Maheu was losing his grip. Within a year, the erstwhile CIA tough guy had been driven to drink and was crying for mercy, his Machiavellian schemes seemingly forgotten as he was drawn further and further into an overwhelmingly intimate and terribly troubled relationship with Hughes.
Despite all the strains and bickering, they were still together, about to embark on a series of missions that would shake the country. But as they set off to buy America, both had to wonder—could this marriage be saved?
3
The Kingdom
Shortly after Thanksgiving 1967, Nevada Governor Paul Laxalt got a sudden chill—as if he had seen a ghost. The Ghost of Thanksgiving Past.
In the year since Howard Hughes had made his holiday-week pilgrimage to Las Vegas, Laxalt had been haunted by a hidden fear. Without once meeting him, the governor had granted Hughes nearly feudal rights, doing everything in his power to help the unseen billionaire become Nevada’s biggest private employer, its largest landowner, and king of its one industry, gambling.
Laxalt waived all the rules, placed Hughes above the law, and let him seize full control of four major casinos. No individual had ever before owned even one, but all were licensed at the governor’s command despite the billionaire’s refusal to submit a photograph, fingerprints, or the detailed personal and financial records required by Nevada law. Nobody even dared to suggest that Hughes make a personal appearance.
In addition to the casinos, the recluse now owned four resort hotels, most of the land on the Las Vegas Strip, a vast amount of other real estate, two airports, one airline, and a local television station. It all came to almost $100 million, an investment Hughes had to protect. He bought local politicians wholesale, imposing his will on officials from the courthouse to the statehouse, and seemed to have enormous influence over the silver-haired Republican governor.
Laxalt had allowed an invisible man to control Nevada more completely than anyone has ever controlled a sovereign state. And now he was haunted.
Hughes, on the other hand, was quite pleased. “I think Laxalt can be brought to a point where he will just about entrust his entire political future to his relationship with us,” wrote the phantom. “I think that is the way it should be and the way it can be.”
In fact, Hughes had promised to make the obliging governor president of the United States.
“I am ready to ride with this man to the end of the line, which I am targeting as the White House,” he declared. “I think we must convince him beyond a shadow of a doubt that I intend to back him with unlimited support right into the White House in 1972.”
Paul Laxalt for president! At the time it seemed just another bizarre notion hatched in the unreal world of the penthouse. But even as Laxalt nurtured his hidden relationship with Hughes, he was also developing a special relationship with the newly elected governor of a neighboring state, Ronald Reagan. One that would make him the future president’s closest friend, his chief political adviser, and his national campaign chairman.
But even when Laxalt became one of the most powerful men in the country, Howard Hughes would still be there to haunt him, as he haunted Laxalt now.
Visions of the White House could not still his fears. The governor could not forget that he was dealing with a phantom, that he had never seen Hughes, had not even spoken to him. That nobody had. Not since he supposedly arrived in Las Vegas, indeed not for an entire decade.
Dread thoughts, which the governor might have repressed forever if no one had discovered the strange midnight meeting of his Gaming Control Board. In late November 1967, several of the state’s top regulatory officials gathered like a secret coven at the witching hour, roused sleeping colleagues with a conference call, and by 1:30 A.M. had formally approved the impatient billionaire’s fourth casino license. When the incredible story leaked, a few legislators were sufficiently shocked to demand a full investigation.
Laxalt could no longer suppress his fears. They came tumbling out, one chilling thought after another. What if Hughes was not really up in the penthouse? What if Hughes had been replaced by an imposter? What if Hughes did not in fact exist?
The governor was frantic. On December 11, 1967, Laxalt secretly summoned his gambling czars to the state capitol in Carson City. All agreed that something must be done.
This was a job for the FBI.
“It was the unanimous consensus of this entire group,” the chief agent in Las Vegas reported to J. Edgar Hoover, “that some effort should be made to enable the Nevada state authorities to know for certain that HOWARD HUGHES actually is alive and that they are actually licensing a ‘live individual.’
“Even though everything appears to be 100% above board,” continued the FBI memo, “no one, including the Governor of the State of Nevada, has ever personally seen, talked with, or discussed any licensing matters with HOWARD HUGHES. There is grave concern among the Nevada gaming authorities and Governor LAXALT that a great ‘hoax’ could be being perpetrated….”
Still, it was inconceivable to actually confront the phantom financier. Early on, the gaming board had timidly asked his lawyer, Richard Gray, if just one member might see the billionaire. His reaction was troubling, in retrospect.
“Mr. GRAY lost his composure and indicated that if the authorities would require this then Mr. HUGHES would probably withdraw from the State of Nevada,” the FBI report recounted. “No further effort was made to pursue a personal meeting with HOWARD HUGHES.”
All the state ever got was a power of attorney supposedly signed by the recluse. Now the governor took this treasured scrap and nervously handed it over to the FBI for authentication. Was the signature genuine, had the phantom left any fingerprints?
“Nevada gaming authorities do not desire to do anything of an official nature with the results of this examination,” the surreal report concluded, “other than to satisfy in their own minds that HOWARD HUGHES exists and that they are dealing with him.”
If the question was more than embarrassing, the answer was truly a rude shock.
J. Edgar Hoover had not become a national institution by sending his G-men in pursuit of ghosts. The director took one look at Laxalt’s pitiful plea and unceremoniously scrawled, “We should have absolutely nothing to do with this. H.”
Case closed.
Hughes would continue to haunt Nevada as long as Laxalt remained in office, and the governor would continue to do his bidding, but Laxalt would never get to see him, nor would he ever get any real proof that he was dealing with a “live individual.”
Howard Hughes, of course, was alive, right there on the ninth floor of the Desert Inn. Had Laxalt managed to meet him, however, he probably would have had the shock of his life.
Naked and disheveled, his hideously long fingernails tracing patterns on color-coded maps, the phantom of the penthouse sat in bed busily plotting to buy the rest of Nevada.
He had not come to Las Vegas with a master plan. He had come only because he didn’t know where else to go and because he had been there before and liked it. He liked the all-night ambiance, he liked the showgirls, he liked the whole tone and feel of the place. In the early 1950s, before he went into seclusion, he used to fly in regularly for a night or a few days or a few weeks, catch the shows, perhaps pick up a showgirl, dispatching one of his lackeys to arrange the assignation, always ordering him to first get a signed release. He rarely gambled, just occasionally dropped a nickel in a slot machine, but he cruised the casinos and was a familiar figure at ringside in the showrooms, and he kept coming back.