“Those zany Marx brothers came by,” he said. “But instead of Groucho, Harpo, and Chico, it was Karl Marx and his brothers, Nikita and Stalinski. They just went wild,” he added with a small, scruffy smile, though the joke fell flat. “It’s good of you to come, Roxanne, but you shouldn’t have. I’m assuming Leon doesn’t know you’re here.”

“Leon doesn’t get to tell me what to do. I have my own place now at Malibu. I won’t go to Summit Drive as long as Denise and Elsie live there. So I don’t care what Leon thinks.”

“Then you’re the only person in Hollywood immune to what Leon Greene thinks.”

“Where is Marian?” I asked, now seriously worried.

“Visiting Norman.” Max wobbled back to the shallow end, sat on the steps, his feet in the water.

I had never met their son. Only heard about him. I kicked off my high heels and put my feet in too, stockings and all. “How is Norman?”

“Norman’s the same as he ever was, or ever will be,” he said with a shrug. “Marian always wanted to keep him living with us, no matter what. She thought that she could love him into being like other kids. But once he got to be sixteen, well, we had to put him in a home. That’s what they call it, and it is a home, I suppose. Beautiful, serene, secure. Expensive.” He sipped from his glass. “Marian and I just about broke up over Norman. More than once,” he added. “Now Norman is well cared for, and Marian goes to see him five days a week. She feeds him. Like a baby.”

“That is a sad story, especially for a comedy writer.”

“The screenwriter’s Buster Keaton.”

“Max, what happened yesterday with the Committee?”

“I got my dick put in the wringer—begging your pardon, dear girl.” He sipped more Scotch and looked at the nearly empty glass as though it might be about to speak. “I should never have let Melvin Grant handle my case. I wanted one of those left-wing lawyers like Wilkie, but Melvin Grant insisted he should represent me, swore he could make it all right. He set it all up. An executive meeting of the Committee convened just for me in a discreet hotel room, no press. He said it was all just a formality anyway, and if the Committee asked me to name names, I wouldn’t be telling them anything new. They already knew who these people were. They just needed to hear it from me. Marian wanted me to do it. So I could go on working. She begged me. Even though I would have had to give up her name, she insisted. So I told Grant I’d cooperate.”

“Why didn’t you? I mean, if they already had the names . . .”

“That’s what they told Vic Hale, I’m sure.”