The Ferrari in the Bedroom (7 page)

It is a choice part, a real plum.

It won’t be long before we’ll be in Chicago. I sip at my martini as I read over my typewritten instructions:
Meet Production Assistant at O’Hare. He will drive you to Playboy Club-Hotel at Lake Geneva. You should arrive at about 11:30 P.M. Fenton McHugh and John Bromfield, the show’s host, will meet you there.

The Playboy Club-Hotel! Ah yes, the fabled Xanadu of the Midwest barrens, a pleasure dome I’ve always wanted to see. Some say Kubla Khan himself drops by from time to time. We shall see.

The
NO SMOKING
sign is lit. We are slanting down through the overcast. Ah, Chicago, City of the Broad Shoulders, the 26 Girls, and my Youth.

[written in room 5308 Playboy Club-Hotel]

What have I gotten myself into? I’ll recount the recent developments as coherently as possible.

I was met at the plane by Lee, the production assistant for Fenton McHugh. He seemed agitated and tense as we struggled through the crowds in the O’Hare terminal and out into the parking lot. It must have been a hundred degrees colder here in Chicago. The screaming wind swept over the parked cars, freezing the film on my eyeballs. I was home. The hated Midwest winters of my childhood came tumbling back.

We got out on the toll road, heading for Wisconsin, the frost creeping up over the windshield, snow swirling like a Sahara sandstorm over the hood.

“I’ve been having a hell of a time with those Bunnies.”

“Yeah?” I muttered, too stunned by the cold to think straight. He pounded on the steering wheel.

“Just twenty-four hours ago me and the whole crew were in the Bahamas. And now this!” He scratched at the frost on the windshield ahead of him for a slight sliver of visibility.

“You were where?” I asked, not hearing him well the first time due to an Arctic gale that was cracking through the car’s insulation and down my neck.

“The Bahamas, dammit. Cat Cay.”

God Damn it, I knew it! I might have been there!

“Who were you shooting with?” I asked.

“Boog Powell. He’s some baseball player or something.” I could see that Lee was not a rabid baseball fan.

“Didja ask him how come the Mets knocked them over like that in the Series?”

“Nah,” was all he said as we pressed Northward, ever Northward into the howling gale. After a couple more toll houses his crack about the Bunnies soaked through the ice cube that had somehow mysteriously replaced my brain.

“What’s that about the Bunnies?” I asked, shoving my feet deeper into the car’s heater.

“Fenton thinks it’ll be a great gag to have these Bunnies come out and serve you and John some stuff while you’re fishing. You know, this joint is like a big Playboy club. They got all these Bunnies…” Lee trailed off thoughtfully.

“Bunnies? Serving us while we fish through the ice?” I have always heard of people’s minds boggling. Up to that point mine never had.

“You know, Lee, this shooting might be more fun than I thought.”

Lee snickered. “Don’t bet on it, Dad. This Playboy outfit is stricter with these Bunnies than a nunnery.”

“Oh well,” I said, “there’s always Bluegills.”

We wheeled on.

We had left the comparative civilization of Chicago far behind. Finally, the Lake Geneva turnoff loomed out of the snowdrifts and we headed toward the storied Playboy Club-Hotel, an establishment that is rarely mentioned in the effete East but which has become a major cultural shrine in what Colonel McCormick, the late, beloved publisher of the
Chicago Tribune
used to lovingly call “Chicagoland.” We were now on a two-lane road, threading our way through total blackness, the darkness that only a mid-Winter night in the Midwest can know. Lee hummed to himself; I mused thoughtfully over the strange tricks that Showbiz had played on me.

Suddenly, there it was. Like some LSD apparition rising out of the deserted, snow-shrouded hills the fantastic, far-flung, Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired monument to the Good Life, its low-lying windows glowing warmly through the shifting snow; eerie Polynesian-style orange-blue flames flickering hotly before the stone entranceway, its gates guarded by a Security patrol that made the MPs at Fort Dix look like Cub Scouts.

“CBS!” Lee barked at the guard who had stopped our car. At this magic password the guard, his helmet gleaming darkly, saluted smartly and we were in.

What a sight! It at first reminded me of some vast, grounded stone dirigible lying sinisterly on a long, low, rolling hill, but no, more like a Mayan temple, a truly beautiful building of stone, flashing glass and dark, burnished bronze. As I climbed stiffly out of the Pontiac before the spectacular entranceway, a thought flashed through my mind:
My God, what hath Hefner wrought?

Minutes later I was wandering through the corridors that sprawl on and on, looking for Room 5308 where I now sit,
my plush apartment, black-leather-covered furniture and a vast floor-to-ceiling sliding glass wall opening on a balcony overlooking the whole state of Wisconsin. Five minutes later I am down in the Playroom, one of the innumerable nightclubs that seem to go twenty-four hours a day: The Bunny Hutch, Man At His Leisure, The Cartoon Room. This is the way to go fishing!

“Hey boy, it’s great to see you.” Fenton rose from his table, his Showbiz boyish healthy face beaming with joviality and Grant’s scotch.

“You’re looking great, boy.” He playfully belted me in the stomach. Up on the stage, a lady hypnotist with blinding blonde hair was brassily hypnotizing the audience.

“Good to see you, Fenton.” I answered, still a little stunned by these wild surroundings. I thought I felt the Bends coming on.

“HEY, GANG!” Fenton shouted at his production crew who were scattered among the tables, ogling the passing Bunnies, their haunches jiggling as they toted potables (a favorite Playboy word) to the revelling key-holders.

“Shep here was with us in Manistee last Fall.” He laughed wickedly, remembering the luxurious hotel we had stayed in on that one, a hostelry that Willy Loman would have found shoddy. A dapper character wearing a blue cashmere sport coat and white turtleneck sweater, with opaque green sunglasses, sidled up. He had Hollywood written all over him.

“This is Jack, Shep. One of the best cameramen on the Coast.” Jack, his glasses glinting mysteriously, cracked his tanned California face into a grin:

“What do you mean
one
of the best?”

I took off
my
sunglasses and answered: “Good to know
you, Jack. How do you like this weather? It’s probably rough on you California guys.”

“These people don’t live out here,” he answered, “in fact I wonder if they are people. Hey Roy…” he called to his assistant, who was listlessly watching the hypnotist, “… here’s a guy who takes off his sunglasses to say hello. Lets you see his eyes.” He tapped me on the chest: “That’s a compliment.”

“Let’s get away from the show.” Fenton took charge.

“I want to talk over tomorrow’s shooting.” He herded us into another bar, the Living Room, where we sat around a huge table. John Bromfield joined us, looking slightly dazed.

“You were out for forty-five minutes. Do you know that?” Fenton rattled the ice cubes in his glass. “Knocked out colder than a mackerel.”

“Oh come on.” John looked dubious, far less assured than he was when he was the U.S. Marshal on TV.

“Yeah, that hypnotist chick knocked you right out at the table. You put your head down and were gone for forty-five minutes.”

John looked unconvinced. “Did I do anything bad or anything?”

“Nah. Just sat there looking stoned.”

“I’ll be damned!” Bromfield ordered a scotch and water. Introductions went around again and I instantly like Bromfield, a straightforward, open performer who really enjoys the Outdoors, completely virile, a rarity in the business, and a fine fisherman.

“Now look, we’re shooting the kitchen scene at 8:00
A.M.
Lee, I want you to put in a Cast Call at seven. John, you’ll be working with the chef. We’ve got a scene on fancy ways to cook fish.”

Fenton, an old friend of mine, is a born producer. He loves to bark out orders. For nine years he struggled to get the networks to do Outdoor shows, and at last they were beginning to see the light.

“Now Shep, you can sleep until nine o’clock or so because we won’t be shooting with you until later.”

“What am I going to do?” I asked, eager to get at the ice fishing.

“You and John are gonna play a scene in the VIP Room. You gotta dress formal for this. These Bunnies we lined up are gonna serve you two guys the fish you caught. Prepared by the chef with wine and the works, before this roaring fire.”

“You’re not kidding, Fenton. This really ain’t Manistee, is it?”

He laughed.

“Boy, do you remember that rubber steak we got, with those plastic French fries? That night after I caught the only fish, that six ounce Northern?”

“Well Shep, my boy, you will find the food is considerably better here. We’re going First Class this time.”

And no wonder. The first “Fisherman’s World” featuring among other things the Coho sequence, Gypsy Rose Lee fishing for muskies, and Clare Conley, the editor of
Field and Stream
looking manly and rugged, had been not only a critical success but a smash in the ratings. It was one of two Nature specials to be nominated for an Emmy.

A rock group boomed thunderously from the Club next to the bar, totally wrecking conversation.

“Let’s have another drink all around, then get up to bed. We got a long day,” Fenton bellowed as Bunny Sandy, her massive mammary structure inches from my eyes, took the orders. The Outdoors sure are a’changing.

January 18, 2:14
A.M.

[written as I soak in the tub]

How about that, Sports fans? This day reminded me of nothing so much as living through an avant-garde film made by a demented Swedish director. What a day!

For ten minutes after my wake-up call at 9:00
A.M.
I staggered around the room trying to figure out where the hell I was. It is not easy to fully believe the Playboy Lake Geneva Taj Mahal when yanked out of a sound sleep. I spent the next half-hour lost in the maze of corridors, trying to figure out how to get to the ground floor where the complex of shops, restaurants, chi-chi boutiques specializing in fifty dollar slacks, twenty-five dollar shirts and fifteen dollar ties was located.

I finally found Fenton in the Living Room, sipping a cup of coffee before a vast panoramic window about the size of an upended tennis court. Outside, the chill white Wisconsin hills rolled to the horizon. The waitress poured my coffee. Hefner has the decency not to hit you with Bunnies before martini time. I looked around, amazed at the motley crowd that occupied the other tables, as wholesome a gang of family types, complete with five-year-old children and motherly wives, as had ever taken out a subscription to
Reader’s Digest
and went to a Billy Graham revival meeting.

“Hey Fenton, what is this? I thought this was a den of pure debauchery!”

“Shep, this place makes the Howard Johnsons look like a hotbed of depravity.”

Elfin children darted about the room, chortling, just like they used to on the covers of the
Saturday Evening Post.
Moodily I sipped my coffee. Another illusion shattered. My Aunt Clara wouldn’t have been out of place here, I thought.

Lee dashed up to our table, his eyes glinting brightly. In
broad daylight he was pure Beaver, all bushy-tailed and eager.

“The chef wants to know if you want the vegetable plates shot separately or with the fish.”

“Is John down there?”

“Yeah, and he’s getting restless. Jack keeps changing the lights.”

Fenton glanced at his watch. “They been on that scene for two hours! Have they got anything yet? Tell them I’ll be right down.”

Lee shot away, trailing smoke. We finished our coffee and Danish.

“Let’s go down to the kitchen and get that chef on the stick.”

We descended through the bowels of the vast complex down to the kitchen, a spectacular study in stainless steel, fluorescent lighting, radar ovens; one of the most modern plants I’ve ever seen. The chef, a short elfin Frenchman wearing a high Chef cap and what looked like a Doctor Kildare surgical coat, was arranging fish filets on a silver platter, garnished with parsley and shaved radishes. Jack, surrounded by his henchmen—a crowd of laconic, bearded revolutionaries—stood on a ladder adjusting a sinister-looking reflector that threw a peculiar yellow glow over the whole kitchen. Everywhere were cables, microphones, lights, and miscellaneous pieces of gear. In the midst of this complicated hodge-podge the chef looked like a tiny midget, lost and forlorn. John, his hair neatly combed, his make-up fresh and bronzed, sat on a frozen food chest. They had been working on the scene for some time now, it was obvious.

“Look John, don’t mention what kind of fish it is,” Fenton said to John. Like most producers he is a Jekyll and Hyde
character who is completely jovial and in fact hilarious off the set but maniacally serious and involved when at work. He was working now.