Pete shrugged noncommittally and went for his coat and hat. Once he was fully dressed it was clear the ribbing was over, and his features assumed a professional blockiness. He was Amberson again; the two men shook hands and agreed they’d see each other soon, disregarding how unlikely that future seemed now.
“Lucky man,” said Hoffman, Walls’s immediate superior, when he arrived some minutes later.
Walls was loading his weapon—the handgun he had been issued at theend of training—and was glad of the excuse not to be facing his boss. “Why the hell are we following a movie star anyway?”
“You know how the Director likes his Hollywood gossip.” Hoffman leaned against the beige wall, arms crossed over his chest, shaking his head so that the cheeks of his fallen, gin-ruined face quivered; Walls had never seen him so happy. “She is married to a Red.”
“That’s all intellectual posturing.” Walls turned away and lifted his gun, stared down the barrel at the target—the silhouette of a man in a hat, a mobster, maybe, which was as it should be. He’d seen the original production of Death of a Salesman on Broadway with his mother, and even as a teenager he’d recognized it as the work of an inveterate blowhard. “Are they really sending me to California?”
“Yes.”
“But doesn’t she live in New York?” he asked, not sure exactly how he’d come by the information.
“Seems the man currently on Marilyn”—Hoffman’s tone indicated that he found this pun just as amusing as Pete had—“thinks her marriage is about to implode, and his sources indicate she’s going to California to get away from it all.”
“Why me?” Walls asked again. He kept his voice even, let the gun speak his displeasure. A boom in the ears, heat in the hand, and he watched the bullet rip through the target’s forehead as though it were more than paper, as though the shot really had splintered bone, splattered brain. Smashed the target’s head open, like a pumpkin against a concrete wall.
Hoffman was kinder than Pete. “Can’t have a married man listening to all that late-night pillow talk” was his obviously fallacious explanation.
“You’re not married.”
This was cruel of Walls, and he knew it—Hoffman’s wife had left him for good the last time he fell off the wagon. Hoffman knew it, too. “Guess it’s probably because your mother’s Mosey Moses,” he said, in a voice that meant the conversation was about to be over.
Of course the minute Amberson said California, Walls had known why he would be given such a silly, dead-end assignment. His mother: Maureen “Mosey” Douglass, a.k.a. Mo Walls, a.k.a. Mosey Moses, lean and fair, wild and elegant, a hothouse flower with razor-edged cheekbones, she of the Long Island Douglasses, whose family fortune had been more or less wiped out in the crash only to be resurrected by her older brother, Edward; who had run off during the Depression with a well-connected gambler named Wes Walls; who had been socially ostracized for her excesses, and all but abandoned upon her divorce, only to triumph as the third wife of a studio head named Lou Moses. Of course her old friends who had left her for dead relished this final point of ignominy—that she had married a Jew. But that was before she started throwing famous parties at her Holmby Hills mansion (in fact, it was three conjoined properties), to which actors and actresses and foreign royals were invited, but none of the people she’d gone to boarding school with or known socially during the years she’d tried to be a Greenwich housewife. Walls did not care that his stepfather was a Jew; this was, for him, the least of his mother’s transgressions.
“Good luck, kid,” Hoffman said, dropping the file on the floor before walking out. The papers hitting the cement sounded to Walls like an indifferent farewell to his entire career.
There were five bullets left in the chamber, and he shot them off one after another
“Lucky man,” said Hoffman, Walls’s immediate superior, when he arrived some minutes later.
Walls was loading his weapon—the handgun he had been issued at theend of training—and was glad of the excuse not to be facing his boss. “Why the hell are we following a movie star anyway?”
“You know how the Director likes his Hollywood gossip.” Hoffman leaned against the beige wall, arms crossed over his chest, shaking his head so that the cheeks of his fallen, gin-ruined face quivered; Walls had never seen him so happy. “She is married to a Red.”
“That’s all intellectual posturing.” Walls turned away and lifted his gun, stared down the barrel at the target—the silhouette of a man in a hat, a mobster, maybe, which was as it should be. He’d seen the original production of Death of a Salesman on Broadway with his mother, and even as a teenager he’d recognized it as the work of an inveterate blowhard. “Are they really sending me to California?”
“Yes.”
“But doesn’t she live in New York?” he asked, not sure exactly how he’d come by the information.
“Seems the man currently on Marilyn”—Hoffman’s tone indicated that he found this pun just as amusing as Pete had—“thinks her marriage is about to implode, and his sources indicate she’s going to California to get away from it all.”
“Why me?” Walls asked again. He kept his voice even, let the gun speak his displeasure. A boom in the ears, heat in the hand, and he watched the bullet rip through the target’s forehead as though it were more than paper, as though the shot really had splintered bone, splattered brain. Smashed the target’s head open, like a pumpkin against a concrete wall.
Hoffman was kinder than Pete. “Can’t have a married man listening to all that late-night pillow talk” was his obviously fallacious explanation.
“You’re not married.”
This was cruel of Walls, and he knew it—Hoffman’s wife had left him for good the last time he fell off the wagon. Hoffman knew it, too. “Guess it’s probably because your mother’s Mosey Moses,” he said, in a voice that meant the conversation was about to be over.
Of course the minute Amberson said California, Walls had known why he would be given such a silly, dead-end assignment. His mother: Maureen “Mosey” Douglass, a.k.a. Mo Walls, a.k.a. Mosey Moses, lean and fair, wild and elegant, a hothouse flower with razor-edged cheekbones, she of the Long Island Douglasses, whose family fortune had been more or less wiped out in the crash only to be resurrected by her older brother, Edward; who had run off during the Depression with a well-connected gambler named Wes Walls; who had been socially ostracized for her excesses, and all but abandoned upon her divorce, only to triumph as the third wife of a studio head named Lou Moses. Of course her old friends who had left her for dead relished this final point of ignominy—that she had married a Jew. But that was before she started throwing famous parties at her Holmby Hills mansion (in fact, it was three conjoined properties), to which actors and actresses and foreign royals were invited, but none of the people she’d gone to boarding school with or known socially during the years she’d tried to be a Greenwich housewife. Walls did not care that his stepfather was a Jew; this was, for him, the least of his mother’s transgressions.
“Good luck, kid,” Hoffman said, dropping the file on the floor before walking out. The papers hitting the cement sounded to Walls like an indifferent farewell to his entire career.
There were five bullets left in the chamber, and he shot them off one after another
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