The War of the Worlds Murder

Chapter THREE





COTTON CLUBBED





THAT HUMAN WHIRLING DERVISH, CAB Calloway—wide eyes and wider smile turned skyward—was blazing through “Minnie the Moocher,” in tailored tails, forelock flopping, working that conductor’s baton as if nonchalantly yet energetically battling an invisible swordsman. Not merely his orchestra but the entire crowd—Walter Gibson and Orson Welles included—echoed the charismatic bandleader’s “Hi-de-ho” chant.

Gibson had been to the original Cotton Club a few times, once with first-wife Charlotte and then again with Jewel, and he rather preferred the thatched-roof jungle look of the lavish reinvented club over the former one’s Old South, moss-draped oak tree atmosphere. He full well realized the cannibal stereotype was even more offensive than that of the happy cotton-pickin’ slave, but a tongue-in-cheek humor took the edge off. And, unlike the former club, this one welcomed Negro patrons—though relegated them to the rear.

Gibson felt underdressed in his brown suit with a striped red-and-yellow tie, and he’d worn his vest, to seem at least a little respectable. He’d never guessed, leaving on this work trip, that he’d be going nightclubbing with Orson Welles, who in a black suit with black bow tie, black cape and black fedora didn’t seem to have thrown off his Shadow persona, even if he had stepped down from the role on the radio.

Hell, Gibson hadn’t even imagined he’d be sitting, clapping and yelling, “Hi de ho!” a mere few hours ago, back at the hotel....

After the early-morning meeting at the Mercury Theatre yesterday, Gibson had returned to the St. Regis and caught a few more hours of sleep. Though his family had been fairly well off, particularly before the Depression, Gibson found the St. Regis almost off-puttingly posh. The eighteen-story Fifth Avenue hotel, facing Central Park, had been built in 1904 by John Jacob Astor for himself and his rich pals; Astor hadn’t had much time to enjoy it, before going down with the Titanic, leaving behind this lavish relic of the Gilded Age.

But in hard times like these, you could feel guilty lounging around in a world of fine furnishings, marble floors and mahogany panelling with its gold-leaf-garnished molding. Bellboys didn’t attend you—butlers did!

And Gibson didn’t imagine any other pulp writer had ever before sat pounding away at a portable Corona at the antique writing desk in this high-ceilinged room with its silk wallpaper, Waterford chandelier and marble floor. He doubted the $75 he’d be receiving from Street and Smith for this short story (“Old Crime Week”) would pay for even a night in this mink-lined flophouse.

By two P.M., having worked through what would have been lunch if it had occurred to him, he’d about hit the halfway point with the story. It featured his character Norgil—a composite of Harry Blackstone, Joseph Dunniger and several other real-life magicians—who appeared in short stories (as opposed to his novel-length Shadow yarns) in the pulp magazine Crime Busters.

Pausing to take a drag on his umpteenth Camel of the day, he was just thinking how—with Welles’s interest in magic—Norgil might make an even better character than the Shadow for the boy genius when the phone on the mahogany nightstand trilled.

The voice in his ear was that familiar resonant baritone: “Walter, I didn’t bring you here to loaf!”

Gibson, his fingertips red from typing, said, “I’m sure you didn’t, Orson. Any suggestions?”

“I suggest you come up to my suite—toot sweet! I have a rehearsal at the theater at seven...so time is, as they say, a’wastin’!”

Soon Gibson, portable Corona in hand, stepped from the elevator onto the eighteenth floor, where—after calling ahead to check on Gibson’s pedigree—the butler stationed there walked him to Mr. Welles’s suite.

The door, which was unlocked, was opened for Gibson by said butler, and when Gibson entered, he was greeted by Welles, or rather Welles’s voice, which boomed from the bedroom.

“Have you had lunch, Walter? Or for that matter, breakfast?”

“No!” Gibson called out.

The suite made Gibson’s own St. Regis room seem like a bungalow at the Bide-a-Wee Motel in Peoria, Illinois. In addition to the requisite fifteen-foot ceiling with chandelier, the living room was ornately appointed in the Beaux Arts manner, with a decorative fireplace, an Oriental carpet and Louis XV furniture.

“I’m just calling down for room service!” Welles’s voice informed his guest. Like the Shadow in full hypnotic mode, Welles thus far remained invisible.

Pausing to set down the typewriter to get out his Camels, Gibson suddenly put the pack of smokes away, deciding not to light up—not in here.

The expensive chairs and the two swooping sofas were stacked with spools of film, laying in careless coils, and on an end table pulled out into the middle of the room had been deposited what looked like a movie projector—sort of. The thing had two big spools (heavy with film) and an oversize viewfinder. Bits and pieces and fragments of film were scattered to either side of the machine, whose presence amid these antiques seemed vaguely futuristic, even alien.

Welles called: “Walter! What would you like?”

“Something light! Fish, maybe?”

“Fine!...Come in, come in....”

Through French doors, Gibson found Welles in a bedroom dominated by a four-poster bed, on the unmade edge of which the wunderkind sat, using a white-and-gold nightstand phone that was as magnificent as the bed itself. With the command and detail of a battlefield general, Welles was giving an elaborate order for food—were further guests expected?—as he sat in a white terrycloth robe with a ST. R crest, his feet slippered in black.

Gibson stood with his portable typewriter fig-leafed before him.

After hanging up, Welles got to his feet and beamed at Gibson, shaking his hand heartily, warmly, his eyes locked on the writer’s.

“Finally, we’re going to get some work done, ay?” he said, as if the world had been conspiring against the pair.

A table near a bay window looking out on Fifth Avenue through sheer drapes was littered with scripts in black binders, which Welles cleared with an arm, sending them clattering to the floor, or anyway Oriental carpet. Welles gestured for Gibson to sit, which he did, and Welles sat opposite, leaning on his elbows, steepling his fingers.

“You’ve been very patient with me, Walter.”

Gibson shrugged. “Entering your world is something of an adventure for me. I live a fairly sedentary life, you know.”

“I do know, Walter—despite the whirlwind you’ve witnessed, much of my time is spent hunkered either over a typewriter myself—or a script with a rewrite pen. The first place a production has to be mounted, after all, is in the mind.”

Nodding, Gibson asked, “If I might...and I don’t mean to be rude or anything...but why would you invite me to the city to work on a project, when you have a Broadway production about to open, and a radio show to put on?”

Welles folded his arms, leaning back; the small but full-lipped mouth took on a scampish little smile. “Walter, my dear friend...I put on a radio show every week. And the Mercury is a full-time repertory company—we go from one play right into another, often presenting several plays simultaneously.”

“So if you waited for a lull...”

The big man gave a tiny shrug. “No such animal in my life of late—and I believe that breed known as the Hollywood producer has the capacity to maintain his interest, his enthusiasm, about as long as a baby does a butterfly.”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

Welles leaned forward conspiratorially, eyebrows lifted. “I have designed Danton’s Death—this new play, you saw some of it?”

“Yes.”

“I have designed it dramatically—no, melodramatically, in a fashion that I think will demonstrate to the brothers Warner, and the minions they’ve dispatched to scout me, that I have the visual sense required to make films.”

Gibson nodded. “The striking sets, the movement, the sort of...‘cutting’ between scenes, it’s all meant to show you off as a potential filmmaker?”

The kiss of a mouth twitched approval. “Precisely. I expect several key Warner Bros. executives to attend early performances of Danton’s Death—and I want to be ready with a film project for them, to strike while the iron is hot, as they say.”

“Is that the reason for all of the celluloid scattered about?” Gibson asked, gesturing with a thumb toward the French doors. “And that gizmo?”

“What?...Oh, the Moviola! That’s an editing machine. I’m still playing with the film we shot for Too Much Johnson, the farce we’re planning to mount. We had a bad experience trying it out in summer stock, but I’m still hopeful.”

“Ah. You mentioned that on the phone.”

“Yes, I wanted to combine theater with film—present two lengthy portions of the show as a movie. It’s delightful stuff—Joe Cotten’s a natural on screen, funny as hell. But I ran into a wall.”

“How so?”

“Well, I didn’t realize that what I was up to required any special...dispensation. But it turns out MGM had film rights to the play, and they insist on charging us an arm and a leg for me to use my stuff.” Welles shrugged again, a larger more fatalistic one.

Gibson wondered how this skilled if young producer could have used the bad judgment to just do what he wanted, without checking into permissions. But Gibson immediately answered his own question: Welles was a child, a fun, bright, enthusiastic one...also spoiled. Like all spoiled children, he wasn’t much on asking permission....

“I can tell you, though, Walter, playing with this film, seeing how you can tell a story through pictures, little jigsaw-puzzle pieces, well, I get a real charge out of it.”

“So this Warners interest means a lot to you.”

“It does. It does indeed. I have so many ideas about making films—Walter, I can barely contain myself.”

“Such as?”

“You’ve seen the German films? Caligari, for instance? Fritz Lang’s Metropolis?”

“Sure. Judging by their crime pictures, I think the guys at Warner Bros. have, too.”

“Precisely! But they haven’t taken it far enough.” Welles sat forward, his eyes alive and twinkling, his palms open and outstretched, like Jolson on his knees. “I want to make radio...for the screen.”

Gibson winced in thought. “You mean, do more heightened, sophisticated sound work?”

Welles waved a dismissive hand. “Well, that, too, but...Walter, do the images you produce in your own mind, when you listen to a radio show—do the motion pictures you see in your local movie house match up to that?”

“To my own imagination? Hell no!”

“Ha! Precisely. It was better back in the silent days, when the cameras weren’t so bulky—think of the images von Stroheim achieved, and Griffith, and even DeMille. It was as if you were witnessing your own dreams coming to life...and that’s what I intend to make happen again, but even more so. Low angles, high angles, lighting effects, backgrounds as carefully art-directed as one of my Mercury stage productions.”

“And you think the Shadow would lend itself to this?”

A small smile twitched. “Well...if I may be frank...”

Gibson grinned. “You’re buying lunch, aren’t you?”

“Well, Housey’s checkbook is.... My goal would be to do on screen the kinds of things I’m attempting on stage. Nobody’s seriously tried to do Shakespeare, for example, since Mickey Rooney was Puck in that MGM fiasco.”

“I liked that movie.”

“You have to strip these classics down, reimagine them, for the masses. I did Hamlet in an hour on the radio!”

And left out the ‘To Be Or Not To Be’ speech, Gibson thought, but said nothing.

“I intend to do Conrad’s Heart of Darkness...Lear...The Life of Christ!”

“If you have these...” The writer almost said “pretensions,” but substituted: “...goals—why the Shadow?”

Welles’s expression seem to melt into a mask of chagrin. “I’ve insulted you...”

“No. No!”

“... Please don’t think I undervalue your contribution to either my career or the medium of radio.”

“I didn’t think—”

“I am no snob.” Then, in a tone so arch it undercut everything he said, Welles continued: “In fact, I am so resolutely middlebrow as to want to bring the highbrow down to my meager level.”

“Some would call the Shadow lowbrow.”

“Not Orson Welles. I kept myself alive, in Spain, back in ’33, plying your trade—writing pulp detective yarns! And you know of my love for magic—for the carnival-like thrill of prestidigitation, for velvet cloaks, for rabbits in hats, for aces of spades that appear in pockets! No, I love melodrama, and your hawk-nosed avenger...I’m working on my own false nose already, wait until you see me with a snoot worthy of this face!...Your creation is ideal for the cinema of dreams-come-to-life, my radio for not just the ears, but the eyes!”

Breakfast arrived, a small army of butlers bringing such a banquet that Gibson had first wondered who Welles might have invited to join them.

But it was all for them, a finnan haddie with baby red shrimps in a cream sauce for Gibson, an enormous serving of lobster Newburg for his host, plus appetizers including frog legs, scallops and oysters, with fresh-baked dinner rolls and a side salad with garlic dressing. No dessert had been ordered (“I can have them bring you something, Walter, just say the word!...But I’m dieting...”) and Gibson requested none.

Talk during the meal departed from work, and was intermittent—Welles approaching the feast fairly single-mindedly—with the chief subject “War of the Worlds.” He seemed both annoyed and amused that his friend Houseman, whom he loved, was such a “stick in the mud” and “stuffed shirt” where his prank was concerned. What did Walter think?

“Well,” Gibson said, stuffed to the gills, “if the news bulletins are convincing, and frequent, and maintain a believable time line...you may fool some of the people...”

“But not for all of the time! As the piece becomes more ridiculous, which it inherently is, they’ll know we’ve just sneaked up behind them and said, ‘Boo’!”

Welles called for the butlers to come clear the table, and soon—as they sat across from each other, the remains of the meal between them like the aftermath of a battlefield—a knock came to the door.

Frowning, Welles—who was sipping his coffee—said, “What’s wrong with this hotel? They know I don’t want to be bothered with answering the door! They know to come and take this garbage away without asking permission!”

Gibson was already on his feet, putting his napkin on the table. “I’ll get it....”

“Would you mind?”

But when Gibson opened the door, the butlers were not there: instead, a slender, very lovely—and unhappy-looking—young woman faced him. Blonde, blue-eyed and rather patrician in manner, in a sable jacket with matching cap and a dark green dress with matching heels, she eyed Gibson with undisguised suspicion.

“Are you a new slave?”

“Excuse me?”

She brushed past Gibson, saying, “Maybe not—he prefers little men, weasels like Vakhtangov, and you appear to be standing on two legs, not four.”

Gibson closed the door, swallowed, and tried to think of something to say.

She wheeled toward the writer, raised an eyebrow. The blue eyes were streaked red. For all her aloof poise, she could not hide that she’d been weeping.

“I am Virginia Welles,” she said. “Mrs. Welles. Is the great man in?”

“His wife?”

“Not his mother—though it is a fine line, I grant you.”

Still in his white terry robe, Welles appeared at the French doors, with a curious frown quickly turning to a displeased one.

“Virginia...dear. You know I’m working....”

“I’m delighted to see you, too, darling. Your daughter sends her best.”

“I doubt that. She can’t speak yet.”

“How would you know?”

Embarrassed, Welles looked past his wife to say, “Dear, this is Walter Gibson—he created the Shadow. We’re developing a film project.”

She again turned her head toward Gibson. Thin, pretty lips managed a thin, pretty smile. “Mr. Gibson,” she said with a tiny nod. “Forgive the melodramatics.”

“Not at all,” Gibson said, and risked a grin. “My stock in trade.”

The smile disappeared. “I need a few words with my...better half. Would you excuse us for a while, Mr. Gibson?”

“Certainly.”

Welles held the door open for her, rolling his eyes at Gibson behind Mrs. Welles’s back, as she slipped inside. The French doors shut, the conversation grew to a confrontation quickly, her voice shrill, his booming—a marital dispute of epic proportions.

Gibson did his best not to eavesdrop, but it was hard not to hear the accusations of the husband’s infidelity; among the most memorable phrases flung by the wife were “that little ballerina bitch,” “you two-timing self-inflated bag of hot air,” “that gold-digging little dancer,” “you self-important, psychopathic philanderer,” and “that simpering receptionist sitting on her brains all day.”

This had been going on for perhaps ten minutes when a phone rang in the bedroom, and Mrs. Welles allowed her husband a brief intermission to answer it. About a minute later, Welles again stuck his head out between French doors.

“Walter? Would you mind going down to the bar, to keep Housey company for a few minutes? He has some revisions for the radio show to share with me, and I’ll be down shortly—Mrs. Welles and I are nearly finished.”

The latter seemed obvious.

In less than five minutes, Walter Gibson was sharing a booth with John Houseman in the St. Regis’s famed King Cole Bar, opposite Maxfield Parrish’s equally famous mural behind the bar, its faces smirking enigmatically their way.

“Cheers,” Houseman said, lifting his Bloody Mary to clink with Gibson’s.

The Mercury producer had insisted that they order this particular drink, because it had been invented here, albeit under the sobriquet “Red Snapper.”

“Orson claims to have coined the new phrase,” Houseman said. “After Mary Tudor, of course.”

“Did he?”

“Very unlikely. But I would be remiss not to warn you, Walter, that Orson’s tendency to take all the credit for himself is not his best trait...though it may well be the defining one.”

Gibson shrugged. “I’m a writer for hire. My publishers even own the Maxwell Grant pen name. If Orson needs to feel he’s ‘created’ our project, I’ll get over it...if the check doesn’t bounce.”

A tiny smile formed. Again Houseman wore his uniform of checked jacket and bow tie, this one a light blue. “Not everyone feels as generously inclined as you, Walter. I know that Howard...Howard Koch, our writer?”

“Yes. We met yesterday.”

“That’s right, that’s right.... At any rate, Howard has been rather bitter about Orson’s refusal to credit him on the air with scripts. They’ve had...words.”

“Seems Orson has ‘words’ with lots of people.”

“He does indeed. Since childhood he’s been assured by all concerned that he is a genius; it’s never occurred to him to doubt that opinion.”

“Well, he is a kind of genius.”

“Yes he is. And he has a great heart. But he does on occasion abuse those he loves. You like him?”

“Actually, I do. I get a real kick out of the guy. Real change of pace for me—usually, I have to create monsters to hang out with them.”

Houseman chuckled. “He is a kind of monster at that, albeit a benign one. I take it Virginia dropped by?”

“Yes. Thanks for the reprieve for yours truly. I was getting pretty damn uncomfortable.”

“A happy accident.... The poor girl. She’s as brilliant as she is lovely, you know; comes from a fine family. He treats her dismally.”

“Doesn’t he love her?”

“I think he did. He may still.” Houseman had another sip of Bloody Mary, and his eyebrows flicked up and down. “But it’s his...appetites. They are—as you may have noted yourself—large.”

“You have the British knack for understatement, Jack.”

“Thank you, Walter. But I’m not British.”

Gibson didn’t pursue that, saying, “Hell, I’m on my second wife. None of us are perfect. But with a rich, pretty, talented helpmate like that—well, it’s a shame.”

“That he couldn’t make do? I should say. But of late he’s developed a penchant for dancers.”

“Really?”

“I believe it’s the long legs.”

“His wife has long legs.”

Houseman twitched half a smile. “Most men cheat on their wives with physical replicas of those self-same wives. At least that’s been my observation. Right now Orson is seeing two dancers, one of them very famous.”

“No kidding?”

“Yes. The famous one—Vera Zorina, but do be discreet, my boy—has an equally famous fiancé...George Balanchine.”

“Well, of course—I’ve heard of them both....”

“Balanchine has threatened Orson’s life. But then, if Orson is to be believed at least, so has the other dancer’s steady beau.”

“You doubt the latter?”

Houseman sipped his Bloody Mary. “I do. I happened to witness Balanchine’s threat—at the Stork Club—but the other dancer, an exotic dancer from Austria, who has been a featured performer in a variety of nightclubs, reportedly has a gangster boyfriend.”

“This is starting to sound like I wrote it.”

“Actually, I think Orson wrote it. I do believe he’s seeing this young woman, and I know that the clubs she performs in are owned by this shady individual...a fellow named Madden, I believe...”

Gibson’s eyes popped. “Owney Madden! He’s one of the top gangsters!”

“So I’m given to understand. Orson insists that this young lady has been romantically aligned with this Madden, and that he’s been threatened physically by thugs at the ganglord’s bidding.”

“Why are you skeptical?”

With a sigh, the producer said, “I am skeptical because Orson has twice now used this as an excuse for his arriving hours late to theater rehearsals—his tardiness due to the necessity of avoiding killers dispatched to take revenge upon him by this renowned gangster.”

“So—it’s just baloney, in your opinion.”

“Thinly sliced, expertly stacked in a sandwich that Orson insisted on feeding all of us—twice.” Houseman sighed. “That’s the real irritation—not only is he late, but when he comes in to give his excuse, he gets caught up in the yarn he’s inventing, and everyone gathers around...myself included, goddamnit...and we all get caught up in his powers of storytelling.”

Gibson laughed. “He’s one of a kind, all right. But couldn’t the gangster story be true?”

“Certainly it could. Orson has an apparent self-destructive need to throw himself in the path of danger—to associate with recklessness and risk.”

“Now you’re sounding melodramatic, Jack.”

“Perhaps I am. But we must always remember that what we have here is, essentially, a middle-class midwestern boy, steeped in art, music and literature, who craves the respect of sophisticated men. No matter how much he rages, he is gentle at heart—his storms tear up the countryside, but they do pass quickly.”

Showman that he was, Welles apparently knew this was his cue, because—in a cream-color suit and loose yellow bow tie—he ambled into the bar, lighted up like Christmas upon seeing them both, and deposited himself in the booth, putting Gibson in the middle.

Welles greeted them both warmly—as if he hadn’t seen Gibson for hours (as opposed to minutes) and as if he hadn’t been cruelly dismissive of Houseman the night before. He waved a waiter over, ordered himself a Bloody Mary, took credit for naming it, then listened patiently as Houseman brought him up to speed. This morning’s rehearsal had gone well, and Paul Stewart was assembling an effective gallery of sound effects; then Houseman read him script changes that the CBS censors had insisted upon for “War of the Worlds.”

“Thanks to your news bulletin approach,” Houseman said, “a script that earlier in the week was deemed by all concerned too ‘unbelievable’ has now been found, by the network, much too believable.”

Welles took a gulp of his Bloody Mary, which had just arrived. “What are the vultures requesting?”

“They request nothing. They demand that we remove our real place-names.”

“What!”

Houseman patted the air, gently. “Not geographic names—Grovers Mill is fine, as of course is New York and various New Jersey environs. Howard has made some good suggestions to fictionalize these place-names just enough to satisfy the Columbia Broadcasting System, but—”

“Not enough to alert the listener to what we’re up to. Good. Examples, please.”

Houseman looked at a sheet of paper tucked into the front of his script. “Langley Field, for example, is now ‘Langham.’ Columbia Broadcasting Building is now simply ‘Broadcasting Building.’ United States Weather Bureau is ‘Government Weather Bureau.’ ”

“Good, good,” Welles said, hands tented now, eyes almost glowing.

“New Jersey National Guard is now ‘State Militia.’ Princeton University Observatory is now ‘Princeton Observatory.’ ”

“Fine, fine.”

Houseman closed the script cover, ominously. “There is one that you won’t like, I’m afraid.”

“Don’t shield me, Housey.”

“They won’t let us use Roosevelt as a character.”

Welles sat up, alarmed and dismayed. “But that’s vital—a message from the president in a moment of national crisis!”

“They’ll allow another official—they’re suggesting Secretary of the Interior. This one appears to be nonnegotiable.”

Welles was thinking. “I may have a way around that...”

Houseman’s eyes hardened. “Orson—you know that I don’t approve of this approach...”

“I seem to recall something to that effect.”

“...but we have to keep CBS happy. Because if this backfires in any way, we dare not take all of the responsibility on our own shoulders.”

Welles drew in a deep breath. Finally he expelled it, and said ambiguously, “I won’t compromise the Mercury.”

Houseman frowned. “Artistically? Or financially?”

Welles leaned forward and patted Houseman’s hand. “I won’t let you down, Jack.” Then he turned to Gibson and said, “We only have a few hours left, before my rehearsal at the theater. Let’s get to work!”

They left a somewhat dejected-looking Houseman, who was ordering another Bloody Mary, to return to Welles’s suite.

For the next several hours, however, the subject of their collaborative Shadow film got sidetracked. Welles, on a passing mention of Hallowe’en in reference to their “War of the Worlds” prank, came to recall that Houdini had died on that day; this launched the showman into a lengthy discussion of magic.

Since this was Gibson’s own favorite subject, he found himself unable to resist the off-the-track journey.

“You know,” Welles said, seated in a chair next to his bed, getting a shave from a hotel barber, “as a child, I received magic lessons from Houdini.”

Gibson had pulled up a chair, his position similar to that of an interviewer. “Really? I saw him for the first time when I was seventeen—he asked me up on stage to examine his Chinese Water Torture Cell!”

“Wonderful! Details, man! Details!”

And Gibson provided details of the various times he’d seen Houdini, and of his own relationship with the famous magician, starting with a meeting at Houdini’s brownstone in New York in 1920, having to do with the Society of American Magicians (of which Houdini was president at the time). The friendship developed over the years, with Gibson a frequent backstage guest at Houdini shows. (Perhaps significantly, Welles offered no details of his childhood magic lessons from the magician.)

Later, as Welles received a manicure from a lovely girl in nurse’s whites, Gibson demonstrated several tricks Houdini had taught him, including “Instanto,” which involved swiftly cutting the cards and then identifying the cut-to card before turning it.

Welles was particularly intrigued to learn that Houdini had seen Gibson perform, and had wanted the young magician to teach him a certain trick.

“The Hindu wand trick,” Gibson told the rapt Welles, who was now getting a pedicure from the same girl in white. “Houdini wanted to buy the routine, but I presented it to him as a gift...only, he died before doing it.”

“I’d love to see it!”

“It’s an apparatus I don’t have with me—two wands with tassels that get cut but magically remain attached.”

“You must show me!”

“Next time we’re together, I’ll bring it.”

“If I like it, could I use it? Could I buy it?”

“Well...certainly, Orson. I’d be glad to give it to you, as a friend and fellow magician.”

Welles’s eyes floated skyward. “Imagine—to have a trick Houdini sought to perform, but never got the chance....”

“Are you anticipating doing an act, professionally, Orson?”

The boy-man nodded vigorously. “I’m hoping to mount an elaborate vaudeville show, someday soon.”

“You do have your...goals. Your ambitions.”

“I came to this party to have a good time.” The eyes twinkled, cheeks dimpled. “Didn’t you, Walter?”

A good time, certainly; but Gibson had also “come to the party” to work...and no more work was accomplished. The afternoon—between magic talk and Orson’s grooming—flew.

Just past six-thirty, darkness gathering at the windows, Welles showed Gibson to the door of the suite. “We’ll have breakfast tomorrow, and then go over to the studio together. You’ll get to see whether or not this ‘War of the Worlds’ can really fly.”

Feeling like the portable typewriter in his hand was purely decorative, Gibson asked, “What about our project?”

A hand settled on the writer’s shoulder, and his host said warmly, “A big part of what we’re doing this weekend, Walter, is getting to know one other. Establishing a bond. If you can stay over through Monday—”

“I could. I can.”

Welles patted Gibson’s shoulder, and took a step back, opening the door wider onto the waiting hall. “Well, we’ll squeeze in some work tomorrow, but Monday is yours, until rehearsal time. And we’ll be rehearsing well into the morning again, tonight...you’re welcome to drop by the Mercury and kibitz, of course.”

“Actually, I’m working on a story. I’ll be in my room, should you need me.”

“Highly unlikely. Why don’t you go out and enjoy yourself? The nightclub scene is incredible, these days.”

“I might.”

In his room, Gibson—not bothering with supper, after the huge lunch—continued punching the keys writing “Old Crime Week.” By midnight he was finished, and he lay on his bed in his high-ceilinged room, studying the chandelier, wondering if it was too late to follow Welles’s advice and go out to a club for a drink, a show and a late bite....

Again, Welles was right on cue.

The phone rang and the showman had an invitation for his writer friend. “Walter, the damn elevator has broken down again...”

“Elevator?”...

“In the tower on stage! For Danton’s Death!...Rehearsal is over, for tonight, while we turn the damn thing over to the mechanics.”

“Ah.”

“So—let’s get together. Have you ever been to the Cotton Club?”

“Not the new one.”

“This one lacks the primitive charm of the Harlem original, but there’s a twelve-thirty show with Cab Calloway. Are you up for it?”

“Sure!”

“My ride will pick you up in five minutes.”

“A cab?”

“An ambulance.”

So, sitting in the back of a screaming ambulance, next to an unused gurney, Gibson rode from the St. Regis to the Mercury, where Welles was picked up. Together, siren wailing, they took the short ride to Times Square and the Cotton Club.

Their table was off to one side, but with a fine view of the stage, and after Calloway had concluded, Welles ordered a “light” late supper: a plate of fried chicken for Gibson, and two plates of the same for Welles. Welles, still on a diet, had only a single helping of mashed potatoes and gravy, and a mere four biscuits.

The remains of this latest repast had been cleared away when Gibson risked a personal question.

“If you don’t mind my asking,” he said, “why aren’t you gun-shy about coming to this place?”

“Why should I be?”

“Well...Jack mentioned that you’ve been seeing a dancer who Owney Madden considers his private property....”

Welles sipped a glass of beer. “That’s possibly true.”

“Aren’t you afraid you might run into the guy? I mean, he’s no kid, but his nickname is ‘the Killer.’ Which he earned because, well...he’s a killer.”

“That is the rumor.”

“I don’t think it’s a rumor. He did time for it.”

With grandiose patience, Welles said, “Walter, since Mr. Madden got out of ‘stir,’ as his crowd calls it—on his most recent sojourn of several years—he’s been doing his best to stay out of Winchell’s newspaper column.”

“You mean—he owns the joint, but doesn’t hang around here.”

“That’s right. His cronies may pass along my having frequented his establishment, which I’m sure will give Mr. Madden a few moments of...irritation. Just as I’m enjoying a few moments of amusement, contemplating as much.”

“But you don’t think he’ll do anything about it.”

“What can he do? I’m a public figure. He lays a hand on me, threatens me in any way, and, poof...he’s back in, yes, ‘stir.’ Anyway, I haven’t been seeing Tilly in some time. Weeks. I have other interests now.”

“Like your wife, you mean?”

Welles’s head tilted to one side; he sighed, but smiled as he did. “Do my excesses offend you, Walter?”

“I shouldn’t have said that. My apologies.”

“No, no, I understand. But I ask you to understand—I married too young. Before I’d sown my fair share of wild oats. And my nature is simply not monogamous. I’ve explained this to Virginia, and she must either learn to accept me, as I am, or we will, sadly, have to go our separate ways.”

Welles was intent on walking back to the Mercury, to check on the status of the stage repairs, and asked Gibson to keep him company. Glad for the chance to walk off the big meal, Gibson quickly accepted.

Now approaching two A.M., Broadway was still alive but just starting to wind down a bit. As he strolled alongside the big man in the flowing black cape and slouch hat, Gibson contemplated how successful Welles (that baby nose hidden by a false hawk beak, anyway) might truly be at bringing the Shadow to life on screen.

Of course, the Shadow persona was actually secondary: the suave, sophisticated, man-about-town millionaire who was the Shadow’s secret identity—Lamont Cranston—Welles embodied perfectly, not only physically, but in life.

As they passed a particularly dark alley, a pair of hands reached out and plucked Gibson from Welles’s side, yanking the writer into the darkness. Two other large figures emerged from the shadows and thrust Welles into the alley as well.

Suddenly the two men had their backs to a brick wall and a trio of burly thugs in overcoats and battered hats—two fedoras and a porkpie—stood before them like a tribunal as imagined by Damon Runyon.

The trio was swathed in shadow, but one thing stood out clearly: the .45 automatic in the hand of the largest of them, the fleshy one in the middle, wearing the porkpie hat.

Welles, indignant, said, “What do you want with us? You want our money? You can have it! Then go, and go to hell.”

Gibson said nothing; he was trembling—scared out of his wits.

The man with the gun said, “We don’t want your money. We want your undivided attention—get it?”

“I’ve got it,” Welles said, sneering.

“Think you’re pretty cute, lording it up at the boss’s own place. Well, you lay off that little dancer, or the next time we talk, this rod’ll do the talking.”

“Cheap patter,” Welles said, “from cheap hoods....”

“Orson,” Gibson said. “Let it go...”

The guy with the gun said to the thug at his right, “Give him something to remember us by, Louie...”

Louie raised a fist, but Welles stepped forward and slammed his own fist into the man’s belly. As Louie crumpled, the man with the gun took a step forward and Welles knocked the gun from his grasp, slapping the man’s hand as if knocking a toy from a child’s hand.

The sound of it, spinning away on the cement into the blackness, gave Gibson courage. He shoved the third hood, the one who’d grabbed him in the first place, and then the entire trio of oversized goons were tripping over themselves, as Welles pushed Louie into the fellow with the porkpie.

Then Welles ran from the alley, calling, “Taxi!”

Gibson, right behind him, sharp footsteps on the pavement echoing, followed the flapping cape of Lamont Cranston as the hailed taxi screeched to a stop, and the actor and the writer scrambled into the backseat.

“St. Regis, please,” Welles said, regally casual, but breathing hard.

“Damn!” Gibson said, looking back toward the mouth of the alley—no sign of the hoods. They’d apparently disappeared into the dark, as Welles and Gibson made their escape.

Again, a hand settled on the writer’s shoulder. “Are you all right, Walter?”

“I may need a change of underwear.” He gave his host a hard look. “That was a little reckless, wasn’t it?”

Welles snorted. “I wasn’t going to let those overgrown Dead End Kids get away with that nonsense.”

“The leader had a gun!”

The cab driver’s eyes in the rearview mirror were on them.

Welles said, “He wouldn’t have fired, not so close to Broadway, not with a dozen cops around. They were just trying to scare us.”

Gibson blew out air. “Well, where I’m concerned, it worked like a charm.”

When the taxi pulled up at the St. Regis, a doorman approaching, Welles said, “Get some rest—I’m heading back to the Mercury. We’ll have breakfast in my room, around ten, then go over to CBS together around noon. Agreeable?”

But Welles did not wait for an answer, and the taxi glided away, the moon face smiling at him, a cheerfully demented, if slightly overweight elf.

In his room, between the Egyptian-cotton sheets, Gibson lay exhausted but exhilarated—and it took him a good hour to go to sleep.

It wasn’t that he was disturbed, and certainly his fear had passed: but story ideas were humming through his mind. Soon he had an image of himself at the antique writing desk, starting another story, not realizing he was only dreaming....





SUNDAY





OCTOBER 30, 1938





WALTER GIBSON’S FAMOUS CREATION WAS not the only Shadow cast by radio in 1938—the shadow of war also served to keep listeners on edge, and in a far more disturbing fashion....

For several months prior to The Mercury Theatre on the Air’s broadcast of a certain H.G. Wells science-fiction yarn, listeners had been alerted to the troublesome state of the world, homes all across the nation taken hostage by talking boxes in their living rooms, kitchens, bedrooms and automobiles. The same gizmo that was sharing household hints and fudge recipes, cowboy adventures and comedy shows, weather reports and advertisements for corn plasters, popular tunes and classical music, was also bombarding America with the latest disasters, subjecting them to an endless parade of ominous international events. At no other time since the beginning of broadcasting had the collective audience been held in such a rapt, fearful grip, with listeners quite accustomed to their favorite programs being interrupted for news updates...and the news was never good....

In his September address to the annual Nazi party congress in Nuremberg, German dictator Adolf Hitler demanded autonomy over an area on the Czech border known as Sudetenland. It seemed over three million “Sudeten Germans,” as the Führer called them, were “tortured souls” who could not “obtain rights and help themselves,” so the Nazis had to do it for them. (The translation Americans heard was provided by the dean of radio commentators, H.V. Kaltenborn, who just months before had been chosen by Orson Welles to narrate the Mercury radio broadcast of “Julius Caesar,” to add “a dimension of realism and immediacy.”) On October 3, Germany made its triumphant drive into the town of Asch, and a week later, Hitler’s troops occupied the Sudetenland.

Hearing of such an ill-boding event firsthand was already old hat to American radio listeners. Hitler’s conquests became a kind of serial for grown-ups, the Czech crisis playing out over three tense weeks—listeners hearing firsthand the march step of Nazi boots, the accusations and the threats, the rumblings of war that included the Far Eastern menace of the Japanese. At the height of the European crisis, about a month before the “War of the Worlds” broadcast, a presentation of “Sherlock Holmes” by The Mercury Theatre on the Air had been interrupted by a news bulletin, irritating (but also making an impression on) Orson Welles.

Most Americans felt the inevitability of involvement of the U.S.A. in a world conflict in which its allies were either threatened or already embroiled: as the Germans marched into Austria, the English people were issued gas masks, and all of Europe noted with alarm Hitler calling up to active duty one million weekend soldiers from the German army reserve.

Radio statistics indicated that the medium’s audience had never been larger; what the numbers didn’t spell out was that these masses of listeners had never been more worried. Days before the “War of the Worlds” broadcast, Leni Riefenstahl—German filmmaker and rumored mistress of the Führer—was in Manhattan promoting her documentary about the 1936 Olympics, finding critical acceptance and public hostility. Meanwhile in Rome, the voice of fascism—the newspaper II Tevere—ordered the boycott of the films of Charlie Chaplin, the Marx Brothers and the Ritz Brothers, the humor of these Jewish filmmakers condemned as “not Aryan.”

And the looming war was not the sole source of American jitters—earlier in 1938, a hurricane had hit the East Coast with devastating power; and, the year previous, the first disaster ever to be broadcast live exposed thousands to the explosion of the Hindenburg. When the German zeppelin caught fire at its mooring in Lakehurst, New Jersey, the announcer had been in the midst of describing the huge craft’s grandeur, only to witness...and report in “on the spot” fashion...the bursting flames and the dying people and all the ensuing chaos. His sobs—even his retching—had gone out over the air waves, “live”....

Just four days before the “War of the Worlds” broadcast, CBS’s prestigious (if little-listened-to) Columbia Workshop aired a verse play by Archibald MacLeish: “Air Raid.” Orson Welles listened to the production on a break rehearsing Danton’s Death, because he had loaned his friend and Mercury regular, Ray Collins, to the production to be its narrator, a mock announcer reporting an air raid from a European tenement rooftop—the whine of attacking planes could be heard, the explosions of their dropped bombs, the sounds of a confused populace running for shelter, machine-gun fire, the screams of victims, including a young boy....

Though written in verse, and clearly a play, the approach invoked a live news report. Welles heard this realistic radio drama a few hours before he made his suggestions to Howard Koch, John Houseman and Paul Stewart, about revising the script for “War of the Worlds” into a collage of broadcasts interrupted by news bulletins.

As one of the participants in the “War of the Worlds” broadcast would reflect many years later, “The American people had been hanging on their radios, getting most of their news no longer from the press, but over the air. A new technique of ‘on-the-spot’ reporting had been developed and eagerly accepted by an anxious and news-hungry world. The Mercury Theatre on the Air, by faithfully copying every detail of the new technique—including its imperfections—found an already enervated audience ready to accept its wildest fantasies....”