Chase The Rabbit: Gretch Bayonne Action Adventure Series Book #1 Read online

  “You mean Monkey Man, don’t you, Mr. Bay?” he responded.

  “Sorry about that,” I said. “I kid around a lot.”

  “It seems to me,” he said, “that when you don’t need someone, you kid around, as you say. But when you do need them, your behavior towards them changes.”

  “You don’t know me that well,” I replied. “And this conversation is done. I have to get back inside.”

  As I turned away, he asked, “Have you read my poem, Mr. Bay?”

  “No!” I replied. “I will get to it!”

  ***

  I was careful not to walk into the wrong room this time. Bela was still sitting on the lower bunk shaking his head.

  “I say we deliver the box with the letter to Hearst as promised,” I said. “What is the worst thing that could happen?”

  “Listen, my friend,” Bela replied. “This may be bigger than anything we could imagine. Do you not remember The Great War?”

  “Yes, certainly I do,” I said. “My parents were both killed in the war. They were innocent bystanders. I was left an orphan.”

  “It could happen again,” he said.

  “No,” I replied. “Not on that scale. Not in our lifetimes, surely!”

  “We have an opportunity,” Bela answered, “to make a possible difference in the prevention of such an occurrence.”

  “By not giving the letter to Hearst,” I said.

  “Yes,” he replied.

  “If this new man, Hitler, does not get a response back from Hearst,” he said, “that will send a signal to him that he has no support in the United States.”

  “But what if we deliver the letter to Hearst and he tells Hitler he is not interested,” I said. “Wouldn’t that be better than Hitler getting no response at all?”

  “Yes,” Bela replied. “But what if Hearst goes along with it?”

  “He would never do that!” I said.

  “Are you sure?” Lugosi asked. “Are you willing to take that risk?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “We gave those men our words that we would deliver the letter. I don’t get involved in politics.”

  “Tell me about your parents again and the circumstances surrounding their deaths,” Bela said.

  “Shut up Bela!” I shouted.

  “How often are we given an opportunity in life to make a real difference in the world?” he asked. “To change things for millions of people?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, holding my head in my hands.

  “Bay, all I am saying, my son is that sometimes something as simple as withholding information can change the course of history and affect the entire world.”

  “It’s not my place to withhold this information,” I said. “I am delivering the letter.”

  Bela and I made our way down the hallway and into the sitting room of the largest airship in the world on it’s most famous trip of all time. I was more than a bit nervous and felt out of my element. This was no day trip on the ferry across the Hudson. And cameras were rolling.

  “What in the hell am I going to say to these people?” I whispered to Lugosi.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Just smile and nod.”

  “That’s just great,” I replied. “They are going to bounce me out of here like one of Alvon’s monkeys.”

  “Not true,” Bela said. “People love animals, especially monkeys. You, I am not so sure about.”

  The room was crowded with people, all chatting excitedly.

  “Bay, I would like you to meet Spencer Tracy, Joan Crawford and Gary Cooper,” Bela said. They looked at me as if I had an extra head.

  “This is the famous writer, Bay,” he announced.

  “An honor to meet you,” Joan said, extending her hand.

  “Yes, thank you, it’s an honor to meet me, too,” I said.

  They all laughed as Bela walked me towards the next group.

  James Cagney gave me that funny look again.

  “So what sort of things do you write?” Groucho Marx asked.

  “Mostly stories about cats stuck in trees,” I answered. “Nothing to do with the movie business.”

  “Well, remind me not to get stuck in a tree,” Marx shot back.

  “I’m afraid you already are,” I replied. “I saw your last movie.”

  “Then you must be a fan,” he countered.

  “No,” I said. “Not at all. A fan is a machine that blows wind.”

  “Remind me later to write this down.” he laughed. “So tell me, Mr. Bay,” Groucho continued, “if you’re not a fan, or a machine that blows wind, what brings you to this side of the fence? Assuming there is a fence. No offense, but what brings you here?”

  “I was hitch hiking in the sky,” I replied. “And this was the only zeppelin that wasn’t full.”

  Marx broke character and laughed out loud.

  “You’re all right in my book,” he said, patting my shoulder. “You did read my book, right?” he asked.

  “I am planning to read it, but my bed is uneven,” I answered.

  “Okay, I’ll bite,” he said. “What does reading my book have to do with your bed being uneven?” he asked.

  “I am using your book under one of the bedposts to level it out,” I answered.

  “And you couldn’t use another book for that?” he countered.

  “Well, I could have,” I said. “But it wouldn’t have been nearly as funny as yours.”

  Marx laughed again shaking his head.

  “You obviously don’t know that you are supposed to be the straight man,” he said. “You are supposed to set me up for jokes, not the other way around.”

  Bela was trying to usher me away from Marx to meet the others, but Groucho and I were having too much fun.

  “And I would like to introduce you to the great Douglas Fairbanks,” Bela said, as we walked away from Groucho who was still chuckling and shaking his head.

  Fairbanks was the most famous actor of all time, but I did not let my intimidation show.

  “Nice to meet you,” he said.

  As I shook his hand, I was still in “Groucho” mode, and repeated my nervous response to Joan Crawford. “It’s nice to meet me too,” I said.

  Fairbanks smiled and said, “You may be a little star struck. I understand. You mean ‘It’s nice to meet you, too.’”

  “You just said that,” I replied.

  “Yes,” he said laughing, “but then you said, ‘It’s nice to meet me, too.’“

  “So now we’ve met each other twice in the same meeting,” I said.

  Fairbanks laughed again as Bela pulled me away, steering me towards the main cabin room.

  It was a stunning sight. There, seated at a table was William Randolph Hearst himself. The old man. At the opposite end of the table were Jean Harlow, Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin. There was a cameraman, and my reporter friend, Karl Von Wiegand. They were shooting a scene for the Great Graf journey documentary. We stopped just inside the room so as not to interrupt.

  “These games, this cause, are so important to the world,” Jean Harlow was saying. “It is the least we can do to support the athletes from all around the globe by making this historic trip!”

  “Yes,” Charlie Chaplain said. “It is most significant that these games are being hosted in America. And for them to be in Los Angeles, California is very special to me and my colleagues.”

  I was star struck, all right. But what the hell were they really saying? It sounded like self-publicity to me. I didn’t see any athletes on this massive, expensive airship. Just a bunch of self-promoting actors and the fattest cat in journalism who was bound to make a lot more money from this documentary.

  They finished, and the camera stopped rolling. Bela immediately walked me in and we sat down right next to Hearst.

  “William,” Bela said. “I would like to introduce you to the famous writer, Gretch Bay.”

  Hearst looked at me smiling. Then it struck me. The key word Lugosi was using was “famous.�
� That is what they all were interested in. It wasn’t about the first flight of the Graf across America or the Olympic Games so much as it was about the fame of it all. Hearst had more money and power than God. He was in it for the fame. Otherwise, he would be sitting back with Rockefeller and Ford, sipping wine and fishing.

  No, for Hearst, it was all about the fame. I should have realized that before. But coming face to face with the smiling old man brought it home loud and clear. And I had a letter in my back pocket I was about to deliver to him that may change the course of history. Before he even spoke, I wasn’t sure if I was going to hand it off to him.

  “Do you work for me?” Hearst asked.

  I didn’t see that coming and wasn’t sure how to react. Since I freelance for several of his publications, technically, I did work for him.

  “Yes,” I said. “And I have a letter for you.”

  I pulled the letter out of my trousers and handed it to him.

  “A letter from whom?” he asked.

  “Adolf Hitler,” I replied.

  He opened the letter and began reading it. People were milling about and Hearst ordered them out of the room. Bela and I sat in silence as Hearst read the letter, looking very serious.

  When he was finished reading it, he looked up at me and said, “Okay, thank you, Mr. Bay.”

  I thought about what Alvon had said. That this was possibly a pivotal moment in history. I would never have an opportunity like this again.

  “What are you going to do then?” I asked.

  “What I am going to do, Mr. Bay,” he replied, “is shove a firecracker up Hitler’s ass and light it up with all the stars in Hollywood.”

  “Yes, sir,” was all I could muster up.

  “You don’t tell anyone about this, Bay!” he said.

  “No, of course not,” I said.

  Bela and I stood up to leave.

  “And Bay,” the old man said, “Marion already told me about your situation. You can stay in Bela’s room.”

  “Thank you, sir,” I said.

  As we exited the room, the feeling came over me that I had just been involved in something great. I was filled with adrenalin. And when we walked back into the adjoining cabin area, there were Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and on and on. After meeting William Randolph Hearst and delivering the letter, they seemed like ordinary people to me. And after all, they really are just that. Stars are a dime a dozen. It is power that matters, and how one uses it that counts in the end.

  “Did you just talk to William?” Marion asked.

  “Yes, thank you for giving him the heads up,” I said.

  “How did it go?” Jean Harlow asked.

  “How did what go?” I said.

  “With William!” she replied. “Did he like you?”

  “I guess so,” I replied, “but I wasn’t auditioning.”

  The room was crowded with stars all asking me questions about my little private meeting with Hearst. I just wanted to get the hell out of there. The cameraman was even asking me questions. Bela was trying to get me to go back down the hallway to his tiny, little room, but I was essentially being mobbed by the famous.

  “We need Lugosi, Cagney, Tracy and Cooper in ten minutes for a shoot,” the camerman said.

  “That’s my cue,” Bela whispered to me. “Just go back to my room and wait there.”

  As I went down the hallway towards Lugosi’s quarters, Jean Harlow, Marion Davies and Marlene Dietrich followed me, each one babbling away. I was trying to ignore them, but they followed me anyway.

  “What did William say about me?” Harlow asked.

  “Oh, you know he loves you!” Marion said.

  “Did he mention me at all?” Marlene asked.

  “Stop it!” I shouted.

  “He didn’t mention anyone!” I said. “I was there to give him something! I wasn’t there to discuss anything!”

  “Hey,” Marion said, “you are the one who dropped down from the ceiling begging us to get you an audience with William. Naturally, we just want to know the outcome.”

  “You are right,” I said. “I just wanted to get out of topside. But that was before…”

  “So you need up?” Jean said. “Now that you got what you wanted, you are done with us? Is that it?”

  “No! Look, I appreciate what you did for me, but something happened between now and the time we met,” I explained. “Yes, I just wanted to get out of being up there. I just wanted to get a message to my friend Bela. But it turned into something else.”

  “It always turns into something else,” Marlene said. “Did you get a job out of it?”

  “No!” I said. “It is not about a job. I just had to give him something that I can’t tell you about.”

  “I am so disappointed in you,” Jean said. “We believed your story. About you only being here to get to California to find that man. And now, you meet with Mr. Hearst and you won’t tell us why or what happened. That doesn’t make any sense.”

  I was stuck between a rock and a dead end alley. It was time to appease the ladies that had helped me to begin with. It just so happened that these ladies were famous movie stars.

  “Okay,” I said. “Go get everyone who is not doing a shoot for the documentary and bring them back here.”

  “To this tiny room?” Jean asked.

  “No,” I replied. “To the hallway. I am going to take them all up topside to the observation point.”

  “Oh my God!” Jean screamed. “You can do that?”

  “Of course I can,” I said. “I am Gretch Bay, the famous writer. I can do anything I want to do. And I don’t work for William Randolph Hearst.”

  Chapter Eight

  Someone could get killed pulling a stunt like this, I thought.

  It was a risk I was willing to take. I knew that if all went well, and no one plunged off the side of the beast, it would be an experience they would remember for the rest of their lives. And an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.

  Jean came down the hallway followed by a gaggle of curious people. Douglas Fairbanks was beside her.

  “What is this observation point?” he asked.

  “It’s the back of the beast,” I said. “The very top of the ship. And wait until you get a load of the view from up there!”

  They were all smiling. I had them form a single line.

  It was Jean Harlow, Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplain, Greta Garbo, Spencer Tracy, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable and Groucho Marx.

  “Okay,” I said, “single file and follow me!”

  I led the group of curiosity seekers through the cargo area and up the ladder into the belly of the beast. They were gasping in amazement as they followed me down the steel spine.

  “This is just creepy!” one of them said.

  “My sentiments exactly,” I responded. “And I had to spend the night up here by myself!”

  “What are these red things?” Groucho asked, pointing to the huge hydrogen gas cells.

  “That’s what makes her float,” I said. “They’re filled with highly flammable gas. Feel free to smoke.”

  “I’m not so sure about this,” Crawford said.

  “Just keep walking,” I insisted. “You won’t be sorry.”

  We passed a couple of the riggers. Their mouths dropped like a hundred pounds of melons off a cart.

  “I’m not sure you should be up here,” one of them said.

  “I’m not sure you should either,” I replied.

  “Hearst doesn’t know about this, does he?” Fairbanks asked.

  “What do you think?” I replied.

  He smiled broadly. “Okay, Mr. Bay,” he replied. “It’s your charter now.”

  Just as we reached the ladder leading up to the observation point, Captain Clipboard turned the corner and caught us red-handed.

  “You cannot go up there,” he demanded. “It is far too dangerous and you do not have authorization.”

  “Listen, Klaus,” I said. “You know who the
se people with me here are, right?”

  “Of course I do,” he said. “But I am in charge topside, and I forbid you to go any further.”

  I turned away from him and instructed the others to start climbing the ladder to freedom.

  “When you get to the top, don’t walk around too much,” I said. Stay in the middle, where it is level.”

  “Come on!” Jean said. “I will go first and you all follow me. I’ve done this before!”

  Klaus picked up the phone set and called down to the bridge. I could tell he didn’t want to do it. But it was his job and his ass on the line.

  “Give me ten minutes,” I said, “okay pal?”

  He hung up the phone before they could answer.

  “Ten minutes, Bay,” he said, “and that’s it.”

  “Thank you my friend,” I said. “I owe you one.”

  I went up the ladder, wondering how this little episode was going to pan out.

  ***

  The stars were in awe of their newfound environment. Screams of joy shot through the wind as they danced and spun in circles. It was the most amazing sight! Being on the beast’s back apparently liberated them all as much as it had me. I couldn’t hear what they were all shouting that well because of the wind and adrenaline that was shooting through me. But they were all expressing the same thing. Utter ecstasy.

  Jean hugged me and said, “They love it, Bay! I knew they would! Thank you so much!”

  Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin were moving further down the back than the rest of the group. It suddenly made me feel uncomfortable.

  “We’re flying! We’re flying!” they were chanting.

  “You need to keep the others close to the hole, Star Child!” I said to Jean.

  “Star Child?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” I replied. “That’s my nickname for you. I thought of it the first moment I laid eyes on you, Baby. I just never said it out loud until now.”

  “Oh my!” she said. “I…I love it!”

  “Just round up the others,” I said. “I am going to go get Fairbanks and Chaplain!”

  The two men were a good 300 feet down the back of the Graf. They had gone much further than I felt comfortable with. When I finally reached them, they were laughing hysterically and pretending to be airplanes.