W.E.B. Griffin - The Corps 03 - Counterattack

Lakehurst, New Jersey

1425 Hours 14 February 1942

Major Jake Dillon had returned to active duty with the U.S. Marine Corps sixty days previously. The last time he had worn a Marine uniform was in Shanghai, China, with the 4thMarines in 1934. Major Dillon had then been a sergeant.

In 1933, while watching an adapted-from-a-novel adventure motion picture in Shanghai, it had occurred to Sergeant Dillon that it was a bullshit story and that he could easily write a better one. Blissfully unaware of the difficulties facing a first-time novelist, he set out to do so. It was a melodrama; its hero, a Marine sergeant, rescued a lovely Chinese maiden from a fate worse than death in a Shanghai brothel. Dillon had no trouble calling forth from memory the description of that establishment.

Next, Dillon’s hero slaughtered Chinese evildoers left and right; there was a chase sequence on horseback; and the book ended with the sergeant turning the girl back over to her grateful family and then returning to his Marine duties. Dillon wrote the novel at night on the company clerk’s typewriter. It took him two months. He mailed it off, and was not at all surprised two months after that when a contract, offering an advance of five hundred dollars, arrived in Shanghai.

The book was published, and it sold less than two thousand copies. But it was optioned, and then purchased, by a major motion-picture studio in Los Angeles. The studio saw in it a vehicle for a very handsome but none-too-bright actor they had under contract. With all the fight and chase scenes, plus a lot of attention devoted to the Chinese girl having her clothing ripped off, it was believed they could get the handsome actor through the production without him appearing to be as dull-witted as he was.

It was necessary to find a suitable vehicle for the handsome young man because he was a very close friend of a very successful producer. More precisely, he was sharing the producer’s bed in an antebellum-style mansion in Holmby Hills.

Sergeant Dillon was paid five thousand dollars for the motion-picture rights to his novel, an enormous sum in 1934. And he had, he thought, discovered the goose that laid the golden eggs. If he could write one novel in two months, he could write six novels a year. And at $5,500 per, that was as much money as the Major General Commandant of the Marine Corps made.

He did not ship over when his enlistment ran out. Instead, he was returned to the United States aboard the naval transport USS Chaumont, and honorably discharged in San Diego.

Since he was so close to Los Angeles, and his film was in production there, he went to Hollywood.

When he visited the set, the Handsome Young Actor greeted him warmly, expressed great admiration for his literary talent, and invited him for dinner at his little place in Malibu.

That night, in the beachfront cottage, as Dillon was wondering if he could gracefully reject the pansy’s advances (and if he could not, how that might affect his literary career), the Producer appeared.

Words were exchanged between the Producer and the Handsome Young Actor, primarily allegations of infidelity. The exchange quickly accelerated out of control, ending when the Producer slapped the Handsome Young Actor and the Handsome Young Actor shoved the Producer through a plate-glass door opening on a balcony over the beach.

A shard of heavy plate glass fell from the top of the doorframe, severely cutting the Producer’s right arm. Dillon noted with horror the pulsing flow of arterial blood. And then he saw the Handsome Young Actor, his face contorted with rage, advancing on the fallen, bleeding Producer with a fireplace poker in his hand, showing every intention of finishing him off with it.

Without really thinking about it, Dillon took the Handsome Young Actor out of action, by kicking him repeatedly in the testicles. (The story, when it later, inevitably, made the rounds in Hollywood, was that ex-Marine Dillon had floored him with a single, well-placed blow of his fist.) Then he put a tourniquet on the Producer’s arm and announced that they needed an ambulance.

The Producer told him they couldn’t do that. The police would become involved. The story would get out. He would lose his job.

Dillon was even then not unaccustomed to developing credible story lines to explain awkward or even illegal circumstances on short notice, prior to the imminent arrival of the authorities.

"We were fixing the door. It was out of the track, and it slipped," he said.

"But what was I doing here, with him?" the Producer asked somewhat hysterically, obviously more concerned with his public image than with losing his arm, or even his life.

"You brought me out here to introduce me to the star of my movie," Dillon replied, reaching for the telephone. "Where do I tell the cops we are?"

Two days later, at the Producer’s request, Dillon called upon him at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital.

The Producer was no longer hysterical. And he was grateful. His doctor had told him that if Dillon hadn’t applied the tourniquet when he did, he would almost certainly have bled to death before the police arrived.

"I am very grateful to you, Mr. Dillon," the Producer said.

"Call me Jake," Dillon said. "That’s my middle name. Jacob."

"Jake, then. And I want to repay you in some small way ..."

"Forget it."

"Please hear me out."

"Shoot."

"What are your plans, now that you’ve left the Marine Corps? Do you mind my asking?"

"Well, I thought I’d do another couple of quick novels, put a little money in the bank for a rainy day . . ."

"And if you can’t sell your next novel?"

The Producer had had a copy of Malloy and the Maiden, by H. J. Dillon, sent to his hospital room. It was arguably the worst novel he had ever read, and as a major film producer, he had more experience with really bad novels than most people. He couldn’t imagine why a publisher had ever acquired it, except possibly that it had been bought by an editor who knew he was about to be fired and wanted to stick it to his employers.

Dillon had not considered that possibility. But looking at the Producer now, he saw that it was not just possible but probable.

"I don’t know."

"Are you open to suggestion?"

"Shoot."

"You obviously have a way with words, and you have proven your ability to deal with potentially awkward situations. In my mind, that adds up to public relations."

"Excuse me?"

"Public relations," the Producer explained. "Making the studio, and our actors, and our films, look as good to the public as they possibly can."

"Oh."

"The man who runs our studio public relations is a friend of mine. I’m sure that he would be interested in having someone of your demonstrated talents."

Dillon thought it over for a moment.

"How much would something like that pay?"

"About five hundred to start, I’d say. And there would be time, I’m sure, for you to continue with your writing."

"Everything seems so expensive here. After China, I mean. Can you make do around here on five hundred a month?"

"You can, but I’m talking about five hundred a week, Jake."

Jake Dillon then looked at the Producer very carefully.

"No strings?"

The Producer, after a moment, caught Jake’s meaning. "No, Jake, no strings. I would really much rather have you as a friend than a lover."

Jake Dillon found his natural home in motion-picture public relations. He quickly became known as the only man who was ever able to get "the world’s most famous actor" out of the teen-aged Mexican girls on his sailboat, and then off the sailboat and back to Hollywood sober-and to get him there on time to start shooting-and in a relatively cooperative mood. A half-dozen of his more experienced peers had tried to do all of that, and had failed to pull him off even one of the chiquitas.