Chapter 19

ADVENT

1

It was not the kind of news you could anticipate. In fact, it was unbelievable. Bob Moody received a phone call from Gary’s friend, Gibbs, who said he was a police informer and was going to testify at a trial in the next couple of days. Having been Gary’s cellmate in County Jail, he had quite a story to tell, he told Moody, and wanted ten thousand bucks and a chance to get on the Johnny Carson show. Moody informed Vern immediately of the conversation, and a couple of hours later, visiting the prison, Vern passed it on to Gary. When there was no reply, Vern explained again what Gibbs had said to Moody.

Gary puckered his lips so tight, it looked as if he had taken out his plates.

“I’m sorry, Gary,” said Vern. “As you know, I already paid him the $2,000.”

“You know that guy,” Gary said. “I trusted him. You don’t trust too many people in the world.”

“I’d like to run into him,” said Vern. “I’d change his head.”

“Well,” Gary said, “don’t worry, Vern. You can’t do anything about it, but I can.” He nodded. “I can take care of it right from here.” He was certainly serious, thought Vern. “Yes,” said Vern to himself, “if Gibbs doesn’t leave town, he’s going to get taken care of.”

Schiller and Barry Farrell were working together that morning in Los Angeles when Moody called with the news. Gibbs, he said, was eager to talk to Schiller about a deal. Larry had been mentioned in the pages of Helter Skelter, and so he thought Schiller might want to buy inside stories on Gary, stuff no one else had. Schiller was plainly worried, and got on the phone and put in a call to Gibbs, and heard him repeat everything he had said to Moody. Then Gibbs asked that Schiller not divulge any of this private information to Gary. Schiller, hanging up, said to Farrell, “It’s ridiculous. Does he think Moody is going to keep it from his client?” Farrell, fresh from reading Gilmore’s letters full of encomiums to his cellmate, said, “Gibbs has got to be the lowest of all creatures.”

Schiller had already decided to find out whether Gibbs really knew enough to do any damage to his exclusive, and, if so, sign him up at the lowest possible price. Since he and Barry were about to take off for Provo that afternoon, and were ready to prime Moody and Stanger with new questions, it would be relatively simple to interview Gibbs as well. Indeed, it would be the first job they would do in Utah together. Might be a way of christening their relationship. “Behooves us,” said Farrell, “to wring Gibbs out like a washrag.”

On the airplane, en route to Salt Lake, they went over the interrogatories Barry had prepared. In the last week, Farrell had read everything available, the letters, tapes, and every sheet of yellow paper on which Gilmore had written answers, and then had come up with a new and thorough set of questions. Schiller now read this work with attention and discussed each query and they changed a number of them.

At Salt Lake, they rented a car, drove to Provo, and put up at the TraveLodge. Then he brought Barry over to meet Moody and Stanger. It took a while to convince the lawyers not to inform Gilmore about Farrell. “If Gary knows another man has been brought in, he’s going to have to learn to trust the new man,” Schiller said, In fact, after Gibbs, who would he accept?

Then Schiller tried, in the politest way, to lay out some of his criticisms of the lawyers’ interviews, and convince them why the approach from now on had to be mapped by Farrell and himself. “Here,” he showed them, “is our first full-dress interview.” He went through the questions, and emphasized the possible follow-throughs. Did his best to psych them up. It seemed encouraging. They obviously accepted Farrell as a working journalist—as always Barry made a good impression—and Schiller could feel the special attention they offered today. Quite likely, he thought, they were also worrying over Gibbs. God, if they didn’t start to produce, Gibbs’s story might look better and better.

That afternoon, Moody and Stanger went out to the prison, and did a tape with Gary. It went on for hours, and they didn’t get back until midnight. Next day, when he heard it, Schiller was excited. Gary had talked at length about his childhood and reform school and prison and the murders. Since this was only four days after his second suicide attempt, the responses were impressive. It was as if Gilmore was also concerned about Gibbs and had decided to tell his story. In fact, Schiller was ecstatic. After Farrell edited it, they would have, at the least, a good beginning for Playboy.

2

The meeting with Gibbs had been arranged by Moody through a detective named Halterman, who turned out to be a big, blond fellow with glasses, wearing a brown leather coat, a smiling teddy-bear type, Schiller thought, except he was obviously one tough teddy bear. Halterman had set it up for the interview room at the Orem Police Station, a cubbyhole with a desk and a couple of chairs.

Gibbs was in there, chain-smoking. Schiller’s first impression was of a small, slimy, ratty, jailhouse guy. Red squinty eyes. He had a receding hairline, a Fu Manchu goatee, a little dingbat mustache. Bad teeth. Pale as a ghost. A guy who would stick a shiv under your armpit. Farrell liked him even less. He looked like a poor old weasel sitting there. The total stamp of jail was on the man.

First thing after making introductions, Schiller took out a pack of Viceroy Super Longs and handed them over. It made Gibbs uneasy. Yesterday, on the phone, Schiller acted like he had hardly heard of him. Now, he seemed up on his habits. Gary had obviously, Gibbs thought, informed Schiller of his personal preferences. Besides, there was something about the man, and his associate, this Farrell, that made Gibbs uncomfortable. They didn’t look like rich writers or producers from Los Angeles. They were wearing old parkas and dungarees, and looked like they had been brought in for vagrancy. Gibbs could feel the big money disappearing. Worse. He also felt a lot of warnings, so, even as he said hello, he asked if Schiller had disclosed their conversation to Gary. “I have to tell you,” Schiller said, “I believe I made a mistake. I didn’t understand that I wasn’t supposed to tell him, and I did.”

“You gave me your word,” Gibbs said.

“I’m sorry,” said Schiller, “I got it all mixed up.”

“What did Gary say?” asked Gibbs.

The other fellow, Farrell, shook his head, and said, “Oh, Dick, Gary was so disappointed.” On top of everything else, Gibbs hated to be called Dick. The name was Richard. He looked over at Halterman, and Ken was almost puking. He gave a signal to Gibbs, and they stepped out of the room. “That’s the oldest con game in the world,” said Halterman. “Oh, Dick,” said the detective, mimicking Farrell, “Gary was so disappointed.” Then Halterman cussed. “You should have said, ‘What do I care? He’s just a cold-blooded killer.’ ” Still, he didn’t disagree that it might be worth talking to these Los Angeles characters about a deal.

Gibbs was as upset as a man could be. First of all, he was in a state of confusion, and that was not his accustomed place. Then, this fellow Schiller started to run a line on him. “Look,” Schiller was saying confidentially, “Gary has gone crazy with anger, but I think I can get him calmed down. You see, I might be able to explain to the man that you’re ready to work with us.”

Gibbs didn’t believe a word, but then he didn’t dare not to believe him either. So when Schiller took out a Sony tape recorder from his pocket, Gibbs agreed to be interviewed. It was hard, however, to figure where Schiller was coming from. That guy Farrell just kept glaring at him.

When Schiller asked if he would sign a contract for his story, Gibbs asked, “How much?” He knew already there was nothing like ten grand in it, but he still wanted to get on Carson. Have all of America see his face, then use the proceeds to get a face-lift, ha ha. Still, he did think Johnny Carson had quick wits. They’d make a good fit. There’d be a fast understanding back and forth.

Schiller, however, just looked to be in pain at the idea of laying out money. “You are trying,” he said, “to sell your information after Gary has already given you a check for $2,000, which is the fourth-largest amount given out to anyone, including his mother.”

“Gary gave me that money out of friendship.”

Schiller looked him right in the eye and said, “When I told Gary of our conversation, he wanted to stop payment on your check.”

“I don’t believe you,” said Gibbs. “Anyway, it’s cashed.”

Gibbs had received a letter two days ago from Gary that said Powers was telling people that he, Gibbs, was an informer. Gary wrote that Powers was a no-good son of a bitch for trying to start such rumors. Now, this. Schiller certainly had to be the most insensitive individual in the world. He actually had the gall to say, “Gary is talking bad about you. I would worry about being seen in Salt Lake.”

Stuff like that came out of a turkey’s asshole. Gibbs knew better than anybody that Gary didn’t have connections in Salt Lake. Still Gibbs felt full of weak sentiments. He didn’t know if it was fear, or just feeling horrible that Gary knew, but it couldn’t have been worse.

“How long have you worked for the police?” asked Schiller.

“I’ve been twelve years undercover,” said Gibbs. “This is the first time I’ve had to come up.”

“It must scare you,” said Schiller.

“Not that much,” said Gibbs. “I know my job. Yesterday in court, I was up against what is probably the heaviest criminal element in the State of Utah.” Gibbs puffed on the Viceroy Super Long. “When I got on that stand yesterday, they didn’t say, is this guy an informer or a paid fink, they asked, is he a reliable counterintelligence agent? If they wanted, I could have given them names of FBI agents I worked for, showed plane tickets they gave me, vouchers. Halterman can tell you. I’ve got a photographic memory. I could sit on this tape recorder for a day, and tell you everything about Gary.”

“Did they place you next to Gary for any reason?” Schiller asked.

“No,” Gibbs said, “he didn’t know anything they needed to know. It was just for my own protection. I didn’t like the idea of being in the main tank. Some of the people I was going to testify against could have had friends passing through.”

“Did you feed Halterman any stuff on Gary?” asked Barry Farrell.

“The only thing I told Halterman is, ‘Watch. If they give Gilmore the death penalty, they’re going to have to execute him.’ ”

“What if they had asked you to spy on him?” Farrell went on.

“I don’t think I would have,” said Gibbs. “I liked the guy.”

Without a pause, Farrell asked, “Is Gary well hung?”

“I don’t know,” Gibbs said, “I never paid no attention.”

“I’m just curious,” said Farrell, looking carefully at him.

“I never paid no attention to it,” said Gibbs.

“Did Gary have sex with April?” Schiller asked.

“Gary ain’t no raper,” Gibbs said. “If he did it, he fooled me better than I fooled him.”

3

What with the fact that Gary now knew his occupation, Gibbs was feeling so nervous and out of tune, that to get himself humming right again, he ended by giving Schiller and Farrell a list of the outfits with whom he had been associated over the last ten years. What the hell, they could get it anyway from the court transcript.

Gibbs had worked, he said, for the Salt Lake City Police Department; Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office; FBI; Treasury Department; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms; Regent Eight Task Force; and the University of Utah Police Department, Narcotics Division. “I’ve been a crook and I’ve worked for law enforcement,” said Gibbs, “and either one by itself is not enough.”

“What are you going to do now?” asked Schiller.

“Well,” said Gibbs, “Halterman is going down to the Board of Pardons tomorrow, and get me released. They’ll give me new papers, a new name, and let me carry a pistol. The fact of the matter is I’ve got to make a run for my life. I have a target on my back.” The hand holding the Viceroy Super Long didn’t shake that much, but he said, “Okay, I’ll tell you. In twelve years of working under, I’ve never had the fear like I got it right now. Yesterday, Halterman had to clear the courthouse for me, that’s how worried he was.”

“Halterman a good friend?” Farrell asked.

“I would say,” said Gibbs, “he is nobody to fool with.” He giggled. “Ken likes to tell how he’s a bad shot, because one time he tried to hit a friend of mine in the heart, but missed and hit between the eyes. Now he wants to be on the firing squad for Gilmore.” He giggled again.

“What are we wasting our time with this snitch for?” Farrell asked Schiller. “I don’t even like to be in the same room.” He got up abruptly and walked out. They were really trying to reduce the price, Gibbs thought.

Halterman happened to be in the corridor. Farrell buttonholed him. “I heard that story how you hit the fellow between the eyes,” he said.

It caught Halterman by surprise. “Well,” he said, “ha, ha,” trying to get started.

“Have you put in your application for Gilmore’s firing squad?” Barry asked.

“I’d be proud to get on it. Gilmore is a homicidal maniac.”

“Well,” said Barry, “when it comes to Gary, you must not miss! Gilmore’s eyes, his kidneys, his liver, and some other valuable organs are going to people who need them. If you shoot, get the heart.” Halterman looked back at him like he didn’t know if Farrell was a lunatic or a Judge.

“You get it straight,” said Halterman. “I’m not a bad shot, I’m a good shot. I aimed to hit Gibbs’s friend in the eye and I hit him in the eye. You have to know you can take a human life before you ever put on a police uniform.”

Gibbs knew he had been talking to Schiller too freely. Supposedly, it was just samples, but he was really giving it away. Yet, divulging the information seemed to cool his fear a bit.

Trying to up the ante, he said, “Gilmore has told me things he hasn’t told anyone else alive.”

“Gary has already given us everything you said,” Schiller replied.

More turkey product, thought Gibbs. But he had blown it, he knew. The offer, when it came, was for two hundred, no more. A release, not an exclusive.

Schiller was feeling good. Gibbs had corroborated every story they picked up in Gary’s letters. He had talked about Luis the wetback jailer, and Powers, and the dixie cup with the string that burned, and Gibbs’s generosity with money. There was the mending of the false teeth, the haircuts, painting on the walls, painting each other’s faces—all of it had been told again by Gibbs. Moreover, he was no threat. He really didn’t know much about Nicole. Just a sidebar to the main tale.

So Schiller had gained a lot. That phrase of Gary’s: “Larry, have you read the letters I wrote to Nicole?—Tell me” was still vibrating in his head. He had needed a way to ask Gary questions that originated from the letters, but he had also needed a means of concealing how he acquired such information. Gibbs’s stories would take care of that.

4

Maybe it had gone too well. Even as Schiller reached into his pocket for the release, and said, “Two pages. One for you to keep, one copy for me,” Gibbs looked back with a real sleazo grin. “You just dropped some money on the floor, you got so much,” he said.

Schiller looked down. There were green bills all over. “Ah, shit,” said Schiller, “am I that rich?” A key from the TraveLodge was also on the floor.

“You and Barry,” asked Gibbs, “staying at the TraveLodge?” At this point, Farrell nodded, and Schiller shook his head in the negative. Gibbs commented. “He shakes his head yes, you say no.” Schiller said, “You didn’t ask me if I was registered at the TraveLodge, you asked me if I was staying there.” He laughed loudly. “Well, I’ll advise you of your rights.” Gibbs gave him a look, and changed the subject.

By the time they got back to the motel, Farrell realized that Schiller was taking Gibbs seriously. Of course, Gibbs had done some talking about his connections with the heaviest gang in Salt Lake City, but Farrell expected such connections were about as good as his own to the Johnny Carson show. However, as soon as they parked their car at the TraveLodge, Larry went to see the woman at the desk, and said, “Give me two blank registration cards, and two rooms that are empty, okay?” While the woman stood by stupefied, Schiller made up cards for empty rooms, backdated them to yesterday when he and Farrell had moved in, and tore up the current registration cards for Barry and himself. “Bet they didn’t teach you this at the TraveLodge Training School,” Farrell said to her. He was feeling entertained by all this registrationmanship, but also thinking, “Maybe I’m really underestimating what went on.”

The way Schiller looked at it, Gibbs was capable of hating him. No reason why he shouldn’t. So Gibbs might want to finger him. Walking out of that police station in Orem, it had hit Schiller. He was not only dealing with some dangerous people, but living pretty exposed. He might need a little protection. There was a bodyguard he hired in Los Angeles from time to time, Harve Roddetz, who worked for one of the Cadillac limousine companies as a driver, but farmed out on special occasions. Harve had protected him in the Watts riots, and right after Schiller’s house had been bombed in the aftermath of the Susan Atkins story. So Schiller felt like having Harve around now. After all, he was situated in this motel room on the ground floor. Anybody could walk up to his door, blow a Magnum through the window, and take off in a car. But he reasoned the problem through. The thing to do for tonight was not change rooms. At this hour it would attract attention, and anybody watching would see him move luggage. It was simpler to switch the registration cards. That way, if Gibbs talked a cop into making a call here to find out the room numbers, the registration would provide incorrect information.

Meanwhile, Schiller could see that Barry was enjoying it. Maybe he just has a more cavalier attitude toward certain types of danger than I do, thought Larry. All the same, he decided, provisionally, to do without Harve Roddetz. It was paramount that mutual respect between Farrell and himself be maintained.

5

In the morning, they visited Gibbs and paid over the $200 for a release. Gibbs, getting out that day, seemed less nervous, but Schiller was not in a good mood. On the way back to the motel, going over his problems, his revenues, and his potential outlets, Larry began to feel a cumulative fatigue. He also felt hungry for a little time alone with Stephie. She was still pissed at the way they never did have a real Thanksgiving. It gave him an idea. What if he went with her to Hawaii for Christmas week? They could visit his brother. While he was gone, Barry could take up the slack.

When he told Moody and Stanger that he wanted a rest before the big push in January, Stanger said, “If you’re going to Hawaii, maybe it’s time for us to grab a vacation as well. Where are our airplane tickets?” He was kidding, but it was as close to the line as you could get. Schiller blew. “This is no expense-account scam. I’m going to Hawaii on my own. If you want to go, pay for it.”

Then the first phone call next morning was from Time. They were still willing to give proper space for Gilmore, but were definitely having second thoughts about paying the $25,000. They would give four pages plus the cover, and no money. A policy decision had been made in the last week to stop checkbook journalism. It was all fashion, Schiller thought unhappily. In another two months they would reverse themselves and buy things again, but for now it certainly forced his hand with the Enquirer, and that meant less revenue from the foreign sales. Still, right after the vacation, he would send Stephie, his mother, and her mother over to Europe to sell the letters. For something like this, they were the only people he could trust.

In the last day before he left, Schiller got together a force of typists in Los Angeles to transcribe Gilmore’s letters to Nicole, a huge job. Fifteen hundred pages of manuscript. Still there was no other way to sell the stuff overseas. Foreign editors couldn’t even read typed English without lighting a cigarette. They certainly wouldn’t go through hundreds of pages in longhand.

He also wanted to give something to Gary before he left, but in fact didn’t know whether to send a Christmas present. Since he was going away, and this was resented, okay, it was the wrong time to try to impress him with an expensive gift. He decided to send a telegram. Fifteen years ago, covering the Hemingway suicide in Ketchum, Idaho, for Paris Match, Schiller had written a line to go out under his photographs. It said Hemingway had not wanted to evade the greatest adventure of his life, which was death. That became Paris Match’s headline for their picture essay on the funeral. Now, Schiller thought he would use it, or something like it, for Gilmore. Make the man think of him while he was gone. A touch of the mystical.

Not an hour before plane time, there was a call from Bill Moyers. He was starting a TV show called “CBS Reports.” First show would be on Gilmore. When he heard Schiller was on his way to Hawaii, Moyers even said, “We’ll visit you there.” Schiller said, “Come on, Mr. Moyers, I am not going to be photographed lying on the beach, doing checkbook journalism with my bare belly out to the sun. That’s neither the way I see myself, nor the way I intend to present myself.” Moyers began to chuckle. “You’re sharp, aren’t you?” he said.

Schiller found out that the show was tentatively scheduled to air just before Gary’s execution. He told Moyers he would be happy to get together with him in Provo after New Year’s and might cooperate provided certain things were understood. It was his way of telling Moyers that he knew the name of the game. Off to Hawaii!