“The alternate jurors are dwindling down to a precious few, as Judge Ito keeps dismissing jurors. I think this is very serious, what’s happening. George Vernon, who is a mystery journalist among us, from a nonexistent newspaper—I for one happen to think he is planted in our midst by the defense—is spreading stories about the latest alternate juror who has ascended to the jury panel. He seems to have an inordinate amount of information about her, which is unusual, in that the identities of the jurors and alternate jurors are so carefully protected. This is the same guy some of you may have heard me talk about when I spoke downtown at the new Los Angeles library, which is fabulous by the way. He told me in what I thought was a mildly menacing manner that people in Chicago didn’t like the way I was covering the trial. He says that the new juror, who is Caucasian, went to a Christmas party last year, before the trial started, and told people she was going to write a book about the trial and make a million dollars, and therefore she should be bumped from the panel. He had some other disqualifying stories about her, but I had tuned out of the conversation. There is no way George Vernon, with his no-credentials, could know that information. Either what he is spreading into every ear is totally bogus, or he is being fed information by the two private investigators for the defense, who have probably checked out the backgrounds and persuasions of all the jurors and alternates. I’ve known Pat McKenna since he was hired by the Kennedys for the William Kennedy Smith rape trial in Palm Beach. This guy could dig up dirt on Mother Teresa. The point is, this new juror, who is probably a prosecution juror, will probably be a nonjuror in a very short time. The campaign against her has started. The defense wants to get rid of her. This young lady is history. I find it interesting that the highly paid defense jury consultant Jo-Elian Dimitrius continues to sit in court every day of the trial. Jo-Elian, whom I like, is tall, blond, beautiful, and seems to have caught the eye of Larry King, who was recently seeing Suzanne Childs of the D.A.’s office, but that’s another story. In effect, Jo-Elian Dimitrius’s job was completed when the jury was seated. Further, there are constant rumors that O. J. is having difficulty paying his lawyers. So why is she sitting there, being highly paid? My take is, Jo-Ellan’s telling Johnnie Cochran which jurors aren’t defense-friendly. Anyway, I’ve talked enough. Thank you very much, Peggy.”
“Could I ask just one question, Gus. Just one?”
“Of course.”
“Is there any truth to the rumor that Marcia Clark and Chris Darden are having an affair?”
* * *
The trial was coming to a conclusion. Tempers were frayed. The courtroom friendliness between Marcia Clark and Johnnie Cochran had come to an end. The looks exchanged between Chris Darden and Johnnie Cochran were filled with loathing. Lawyers on both sides openly despised one another. No one liked Judge Ito. In the corridor during breaks, the friends who surrounded the Simpson relatives and the friends who surrounded the Goldman family stared at one another with hostility and began to comment about one another in derisive tones. Most of the reporters couldn’t stand Deputy Jex, and Gus couldn’t stand either Jex or Deputy Browning, even though the imitation he did of her at Joe McGinniss’s parties had been a great success. He had also developed an antipathy to a CNN legal analyst whom he had never met, named Greta Van Susteren.
“She’s too pro-O. J. for me,” said Gus, whenever Van Susteren’s name came up in conversation. “She gives me Barry Scheck feelings when I watch her on CNN. I would never go on that show.”
“There are a lot of people who think you’re too pro-prosecution, Gus, both in the way you write and the way you speak on television,” said Shoreen.
“That’s different,” said Gus. “I’m on the side of the victim. I don’t have to pretend I think O. J. didn’t do it, like Greta does.”
At every dinner Gus went to, when there were important members of the Industry present, he always brought up the name of O. J. Simpson’s great friend Don Ohlmeyer.
“Don’t you think it’s odd that the president of NBC West Coast is a constant visitor to Simpson in jail while the trial is going on?” he asked. “Shouldn’t the management of a network maintain an impartial stance during such a sensitive trial?”
“Gus, I heard from someone in the program department at NBC that the word is out that nothing Gus Bailey writes is to be bought by the network,” said Douglas S. Cramer, the television producer and multimillionaire art collector. The last show Gus produced before he left the film-and-television business had been for Doug Cramer.
Deeper than that, long-simmering hatreds were coming to the surface. F. Lee Bailey’s longtime friendship with Robert Shapiro had turned to sheer unadulterated hate early in the trial. It continued and worsened in the months that followed. They could not bear to be in each other’s sight. They cringed with displeasure when circumstances required them to be in physical proximity of each other. Fred Goldman and Kim Goldman stared their hatred into O. J. Simpson’s back, daring him to turn around and see the extent of the hatred they felt for him for Ron’s slaughter.
Outside the courthouse, the crowds were growing in numbers each night. More people carried signs. More people were yelling that the L.A.P.D. had framed O. J. For security, all entrances to the courthouse were closed except the front entrance, making it necessary to walk through a battery of cameras in full view of the crowds when entering or leaving the building. For the first time, Gus heard himself booed. It sent a chill through him.
Several times Gus said to one of the African-American reporters, Dennis Schatzman, with whom he had become friendly, “Walk me to my car, will you, Dennis? I’m beginning to feel hostility from some of the people outside.”
“No one’s going to hurt you, Gus,” said Dennis.
“I know, but—”
“Where’re you parked?” asked Dennis.
Of late, the seeming civility between the Goldman and Simpson families that had been maintained for the first several months of the trial had deteriorated, and they began to show their deep dislike for each other. Over the months, Gus had formed a warm friendship with Kim. On several occasions during the trial, Gus had seen the Goldman family outside the courtroom.
“You’re always talking to the killer’s sisters, Gus, saying how nice they are,” said Kim.
“They are,” said Gus. “They didn’t kill Ron. They’re just related to the man who did kill Ron.”
“Who’s the one on the end, with the orange hair and the fancy hairdos every day?”
“That’s Carmelita, and the hair’s not orange,” said Gus.
“Then neither is Johnnie Cochran’s suit,” said Kim.
Gus laughed. “What about Carmelita?” he asked.
“She gives me the middle finger when she’s fixing her hair.”
“Oh, I don’t believe that, Kim. Carmelita wouldn’t do that,” said Gus.
“Watch, just watch,” said Kim. “She pats her hair back, like she’s fixing it, but she’s only got the middle finger sticking up, and that’s aimed at me.”
“Why would she do that?”
“It’s because we stare at the killer all the time. Even though he doesn’t turn around, I know it freaks him out.”
“Maybe you’re getting to him,” said Gus.
“Did you hate that guy who killed your daughter, Gus?”
“I did.”
“Do you still?”
“I do.”
“So you know how we feel?”
“Yes.”
“Whatever happened to that guy?”
“I just heard he’s in Seattle.”
* * *
Mr. Goodhue from Florida had called Gus back. He had called his daughter in Seattle and told her to go out and buy the magazine and read Gus’s “Letter from Los Angeles.”
“And what happened?” asked Gus.
“My daughter showed Lefty the magazine open to the page where you wrote that he had murdered your daughter and asked, ‘Is this you?’ ” said Goodhue.
“And what did
Lefty say?” asked Gus.
“He grabbed the magazine from her and threw it on the floor without even reading it, as if he already knew what you had written about him, and he said, ‘That was a long time ago, and I’ve been in therapy ever since.’ ”
“Yes?” asked Gus.
“Yes what?”
“Is that the end of the story? Did she leave him?”
“No. She wants to stay.”
“Good God,” said Gus. “How old is your daughter?”
“Twenty-one, almost twenty-two.”
“I was talking to my son Grafton about your call. It made him absolutely furious. He said, ‘Lefty Flynn hasn’t learned a thing. He’s the same con man he always was. He’s engaged to be married to a young woman, and he hasn’t even bothered to tell her he’s murdered a girl and been in prison. What kind of marriage is that going to be with a little secret like that kept from the bride?’ I don’t wish to interfere in your affairs, Mr. Goodhue, but I don’t think what my son said is out of line in the least.”
Goodhue started to cry. “I don’t know what to say to her,” he said. “He seemed perfectly nice when we met him.”
“That’s what the Browns say about O. J.,” replied Gus. “Think that scenario through.”
“What’ll I tell her, Gus?” asked Goodhue, sobbing.
“You tell her that every time Lefty Flynn touches her to remember that the hands that are caressing her strangled a young woman exactly the same age as she is.”
There was silence.
“Keep in touch,” said Gus. “I want to know what happens.”
The next day, the Simpson sisters went on television for the first time since the trial had begun. At a press conference called by the defense on the first floor of the Criminal Courts Building, Shirley and Carmelita denounced Fred Goldman for making disparaging remarks on television about Johnnie Cochran for bringing in bodyguards from the Nation of Islam.
In his rooms at the Chateau Marmont, Gus watched on television the press conference that he had attended several hours earlier in the courthouse. He kept switching from channel to channel to watch Shirley Baker. At first he said to himself, “She’s being put up to this by Cochran,” but he knew that Shirley was not being a reluctant performer thrust into the spotlight. He was stunned by the extent of her rage toward the Goldman family. It seemed to him that she was close to being out of control, as if months of suppressed rage were pouring out of her. At the same time, it shocked him to realize about himself that he had pompously expected Shirley and Carmelita to go on being benign and brave through defeat.
As he watched, he dialed Morton’s, where he was expected for dinner, and said to his friend Todd Thurman, the maître d’, who knew exactly where to seat everyone on any Monday night, the night to be seen there, “Todd, it’s Gus Bailey. Scott Berg is expecting me for dinner. Will you tell Scott I’m running a little late and to start without me.”
He turned back to the television set and listened to Shirley Baker again, as he began to pull himself together for dinner. As he looked at himself in the mirror to tie his tie, he knew that the moment had come when he had to declare himself, who he was and what he believed. To go on would be duplicitous. The end of the trial was at hand.
As the Simpson sisters and Benny started to move toward the courtroom door, which Deputy Jex was holding open, Gus quickly said to the three of them, “I have to talk to you for a minute before we go back into court. Okay?”
“Sure, Gus,” said Benny.
They moved away from the people who were entering the courtroom until they came to a quiet place in the corridor.
“You know I’m deeply fond of you,” said Gus. “You must have read what I’ve written about you.”
“That goes both ways,” said Shirley.
“For me, too, Gus,” said Carmelita.
“I know, but I can’t be false with you,” said Gus. He looked at Benny. He knew that Benny knew what he was about to say. He didn’t want to look at Shirley, but he forced himself to. “I realized that yesterday at your press conference. You know, we’ve always avoided the main topic of conversation between us. We’ve talked around the subject for almost a year, but we can’t anymore. It’s too close to the end. I think your brother killed Nicole and Ron. It pains me to say that, but it’s what I think.”
“He didn’t, Gus,” said Shirley.
“He didn’t,” said Carmelita.
“There’s no way, Gus,” said Benny.
“We can’t play he-did, he-didn’t,” said Gus. “We’ve come to an impasse. There’s no solution here. We’ve probably all known this was going to happen sometime.”
“That’s right,” said Shirley.
“That doesn’t mean that I’m going to end my affection for you,” said Gus. “I would like to have stayed friends after the trial, but that can’t be. We probably all knew that. You’re doing what’s right for your lives. I’m doing what’s right for mine.”
Everyone had gone in for the afternoon session. They were the last to enter. Deputy Jex was closing the doors. They walked toward the door of the courtroom in silence, all weighed down by the conversation they had just had. Jex scowled at Gus for being late. “It’s a good thing for you Judge Ito hasn’t entered yet, or you’d be out for the afternoon,” he said, with the usual snarl in his voice. Gus, who despised him, walked past without replying. Then Jex smiled at the Simpson sisters and led them to their seats. “He’s like an usher in the theater when he takes the Simpson ladies to their seats,” said Gusto Shoreen.
The door to the holding room opened, and O. J. Simpson entered. He never failed, in all the months in that courtroom, to bring forth a hush as he walked in. His sisters strained forward with huge smiles on their faces to greet him, as they did every time he entered the courtroom, four times a day, every day. As he acknowledged his sisters with a nod of his head, his eyes cased the audience to see who was there.
“I never really knew O. J.,” said Warren Beatty. “I’d see him around, at Hugh Hefner’s, or the Daisy, or a closed-circuit fight, something like that, but I never really knew him. Once I had a long telephone conversation with him, though. It was about a maid who had worked for him whom I was thinking of hiring, at my old house on Mulholland that got ruined in the earthquake, and I called to get a rundown about her, and we had a nice talk, and we were going to get together and all that, but we never did.”
Gus and Warren Beatty were having lunch in the dining room of another house on Mulholland that Warren and Annette Bening, his wife, were renting while their own house was being rebuilt. Gus had known Warren at Fox before his fame, when he played a supporting role in an episode or two of the television series Dobie Gillis, which had starred Dwayne Hickman.
“After the murders, Bob Evans had a couple of parties I went to for Bob Shapiro, who was the hero of the hour at the time. I met F. Lee Bailey there one time,” said Warren.
“I was in the courtroom during the Cotton Club murder trial when Bob Evans took the Fifth, with Shapiro standing beside him,” said Gus. “As far as I’m concerned, you only take the Fifth when you’ve got stuff to hide.”
Warren laughed. “You’re very unforgiving, Gus.”
“Only in matters of murder,” replied Gus.
“That’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about. What would be a terrific book for you to write that could make a terrific picture—”
“Let me interrupt for a minute,” said Gus. “There’s the matter of an O. J. book, a novel, that has to be attended to before anything else.”
“After that, I meant,” said Warren. “This will hold. You should write the story of the Manson murders, Gus.”
“My friend Vince Bugliosi already wrote that book, and wrote it wonderfully well,” said Gus.
“But you know the other side of the story that Vince didn’t know,” said Warren. “He knew the bad guys. You knew the movie people, you and Peach. You knew the life they lived. You were part of it. It was the crowd from the D
aisy that went in and out of that house on Cielo Drive where the killings took place.”
“Including you, and Jane Fonda, and quite a few others as I remember. I knew Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski. I knew Jay Sebring. I knew Abigail Folger, but I didn’t know her boyfriend. The last time I saw Sharon before the murders was one night at dinner at Tony Curtis’s when he was married to that German movie star, whose name I can’t remember.”
“Christine Kaufmann,” said Warren.
“Right. They lived in a beautiful house, like a French château, right off Sunset, next to Jayne Mansfield’s pink house, do you remember? There was a huge rose garden in the back, with gravel paths and boxwood hedges. After dinner I went walking in the garden, and Sharon was there. She looked so beautiful. Her pregnancy was beginning to show. I knew her from way back, before she married Roman Polanski, when she was Jay Sebring’s girlfriend, and she’d sit in the room while Jay was cutting my hair. We just stood there in the garden and talked about old times and smoked a joint. Jay was so in love with Sharon. Dramatically, it’s so extraordinary that he should have been murdered with her.”
“That’s what I mean, what you just said. Who else knows stuff like that?” said Warren. “Do you remember when Steve McQueen packed a gun at Jay Sebring’s funeral?”
“Sure. Everyone was so afraid there were going to be more movie-star murders,” said Gus. “Peach and I sent our kids to her mother’s ranch. Do you remember some of the people everyone was suspecting?”
“You have to write it, Gus,” said Warren. “Roman’s never really talked about it, but I know he’d talk to you. I could set that up. He took a lot of flak at the time, as if the kind of movies he directed set the scene for the murders that followed.”
“It’s an interesting idea, and I could write it, but I think I have to get away from murder for a while, Warren,” said Gus. “It’s beginning to deplete me. I get too emotionally involved. I can’t keep that distance you’re supposed to keep. I understand Fred Goldman’s pain and rage totally. I admire him for exposing it. I have developed an unreasonable hatred for the kind of lawyers who would do anything, anything, to get a guilty man acquitted. This whole business of killers beating the rap is so repugnant to me that I stopped seeing my brother Malachy after he dedicated his last book to Leslie Abramson, whom I once called the patron saint of killers in an article I wrote. I shouldn’t get into that. That’s off the record, as people in my business say.”
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