He stayed glued to the wall, out of Maxine’s line of vision but well within earshot.

“My activities?”

Her pretend innocence infuriated Hazel, she couldn’t hold back. “You were a spy, just like Arthur was. You were spying on all of us. How could you?”

“I wasn’t spying on you. What on earth are you talking about?” Her face was open, childlike. Confused.

What if Hazel was completely wrong about all this, and had simply gotten caught up in the drama of the evening? She charged on, anyway. “I know it all, Maxine. I know that Arthur was known as Silver, that he was at the top of a network of spies that included Julius Rosenberg. You were his protégée.”

A leap of faith, that last statement, but Maxine wouldn’t know it was just a guess.

“No, that’s not true. None of that is true.” The words came out robotic, the worst line reading ever.

Hazel softened her voice, let her hands fall to her sides. “That was all a long time ago, Max. A lot has changed since then, we all know that. I’m just trying to make sense of it all. We all did what we could to get through, in a terrible time. I want to hear your side of it.”

Maxine responded with a tiny sigh. The air around them shifted, and Maxine’s face went slack. Not with fear, but with relief. Hazel suspected she was desperate to confide her side of the story.

“You can tell me, Maxine,” said Hazel. “It’s water under the bridge. After all this time, I deserve the truth. That’s why you stayed with Arthur, right? Even though he was a beast. I realize now that you didn’t have a choice.”

Her gaze flickered. “I wanted to tell you for so long, but I couldn’t. It would put you in danger, but hell, let’s be honest, I didn’t have the courage.” Maxine paused. “I met Arthur, like I told you, long ago, when I was still in Seattle. I didn’t realize it until later that he was grooming me, training me from the very beginning. I was young, a teenager, and he was powerful and smart. I thought I was in love. With him, with the Communist Party. The two were one, in my mind.”

“Did he bring you to New York?”

“Yes. I was sent there, to work as an agent. Soon after, I was told I’d been made a member of the underground. It was an honor, it meant they regarded me as important. It also meant I cut off all contact with regular communists, didn’t go to meetings, distanced myself from the Party. Not even the communists knew I was a communist.”

A terrible realization dawned. “What really happened with you and my brother? Was he trying to recruit you or was it the other way around?”

Maxine’s face crumpled. “He was on our list of potential recruits. I was told to get a sense of where his political sympathies lay, but when he took me to that protest, I was completely blindsided. That was exactly the type of scene I was supposed to avoid, being deep underground. I let him go after that. I told them that he was too patriotic, that he wouldn’t be turned.”

Hazel wasn’t sure whether to believe her or not. In fact, she was having a difficult time aligning the woman before her—someone who had been trained to lie and scheme—with the changeable drama queen she’d met in Naples and practically lived with in New York. Which one was the real Maxine?

Hazel backtracked, returning Maxine to more comfortable territory. “Did they make you join the USO tour?”

“They thought it’d be a good way to monitor what was going on in Europe, but the controls were too strict, I couldn’t get word back to Arthur, so for a time I was told to cut off all communication. That was the first taste of what it’s like to be a normal person. When we met, when we were trying to help Paul. That was all true. You know that, right?”

Hazel stayed silent.

“After the war, I went back to California to help them infiltrate the film industry, but after I lost the part to Marilyn Monroe, they sent me to New York, to try to revitalize my career on the stage.”

“In my play.”

“Yes, in your play.” Maxine’s voice trembled. “It was a calculated move on their behalf, but I wanted to play Lina more than anything. It was a beautiful part, the best I’ve ever had. Then Julius Rosenberg was arrested, and everything fell to pieces. Arthur came up with the idea to use you and Charlie as a diversion, once the show had opened to raves. But I couldn’t let them do that to you and Charlie, so I, I . . .” She trailed off.

The image of Maxine standing on that stage, floundering like an amateur, came to mind. “Oh my God,” said Hazel. “You threw the show. On purpose.”

“I was protecting you.”

“How?”

“I hated to do it, Hazel, I swear. I figured by screwing up, I’d get you out of the spotlight, keep you out of Arthur’s reach.”

Her excuses enraged Hazel. “I had one chance. Only one. And you ruined it.”

Maxine shuddered. “I wasn’t in my right mind.”

“What about the evening of your birthday?” Hazel demanded. “That was the night you helped Arthur escape, right?”

She nodded, slowly, surprised. “An operative followed me to the theater, said I had to return to the hotel and let in Arthur through the town house, that the Feds were closing in on him.”

“That man who wanted your autograph?”

“Yes. So I left at intermission, took a cab there, let Arthur in, and then he insisted on coming back to the theater with me. I was trapped.”

Playing the victim again. Hazel couldn’t stand it. “So after all that, you not only flopped the show, you still set me and Charlie up that day in the hotel. You told the photographers where to find us, and ruined Charlie’s career as well.”

“No! I had nothing to do with it. My guess is Arthur stole my stationery and wrote that note. You have to believe me.”

Hazel tried to conjure up the memory of the note, what the handwriting had looked like, but it had been so long ago. “I don’t know what to believe anymore. You can’t deny that you named names.”

“I had to. You don’t understand.”

“No one had to. Sure, you might have not had the career you do now. You might have been destitute like me, but you didn’t have to.” Hazel started to laugh in spite of herself. Maxine looked at her like she was mad. Maybe she was.

“What’s so funny?” asked Maxine.

“I’m picturing you being questioned by Roy Cohn, and how he had an actual spy right there, right in the room with him, and didn’t even know it. The incompetency of it all.”

Maxine didn’t crack a smile. “I went in there thinking it was just about paperwork, and then I’d be on my way. But they started questioning me and, yes, I had a lot to hide. As Cohn dug in deeper, I panicked. I never meant to name anyone, never, but they knew my weak spot. They threatened to deport my grandmother if I didn’t cooperate and tell them what they wanted.”

Acid dripped from Hazel’s voice. “You poor dear.”

“I’m sorry for everything, I really am. I was trying to protect you, protect my family.”

Hazel would have none of it. “You’ve been living large on other people’s pain for years now.”

“I tried to help. I took the job in Hollywood so that I could support you, make it up to you. I figured by burning bright I could escape Arthur’s grip and free myself from being a Soviet agent, and it worked. Once I was out, I could take care of you.”

“Take care of me? What are you talking about?”

“I had an arrangement with Mr. Bard, and later his son, that I would pay your rent every month. I wanted you to share in the spoils. I knew I didn’t deserve it.”

Hazel burst out laughing. “You’re an idiot. Stanley Bard must have been pocketing your blood money for years now. I’ve never seen a penny. I paid what rent I could, and worked the switchboard when I couldn’t.”

“You never received it? But that was the whole point.” Maxine’s words faded away into the general noise of the party going on below them. She put one hand on the wall to steady herself.

Charlie stepped forward. “We’ll need you to tell the FBI everything you know.”

Maxine’s knees seemed to buckle at the sound of his voice, but she caught herself and recovered. “Charlie?” For a split second, the vamp from Naples reappeared, all smiles and charm. “What are you doing, eavesdropping on a lady’s private conversation?”

“Charlie works in the government now.”

Maxine snapped to attention. “Huh. I see. I’ve been set up.” She turned to Charlie, her voice ragged. “It’s all meaningless. I was a nobody, really.”

“Then you make a statement to that effect,” said Charlie. “The cables that were passed between spies and the Soviet Union are still being decoded and analyzed. It’s important that you share what you know.”

Hazel cut in. “Is your grandmother still your excuse?”

“No. She died years ago. There’s no one left to protect.” She looked at Charlie, then over at Hazel. “Hazel, I would have never hurt you. Anything I did was so that you wouldn’t get caught up in it, that you wouldn’t get hurt. But it was bigger than I could have imagined.”

“You seem to have made out pretty well in the bargain. For all intents and purposes, you’re a huge success.”

“No. I’m completely alone. I haven’t let anyone else into my life since then. I was too nervous that they’d come after me all over again, come after the people I love. There’s no one left. You’re the success, Hazel.”

“Is that so? Please, enlighten me.”

“You stood tall when everyone else was caving in. Don’t you see? That’s why you were honored tonight. All the trappings of fame mean nothing, not when you’ve sold your soul.”

“How easy to say, when you’re the one living the dream.”

Maxine straightened and looked over at Charlie. It was over, and she knew it. “Let me get my affairs in order this evening, and I’ll come to you first thing in the morning. You’ll get your due, I promise.”

Charlie nodded. Hazel stared at him in disbelief. “You’re going to just let her walk out of here? Are you crazy?”

“She has nowhere to hide, Hazel. Her plan worked for the Russians, and it works for us, too. She’s too big of a star. One night won’t make a difference, right, Maxine?”

Hazel didn’t wait for Maxine to respond. “Once again, you’re leaving destruction in your wake. I make the speech of my life, and then tomorrow you go out there, front and center, and admit to being a spy, take up the spotlight. You really know how to cap me at my knees every time, don’t you?”

Maxine began to cry. “No. That’s not what this is. Remember Naples, when we did so much good for the soldiers, made them forget where they were, for a little while? Same at the Chelsea Hotel, running lines and working on the play, I had that glorious feeling of freedom and creativity and not having any chains to hold us down. You will have your time in the spotlight. You are brilliant, and your play is brilliant. Everyone will see that now.”

Maxine’s facade, the one built on movie star glamour and a breathless beauty, had completely slipped away. She looked faded and lost.

“I’ll accept my responsibility, I promise,” said Maxine softly. “I’ll do whatever I can.”