by Sam Toperoff
Before he got out of the car, Hammett touched Hellman’s arm and said, “Okay?”
She snorted. “I’ll live. He won’t.”
Hammett went back up the road but couldn’t find the squirrel. He almost convinced himself she hadn’t hit it after all when Lilly called, “Here. It’s here.”
The squirrel was on the far side of the road, off the surface, on the pebbly shoulder. Literally knocked for a loop, it lay on its side breathing slowly but deeply, its eyes blinking. Lillian was saying “Shit” repeatedly.
The rain had not diminished. Behind them, from the direction they had come, a car with a swirling red light approached.
Hammett knelt down quickly and ended the squirrel with a sudden and efficient crack.
Two cops, the same size exactly, interchangeable it seemed, came out of their car. One carried a flashlight. “Seen you run the light back there, ma’am. Big hurry. Seems to be the trouble?”
Hammett said, “I was having a problem with the accelerator back there, officer. Proof is I couldn’t avoid this fellow when he ran into my path.”
“No, no, let’s not try this. Lady was driving. We both saw her, right, Newt?”
“My wife doesn’t drive.”
“Sure, sure. Driver’s license. Both of you.”
Lillian said, “My husband’s telling you the truth, officer. I wouldn’t even know how to start up a big car like this.”
Newt put the flashlight on her face and said, “Doing some celebrating?”
Hammett said, “Some good food with friends, nothing crazy.”
Newt put the light on Hammett’s wallet: “You two sure you want to stick to your story? Because if you think you got trouble now, you have no idea what’s in store when …”
His partner, inspecting Hammett’s wallet under the flashlight, said, “Pinkerton man? How long?”
“Too long.”
Newt said under furrowed brow, “Hey. You’re the guy writes the detective stories. I read them all the time. They’re good.”
“Thank you.”
“You know what you’re talking about. The other stuff is pretty much just made-up crap. Excuse me, ma’am.”
“Why? They are just made-up crap.”
“Exactly. Well, well …” To his partner: “This is Dashy Hammot.”
“Oh.”
“Maybe you fellows could call someone, help us get the car out of there?”
“Might be able to help you ourselves. We’ve still got the hook and the tow rope, right, Newt?”
“If the Missus could get behind the wheel, Mr. Hammot and I could help push.”
“You forget, she can’t drive.”
“What the hell was I thinking?”
The police car tow rope hooked the Packard’s bumper and the huge car came out easily. The cops asked for autographs. Hammett said, “You’ll want my wife’s more. It’ll be very valuable some day.” They each autographed blank speeding tickets.
“Put down something that says who you are and what we did, like, To my favorite nonarresting officer, or something like that.”
Lillian wrote, Thank you for this second chance at freedom!
Hammett: To the sweet pleasure of getting away with murder!
After they all shook hands and began to leave the scene, Hammett took the squirrel’s body into the woods.
Hammett was driving now. The rain had intensified. The mood was better than it had been before the Packard struck the squirrel. He looked over to see her sadness.
“It couldn’t live on that way.”
“It isn’t that.”
“What then?”
“Everything.”
. 6 .
Junk
“HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN the fact that there are only four people I have ever wanted to sit down and talk with seriously and all four of them happen to be Jews?”
Hellman, who had been scribbling in a leather-bound notebook, didn’t quite stop, merely slowed, and said without looking up, “They don’t just happen to be. But, just out of curiosity, who are the other three?”
“Two of them are dead. Don’t know the whereabouts of the third. And the fourth won’t return my calls.”
She put down her pen: “I’m hooked. Tell me.”
“Jew number one. Jesus …”
“He doesn’t return anyone’s call … Number two?”
“Karl Marx. Dead.”
“Three?”
“Siggy Freud. I doubt he’s still in Vienna …”
“Actually he is. I spoke to people in New York who are trying to get him out but he’s stubborn and won’t leave.”
“Or gripped by a death wish.”
“But why not give him a call? I’m sure he reads Black Mask.”
“The point is: Do you have any idea how many billions of people have been in the world and how few of them have been Jews? One-hundredth of one percent. So why do they become so damned important?”
“Figure that out and you’ll know why everyone hates us so much.” She began writing again.
Later that evening Lillian remembered to ask who important Jew number four was.
“L.B.”
“Mayer? Why him?”
“I need to find out if I’m going to be working here a while longer.”
“You’ve got a contract.”
“He has a legal department.”
“It’s about what Phil said, isn’t it, about the Thin Man sequels?”
“I’ll know where I stand if I can see his face. He won’t return my calls.”
Dashiell Hammett, whenever he got into a serious conversation with someone he didn’t know well, usually about the time the second drink was being poured, often asked, “So what’s your story?” Clearly, every life had a plotline and every plotline developed in interesting ways, at least potentially interesting to Hammett, a brilliant listener and questioner, qualities that had served him so well at Pinkerton. Most people said, “What do you mean, ‘What’s my story?’ ” So Hammett usually engaged the bartender instead. Bartenders always got it. Once on a radio program when the interviewer asked him to describe his profession, Hammett said, “I collect life stories.”
Here is what he collected on Louis B. Mayer over the years, not from Mayer himself of course, who made it a point to bury the true story and create his own biography, but from people who claimed to have known Mayer along the way: A Russian Jew, probably Meier or Meyer, whose family emigrated from Minsk. Louis took over his father’s scrap iron business, a more respectable way of saying he owned junkyards. Then he bought one theater in Haverhill, Massachusetts, which he quickly grew into the largest movie house chain in New England. Lots of guys, Hammett realized, would have stopped there, which was why those guys were not Louis B. Mayer. No one, by the way, ever discovered what the B. stood for.
Mayer leaped from local theater exhibition to national film distribution and motion picture production in Hollywood in no time at all. As its production boss, Mayer built M-G-M into the most financially successful studio in the world, the only one to pay shareholders dividends every year during the Depression. Even Boy Zanuck wasn’t able to do that. Louis B. Mayer was all about selling—scrap iron or dreams, the product didn’t much matter—and that he did brilliantly. Hammett was honestly impressed by Mayer’s story. He’d done in Hollywood what Isaac Marx had done half a century before in Demopolis, Alabama.
What Hammett knew about recent Mayer activities, he admired less. Mayer had been vice-chairman of the California Republican Party, and as a delegate to the 1932 national convention publicly endorsed Hoover for a second term over upstart FDR. Mayer was a man of profits; Republicans were bad for unions, good for profit. So Mayer was a Republican.
Among most of Hammett’s colleagues, the writers, directors, studio intellectuals and pseudo-intellectuals, and lefties in general, Louis B. Mayer was a laughingstock and a pain in the ass. Hammett had no problem working for him and being well paid, mostly because he had no pretensions about what product
he was making. For him, movie studios cranked out mostly harmless diversions; Mayer and M-G-M did it more successfully—and profitably—than any of the others.
One important detail of the Mayer story that Hammett heard from Irving Thalberg, Mayer’s protégé before Mayer fired him for becoming too “artsy-fartsy”—Thalberg’s word—revealed all you’d want to know about L.B.’s success: Mayer’s first theater back in Haverhill was an old burlesque house, a dingy dump, lice- and rat-ridden. Even a new paint job and a name change to “The Orpheum” couldn’t overcome its soiled reputation in the more respectable community. So how did the junkman fill the place up night after night? For his first presentation he chose From the Manger to the Cross. There you had it—respectability among the goyim and ticket sales all at once. Mayer’s philosophy has never changed or varied: Give ’em what they like and how they like it. Finishing up his tale, Thalberg, a Jew, said to Hammett, “And that, ladies and gentlemen, is one very smart Kike.”
Getting a meeting with L.B. was extremely difficult, unless of course you were one of M-G-M’s major stars. Creating stars—actresses and actors people liked to look at—along with making uplifting stories—these manufacturing principles were Mayer’s great contributions to the movie business. Unless you were Garbo or Harlow, Gable or Crawford, you’d have to stand at the end of a very long line to hear back from Mayer’s office. Meeting with L.B. happened when L.B. required a meeting.
Hammett called Mayer’s secretary, Elise Weiss, early in the morning. She asked what the meeting would pertain to; he said he’d rather discuss that with Mr. Mayer. Did it relate to a project in which he was presently involved? Hammett gave the same response. Would he wish to discuss it with Mr. Selznick or Mr. Gelb? The same.
There was no return call.
L.B.’S DAUGHTER IRENE was married to David O. Selznick, M-G-M’s vice-president for production, Mayer’s right hand. Hammett, when he heard news of the marriage, likened the match to betrothing the Infanta of Spain to the Duke of Burgundy, a marriage made in the best political interests of Metro. Selznick’s role was to keep things rolling. In a different factory he’d have been in charge of making sure the production line never stopped.
At luncheon in the garden of the Flamingo Restaurant about a month after The Children’s Hour opened in New York, Irene Mayer Selznick came over to Lillian’s table to tell her how much she admired the play, not only for its artistry but for her courage in taking on such a taboo subject. Lillian was polite, appreciative, and grateful. This was after all the boss’s daughter, the underboss’s wife.
Irene turned the subject to Hammett by inquiring about his health. Fine, he’s fine. Oh, I’m just curious, haven’t seen him around for a while. “When he’s busy writing, Irene dear, even I don’t get to see very much of him.”
Irene Selznick’s eyes locked on Lilly’s: “I do hope he’s writing well. David would hate to lose him, such a brilliant man.” A warning, the reason Irene came over in the first place.
“Thank you, Irene. We get the message loud and clear. Dash is drinking a lot less these days.”
“I certainly never meant to imply …”
Lilly had heard the rumors even back in New York. As a Thin Man script got closer to deadline, Hammett wrote less and less of it. Fixers had to be hired. They even brought Phil Edmunds in to help out. Hammett got paid to the very end, though the final two checks came late. All Lilly said to Dash about the meeting was, “Saw Selznick’s wife today. I think you’ve got some fences to mend. Why not sit down with David?”
“My business is with L.B.”
“How much longer do your contracts run?”
“As if you didn’t know.”
Lillian walked into the kitchen and said back, “We don’t need them. We can go to New York. You’ve got your novel. I’ve got my play. And it’s New York, Dash, not this fucking painted desert.”
“Speak for yourself, sister. There is no novel. I need this goose to keep laying.”
ELISE SHOWED ME IN, indicated where she wanted me to sit, but the large sunlit room was empty. I assured her I’d be fine all by myself. It was important I be standing when the great man strolled in, if the great man strolled in. She was not comfortable leaving me alone in here, and of course she was right to distrust me. I paced the length of the room, kicked the deep pile, looked out the high wall of windows to the back lot. Mayer’s desk top was very large, highly polished, and displayed three sets of my contract. I was certainly supposed to see them there. It was possible someone was watching me; just in case that was so, I offered a tourist’s wave to a large mirror on the wall.
More than the sheer size and grandeur of the office, adorned with photos of all its stars under golden lettering—MORE STARS THAN HEAVEN—M-G-M, more than the staging and manipulation, more impressive than anything, was Mayer. I reminded myself that this was an estimable man, a self-made man—not admirable, estimable—a Jewish immigrant for whom the promise of the United States of America and corporate profitability had become one and the same. My job here was simple. Show him how I could make the company even more money.
Mayer blew in as though he’d just come a long distance especially to see me. Both his smile and his strong handshake betrayed too much effort. This Republican may have hated FDR but he sure as hell looked like him, the smile, the silvering hair combed straight back, the same rimless glasses. “Been meaning to talk to you for quite a while, Dash.” Like so many successful immigrants, he took pains to enunciate clearly and correctly—a bit too much so. Still, you couldn’t miss the Eastern European esh in his Dash, the ean in been.
“Sit there, there, if you will, away from the desk, so we can be comfortable. I’ve wanted to have this talk ever since I read your first book. Time we cleared the air.”
He hadn’t read any of my books. “I feel the same way, Mr. Mayer.”
“Tell me, Hammutt, how old are you, forty, forty-five?”
“If those are my choices, I’ll take forty.”
“Funny. You realize that a man your age, with your accomplishments, shouldn’t have to call anyone Mr. What do you and your Lillian call me when you’re alone?”
“You wouldn’t want to know, sir.”
“Clever, very clever. Very smart. ‘L.B.’ would be fine.” Mayer took out some lemon Lifesavers and offered me one while getting to the point: “Did you see the numbers for The Thin Man?”
“Actually, I haven’t. Been too busy writing plots for possible sequels.” I managed to laugh in such a way that what I said might be taken seriously or as a joke.
“Surprising numbers. Yes, of course we’ll consider a sequel. The question: Are you really up to it?”
I flexed my arm like Popeye the Sailor, or Hemingway bending a spoon.
“There were some stories, some not-so-good reports about pages coming in late or not at all on the first script.” Mayer mimed downing a shot glass. “We can’t have that. I can’t allow that.”
“You’ve got my word on that, L.B.”
“Word’s not good enough on something like this, I’m afraid.” Mayer smiled to indicate just how serious he was about the matter. “I’m going to offer a new contract. Same money but with penalties if you miss delivery dates. Legal tells me I can do this. A handshake and we’re almost done here. So what do you say?”
I could do nothing but offer my hand.
Mayer sat back in his armchair. “Tea? Coffee?”
“Not necessary.”
“They tell me you’re a very erudite man, no schooling, like me, but very erudite. I admire that. I learned more about human nature trying to get an empty boiler out of a basement and onto a truck than I could have learned at Harvard, believe me. And you, you got your education at Pinkerton’s, am I right?”
“More or less.”
“Ever do any union busting for them?”
“I was strictly homicides, kidnappings, bank jobs.” It wasn’t true but it sounded good, even to me.
“Unions, the hell with them
, I say. They get any kind of foothold here and we’re all in the crap. What do you think of that?” He looked into my eyes.
I knew instinctively not to look away and said, “I think we may disagree on that one, L.B., but then again I don’t run a major American corporation. I’m just an ink-stained wretch.”
“Baloney. Not what I hear. I hear you’re about the smartest guy in this place. And that’s a consensus of opinion. You see, I’ve asked around, heh, heh.”
I suspected this silliness was leading someplace serious. I was wrong.
“So let me ask you as an erudite man, Hammutt, what do you think about Shakespeare? For the movies, I mean.” Mayer made a sour face as though to indicate the response he expected.
I warmed to the subject quickly. “I’ll try to keep this short, L.B.—you’re busy—but my view of Shakespeare is just a bit unconventional. I don’t see him as the great artistic and philosophical genius upon which all Western literature is based, not the man everyone has to read in order to be considered truly educated. That’s not my Shakespeare.”
“So tell me your Shakespeare?”
“My Shakespeare is a genius, yes, but a genius of production and presentation because he could tell a story that packed them in his own theater, that packed them all in—the peasants, the merchants, the aristocrats. A genius of the storytelling business. And what really made him a man for the ages, L.B., was that he had to be successful against the toughest competition, had to sell more tickets than any of his competitors, and he did it by telling better stories, putting on better plays, providing better entertainment. He didn’t set out to make art; he set out to be a successful showman.” I refrained from saying “Like you.” “So just find whatever his audiences liked and adapt it for your audience and you’re in business.”
Mayer’s face had unknotted when I mentioned Shakespeare’s success in selling tickets, but he certainly wasn’t completely sold. I couldn’t wait to tell Lilly what I thought I had pulled off. She’d absolutely piss herself.
