Voices Behind the Curtain

by Gordon Zuckerman

  “According to my friend, Arena enjoys a controversial reputation in Mexico City. No one seems to know where he finds so much investment capital. If he’s not buying and distributing high cost American produced independently produced motion pictures, he’s busy buying second-tier movie houses in major U.S. markets. Some of my friends have lent him money to purchase independent films. In each instance, the loans carried high rates of interest and were paid off well ahead of schedule.

  “Then, there are others who have invested in his real estate syndicates. The funds were used to build or acquire second-tier movie houses through which he shows his films. Each year they receive envelopes with generous cash payments and no reports. As long as the checks keep coming, no one questions what is happening.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Dr. Tom. “If everyone is having such positive experiences, why is he considered to be a business coyote?”

  “Because there doesn’t seem to be any rational explanation for the difference in the amount of money he generates in Mexico and the amount of money he invests in films and real estate. There are enormous unexplained discrepancies.”

  * * *

  “IF YOU DON’T MIND SOME OLD MAN’S ADVICE, IF YOU PROCEED against Arena, I would be very careful. According to my reports, he is ruthless and very dangerous; many of his friends may be worse.”

  * * *

  HALF AN HOUR LATER WHEN MIKE WAS PREPARING TO LEAVE, DR. Tom said, “Thanks for asking me to help, even if it was only a little part, and make sure you have Cecelia call me.”

  CHAPTER 24

  Myron Goldman

  LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, APRIL 1949

  As Mike drove through Hollywood toward the big motion picture studio, he found himself feeling slightly apprehensive. He was calling on the head of a major studio. At the same time, Natalie was making a well-publicized effort to help the people this studio and others like it had put out of work. I hope this meeting doesn’t turn out to be one of those uncomfortable times when everybody is polite and nothing of any value is accomplished.

  Locating the studio was not so difficult. Entering and locating the president’s office was proving more difficult. Forced to wait at the guarded entrance for what seemed like a very long time, he was finally given vague directions to a rear parking lot, bordered by what would appear to be a very nondescript row of offices. As Mike cruised the parking lot outside the studio, he was surprised to find a spot near the front entrance marked with a bright orange cone and a sign that read “Reserved for Mike Stone.”

  As soon as Mike entered through the large, hand carved wooden door, he was surprised by the ornate, large-room architecture of the interior executive suite. Designed to create an atmosphere well-suited for a rich and powerful executive, it created a remarkably different impression from the exterior appearance. Inside, to his amazement, the secretary stationed outside the head of studio seemed unusually pleased to see him. She beamed a smile at him and quickly walked around her desk to shake his hand.

  “Good morning, Mr. Stone,” she said, reaching him before he got halfway across the room. “Welcome to our studio. I believe this is the first time you’ve visited us. We’ve been reading about your friend, Miss Cummins, and all she has been doing to help so many of our friends. It’s a great thing. I know Mr. Goldman is looking forward to meeting you and discussing her work.”

  Mike gave her a perplexed look as the big wooden door behind her opened, revealing a bald, rotund, and broadly smiling executive marching forward to shake his hand.

  “You must be Mr. Stone,” he said. “I’m Myron Goldman. My friends call me Myron. Let me start off by saying what a pleasure it is to meet the leader of such a talented group of people as the Sentinels. You and your Sentinel friends have been the subject of conversation between me and our mutual friend at America West, Pete Ferrari. Following what you and your friends have been accomplishing has become a personal hobby of mine. In an industry known for making great things happen in 120 minutes, you have no idea how refreshing it is to realize in real life there are people who are still prepared to attack threatening problems and make such important things happen. You are to be congratulated.”

  Whatever Mike had been expecting from the studio executive, his reception was a total surprise. He had been forewarned by Pete Ferrari of the fact that Goldman’s studio had been one of the more aggressive supporters of Hollywood’s Blacklisting program. Confused by Goldman’s complimentary comments, Mike asked, “I am having difficulty with why you aren’t critical of Natalie’s and the Sentinels’ efforts to provide witnesses with protection under the First and Fifth Amendments of the Constitution and reduce HUAC’s ability to badger innocent witnesses.”

  “Relax, Mike—can I call you Mike? Secretly, we respect what she is attempting and look forward to the day when we can dispense with all this ‘Fear of Communism’ crap. In case you are wondering, I have devoted my working life to producing profitable movies. How do you think I feel when I am prohibited from employing many of our most proven, loyal, and talented people?

  “Unfortunately, I am being forced to implement these crippling procedures from the money interests who fund the operations of the studio. I don’t know how long it will take for them to realize it, but overnight, we may have made it possible for our competitors across the pond to take advantage of the situation.

  “I don’t know about possible conspiracies, but I do know how much money it’s costing us every month when we are not making the movies the public is expecting. If the decision had been left up to me and some of my fellow executives, we would never have allowed this problem to get started.

  “If our London counterparts are on their toes, they will perceive the opportunity we have provided to employ these out-of-work people to make the same kind of commercially successful movies we would have preferred to make.

  “If Miss Cummins succeeds, her work will hasten the day when we can terminate all these blacklisting problems. That will be the day when our conservative financial experts will learn how much more it will cost them to attract their former employees. There is absolutely no question in my mind their agents will succeed in creating competitive bidding between foreign filmmakers and Hollywood’s studio system.”

  * * *

  AFTER LISTENING INTENTLY TO MYRON’S EXPLANATION, MIKE realized he and the other Sentinels had badly misjudged the actions of the studios. The studios aren’t the enemy; they are simply acting as the voice for their “behind the curtain” investors and lenders. Confident he had an ally in Myron, Mike proceeded, “As I told you over the phone, we are trying to learn more about Señor Manuel Arena and his role in supporting America’s military complex to restore Defense Department spending.

  “We have reason to believe that Señor Manuel Rodriguez Arena may be controlling a sizable political war chest. The funds were contributed by a group of very large American military prime contractors. The proceeds from their Mexican war chest will be used to support several different programs organized to restore military appropriations.”

  * * *

  “MOVIEMAKER FROM MEXICO!” THE STUDIO HEAD SAID WITH A hearty laugh. “Is that what that little macho asshole calls himself? He’s lucky if he makes one bad picture a year. What nobody seems to understand is where he’s finding the money he needs to outbid the major studios for so many independent films made each year in the United States. After he purchases them, he limits their first-run distribution to his second-rate movie houses. He and whoever is behind him must be making money from the first-run showing of the movies, their redistribution, the concession stands, and the real estate.

  “Curious, we went to the trouble of having some of our counters check the revenues of his movie houses against the sales receipts he reports to the state tax authorities. The counter is just like the person restaurants employ to sit at a bar and count the drinks a bartender serves. You take the counter’s tally and compare it to the money in the till at the end of the night. It’s the proprietor�
�s way of checking the honesty of his bartenders.

  “So we performed a similar procedure at several of Arena’s movie houses. Sure enough, our estimates of his gross ticket revenues exceeded the revenues he reported to the state tax authorities.”

  “Myron, are you suggesting Manuel Arena is skimming his own operation?”

  “Without bank deposit records and cash transfer receipts . . . something with his name on it, there is no way we can prove he is the person doing the skimming.”

  Mike was excited. “Could I have a copy of those records? I might know of a way to prove what you are describing. Naturally, I would be willing to share anything we might unearth.”

  “For your group, of course.” Goldman rolled his desk chair back, unlocked the bottom drawer on the right-hand side of his mammoth desk, pulled open a drawer, and removed a thick folder which he extended toward Mike.

  “I can’t tell you how much help you’ve been,” Mike said, standing. “From a completely independent source, it has been suggested that not only is he suspected of skimming his own operation, but on several different occasions, he has been observed gambling large sums of money in Havana casinos in the company of known crime syndicate bosses.”

  As Mike was preparing to leave, Goldman said, almost under his breath, “All I can say is, God help Manuel Arena if anyone can prove that he’s stealing Cuban syndicate money!”

  * * *

  TWELVE HOURS LATER, CECELIA BOARDED THE FIRST AVAILABLE FLIGHT to Los Angeles, armed with all her notes she and Mike had extracted from the bank records. She was excited by the prospect she might be able to help her Sentinel colleagues, even if it was only a “little dance.”

  CHAPTER 25

  Don Meets Mercedes

  SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA, APRIL 1949

  Gloria and her two companions were greeted effusively by her old friend and maître d’, Walter Taylor. Even though Walter was attempting to escort them as discreetly as possible to a corner table in the rear of the restaurant, patrons recognized at least one of the three famous women. Their entrance was creating quite a stir.

  Don Cerreta, having arrived early, rose from his seat at the table in anticipation of greeting his two friends and meeting Mercedes. As they approached the table, despite his knowing Mercedes had been a former Miss Universe queen, he was unprepared for her uncommon beauty, her size, and the sensuous aura she projected. Aware of how critical her cooperation with his plan would be, as difficult as it might be, he knew it was important that he focus his attention on the person and what she had to say.

  Ignoring generally accepted Southern California restaurant protocol, wellwishers, fans, and casual acquaintances ventured over to their table, introducing themselves and asking some very strange questions. Well accustomed, despite the unwelcome interruption, experience had taught the women to graciously greet each of the people, answer their questions, thank them for their interest, and shift their attention to the next waiting person. Thirty minutes later, their wine and appetizers untouched, they were able to settle down and start the process of introducing Don to Mercedes and explaining how valuable his contributions had been to recent Sentinel operations.

  While Don was struggling to keep his attention on matters at hand, Mercedes was carefully listening to what this polite, mild mannered, and most attractive man was saying. Almost immediately, her thoughts changed from trying to determine if he was a friend or a potential perpetrator to admiring an attractive, intelligent, and experienced solver of difficult problems. Only superficially listening to what Don was saying, Mercedes was thinking, I can understand how he was able to make life so miserable for the oil companies and turn the tables on the House Un-American Activities Committee. Assisting him might really be an interesting experience, certainly different than what I was forced to endure from Manuel, his friends, and the studio.

  * * *

  THE 5-HOUR TRIP FROM LOS ANGELES TO MEXICO CITY WAS NOT AN ordinary flight well punctuated by food, drinks, and intermittent naps. Don insisted on using the time to carefully school his new pupil on the finer points of his plan. He and Mercedes were sitting next to each other in the first-class section. Knowing Mercedes needed to be convinced how important her services would be if they hoped to obtain Señor Arena’s cooperation, he was describing, in detail, each phase of his plan and what they hoped to accomplish.

  Although Mercedes was not able to follow everything she was being shown, she understood enough to appreciate the implications of Cecelia’s work. She listened politely as Don began to explain the significance of the legal brief he was in the process of preparing. “Information collected, processed, and presented in this fashion will hopefully provide us with four options. If we fail to convince Señor Arena that cooperating with us and providing us with the information we are seeking doesn’t represent his least bad alternative, we will be left with three other choices.

  “With this kind of evidence, we shouldn’t have any trouble convincing his Cuban investment partners of the fact that he has been skimming sizable amounts of money off the top of their movie receipts. I hesitate to think about how they might react to that news.

  “Preliminary discussions with our friends at Treasury indicate they have suspected, for quite some time, Arena has been laundering money for organized crime and falsely reporting his taxable income. They would welcome the opportunity to pursue their case.

  “Finally, Walt Matthews at the New York Times is not so patiently standing by to get his hands on this information. According to Walt, news of the skimming makes great copy, but he also wants to take advantage of circumstances surrounding the use of the money. He believes if he can authoritatively expose the identity of the contributors and the recipients, he could create a lot of disruption in their election objectives.

  “Responsible members of the press live for the opportunity to take advantage of their presumed authority as the nation’s ‘Fourth Estate’ to protect the interests of the people.”

  While Mercedes was having a difficult time comprehending all that was being discussed, she wasn’t having any difficulty understanding the magnitude and the seriousness of the situation. Listening to Don, she began to realize how reassuring it was to listen to this kind and gentle man patiently explain the wisdom of his plan.

  Don was not impervious to the incredible sense of presence this remarkably beautiful and attentive traveling companion generated. No matter how hard he tried to ignore what he was feeling and keep their conversation focused on the business at hand, he felt himself becoming increasingly aware of the rising tide of human chemistry passing between them. He’d been around attractive women, but never one so gorgeous, intelligent, and charming. It felt as if they were communicating on some kind of special frequency.

  As the plane began its descent toward the Mexico City airport, the pilot came on the intercom to announce, “Today, we have a special celebrity traveling with us, who will be met by a delegation from the Mexico City mayor’s office. After we come to a stop, please remain in your seats as they plan to briefly board and escort her off the plane.”

  Only half-listening to the announcement, annoyed by the pending delay, Mercedes settled back into her seat and stared out the window. As the plane bumped along the runway, she noticed a large cluster of people and cars assembled on the tarmac. The closer they got, the more detail she could see: white Chrysler convertibles filled with attractive young women, a host of newspaper reporters holding flashbulb cameras, a throng of what must be political officials, wealthy-looking men in business suits, and a mariachi band were all clustered together waiting for the plane to roll to a stop.

  Once the landing stairwell had been pushed against the plane, the band started to play, and the remaining contingent moved forward. A thickset man dressed in a white linen suit and a big sash that supported what appeared to be an official government medallion climbed up the stairs and entered the plane.

  Mercedes was still staring out the window. She had recognized two of the girls
sitting on the flat surface behind the rear seat of one of the convertibles. One of them was the same friend she had recently talked to on the telephone. Only vaguely aware of the commotion that was being created as the mayor of Mexico City gradually made his way forward, Mercedes was surprised when he stopped at the row where she and Don were sitting. Suddenly, she realized she must be the celebrity, and this was Manuel’s way of welcoming her back.

  Surprised and still seated, there was nothing Mercedes could do but sit quietly, smile, and listen to the mayor. “It is my pleasure as the mayor to welcome our country’s next great movie star to our humble city.”

  Passengers throughout the plane craned their necks to get a glimpse of the celebrity. A throng of waiting reporters pushed forward to interview the diva as she stepped from the last step onto the tarmac. The mariachi band was playing her favorite song. Manuel emerged from the crowd. Raising both of his hands above his head with a clapping motion, he signaled for the band to stop playing. After entwining the unsuspecting Mercedes in a welcoming bear hug and kissing her on both cheeks, he turned toward the crowd before announcing, “It is my pleasure to announce, now that the star of Arena Studios has returned, we will resume filming of Mexico. It’s a story of a young progressive president and his brilliant and strong willed wife as they proceed to modernize our government.”

  The crowd cheered heartily. Only in her dreams had Mercedes ever believed she would receive this kind of reception. By instinct, she instantly transposed herself into her new role. She began to greet the waiting reporters one at a time, treating each to her winsome smile and motioning for him to step forward. After waiting for him to identify himself, she would listen to his question, try to answer in her most thoughtful manner, and then pose for his accompanying photographer. For the next 30 minutes, she played the humble but gracious star.