[h3]Los Angeles[/h3]


[b]Pinnacle Studios
10:23 PM[/b]


Jefferson Thomas followed Elliot Shaw down the shining marble halls of Pinnacle. Glossy black and white publicity photos of starlets and movie posters lined both sides of the wall. Blackface comedian Spanky Young beamed down at Jeff with his greasepaint covered face.
Shaw opened a door with his name stenciled on it and led Jeff through into his office. Shaw clicked a light on and started to rummage through a file cabinet.

"Brock was a pretty reliable screenwriter for Pinnacle," he said over his shoulder. "You ever seen [i]Lion's Den[/i]?"

"The one based on the Bible?" asked Jeff. "Yeah. I saw it twice when it opened."

"Brock wrote that. He also wrote [i]Tomorrow Isn't Today[/i], [i]I Was a Kentucky Bootlegger[/i], and at least four westerns that all made back their budget. Everything he wrote made us money."

"So why the blacklist?"

"Because of this."

Shaw pulled a script from the file cabinet and dropped it on to the desk. It made a loud smack as it fell on the hard surface. Jeff leaned down and looked at the thick script. The cover page announced the title of the screenplay in bold, red typed letters.

COMRADES IN ARMS:
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE CALIFORNIA PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC
A TRAGEDY IN FIVE ACTS
WRITTEN BY W. BROCK
PRODUCED BY P.K. WEISS

Jeff looked up at Shaw and waited for the man to light up a cigarette.

"My boss commissioned Brock for a war picture," he said, blowing smoke. "She wanted something like [i]Mr. Lankham Goes to War[/i]. Pro-US, anti-red, anti-Long. What he submitted, instead, was this giant piece of shit. It's over two hundred pages, Detective. To give you an idea, in the picture business one page of a screenplay is supposed to equal about a minute of screen time. It's three and a half hours long and unusable, even if it weren't filled with leftist propaganda."

Jeff ran his fingers across the cover page. He tapped the name typed underneath Brock's and looked up at Shaw.

"Who's P.L. Weiss?"

"Penelope Weiss," said Shaw. "Penny's a rich heiress who finances pictures on occasion. She was willing to go halves with Pinnacle on this picture, at least until Janie pulled the plug on the whole thing."

"Was she blacklisted?"

Shaw shrugged. "We stopped working with her and let other studios know, but she's got her own cash. We fired Brock, but Penny's independent."

"Who was going to direct?" Jeff asked as he picked up the script and started to thumb through it.

"Roy Abercrombie. He directed two of the westerns Brock wrote..."

He looked up as Shaw trailed off. There was a look on Shaw's face. He was thinking through something.

"What?" Jeff asked.

"The list," Shaw said softly.

"What list?"

Shaw looked up at Jeff, his face betraying his words.

"I didn't say anything about a list."

"What list, Shaw?" Jeff asked. He dropped the script back on the desk and let it land with a loud thump. "You hiding things from me will cancel our deal. The papers would love to know about this screenplay."

Shaw looked at Jeff for a moment, then he sighed and reached into his jacket pocket. He pulled out a folded piece of paper and passed it to over.

"This was in Claire Beauchamp's apartment. I took it out the night she was killed, right before LAPD got there. That and a bunch of radical pamphlets."

It was a list of phone numbers. Penciled beside the numbers in a different handwriting were names. Pennelope K. Weiss was at the top of the list, Wendall Brock and Roy Abercrombie below her.

Jeff looked up from the list and stared hard.

"This is breaking and entering and obstruction of justice, Shaw."

"This is me doing my job," Shaw said, jabbing a finger towards the list. "Be it drugs, kiddie porn, or proof of subversive ideas. If it hurts the studio, I clean it up."

Jeff ignored Shaw's justifications. Instead, he sat down at the desk and pulled a pencil from his jacket. With a scratch piece of paper, he began to jot down the phone numbers and names on Shaw's list.

"This is my copy," he said as he worked. "I'll give you yours back when I'm done. You know what we do after that."

"Let me handle the movie people. They know me. I might be able to get some of them to actually talk."

"That's fine." Jeff passed the list back to Shaw and tucked his own copy into his coat pocket. "As long as you leave Weiss for me."