Did You Hear About Kitty Karr?, page 33
“You sound like Clifford.”
“He’s partially right.”
“You’re being stubborn. The house is paid for; it’s in a good school district. This is about her, not us.”
“I’m thinking of her. You’re thinking of you.”
Kitty sprung from her chair, desperate over her lack of control. “She deserves everything I didn’t have.” She started pacing the kitchen, putting away the peanut butter, jam, and knives they’d used to make lunch. “I worked too hard to have her growing up feeling like she’s less of a human than anybody else. She’s royalty, goddamn it.”
After over a decade in Los Angeles, Kitty was one of the biggest actresses in Hollywood; she couldn’t go anywhere without the accompaniment of a herd of photographers. She and Nathan had moved to a fortress of a home with high shrubbery, security guards, and a gate. It was in that sprawling, state-of-the-art kitchen where they now sat.
“No,” Nellie said softly. “You’re royalty. Sarah is not.”
Kitty returned to the table. Even as her mouth opened to speak, she hesitated. “My father is heir to the Lakes Tobacco Corporation. I have more money than I could ever spend, and I won’t have her thinking she’s less than anyone else. She will have the very best of life. I don’t care what I—we—have to do.”
“We’ll tell her when the time is right,” Nellie said.
“When she’s old enough.”
“When it’s necessary.”
“We’ll know.”
“We’ll decide.”
They went back and forth as they always did—as they always would—about Sarah.
“Together,” Nellie said.
Kitty warned her. “Things happen before you’re ready—most times, before you know they’re happening.”
That was the story of Kitty’s life, anyway.
CHAPTER 39
Kitty
December 1968
The morning before Christmas Eve was interrupted by a knock. Kitty opened the door to find two White men in cheap black suits. “Good day, Mrs. Tate,” the blond-haired one said.
“Can I help you? Who are you? How did you get up here?”
He opened his suit jacket to show an FBI badge. Feeling her heart flutter, Kitty stepped out onto the porch and closed the door behind her. “How can I help you?”
He pulled a file from his briefcase and handed it to the older man, who was smoothing his mustache with his thumb and pointer finger. He had a salesman’s grin.
Nathan opened the door behind them. “What’s this about?”
“We just have a few questions for you and your wife, Mr. Tate.”
“Do we need a lawyer?”
The two agents looked at each other. The older man spoke. “We believe you and your wife may have been victims of fraud. Do you know Cora Rivers?”
“Of course.”
“You know her to be the operator of a charity called the Blair House?”
“The Cora I know worked for me as a film actress,” Nathan said.
Kitty braced herself for questions about the house in Hancock Park and just how many members of Los Angeles’s society women were pretending to be White. Her whole life flashed before her eyes as she envisioned herself and her friends being arrested.
“We’d like to talk to you about some financial matters. May we come inside?”
Nathan ushered them into the living room. Kitty started to the kitchen, but the blond-haired agent stopped her. “We’d like to speak to both of you, ma’am.”
Kitty sat down, trying to hide her need to clutch the arm of the couch.
“Do you handle most of the charitable contributions your household makes, Mrs. Tate?”
“Yes.”
He placed a copy of a cancelled check on the glass coffee table. “Is this your signature?”
“Yes.”
He handed her another check, and another. The checks, written to Blair House and its other fake entities, dated as far back as 1955; there was a thirteen-year-long paper trail showing her support for every Negro cause since the Montgomery Bus Boycott in December 1955: the integration of schools in Little Rock, Arkansas; the sit-ins and Freedom Riders; plus ongoing support for the Democratic Party and Medgar and Martin and even funds for the arrangements for Dr. King’s funeral that April. She eyed Nathan as he shuffled through the stack of cancelled checks, trying to read him.
For the next hour, the agents sought answers about these charities and about Cora, who they believed was—along with others they wouldn’t name (or didn’t know)—responsible for the reallocation of funds from these shell charities to the civil rights movement and, most troubling to them, the Black Panther Party.
Some of the Blair House women had long thought those donations could bring trouble, but they had continued, passionate about the struggle for Black liberation. Sure enough, it was Blair House’s association with the Panthers—the target of the Bureau’s larger investigation—that landed them under surveillance and, subsequently, categorized as a national threat.
At last, Nathan seemed to lose his patience. “Pardon me; I’m confused. Why are you here again? I thought you said a crime had been committed,” he said.
“Yes, sir. These are dangerous people. Cora Rivers—on her own, or under instruction—has been defrauding dozens of rich families for years.”
Nathan shook his head. “She’s cunning, yes, but Cora poses no harm.”
“Sir, Ms. Rivers had an extramarital affair with your father, is that right?”
Nathan went stone-faced. “How do you know that?”
“We’re the FBI, Mr. Tate. We try to do our homework. Is that information correct?”
“Yes.”
“And she left your father after his illness, did she not?”
“Yes, but in her defense, he didn’t know her, or any of us, most of the time by that point.”
“Yet she continued to be supported by your family.”
“She had access to his accounts. They’d been together for a long time.”
“And you, sir, don’t think that classifies her as dangerous? Someone draining the bank accounts of a sick man?”
“Cora was abiding by an agreement made with my father that we weren’t privy to.”
Kitty watched Nathan spin the details of the past.
“I can’t see Cora working for people like that,” he went on. “She’s married to a senator.”
“A senator?”
“Yes, or a former senator. I’m not sure. She lives in Chicago now, I think.”
The agents eyed each other. At last, the older one spoke. “Are we talking about the same person?”
“Are we?”
“Cora Rivers isn’t Black?”
Disgust settled on Nathan’s face. “Telescope has never hired a Black leading lady.”
The agents’ eyes landed on Kitty. “Have you seen Cora, the actress, recently?”
“Not in years.”
The older agent slid a card across the coffee table as if he hadn’t heard her. “If you do, call me first.”
Nathan let them out, and Kitty braced for tense words upon his return, but he sped past her, saying he had calls to make.
Kitty couldn’t discern anything from his tone, but then he didn’t come to bed that night. Around midnight, Kitty found him in his study. He was in the dark at his desk and spoke as soon as she walked in, as if he’d been waiting. “You never wondered, in all these years, what Cora was doing with the money?”
Kitty was careful; she knew he knew something she didn’t. “I thought I knew. I trusted her when she said it was going to help single mothers get on their feet.”
“How many families?” He slurred the last word.
“I don’t know.”
“Did you ever meet them?”
“Yes.”
“Did you ever go to the place?”
“Which place?”
“Blair House!” he yelled.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Years ago.”
“Seems like you would have been more involved, seeing as you’ve donated nearly half a million dollars.”
Kitty blinked, hearing the dollar figure. “Excuse me?”
“I looked through the bank accounts. That’s what I was doing all day. I called the bank and found other checks that they didn’t. You wrote a hundred or more checks to all these different charities. You know more than you told those agents. Where did that money go?”
Too many places to tell. “To the families at Blair House.”
Months ago, Nathan had cautioned her about her spending. His mother had died, and in settling her estate, he had wanted to stop using checks—said it had something to do with taxes. It was the first time he’d ever mentioned Kitty’s spending, and she worried her higher monthly withdrawals had been noticed. Sarah’s school tuition had increased with her matriculation into kindergarten, and with the country rioting all summer following Dr. King’s murder, she’d spent more than usual. She’d studied him carefully for days, looking for any change in behavior or indication that he knew more than he should. Only when she woke to an envelope full of spending money on her vanity table did she relax, realizing he didn’t care how she spent money, he just wanted it to be impossible to trace. Tell me before you run out.
He didn’t have that cavalier attitude now. He swiped a pile of papers, writing pads, folders, and scripts onto the floor. “You’re lying to me! They know it, and they’ll be back with more questions.”
Kitty was unsure of how to untangle herself. He knew more; she could feel it. Still in a rage, he yanked a row on his bookshelf to reveal a safe. Inside was a stack of thirty or more oversized brown envelopes. He flung some at her. “Every time you see her, I do too.”
Kitty’s hands were shaking as she opened the first envelope. Inside were pictures of Sarah and Nellie’s visit just three days ago, to exchange Christmas presents. In the second were pictures of her swimming with a fat-legged, toddler-aged Sarah in their pool.
“You took away my choice to be a father. You took away my chance to be in her life.”
“I did it to protect her.”
“I’m your husband. I would have protected you both. It’s my job.”
“How long have you known?”
“For some time.”
She wanted to relish in the memories the photos conjured (she didn’t have any photos of Sarah, for obvious reasons) but was bothered by his deception. “You had me followed?”
“At first for security, but then I found out she was alive, and I wanted to see her all the time.”
At Nathan’s request, her whole life had been documented. Spying first became a practice of his to build a case against Cora in the matter of his father’s funds. Meeting the Negro boy outside the premiere of The Misfits had only fueled it. Nathan hired him to follow and photograph Telescope’s stars, pictures which he then sold to the media to increase his actors’ exposure. The young man’s photos were never credited, but Nathan paid him well, far above what any White newspaper photographer would make. Later, his photos were used in Maude’s celebrity column at the Los Angeles Times.
Photos of Kitty sold well, and soon Nathan wanted the young photographer to follow her exclusively. It was lucrative, but also, Nathan had always been obsessed with Kitty. To Nathan, she was even more beautiful when she didn’t know she was being admired. He hid it from her well, having the luxury of Michael’s lens. What Kitty didn’t know was that the safe had a drop bottom where even more photos of her were stored.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Kitty said. She wasn’t sure if she was terrified or delighted by his restraint. His deception served only himself. “I had to ensure her safety. It had nothing to do with you, Nathan. I lost her too. She doesn’t know I’m her mother.”
“You made the decision to take her from me. From both of us.”
“How was I to know that you’d accept her, that you’d accept me?”
He turned as red as a beet. “Because I fucking love you, that’s why! I lied to the FBI for you. I won’t let this ruin everything we’ve built. I can fix this, but you must stop what you’ve been doing.”
“Nathan—”
He held his hand up. “You have responsibilities as an employee of Telescope, as a wife, as a mother—none of these roles support your participation in politics. You’re not to spend another dime helping any of these pointless crusades.”
“We’re talking about people’s lives!”
“What about our lives? I’ve given you everything, made you a star.”
“I made me a star. And you, too, since we’re being honest.”
Nathan moved swiftly in her direction. She flinched. She didn’t expect to be hit, but his anger was startling; she’d never seen him so enraged. “I own the sky in which you shine, and you’re going to do what I say.”
“I make my own money. Support for the cause is needed now more than ever.” While Kitty had no intention of crossing back over the color line, the reality that she could be pushed suddenly didn’t seem as scary as it once had.
“If you continue this, they’re going to find out about you. About Cora. About all of you. And I won’t be able to protect you. They want to end the Black Panther Party—cut off its finances, jail every member.”
“They don’t suspect me. I can continue supporting the cause.”
“Our daughter should be enough of a cause for you. We could both end up in jail. Then what?”
“You’re not going to jail, Nathan.”
“You could—and what would I do without you?” His voice cracked and got higher on the end, as it did when he was choking back emotion. She reached for him, hating to see him in pain, but he stepped back before she could touch him.
“I’ll do what I can to fuel the phantom Negro Cora Rivers theory, but you have to listen to me.” He was still exasperated. “They don’t know about those other checks yet, and we have to appease them so they stop digging. They follow the money, and you’ve left quite a footprint. Any legal issues and we could lose everything. We have to protect our daughter and her inheritance. Everything is at stake. I need you to listen to me. For once.”
“I’ll do what’s best for my family. That’s what I’ve always done.”
“That’s what you think you’ve accomplished here? We never would have been in this mess had you not lied about the simplest of things.”
“People are dying—have died—all over the country for the simplest of things. For the right to be, to exist!”
“And they aren’t you.”
Now Kitty was the one who yelled. “They are me! You’ll never understand what it’s like. You just see a pretty face, your Kitty Karr star—you don’t know the truth about me, where I come from. You don’t know how it feels to be ashamed of who you are, to hide parts of yourself, to carry hate for people who say they love you.”
“Do you hate me?”
Tears sprang in his eyes when she shrugged. He was the only one who had ever been free: a White, rich man, he owned everything, just as he’d said. He could go anywhere without restrictions.
He was quiet for a long while and then went to her, pulling her close. “Perhaps pretending not to know was easier for me too.”
Relieved that he didn’t ask anything more, she gave in to his pleas, which were later reinforced by what she learned from the others at Blair House.
The two agents had knocked on Kitty’s door at roughly the same time as two others arrived at Lucy’s. She and Laurie had been making a fruit cake.
Lucy was high on their list because a few of the charity accounts were in her name. Once she proved the account signatures weren’t hers and that she hadn’t seen Cora in years, they ended the interview.
No one at Blair House had. Cora had changed her name twice by then, married a senator, and moved to D.C.—not Chicago—three years before the FBI showed up.
The signatures on the account and deposit slips belonged to Laurie, whom neither agent had acknowledged. She listened for a while, as an invisible party, and then slipped away to put everyone on notice before they’d even left.
Word circulated of their theory in the following week.
“Maude said they’re on the hunt for a Negro girl, so … I’m worried,” Lucy said.
Kitty didn’t say what or who had given them that idea. When some Panthers, only a long drive away from LA, were killed, Liberty, Addie, Lilly, and Sammie left Los Angeles as if they were fleeing a lynch mob. Eighteen hours later, the house they were hiding in was raided, and they were all charged with crimes against the United States.
At least they didn’t shoot them.
Might as well. They’re going to jail for life.
That’s not dead.
Might as well be.
CHAPTER 40
Elise
Tuesday evening, October 31, 2017
Elise sat on the Perch with a bottle of champagne and small bites from the caterers, attempting to rally for the occasion. Though it was arguably dangerous, the invincibility of youth had always pulled Elise and her sisters there to greedily observe the happenings of their parents’ parties long after they were sent to bed.
Sarah had promised to dial down the extravagance, but Elise saw no evidence of that. Their backyard looked like a carnival. It was only the best for the family’s closest hundred, which included living legends, sparkers of cultural phenomena, budding icons, and reserved masters with extreme intelligence and talent from every discipline and creative arena, from all over the world. The epic fete would go until dawn and boasted a candy treasure hunt, a haunted maze, costume awards, a movie, and a full dinner as standards.
There was already a line around the main tent where, inside, guests could pet lion cubs, exotic birds, and monkeys. Giant edible gummy bears, lollipops, and chocolate bunnies and bears were strung up in the hedges of the labyrinth, likening it to a scene from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. In the center of the maze, Sarah’s bench had been replaced with a giant jack-in-the-box candy dispenser. You could only keep what you caught, but the supply was endless.
The Ferris wheel was well oiled and spinning without a hitch, happy to be on display. Its beauty would grace social media all night as the preferred backdrop for everyone’s photos. Elise wondered if the white spoke lights could be seen down the hill that cloudless night, or if they blended in with the stars, seemingly unmoving, an unknown celestial gem.
