California Gold (88 page)

At least once a week in 1907 and early 1908, Mack drove to Lombard Street, picked up Hellman, and took him to the courtroom for the day. Hellman reveled in the dishonesty of his fellow man. Mack supposed he liked to know that others were as crooked as he’d been.

The Parkside Realty case came up for trial early in April of ’08. Parkside was a development firm, and one of its principals was William Crocker, president of the Crocker Bank and son of Cholly, of the Big Four. Parkside had schemed to spur sales of an oceanside tract with a new trolley line. A trolley line required a franchise. A franchise meant a bribe paid to Ruef. The trial was bound to be complex, because Ruef himself had helped secure the indictments against Parkside’s officers, testifying before the grand jury in return for limited immunity. Between that time and the start of the trial, Ruef and the prosecutors had quarreled repeatedly; Heney wanted Ruef to testify to more than he was willing to say. As a result, the immunity arrangement had broken down, and Heney and his staff were once again after the Boss on every front.

“They’re having trouble finding jurors now,” Mack said as he helped his father-in-law down the steps at Lombard Street. Hellman labored across the unpaved sidewalk to the Oldsmobile.

“Is that what’s on today, more jury-picking?”

Mack nodded. “The dynamiting of Gallagher’s house threw the graft trials back on the front page in a very lurid and emotional way. It’ll be damn hard to get jurors who are objective.”

He was referring to an event two nights before. Dynamite had blown out the front of the residence of former supervisor James Gallagher. Under immunity, Gallagher was giving evidence in the trial of Tirey Ford, an official of United Railroads; Gallagher had been a go-between for Ruef, carrying Ford’s bribe offers to City Hall. Gallagher and his family had miraculously survived the dynamite attack.

Hellman wheezed and grimaced as Mack helped him into the auto. “Thanks, Johnny. I ain’t so spry anymore.” Mack walked around the hood. “What d’you hear about Hetch Hetchy these days?”

“Dragging on,” Mack said as he climbed in. “No decision yet.”

When he reached for the brake release, the old man grasped his sleeve. Hellman’s hand was red and flaking; he had a vile skin rash, and smelled heavily of tar-based ointment. “Listen, I never been good with compliments. But I got to tell you I appreciate all you done for me. Finding me this place. That dandy little nurse with the round bottom. Coming out here and taking me to court every week when you’re so busy—”

“That’s a real carnival downtown. I know you love it.”

“Watching them fry those crooks is more fun than watching bare-assed girlies dance the hoochy-kootch. It is at my age, anyhow.”

Hellman’s smile was sad somehow, the smile of a man keenly aware of his own mortality. Mack felt old himself.

“It’s nothing,” Mack said finally.

“Hell it isn’t. Ever since the ranches got too much for me to manage and I moved into that boardinghouse, Carla stopped coming around much. Now she don’t come around at all.”

“I know that.”

“And you know why. She’s getting long in the tooth, like the rest of us. She ain’t helping matters, drinking and carousing with those nancy-boy artists she runs with. But her pa—oh, no, she don’t want to look at him; he’ll show her that old age is real. She don’t want to be reminded.” He squinted into the sunshine, his eyes gleaming as though they were watering. “I’ll always love that girl, Johnny. But I don’t like her very much.” Mack was silent; he shared the feeling.

Francis J. Heney approached the bench. In the witness chair sat a man recalled from the panel of provisional jurors, a man with unruly yellow-gray hair, a big mustache, and a wall eye that gave him a slightly mad air. There were about thirty people scattered in the spectator section of the courtroom. Three of Abraham Ruef’s four expensive defense lawyers—Shortridge, Ach, and Fairall—conferred behind their hands while the judge said:

“Morris Haas was accepted yesterday as a juror in the Parkside bribery trial. You now wish to challenge that, Mr. Heney?”

“I do, your honor.” Heney handed up a sheet of stiff paper. “This evidence is new. Unearthed by our staff.”

Morris Haas sweated and squirmed while the judge studied the photograph.

Heney said, “I’d like permission to present the evidence to Mr. Haas.”

“Proceed,” the judge said, nodding.

Heney marched to the witness box. “Mr. Haas, I show you this twenty-year-old photograph from the Department of Prisons. A photograph of a man with a shaven head, a man wearing convict stripes.”

Haas’s eyes bulged and sweat streamed down his yeasty face.

“Are you not the man pictured? Were you not at the time serving a term in San Quentin prison for embezzlement?”

In the second row, his favorite place, Hellman leaned over to whisper, “That Heney’s a tough little apple. I wouldn’t want to get him interested in what I done fifteen or twenty years ago.” He rolled his eyes.

Heney pounded the witness box. “Mr. Haas. If you please.”

“The governor granted me a pardon,” Haas exclaimed. “Restored me to full citizenship—”

“Then you don’t deny the evidence?”

“No, I don’t deny it. How can I? There it is. But I paid my debt. I came back to San Francisco, married, and raised four children. You didn’t have to rake it all up again.”

Heney was icy. “I beg to differ. Your Honor, the prosecution cannot accept a juror susceptible to undue pressure, for whatever reason. A concealed criminal record certainly makes a man a potential target of extreme pressure. Our investigators unearthed these facts about Mr. Haas, and I regret having to bring them forward. But I must ask that he be stricken as—”

“Damn you, Heney,” Haas yelled, jumping up. He was a small man, five feet six at most.

The judge gaveled him silent. “Mr. Haas, step down. You’re dismissed.”

Haas lunged at Heney, who had already turned his back, but a deputy sheriff strong-armed Haas away from the prosecutor, and Foley, the prosecutor’s bodyguard, rousted him out through the gate in the rail separating lawyers from spectators. A massive woman with a dark mustache rushed to Haas in tears.

“I won’t let this pass,” Haas yelled as the bailiff and the woman pushed him toward the courtroom doors. “You’ve ruined me in San Francisco—you’ll pay…”

“Crazy man,” Hellman said with a shiver. Mack was about to comment when the hall guard slipped into the vacant seat beside him.

“There’s a gentleman hunting for you, Mr. Chance. He went to your house and your assistant sent him here.”

He handed Mack an engraved card. Intrigued, Mack studied it, then, noticing Hellman craning to see, gave him the card. “Can you read it?”

“Sure I can read it.” Hellman was defensive about his afflictions. He held the card three inches from his nose. “Shit. What’s it say?”

“Gilbert M. Anderson. Essanay Manufacturing Company, Argyle Street, Chicago.”

“Never heard of him, Go on, go see him. I’ll be fine.”

Mack hurried down the aisle. For the first time in a long time, there was a sparkle of interest in his hazel eyes, inspired by a decorative device on the card: a crudely drawn strip of movie film.

In the New Golconda Saloon and Grill two blocks from court, Mack ordered schooners of beer. Gilbert Anderson was a thickly built, rather plain young man. About thirty, Mack guessed. He had soft luminous brown eyes and a magnificent nose that would suit a statesman. He was dressed as drably as a bank officer.

“Essanay”—he pointed to the card lying between them— “that’s
S
for George Spoor, my partner, and
A
for Anderson. George handles our business affairs. I’m in charge of production.”

“You’re talking about moving pictures.”

“Yes, sir. I appreciate your taking time to discuss the subject. I was told you’re an investor who isn’t afraid of new ideas.”

Mack packed tobacco into his meerschaum. Was he wasting his time? There was nothing dynamic or forceful about Anderson. He seemed, instead, rather shy. Yet that very lack of sophistication, that sincerity, was curiously winning. Mack nodded to indicate that he should go ahead.

“I’m a stage actor,” Anderson began. “That is, originally—”

“From New York?”

“Yes, but born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas.” He studied Mack and seemed to decide that he could trust him. “Gilbert Anderson’s the name I adopted for the theater; It’s more—ah—acceptable than Max Aronson. Some producers don’t like Jewish actors. Some theatrical boardinghouses won’t rent to Jews.”

“The world is full of stupid people, Mr. Anderson. Do I understand that you quit the stage for moving pictures?”

“That’s right. I’ve been roaming all over the West shooting one-reelers for Essanay. I even shot two down in Westlake Park in Los Angeles. But we need a permanent base out here. I want to buy land, establish a studio to take full advantage of me constant sunshine. Unfortunately every cent of Essanay profit goes into operating the Chicago studio. I have to find supplementary capital.”

“What kind of pictures do you want to produce?”

“Pictures that make money.”

Mack laughed. “The best kind.”

“You like pictures?”

“I love them.”

Anderson leaned in, so eager he nearly upset his beer. “Actually, I’m most interested in pictures about the West. The old West is practically gone. Autos, interurbans, modern roads—and all those midwesterners coming in with their real estate offices and tourist cabins—they buried it.”

“I have a partner who’d agree with you.”
Or do I?
Johnson had disappeared as completely as Mack’s son, his oil royalties continuing to pile up in his account in Los Angeles, untouched.

With enthusiasm, Anderson said, “People still love the West, Mr. Chance. Partly because it’s vanished, but also because it’s simple, open—honest. And mighty exciting too. Did you see Porter’s
Great Train Robbery
?”

“Many times.”

“I was in it. I was a passenger at the mercy of the outlaws.”

“Well.” Mack puffed his pipe and tried to be tactful. “I certainly saw you. But I didn’t know you then.”

Despite the gentle letdown, Anderson was wounded. Typical actor, Mack thought, amused. He liked this fellow who loved the West, though he hardly looked like a westerner. Anderson had unbuttoned his cheap plain jacket; a sizable belly roll showed.

“I was just an extra,” Anderson admitted. “I was hired to play one of the train robbers. But Porter happened to ask whether I could ride a horse, and I couldn’t lie to him. Matter of fact, I was sick of New York and ready to give up acting when I got that job. Porter’s film changed my life. It changed movies too.”

“Because it had a story.”

“You’re right. That little movie contained just fourteen scenes. When we shot it in the wilds of New Jersey, I didn’t think much of it at all. Then I went to see the finished film projected. I stood in the dark at Eden’s on Fourteenth Street—it was astounding. When the outlaws robbed the train, people jumped up and shouted, ‘Catch them.’ When it was over, they yelled, ‘Run it again, run it again.’ The picture was also playing uptown, at Hammerstein’s, on Broadway. I couldn’t believe the reaction at Eden’s, so I went to Hammerstein’s, figuring the audience would be highbrow, cold. Know what happened?”

“Did they shout ‘Run it again’?”

“Exactly!” Anderson quickly drank some beer and forgot to dab the foam off his lip. “They couldn’t get enough. I said to myself, Anderson, that’s it. It’s the picture business for you.”

“And now you want to produce Westerns.”

“A series, featuring one character, a sort of good-hearted bad man. I’ll play the part to save money for us.”

A wry look fleeted over Mack’s face. He was sure economy wasn’t the primary reason Anderson wanted the role. But the man’s enthusiasm excused his ego.

“Have you found property for your studio?”

“Yes, sir, out in the East Bay—Niles Canyon. Well away from the worst of the fog.”

“Here’s the important question: Have you learned to ride a horse?”

Anderson burst out laughing. “Tolerably. If I fall off, we can always do a second take. That’s the beauty of movies.”

Smoke rose from Mack’s pipe, and he gazed at it thoughtfully. Conservative men would have nothing to do with a scheme like this. Never mind. He had a hunch, an impulse. He’d bet on similar feelings before—and won. Folding your hand, you won nothing.

To his surprise, he realized something remarkable had happened. Here in this drab saloon smelling of sawdust, a stranger had lifted him a little way out of his despond. It was a refreshing feeling.

“I must get back to court, Mr. Anderson. Send me a proposal. Tell me how much you need.”

T
HE PARKSIDE TRIAL ENDED
in a hung jury. The prosecution pressed forward with the trial of Boss Ruef himself, on charges that he bribed supervisors, specifically Supervisor J. J. Furey on behalf of United Railroads. Furey would testify under immunity, as would Gallagher, Ruef’s alleged go-between.

This time it was even harder to seat an unbiased jury, and the process took seventy-two days. Ruef s chief counsel, Henry Ach, hurled challenges like rice at a wedding. He dismissed any veniremen who read the
Call.
He dismissed any veniremen who subscribed to the
Bulletin.

“Pretty soon he’ll be dismissing them if they take a piss first thing in the morning,” Hellman grouched.

Henry Ach continued to strike names, object, and stall, until more than fourteen hundred jurymen had been screened.

Meantime, on November 3, the nation voted. Mack cast his presidential ballot for Secretary of War William Howard Taft, personally picked by Roosevelt to be his successor. It was a victory for the Republicans, a humiliating defeat for the tired old populist William Jennings Bryan, whom the Democrats had dragged out a third time in desperation.

On November 6, the United Railroads jury was finally sworn and the trial began.

Late in the afternoon of November 13—Friday the thirteenth—Judge William Lawlor announced a short recess. The courtroom in Carpenter’s Hall was filled to the limit—two hundred people or more. They jammed the balconies along the sides of the drafty hall and packed the seats behind the press tables on the main floor. Mack and Hellman sat on the aisle, second row, main floor. They’d been listening to defense attorney Ach cross-examine James Gallagher, the prosecution’s star witness.