Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson Hardcover (33 page)

At one point
he took out his frustration on Watkins, lunging at him and wrapping his hands around his throat. It was no bluff; Charlie intended to strangle his follower to death, and Watkins struggled but felt himself weakening. Then, convinced he was about to die, he stopped fighting back, and the moment he did Charlie released his grip. Watkins decided that the best way to deal with Charlie in a violent mood was not to resist in any way. That seemed to throw him off and make him stop. Watkins decided that “death is Charlie’s trip,” and that although Charlie preached about love, all he really wanted to do was kill people. Charlie’s assault on Watkins was a rare instance of bad judgment. Until that moment, Watkins had been one of his most faithful, dependable disciples. Now he began having doubts.

•  •  •

Had he and Little Paul Watkins compared notes that spring,
Gregg Jakobson might have agreed. Though Dennis Wilson was visiting less often and Terry Melcher remained out of touch with Charlie, Jakobson continued to come out to Spahn. He’d decided that Charlie had no real potential as a recording artist. In person, Jakobson thought, Charlie could charm any audience; his songs weren’t bad and his improvisational ability was exceptional. Using broad facial expressions and gestures, he could augment mediocre music with his personality, but, as Jakobson knew well from his experience as a music industry talent scout, that wasn’t enough. Putting on a successful stage act was one thing. Records were what people listened to. They could only hear, not see, the artist, and that was where Charlie came up short. Charlie still thought Melcher might sign him
to a record deal, but Jakobson was happy to let Melcher deal with that problem.

Jakobson still thought Charlie and the Family would make great subjects of a film documentary if he could get some funding together. He sometimes discussed the project with Charlie, and though Charlie liked the idea of being a movie star—he didn’t really get the difference between a documentary and a feature film—he disagreed with Jakobson’s approach. Jakobson wanted to present the Family as the ultimate commune, one proving it was possible to live the way that you wanted if you were inventive enough. He especially loved the garbage runs, the idea that they ate well on other people’s trash. To Jakobson, the Family comprised a great cast. Besides Charlie there was crazy Susan, sweet-but-dumb Tex, deceivingly innocent-looking Squeaky, socially awkward Pat, and sexy little Ruth Ann. Present them as quirky, earnest seekers of a better way of life and audiences might very well fall in love with them. Charlie, though, wanted himself and his followers shown as
outlaws
, courageously defying authority and getting away with it. They argued back and forth, and one day Charlie suggested that they walk just beyond the Spahn boundaries to where a housing development was going up. Charlie asked, “What’s it remind you of?” and when Jakobson replied that it was just people building houses Charlie said, “No, it’s like a graveyard.” Jakobson was sick of Charlie’s endless allegorical word play. He snapped, “You’re full of shit,” and was shocked when Charlie pulled a handgun, pointed it at him, and asked, “What would you do if I pulled the trigger?” Jakobson wasn’t sure if he was serious, but he wouldn’t give Charlie the satisfaction of seeing him scared. “I guess I’d be dead,” he answered. Charlie put the gun away and resumed the conversation as though there had never been a pistol-waving interruption. Jakobson was disgusted. He still wanted to get a film deal going; he was professional enough to sublimate any grudges in favor of doing business. But after the gun incident Jakobson was convinced that Charlie’s “main thing” was fear, not love.

It was a restless time for the Family. To harness their nervous energy, and to hone survival skills,
Charlie assembled small squads of followers and took them out nights “creepy-crawling.” The object was to silently enter houses without alerting the people sleeping inside. The Family
members stealthily moved furniture and other items from one place to another, and then left as quietly as they had come. In the morning, victims would wake up and realize from their rearranged possessions that someone had broken into their homes and gotten away. Their consternation would be even greater when they discovered nothing had been stolen—so why had these mystery intruders come at all? Most of the Family’s creepy-crawls took place near Spahn Ranch, but sometimes they ranged all the way into upscale neighborhoods, once even creepy-crawling the Bel Air home of the Mamas and the Papas’ John and Michelle Phillips. It was a great mind game to play on people, and the Family enjoyed it. They were also proving to themselves that they could get into any house, anywhere, anytime.

In mid-March, Charlie received word that Terry Melcher would finally come to hear him perform some of his songs. Charlie had been keeping everyone busy preparing for Helter Skelter, but a cataclysmic race war paled compared to Charlie finally getting a record deal. All of his followers were ordered to drop everything else and prepare for Melcher’s visit. Because most of them still did not realize how much Charlie was obsessed with becoming the most famous rock star ever, they were puzzled why he was making such a big deal out of a Melcher drop-in. After all, he’d been there before, though not lately. But the men spiffed up the movie set and scraped away the mounds of horse manure and rotting hay that might offend the nose of their visitor. The women were ordered to bake cookies and cakes and other special non-garbage-run treats in case Melcher felt hungry. Charlie personally prepared as never before—this was it, the moment when it was going to happen for him. He bathed, and washed and trimmed his hair. Then he dressed in his special clothes. A few weeks earlier,
Charlie had informed the women that he wanted a shirt and pants fashioned from deer skins and held together with leather lacings. The buckskin outfit would represent the Family’s commitment to going back to the land. Nobody else was to have deerskin clothing yet—maybe everyone else could when they were sufficiently enlightened. Because Charlie refused to allow animals to be killed, the deerskins were bought from a supplier at considerable cost, but the clothes were going to be Charlie’s so expense was not a factor. That deer still had to die for
their skins to be available for purchase was one of those apparent contradictions between what Charlie preached and practiced, but he’d taught everyone that in these cases it was their mistake, not his. When the deerskins arrived at Spahn, the women discovered that they had to be softened and stretched before they could be sewn. They went through a laborious process of rubbing in oils and then stretching the skins along the sides of ranch buildings before fashioning serviceable, even attractive, buckskins for Charlie. He put them on before Melcher was scheduled to arrive; they would be one more reminder to the somewhat jaded producer that in Charlie he had a charismatic original. Charlie had everything planned down to the smallest detail: When the time came for the audition, Charlie would be with his guitar
here
, the women who would provide backup vocals would stand
here
, Melcher would be seated in just the right place to appreciate the performance. Once everything was ready everyone gathered at the ranch gate to greet Melcher, but he never showed up.

•  •  •

Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate loved living at Cielo. They did some redecorating but left a lot of things in place, including a string of Christmas lights that Candy Bergen had wound around the rail fence that circled the property. At night the colorful bulbs twinkled against a background of black sky, bright stars, and even brighter lights from the massive city below.

The new tenants threw a memorable housewarming party. John Phillips remembered it as “one of those everyone-is-here-tonight affairs.” If Tate’s credentials as an actress were thin, she was such a nice person that even the snobbiest show business celebrities were charmed by her. Many other parties followed, some formal and many impromptu. Polanski was away a lot, and Tate would spontaneously invite friends to come for dinner or just to sit and talk. Much of her conversation concerned her pregnancy; Tate couldn’t wait to be a mother.

Roman Polanski’s reputation for wild living soon lent itself to innuendo about activities at Cielo. But the effect wasn’t negative. If anything, the widespread, but unsubstantiated, gossip added to the reputation of Polanski and Tate as one of Hollywood’s most glamorous, trendy couples.

It was easier now for outsiders to get past Cielo’s electronic gate than it had been when Terry Melcher lived there. Tate simply wasn’t as guarded; besides, she was seldom home alone. Even when Polanski was away, there were friends with her all the time, quite often celebrity hair stylist Jay Sebring, who had been Tate’s boyfriend before she left him for Polanski. After the breakup they stayed close. Voytek Frykowski, who’d known Polanski back in their native Poland, was a frequent Cielo visitor, too. He would bring along his girlfriend, Abigail Folger, known to her friends as Gibby. With her personal fortune assured—the Folger family owned the coffee company of the same name—Gibby served as a volunteer social worker for the Los Angeles County Welfare Department. She was one of the investors in Jay Sebring’s salons. Frykowski was less well heeled and certainly less philanthropic than Folger. It appeared that he lived off his girlfriend, and
according to subsequent police reports “he used cocaine, mescaline, LSD, marijuana [and] hashish in large amounts.” But Frykowski was Polanski’s oldest friend, and that made him Sharon Tate’s friend, too. Rudi Altobelli was very fond of Tate, and liked spending time with her. So did Iranian native Shahrokh Hatami, Tate’s personal photographer. Hatami, Sebring, Frykowski, and Folger were with Sharon at the main house and Altobelli was out in the guest cottage on Sunday, March 23, when an uninvited visitor arrived.

Charlie was furious when Terry Melcher failed to audition him at Spahn as promised. The insult was bad enough—Charlie was a huge talent, so how dare some
producer
, even a famous one like Melcher, treat him like that? But beyond the blow to Charlie’s ego, Melcher’s no-show embarrassed him in front of the Family. Charlie’s power over his followers depended in large part on them believing him to be the wisest person anywhere, probably Jesus reincarnated and, according to Charlie’s sermons to them, the future ruler of the post–Helter Skelter world. It was always a matter of Charlie’s Will Be Done; whatever he wanted to happen, had to. He could not be seen to fail, and Charlie slipped when he allowed everyone to see how important Melcher’s promised audition was to him. His iron control of the Family might diminish or even disappear as a result. The solution was to find Terry Melcher and make him get out to Spahn right away, so the Family could see for themselves that
nobody reneged on a promise to Charlie Manson. So Charlie went out to find him.

Charlie didn’t have time to set up an appointment with Melcher at Columbia. That might take weeks, even if Charlie could somehow talk his way past snippy secretaries and assistants. He couldn’t hope to run into Melcher at some A-list party and ask what had happened. Charlie wasn’t invited to those kinds of parties anymore. The best, quickest way for Charlie to confront Melcher was to go to Cielo. Sure, the guy had made it clear that he didn’t want Charlie at his house, but so what? For Charlie, everything hung in the balance—the record deal he craved, the ongoing obedience of the Family. He’d risk Melcher’s wrath by coming to his home uninvited. Melcher might be so angry that he’d turn his back on Charlie forever, but the risk was worth it. Besides, Charlie had great faith in his ability to convince anyone to do anything he wanted.

On March 23, Shahrokh Hatami looked out of a main house window at Cielo and saw someone walking in the yard. Hatami went out onto the porch for a better look. The fellow was short with long hair. He didn’t look very special, but Hatami was annoyed because he acted like he owned the place. Hatami asked what he wanted and the interloper said that he was looking for someone. He mentioned a name that Hatami didn’t recognize—the photographer wasn’t part of the Terry Melcher–Dennis Wilson rock ’n’ roll crowd. Hatami wanted the man gone, but there was always a chance that he was one of Rudi’s friends, and Altobelli was in the guesthouse just down a small dirt pathway. “This is the Polanski residence,” Hatami said. He said maybe whoever the man was looking for was at the guesthouse, and gestured toward it, adding that he should take “the back alley” or dirt path. Sharon Tate heard the voices and stepped out onto the porch, asking, “Who is it, Hatami?” From a distance of about six feet, she and Charlie Manson stared at each other. Then Charlie went down the dirt path to the cottage and Hatami and Tate went back inside the main house.

Rudi Altobelli was in the shower when his dog began barking. He put on a robe, opened his door, and saw Charlie on his porch. Charlie started to introduce himself, but Altobelli interrupted: “I know who you are, Charlie. What do you want?” Charlie said he was looking for Melcher and
Altobelli said that Melcher had moved. Charlie wanted to know where. Altobelli, who hadn’t been impressed with Charlie the few times he’d met him, lied and said that he didn’t know. Altobelli hoped Charlie would go away, but instead he tried to draw Altobelli into further conversation, asking what he did for a living. That annoyed Altobelli even more; Charlie knew very well that he was an agent—he’d tried to get Altobelli to sign him as a client after listening to tapes of some of his songs. The guy was a no-talent and Altobelli had no interest in wasting more time talking to him on the cottage porch. “I’d like to talk to you longer, Charlie,” he said, “but I’m leaving the country tomorrow and have to pack.” It was true—Altobelli and Tate were flying to Rome in the morning. Polanski was working on a movie there.

Charlie still lingered. Altobelli asked why he’d come back to the guest cottage, and Charlie said he’d been sent there by the people in the main house. Altobelli said that he didn’t like his tenants to be disturbed, and Charlie shouldn’t do it in the future. Then Charlie finally stalked off.