Widespread Panic

’55 faded out. Rock Hudson married Phyllis Gates in November. Best of luck, kids. I give it two years. I’ll work Mrs. Hudson’s divorce gig then. Phyllis is a fine filly. We collapse in the kip once in a while. Phyllis pretends that I’m Rock. I pretend that she’s Lois.

Barbara Bel Geddes never caught cold or laid up with laryngitis. Lois never netted the ripe role of Maggie the Cat. The show shut down in November ’56. I remain Stage Door Freddy. I tune in my TV and watch the only woman I’ve ever loved. There’s Lois on Decoy. She’s dizzy and dykey in two prison-drama shows. Lois stuns on Studio One and mangles the motions on Captain Video and His Video Rangers. She’s bravura on The Brighter Day. She called out to me on Camera Three, and told me we’re still on.

Lois played Emily Dickinson. She was all Art and Loneliness. Her poet’s passion pounded me. I know why. Lois lives longing the same way I do. She said, “What will you do about it?” I haven’t told her I’ve done one big thing already. I haven’t said, “I’ll tell you all in time.” I want to rig our reunion in Shirley Tutler’s name and the name of Vindictive Justice. We’ve got time here. Three jolting jurists have told me that.

J. Miller Leavy prosecuted Chessman. He told me the hump should burn some time in ’59. Ernie Roll’s best guess is early ’60. Judge Charles Fricke calls it ’60–’61.

We’ve got time. Hotshot men owe me favors. We’ll get our jailhouse visit. I promise you that. In the meantime, I’ve done this:

I stored the pix from Jimmy D.’s crawl crib in a bank vault. I B and E’d the crib the day Jimmy died. I stole his Chessman letters and stored them in Vault #2. I ripped his Chessman wallpaper to shreds and burned it. I contacted two high-ups at Quentin and begged for all the names of Chessman’s approved correspondents. They’ve refused me so far.

We’ll reunite. I know it. We won’t ride as rich as I’d hoped. Jack the K.’s fifty grand sallied south.

The cocksucker stiffed me. A minion called and made the meet. The parcel weighed in weighty. I took it home and counted the cash. The bills boded wrong. I showed some to a Treasury man. He said the cash was counterfeit. Freddy, you’re fucked.

I hexed Jack the K. It worked at first. He lost the veep bid in ’56. ’56 is not presumptive ’60. Jack was right. My shakedown was short-range thinking and a small-time move. That made me a small-time man.

Yeah — but I took down Confidential.

Es not la verdad. I just helped. The gig was Bill Parker’s bristling brainstorm from the get. We compiled the damaging data. Parker fed it to AG Pat Brown. He launched the official investigation and empaneled the grand jury then. The grand jury issued indictments on 5/15/57. Conspiracy to Publish Criminal Libel. Conspiracy to Publish Obscene Material. Conspiracy to Disseminate Information in Violation of the California Business Code.

Call it a clamorous cluster fuck. Bondage Bob hired Arthur Crowley to defend the magazine. Art was a divorce lawyer. He was not a libel-defense lawyer. Assistant AG Clarence Linn repped California State. I owed Bob a big beau geste. I was not indicted. Parker and Roll kept their word. I made a ham-handed play to pollute the jury pool. It cost Bondage Bob forty g’s. I flew the fuckers to Acapulco. They lived large for one week. So what? Nobody noticed or seemed to care.

A load of lawsuits surfaced, postindictments. Maureen O’Hara sued. Confidential cornholed her in the March ’57 issue. It alleged that she made out with a Mexican at Grauman’s Chinese. Oops. Somebody futzed the fact check. It had to be me.

Robert Mitchum sued. Errol Flynn sued. Dorothy Dandridge sued. We miscegenation-mauled her on no evidence. The trial opened on 8/7/57. Prosecutor Linn called Bondage Bob “Mr. Big.” He said Mr. Big had prosties lure celebs into compromising contexts. No shit. He said we paid known homosexuals to rat out those of their ilk. No shit. He said we employed strongarm methods routinely. No shit. Art Crowley preached the letter of the libel laws and freewheeling freedom of speech. It bopped back and forth. The courtroom socked in summer heat. Maureen O’Hara testified. She said she never made out with that Mex. The trial traipsed and trucked along until late September. The jury was deep-six deadlocked. They stood at seven to five for conviction on two counts. The judge closed the cluster fuck off and declared a mistrial.

Doofus Double Agent Freddy. He’s the dippy deus ex machina of the whole mess. His secret depositions shaped the prosecutor’s trial brief. He gave up his guilt. It cost him big gelt. It freed him to dream and scheme anew.