Stuart Kaminsky - The Howard Hughes Affair

I watched the wallpaper curl and felt the stitches tighten. He was back in five minutes with a small bottle of pills.

“Take two every few hours and come back to see me on Monday or earlier if it gets worse. I’ve got to check these stitches.”

“Thanks, Doc,” I said, getting up and heading for the sink, where I gulped a couple of pills and dropped the bottle in my pocket.

“Don’t thank me, Wyatt,” he said sarcastically. “You’re a medical curiosity.”

He left, and I moved slowly to the door. The room was reasonably steady. When I opened the door, my knees almost dropped me. Sergeant Seidman was standing in the waiting room, talking to the fat nurses, who were now one nurse. Two well-dressed young men were with him, asking questions. I caught part of a question.

“When will we be able to talk to him?”

“Maybe never,” she said, which threw a scare in me. I closed the door gently and went through a second door that led to a treatment room, where a nurse and a doctor were working frantically on someone lying on a table. Someone was the Wheezer.

If my brain had been operating at even half mast, I would have realized that Wheezer would have been brought to County.

“Get the hell out of here,” a doctor who couldn’t have been more than twelve shouted at me.

I eased past him and out the door about ten feet away from Seidman and the guys who I decided must be the FBI. I walked slowly with my back to the bustle of the main part of the hospital. In about five minutes, I had worked my way back to the Emergency Room parking lot and into my car. My knees were shaking. I gobbled four more pills for good luck and worked them down dry.

I drove a few blocks away, parked and took off my jacket and shirt, changing them for the clean but crumpled shirt and zippered Gabardine jacket in my suitcase.

On Main I found a hotel that had seen better days and parked my car in an enclosed garage, where it wouldn’t be spotted easily if my brother started looking.

Complete with suitcase I made it through a jungle of potted palms in the lobby, registered as Melvin Ott, bought a package of Wilbur Buds and a Pepsi and went to my room. I didn’t know what time it was. The going over or the pills or both got to me, and I sang myself to sleep with a medley of Russ Columbo songs. I got through “The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea” and was well into “Just One More Chance” on the line which went “I’d want no others if you’d grant me just one more chance,” when Koko applauded and pulled me into the inkwell.

I woke up and found myself looking down at a newly dead man in the bed. His face was white, his head swollen and his nose smashed. It was me. The sensation passed, and I was back in my body with a mouth full of sandy lettuce. There was no phone, and my watch told me it was six, which meant nothing. I found my tooth powder in Hy O’Brien’s suitcase. I brushed with my fingers and rinsed, cupping my hand. I was wary of the dirty glass on the sink. I gulped a few more of Dr. Parry’s magic pills and shaved with a once-used blade. It wasn’t too bad.

The shower didn’t work when I turned it on. It just screamed, but that was enough to scare the roach in the tub, who scurried for safety down the drain. I turned on the tub tap and gave the bug a free ride to the ocean and me a bath. The soap said “Elysian Hotel” on it, which was fine except that I was staying at the Hotel Miraflores. I toweled off with a chic towel with a see-through hole, as they might say in a Movietone Newsreel fashion feature.

I hoped I had not slept through to Saturday. It was light out, but my beard with definite grey stubble had told me more than a few hours had pranced by.

When I went down to the lobby, the guy at the desk, who looked something like Nat Pendleton, confirmed that I had slept through Friday and owed him another day’s toll. I paid him and found out it was almost noon on Saturday. Making my way through the maze of potted palms in the Miraflores lobby with my suitcase in hand, I found the street, cursed the bright sun and headed for a hot dog stand half way up the block.

“How’s the news?” I asked the rail-thin dark waitress behind the counter.

“Roosevelt says he doesn’t like the Japs’ answer,” she coughed, putting down her cigarette. “What’ll it be?”

“A transfusion,” I said. “If you don’t have one, I’ll settle for two dogs with grilled onions and the works and a large Pepsi.”

She disappeared. The other patrons and I ignored each other, and I brought my expense book for Hughes up to date. I considered listing the payoff to Larry the parking lot attendant as a parking expense, but decided to call it “essential supplementary secrecy,” which might appeal to Hughes.

The dogs weren’t bad. They weren’t good either. I burped politely, got my car out of hock and headed for Mirador.

If you discount the times the back of my stitched head hit the top of the seat, making me groan, the trip was uneventful. My chewed cheek was healing, and I had some hope that the case would soon be ended. I didn’t listen to the radio, and I didn’t admire the scenery. Instead, I just drove, trying to think and having no luck.

The main street of Mirador was teeming with life. The cat who had sat on the door was walking down the sidewalk. A small boy and girl were drawing in chalk on the street. An old man was sitting on a wooden chair in front of the bait store, and Sheriff Nelson and his deputy Alex were leaning against the yellow police car with their arms folded, chewing on toothpicks and watching me.

I pulled up next to them.

“You’re expected up at the Hughes house,” Nelson said, anxious to have me gone.

“Troopers find the murderer?” I asked innocently.

Nelson spat toothpick.

“They found nothing,” he said, avoiding my eyes. “And they’re acting like it never happened. Couple of boys in spanking new suits said they were FBI, stuck their noses in and everything got quiet. I’ll bet Hughes pulled his strings and connections.”

“I’ll bet,” I said.

“What happened to your head?” Nelson said, looking at me. “You poke it in one place too many?”

“Something like that,” I said. “Well, I’d like to sit and talk to you all day and listen to the crickets, but I’ve got to get going. Maybe we’ll go fishing together some time.”

Nelson let out a sick laugh.

“Just get up to your little party and stay as far from me as you can, Mister Private Detective.”

I pulled into the wide pebbly street and drove up the road past the Gurstwald’s to Hughes’ place.

“Well,” said Toshiro, answering the door, “it looks like I’m the butler for tonight. I guess Mr. Hughes got the impression that you wanted no new faces except yours.”

“Right,” I said, following him in. “Is Hughes here?”

“Waiting for you.”

He led me up a flight of stairs to a door. I looked around and there, indeed, as Trudi Gurstwald had said, was the washroom with a good view of Hughes’ temporary office. Toshiro knocked. No answer. He knocked again much louder.

“Come in,” called Hughes. I went in and Toshiro disappeared, closing the door behind me. I stood at the door and brought Hughes up to date. Hughes didn’t look up.

“The FBI has been convinced,” Hughes said finally, looking up from the pile of papers on his desk, “that my name should be kept out of the death of the man Schell.”

“And that comes first,” I said, finding a chair and sitting down without being invited.

“For me it comes first,” he said. He was wearing a dark suit and dark tie. The suit looked about two sizes too big for him. He could have stuffed a pillow inside his jacket and played a bizarre Santa Claus.