The War of the Worlds Murder d-6

by Max Allan Collins

  Though written in verse, and clearly a play, the approach invoked a live news report. Welles heard this realistic radio drama a few hours before he made his suggestions to Howard Koch, John Houseman and Paul Stewart, about revising the script for “War of the Worlds” into a collage of broadcasts interrupted by news bulletins.

  As one of the participants in the “War of the Worlds” broadcast would reflect many years later, “The American people had been hanging on their radios, getting most of their news no longer from the press, but over the air. A new technique of ‘on-the-spot’ reporting had been developed and eagerly accepted by an anxious and news-hungry world. The Mercury Theatre on the Air, by faithfully copying every detail of the new technique-including its imperfections-found an already enervated audience ready to accept its wildest fantasies….”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  SHANGHAIED LADY

  Though he’d had a good (if dream-troubled) night’s sleep-his breakfast with Orson at the director’s suite had not been till ten A.M.-Walter Gibson felt logy, almost groggy, in the aftermath of the Welles morning repast. Enough orange juice, coffee, eggs, sausage, hash brown potatoes with melted cheese, and assorted muffins and sweet rolls had been delivered by St. Regis butlers to attend the gastric needs of your average lumberjack camp.

  Perhaps in an ill-advised effort to keep up with his host, Gibson ate around a Paul Bunyan’s worth. Welles ate easily two Bunyan’s plus one Babe the Blue Ox’s worth to boot, conversation scant, the food commanding the boy-man’s full attention. What conversation had preceded and followed the feast touched little on the Shadow project, concentrating instead on their mutual fascination with magic. Welles inquired how Gibson had developed that interest.

  “Just before my tenth birthday,” Gibson said, sitting back, the meal finished, having to work to think, his body and all the blood in it occupied with a major digestive task, “I attended the birthday party of a friend-typical kind of kid celebration, you know….”

  Welles, also sitting back, hands folded on his belly (he was again wearing the bathrobe with the hotel crest), said, “I don’t remember attending any birthday parties as a child.”

  “Pin the tail on the donkey, games of tag, plenty of cake and ice cream…”

  Welles-who loved being on either end of a story, and listened with keen, obvious interest-lighted up one of his pool-cue cigars.

  Gibson was saying, “The parents of my young friend, a girl, knew that my birthday was coming up fast, as well, and perhaps out of deference to me, they came up with a special game: each child was presented with a long ribbon that disappeared out of the parlor into the house-a two-story house, Victorian in style. Some ribbons slithered like snakes around the furnishings, to go up and down the stairs, others led out the front and back doors….”

  “Walter,” Welles said, sighing smoke, “you paint a vivid picture-as always.”

  “Thank you. Anyway, each child followed the ribbon through the house…and we all were led to a present of our very own!”

  “Ah!”

  “Mine led up the stairs and into a guest bedroom, where under the bed I discovered my prize…” Gibson leaned forward, milking it. “…a box of magic tricks.”

  Welles’s eyes widened, as if his guest had reported discovering Blackbeard’s hidden treasure.

  “It was German-made, with all the standard tricks of the day-I suppose, objectively speaking, it was nothing special. But it changed my life. It was as if that ribbon had led me to my future.”

  Welles, smiling with delight, eyes sparkling, said, “No wonder we’re kindred spirits! My godfather gave me a professional magician’s box of stage tricks-I was five! And it was my godfather, my guardian-Dr. Bernstein-who took me backstage to meet Houdini, when I was six!”

  Finally, Gibson thought, the Houdini story. Would it be true?

  “I apparently impressed the great man with my childish enthusiasm-I blurted out virtually everything I knew about magic in a matter of a minute or two-and that was how I came to be taught a simple but effective trick with a red handkerchief, presenting me with everything I needed to pull it off myself-the vanishing coin trick?”

  “I know it well.”

  Placing a handkerchief over the left hand, the magician pokes a pocket in the cloth, so that the coin can be dropped there; then the magician shakes the handkerchief…and the coin has vanished! (This was achieved by having a rubber band around the fingers and thumb of the left hand, which closed the “pocket” the coin was pushed into, so that the coin remained caught and hidden when the handkerchief was shaken out.)

  Welles leaned forward, one eye narrowed. “I was always a quick study, so I followed Houdini to his dressing room like a stray puppy. He glanced around at me, not knowing whether to be irritated or amused. ‘Look, sir!’ I said…and I performed the trick for him!”

  Gibson chuckled and clapped, once.

  Welles lifted his eyebrows. “Well…let us say that the great Harry Houdini was less than overwhelmed by my childish legerdemain. He gave me a stern scolding: never, ever was a trick to be performed until it had been practiced a thousand times!”

  “Not bad advice.”

  “Splendid advice…but there’s more. I practiced and practiced the vanishing coin trick, and a few months later, when Houdini returned with his stage act, we again went backstage, before the show…this time it was with my father accompanying me, on a rare visit home…and were welcomed warmly. Houdini remembered my obnoxious, precocious little self. I was about to demonstrate my improved stagecraft when a certain Carl Brema arrived-”

  Gibson grinned. “Of course-the manufacturer of magic tricks.”

  “Yes. Brema had a vanishing lamp trick he’d just perfected. He demonstrated it for Houdini, who beamed and said, ‘Wonderful, Carl-I’ll put it in the show tonight!’ ”

  Welles’s roar of laughter was worthy of Henry the Eighth, and Gibson-despite the overeating-inspired discomfort-joined in heartily.

  Now Gibson believed Welles had really met Houdini-the story sounded just like the man….

  “There’s a coincidence,” Gibson said, “that further cements our destiny together.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The trick of mine I mentioned the other day-the Hindu wand trick Houdini requested from me, but died before he could use it…?”

  “Yes?”

  “It was Carl Brema who executed my design-who built the wands for Houdini to use.”

  “But never did.”

  “No.”

  His expression intense, Welles sat forward. “Walter, I must have that trick. When I take out my magic act on the road, that trick must be included!”

  “You haven’t even seen it yet, Orson…”

  “If it’s good enough for Houdini and Gibson, it’s good enough for Welles. Name your price!”

  Gibson raised his palms in surrender. “I already told you, Orson, it’s yours-and I wouldn’t take a dime for it. The experience of this weekend is payment enough.”

  Welles glowed, the fat cigar in his teeth at a rakish angle. He lifted a coffee cup for a toast; Gibson clinked cups with him.

  “To us,” Welles said. “To our collaboration….”

  Soon-looking every bit the magician with his Shadowesque cloak, slouch hat, black suit, bow tie and walking stick, Welles escorted Gibson to the elevators. As they waited, Welles blurted, “Walter-do you really believe in magic?”

  “As an art?”

  “As a science…even a religion. What we do with stagecraft-whether it’s the Mercury transforming some musty classic into a vital contemporary experience, or sawing a woman in half who then gets up and walks around-is tap onto the public’s fascination with the unknown, the occult. Fakers we may be, but what we touch in people is genuine.”

  Gibson was nodding. “I do believe in some force, something greater than the human mind.”

  “I ponder that frequently.” Welles watched the dial on the floor indicator above the elevator doors; their
ride was on its way. “Of course, our friend Houdini spent much time debunking psychics….”

  “He did indeed-but that was all part of a search to find real evidence of psychic phenomenon.”

  A bell dinged and in a moment they were stepping onto a car otherwise empty but for a young elevator attendant.

  On the way down, Welles said to his companion, “Would you care for anecdotal evidence, to support the existence of genuine magic?”

  “Certainly.”

  “You know of our so-called ‘voodoo’ Macbeth…?”

  “I do. I regret not seeing it.”

  Welles smiled wistfully. “It was a wonderful production…. Nothing is likely to top it in my experience….” Then he shifted gears. “Did you know that only one New York critic wrote an unfavorable review?”

  “I recall the show was a huge success, well-received.”

  Nodding, Welles said, “Yes, but Percy Hammond was dismissive, and hurt the feelings of our Lady Macbeth. We had a number of real Haitians in the show, you know…”

  “I didn’t.”

  “In fact, we even had a sort of company witch doctor, who decided to treat the critic in question to a particularly virulent curse.”

  Gibson chuckled. “You’re not saying the voodoo bit took hold, are you?”

  With an altar boy’s smile, Welles said, “I leave that for you to decide, Walter-but the facts are these: Percy Hammond’s review appeared on Tuesday, he fell sick on Thursday and was dead by Sunday.”

  A bell announced the lobby, and the young elevator operator opened the door for them, but made no announcement, looking agape as the tall man in the cape and his companion stepped off.

  No ambulance was needed today-they took a cab.

  Leaning back in the backseat, arms folded, traffic gliding by his window, Welles said, “You know for all the fuss we’re making about this show, tonight-we have one of the worst Crossley ratings around. Why do we try so hard?”

  “For the satisfaction?”

  With a shrug, Welles said, “I suppose. The blessing of having a low-rated program is that we don’t have to please the lowest common denominator among listeners. Still, one craves a wider audience….”

  Gibson was aware that The Mercury Theatre on the Air was a “sustaining” program-unsponsored, supported only by the network itself (The Shadow’s longtime sponsor was Blue Coal). No one wanted to advertise on a program opposite something as popular as Charlie McCarthy and Edgar Bergen. But CBS had earned a reputation as a prestige network because these low-rated shows were considered artistic and creative oases in a medium ruled by sponsors who asked only, “Will it play in Peoria?”

  By half past noon, Gibson was following Welles off another elevator, this time onto the twentieth floor of the Columbia Broadcasting Building, as the uniformed attendant held the door open for them both.

  “Thank you, Leo my boy,” Welles said to the attendant.

  Leo-a diminutive “boy” of perhaps fifty-five-beamed as if God had heard his prayer. “Thank you, Mr. Welles!”

  They had barely stepped into the lobby when Welles’s shrimp of an assistant, Alland a.k.a. Vakhtangov, was suddenly just there…as if he’d materialized, to lift the cloak from Welles’s shoulders, remove his suitcoat exposing the black suspenders on the white shirt, take charge of his hat and walking stick, and then disappear somewhere. This all happened so quickly, Gibson couldn’t even manage a, “Huh?”

  Then Welles moved quickly across the lobby, only to stop so short Gibson almost bumped into him. The great man had paused at the receptionist’s desk, where a uniformed CBS security guard sat leaning back, reading the Sunday funnies. He was about thirty, brown eyes, brown hair, average build, the textbook definition of nondescript.

  “You are not Miss Donovan,” Welles said, arching an eyebrow.

  The security guard peered over the front page-Dick Tracy-and revealed an oval unimpressed face, eyes half-lidded, a typical blank cop mask.

  “Shrewd deduction,” the guard said, his wiseguy tone indicating he did not share the elevator attendant’s awe of the young genius. “But then, hey-the Shadow knows, right?”

  With a snorty laugh, he returned to his funnies.

  Welles gripped the guard by his blue shirtfront and dragged him halfway across the desk; the funnies spilled from his hands and his cap fell off.

  “When I have a yen for a smart remark,” Welles said, his nose a quarter of an inch from the guard’s startled face, “I won’t ask an imbecile like you.”

  Then Welles thrust the man from his grip, and the guard bounced a bit in the swivel chair. Frightened, the guard plucked his cap from the floor, put it back on, smoothed his shirt front with his palms and said, indignantly, “You can’t treat me like that! I don’t care who you are! You may be a big shot, but I’m…I’m like a policeman!”

  Welles, coolly, signed in. “You are indeed ‘like’ a policeman-in every way except the following: you carry no gun, your authority is minimal, you do not work for the city, and are not in fact a policeman…. Where is Miss Donovan?”

  The guard swallowed and said, “I dunno. She was supposed to be working today. I think she was here earlier, actually.”

  “Continue.”

  “I got a call from one of you Mercury guys saying come fill in on her desk. We can’t have just anyone walking in and out of here, y’ know.”

  Welles was frowning. For some reason he had lifted the reception book into his hands, standing there like a preacher in a wedding ceremony, wondering whether this union was worth sanctioning.

  Slowly, Welles said, “Are you quite sure? What’s your name?”

  The guard blinked. “My name?”

  “It’s not a trick question. Your first name will do. We can save the harder part for later, if necessary.”

  “Bill. My name is Bill. Williams.”

  “A redundant name for a redundant individual.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Welles turned the reception book toward him, pointing to a specific name. “Bill, were you here when this person signed in?”

  “Who?… Oh. No. ‘Virginia Welles.’ What’s that, your wife?”

  “She hasn’t signed out again, I see.”

  “No. But then, this desk was unattended for a while.”

  “How long, Mr. Williams?”

  “Couldn’t say. From whenever somebody noticed Miss Donovan left her post, and thought to call for a sub.”

  “Yes.” Welles gestured with an open hand, as if paying honor to the man. “And you do qualify as a ‘sub,’ Mr. Williams. I will concede that.”

  Mr. Williams smiled, warming to Welles. “Thanks.”

  Welles returned to the book. “And what about this individual?”

  “ ‘Buh…buh…’ ”

  “Balanchine. Were you at this post when this man signed in?”

  “No.”

  “I note he did not sign out, either.”

  “That’s right. But like I said, this desk was unattended for a while. Who knows who left? Who knows who got in?”

  Welles nodded to the man, twitching a smile. “Not the Shadow, Mr. Williams.” He tossed the book on the desk with a clunk. “Would you do me a kindness, despite my poor show of temper?”

  “Well, sure. I was…I was outa line, Mr. Welles. They don’t pay me to be a smart-ass.”

  “How could one put a price on it?… I’ll be in Studio One, for the most part, but may well be anywhere on this floor, in the various studios and offices, until after we’ve broadcast this evening.” Welles leaned across the desk and asked, in a conspiratorial fashion, “If either of these individuals sign out, would you send someone to let me know?”

  “Sure!”

  “But in that case, call for another one of your troops-don’t leave your post unattended.”

  “I’ll do what I can-but there’s just a handful us on duty on a Sunday, Mr. Welles.”

  “I understand. All I ask, Mr. Williams, is your best effort.” An
d he gave the guard a half-bow.

  Mr. Williams blinked and half-bowed back.

  Gibson had never seen anything quite like Welles’s performance-from receiving an insult, answering it with a physical threat, to winning over his adversary, charming him into another acolyte-only Orson Welles could have pulled off that magic trick.

  Falling in alongside Welles, Gibson said, “Isn’t Balanchine that ballerina’s boyfriend? Guy who threatened you?”

  They were walking down the hall, toward Studio One.

  “He is indeed.”

  Welles opened the door to the sound-proofing vestibule of the studio, and Gibson followed.

  “Does, uh, your wife often drop by the studio?”

  “Not unless she’s acting in a given week’s production.”

  “She isn’t in this show, is she?”

  Welles glanced back with an arched eyebrow. “No. She is not.”

  Inside the studio, the spectacled owlish conductor, Benny Herrmann-like so many of the men, in suspenders and shirtsleeves-was again at the piano, a small conductor’s podium nearby (in addition to the large one intended for Welles); musicians, a larger contingent than at Thursday’s rehearsal, were taking their places-Gibson quickly counted twenty-seven-warming up with scales and such. Actors were milling in the carpeted microphone area, a script in one hand, ear in the other.

  In a reporterish fedora, the mustached gigoloish Frank Readick was the first to approach Welles, nodding hello to Gibson, then saying with an excited edge, “I’ve been at it just like you said.”

  “And what is your opinion?”

  “Great idea! Great idea, Orson…. This’ll knock their damn socks off.”