up.
Three little girls about eight years old were skipping rope on the porch. I watched them for awhile, waiting for a break in the rain so I could dash to the Buick, tilt my hat back and feel like a detective.
The girl who was jumping had three teeth missing on top, and her mouth was wide open. The two rope- turners chanted:
Fudge, fudge, tell the judge
Mother has a newborn baby;
It isn’t a girl and it isn’t a boy;
It’s just a fair young lady.
Wrap it up in tissue paper
And send it up the elevator;
First floor, miss;
Second floor, miss;
Third floor, miss;
Fourth floor,
Kick it out the elevator door.
Since that was about all I could take from the youth of America on two bowls of All-Bran, I dashed for the car and made it without too much rain damage to my suit.
Seven thousand Romaine was a big office building, and they were expecting me. A young man who looked like an ex-seminary student with his blond hair parted almost down the middle identified himself as Dean and escorted me up the elevator, commenting on the weather, the misfortunes of war, and our mutual hope for prosperity. I said he was right and followed him past a maze of rooms. Everyone seemed to have been set down in isolated cubbyholes.
Dean read my mind and kept walking.
“Mr. Hughes prefers to keep the employees separated so they won’t gossip and they won’t know what each is doing. He believes in keeping company secrets.”
We went into a large office with a thick, blue carpet and pictures of birds on the wall. There was a bar, table, radio, desk and a hell of a good view. But it looked unused.
The young guy read my mind again, which was probably what he got paid for.
“This office is for Mr. Hughes, but he never comes here.”
“Today is special.”
He nodded his head negatively.
“No, today is not special. You are to wait here for a call from Mr. Hughes.”
“Life’s been threatened and he’s being careful,” I guessed, taking a walk to the window.
“No,” said the man, his mouth playing with the idea of being amused. “This is Mr. Hughes’ normal procedure.”
“I see,” I said knowingly.
Dean checked the unused desk to be sure it was neat. “I don’t know why he does two-thirds of what he does. And I don’t know why he wants to see you.”
“Terrific,” I said, turning to smile at him, knowing that my smile made me look like an enraptured gargoyle.
We stared at each other for half an hour and looked at the phone. At noon, a tray of food came in. According to Dean, Hughes himself had ordered my lunch, which turned out to be a salad, a bacon and avocado sandwich on white bread and a big glass of milk. Dean had the same. We ate in silence at a small table, and I felt my mind toying with catatonia.
“Can I get you anything more?” he said when he finished and wiped his mouth with a napkin. “More food? Something to drink or read?”
“How about another avocado sandwich to go?” I tried. He didn’t look angry or amused. We waited some more and I looked at my watch. It told me it was 12:45, which might be true or might be hours off.
I turned on the radio without permission, tuned in KFI and listened to
“There’s a private airport in Burbank on …” Dean started.
“I know where it is,” I cut in.
“Good. You’re to go there immediately.”
“What if I don’t go there immediately? What if I don’t like being treated like a vacuum-cleaner salesman?”
“Sorry?” said Dean as if he hadn’t heard me.
“What if I don’t feel like going to Burbank? What if I decide instead to invest 30 cents and see
“It would probably cost me my job,” he said.
“It doesn’t seem like much of a goddamn job to me, Dean,” I said, making for the door.
“Mr. Dean, Walter Dean,” he corrected. “It pays well,” he said with a sign of life, “and you get to meet all kinds of strange people.”
“Like Howard Hughes?”
“Believe it or not, Mr. Peters, you and I have already had a longer conversation than any I have had with Mr. Hughes. I hope you enjoy
I looked at him and couldn’t tell if he meant it or the whole response was some kind of con to keep me in a good mood. If he was a fake, he was a good one.
“Burbank?” I said.
He nodded and I left, hurrying down the silent, carpeted corridors and out of the damn building as fast as I could. My footsteps didn’t even echo to keep me company. The building had no echo. And there were no people walking down the halls chatting and no people at the water coolers. There were no water coolers.
I was already in love with Howard Hughes as I drove to Burbank in the rain listening to
The rain had turned to steady sheets of thin, sticky glue by the time I hit the airport. I parked in a small lot and ran for the nearest building. Two guys stopped me before I hit the safety of the tin overhang. Both were well dressed, unsmiling and dry. They were also big. At least one of them should have been ugly, but they weren’t. They looked like everyone’s image of the FBI.
“I’m supposed to meet Hughes here,” I said, holding my hand over my head to keep a small patch of my scalp dry.
They parted to let me by.
“Thanks,” I said, dripping between them and through a white, wooden door. They followed me in, looking confident. I didn’t like it, and I didn’t like meeting a potential client wearing a seersucker sponge.
“You should have asked me for my name,” I said, looking around the small, empty office.
One of the grey pair of movie doubles stepped forward and I turned, expecting trouble and maybe wanting it. The wait in Hughes’ office and the game in the rain had made me tough and stupid. The grey double handed me a card. On the card was my photograph. I nodded, handed it back, and sat down at a bench across from an old desk covered with bills and paper. The rain pinged in boredom on the tin roof as one of the two went back outside and the other stayed to keep his eyes on me.
“What now?” I asked. “Do I get blindfolded and transported to Northern Canada?”
