Blood and Oranges by James Goldsborough (latest books to read txt) 📗

back to him. “Write your name and number down.”

Lizzie watched her sister drop the paper into her purse when he was gone. She was smiling.

Maggie looked up. “What’s so funny?”

“I’m not sure I trust you with that boy’s number.”

Chapter 37

“Page Terry before you go, Clara,” Maggie called out to the receptionist who was getting ready to leave. “He’s probably in hangar three. Have him call me.” She stood, hands on hips, looking out over the airfield toward the sinking sun over the Ballona marshes. She saw a flock of birds rise up and head off over the oil derricks toward the ocean. Godwits? No, terns. She was getting to know the birds. The office line buzzed.

“Howard just called,” she told him. “He wants me ASAP. I want you to come.”

“See you about what?”

“He wouldn’t say. Just ‘Maggie get on over here.’”

“Over where?”

“He’s at the Flamingo.”

“I’m supposed to be leaving for Tucson.”

“Vegas is on the way. Get Dieter to bring out an Electra. You can go on to Tucson after we see what he wants.”

“Vegas is north and Tucson is south.”

“Right, but they’re both east.”

“Now?”

“You know Howard.”

“We won’t be in Vegas before ten o’clock.”

“So. When did Howard ever keep normal hours?”

Coming in from the southwest shortly after ten, they spied the lighted Flamingo tower beyond McCarran Field. Far beyond the Flamingo, the lights of the city twinkled against a dark sky. There was not much to Las Vegas, but the gamble of opening its first resort hotel five miles from downtown had paid off for Bugsy Siegel. The Flamingo was a smash from the beginning.

“I’d hate to come in from the north in fog and run into that tower,” said Terry.

“The sky is always clear in Las Vegas.”

“Except for dust storms.”

“They come from the north so from the south you’d be landing into them.”

“Smart girl.”

They left flight suits on the plane and walked through an empty airport to a waiting car. Five minutes later they were crossing the busy Flamingo lobby to the front desk.

“Mr. Hughes is expecting you,” said the night manager, eying Terry, “though the reservation is for one. I guess it’s okay. Suite 1400. The boy will take your bags directly to your room, room 209. Here are your keys. This gentleman will accompany you.”

The gentleman, in white shirt and skinny black tie, grunted, and they followed him down long empty corridors that looked too much like the airport they’d just left.

Anointed the world’s richest man by Time magazine, Howard Hughes lived everywhere and nowhere. He kept in touch by phone when he wanted, but don’t try to call him. He hadn’t been seen at Hughes Aircraft since a dispute with the IRS prompted him to split Hughes Aircraft off from Hughes Tool, the cash cow his father had left him, and form something called Howard Hughes Medical Institute. HHMI was a neat way of avoiding taxes. He didn’t pay his Mormon lawyers for nothing. He liked Mormon neatness.

He’d opened a plant in Tucson, offices in Miami and flew his own Lockheed Electra everywhere he went. He kept rooms at the Flamingo and Desert Inn and when in Los Angeles rented houses in Santa Monica, Bel Air, and Beverly Hills from Hollywood friends. His latest film, The French Line, was universally regarded as a disaster, even by its star, Jane Russell. They said his luck in Hollywood was running out, but Hughes had other ideas.

Two more gentlemen in LDS uniform of white shirt, dark pants and skinny tie, were stationed outside Suite 1400. A knock, an opening, an identification and the chain was lifted.

“Like old speakeasy days,” Maggie whispered to Terry.

“You’re too young to know about that.”

“Learned from my dad.”

The gentleman inside the room looked more respectable, at least wore a jacket. “I’m Bill Schmidt,” he said, pointing across the room toward open French doors that looked out onto lighted palms, lawn, and cactus. In the distance they heard noises from a pool. Beyond the window lurked the shadow of what would be another gentleman.

Hughes sat by the French doors in a leather Eames chair with ottoman. Approaching, she saw he wore beige slacks, an open shirt with a Billy Eckstine collar and apparently didn’t shave anymore. He had his feet up and was watching a television movie with the sound off. He bore little resemblance to the man she’d dated during the war, looked changed even from the last time she’d seen him at Hughes Aircraft, whenever that was. Plane crashes, loss of hearing, acute mysophobia and advancing syphilis were taking their toll.

She noticed grotesquely long fingernails and felt a chill, as if entering some kind of quarantined sanctum. He looked up, frowned and did not stand.

“What the hell are you doing here, Terry? You’re supposed to be in Tucson.”

“I asked him to come, Howard.”

“Well, he can just go on to Tucson. This doesn’t concern him.”

“What doesn’t concern him?”

“Bye-bye, Terry.”

“What, now?”

“Why not? Your Electra’s equipped for night flying, isn’t she? I invented that system myself. Fuel up and you’ll be there in two hours. They start testing the new radar units tomorrow morning. I want you there. Hell, you should already be there.”

Terry stared silently, then turned to Maggie. “I’ll call you in the morning.”

“Call me, too,” said Hughes. “I want a full report.”

“Jesus, Howard,” she said when he was gone. “What’s gotten into you? What’s one more day matter? Why am I here?”

He looked to Bill Schmidt who was still standing by the door. “You want anything, Maggie? Probably haven’t eaten. How about a sandwich?”

“How about a sandwich for Terry before he leaves?”

“Terry can get his own sandwich. Restaurant never closes. Sit down, Maggie, in the chair where I can see you. You look good. Terry taking good care of you?”

She was more than a little tired and vastly annoyed. She hadn’t liked flying to Vegas at night and didn’t like Terry flying past midnight to Tucson. The Hughes night-flying system was still new. She didn’t like jumping when Howard snapped