Lillian and Dash (25 page)

The two men owned large adjoining boxes right on the finish line. They were always at the track for big Saturday races, but for the handicap each year they alternated as hosts to a crowd of movie stars and politicians. Neither of the moguls had to actually win the race to have a successful day at the races, since there was a standing fifty-thousand-dollar bet between them on whichever of their horses beat the other to the wire. Their jockeys were told even if they couldn’t win the race to ride their horses hard all the way to the finish line. In past years two very good Mayer horses had broken down while being pushed so desperately.

Mayer indicated the rest of the throng in his box and said to Hammett, “I’m sure you know everyone.” He did indeed. Jack Warner and Selznick, of course, but they were in deep conversation and neither acknowledged Hammett. But there was also William Powell and his friend, the breathtaking Lana Turner, looking demure in a powder-blue suit and large straw hat, dressed more for Churchill Downs than Santa Anita. Mickey Rooney, Mayer’s favorite performer, nuzzled a tall redhead almost twice his size.

Hammett did shake hands with J. Edgar Hoover, the nation’s “Number One Cop,” who also claimed to be a fan of his stories. It wasn’t clear if the head of the FBI was there with the governor or was Mayer’s personal guest. In the rear of the box were Phil Edmunds and Vincent Spinetti. Hammett couldn’t prove it, of course, but he always assumed Spinetti—an ex–LAPD cop and now chief of security at Warners—had masterminded the Waxman killing. He was with his wife, Angel Chung, who Hammett always supposed was the call girl known as “Angel” on the Waxman police report. All in all quite a group of racing fans.

Phil Edmunds sat with Mayer’s secretary Elise Weiss and at least had the modesty to look embarrassed when Hammett tipped his hat. Ling gravitated naturally to a seat alongside Angel; the two acted a bit like old friends, maybe they even knew one another from their street days. Hammett would have to ask. Doris grabbed an empty seat alongside Hoover and was speaking more intently than Hammett could have
imagined. He noticed that she already had a hand on his knee.

Hammett had assumed that Mayer wanted to talk some business or at least set up such a talk. Why else invite him and his unlikely “assistants” to his private box? Most likely it was Hellman business he was interested in. It never occurred to Hammett that Mayer was showing him off to the governor and Hoover, who really did admire his work. Mayer hadn’t intended Hammett’s group to remain but when he asked what Hammett thought about the race, he realized that Hammett was far more than a casual bettor.

“If you’re asking me if you are going to take Warner’s money”—everyone in Hollywood knew about their huge side bet—“I’d say, Where can I get a piece of it?”

“Jack, Jack, come hear. Hammett wants some of your money too.”

Warner turned and the three men, bent from the waist, formed a knot. Hammett said, “I know Box Office is 7 to 5, but if you don’t mind taking back some of your own money, Jack, I’ve got ten thousand that says Mr. Mayer’s horse beats you out.” The “own money” reference was to the draft script he wrote for
Watch on the Rhine
and which he now knew would be touched up by Lillian. He heard Lilly’s voice hectoring: It’s ten thousand! What the fuck are you doing? He heard his own voice answering: I know this race. I’ve seen it already.

Warner had no choice but to agree or else appear somehow minimized by one of his own employees.

Hammett, expressing a careless bravado, said, “I really don’t believe your horse will even finish in the money.”

They bet an additional five thousand on that very unlikely possibility. Now Lillian said, Jesus Christ, that’s Hardscrabble money.

Mayer touched Hammett’s shoulder: “Glad you have so much confidence in my horse.” Bindlestiff was now the third choice at 4 to 1.

“Don’t get your hopes up, Mr. Mayer. I think he’ll beat Box Office but he won’t—forgive the allusion to
trayf
—take home the bacon either.”

“How do you figure?”

Hammett leaned forward, program open on his knee and proceeded to show Mayer exactly how he figured, and what he foresaw. “It’s a classic situation, if you follow, L.B. First, the track condition. They’ve upgraded it to ‘fast,’ but it hasn’t dried out completely. Jack’s horse has run over such a track twice.” He indicated those races on his
Racing Form
. “Look, a fifth and a seventh. He won’t like the footing today either.”

Mayer leaned in attentively and smiled. “And my horse?”

“He’ll like the footing. He’ll run well, but I’m betting Bay View today.”

Mayer looked at his program. Bay View, number one on the program, was 20 to 1 on the morning line and now 30 to 1 on the tote board. Mayer said, “Thirty to one, not possible.”

“Very possible.”

“How?”

“Elemental, my dear Louis.” My god, how Hammett was enjoying himself. He whispered, “Let me share my secret. The one post, the rail, has the best, cleanest footing on this track. Nick Wall is the best jockey in this race. Any doubts? Who was the last jock to beat Sea Biscuit? Answer, Nick Wall. How did he get it done? Wall put his horse in the lead from the one post, controlled the pace, and even the great Sea Biscuit couldn’t catch him at the wire. Wall will do the same thing today, even easier, because (a) he is the only true front-runner in the race, and (b) Sea Biscuit is retired. And (c) just take a look at the weights. Your horse is 125. Warner’s is 128 …” He let Mayer check his program to find Bay View at 108. Mayer looked at the tote board. Bay View was now 40 to 1.

The sun, which had been out brightly for two hours, now seemed to burn with a pulse that matched the trumpeter’s call to the post. As the horses moved in single file onto the track, Jack Warner’s Box Office was the heavy favorite. Mayer’s Bindlestiff was now 9 to 2. Bay View was 50 to 1, the longest odds the automatic tote board could register.

If Hammett had any more cash, he’d have bet it all on Nick Wall and Bay View, but four hundred dollars was what he had left from last night’s romp. As he left the box to make his bet, he noticed that the girls were doing just fine. Ling and Angel Chung were gabbing away. Doris, even though her hand had been removed from Hoover’s knee, was trying on his fedora. Hammett bet all four hundred on number one to win.

After placing his bet, Hammett did not return to Mayer’s box. If he lost his bets with Jack Warner, he’d put a call in to Lillian and send a check over by messenger. If Bay View did not win the race outright—and given what other bettors thought as reflected in his odds, that was likely—Hammett would just drift away, find Kai in the parking lot, head back to the apartment, and drink himself to sleep. His lady friends were taking very good care of themselves.

If Bay View, in flaming red silks, broke out of the gate very well and got to the lead quickly, he would be easy to spot. If he is to win this race, he must get the lead quickly and stay there till the homestretch. If other colors blocked that redbloused jockey, Bay View and Hammett were cooked.

Nick Wall had his horse out of the gate a stride before the rest of the field. As planned. Entering the first turn, Bay View was in control of the pace as the field settled in tightly behind him, each horse and rider content to make his run much later. Hammett would learn a lot about the pace when the time for the first quarter-mile was posted on the infield tote board; however, the pace seemed very comfortable to Hammett’s trained eye. Then it went up—25.1 seconds—inordinately slow for horses of this quality. Hammett allowed himself some excitement; he began to whisper to the jockey: Hold him, Nickie, hold him tight. Which is what Nickie did. Amazingly, no other horse attempted to challenge so slow a pace.

Warner’s horse Box Office sat in second, content to stalk the leader. Bindlestiff sat on the rail in fourth.

As the field entered the backstretch, Hammett noticed a bit more daylight open between Bay View and Box Office. The second quarter-mile was even slower than the first. Hammett began to edge closer to the rail: Keep him there, Nickie, right there, right there.

The field ran down the backstretch without any change in order. The challenges from the late runners would begin on the far turn. That’s where he saw Box Office begin to pick up his pace and close some ground on Bay View. No, no, not yet, Nick, n-n-n-not yet. Hammett now was calling instructions aloud to his jockey. Midway into the turn he saw Box Office begin to falter, or perhaps it was just Nick Wall letting Bay View out a notch to hold him off.

Now, coming into the head of the stretch, every horse who had any run left was running all out. Jockeys were whipping and bringing their mounts out to the middle of the track, looking for a clear path to the wire. Box Office gave up first: Hammett’s big bet with Warner started looking very good. He would win the ten thousand. But Hammett wanted the artistic pleasure of seeing an unlikely scenario come true exactly as prewritten. Indeed, it was asking far too much from the gods, but one time, just one time, why not one time …? He began to say in cadence as Wall whipped Bay View past him down the stretch: One time … one time … one time …

It was exactly as he had foreseen. The path along the rail was the most firm. The brilliant front-running, pace-controlling
ride by a jockey with “a stopwatch in his head,” lightest-weight in a top-heavy field—these things easily carried Bay View home by three lengths. Bindlestiff, Mayer’s horse, finished second. Box Office was last.

The churning in his stomach forced Hammett to find a place to sit down. He breathed deeply. His hands shook in his lap.

What Dashiell Hammett did today in predicting—no, more than predicting, seeing—the unfolding and the outcome of the 1941 Santa Anita Handicap, was almost beyond reasonable explanation, beyond the compass of logic. He had discerned cosmic design—or was it intent?—and it had been perfectly and profitably perceived. It rivaled his imagining
The Maltese Falcon
before actually writing it. Something he knew he would never be able to do again. Even Kassandra never hit a 50-to-1 shot. He went to get a drink.

When the race became official, L. B. Mayer wasn’t gloating over winning his big bet with Warner; he was telling everyone who would listen of Hammett’s uncanny prerace analysis and how perfectly jockey and horse executed the race plan. He waved the fifty-dollar ticket on Bay View he had Elise buy for him. Bay View paid $118.80 for a two-dollar bet, making Mayer’s ticket worth almost three thousand dollars. It gave him more pleasure than the fifty-thousand-dollar check Jack Warner would have to send him in the morning.

Hammett’s payoff on Bay View was more than $23,000, which with his Warner winnings was more than enough
to finally make his down payment on Hardscrabble Farm. Hammett considered returning to Mayer’s box for a curtain call. He really hadn’t had his moment with either Edmunds or Spinetti, and there was much he wanted to say. Better, he thought, to leave in mystery and plant a racing myth in California.

The check issued by the Santa Anita Racing Association folded neatly away in his breast pocket, Hammett walked out of the clubhouse gate into a golden California evening. He stood at the curb and waved. Kai spotted him and came along with the car immediately. Kai said, “What about the girls?”

“I think they’re occupied. Let’s go home.”

Kai assumed his boss was leaving early and alone because he had lost all his money.

“G
OOD MORNING
, Mr. Childs. My name is Lillian Hellman. I just bought the farm down the road.”

“Yes, I saw that. Good luck with it.”

“Thank you. I’m calling because I heard you had a tractor for sale and they tell me I’m very much in need of one.”

Childs drove his tractor, a 1938 Series-B John Deere Whirlwind, over to Lillian’s place that afternoon. His farm was less than half a mile away. Both tractor and farmer were
spiffed up, Childs in a suit and tie, the green-and-yellow machine polished and greased to perfection. Lillian, of course, did not know how to evaluate the condition of the tractor other than to be impressed with its immaculate appearance. She took a slow tour around the Whirlwind, touched its oversized wheels, its perforated radiator grill, its motor housing, and finally the springs below the elevated seat. Childs showed her where to place her foot in order to climb up to that seat, but Lillian needed his help to actually get aboard. Childs, a well-built older man, didn’t quite know where to touch her and wasn’t sure her hip was in play until she placed his hand there.

Lillian said, “If I use it, do I have to buy it?”

“Hell, no.”

Childs stood behind Lillian on the tractor and released the brake. He explained that driving a tractor was exactly like her Town and Country stick shift. Clutch down, drop into first gear, give her some gas, let the clutch out, and off you go. Second and third gear came after that, and there you are, driving a tractor. At least in theory. When Lillian released the clutch, the tractor shuddered and the motor stalled. Childs laughed.

Lillian poured her neighbor and herself a beer as the two sat at her kitchen table looking out at the gleaming machine standing out in front of her barn. There was no doubt she intended to buy the tractor, but she wanted a narrative to go with it. Cedric Childs supplied that.