“You’re just a lazy bastard.”
“And you?”
“Lazier,” I admitted. “How about Palm Springs? My Aunt Beabe lives there and I wouldn’t mind seeing her. And it’s closer.”
“The high-powered investigative team of Suskind and Irving makes another vital, time-saving decision.” Dick’s laughter rumbled up from his chest.
It was Saturday, June 12th, long past the season, but we had to drive up and back through Palm Springs twice before we finally found a motel without a NO VACANCY sign in front of it. Called the Black Angus, it looked neither better nor worse than all but a handful of the stucco palaces we had passed: a gravel parking area whose shady spots were all occupied, a tub-sized pool in the sun with half a dozen heat-dazed people in and around it. “Kind of the nondescript sort of place Howard would pick to meet you,” Dick said, after we had registered and were walking down the corridor to our rooms. He yawned hugely. “Let’s take a siesta. I’ll shake you up when the sun falls below the yardarm.”
After dinner we held a P & P session over the coffee. Palm Springs would be a good place, it seemed to me, for Dick to meet Howard. “It’ll be an accident,” I said. “He’ll come to my room earlier than expected and find you there.”
“Why do I have to meet him?” Dick asked.
“Don’t you want to?”
“From everything we’ve learned about him, absolutely not.”
“You mean you’re not curious what he’s really like? Think what a great story you can tell to your grandchildren.”
“I think you’re overtired,” Dick said.
“All right, forget your grandchildren. Concentrate on McGraw-Hill. The problem is that I’m the only one who’s ever seen him. The day may come when I’ll need a witness.”
“I’ve got the picture.”
Dick looked gloomy for awhile, but after a cognac he perked up and the details of the story began to take shape. Howard would find us together in the room. Dick, of course, would be too large to hide under the bed and too distinguished-looking to pass for a bellhop. After an awkward silence, I would introduce them. Howard would acknowledge his identity.
“And he’ll offer me a prune,” Dick said excitedly.
“A prune? Why a prune?”
“How the hell do I know? Maybe he’s constipated. He has a bag full of organic prunes in his pocket, and he can’t think of anything else to say, so he pulls out the bag and says, ‘Have a prune.’ He’s trying to be friendly.”
“What kind of prune did you have in mind?”
“An organic prune from the Santa Clara Valley. They’re the best. Howard only eats the best. Didn’t you tell me he flew all the way to Puerto Rico for bananas? And then we’ll talk a bit about organic foods and vitamins, while you stand around and sulk because you’re totally ignorant on such important subjects, and then I’ll leave.”
“Good enough. What’s he look like?”
“He’s very tall, very thin — looks like his photos of twenty years ago, only twenty years older, of course.” Dick laughed. “Mustache, wrinkled face, liver spots on his hands. By the way, do we shake hands?”
“Are you crazy? You stick out your hand but then draw it back. You remember that Howard is terrified of germs. He doesn’t shake hands with anyone.”
“Not even with you?”
“I’m a special person. And he’s checked me out and given me a B-plus rating for cleanliness.” We then worked out Howard’s system for classifying the antiseptic qualities of his friends and acquaintances. His staff kept files on everybody, and they were rated A, B, C, or D, which meant, in reverse order: Filthy, Dirty, Moderately Dirty, and Moderately Clean. The system found a final resting place in the Autobiography when Howard discussed his attitude toward germs and pollution.
We turned in early and next morning, after loafing around the pool until the heat became unbearable, I called my aunt, Beabe Hamilburg, and accepted an invitation for lunch at her country club with a friend. I told her about Dick and she said, “Bring him along.”
After lunch we drove out to Beabe’s friend’s house. It was a quarter of a million dollars’ worth of architecture on the hoof, immaculate inside and out, landscaped to a fare-thee-well, opulently furnished by a decorator with a penchant for mixed styles, and as sterile as the desert we could see through the picture window in the living room. We were shown through the house, room by room, with an indefinable air of boredom and sadness as she pointed out the goodies: the toe-controlled shelves in the bathroom so that one did not have to bend over to reach the deodorant, the master bedroom with his and hers electric blankets, the tape deck that played both sides of four-track cartridges automatically, the view of the golf course. I thought of Edith and our rambling old finca surrounded by cactus and almond trees, and I missed it — I was almost a foreigner in the country where I had been bred. I suddenly missed Ibiza, Edith, and the kids, yelling in the sandbox, and the monkey, and I thought of my boat sitting idle in her berth at the Club Naútico.
“Lovely,” I said, trying to infuse some enthusiasm into my voice. “Beautiful …” I glanced at my watch. “I’m afraid we’ve got to be going.”
“Oh, Cliff,” Beabe said, “I just remembered. Stanley Meyer’s in town, visiting his in-laws. He always asks for you. Why don’t we go see him?”
Again I was drawn back into the past, into my life in California in the early 1960’s. I had been poor, and whatever I submitted to the television factories had been either too good or too banal for public consumption. Stanley Meyer was a fan of my fiction, a well-wisher, and he had befriended me. He had produced Dragnet and he was married to the daughter of the man who had owned Universal Studios. He had brought CARE packages to us in Venice: bourbon, steaks from his own steers in the San Fernando Valley, and hickory logs which he had insisted were necessary to grill the steaks properly in the fireplace. Beabe and one or two other friends had warned me that Stanley had a tendency, in no clearly defined way, to use people; but I said, “I don’t believe it. And he’d never do that to me.”
Finally, when I was at an economic low ebb, Stanley had asked me to write an outline and a screen treatment for a proposed low-budget Western called The Cavalryman. I had worked on the project for a little over a month. On the question of payment, Stanley had been cautious, talking in terms of “something above the Screenwriters Guild minimum” but always referring to “my partner, who handles the financial end of it.” The denouement came when Stanley telephoned one day and urgently requested a release on my part for the material I had already delivered; it was something about registering the title idea. I said, “Stanley, I haven’t been paid a dime yet,” and he replied: “There’s a check in the mail to you, kid.” Overjoyed, I signed the release. A check arrived three days later for the sum of $100, with a W-2 form attached so that I would have to pay income tax on his largesse.
I related this story to Beabe and Dick, and Beabe said: “I told you so at the time. I told you what he was like.”
“Then why should I go see him here in Palm Springs?”
“Because he likes you and always asks about you.”
“Sure. He likes me because he screwed me and I never complained.”
But Beabe pressed and I gave in; it seemed so long ago as not to matter, and I had always been fond of Stanley’s wife, Dodo. A certain amount of vanity was involved in it as well. The last time I had seen Stanley I was down and out, scratching for a living in a Hollywood where writers were treated like extras until they hit the best-seller list or found the formula that gave the veneer of originality to pap. In some childish way I wanted him to see that I had graduated from that world of $100 payments for screenplay treatments.
Dick and I followed Beabe in her car and arrived at Stanley’s mother-in-law’s house in the midafternoon. We rang the bell and no one answered.
“That’s that,” I said. “Let’s go.”
“I’ll try the back door.” Beabe vanished and a few minutes later we heard voi
ces.
Stanley had just come off the tennis courts when he greeted us in the solarium at the back of the house. He had aged and somehow looked troubled, but was as affable as ever, and he bubbled friendly greetings to both Dick and me while he wiped the sweat from his forehead with a towel and tugged at a pair of split tennis shorts with the other hand. “Great to see you,” he kept saying, and we exchanged, in a few sentences, the synopses of what each of us had done in the intervening seven years. I showed him — as I did almost everyone else I met — photographs of Edith and the children. I had a beer and then started to make the proper excuses for our departure.
“Stay, stay,” Stanley said. “You haven’t even seen the house.”
In Southern California it is obligatory to take a tour of the house if you hadn’t done so before, but I begged off. “I’ve had a look,” I lied. “Beautiful house, Stanley …”
“Yes,” he said, with a ring of pride in his voice, “we’re only one fairway from Frank Sinatra. Just this morning Frankie drove a ball onto our land, right over there. He was playing a round with Spiro Agnew.”
“How’s old Spiro these days?” I asked.
“Oh, fine! We talked for a few minutes.” He stood up, holding his split shorts together with one hand. Then he asked me what I was working on at the moment.
“I’m doing a book on the four richest men in America. Dick’s helping me with the research.”
“Which four?”
“Hunt, Mellon, Getty, and Hughes,” I said. That was our cover story, cooked up with the aid of McGraw-Hill to divert the possible suspicions of the Hughes Tool Company, who were to know nothing — by Howard’s dictum — of Project Octavio.
A bemused look crossed Stanley’s face. “Now, isn’t that a coincidence! Isn’t that something! That you should be working on …” A gleam of excitement appeared suddenly in his glass-blue eyes. “Excuse us a moment,” he said to his wife and mother-in-law, and he beckoned Dick and me to accompany him. He took us into a small study, sat down behind a desk and motioned us to chairs facing him.
“What’s all this about, Stanley?” I looked at my watch. Leaning forward, he peered at me benevolently. I had seen that look before, some years ago. Then he smiled. “Tell me, have you ever heard of a man named Noah Dietrich?”
“Sure. He was Howard Hughes’s right-hand man for thirty-two years.”
“What you don’t know is that Noah’s written a book about his life with Hughes.” I did know, of course; Ralph Graves had told me. But I said nothing. “Noah’s a friend of mine,” Stanley gushed. “He’s an old man now, past eighty, and in bad health. He wants to see this book published before he dies. The book was done by a ghost writer, a man named Jim Phelan, and the guy did a lousy job. The book is unpublishable as it is.” He put his elbows on the desk and gave me his intent, executive stare, followed by his most generous smile. “I think you’re the man to put the book in shape. Noah’s asked me to help him find a writer, and I think you’re the man. You know what faith I have in you. How would you like to write Noah Dietrich’s autobiography?”
From the corner of my eye I say Dick’s knuckles turn white as he gripped the arms of his chair. I dared not look at him. “Well,” I said carefully, searching for words at the same time as I tried to hold back my laughter, “I don’t know, Stanley. It’s certainly tempting, but …”
“Tempting? It’s a blue chip, the bluest of the blue! Hughes is big stuff right now. Everyone wants to know about him. I can’t tell you about it, but Noah’s book is loaded with dynamite. There’s stuff in there about Nixon, for example …” He shook his head in awe. “Could blow him right out of the White House! And don’t forget, we’ve got an election year coming up.”
“W-e-e-e-l-l,” I drawled, trying desperately to think of some way of getting a look at the manuscript.
Stanley held up his hand. “Don’t decide anything now, Cliff. I realize it’s an important decision. I’ll tell you what: why don’t you read the manuscript — both of you — before you say yes or no. How does that strike you?”
Dick coughed, bending over and holding himself around the ribs.
“Are you all right?” Stanley asked him. He started to get out of his chair but Dick waved him back. “Fine, it’s all right now,” he gasped. “Just give me a moment. I must have swallowed something the wrong way.”
“A prune,” I muttered.
Stanley looked at me. “What did you say?”
I thought for a while. “Okay. We’ll look it over and let you know. Where is it?”
“You’ll have to pick it up at Four Oaks — you remember, my place in Encino.” He picked up the telephone and dialed. “Raymonda? This is Mr. Meyer. Listen carefully. Two men will be stopping by this …” He cupped his palm over the speaker and looked at me. “This evening?” I nodded casually. “This evening,” he said into the telephone. “I want you to go into my study and give them the large blue loose-leaf notebook that you’ll find on top of the file cabinet.”
“I can’t let you keep it long,” he said, hanging up the receiver. “Noah’s in a terrible rush to find a new writer. You’ll have to get it back to me right away.”
“By tomorrow night at the latest,” I said.
“Should I set up a meeting between you and Dietrich?”
“No,” I decided. “Let’s play it cool. Let me read the stuff first.”
We returned to the living room, made an effort to engage in light conversation with the Meyer family, and then, when I saw that Dick was about to burst with frustration, I stood up and we said our goodbyes.
“Jesus!” Dick exclaimed as we pulled out of the driveway. “It’s right out of Alice in Wonderland. Could you imagine using a coincidence like this in a novel? The editor would laugh you out of his office!”
We sped northward on the freeway toward the San Fernando Valley. If it wasn’t Alice in Wonderland it was certainly Irving and Suskind in the movies. “If I hadn’t said I was tired and the hell with chasing this guy Williams at Twenty-nine Palms …”
“If I hadn’t called my Aunt Beabe …”
“If Stanley hadn’t just happened to be down there for the weekend …”
“If we’d gone away when no one answered the doorbell and if Beabe hadn’t gone around to the back …”
We babbled like idiots; we could find no rational explanation for what had happened. I gripped the steering wheel hard, hoping not to wake up from the dream; and Dick rattled on and on about the almost unbelievable and totally fantastic coincidence. “And besides,” he said, “this pays Stanley back for the shafting he gave you — pays him back in spades.”
I felt a twinge of conscience. “He’s not going to get hurt,” I said. I wasn’t looking to pay him back. I wasn’t looking for anything.
Dick, sprawled face down across the bed, with the last half of the Dietrich manuscript on the floor just below him, cackled like a mad chicken. “Listen to this!” and he read off a passage in which Glenn Davis, Terry Moore’s husband, knocked Howard on his ass. “Can we use that or is it libelous?”
“That’s nothing,” I said from the chair in which I was reading the other half. “It looks as though he got a dose of clap from an actress and gave Dietrich all his clothes to burn. But Noah turned around and gave them to the Salvation Army.”
“Wait till you tell that to Howard. He’ll be furious.”
We read on, breaking into exclamations of delight as one treasure after another was uncovered.
“This makes it for us,” Dick said. “Man, we’re home free. We can incorporate this stuff into the book, twist it around so that Noah comes off as the prick and Howard the good guy. Mother McGraw is lucky to get this at half a million. That’s cheap, that’s …” he broke off and looked at me, a half smile parting his lips. “Do you think …”
“Forget it,” I said. “Whatever we do, let’s not get greedy. Greed would be our undoing. Think about the book and let the loot take care of itself. In the meantime, let’s finish
reading and then first thing tomorrow morning we get a couple of Xeroxes made.”
Dick heaved himself off the bed and picked up a Yellow Pages from the dresser. “There ought to be a copying place near here.”
There was — just four blocks down Wilshire toward the center of the city — and we were there at nine o’clock the next morning. One entire side of the shop, I was happy to see, was occupied by a late-model multiple Xerox copier. I took the manuscript out of the blue binder and laid it on the counter. “How long will it take to make two copies?”
The owner-operator wiped his hands on a piece of cotton waste. “How many pages?”
“About four hundred,” I said.
“What is it, a novel?”
“That’s right,” Dick said. “The Great American Novel.”
We hovered around the counter, carefully avoiding the subject that was uppermost in our minds, while the machine did its thing. An hour later we put our two copies in Dick’s old briefcase, put Stanley’s copy back in its binder, and returned to the hotel. I called Stanley and made an appointment to see him at Four Oaks that evening.
“Well, is it a blue chip or isn’t it?” Stanley asked, once we were seated in his spacious, Early American living room, surrounded by Grandma Moses paintings, beer steins firmly clutched in our hands.
“I’ll give it to you straight, Stanley,” I said. “I don’t like Mr. Dietrich. I think he’s a bitter old man. He puts the knife in Hughes every chance he gets and he always comes out lily-white. It’s a niggling, malicious book, and the guy who ghosted it can’t write his way out of a paper bag.”
“But the material is there. It’s a winner, I’m telling you. A blue chip! I don’t know what McGraw-Hill’s paying you for the book you’re doing, but I know you could make more on this one. Now, I’ll be calling Dietrich in the morning. Should I make an appointment for you to see him?”
The Hoax Page 14
