Chase The Rabbit: Gretch Bayonne Action Adventure Series Book #1 (9 page)

              It was all handed to me. This assignment. This crazy trip on the Graf. The monkeys, the two German security men. Marion Davies and Jean Harlow. And now the letter.  Me falling in love instantly with the women who’d sent me to chase the rabbit in the first place. It all came back to that.  How the hell could all of this happen to an orphan from New Jersey? 

              “I have my film segment scheduled for seven o’clock tonight,” Lugosi said. “I will introduce you to Hearst then.”

              “That’s six hours from now! What the hell am I going to do in the meantime?” I asked.

              “You will have to go back up topside I guess,” he responded.

              I nodded in reluctant agreement. I would knock on Marion Davies door on my way out. 

Chapter Seven

W
e swore Monkey Man to secrecy as I escorted him back down to the cargo area. 

              “Of course,” he said. “I will never tell anyone of this.  I know how Harry Houdini did many of his tricks, and you will never get me to tell that either.”

              “We will just pretend that this never happened then, right?” I asked.

              “I am an actor,” he replied. “I can pretend with the best of them.”

              “How the hell did you get on board this crazy journey again?” I asked.

              “You forget, Mr. Bay,” he said. “William Randolph Hearst likes my monkey act. But I barely got passage. I was told if I came I had to tend to my monkeys. I gave them my word that I would. Just as I am giving you my word that your secret will be kept with me.”

              “You are all right in my book, Alvon,” I said.

              “You mean Monkey Man, don’t you, Mr. Bay?” he responded.

              “Sorry about that,” I said. “I kid around a lot.”

              “It seems to me,” he said, “that when you don’t need someone, you kid around, as you say. But when you do need them, your behavior towards them changes.”

              “You don’t know me that well,” I replied. “And this conversation is done. I have to get back inside.”

As I turned away, he asked, “Have you read my poem, Mr. Bay?”

              “No!” I replied. “I will get to it!”

                                                                      ***

              I was careful not to walk into the wrong room this time.  Bela was still sitting on the lower bunk shaking his head.

              “I say we deliver the box with the letter to Hearst as promised,” I said. “What is the worst thing that could happen?”

              “Listen, my friend,” Bela replied. “This may be bigger than anything we could imagine. Do you not remember The Great War?”

              “Yes, certainly I do,” I said. “My parents were both killed in the war. They were innocent bystanders. I was left an orphan.”

              “It could happen again,” he said.

              “No,” I replied. “Not on that scale. Not in our lifetimes, surely!”

              “We have an opportunity,” Bela answered, “to make a possible difference in the prevention of such an occurrence.”

              “By not giving the letter to Hearst,” I said.

              “Yes,” he replied.

              “If this new man, Hitler, does not get a response back from Hearst,” he said, “that will send a signal to him that he has no support in the United States.”

“But what if we deliver the letter to Hearst and he tells Hitler he is not interested,” I said. “Wouldn’t that be better than Hitler getting no response at all?”

              “Yes,” Bela replied. “But what if Hearst goes along with it?”

              “He would never do that!” I said.

              “Are you sure?” Lugosi asked. “Are you willing to take that risk?”

              “I don’t know,” I said. “We gave those men our words that we would deliver the letter. I don’t get involved in politics.”

              “Tell me about your parents again and the circumstances surrounding their deaths,” Bela said.

              “Shut up Bela!” I shouted.

              “How often are we given an opportunity in life to make a real difference in the world?” he asked. “To change things for millions of people?”

              “I don’t know,” I said, holding my head in my hands. 

              “Bay, all I am saying, my son is that sometimes something as simple as withholding information can change the course of history and affect the entire world.”

              “It’s not my place to withhold this information,” I said.  “I am delivering the letter.”

              Bela and I made our way down the hallway and into the sitting room of the largest airship in the world on it’s most famous trip of all time. I was more than a bit nervous and felt out of my element. This was no day trip on the ferry across the Hudson. And cameras were rolling. 

“What in the hell am I going to say to these people?” I whispered to Lugosi.

              “I don’t know,” he said. “Just smile and nod.”

              “That’s just great,” I replied. “They are going to bounce me out of here like one of Alvon’s monkeys.”

              “Not true,” Bela said. “People love animals, especially monkeys. You, I am not so sure about.”

              The room was crowded with people, all chatting excitedly. 

              “Bay, I would like you to meet Spencer Tracy, Joan Crawford and Gary Cooper,” Bela said. They looked at me as if I had an extra head. 

              “This is the famous writer, Bay,” he announced.

              “An honor to meet you,” Joan said, extending her hand.

              “Yes, thank you, it’s an honor to meet me, too,” I said.

              They all laughed as Bela walked me towards the next group.

              James Cagney gave me that funny look again. 

“So what sort of things do you write?” Groucho Marx asked.

              “Mostly stories about cats stuck in trees,” I answered.  “Nothing to do with the movie business.”

              “Well, remind me not to get stuck in a tree,” Marx shot back.

              “I’m afraid you already are,” I replied. “I saw your last movie.”

              “Then you must be a fan,” he countered.

              “No,” I said. “Not at all. A fan is a machine that blows wind.”

              “Remind me later to write this down.” he laughed. “So tell me, Mr. Bay,” Groucho continued, “if you’re not a fan, or a machine that blows wind, what brings you to this side of the fence? Assuming there is a fence. No offense, but what brings you here?”

              “I was hitch hiking in the sky,” I replied. “And this was the only zeppelin that wasn’t full.”

              Marx broke character and laughed out loud. 

              “You’re all right in my book,” he said, patting my shoulder. “You did read my book, right?” he asked.

              “I am planning to read it, but my bed is uneven,” I answered.

              “Okay, I’ll bite,” he said. “What does reading my book have to do with your bed being uneven?” he asked.

              “I am using your book under one of the bedposts to level it out,” I answered.

              “And you couldn’t use another book for that?” he countered.

              “Well, I could have,” I said. “But it wouldn’t have been nearly as funny as yours.”

              Marx laughed again shaking his head. 

              “You obviously don’t know that you are supposed to be the straight man,” he said. “You are supposed to set me up for jokes, not the other way around.”

              Bela was trying to usher me away from Marx to meet the others, but Groucho and I were having too much fun.

              “And I would like to introduce you to the great Douglas Fairbanks,” Bela said, as we walked away from Groucho who was still chuckling and shaking his head.

              Fairbanks was the most famous actor of all time, but I did not let my intimidation show. 

              “Nice to meet you,” he said. 

              As I shook his hand, I was still in “Groucho” mode, and repeated my nervous response to Joan Crawford. “It’s nice to meet me too,” I said.

              Fairbanks smiled and said, “You may be a little star struck. I understand. You mean ‘It’s nice to meet you, too.’”

              “You just said that,” I replied.

              “Yes,” he said laughing, “but then you said, ‘It’s nice to meet me, too.’“

              “So now we’ve met each other twice in the same meeting,” I said. 

              Fairbanks laughed again as Bela pulled me away, steering me towards the main cabin room.

              It was a stunning sight. There, seated at a table was William Randolph Hearst himself. The old man. At the opposite end of the table were Jean Harlow, Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin. There was a cameraman, and my reporter friend, Karl Von Wiegand. They were shooting a scene for the Great Graf journey documentary. We stopped just inside the room so as not to interrupt.

              “These games, this cause, are so important to the world,” Jean Harlow was saying. “It is the least we can do to support the athletes from all around the globe by making this historic trip!”

              “Yes,” Charlie Chaplain said. “It is most significant that these games are being hosted in America. And for them to be in Los Angeles, California is very special to me and my colleagues.”

              I was star struck, all right. But what the hell were they really saying? It sounded like self-publicity to me. I didn’t see any athletes on this massive, expensive airship. Just a bunch of self-promoting actors and the fattest cat in journalism who was bound to make a lot more money from this documentary. 

              They finished, and the camera stopped rolling. Bela immediately walked me in and we sat down right next to Hearst.

              “William,” Bela said. “I would like to introduce you to the famous writer, Gretch Bay.”

              Hearst looked at me smiling. Then it struck me. The key word Lugosi was using was “famous.” That is what they all were interested in. It wasn’t about the first flight of the Graf across America or the Olympic Games so much as it was about the fame of it all. Hearst had more money and power than God. He was in it for the fame. Otherwise, he would be sitting back with Rockefeller and Ford, sipping wine and fishing.

              No, for Hearst, it was all about the fame. I should have realized that before. But coming face to face with the smiling old man brought it home loud and clear. And I had a letter in my back pocket I was about to deliver to him that may change the course of history. Before he even spoke, I wasn’t sure if I was going to hand it off to him. 

              “Do you work for me?” Hearst asked.

              I didn’t see that coming and wasn’t sure how to react.  Since I freelance for several of his publications, technically, I did work for him.

              “Yes,” I said. “And I have a letter for you.”

              I pulled the letter out of my trousers and handed it to him.

              “A letter from whom?” he asked.

              “Adolf Hitler,” I replied.

              He opened the letter and began reading it. People were milling about and Hearst ordered them out of the room. Bela and I sat in silence as Hearst read the letter, looking very serious. 

              When he was finished reading it, he looked up at me and said, “Okay, thank you, Mr. Bay.”

              I thought about what Alvon had said. That this was possibly a pivotal moment in history. I would never have an opportunity like this again. 

              “What are you going to do then?” I asked.