told us that she and Father had divorced and my brothers and I were going to live with her in the desert far from Hollywood, near Rowland Brown and his family. While we were still recovering from the dual shock of our sudden release and the news that our father and mother had divorced, we were told to put our belongings into a large truck that Rowland had parked outside the school. Mother was crying, even as she tried to tell us how wonderful life was going to be without Father, and that made the rest of us cry as well. We knew it was a lie, but there was nothing we could do about it except climb inside the back of Rowland's truck and ride out of the city and into the isolation of the California desert and a place we had never seen called Rancho Mirage.
It was there, Mother kept promising us through her tears, that we would have a whole new life.
1This seemingly innocuous notation in the court records became a blinking red light for me. Why were investigators from the district attorney's office requesting that the judge release court evidence from an LAPD case to them? Procedurally this was highly unorthodox. Normally only the primary investigators — in this case LAPD Juvenile detectives — would be permitted physical custody of the evidence. It would be many months more before I would learn the answer.
Gypsies
IF THE LIVES WE LED in the fairy-tale beauty of the Franklin House, with Father holding court every night, were rich and magical, our lives with Mother, until I left the family to join the Navy, were marked by starkly desperate periods of privation and transiency. At first we settled in the harsh California desert, in a small dusty town forty minutes from Palm Springs inhabited by sidewinder snakes and scorpions.
We liked the desert because it was different. The night sky was a spread of a million bright stars against a chorus of howling coyotes somewhere in the distance beyond the scrub and chaparral. During the day the hot winds would blow, sending tumbleweeds like an advancing phalanx before them. But amidst all the fragments of memory of those first few months in Rancho Mirage that I can bring to mind — Mom in the real estate office, Mom and our neighbors, Mom in a stupor on the couch as the duties of carrying the empties out to the garbage fell to us — what stands out the most is the brief, few-hour visit from Dad. He came from Hawaii and brought us as a gift a dog named Aloha.
We loved her, but she quickly ran away and was lost to the desert, where she might have been eaten by a puma. And Dad too had left, returning to his new family and his new life.
We didn't stay in the desert very long, moving back to Los Angeles in less than a year. We had also discovered Mother's secret drinking problem, only it wasn't a secret anymore. Her binges would last sometimes for days, and after the second or third day she could not work, cook, clean, iron our clothes for school, help us with homework, or even stand up and walk. Although we were only nine, ten, and eleven, the three of us had to figure out how to run a household around our semi-comatose mother. We couldn't even bring anyone home, because we couldn't let anyone see her lying on the couch, unable to get up, unable to do anything. We made a pact to protect her and just make do, all the while hoping that we would be rescued, that this bad dream would end, and we'd be back inside the castle. But it was not to be.
By 1951 we had become gypsies, always on the move, because every time our mother went on binges she would lose her job, fall behind in the rent, and wind up with an eviction notice pasted on the door. Fortunately, when she did work it was for real estate offices, where she would jump on the rental listings before they became public. That gave her an inside advantage when cheap apartments came up. So we bounced around from town to town throughout Los Angeles County, moving on an average of every three months. In the early 1950s Mother was arrested several times for child neglect, when neighbors would discover her passed out after she was well into one of her two-week binges. On several occasions, the three of us were taken away from her by social services and placed in county homes, but somehow she would get us back. At which point we would move to another area, another town, and start over again.
Our nomadic existence lasted for two years before we finally wound up in Pasadena, where Mother managed to stay sober long enough to save some money and rent a large home on Los Robles Avenue on the west side of town. Just as we were allowing ourselves to relax and enjoy our new place, she started drinking again, and before long she lost her job and another 'pay or quit' notice was stapled to our door. Desperate for money, having tapped out all her usual sources from her friends, and already having been advanced a month's salary from her real estate manager, Mother chanced to see an article in the newspaper about John Huston's return to Los Angeles for the Academy Awards.
She may have been drunk most of the time, but if there was an opportunity, Mother knew how to seize it and make her move. She called us into her room, where she dressed us up in wrinkled but clean shirts and pants, then quickly brushed and leashed our boxer dog, Koko. She hurriedly scribbled a note, folded it into an envelope, and pinned it to my shirt. She spoke to us in her accustomed slur, as she dialed for a taxicab: 'Now, boys, I want you to be on your best behavior. You're going to see John. Steven, you will give him this note from me, then after your visit come straight home.'
The cab arrived and the driver looked at Mother. 'I can't take the dog, lady,' he said. She opened the back door of the taxi and motioned for all of us to get inside. 'Yes you can. It's all right, take them to the Beverly Hills Hotel, and wait for them, then bring them back here.' The cabbie's eyes lit up and he smiled, knowing that it was a twenty-five-mile drive each way.
The Beverly Hills Hotel, a stately pink-and-green landmark at the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Beverly Drive, is more like an elegant golf or country club than a hotel. In the middle 1950s, it was still one of the last bastions of the old Hollywood aristocracy. It was into this gentlemen's club lobby that I and my two brothers walked, feeling all eyes in the hotel staring at us, making our way to the front desk and holding Koko tightly on her leash. The dog, whose grandsire had been national champion and judged 'Best of Show,' knew how to perform on a leash. 'Koko, sit,' I ordered her once we reached the desk. And the dog obeyed. The desk clerk smiled. 'Can I help you gentlemen?' I tried to hide my nervousness. 'We would like to see John,' I said. He suddenly became more guarded and looked down at me with peering eyes. He asked, 'Who?'
My older brother Michael responded, 'Mr. Huston. We are here to see John Huston.' The clerk became more guarded now. 'Who might I say is calling?' Michael answered again: 'Tell him that it's the Hodels, Michael, Steven, and Kelvin. And Koko.' Upon hearing her name the dog began wagging her tail furiously. The desk clerk placed a quick call on the house phone, looked surprised, nodded, and we were escorted to the elevator, which took us up to the penthouse suite. The elevator door opened and in we went.
We hadn't seen John Huston in over two years. We knew him from the Franklin House, where he and his father, Walter, had been regular social guests at many of the parties. Standing there now in the Beverly Hills Hotel, thin and tall, he looked to me to be a seven-foot tower as his booming voice greeted us. 'Hello, boys. And who might this be?' Kelvin answered first: 'She's our dog, Koko, she's a boxer.' John instantly caught the nuance in her name and laughed loudly. 'Koko — is that for a double knockout? K.O.-KO.?' Michael, who had named her, was impressed. 'Yes, that's right. You're the only person that has ever figured it out. We always have to tell other people.' John laughed even harder.
Excited by hearing her name called out so many times, Koko ran to the center of the suite, squatted on the plush white carpet as if it were high brush on a vacant lot, and took a dump. The three of us stood watching in
