“I knew what time you were getting in,” he said, shrugging, smiling just a little. “And I know what those flights are like. You’ve grabbed a random bite at this airport cafeteria and that one. And, despite sleeping on the trip, you’re very tired, aren’t you?”
I was. I hadn’t noticed it, really, but I was bone tired.
“I guess I am,” I said.
“Well, you can relax some, while you’re here. You’re to stay at least overnight. I’ve made reservations for you at the Roosevelt.”
“Yes, that was my understanding. Thank you.”
“Thanks for coming out here on such short notice.”
His wife brought the food in and served it; again, no servants, at least none in sight.
“It looks delicious,” I told her, and it did.
“Breakfast is usually a one-man affair at our house,” she said. “I’m sure Bob will appreciate the company.”
They smiled at each other, quite warmly, and she left. This was a civilized house, that was for sure. Of course with dough like this, they could afford to be civilized.
Well, the breakfast tasted as good as it looked, the orange juice everything fresh-squeezed California orange juice is supposed to be including pulpy, and we didn’t talk about the pending case, rather talked about my flight and other general small talk. At one point he asked me what I thought about FDR seeking a third term; and I said, I didn’t know it was official; and he said it wasn’t, but that it was going to happen; and I said, I’d probably vote for the guy again.
“I worked for him in ’33 and ’37,” he said, thoughtfully, seriously, “but it goes against my grain to support any president for a third term. We stop short of royalty in this country, thank God.”
Jubilee painting or not.
“I liked you in that movie where you played the killer,” I said.
He smiled, but it wasn’t the killer’s smile. “It was the role I liked best,” he admitted.
“You got an Academy Award nomination for that, didn’t you?”
“Yes.” He laughed to himself. “Do you know what the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences really is?”
“Uh, not exactly, no.”
“A company union.” Now he smiled the killer’s smile. “A failed company union. You see, Louie B. Mayer wanted to fight any legitimate unionization of actors and directors. The Academy was to be the contract arbitrator between the studio and the guilds. You can imagine just how impartial that arbitration would be. Well, we put a stop to that.”
“That’s good.”
After breakfast he ushered me into the nearby “study,” which was bigger than my entire suite at the Morrison: fireplace, built-in shelves of leather-bound books, hunting prints on pine walls, tan leather furniture (none of it patched with tape, either). He settled at one end of an absurdly long leather couch and helped himself to the pipes and tobacco on a small round table before him. He nodded to an overstuffed leather chair opposite him and I sat down in it, and I mean down, in, it.
“Smoke, if you like,” he said, lighting up the pipe.
“I don’t smoke.”
“I thought all private eyes smoked.”
“Nope. And my secretary isn’t in love with me, either.”
That amused him. “So the Hollywood cliches don’t apply in real life, hmmm? Well, some do.”
“How’s that?”
“Let’s just say, Jimmy Cagney, Eddie Robinson, and George Raft seem to be drawing from life.”
Well, Raft, anyway.
“By that you mean,” I said, “there really are gangsters in this wicked old world.”
“Precisely. And in this wicked old Hollywood as well.”
“Pegler told me Willie Bioff has muscled into the unions out here. And that that’s what you wanted to talk to me about.”
He nodded sagely, puffing at the pipe, getting it going. “I’m one of the people who got SAG off the ground. A three-time past president.”
“SAG?”
“Screen Actors Guild. We aren’t under Bioff’s thumb-yet. He’s been making some moves in that direction. Now, I invoke Bioff’s name, but in fact the president of the IATSE is Browne.”
“But Browne’s just the figurehead.”
“Right. Do you know a man named Circella?”
“Uh, isn’t that Nicky Dean’s real last name?”
“Yes it is. He and Bioff and Browne are all but inseparable, out here.”
“That’s bad, Mr. Montgomery.”
“Bob.”
“Bob. And if you’d call me Nate, that’d be just swell, too, but I don’t think I’m going to take this job. I hate to have taken your money and your plane ride and breakfast and all, only to turn you down, but…”
“But what, Nate?”
“Nicky Dean is an Outfit man.”
“Syndicate, you mean. Crime Syndicate.”
“Yes. He’s one of Frank Nitti’s people. And I’m from Chicago. I live in Chicago. I work in Chicago. And I can’t do either of those things, particularly the first, if I get on Frank Nitti’s bad side. It’s his town.”
“So will this be, if something isn’t done.”
I started to rise. “That’s very noble, and I hope you can do something about it. I just ain’t going to be part of it.”
Patiently, he gestured for me to sit. “Hear me out.”
“Mr. Montgomery-”
“Bob. Hear me out. You came this far, after all.”
“Well. Yeah, I did come a distance. Okay. I’ll hear you out. But I’m afraid I’ll be wasting your time on top of your money.”
He sat forward, tapped his finger on a manila folder on the little table between us. “Bioff’s got one foot in the figurative grave already. Evidence gathered by an investigator, a former FBI man whom I hired with SAG’s approval, has already been turned over to the Treasury Department.” He pushed the folder toward me. “Those are your copies.”
I picked the folder up and looked in it. Photostats of letters on IATSE stationery from Browne and Bioff both; statements from disgruntled union members; nothing much. Except for one thing: a photostat of a check made out to Bioff for $100,000. Signed by Joe Schenck.
“Isn’t Schenck…?”
“Vice president of Twentieth Century-Fox,” Montgomery said, smiling like an urbane killer again.
“How did your investigator get this?”
He shrugged. “There are rumors of a break-in at the IA offices.”
“That’s illegal.”
“So is extortion.”
I flapped the folder at him. “Is that what you think Bioff’s doing? Extorting money out of the movie executives? Selling them strike-prevention insurance?”
He shrugged again, puffed at his pipe. “It would certainly be cheaper for the studios than paying their help what they’re worth.”
“Yeah,” I said, looking around. “It’s a tough life.”
He sat up straight; bristled. “Don’t judge Hollywood by these standards. I’m a lucky, lucky man. The rank-and-file union members in this town-in whose behalf Bioff and Browne are supposedly fighting-are average working joes and janes. They deserve better than being sold out.”
“But is that little pimp powerful enough to blackmail somebody like Schenck?”
Nodding forcefully, he said. “Or Thalberg or Mayer or Jack Warner or anybody else. Remember, Bioff has under his thumb the movie projectionists, who alone can shut down every theater in every major city in the country. And a few such dark days would deliver a blow to the industry that the studios couldn’t recover from.”
“If the Treasury Department has this evidence, they should be able to prosecute Bioff.”
“Perhaps. On income-tax evasion, which is fine, but I need to show Bioff for what he is. His drunkard friend Browne is a convincing public speaker; and conditions for workers were so wretched prior to unionization that Bioff and Browne can sell the working man out and he won’t even know it.”
“So you’d like to see Bioff smeared, to keep him and Browne and the union they represent from attracting any converts. Specifically, to keep the actors out from under their greasy thumb.”
“Yes. But ‘smear’ isn’t the word.” He pointed with the pipe. “Expose.”