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

them all that, Howard, but you have to do it yourself. People are going to believe it until you denounce it yourself. Live!”

“Cary Grant, best friend I ever had. I was best man when he married Betsy in that Arizona farmhouse. Introduced me to Kate, did you know that, Cobb?”

She looked up at Cobb who was shaking his head.

“They’re drugging you, aren’t they, Howard?”

“It’s the goddam pain,” he said. “Trying to keep it down.”

“People are stealing you blind, do you know that? Why did you let them sell Hughes Tool just when the Supreme Court was taking your side on TWA? Do you know how much money you lost on that sale?”

“When did the Supreme Court ever take my side?”

Cobb continued shaking his head. “He doesn’t even know about it,” he whispered.

“Look, the movie here’s starting,” he said, “The projector’s loaded. Have to go. Goldfinger. You seen it? How the hell are you, anyway, Margie? We had some good times together, didn’t we?”

“Howard. Before you go. You have to stop Summa.”

“Summa . . . Sum-ma . . . Sum-ma. Never heard of it . . . what the hell is it? Cobb. You still there, Cobb? Speak up.”

“I’m listening, Mr. Hughes.”

“What the hell is Summa? Don’t even know how to pronounce it.”

“It is your company, Mr. Hughes. The board set it up. It’s to be the parent of all your properties. I’ve seen the documents. You signed them.”

“Bullshit, I never signed anything with the name Summa on it. Anything set up should be called HRH for Howard Robard Hughes—and I have to sign off on it! Great initials, aren’t they, Cobb? Mean something else, you know.” He laughed. “My Dad had that in mind, you know. I’d say I lived up to it, wouldn’t you?”

Cobb dodged the question. “It looked like your signature.”

“Then it was forged. Where are my lawyers, anyway, where’s Schmidt, where’s Gay, where’s Bautzer?”

“They’re the ones doing it,” he whispered to Maggie. “They’re not here, Mr. Hughes. If they’re not with you then they’re downtown.”

“Romaine Street?”

“That’s my guess. Hughes Productions.”

“Check with them. Whatever it is, don’t call it Summa. Any parent company should be the HRH Corporation. And send me the documents!”

“We don’t have your address, Mr. Hughes.”

Silence. Then: “I’ll let you know.”

“I’ll do what I can, Mr. Hughes,” he said, loudly. “The board, you know . . .”

“Howard, before you go,” said Maggie, panicking slightly. “You are my dear friend. You hired me, you introduced me to Terry, you came to my wedding . . .”

“I remember.”

“This Summa thing is bad, Howard. The land—your land—the land Melvin Cobb and I are sitting on right now—they’re taking it. The Times published drawings. Playa Vista, they call it. They’re acting in your name but you would hate it. Melvin can send you the drawings. Ugly gray concrete buildings running on for miles—faceless, colorless, concrete tenements! Communist, Howard, communist! Like East Berlin. They can’t do that. We have a commitment from you, a contract.”

She waited for an answer, but none came.

“Somebody cut the line,” said Cobb. “I don’t think it was Howard.”

She didn’t know what to make of her life anymore, but it couldn’t go on like it was. When you’re young, decisions make themselves. She knew it wasn’t so, that like any other young woman she’d had to make decisions, but at the time they seemed inevitable, something growing naturally out of the situation: the break with Harold, the trip to Europe, Arnaud, marriage, Howard, flying, the WASPs, Terry—one thing leading naturally to another, life on autopilot. Turn fifty and no more autopilot. You’re back at the controls, and God help you if you drift. Drift means spin and spin means wreck.

Howard, what an opportunity he gave her! The man was paranoid and sexist and domineering and all the things women are supposed to hate, but he was a genius and au fond, he was a dear. At least until disease got him. If you judge men by the women who love them, Howard was the top of the heap. Men feared him; women loved him. She flew with him and slept with him and left him in time. Just in time.

She’d stumbled along for a half century without a thought to what came next and now had no clue. Men? Marriage? Middle Age? Menopause? The horrible Ms. Women have a dozen things to think about before they get in bed with a man, and finally she was free of them. She’d lost an ovary because of a stupid fling with Hans, the musclebound lifeguard at the beach club she’d brought home because why not, and she was drunk from too many daiquiris and forgot she’d put in a Tampax and then Hans banging away on top of her and the next day she thought her whole insides had ruptured. The look on the doctor’s face said it all.

She never flew anymore, hated her job, which was all paperwork and men in business suits. A few years back she could have gone for a commercial pilot’s license. God, how she’d love to fly those new Boeing giants for TWA. Howard would have swung it for her. First woman WASP, why not the first woman airline pilot? Now she’d have to leave Hughes. How could she work for a company she was suing? Howard was no use, turned into a demented invalid, putative head of a company he’d never heard of and didn’t even know how to pronounce.

Leaving Hughes Aircraft meant she’d have to leave Playa del Rey. It was too far to the foundation offices downtown. Too bad they’d scrapped the trolley. Terry’s house was the one in which she’d been happiest, but she didn’t need two stories and three bedrooms and three bathrooms when no one ever stayed with her except guys like Hans. Cal came down sometimes, and Lizzie and Joe stopped by on their way to Westport but never stayed. Didi wouldn’t set foot in the house. The house on the hill