The Hoax Page #4

- I'm the coauthor of Project Octavio.

- Excuse me?

- Is Cliff there?

- Yes, certainly. He's right here.

- Put him on the phone, please.

- I didn't know what else to say.

- I heard you talking...

- I know what you're doing.

- I know what you're doing.

- What?

I know what you're doing.

Hi, Andrea.

Who the hell was that, Clifford?

That is my associate.

I was intending

to talk to you about him.

He's working with me on this.

All right. You need to be in New York

at 9:
00 on Monday morning.

You're meeting with Ralph Graves.

He's the editor-in-chief

of Life magazine.

Yeah, I know who he is.

You need to go over all your contacts

with Octavio.

Life knows a lot about him, so get

your memory clear and be specific.

I don't want to lose the deal

over their knee-jerk suspicions.

What do you... Wait, wait, wait.

What do you mean, "lose the deal"?

What suspicions?

Just tell them the truth.

He gave me a prune.

He gave me a prune.

Visualize the Mediterranean

or something.

You're sweating like an animal.

You know, it's pretty nervy

of these publishers

to put us through this inquisition.

Well, you can't sit it out now.

You're a coauthor.

History.

Quite a responsibility.

The second handwriting analysis

told us

your letters from Mr. Hughes

are authentic.

ANDREA:
100 percent.

RALPH:
No surprise there.

Experts want to provide their employers

with good news.

He gave me a prune.

What?

Right... In a bag.

He gave me a prune. Howard Hughes.

Dick is jumping forward a little bit.

It was a memorable moment for him.

- Anyway, Ralph, how can we help?

- You know, no one likes to be accused.

I really don't think anyone's

making accusations here, Dick.

Are we going to stand around all day

looking at photographs?

We came here to talk about

Howard Hughes. Let's talk about him.

He gave me a prune.

Howard Hughes gave me a prune

on the beach at Nassau.

I thought you met Hughes

the first time in Mexico.

Ralph, what happened was this.

I got a phone call.

Really, out of the blue.

From a man

named George Gordon Holmes.

Longtime associate of Howard Hughes.

He says he wants us

to fly down to Mexico City,

wait for a call,

so we go ahead and do this.

We fly down there,

we check into this fleabag hotel.

Eighteen hours we wait,

no air conditioning,

sand crabs in the bathtub,

I say, "The hell with him,"

when we spot an envelope,

shoved under the door.

He rarely went on vacation,

but when he did,

he usually booked into a remote hotel

- in the mountains of Juchitn.

- It says,

- in the mountains of Juchitn.

- It says,

"There's a pilot waiting

to take you to Juchitn."

So it's 6:
00 a.m.,

we're flying low over the mountains,

and I'm nervous.

But he's got a touch, this bush pilot.

He brings it right down

onto a gray pebble landing strip.

Just as it comes down,

I see out of the corner of my eye,

there's a jeep that's coming down

from the mountains.

Mexican military?

No.

It's Holmes.

- Mr. Irving?

- Yes, that's right. Mr. Holmes?

- Who is this?

- Dick Suskind, sir.

So, he's a little surprised to see Dick,

but I explained that Dick

was my researcher and friend,

and that's why he was there

and I couldn't do without him.

We get in the jeep,

and he takes us on this endless ride,

up through the mountains.

We circled around the top of this hill

and we got to the hotel,

which was called

Salina Cruz.

Holmes motions for us to follow.

It's quiet.

There's a room

way in the back, like a hut.

Doesn't even have

a view of the ocean.

We can barely see.

There's a little slip of a man on a bed,

sitting like a monk.

Howard Hughes.

Howard Hughes.

Howard Hughes is sitting right there.

My heart...

And then he was reaching out

through the mosquito netting,

and he offered Dick a...

A prune.

A prune.

Dick takes the prune,

eats the prune...

Not bad.

And he started talking about

the extraordinary value of Mexican soil,

organic farming, organic food,

et cetera, et cetera.

The two of them started jabbering

like old friends.

We ended up talking a little bit about

business, then Dick and I went home.

- I'm a little hungry.

- Let's eat.

Ralph, will you pick

something fabulous?

The Latour please, '61.

- That'll get us started. Thank you.

- Oh, yes.

And some beluga,

shall we, gentlemen?

MAN:
Sounds good.

You know, Howard Hughes

doesn't like caviar.

Really?

Really. In fact, he made a special point

of saying so.

I remember that. I...

It was such a non sequitur.

It was a strange thing.

It was just after Clifford

finished talking about the...

- The crash.

- That's right. The crash.

The one in Beverly Hills.

He nearly hit the top of that house,

parked it right on top of the house, hurt

his back, but he walked away from it.

And he said that people

in Beverly Hills eat caviar,

and he doesn't like it

and then he crashed his plane.

Okay, then let's make it

two beluga appetizers, please.

- Three maybe.

- Three, yeah. Make it three.

- Andrea, yeah?

- Thank you. Okay. Good.

Did you get any sense

of his business acumen?

Go ahead.

It's interesting. He said that...

Very interesting. He said that people

often think of business as business,

which of course it is, but also...

Within business, there is also pleasure.

You know, business is pleasure.

Pleasure can be a business.

Business has pleasure.

It's both. It's both at the same time.

I didn't really understand it,

but after a while it sunk in,

and I realized, you know,

that's his genius.

This is your check for writing services.

The second check for Mr. Hughes,

or, Octavio, sorry...

It's gonna take

a little longer to process.

I understand you're authorized

to receive Mr. Hughes' payment?

Yeah, I am, I am, thank you.

But don't take too long, all right?

Life magazine is prepared

to offer $250,000

for worldwide exclusive rights

to serialize the Howard Hughes story.

That's a record, Harold.

I'm wondering if it's enough of a record,

Ralph.

Oh, jeez.

The money makes this real.

You can still back out,

but you gotta tell me now.

- Back out?

- Yeah.

F***, no!

We're the goddamn Musketeers.

Good. That's good.

Don't spend any money, though.

Better we keep it for later,

in case we need it.

Absolutely.

In other news,

the Supreme Court has agreed to hear

the TWA shareholders' case against

reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes.

A loss could cost Hughes

$ 137,000,000

and devastate his financial empire.

The Nixon Justice Department

has thus far refused...

We gotta reach big.

We'll go for texture, gritty details,

we need blood, we need money,

we need real juicy,

Shakespearean, big stuff...

You want to critique a sitting president

who's also a war criminal?

- No, no, no.

- You can do anything you want.

You can impact culture

with something like this.

"Lmpact culture." I want to make

some money and not get caught.

You know,

we've got to make this plausible.

Dick, I handed them

three yellow letters.

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