American Tabloid - James Ellroy [2]
He had a divorce gig at noon—the husband drank lunch alone and dug young cooze. Get quality flashbulbs: blurry photos looked like spiders fucking. On Hughes’ timecard: find out who’s hawking subpoenas for the TWA antitrust divestment case and bribe them into reporting that Big Howard blasted off for Mars.
Crafty Howard put it this way: “I’m not going to fight this divestment, Pete. I’m simply going to stay incommunicado indefinitely and force the price up until I have to sell. I’m tired of TWA anyway, and I’m not going to sell until I can realize at least five hundred million dollars.”
He’d said it pouty: Lord Fauntleroy, aging junkie.
Ava Gardner cruised by the pool. Pete waved; Ava flipped him the bird. They went back: he got her an abortion in exchange for a weekend with Hughes. Renaissance Man Pete: pimp, dope procurer, licensed PI goon.
Hughes and him went waaay back.
June ’52. L.A. County Deputy Sheriff Pete Bondurant—night watch commander at the San Dimas Substation. That one shitty night: a nigger rape-o at large, the drunk tank packed with howling juiceheads.
This wino gave him grief. “I know you, tough guy. You kill innocent women and your own—”
He beat the man to death barefisted.
The Sheriff’s hushed it up. An eyeball witness squealed to the Feds. The L.A. agent-in-charge tagged Joe Wino “Joe Civil Rights Victim.”
Two agents leaned on him: Kemper Boyd and Ward J. Littell. Howard Hughes saw his picture in the paper and sensed strongarm potential. Hughes got the beef quashed and offered him a job: fixer, pimp, dope conduit.
Howard married Jean Peters and installed her in a mansion by herself. Add “watchdog” to his duties; add the world’s greatest rent-free doghouse: the mansion next door.
Howard Hughes on marriage: “I find it a delightful institution, Pete, but I also find cohabitation stressful. Explain that to Jean periodically, won’t you? And if she gets lonely, tell her that she’s in my thoughts, even though I’m very busy.”
Pete lit a cigarette. Clouds passed over—pool loungers shivered. The intercom crackled—Hughes was beckoning.
He walked into the bedroom. “Captain Kangaroo” was on TV, the volume down low.
Dim black & white lighting—and Big Howard in deep-focus shadows.
“Sir?”
“It’s ‘Howard’ when we’re alone. You know that.”
“I’m feeling subservient today.”
“You mean you’re feeling your oats with your paramour, Miss Gail Hendee. Tell me, is she enjoying the surveillance house?”
“She likes it. She’s as hinky of shack jobs as you are, and she says twenty-four rooms for two people smooths things out.”
“I like independent women.”
“No you don’t.”
Hughes plumped up his pillows. “You’re correct. But I do like the idea of independent women, which I have always tried to exploit in my movies. And I’m sure Miss Hendee is both a wonderful extortion partner and mistress. Now, Pete, about the TWA divestment …”
Pete pulled a chair up. “The process servers won’t get to you. I’ve got every employee at this hotel bribed, and I’ve got an actor set up in a bungalow two rows over. He looks like you and dresses like you, and I’ve got call girls going in at all hours, to perpetuate the myth that you still fuck women. I check every man and woman who applies for work here, to make sure the Justice Department doesn’t slip a ringer in. All the shift bosses here play the stock market, and for every month you go unfucking-subpoenaed I give them twenty shares of Hughes Tool Company stock apiece. As long as you stay in this bungalow, you won’t be served and you won’t have to appear in court.”
Hughes plucked at his robe—little palsied fidgets. “You’re a very cruel man.”
“No, I’m your very cruel man, which is why you let me talk back to you.”
“You’re ‘my man,’ but you still retain your somewhat tawdry private investigator sideline.”
“That’s because you crowd me. That’s because I’m not so good at cohabitation either.”
“Despite what I pay you?”
“No, because of it.”
“For instance?”
“For instance, I’ve got a mansion in Holmby Hills, but you’ve got the deed. I’ve got a ’58 Pontiac coupe, but you