Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy - Eamon Javers [48]
But before the federal government could roll into action, Peloquin got an even better opportunity. An executive at McGraw-Hill went on the Today show to hold up three checks the company had made out to “H. Hughes,” as payment for his life story. The checks had been cashed, and McGraw-Hill viewed them as proof of its agreement with Hughes. Chester Davis filmed the appearance, enlarged the image, and made out the names of the Swiss banks that had cashed the checks.
Davis called Peloquin: “Get your ass over to Switzerland and find out what the scoop is.”
Peloquin took the next plane to Zurich. There, he began to reap the rewards of his shrewd hiring spree. He turned to Vadja Kalombatovic, a veteran of the FBI whose father had defected to the United States from Yugoslavia. Kalombatovic spoke perhaps a dozen languages, and—more important—he’d developed contacts in nearly every police force in Europe during his time as the FBI’s legal attaché in France, Spain, and Italy.*
Now an executive at Intertel, Kalombatovic called a contact in Swiss law enforcement, and the Swiss dispatched a police sergeant to meet Peloquin at his hotel in Zurich. “I told him my problem,” Peloquin recalls. “‘We have to get into that bank to find out what is really going on.’” Who had been cashing the checks made out to “H. Hughes”? Once again, Intertel would profit from government sleuthing. The Swiss police sergeant told Peloquin to stay put.
He returned four hours later, proclaiming in slightly mangled English, “I have solved your Hughes.”
As Intertel suspected, the person who’d cashed the checks wasn’t Howard Hughes at all; it was a woman going by the name of “Helga Hughes.” The police sergeant took Peloquin to the bank and introduced him to the private banker who had dealt with the supposed Helga Hughes. On a hunch, Peloquin showed the banker a picture of Clifford Irving’s wife, Edith Sommer Irving, whose looks and long blond hair were reminiscent of the young Jane Fonda. The banker replied, “Yes, she has dyed her hair black, but that’s the woman.”
It was the smoking gun that Howard Hughes had been searching for. Clifford Irving and his wife had been in on the scam together, concocting the memoir on their own and duping McGraw-Hill into buying it. They had collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in the hoax.
By the end of January, Clifford Irving’s story was falling apart, and he’d soon confess the fraud. Both Irvings wound up going to jail.
Hughes was delighted. “That made me, as far as Hughes was concerned,” says Peloquin.
IN GRATITUDE, HUGHES—WHO almost never met with anyone—wanted to greet Peloquin in person. On Christmas Day, Peloquin got a call at home from Hughes’s office. Hughes had decided to fly from Canada to London. He was in the air already, but he hadn’t bothered to bring his passport or any papers at all. He’d need help in a few hours when he landed in London. What could Peloquin do to smooth his entry into England?
Again, Peloquin tapped Intertel’s connections. On his board of directors sat Sir Ranulph Bacon, a former head of Scotland Yard.* Peloquin, in a panic, reached him by phone.
“Ranulph, we’ve got to get Howard into London,” he said.
About a half an hour later, Bacon called back: “He’ll be fine.” Hughes was warmly received in the United Kingdom.
That minor triumph set up Peloquin’s only face-to-face meeting with Hughes. Peloquin got a call from Hughes’s office ordering him to report to London immediately. He went to Washington’s National Airport, where he was met by a Hughes airplane and crew. Peloquin would be the only passenger. The aircrew set up a bed so he could get some rest during the overnight flight. Before he knew it, he was landing at Heathrow Airport. Hughes was ensconced in an expensive hotel near Buckingham Palace, and hovering nearby was the ever-present Bill Gay. “Howard would