“In other words, the one ‘corner grocery store,’ proprietor-managed type of old fashioned business activity still holding out against the overpowering pressure of the new corporations with their executives, managers, stockholder intracacies of control, politics, proxy battles, institution ownership, etc. etc.—all of the interlocking cross currents and intrigue that go to make up the modern U.S. industrial giant—the corporation, the Establishment.”
That was how he saw himself, as David, not Goliath, as the lone survivor of the American Dream. He had to get that message out to the world.
Meanwhile, continuing to root through his documents, Hughes fished out another plan that had not quite gotten off the ground. Just another “mom-and-pop” operation the proprietor of the last “corner grocery store” had in mind. A grandiose vision of a global Las Vegas, with Hughes at the center, bookie to the entire world:
“I once told you I was interested in acquiring one of the book-making establishments in town,” he wrote his chief aide.
“Well, I dont see any point in buying just one of these books. It is my hope that the damndest book operation anyone ever conceived of can be developed.
“Are you aware that any of dozens of businessmen in the country can pick up the telephone and call their broker, either at his office or at home, or even out at a restaurant, and say: ‘Charley, buy me 50,000 U.S. Steel at the market.’
“So, what I have in mind is a system of credit research by which every man of substance, in the entirety of the U.S., will be catalogued and listed with all the truly significant information necessary to appraise his ability to pay and his integrity.
“I want to see a development under which a wealthy man can phone from London to a certain phone number in Las Vegas and identify himself and place a bet on just about anything—a horse race at Hollywood Park, a track meet in Florida, a football game in New York, an election, at the state or national level, the passage of some bill up in Congress—just about anything.
“Also, I want to see a development which will permit a man to phone from London and, after placing a bet on some event, such as mentioned above, to say: ‘Put $10,000 on the line at the Sands.’
“In fact, when the man on the phone requests the bet, the clerk could hit one of those recording timers, which would be heard over the phone. So, the exact instant of the bet would be recorded, and the clerk could say over the phone to the customer: ‘Your bet is made, at 12:36:04.’ Then, a few seconds later, the clerk could say: ‘Your play occurred at 12:36:12—you won with a natural, eleven. Do you want to bet again?’
“There are many refinements of this deal that could be worked out as you go along.
“Do you know why I think this kind of play would catch on? Because men, simply by nature, like to show off. I can just see some minor league V.I.P. out to dinner with some very attractive young protagonist of the opposite sex, and he picks up the phone, brought to his table at Twenty-One, and he makes a five or ten thousand dollar bet over the phone.
“Then he turns to his girl and says: ‘Well, I just won ten thousand in Vegas—let’s spend it!’
“Look how that would impress the female! She would reason that he must be a pretty wealthy and a pretty trustworthy man to be able to persuade the Las Vegas gambling fraternity to extend credit and take his bet orally, by phone, all the way across the country.
“Now, I urge you not to disclose anything—not to anyone—not even the slightest hint—of this ‘play by phone’ concept.”
Rereading his memo, squinting at his own scrawl, Hughes wondered why this grand scheme had never gone anywhere. It seemed to make such perfect sense laid out so plainly in such meticulous detail. He made a mental note to get it back on track and meanwhile continued to rummage through his papers, grabbing another thick sheaf from the night table.
He was getting tired, but he could not sleep. He usually stayed up until dawn. His body flagged, but his mind reeled on, a runaway engine that could not stop and therefore had to find something, anything to work on, work over, work to death. He seemed to believe that he worked best at the outer limits of his endurance, pushing himself often for days without sleep, as if his mind, by feeding on his emaciated body, consuming it, gained some special power.
“I work around the clock, holidays mean very little to me, since I work just about all the time,” he explained.
“I have absolutely nothing but my work. When things dont go well, it can be very empty indeed.
“I do not indulge in sports, night clubs, or other recreational activities, and since, in fact, I do not do much of anything else at all, except my work, just what do you suggest I do, crawl off in a corner some place and die?”
That was, of course, pretty much what he had done. And quite often, Hughes was not really working at all. He was simply caught in a catatonic daze, playing with his long hair, pulling it up over the top of his head, then letting it fall, or stacking and restacking his memos. When he was working, it was often furious but wasted motion. He would spin his wheels, digging himself deeper into a rut over some entirely trivial or totally imaginary matter. But he was always torturing himself, and at that he worked very hard.
Sometimes he’d reach into his stacks of memos and torture himself with memories. Here was one. A close encounter with grave danger only narrowly escaped. God, it was horrifying even to recall it! Still, he picked up the memo and went back in time.
It was the day Lyndon Johnson “abdicated,” and while Hughes had mentioned in passing something about picking a new president—“selecting one of the candidates and nursing him into the White House,” those were his words—he was instead fixated on a real crisis much closer to home.
All his enemies were conspiring against him.
“Please dont declare war upon me so early in the day,” Hughes had written in a plea to Robert Maheu. “I am well aware that this is not anything that is important to you, but merely something you were pressured into doing by certain groups here. I am speaking of the Easter Egg Hunt.”
The Easter Egg Hunt. There were plans—no, a plot!—to hold it at his hideout, the Desert Inn.
“I have been told, however, that although there are a number of people in Las Vegas who favor this event, there is a more powerful group who are dedicated to discrediting me and that this second group will stop at nothing.”
Not only was this “second group” so diabolical as to plot the hunt, but it was also about to launch a “gossip campaign” against him.
“The substance of this story (and it has already been fed to certain Hollywood columnists, who very fortunately are friends of mine from my motion picture days) the substance is that: I am ashamed for my sinful past (adventures with females, etc.) and I am having a backlash here, manafest in my extreme isolation from social contact, presumably for the purpose of putting temptation out of reach, and an intensive and very expensive campaign to reform the morals of Las Vegas. I am supposedly waiting to start a real all-out war against the normal customs of Las Vegas—such as: topless show girls, etc. etc., dirty jokes, dirty advertisements, etc.”
But that was not the real danger. No, the real danger was the egg hunt.
“Now, I am further informed, and this is what really has me worried, that this militant group plans to stage a really viscious all-out juvenile riot at our Easter party.
“I am not eager to have a repetition, in the D.I., of what happened at Juvenile Hall when the ever-lovin little darlings tore the place apart. I am sure your reply to that will be that, with our better-trained security force, such a thing just could not happen. However, my information is to the effect that our opponents hope we do set this riot down, because they feel they can get more publicity if we do.”