Citizen Hughes - Michael Drosnin [40]
But, just as Hughes was about to emerge, just as the first vague outlines of his image began to materialize at the door of the train, Maheu suddenly spotted two points of light in the distance, the headlights of a car approaching the remote railroad junction. He was so intent on shielding Hughes from strangers, he had been drawn so far into Hughes’s secret world, that he missed the one moment he could see Hughes himself.
Again, at the Desert Inn, the vigilant bodyguard turned away at a critical instant, and by the time he turned back Hughes had vanished forever into his penthouse.
All Las Vegas, all the world, thought that Maheu was dealing with Hughes personally, saw him go up the elevator to the secret ninth floor, assumed that he was seeing its sole occupant, but in fact they never had and never would meet face-to-face. Maheu never got closer to Hughes than the adjoining room and had no more idea of what he looked like or how he lived than the rest of the world outside. Hughes, for his part, had never seen Maheu at all.
Yet, within months, the two men would exchange solemn vows and enter into a bizarre marriage.
It was Moe Dalitz who finally brought them together. The hatchet-faced proprietor of the Desert Inn, a senior member of organized crime, was running a gambling emporium, not a retreat. He wanted to rent the penthouse to high rollers, and he wanted Hughes out by Christmas. When the recluse failed to budge, Dalitz threatened to march upstairs and drag him out into the street if he was not gone by New Year’s Eve.
Once more Maheu came to the rescue. He persuaded one of his former clients, Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa, to call Dalitz, a key recipient of union pension-fund loans, and prevail upon the mobster to grant Hughes a reprieve. That bold move only bought a few weeks, however. Dalitz was adamant. Hughes had to go.
Faced with eviction, the billionaire decided to become his own landlord: he would buy the hotel.
Again, Maheu’s connections proved handy. He arranged the big deal through his erstwhile partner in the Castro plot, the Mafia’s ambassador to Las Vegas, John Roselli. Dalitz and his three principal partners from the Cleveland Mob were ready, indeed eager to sell. All of them were in hot water with the Feds. Everything seemed set, but neither Maheu nor the mobsters was prepared for Hughes’s favorite pastime, negotiating endlessly at odd hours, haggling like a hostile pawnbroker over every nickel and dime. The deal changed daily, the bargaining dragged on for months.
Maheu went up and down the Desert Inn elevator like a yo-yo, meeting with the Dalitz group downstairs, winning another concession, only to be presented with new demands from the penthouse. Five times the mobsters cut their price before Hughes finally gave his approval and Maheu shook hands on the deal.
Then Hughes suddenly spotted an item that displeased him: a fifteen-thousand-dollar quibble on a thirteen-and-a-quarter-million-dollar deal.
Maheu went back up to the penthouse, sat down in the adjoining room, and furiously scrawled a letter of resignation.
“Howard,” he wrote, “you have finally succeeded in insulting my intelligence. You have also compromised so many of my friends and contacts that I find it impossible to continue working for you.
“I am leaving for Los Angeles in the morning.
“As I have told you repeatedly, you have nothing to fear from me except that I intend to charge you my going rate through March 14, 1967.
“I wish you a lot of luck, including the very remote possibility that you may be lucky enough to select a successor who will have equal loyalty.
“In sincere friendship, Bob.”
Within minutes Hughes sent word from his lair. He would go ahead with the deal as agreed, without the fifteen-thousand-dollar discount. And he begged Maheu to stay in Las Vegas at least long enough to receive a phone call the next morning.
Precisely at eight A.M. the phone rang in Maheu’s hotel room. For the next two hours Hughes proceeded to cajole him, to beg him never to threaten to leave again, to become his right-hand