Taken: Day 9

Word Count: 54,023

Summary of Events:

Seeing as Odessa Edgar wasn't as well-known as her father, Marion, Mitchell decided to pursue information on just who Marion Edgar was and what kind of connection there might be between Marion and himself. To this end, he disguised himself as a newspaperman from Texas and was granted permission to look in the archives of a stridently antiCommunist newspaper, which had a thick file on Mr. Edgar filed with the Communists . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

Communist Slander of Decorated USAAF Pilot Cannot Be Tolerated was the headline, and Mitchell read the article with intrigue as it told how this paper was upset that everyone was speaking so terribly about himself — identified in the paper as S/Sgt. Becker — when he was someone upholding the values of the free world, while Mr. Edgar was the head of the Congress of Industrial Organisations’ Los Angeles branch and espoused Communist ideologies.

They suggested that it was an insidious Communist conspiracy against the free world to slander the returning young men as love-starved individuals who’d lost their capacity for restraint and good treatment of women thanks to the horrors and violence of war.

In fact, the newsman who wrote the article suggested that any soldier returning from war would be even nicer and kinder than an average man who hadn’t gone to war because of the fact that the soldier had seen so much violence and been disgusted by it, and would even be relieved to be away from it here at home.

Mitchell wished he would’ve found this paper abandoned on the bench he’d sat on instead of that sensationalist one. He almost wanted to keep the article, but he didn’t, he just took the notepad and pencil Walton had given him and wrote down his favourite quotes — as well as what was pertinent about Marion Edgar.

There were several other articles from that whole weekend — including several more pieces decrying what had happened to him — including one about the party held in Perry’s honour that Mitchell noticed said nothing about Perry’s being a Communist.

Considering how much venom had been spewed in Mr. Edgar’s direction over all of this, Mitchell was surprised that they would let Perry’s Communism slide.

Unless they didn’t know he was a Communist. Mitchell wondered. Maybe he should pull the file on Perry Gay too — if they had one.

He decided to at least check and see if they had one before he continued on. He first checked in the red-starred cabinets, but found nothing under Gay, it went from Gat to Ged.

So Mitchell went over to the white-starred cabinets and looked under G for Gay and he found a file marked GAY — Gay, Perry.

Pulling it out and leaving the drawer open, Mitchell took it over to the table and slid it under Mr. Edgar’s file. Perry’s file was a significantly slimmer file than Mr. Edgar’s.

Articles predating Mitchell’s arrival in Los Angeles detailed not only Mr. Edgar’s involvement in the labour unions — which were largely Communist/socialist in origin — but his other business ventures, including his purchase in August of the Hotel Diego, next door to his casino.

Mitchell was shocked to discover the name of Marion Edgar’s casino was Casino Adinerado. Dolly worked at Casino Adinerado. Dolly worked for Marion Edgar.

Unease came over Mitchell. Was Dolly in on the plot against him? Or was she innocent and just potentially in danger from associating with him, considering who her employer was?