The Hoax

by Clifford Irving

  Almost as soon as I arrived in Los Angeles Nina had asked me how the Hughes book was progressing. I showed her the paintings and drawings that David had done. “I’m supposed to be showing them to Hughes now, for his approval. What do you think?”

  “They’re bloody marvelous,” she said. “Do they look like him?”

  “How the hell should I know? Which ones do you like best?”

  She pointed out two of the oils and several of the pencil sketches. “Fine,” I said, “that’s Howard’s choice, as of now.”

  “God,” Nina laughed, “it’s all so unbelievable. You mean I’m Howard Hughes?”

  “Anyone can play,” I explained.

  Marshall was let in on the secret, too — not that it was a hoax, but that I had been seeing Hughes and working with him on his autobiography. He was impressed, of course, although basically uninterested in the manuscript other than from a commercial point of view. He skimmed through one or two chapters and then put the book aside, evidently weary.

  “Would it make a movie?” he asked.

  “Sure it would. Don’t you think so?”

  “I know everyone here in Hollywood, you know. I might be able to help you on that. Do you have an agent?”

  “Not yet, but that’s very kind of you, John. When the time comes, I’ll ask you for some introductions.”

  On the Monday following Thanksgiving I called McGraw-Hill in New York. Hughes, I explained, had spoken to me on the telephone, heard my hacking cough and refused to meet me until I was in better health. He was sick, too, he said, which compounded the danger of infection. I had been instructed to turn over the manuscript to the intermediary, George Gordon Holmes. Holmes had flown to Los Angeles. He would deliver the manuscript to Hughes. A meeting with Howard was tentatively scheduled for next week, in Florida or Nassau. As for the press release, he had approved it and made only two minor changes.

  “How are you coming with the work?”

  “Slow,” I said. “I’ve had a fever and I’ve just been hibernating in bed. I’ll be back in New York tomorrow.”

  I flew back Tuesday morning. Nina was to have gone on the same flight and then on to London, but at the last minute Marshall told her she would have to appear at a cocktail party in Los Angeles, and she changed her reservation to a night flight. She would have part of a day in New York on Wednesday, between planes, and I said, almost halfheartedly: “Come up to the Elysee. I’ll be out, but you can get some sleep there.”

  Wednesday morning I appeared at McGraw-Hill to tell tales of my illness in California, telephone conversations with Howard Hughes, and the street-corner meeting with George Gordon Holmes. I was now about to meet Howard again in Florida, specific location unknown. Florida was the logical choice for Howard: he had met me there before on two occasions and obviously had a house in the Palm Beach area. It was also a logical choice for me. It was a comfortable place to work, I liked the southern climes in winter, and once McGraw-Hill made their public announcement of March publication, I didn’t want to be caught in Nassau by any part of the Hughes organization — especially Intertel, the private security army. The announcement had been scheduled for later in the week. The last check to H. R. Hughes — for $325,000 — would be ready on Thursday, and I would leave immediately afterward. “Make sure you get him to sign the preface,” Leventhal reminded me. “And if he’ll do it, we’d like it handwritten. Then we can reproduce the whole thing in the book.”

  “If he’s well enough. You should have heard him screech on the telephone when he heard me coughing and sneezing. He was furious. He said it would literally kill him if we met.”

  Beverly had joined us by then in Albert’s office. “By the way,” she said, “Life’s taken that letter from Octavio to Harold and given it to the handwriting expert, the same man who analyzed that letter they printed last January.”

  I felt slightly sick, but I tried to be casual. “What’s that all about?”

  Beverly shrugged. “Just a preventive move in case there’s any trouble after the announcement. The newspapers might kick up a little fuss. It’s not a bad idea to have ammunition.”

  “It’s a good thing I wrote to you in early January to tell you I’d heard from Hughes. It once occurred to me that if I’d written you after January 22nd — after the Life article came out, I mean — you might have had some cause to be suspicious.”

  “Oh, it occurred to us, too. We went over all that.” Beverly smiled.

  “When will you get Kanfer’s report?”

  “Tomorrow morning. Why? You don’t have doubts, do you?”

  “No,” I said, laughing. “These experts always give you the opinion they know you want from them. If you’d told the man you thought it was a forgery, he’d probably report that it was a forgery. This way you’re guaranteed an affirmative opinion. But it’s a good thing,” I added, “that it’s really from Hughes.”

  When I got back to the Elysee, Nina was there. Her plane for London left at 7 P.M. “You look worried,” she said.

  “I am. McGraw-Hill’s given one of the Hughes letters to a handwriting expert.”

  “But then …” Nina looked pale. “They’re going to find out.”

  “I don’t know. I just don’t know.” I was pacing the room, smoking one Gauloise after another. “I could admit it’s a hoax. I could pretend I don’t understand. I could bring up the theory that I’ve been meeting an impostor. I don’t know what I’ll do. Of course, there’s always the off-chance the man will say the letter’s genuine.”

  For a moment Nina seemed concerned with something other than her own problems. “My God,” she said, “I won’t sleep tonight. Will you call me in London when you find out?”

  “Yes,” I said. I was touched.

  “Promise?”

  I promised, and an hour later we hailed a taxi for Kennedy Airport, and there we said goodbye.

  On the plane to Miami I took a McGraw-Hill envelope from my briefcase and scribbled the address of the Credit Suisse in Zurich. Using a plain sheet of yellow paper, I wrote a note to the bank asking them to clear the enclosed check as soon as possible. The plane was crowded, every seat taken, but the passengers flanking me in the coach section were buried in their respective copies of The New York Times and Playboy. If the one had taken less interest in the sports pages and the other in the centerfold, they might have sneaked a look at a check for $325,000 made out to the richest nonexistent man in the world. Using a ballpoint pen, I endorsed the check —” deposit only to the account of H. R. Hughes” — then signed it. Letter, check, and envelope took about ten minutes to write. The handwriting had degenerated into a scrawl. Howard was getting older. He was sick; and I was tired. I sealed the envelope and shoved it into my briefcase just as the stewardess bent over me, smiling toothily, to deliver a tiny glass of fresh orange juice.

  Miami Airport was familiar territory by now. I rented a car at National and headed north, veering off the superhighway first to drop the letter in a mailbox and then to rent a typewriter. Where I stayed seemed of no importance and I cut over to the coast road, Route A-1A, and pulled up in front of the first decent-sized motel removed from the bizarre strip of condominiums and other architectural litter that made up the so-called Gold Coast. Called the Newport Beach Motel, it was big, self-contained, with a restaurant, coffee shop, drugstore, newspaper stand, swimming pool, and sizable strip of beach. Still a few weeks short of high season, the suites were reasonably priced, and I rented a good one with twin terraces facing both the beach and the pool. At seven o’clock the next morning I was at work in the living room, papers stacked on all available surfaces. I could imagine the look of distaste on Dick’s face if he could see it. He couldn’t live with clutter and it seemed as if I couldn’t live without it.

  A week’s work, I reckoned. The final part of Howard’s life — the Las Vegas and Bahamas period; the various trips to Mexico; his last big love affair with Helga, whom Howard had requested I rename Inga — had to be edited and typed. A batc
h of insertions and changes had to be made in the 882 pages I had already delivered to McGraw-Hill. I had to decide on the final form of the preface and get Howard to sign it. The most difficult job was my own introduction to the book, from which Life would excerpt its 5,000-word article by me. That would tell the farfetched tale of our meetings, describe how the book slowly metamorphosed from authorized biography to autobiography, treat the problems involved in editing it, and offer a few of my personal impressions of the man himself. “It’s vital,” Robert Stewart had stressed, “because that’s what everyone will want to know. Will you have to show it to Hughes?”

  “Only as a courtesy. The contract with him gives me the right to say whatever I please. No censorship.”

  “Terrific. You’ve got to tell all about that plane ride in Mexico and eating bananas with him in Puerto Rico and the man with the cane who watched your bungalow in Palm Springs.”

  “Pompano Beach,” I corrected him.

  “And Dick’s prune story. Don’t leave that out.”

  “It’s essential,” I agreed.

  I also developed a new twist for this last meeting in Florida. I would be met at the airport by George Gordon Holmes, the man who had taken the manuscript from me in Los Angeles when Howard was too sick to make the rendezvous. Holmes would herd me into his car, blindfold me, and drive me north to what I would guess to be Palm Beach. Once inside a private house, the blindfold would be removed. Howard would be in bed, thinner than ever, pale, gasping, and wheezing — an oxygen tank close by the bedside — battling stubbornly for his life. Too sick to read through the entire manuscript, he would nevertheless give it his final blessing. He would say farewell.

  “I can’t see you again, not for a long time. Once it’s known that I’ve done this book with you, Clifford, they’ll hound you. They’ll follow you wherever you go. They’ll try and track me down through you. I can’t have that! Do you understand? I don’t know how long I’ve got, but I want to live those days in peace. So I’m going away. Far away.”

  Goodbye, Howard. It was good to have known you. We’ll meet again, in a better world.

  I worked all weekend in the air-conditioned suite, but now and then I would break into a private sweat thinking of the man at work in New York — the handwriting expert hired by Life. The letter he was using was the one I had written to Harold McGraw. I had scrawled it more quickly than any of the others but it was the only original Hughes letter available for comparison to whatever genuine material Life had in its files. I postponed the moment as long as possible, but on Monday afternoon I decided there was no longer an excuse for staying incommunicado, and I called Albert Leventhal in New York. Since I never called collect he had no idea at first where I was and, as usual, he seemed reluctant to ask. The cloak-and-dagger aspects of the whole odyssey had permeated all levels at McGraw-Hill. But this time I volunteered the information, although I added: “Be careful of the phone. I was put in here by Octavio. Chances are there’s a tap.”

  “Have you seen him?”

  “He signed the preface. But he’s sick.” I sketched swiftly the tale of the blindfolded ride to parts unknown. Albert asked if Hughes was aware that the announcement was pending and I coughed, hesitated, and replied that I wasn’t sure.

  “But you said you saw him. What do you mean, you’re not sure?”

  “Albert …” I tried to be delicate. “This is for your ears only. He’s … well, I said he was sick. I don’t want to go into details on an open line. There’s a lot he doesn’t understand. It’s hard to get through to him. Do you follow?”

  “Don’t say any more,” Albert replied. “I’ve got it. Anyway, we’re making the formal announcement tomorrow at one o’clock.” He read a few changes to me and then put Beverly on the line.

  “We got that report from the handwriting expert,” she said. “I thought you’d like to know his opinion. There’s no doubt that the letter’s from Octavio. He quoted the odds as a million to one.”

  I snorted. “Am I supposed to be surprised?”

  “Well, I just thought you’d like to know.”

  “I am, Bev. Sorry if I was snappish. I guess it makes the people up in New York rest a little easier.”

  “We never had any doubts,” she insisted. “But it might come in handy if there’s any trouble after the announcement.”

  “What trouble could there be?”

  “With Octavio?” She laughed heartily. “Don’t forget, I’ve read his autobiography. I know the things that man is capable of. He could even deny he’s ever met you.”

  To that I could only reply with a sustained chuckle that clearly meant: I doubt it, but anything is possible. And I promised to call Beverly on Wednesday, the day after the announcement, in case there were any problems.

  I wrote a brief note to Nina, to ease her mind and let her know that the crisis was past.

  On Tuesday afternoon I stood on my balcony, idly gazing out at the rows of deck chairs that flanked the swimming pool. I had chosen the wrong kind of hotel. The room was large and cool and there was good work space, but the noise of merrymaking drifted up from the pool, even through the closed glass doors of the terrace. A steel band drummed and tinkled its rhythms in the early evening. Chubby young men from New York splashed about in the shallow water, knocking a volleyball back and forth across a low net, yelling, “Hey Julie, let’s go!” On the deck chairs, bleached blondes and middle-aged executives sipped Cokes, oiled themselves with cocoa butter, and waited patiently for the sun to break free from a scudding cloud and resume its appointed task of making them beautiful and brown. Up there on my little island with Howard Hughes, a pile of manuscript and a waiting typewriter, I felt suddenly alone. I had been dumped here from an alien planet. But they’re living their truth, I thought, and I’m living mine. If mine is founded on a grand deceit, it’s no less true. Lived to the hilt, as it seemed to be at the moment, it was as real as any of the lives that were sprawled out beneath me, hidden behind those glistening skins. I felt no shame then, no contempt. I simply felt cut off.

  Sitting on the far edge of the pool, a tall blonde girl of surprising loveliness was fitting her long feet into flippers and strapping a scuba tank expertly to her back. She wore an alligator-green wetsuit. I wondered about her: she didn’t fit by the side of that pool any more than I did. Then an obese young man popped out of the water by her dangling legs, and she cupped her hands to call out instructions, and I understood. I went back to the typewriter, thinking about the denouement of the affair with Nina, and thinking about Edith waiting for me in Ibiza, and the work went badly.

  Later in the afternoon I went down to swim. The ocean surf was high and I did laps in the pool, ending up panting for breath but with a good feeling of having extended myself. The willowy blonde in the green wetsuit was just stuffing her diving gear into a bright orange scuba bag. I was only a few feet away from her.

  “You do this for fun or profit?”

  She showed me her card. Her name was Anne Baxter and she was a qualified scuba instructor for the Aqua-Fun Divers. She had pleasant blue eyes and a voice that twanged softly with a southern lilt. I had always wanted to learn scuba diving and after we talked for twenty minutes I went up to my room and came back with forty dollars in cash, as advance payment for a four-lesson course to be given in the pool. We made an appointment for the next morning at nine o’clock and she wrote my name in her little blue appointment book.

  “Do I call you Anne, or Annie, or Miss Baxter?”

  “Whatever you like. Just please don’t be late,” she said sharply, “and don’t eat a big breakfast.”

  She was a very serious girl, and very professional, and she had long brown legs. Learning scuba would pass the time nicely for the rest of the week, between chapters.

  The Miami Herald carried the news of the Hughes autobiography on page one. I read it over a plate of scrambled eggs and pork sausages. The story was datelined December 7th — Pearl Harbor Day. McGraw-Hill had attacked but the Hughes Tool C
ompany, far from quiescent and confused, as Dick and I had assumed they would be, had fired back with all their guns. “There is no such book,” said Richard Hannah of the Carl Byoir Agency, a public relations firm employed by Hughes Tool. Donald Wilson of Time, Inc. had shot right back with: “Oh, we’re absolutely positive. Look, we’re dealing with people like McGraw-Hill. And, you know, we’re not exactly a movie magazine. This is Time, Inc. and McGraw-Hill talking. We’ve checked this thing out. We have proof.”

  But Hannah and Chester Davis — Hughes’s lawyer and Executive Vice-President of the Tool Company — had continued to deny and protest. Dick and I had assumed a period of confusion: Could the old man have done it? How do we get in touch with him to find out? Or, if he were dead or incapacitated: How do we stop it? What if they demand that Hughes make a personal denial? Suppose there’s a subpoena? Listen, Chester — not so fast. Maybe this can be a good thing for us …

  I had a hard time keeping my mind on Annie’s instructions, and once, at the bottom of the pool while I was trying to adjust a weight belt and slip into the tank harness, it occurred to me that Hughes Tool or Intertel detectives might at that precise moment be slipping a passkey into my door and pouncing on the manuscript. My name and photograph had been on the front page of the local papers, right next to Howard’s. It was a jolting thought, and the next minute the breathing regulator slipped from my mouth, the tank thumped solidly on the pool floor and I found myself gulping what felt like a quart of chlorinated water. I shot to the surface, sputtering.