Citizen Hughes - Michael Drosnin [182]
“Nobody wants to be in the unpleasant position of being an informer,” concluded Hughes, who was now constantly hearing whispered tales of Maheu’s treachery from the very Mormons he feared had been seduced, “but the conscious feeling of tension that my close friends and associates feel when the conversation touches on you or anything concerning you, is so evident that I cannot help but be aware of it.”
Now, more than ever, Hughes had to escape Las Vegas. He had to escape Maheu as well.
All this time, while his relationship with Maheu was falling apart and the tensions within his empire growing, Howard Hughes had been making urgent plans to bust out of his penthouse, getting conflicting advice from the rival courtiers and driving all of them crazy with his constant alerts and endless delays.
He was afraid to go, afraid to stay.
Day after day Hughes tried to make good his getaway, but each step was terrifying. For three years he had not left his blacked-out bedroom, had not once even looked out his window, and by now the entire world outside was a dangerous unknown. He could hardly bear to think about the perils, much less actually walk out into them.
Day after day Hughes found one reason after another to put off the trip, but never let the planning or the stand-by alert flag for a minute.
His greatest fear was of being seen. But the billionaire had a plan. He would announce that he had already left, then sneak out sometime later.
“I want to consider very seriously the immediate issuance of a brief statement announcing that I have forthcoming plans which will be announced in due course,” he wrote, “and that in the meantime I have left on a long overdue trip abroad in connection with certain interests I have overseas.”
Maheu was dubious.
“Howard, I am fearful that such a statement would cause your exit without being seen to be an impossibility. I can just visualize a 24 hour coverage of the Desert Inn by reporters, free-lance photographers and what have you. The logistics could be handled much more advantageously if such an announcement were made shortly after you have in fact departed.”
Despite his fears of Maheu, Hughes still depended on the ex-FBI and CIA agent for security, so even as he plotted to escape his protector he continued to rely on his expertise. Still, he would not easily give up his plan.
“It seems to me the go-but-not-be-detected deal would be more difficult to accomplish,” he reasoned, “because if your principal were seen, just for one second, getting out of an automobile, or such-like, the success of the project would be destroyed.
“On the situation we are discussing, nobody sees anybody except for one small group of highly trusted men.”
It was hard to argue against that. As long as Hughes remained in his lair, no outsider would see him. The plan, however, had one serious flaw. It would work only so long as Hughes stayed up in his penthouse.
“I guess a whole new plan is indicated,” he reluctantly conceded, and once more threw himself into the planning.
Each day he made a definite decision to leave the next day, or certainly the day after, but there were so many important details to work out, so many dangers to consider.
“Only one feature of this trip causes me to hold off until Monday,” he informed his Mormons after weeks of delay.
“I want someone to make the trip from the D.I. to the point where the airplane will be parked here, and someone else to make the movement from an airplane to the door of the apartment at the destination, and both take along some kind of an air temperature measuring device, and both men to report maximum temp. encountered during the entire transition process, and duration of any high temperature encountered.
“Also, freedom from insects at