Suddenly a miracle occurs.
There, striding past my tiny glass-doored prison, is a haughty, beautiful black Amazon wearing a zillion dollars’ worth of diamonds and golden sable, a star surrounded by a giddy, chattering entourage of gaudily dressed chorus boys. And who is this dazzling apparition whose plumage and presence are creating such a commotion among the passers-by? A friend! An old, old friend!
TC (opening the booth’s door; shouting): Pearl! Pearl Bailey! (A miracle! She hears me. All of them do, her whole entourage) Pearl! Please come here …
PEARL (squinting at me, then erupting into a radiant grin): Why, baby! What you doing hiding in there?
TC (beckoning her to come closer; whispering): Pearl, listen. I’m in a terrific jam.
PEARL (immediately serious, for she is a very intelligent woman, and at once understood that whatever this was, it wasn’t funny): Tell it to me.
TC: Are you on that plane to New York?
PEARL: Yeah, we all are.
TC: I’ve got to get on it, Pearl. I have a ticket. But there’re two guys waiting at the gate to stop me.
PEARL: Which guys? (I pointed them out) How can they stop you?
TC: They’re detectives. Pearl, I haven’t got time to explain all this …
PEARL: You don’t have to explain nothing.
(She surveyed her troupe of handsome young black chorus boys; she had a half-dozen—Pearl, I remembered, always liked to travel with a lot of company. She motioned to one of them to join us; he was a sleek number sporting a yellow cowboy hat, a sweatshirt that said SUCK DAMMIT, DONT BLOW, a white leather windbreaker with an ermine lining, yellow jitterbug pants [circa 1940], and yellow wedgies.)
This is Jimmy. He’s a little bigger than you, but I think it’ll all fit. Jimmy, take my friend here to the men’s room and change clothes with him. Jimmy, don’t flap your yap, just do like Pearlie-Mae say. We’ll wait right here for you. Now hurry up! Ten more minutes and we’ll miss that plane.
(The distance between the telephone booth and the men’s room was a ten-yard dash. We locked ourselves into a pay toilet and started our wardrobe exchange. Jimmy thought it was a riot: he was giggling like a schoolgirl who’s just puffed her first joint. I said: “Pearl! That really was a miracle. I’ve never been so happy to see someone. Never.” Jimmy said: “Oh, Miss Bailey’s got spirit. She’s all heart, know what I mean? All heart.”
There was a time when I would have disagreed with him, a time when I would have described Pearl Bailey as a heartless bitch. That was when she was playing the part of Madame Fleur, the principal role in House of Flowers, a musical play for which I had written the book and, with Harold Arlen, co-authored the lyrics. There were many gifted men attached to that endeavor: the director was Peter Brook; the choreographer, George Balanchine; Oliver Messel was responsible for the legendarily enchanting décor and costumes. But Pearl Bailey was so strong, so determined to have her way, that she dominated the entire production, much to its ultimate detriment. However, live and learn, forgive and forget, and by the time the play ended its Broadway run, Pearl and I were friends again. Aside from her skill as a performer, I’d come to respect her character; it might occasionally be unpleasant to deal with, but certainly she had it: she was a woman of character—one knew who she was and where she stood.
As Jimmy was squeezing into my trousers, which were embarrassingly too tight for him, and as I was slipping on his white leather ermine-lined windbreaker, there was an agitated knock at the door.)
MAN’S VOICE: Hey! What’s goin’ on in there?
JIMMY: And just who are you, pray tell?
MAN’S VOICE: I’m the attendant. And don’t sass me. What’s goin’ on in there is against the law.
JIMMY: No shit?
ATTENDANT: I see four feet in there. I see clothes comin’ off. You think I’m too stupid I don’t know what’s goin’ on? It’s against the law. It’s against the law for two men to lock themselves in the same toilet at the same time.
JIMMY: Aw, shove it up your ass.
ATTENDANT: I’ll get the cops. They’ll hand you an L and L.
JIMMY: What the hell’s an L and L?
ATTENDANT: Lewd and lascivious conduct. Yessir. I’ll get the cops.
TC: Jesus, Joseph, and Mary—
ATTENDANT: Open that door!
TC: You’ve got it all wrong.
ATTENDANT: I know what I see. I see four feet.
TC: We’re changing our costumes for the next scene.
ATTENDANT: Next scene what?
TC: The movie. We’re getting ready to shoot the next scene.
ATTENDANT (curious and impressed): They’re making a movie out there?
JIMMY (catching on): With Pearl Bailey. She’s the star. Marlon Brando, he’s in it, too.
TC: Kirk Douglas.
JIMMY (biting his knuckles to keep from laughing): And Shirley Temple. She’s making her comeback.
ATTENDANT (believing, yet not believing): Yeah, well, who are you?
TC: We’re just extras. That’s why we don’t have a dressing room. ATTENDANT: I don’t care. Two men, four feet. It’s against the law.
JIMMY: Look outside. You’ll see Pearl Bailey in person. Marlon Brando. Kirk Douglas. Shirley Temple. Mahatma Gandhi—she’s in it, too. Just a cameo.
ATTENDANT: Who?
JIMMY: Mamie Eisenhower.
TC (opening the door, having completed the transference of clothing; my stuff doesn’t look too bad on Jimmy, but I suspect that his outfit, as worn by me, will produce a galvanizing effect, and the expression on the attendant’s face, a bristling short black man, confirms this expectation): Sorry. We didn’t realize we were doing anything against the rules.
JIMMY (regally sweeping past the attendant, who seems too befuddled to budge): Follow us, sweetheart. We’ll introduce you to the gang. You can get some autographs.
(At last we were in the corridor, and an unsmiling Pearl wrapped her sable-soft arms around me; her companions closed about us in a concealing circle. There were no jokes or jesting. My nerves sizzled like a cat just hit by lightning, and as for Pearl, the qualities about her that had once alarmed me—that strength, that self-will—were flowing through her like power from a waterfall.)
PEARL: From now on keep quiet. Whatever I say, don’t you say anything. Tuck the hat more over your face. Lean on me like you’re weak and sick. Lean your face against my shoulder. Close your eyes. Let me lead you.
All right. We’re moving now toward the counter. Jimmy has all the tickets. They’ve already announced the last boarding call, so there aren’t too many people around. Those gumshoes haven’t moved an inch, but they seem tired and kind of disgusted. They’re looking at us now. Both of them. When we pass between them the boys will distract them and start jabbering. Here comes somebody. Lean closer, groan a little—it’s one of those VIP guys from TWA. Watch Mama go into her act … (Changing voice, impersonating her theatrical self, simultaneously droll and drawling and slightly flaky) Mr. Calloway? Like in Cab? Well, aren’t you just an angel to help us out. And we surely could use some help. We need to get on that plane just as fast as possible. My friend here—he’s one of my musicians—he’s feeling something terrible. Can’t hardly walk. We’ve been playing Vegas, and maybe he got too much sun. Sun can addle your brain and your stomach both. Or maybe it’s his diet. Musicians eat funny. Piano players in particular. He won’t eat hardly anything but hot dogs. Last night he ate ten hot dogs. Now, that’s just not healthy. I’m not surprised he feels poisoned. Are you surprised, Mr. Calloway? Well, I don’t suppose very much surprises you, being in the airplane business. All this hijacking that’s going on. Criminals afoot all over the place. Soon as we get to New York, I’m taking my friend straight to the doctor. I’m going to tell the doctor to tell him to stay out of the sun and stop eating hot dogs. Oh, thank you, Mr. Calloway. No, I’ll take the aisle. We’ll put my friend in the window seat. He’ll be better off by the window. All that fresh air.
Okay, Buster. You can open your eyes now.
TC: I think I’ll keep them closed. It makes it seem more like a dream.
PEARL (relaxed, chuckling): Anyway, we made it. Your friends never even saw you. As we went by, Jimmy goosed one, and Billy stomped on the other guy’s toes.
TC: Where is Jimmy?
PEARL: All the kids go economy. Jimmy’s duds do something for you. Pep you up. I like the wedgies especially—just love ’em.
STEWARDESS: Good morning, Miss Bailey. Would you care for a glass of champagne?
PEARL: No, honey. But maybe my friend could use something.
TC: Brandy.
STEWARDESS: I’m sorry, sir, but we only serve champagne until after takeoff.
PEARL: The man wants brandy.
STEWARDESS: I’m sorry, Miss Bailey. It’s not permitted.
PEARL (in a smooth yet metallic tone familiar to me from House of Flowers rehearsals): Bring the man his brandy. The whole bottle. Now.
(The stewardess brought the brandy, and I poured myself a hefty dose with an unsteady hand: hunger, fatigue, anxiety, the dizzying events of the last twenty-four hours were presenting their bill. I treated myself to another drink and began to feel a bit lighter.)
TC: I suppose I ought to tell you what this is all about.
PEARL: Not necessarily.
TC: Then I won’t. That way you’ll have a free conscience. I’ll just say that I haven’t done anything a sensible person would classify as criminal.
PEARL (consulting a diamond wristwatch): We should be over Palm Springs by now. I heard the door close ages ago. Stewardess!
STEWARDESS: Yes, Miss Bailey?
PEARL: What’s going on?
STEWARDESS: Oh, there’s the captain now—
CAPTAIN’S VOICE (over loudspeaker): Ladies and gentlemen, we regret the delay. We should be departing shortly. Thank you for your patience.
TC: Jesus, Joseph, and Mary.
PEARL: Have another slug. You’re shaking. You’d think it was a first night. I mean, it can’t be that bad.
TC: It’s worse. And I can’t stop shaking—not till we’re in the air. Maybe not till we land in New York.
PEARL: You still living in New York?
TC: Thank God.
PEARL: You remember Louis? My husband?
TC: Louis Bellson. Sure. The greatest drummer in the world. Better than Gene Krupa.
PEARL: We both work Vegas so much, it made sense to buy a house there. I’ve become a real homebody. I do a lot of cooking. I’m writing a cookbook. Living in Vegas is just like living anywhere else, as long as you stay away from the undesirables. Gamblers. Unemployeds. Any time a man says to me he’d work if he could find a job, I always tell him to look in the phone book under G. G for gigolo. He’ll find work. In Vegas, anyways. That’s a town of desperate women. I’m lucky; I found the right man and had the sense to know it.
TC: Are you going to work in New York?
PEARL: Persian Room.
CAPTAIN’S VOICE: I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but we’ll be delayed a few minutes longer. Please remain seated. Those who care to smoke may do so.
PEARL (suddenly stiffening): I don’t like this. They’re opening the door.
TC: What?
PEARL: They’re opening the door.
TC: Jesus, Joseph—
PEARL: I don’t like this.
TC: Jesus, Joseph—
PEARL: Slump down in the seat. Pull the hat over your face.
TC: I’m scared.
PEARL (gripping my hand, squeezing it): Snore.
TC: Snore? PEARL: Snore!
TC: I’m strangling. I can’t snore.
PEARL: You’d better start trying, ’cause our friends are coming through that door. Looks like they’re gonna roust the joint. Clean-tooth it.
TC: Jesus, Joseph—
PEARL: Snore, you rascal, snore.
(I snored, and she increased the pressure of her hold on my hand; at the same time she began to hum a low sweet lullaby, like a mother soothing a fretful child. All the while another kind of humming surrounded us: human voices concerned with what was happening on the plane, the purpose of the two mysterious men who were pacing up and down the aisles, pausing now and again to scrutinize a passenger. Minutes elapsed. I counted them off: six, seven. Tickticktick. Eventually Pearl stopped crooning her maternal melody, and withdrew her hand from mine. Then I heard the plane’s big round door slam shut.)
TC: Have they gone?
PEARL: Uh-huh. But whoever it is they’re looking for, they sure must want him bad.
THEY DID INDEED. EVEN THOUGH Robert M.’s retrial ended exactly as I had predicted, and the jury brought in a verdict of guilty on three counts of first-degree murder, the California courts continued to take a harsh view of my refusal to cooperate with them. I was not aware of this; I thought that in due time the matter would be forgotten. So I did not hesitate to return to California when a year later something came up that required at least a brief visit there. Well, sir, I had no sooner registered at the Bel Air Hotel than I was arrested, summoned before a hard-nosed judge who fined me five thousand dollars and gave me an indefinite sentence in the Orange County jail, which meant they could keep me locked up for weeks or months or years. However, I was soon released because the summons for my arrest contained a small but significant error: it listed me as a legal resident of California, when in fact I was a resident of New York, a fact which made my conviction and confinement invalid.
But all that was still far off, unthought of, undreamed of when the silver vessel containing Pearl and her outlaw friend swept off into an ethereal November heaven. I watched the plane’s shadow ripple over the desert and drift across the Grand Canyon. We talked and laughed and ate and sang. Stars and the lilac of twilight filled the air, and the Rocky Mountains, shrouded in blue snow, loomed ahead, a lemony slice of new moon hovering above them.
TC: Look, Pearl. A new moon. Let’s make a wish.
PEARL: What are you going to wish?
TC: I wish I could always be as happy as I am at this very moment.
PEARL: Oh, honey, that’s like asking miracles. Wish for something real.
TC: But I believe in miracles.
PEARL: Then all I can say is: don’t ever take up gambling.
V
Then It All Came Down
SCENE: A CELL IN A maximum-security cell block at San Quentin prison in California. The cell is furnished with a single cot, and its permanent occupant, Robert Beausoleil, and his visitor are required to sit on it in rather cramped positions. The cell is neat, uncluttered; a well-waxed guitar stands in one corner. But it is late on a winter afternoon, and in the air lingers a chill, even a hint of mist, as though fog from San Francisco Bay had infiltrated the prison itself.
Despite the chill, Beausoleil is shirtless, wearing only a pair of prison-issue denim trousers, and it is clear that he is satisfied with his appearance, his body particularly, which is lithe, feline, in well-toned shape considering that he has been incarcerated more than a decade. His chest and arms are a panorama of tattooed emblems: feisty dragons, coiled chrysanthemums, uncoiled serpents. He is thought by some to be exceptionally good-looking; he is, but in a rather hustlerish camp-macho style. Not surprisingly, he worked as an actor as a child and appeared in several Hollywood films; later, as a very young man, he was for a while the protégé of Kenneth Anger, the experimental film-maker (Scorpio Rising) and author (Hollywood Babylon); indeed, Anger cast him in the title role of Lucifer Rising, an unfinished film.
Robert Beausoleil, who is now thirty-one, is the real mystery figure of the Charles Manson cult; more to the point—and it’s a point that has never been clearly brought forth in accounts of that tribe—he is the key to the mystery of the homicidal escapades of the so-called Manson family, notably the Sharon Tate–Lo Bianco murders.
It all began with the murder of Gary Hinman, a middle-aged professional musician who had befriended various members of the Manson brethren and wh
o, unfortunately for him, lived alone in a small isolated house in Topanga Canyon, Los Angeles County. Hinman had been tied up and tortured for several days (among other indignities, one of his ears had been severed) before his throat had been mercifully and lastingly slashed. When Hinman’s body, bloated and abuzz with August flies, was discovered, police found bloody graffiti on the walls of his modest house (“Death to Pigs!”)—graffiti similar to the sort soon to be found in the households of Miss Tate and Mr. and Mrs. Lo Bianco.
However, just a few days prior to the Tate–Lo Bianco slayings, Robert Beausoleil, caught driving a car that had been the property of the victim, was under arrest and in jail, accused of having murdered the helpless Mr. Hinman. It was then that Manson and his chums, in the hopes of freeing Beausoleil, conceived the notion of committing a series of homicides similar to the Hinman affair; if Beausoleil was still incarcerated at the time of these killings, then how could he be guilty of the Hinman atrocity? Or so the Manson brood reasoned. That is to say, it was out of devotion to “Bobby” Beausoleil that Tex Watson and those cutthroat young ladies, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, Leslie Van Hooten, sallied forth on their satanic errands.
RB: Strange. Beausoleil. That’s French. My name is French. It means Beautiful Sun. Fuck. Nobody sees much sun inside this resort. Listen to the foghorns. Like train whistles. Moan, moan. And they’re worse in the summer. Maybe it must be there’s more fog in summer than in winter. Weather. Fuck it, I’m not going anywhere. But just listen. Moan, moan. So what’ve you been up to today?
TC: Just around. Had a little talk with Sirhan.
RB (laughs): Sirhan B. Sirhan. I knew him when they had me up on the Row. He’s a sick guy. He don’t belong here. He ought to be in Atascadero. Want some gum? Yeah, well, you seem to know your way around here pretty good. I was watching you out on the yard. I was surprised the warden lets you walk around the yard by yourself. Somebody might cut you.
TC: Why?
RB: For the hell of it. But you’ve been here a lot, huh? Some of the guys were telling me.