American tabloid

Part I
S H A K E D O W N S
November-December 1958
1
P e t e B o n d u r a n t
(Beverly Hills, 11/22/58)

He always shot up by TV light.

Some spics waved guns. The head spic plucked bugs from his beard and fomented. Black amp; white footage; CBS geeks in jungle fatigues. A newsman said, Cuba, bad juju-Fidel Castro’s rebels vs. Fulgencio Batista’s standing army.

Howard Hughes found a vein and mainlined codeine. Pete watched on the sly-Hughes left his bedroom door ajar.

The dope hit home. Big Howard went slack-faced.

Room service carts clattered outside. Hughes wiped off his spike and ffipped channels. The “Howdy Doody” show replaced the news-standard Beverly Hills Hotel business.

Pete walked out to the patio-pool view, a good bird-dog spot. Crappy weather today: no starlet types in bikinis.

He checked his watch, antsy.

He had a divorce gig at noon-the husband drank lunch alone and dug young cooze. Get quality flashbulbs: blurry photos looked like spiders fucking. On Hughes’ timecard: find out who’s hawking subpoenas for the TWA antitrust divestment case and bribe them into reporting that Big Howard blasted off for Mars.

Crafty Howard put it this way: “I’m not going to fight this divestment, Pete. I’m simply going to stay incommunicado indefinitely and force the price up until I have to sell. I’m tired of TWA anyway, and I’m not going to sell until I can realize at least five hundred million dollars.”

He’d said it pouty: Lord Fauntleroy, aging junkie.

Ava Gardner cruised by the pool. Pete waved; Ava flipped him the bird. They went back: he got her an abortion in exchange for a weekend with Hughes. Renaissance Man Pete: pimp, dope procurer, licensed PI goon.

Hughes and him went waaay back.

June ‘52. L.A. County Deputy Sheriff Pete Bondurant-night watch commander at the San Dimas Substation. That one shitty night: a nigger rape-o at large, the drunk tank packed with howling juiceheads.

This wino gave him grief. “I know you, tough guy. You kill innocent women and your own-”

He beat the man to death barefisted.

The Sheriff’s hushed it up. An eyeball witness squealed to the Feds. The L.A. agent-in-charge tagged Joe Wino “Joe Civil Rights Victim.”

Two agents leaned on him: Kemper Boyd and Ward J. Littell. Howard Hughes saw his picture in the paper and sensed strongarm potential. Hughes got the beef quashed and offered him a job: fixer, pimp, dope conduit.

Howard married Jean Peters and installed her in a mansion by herself. Add “watchdog” to his duties; add the world’s greatest rent-free doghouse: the mansion next door.

Howard Hughes on marriage: “I find it a delightful institution, Pete, but I also find cohabitation stressful. Explain that to Jean periodically, won’t you? And if she gets lonely, tell her that she’s in my thoughts, even though I’m very busy.”

Pete lit a cigarette. Clouds passed over-pool loungers shivered. The intercom crackled-Hughes was beckoning.

He walked into the bedroom. “Captain Kangaroo” was on TV, the volume down low.

Dim black amp; white lighting-and Big Howard in deep-focus shadows.

“Sir?”

“It’s ‘Howard’ when we’re alone. You know that.”

“I’m feeling subservient today.”

“You mean you’re feeling your oats with your paramour, Miss Gail Hendee. Tell me, is she enjoying the surveillance house?’

“She likes it. She’s as hinky of shack jobs as you are, and she says twenty-four rooms for two people smooths things out.”

“I like independent women.”

“No you don’t.”

Hughes plumped up his pillows. “You’re correct. But I do like the idea of independent women, which I have always tried to exploit in my movies. And I’m sure Miss Hendee is both a wonderful extortion partner and mistress. Now, Pete, about the TWA divestment…”

Pete pulled a chair up. “The process servers won’t get to you. I’ve got every employee at this hotel bribed, and I’ve got an actor set up in a bungalow two rows over. He looks like you and dresses like you, and I’ve got call girls going in at all hours, to perpetuate the myth that you still fuck women. I check every man and woman who applies for work here, to make sure the Justice Department doesn’t slip a ringer in. All the shift bosses here play the stock market, and for every month you go unfuckingsubpoenaed I give them twenty shares of Hughes Tool Company stock apiece. As long as you stay in this bungalow, you won’t be served and you won’t have to appear in court.”

Hughes plucked at his robe-little palsied fidgets. “You’re a very cruel man.”

“No, I’m your very cruel man, which is why you let me talk back to you.”

“You’re ‘my man,’ but you still retain your somewhat tawdry private investigator sideline.”

“That’s because you crowd me. That’s because I’m not so good at cohabitation either.”

“Despite what I pay you?’

“No, because of it.”

“For instance?’

“For instance, I’ve got a mansion in Holmby Hills, but you’ve got the deed. I’ve got a ‘58 Pontiac coupe, but you’ve got the pink slip. I’ve got a-”

“This is getting us nowhere.”

“Howard, you want something. Tell me what it is and I’ll do it.”

Hughes tapped his remote-control gizmo. “Captain Kangaroo” blipped off. “I’ve purchased Hush-Hush magazine. My reasons for acquiring a scurrilous scandal rag are twofold. One, I’ve been corresponding with J. Edgar Hoover, and I want to solidify my friendship with him. We both love the type of Hollywood gossip that Hush-Hush purveys, so owning the magazine would be both pleasurable and a smart political move. Second, there’s politics itself. To be blunt, I want to be able to smear politicians that I dislike, especially profligate playboys like Senator John Kennedy, who might be running for President against my good friend Dick Nixon in 1960. As you undoubtedly know, Kennedy’s father and I were business rivals back in the ‘20s, and frankly, I hate the entire family.”

Pete said, “And?’

“And I know that you’ve worked for Hush-Hush as a ‘story verifier,’ so I know you understand that aspect of the business. It’s a quasi-extortion aspect, so I know it’s something you’ll be good at.”

Pete popped his knuckles. “‘Story verification’ means ‘Don’t sue the magazine or I’ll hurt you.’ If you want me to help out that way, fine.”

“Good. That’s a start.”

“Wrap it up, Howard. I know the people there, so tell me who’s going and who’s staying.”

Hughes flinched-just a tad. “The receptionist was a Negro woman with dandruff, so I fired her. The stringer and so-called ‘dirt digger’ quit, and I want you to find me a new one. I’m keeping Sol Maltzman on. He’s been writing all the articles, under a pseudonym, for years, so I’m prone to retaining him, even though he’s a blacklisted Commie known to belong to no less than twenty-nine left-wing organizations, and-”

“And that’s all the staff you need. Sol does a good job, and if worse comes to worse, Gail can fill in for him-she’s written for Hush-Hush on and off for a couple of years. You’ve got your lawyer Dick Steisel for the legal stuff, and I can get you Fred Turentine for bug work. I’ll find you a good dirt digger. I’ll keep my nose down and ask around, but it might take a while.”

“I trust you. You’ll do your usual superb job.”

Pete worked his knuckles. The joints ached-a sure sign that rain was coming. Hughes said, “Is that necessary?”

“These hands of mine brought us together, Boss. I’m just letting you know they’re still here.”

o o o

The watchdog house living room was 84’ by 80’.

The foyer walls were gold-flecked marble.

Nine bedrooms. Walk-in freezers thirty feet deep. Hughes had the carpets cleaned monthly-a jigaboo walked across them once.

Surveillance cameras were mounted on the roof and the upstairs landings-aimed at Mrs. Hughes’ bedroom next door.

Pete found Gail in the kitchen. She had these great curves and long brown hair-her looks still got to him.

She said, “You usually hear people walk into houses, but our front door’s a half-mile away.”

“We’ve been here a year, and you’re still cracking jokes.”

“I live in the Taj Mahal. That takes some getting used to.”

Pete straddled a chair. “You’re nervous.”

Gail slid her chair away from him. “Well… as extortionists go, I’m the nervous type. What’s the man’s name today?”

“Walter P. Kinnard. He’s forty-seven years old, and he’s been cheating on his wife since their honeymoon. He’s got kids he dotes on, and the wife says he’ll fold if I squeeze him with pictures and threaten to show them to the kids. He’s a juicer, and he always gets a load on at lunchtime.”

Gail crossed herself-half shtick, half for real. “Where?”

“You meet him at Dale’s Secret Harbor. He’s got a fuck pad a few blocks away where he bangs his secretary, but you insist on the Ambassador. You’re in town for a convention, and you’ve got a snazzy room with a wet bar.”

Gail shivered. Early a.m. chills-a sure sign that she had the yips.

Pete slipped her a key. “I rented the room next door to yours, so you can lock up and make it look good. I picked the lock on the connecting door, so I don’t think this one will be noisy.”

Gail lit a cigarette. Steady hands-good. “Distract me. Tell me what Howard the Recluse wanted.”

“He bought Hush-Hush. He wants me to find him a stringer, so he can pull his pud over Hollywood gossip and share it with his pal J. Edgar Hoover. He wants to smear his political enemies, like your old boyfriend Jack Kennedy.”

Gail smiled toasty warm. “A few weekends didn’t make him my boyfriend.”

“That fucking smile made him something.”

“He flew me down to Acapulco once. That’s a Howard the Recluse kind of gesture, so it makes you jealous.”

“He flew you down on his honeymoon.”

“So? He got married for political reasons, and politics makes for strange bedlellows. And my God, you are suuuch a voyeur.”

Pete unholstered his piece and checked the clip-so fast that he didn’t know why. Gail said, “Don’t you think our lives are strange?”

o o o

They took separate cars downtown. Gail sat at the bar; Pete grabbed a booth close by and nursed a highball.

The restaurant was crowded-Dale’s did a solid lunch biz. Pete got choice seating-he broke up a fag squeeze on the owner once.

Lots of women circulating: mid-Wilshire office stuff mostly. Gail stuck out: beaucoup more je ne sais quoi. Pete wolfed cocktail nuts-he forgot to eat breakfast.

Kinnard was late. Pete scanned the room, X-ray-eye-style.

There’s Jack Whalen by the pay phones-L.A.’s #1 bookie collector. There’s some LAPD brass two booths down. They’re fucking whispering: “Bondurant”… “Right, that Cressmeyer woman.”

There’s Ruth Mildred Cressmeyer’s ghost at the bar: this sad old girl with the shakes.

Pete slid down Memory Lane.

Late ‘49. He had some good sidelines going: card-game guard and abortion procurer. The scrape doctor was his kid brother, Frank.

Pete joined the U.S. Marines to bag a green card. Frank stayed with the family in Quebec and went to medical schooL

Pete got hip early. Frank got hip late.

Don’t speak French, speak English. Lose your accent and go to America.

Frank hit LA. with a hard-on for money. He passed his medical boards and hung out his shingle: abortions and morphine for sale.

Frank loved showgirls and cards. Frank loved hoodlums. Frank loved Mickey Cohen’s Thursday-night poker game.

Frank made friends with a stickup guy named Huey Cressmeyer. Huey’s mom ran a Niggertown scrape clinic. Huey got his girlfriend pregnant and asked Mom and Frank for help. Huey got stupid and heisted the Thursday-night game-Pete was off guard duty with the flu.

Mickey gave Pete the contract.

Pete got a tip: Huey was holed up at a pad in El Segundo. The house belonged to a Jack Dragna trigger.

Mickey hated Jack Dragna. Mickey doubled the price and told him to kill everyone in the house.

December 14, 1949-overcast and chilly.

Pete torched the hideout with a Molotov cocktail. Four shapes ran out the back door swatting at flames. Pete shot them and left them to bum.

The papers ID’d them:

Hubert John Cressmeyer, 24.

Ruth Mildred Cressmeyer, 56.

Linda Jane Camrose, 20, four months pregnant.

Franзois Bondurant, 27, a physician and French-Canadian йmigrй.

The snuffs stayed officially unsolved. The story filtered out to insiders.

Somebody called his father in Quebec and ratted him. The old man called him and begged him to deny it.

He must have faltered or oozed guilt. The old man and old lady sucked down monoxide fumes the same day.

That old babe at the bar was fucking Ruth Mildred’s twin.

Time dragged. He sent the old girl an on-the-house refill. Walter P. Kinnard walked in and sat down next to Gail.

The poetry commenced.

Gail signaled the bartender. Attentive Walter caught the gesture and whistled. Joe Barman zoomed over with his martini shaker- regular boozer Walt packed some weight here.

Helpless Gail searched her purse for matches. Helpful Walt flicked his lighter and smiled. Sexy Walt was dripping scalp flakes all over the back of his jacket.

Gail smiled. Sexy Walt smiled. Well-dressed Walt wore white socks with a three-piece chalk-stripe suit

The lovebirds settled in for martinis and small talk. Pete eyeballed the pre-bed warmup. Gail guzzled her drink for courage-her jaggedy nerves showed through plain.

She touched Walt’s arm. Her guilty heart showed plain-except for the money, she hates it.

Pete walked over to the Ambassador and went up to his room. The setup was perfect: his room, Gail’s room, one connecting door for a slick covert entrance.

He loaded his camera and attached a flashbulb strip. He greased the connecting doorjamb. He framed angles for some face shots.

Ten minutes crawled by. Pete listened for next-door sounds. There, Gail’s signal-”Damn, where’s my key?” a beat too loud.

Pete pressed up to the wall. He heard Lonely Walt pitch some boo-hoo: my wife and kids don’t know a man has certain needs. Gail said, Why’d you have seven kids then? Walt said, It keeps my wife at home, where a woman belongs.

Their voices faded out bed-bound. Shoes went thunk. Gail kicked a high-heeled pump at the wall-her three-minutes-to-blastoff signal.

Pete laughed-thirty-dollar-a-night rooms with goddamn wafer-thin walls.

Zippers snagged. Bedsprings creaked. Seconds tick-tick-ticked. Walter P. Kinnard started groaning-Pete clocked him saddled in at 2:44.

He waited for 3:00 even. He eeeeased the door open-that doorjamb grease lubed out every little scriiich.

There: Gail and Walter P. Kinnard fucking.

In the missionary style, with their heads close together- courtroom adultery evidence. Walt was loving it. Gail was feigning ecstasy and picking at a hangnail.

Pete got closeup close and let fly.

One, two, three-flashbulb blips Tommy-gun fast. The whole goddamn room went glare bright

Kinnard shrieked and pulled out dishrag limp. Gail tumbled off the bed and ran for the bathroom.

Sexy buck-naked Walt 5’9”, 210, pudgy.

Pete dropped his camera and picked him up by the neck. Pete laid his pitch out nice and slow.

“Your wife wants a divorce. She wants eight hundred a month, the house, the ‘56 Buick and orthodontic treatments for your son Timmy. You give her everything she wants, or I’ll find you and kill you.”

Kinnard popped spit bubbles. Pete admired his color: half shock-blue, half cardiac-red.

Steam whooshed out the bathroom door-Gail’s standard postfuck shower always went down quick.

Pete dropped Walt on the floor. His arm fluttered from the lift two hundred pounds plus, not bad.

Kinnard grabbed his clothes and stumbled out the door. Pete saw him tripping down the hallway, trying to get his trousers on right

Gail walked out of a steam cloud. Her “I can’t take much more of this” was no big surprise.

o o o

Walter P. Kinnard settled non-litigiously. Pete’s shutout string jumped to Wives 23, Husbands 0. Mrs. Kinnard paid off: five grand up front, with 25% of her alimony promised in perpetuity.

Next: three days on Howard Hughes’ time clock.

The TWA suit was spooking Big Howard. Pete stepped up his diversions.

He paid hookers to spiel to the papers: Hughes was holed up in numerous fuck pads. He bombarded process servers with phone tips: Hughes was in Bangkok, Maracaibo, Seoul. He set up a second Hughes double at the Biltmore: an old stag-movie vet, beaucoup hung. Pops was priapic for real-he sent Barbara Payton over to service him. Booze-addled Babs thought the old geek really was Hughes. She dished far and wide: Little Howard grew six inches.

J. Edgar Hoover could stall the suit easy. Hughes refused to ask him for help.

“Not yet, Pete. I need to cement my friendship with Mr. Hoover first I see my ownership of Hush-Hush as the key, but I need you to find me a new scandal man first. You know how much Mr. Hoover loves to accrue titillating information…”

Pete put the word out on the grapevine:

New Hush-Hush dirt digger needed. Interested bottomfeeders-call Pete B.

Pete stuck by the watchdog house phone. Geeks called. Pete said, Give me a hot dirt tidbit to prove your credibility.

The geeks complied. Dig the sampling:

Pat Nixon just hatched Nat “King” Cole’s baby. Lawrence Welk ran male prosties. A hot duo: Patti Page and Francis the Talking Mule.

Eisenhower had certified spook blood. Rin Tin Tin got Lassie pregnant. Jesus Christ ran a coon whorehouse in Watts.

It got worse. Pete logged in nineteen applicants-all fucking strange-o’s.

The phone rang-Strange-O #20 loomed. Pete heard crackle on the line-the call was probably long distance.

“Who’s this?”

“Pete? It’s Jimmy.”