Mr. Blue: Memoirs of a Renegade

by Edward Bunker

  "What's wrong?" I asked.

  "We can't stay in the main house. Some of the family in here."

  I scanned the immense building; it seemed as large as Notre Dame. "They need the whole house?"

  Mrs Wallis laughed. "No . . . but we are here because of Marion . . . and the Hearsts hate Marion Davies. Mr Hearst's wife is still alive, you know."

  "No, I didn't know. I didn't know he was married."

  Instead of leading us into Casa Grande, the housekeeper took u« along an immense veranda or terrace around the house. Flowers were everywhere, and amidst them was a lass of alabaster marble crouched beside a goat. It was all like the fantasy set of a silent movie. Ornate. Fluted columns topped with round white spheres - lights for the nights.

  The housekeeper led us toward an intricately carved door that may have graced a Venetian palace in the fifteenth century. She opened it and ushered us in.

  A guest house! Bullshit! It was a museum of some kind. In time I would come to appreciate the art and artifacts collected Wound the world that graced this room, but back then it all merely seemed old to me. Wealth to me was glittery black and white art deco back then. Or maybe my reaction was governed by the stuffy heat of the room. The sun slanted at a low angle through a huge window overlooking the sea far below. The guest house had no air conditioning. Indeed, that was what had miffed Mrs Wallis, for the big house did have air conditioning. Her dark attitude was temporary. Within a few minutes her humor was back. She appreciated all of life. She showed me around. Her bedrooms were abundant, but there was no kitchen. "The kitchen's in the big house. Come on, flop down on Cardinal Richelieu's bed."

  "The guy in The Three Musketeers."

  "I think so."

  "I'm ready for a little nap in Richelieu's bed."

  "Go ahead. I've got some letters to write."

  The bed had a huge dark headboard and was so high that I had to stand on a chair to reach it. Mrs Wallis said that beds were so high off the floor to keep away from the rats that ran across even palaces. The bed was soft but lumpy. Being accustomed to jail bunks and concrete floors, I did manage to sleep for an hour. The sun was orange and just beginning to dip into the Pacific when I woke up. I was hungry.

  Mrs Wallis was reading a book when I came in. "Feel better?"

  "I feel great. When do we eat?"

  I've been thinking about that. I don't know which of the family is in residence . . . and I really don't want to run into them in the dining room. But I want to show it to you. If it was round, you'd expect King Arthur and his knights to be there. Here's what we'll do. You take a swim while I go to the kitchen and see what's up. Use the Neptune pool, the one outdoors."

  I She saw my hesitancy. "It's okay," she said. "Nobody'll say anything and it's something you'll never forget."

  "I didn't bring any trunks."

  "You've got an extra pair of Levi's, don't you?"

  "Uh huh."

  "Use those."

  "Where is it?"

  "Right around the stairs. You can't miss it."

  Barefoot and shirtless and carrying a towel, I went outside. It was magic hour, that time when dusk smooths all the world's wrinkles and blemishes. Everything seemed hushed and there was a feeling of enchantment. Gone was the weighted heat and the squinting glare. The softer light brought forth the luster of the marble. An evening breeze was just beginning; roses, red and yellow, danced in it. Jasmine was already making perfume in the air. Ever since that day the scent of jasmine has called up my memory of San | Simeon.

  The steps to the Neptune pool were two strides wide, so l descended slowly. Fountains of intricate beauty fell in stages to the pool. Decades later, in Rome, I remembered the fountains of San Simeon when I saw these of Bernini. All were marble, as was the pool itself.

  I stopped in unabashed awe. It was truly an enchanted moment in an enchanted place. Across from the fountains were pillars holding up an arch with a statue of Neptune. The hillside beyond fell away to the distant sea, into which the giant orange-red sun I was sliding. Its rays came through the pillars and bathed the world I in a golden hue. It was so wondrous that I ached with inchoate longing as I looked at it. I turned to face the Casa Grande above and behind me. The twin spires were superimposed on faindy pink clouds moving slowly across the sky. The rich reliefs and detailing blended into the towers.

  A breeze moved the water, and the geometric designs at the bottom shimmered slightly. I paused on the pool edge. Into memory came my moment with William Randolph Hearst, old and gaunt, sick near death. If he had done nothing else. this alone would last as far into the future as I could imagine.

  I plunged into the water. The cold shock changed my thoughts, I swam hard to warm up, finally floating on my back, which gave me a better view of the Casa Grande. What Mrs Wallis had once told me was true: this had been Mount Olympus for the twentieth-century version of gods and goddesses, the stars of the movie screen. She told me that Chaplin loved this pool, and that Greta Garbo and John Gilbert made love in it. George Bernard Shaw did a lap or two; Winston Churchill had floated here.

  Between Neptune's fluted pillars came orange twilight glare. I swam through molten gold toward the sunset fire. I was certainly In a world removed from the swarm. I remembered the Griffith Park public swimming pool where the children of the city were packed like a school of tuna. I much preferred this.

  I heard Louise calling me, "Eddie! Eddie!" She was coming down the wide steps to the pool side. I swam across and grabbed the edge. Her face was somber. "Marion just called. Mr Hearst died an hour after I talked to her. I think we'd better leave."

  I hoisted myself from the water and we walked up to the esplanade. "She said the family took his body away that quick." Louise snapped her fingers to illustrate. "They hate Marion, and without W.R., she doesn't have any authority here. Maybe they wouldn't say anything, but maybe they would. I don't want to be embarrassed."

  I could understand, but it seemed weird, too. I thought she was too rich and powerful for such things.

  Driving down the long, winding road, I looked back. The canyons were deep purple and black, but atop the enchanted lull. Casa Grande gleamed in the last rays of the sun. The spires sparkled and flashed. The old man in the wheelchair had certainly left a great monument. What would I leave? Was there purpose? Could I make a purpose?

  When we reached the highway, Louise said, "We were the last guests of the great lord and lady."

  We stopped in Big Sur for dinner and she called Hal, who was on location in Missouri. He called the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco for us and made reservations. When we arrived, they put us in the presidential suite. It had two bedrooms. The next morning, every newspaper had William Randolph Hearst's image on the front page. The last mogul of the Age of Moguls had died.

  Chapter 5

  Night Train to San Quentin

  I traded two cans of grass for a '36 Plymouth four-door sedan with a ship emblem on the hood. They guy who traded me the car was The older brother of a reform school associate. It had license plates from Fulton County, Kentucky. He told me a story about the papers having been sent to Sacramento to register it in California. I believed him.

  I drove the car for about a month without registration and without a driver's license. It scares me now; back then I didn't worry about it. When I went to Mrs Wallis's, I parked a couple of blocks away and didn't tell her I had a car. Our relationship had reached the point where she paid to have my few tattoos removed, and she and Al Matthews were discussing my going to college and then to law school. All that was great, but far away. If anything is true in a young criminal's mind it is the need for immediate satisfaction. Truly, the place is here and the time is now. Delayed gratification is contrary to their nature. So though law school was great on the far horizon, for now I continued selling the gunnysacks of grass. It was going faster and faster as I got new customers — joints and cans. It was a time when pot was considered true "devil weed." A girl in Pasadena who blew marijuana smoke into a
bag she put over her cat's head made the front page of Time magazine. She was regarded as some kind of cruel monster. Under the laws of California, marijuana was the same as heroin or cocaine: possession or sale of any amount carried an indeterminate sentence of six months to six years. A young man went to San Quentin for three seeds vacuumed from the floor mats of his automobile.

  Somebody the police arrested offered as a conciliation to set up someone who was selling loose joints. He called me and wanted a "lid," a one-ounce Prince Albert can. Ten dollars was the standard price. I put a lid in my pocket and went out to the Plymouth.

  As I pulled up to Beverly Boulevard and St Andrews Place for the red traffic light, a car pulled up to my left. Inside it were Hill and O'Grady, a famous team of Hollywood narcotics officers of the era. "Pull over to the curb," one of them said to me.

  A car was turning right on my right. The light was red but there was no traffic. I hit the gas, shot into the intersection and turned left onto Beverly directly in front of the detectives. They slammed on their brakes and I kept going. The chase was on. The detective car had no siren so it gave me a chance.

  As Beverly Boulevard neared Rossmore, the traffic light was red. Cars were lined up in all the lanes going my way. I swerved left into oncoming lanes, which were stopped across the intersection because of the light. Without hesitation, I put the accelerator down. If I could get across I figured I would get away.

  An old coupe came from left to right, almost as if I was in an arcade game and it drove into my sights. I hit the brakes and for a moment thought I might miss the coupe. But my right front fender hit the back end of the other car, spinning it and sending me careening off to the left.

  A heavy US Mail truck was first in line at the red light. I hit it on an angle at the left front wheel. The collision knocked the mail truck's axle out the other side, and slammed me into the steering wheel hard enough to drive my teeth through my hp. I tried to open the door, but it was jammed shut. I tried to get out the window, but the moment I moved, my knee started throbbing with an awful pain.

  When I got my head and shoulders out, I was looking into the muzzle of a .38 Police Special.

  I never knew how it was done, but between Mrs Wallis and

  Al Matthews, the District Attorney was convinced not to file charges. Instead I was taken before Judge Ambrose on a probation violation. He gave me one year in the County Jail and continued the probation. Sixteen was still too young for San Quentin.

  The Sheriff’s Department once again sent me to the Wayside Honor Rancho. Several months later, a deputy smelt a joint I was smoking behind the barracks. He didn't get the joint, but he took me to the administration building. It was at night. The watch commander sent me to Siberia in the new maximum unit. The next day, the deputy in charge of investigations called me out. I told him that I would find out who was bringing in drugs if he let me go. He sent me back to the barracks. As soon as darkness fell again, I went over the fence. I hiked west for ten miles, hitchhiked to the Coast Highway and then back to LA.

  Months later when they caught me before dawn in a car on 11th and Union in Pico-Union, outside of where Wedo Gambos lived with his mother, the police kicked the apartment door in and found a pound or so of the marijuana left from the gunnysacks, plus several hundred dollars. They pocketed that to let me say the marijuana was mine. It got Wedo released, and I was going to San Quentin anyway. It was an obvious destiny if ever one existed.

  Sure enough, Judge Ambrose vacated the probation and sentenced me to the Department of Corrections for the term prescribed by law for violation of Section 245 of the Penal Code, Assault With a Deadly Weapon (ADW) with intent to do great bodily harm. It was an indeterminate sentence of six months to ten years, although the many ex-cons in the tank, considering the cases they knew, said I would do two and a half to three years. One ex-con thought it would be less, maybe eighteen months, but wiser men said it would he more, the Adult Authorities were hard on ADW. Al Matthews had given up, but Mrs Wallis wanted me to put her on my mad and visiting list. I was so blasé when the judge passed sentence that I was cleaning my fingernails and winking at the buxom Italian sisters that Wedo had brought to court. He eventually married one of them and had two children; then he, too, came to San Quentin. By that time I was on parole.

  Because there had been some marijuana on the arrest report, the booking deputy put me in the white drug tank, designated 11-B-l. The eleventh floor was an outside tank facing toward Chinatown, with the unfinished Hollywood Freeway stretching out to the left. I could see the city at night by standing on the first cross-bar and peering through the small opening of the outer bars. In those days all known drug users, which included potheads, were in special tanks. There was one thirteen-cell tank, 11-B-l, for white dope fiends; one twenty-two-cell tank for black dopers; and two tanks, one of twenty-two cells and another, smaller tank for Chicanos. There was a camaraderie among the white junkies, many of whom knew each other from the streets. It was said that they were the best con men and thieves because they needed to succeed: "That Mexican selling caps don't give no credit."

  Each of the thirteen cells had two bunks chained to the steel wall. Under the bottom bunk were three more mattresses, except for the first three cells. Those belonged to the tank trusties. Cell one had two bunks and two occupants — unless they invited a friend to move in. Cells two and three had three occupants, one of whom slept on the floor inside the cell. The men in those cells ran the tank. They distributed the food; they assigned the cells and the bunks in the cells, keeping a list of who had seniority in each cell, and they made sure that everyone lined up in ranks of three for the deputies to walk along outside the bars and count. In the event of trouble, if someone took umbrage at what they dipped from the pot to the plate, all eight acted in unison. Not even King Kong could hope to prevail alone, and if someone started to seek allies for rebellion, word easily got to the trusties. How could it fail to in a world of thirteen cells and the width of a sidewalk? The trusties would appear at the rebel's gate, with lookouts at each end of the tank, and their friends ready to yell and bang the cups to hide the noisy counter-revolution stomping the crap out of an erstwhile rebel.

  The "chain" to San Quentin left on Friday afternoon. Everyone sentenced to the Department of Corrections left on the first Friday ten days after judgment. The ten-day wait was because by statute every defendant had ten days to file Notice of Appeal. I played poker while waiting for the train.

  The poker game ran as long as the cell gates were open, which was all the time except before chow. The cells were closed while things were set up. They were also closed after chow while the tank was being swept and mopped. The game broke up for the night at lights out.

  The money man came on Wednesday. Prisoners with money in their accounts could draw $10 each Wednesday. That and the $3 a prisoner could get twice a week from a visitor was all anyone was allowed. A few dollars went far in '51, when a pack of Camels was 20 cents, a stamped envelope was a nickel, a small tube of Colgate was 15 cents, and a paperback book was a quarter. We could buy candy bars (5 cents), quarts of milk (16 cents) and small pies (20 cents). The sheriff's brother-in-law owned the concession.

  I was a good jailhouse poker player by then and jailhouse poker is as tough as poker anywhere and for any amount. There was an overabundance of players on money day, but by the weekend the best four or five were all that remained. I was among them. I also ran a store. On Friday I stocked up on cigarettes, candy bars, milk and pies. The vendors didn't come on weekends — but new prisoners poured in. Their cigarettes were confiscated in the booking process downstairs. By Sunday noon I always sold out my stock and doubled my investment. Nobody visited me or put money on my books. I had to survive by my wits if I wanted any of the amenities allowed in the Hall of Justice jail in November and December of '51. I was also trying to accumulate $100 or so to take to San Quentin.

  I remember the sweaty, slightly bent Bee playing cards sliding across the gray blanket on the
runway floor one particular evening. At distant tanks the "roll ups" were being called. Several names were announced, followed by: "Roll 'em up!"

  My cards that evening were an ace, deuce, trey and five — with a face card. Four cards to a wheel. If I could draw a four, I would have the best hand in lowball. A six would make it the third-best hand. A seven would make a powerhouse; and even an eight would give me a good hand.

  I was hot and the cards were running my way. I raised whenever I had a good one-card draw. If I only raised when I had a pat hand, everyone would know I was pat when I raised and they would throw in their cards rather than risk a two-card draw.

  From the tenth floor, up an open steel stairwell, came the voice: "Jones, Black, Lincoln . . . Roll 'em up!" It was a tank of black prisoners. Next was the eleventh floor, A and B decks.

  "Bet's on you, Bunk," someone said.

  "Yeah, I was distracted by the roll ups. I raise." I dumped the money from my shirt pocket to the blanket. I'd been catching good hands since morning.

  One player behind me called the bet. He deserved watching. He had come in cold after a raise. One who was already in for his original bet also called the raise. A third player threw his hand away. "You're too hot today," he said.

  "Cards to the players," said the dealer

  The player ahead of me held up two fingers.

  The dealer burned off the top card and dealt two across the blanket. The player threw away his discards and gathered the new two.

  I discarded the face card. "Gimme one. No more kings."

  The card came across the blanket.

  "I'll play these," said the man behind me.

  I turned to look him over. Alarm bells were ringing. He had come in cold behind my raise, called the bet without raising and now played pat. Was he a fool? Had he shown weakness by not raising my raise, or did he have such a powerhouse that he wanted everyone in? He had no idea that one of them would pass because I raised. Had he re-raised, he would have lost anyone drawing two cards. That was how to play it if he had a pat eight or a nine. He didn't want too many drawing cards.