To Kill the Duke

by Sam Moffie

  “No. Not at all. Paybacks in Hollywood are not pretty,” Powell warned as he hung up.

  And Dick Powell meant it. Now, he had to tell Hughes and Millard.

  “Miss Burchett,” Powell cried into the intercom system. “Please get me a couple of aspirins and some ice-cold water.”

  He gobbled down the aspirins and drank two glasses of water. He took a deep breath and decided to take a nap before he called Hughes. Dick Powell was procrastinating and he knew it. He was also resting up, because he knew he would be on the phone a long time with his boss, and then he would have to meet with Oscar and inform Millard that Fox had nixed MB. And of course, the way things were going, Oscar Millard would have already convinced Brando to be in the film during their get together.

  Could be worse. It could always be worse. Dick thought to himself as he quickly dozed off.

  He woke and felt amazingly refreshed.

  “Naps are the best,” he once said to his wife June, after awaking from a nap on their den couch. He had dozed off while watching a football game on TV.

  “You first started your naps listening to sports on the radio. Now, when you can watch the game… you still fall asleep,” she said.

  “I did?” Powell said.

  “I call it the ‘third-quarter’ nap. Whatever the sport… by the time it’s three-quarters over, you’re asleep,” she stated. “By the way, wives and mothers don’t nap.”

  “You ought to try it,” he urged her.

  Dick couldn’t believe that he had only been asleep for 20 minutes. He made a mental note to try and take a nap for no longer than 20 minutes every day he was in the office. He called his wife and they decided that this Saturday would be the best day for him to fly off with Howard and scout the location.

  Howard… he decided to call him and get it over with. After all, the nap had refreshed him. He told his secretary to ring Hughes. Powell returned to read and answer some of his own fan mail while he waited for Howard Hughes to get on the line.

  Surprisingly, Hughes was on the line very quickly, and then Dick Powell was put on hold. Even more astonishing was that Hughes, once he took Powell off hold, was extremely calm about not landing Brando.

  “There are a lot of good actors in Hollywood. Not as good as Brando, but good. More importantly Dick, did you find a leading lady with the right dimensions to suit me?” Hughes asked.

  Dick Powell rolled his eyes upward and sighed maybe I should have drunk three martinis instead of taking a nap, he thought.

  “Well?” Hughes demanded.

  “What about Oscar?” Powell asked his boss, changing the subject, while wondering if Hughes thought about anything else other than women’s breasts… very large ones to boot.

  “I don’t want to talk about the writer. I want to talk about what actress with big tits you’re thinking about casting,” Howard Hughes said.

  I guess not, Dick Powell mused, and then got bold. “Howard, how did you make so much money, when it seems that all you do is think about humongous breasts?”

  “I’m not telling,” Hughes said.

  “Well, what about Oscar?” Powell repeated.

  “I might tell him, I might not. I did love that movie he did about the navy divers. Regardless, he will be bummed and then I will get him laid by a broad with big tits,” Hughes announced. “By the way Dick, Brando would have been great. But if you think about the screenplay, Oscar’s movie is basically a western set in the year what… 1182. Get a cowboy actor to play the main role.”

  “Who? John Wayne?” Dick Powell said very sarcastically.

  Hughes laughed. “When are we flying over the site for the shooting?”

  “I’m free this Saturday, Howard,” Powell told his boss.

  “No you are not. You belong to me. I’ll have a car pick you up to meet my plane. Get me Oscar’s address and I’ll make sure he gets laid. After he gets his rocks off, I’ll call him personally to tell him about Brando,” Hughes said.

  “That’s very nice of you Howard,” praised Powell.

  “I like having IOU’s from people in the dream factory known as Hollywood,” Hughes said.

  “I bet you have a lot of IOU’s,” Powell replied.

  For the next few days, Dick Powell worked harder than he could ever remember. He made sure he had three days off the following week so he could personally drive up with his most loyal staff members to scout the location he was sure Howard was going to pick out from the air during the fly-over. Powell was so sure of the location being the Escalante Valley in Southern Utah, that he had his secretary book a floor of rooms at the nearest hotel, under false names of course.

  Powell went back to his work.

  A few minutes later Miss Burchett beeped him on the office intercom and informed him that there were no hotels around the site that Dick assumed Howard would pick.

  “What about motels?” Dick asked his secretary. Instantly he heard her line go dead. Right away he knew that she hadn’t checked on any being in the area. But she walks great he thought as he went back to work. A few more minutes went by and then the intercom beeped again. “Mr. Powell, what’s the difference between a hotel and a motel?”

  Good question, he thought to himself before he answered. He loved when people… especially his employees… asked him questions.

  “There is no such thing as a bad question,” he always said to his workers when they were first hired. “All questions are good questions,” he would add when the newest employee was leaving his office.

  Answering questions… any question, helped him with his own patience and knowledge.

  Dick Powell was proud of both.

  “Relying on patience made me a better man, husband, father, actor, friend and producer,” he once told his wife.

  “But sometimes you take forever to make a decision,” June protested.

  “Nobody’s perfect,” he would quip.

  But by being patient… he didn’t make rash decisions. In Hollywood, rash decisions could make or break a movie or worse, a career. Dick Powell had never experienced either of those negative breaks.

  But now he was experiencing a blank moment about Miss Burchett’s question on the difference between a hotel and a motel.

  “Let’s see, hotels…how stupid of me. There can’t be any establishments like the Beverly Hills Hilton where Howard intends to shoot the film. Can’t be any franchises that I’m used to out there providing weary travelers with rooms and meals,” he said to himself. A motel. Why can’t I come up with the difference, he pondered. Then it hit him. I have no knowledge of motels, because they are drive-up hotels where men and women meet each other to shack-up for a quickie. I’m not a traveling salesman looking for a cheap place, either. I have never been delayed by bad weather or lost on the road, he thought. He quickly got Miss Burchett back on the intercom.

  “Forget motels. That area will be devoid of them. Look for cottages,” he instructed. Within seconds, she was back on the intercom.

  “I found a perfect place. ‘The Enchanted Cottages.’ Nine little cabins. I rented them all,” she said.

  “Good job. Cottages for the stars and trailers for the rest of us working people,” he said. “If anyone at the hotel asks what we are doing there, just tell them we are with a mineralogy school looking for fossils.”

  “What names should I book the rooms under?” she asked.

  “The usual names will do,” Dick Powell told his secretary. Thus the stars were booked into the cottages under the nome de plumes of ‘Jack Frost,’ ‘Sally Frost,’ ‘Ralph Frost,’ ‘Irving Frost,’ etc.

  Since filming on location had become all the rage in Hollywood, it was important that the locals didn’t get a head start on knowing that a movie was being filmed in their vicinity. By the time they realized what was going on, all the high-paying jobs were already filled by professionals from Hollywood, and the production company could then throw a few bones to the locals by offering very minor roles. However, Dick Powell made sure that everyt
hing that was needed on the set, that couldn’t be brought with them, was purchased locally. This made all the locals happy, because their economy got a financial shot in the arm and Dick and his crew were virtually left alone by the townies. Then, Dick Powell would make all the arrangements for credit with the companies in the valley for the necessities that the cast and crew would need. He couldn’t believe it only took him a few days to do so, but being a very good businessman, surrounded by an outstanding staff and crew, not to mention Howard Hughes’ money, didn’t hurt negotiations either.

  “Howard Hughes has F.U. money,” one supplier whom Dick did a lot of business with, said.

  “F.U. money?” replied Dick

  “Fuck you money,” the man explained.

  And Dick Powell agreed with that.

  Now, all I need is a leading man and woman and the rest of the cast, he thought as he laid down to sleep next to his wife the night before he was due to be picked up by his boss.

  “Who is going to star in the movie now that Brando said no?” his wife asked him.

  “How did you know that Brando wouldn’t be in the movie?” responded Dick.

  “It’s Hollywood. You of all people should know that,” she said sarcastically.

  He sighed.

  She was right and he loved her even more.

  The limousine picked him up at 5:00 a.m. just like Howard told him it would.

  “You’ll sleep on the way to the plane,” Hughes told him when Powell complained about the departure time. “Don’t complain. I could have sent a horse and buggy to pick you up instead of a limo.”

  The vehicle was staffed by the usual Hughes’ bodyguard types. Very tall and thin men dressed in dark aviator glasses who wore black suits with white, button-down collars and black combat boots. All of them put way too much gel in their hair and wore the same cologne, which to Dick Powell smelled like lilacs.

  This was quite a contrast from the crew of Howard Hughes’ private jet… at least his private jet in California.

  Dick was welcomed aboard the sleek aircraft by a woman who had the most magnificent breasts he had ever seen (and, as a big-time movie star, Dick had seen beautiful women and big tits many times). She was also wearing a uniform that looked as if it was painted on her. It was a black one-piece, with a zipper that went from crotch to cleavage. She wore boots that were exactly like the boots that Hughes’ male bodyguards and the limousine driver wore.

  Howard probably gets a bulk discount on black boots, Powell thought.

  She wore a baseball cap and her hair was pony-tailed and pulled through the opening of the cap in the back. A giant gold-colored letter H was on the front of the cap. Powell smiled at her and tried to not look at her cleavage. It was difficult for him… until he got inside the plane and looked around at the décor, which was more of a surprise than the woman’s cleavage.

  Howard Hughes’ plane had an interior that didn’t exist… well it did exists — there was an interior, but there was hardly any furniture. “It’s a plane,” what did you expect?” Oscar later asked him after Dick had been informed by Howard that the same stewardess with the big tits who had welcomed him aboard the plane, had been ordered to sleep with Oscar. (Dick had called Oscar to confirm and he was still placed on hold.)

  “He’s rich — I expected something other than four swivel chairs that looked like they had come from a sunken battleship,” Dick said. “By the way, was she good?”

  “I write stories, I don’t tell stories,” Oscar said defensively.

  And laugh was what Dick Powell was doing as his eyes spied the four swivel chairs and a giant crate on the opposite side of the plane from the chairs.

  “That chest was Blackbeard’s, Dick,” Hughes said as he emerged from the cockpit to greet his favorite movie executive — other than himself.

  Only Howard Hughes would have a treasure chest that once belonged to Blackbeard the Pirate, Dick thought. “Knowing you, I believe that it did, Howard,” Powell said as he instinctively went to hold out his hand to shake Hughes’ hand. Hughes recoiled. Powell reigned in his right hand and looked downward. He knew he was in for a tongue lashing. He knew that he had royally fucked up by offering his hand.

  “Don’t do that again!” Hughes yelled.

  Powell said nothing. He (did) know better.

  “Want to see what’s in the chest?” a now giddy Hughes asked.

  Grateful that Hughes had switched gears, Powell nodded yes.

  Hughes went over to the chest and tried to imitate a pirate’s laugh and made some stupid statement to boot.

  “I didn’t know you liked pirates,” Powell said, all the time thinking that Hughes’ pirate laugh sounded like Santa Claus.

  “All capitalists are pirates, Dick,” Hughes replied. “Come on over and take a look-see.”

  Powell slowly walked over to the chest. Probably full of fake boobs and black bras he thought as he slowly peeked in.

  Dick Powell was a great movie star and studio executive. He was a terrible guesser.

  In the chest were stacks of plastic plates, bowls and cups. There was another box full of plastic spoons, forks and knives. The ‘plastic ware,’ as Hughes called the eating utensils, was all individually wrapped in clear plastic bags. There were also some metal trays.

  “Wow,” Powell said, hoping that Hughes wouldn’t hear the sarcasm in his voice.

  “The future, my boy,” Hughes said as he picked up one of the trays and went to one of the swivel chairs and sat down. He set up the tray on its legs and hollered for the stewardess in the great outfit with the big hooters.

  She sashayed over to the chest and brought forth one utensil packet, one cup, one bowl and one plate. She produced a cloth napkin from a pocket that Dick Powell had no idea even existed in her pants suit, and then she went to the back of the plane. Powell just stared at his boss, who was sitting on the chair with the plastic paraphernalia, which was set on a very cheap-looking metal tray attached to flimsy legs that was in front of him. “Watch this,” Hughes said as the young lady returned with a pitcher of some liquid in it and a very large metal lunch pail.

  She poured what Powell assumed was water into Hughes’ plastic cup and placed a crust-less sandwich on his plate. She took out a tin can of something that was yellow and poured that into the bowl. She went back to the station in the back of the plane and fiddled with what she had removed before she glided to the cockpit.

  “Water from the top of the Rockies,” Hughes said as he took a gulp. “Nothing cleaner and better for you. Want some?”

  “In a few minutes. What are you eating, boss?” Powell asked.

  “American cheese on white bread with no condiments and of course no crust. Crust is very bad for you. My bowl is full of chicken broth. Want some of that?” Hughes asked.

  Powell didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Here he was watching the richest man on earth eat food that wasn’t good enough for a soup kitchen in downtown Los Angeles, sitting on a chair that was probably purchased from a mothballed Navy vessel, with an even cheaper metal tray in front of him. Furthermore, he was eating off plastic plates with plastic utensils that Dick Powell wouldn’t let his children use to dig in a sand box.

  “He is insane,” Oscar said later, after Powell and Millard had talked about the girl that Hughes had sent Oscar, and the location of their movie. “No one will ever buy plastic.”

  “No, he is sane. He once showed me the papers that said just that,” Powell said with a hearty laugh. “I agree with you about the plastic stuff. Who wants to eat with plastic?”

  “Hey, that line about having papers to prove you’re sane is good. Can I use it? Can you imagine cutting a piece of red meat with a plastic knife?” Oscar asked Dick.

  “Yes, you can use the line and no, I can’t see using a plastic knife on a steak,” Powell replied. “By the way, Hughes told me that plastic will dominate consumerism in the near future as America becomes a ‘throw-away’ society.”

  “Did you take a close lo
ok, Dick? Do you see the future?” Hughes had asked.

  You don’t want to know what I see, Powell said to himself as he shook his head no.

  “These dinner trays. Everyone will be eating off them. No one will ever want to miss what is on the television, and the family dinner will disappear forever. I have cornered the market on dinner trays, Dick,” Hughes boasted as he quickly downed his food and drank his water.

  Dick Powell didn’t want to engage his boss in a conversation about television. Unlike many people in the movie industry, Dick Powell thought that the movies and television could co-exist and create synergy that would benefit both. Powell also thought that Hughes was of the opinion that eventually TV would put Hollywood out of business.

  “I think we could use those trays on location boss,” Powell said.

  “Great idea. I’ll send a few hundred up, along with lots of plastic dining ware when we start filming. Let me show you who’s flying the plane,” Hughes said as he got up and sidestepped, getting too close to Dick Powell, and walked to the cockpit. Powell followed.

  Suddenly Hughes stopped and whirred around.

  “This is a no COCK-PIT,” he said. Hughes winked and he opened the door.

  Powell agreed, because he could see that both the pilot and co-pilot were females with the exact same outfits that the stewardess was wearing. Both women also had huge knockers and Dick Powell hoped they flew the plane as well as they looked.

  “Don’t worry Dick, both these women have been personally instructed by me and are as good at flying a plane as anyone… but don’t lump me in that “anyone” category. No one is as good a pilot as I am,” Hughes said quite proudly as both girls let out a slight chuckle. Knowing he was in for a long day, Powell asked his boss when they were leaving.

  “As soon as you go back to one of the seats and sit down,” Hughes stated.

  “What about you?” Powell asked.

  “I’ll be back shortly. Need to make the word cockpit mean something on this flight my boy,” Hughes said as both girls grinned.

  Powell left the threesome and strapped himself into his seat. He noticed that the stewardess wasn’t anywhere around and wondered if it was now a foursome up front, as well as wondering what type of protection Hughes wore when he was obviously having sex with the vixens that were piloting the plane, not to mention when he was screwing all the other women in his past.