libretto. Not unnaturally, Leslie did not take kindly to such improbable interference from an insufferable musical know-all. Stressed out and working hard, he decided he must break the agreement—but found his new legal partner had no intention of releasing him.
Expensive law firms on both sides of the Atlantic were once again consulted. The contract was found to be binding and watertight. To fight it would have taken years and sapped Leslie’s creative energy while he was still on his winning streak. He was forced to capitulate. A settlement was reached whereby the Jersey lawyer would instead take 90 per cent of his earnings for one year—and then release him. This was expected to be the year of his greatest successes when all his projects were hits, but he was cleaned out. Frustrated after signing away the fortune he’d spent a lifetime building, the mild and gentle Leslie went home and trashed every breakable object in his house.
Smiling and soft-spoken, he was popular at the studios. Soon everyone had heard of his fury and despair that he had been strangled by the small print. Several friendly groups generously offered to “sort out” the villain of the piece—that Jersey lawyer. The agreement might have been watertight, but these friends were not smiling all the time.
The local Mafia boss made it known that he would be only too happy to do Leslie a favour and remove any financial blockage, as between men of honour you understand.
The Las Vegas backstage fraternity also offered help in his hour of crisis, which sounded seriously final. As a last graphic decision, there was a group of friendly stunt men from Pinewood who spent their lives being thrown off bridges and fighting each other. They knew the island well, so also hatched a detailed plot to rescue poor Leslie.
The house where the Jersey lawyer lived was on a hilltop above a secluded bay with a perfect view of France, 14 miles away. A forest path snaked up from the sea through the garden and right up to his front door. They could arrive at night by a boat with padded oars, do whatever deed was required while the island—and the lawyer—slept, and steal away. Piece of cake.
I don’t think the people at that Beverly Hills party realized life-and-death decisions were being discussed and agreed. While I listened, some of Leslie’s friends explained the lie of the land to each other, and I began to realize they were not merely talking about the house—“Lovely position, lovely!”—but my future.
It was my new home they were planning to visit that night. “Perfect for the getaway, that coastline.”
“Listen,” I said, when I got my voice back, “I’ve just bought that house. I’m planning to live in it for years. Now you’re going to kill the guy in the main bedroom! That’s me. Please tell all your friends there’s been a change of management.”
2 A TALK WITH SOMEONE WHO’S NOT TREMBLING
I passed a couple of restless days in Miami—a place quite easy to dislike. I was bracing myself to fly somewhere even worse. Far worse. I had just completed a series of Whicker’s Worlds in South America. All the fun and excitement of filming in Argentina (brilliant), on to Peru (druggy), then up among the volcanoes outside Quito in Ecuador (enchanting) and finally coming to rest in downtown Miami for a couple of apprehensive days awaiting PanAm’s lifeline flight to the kidnap capital of the world: Haiti.
Miami Beach was the place where, waking one morning in a vast white hotel totally surrounded by avarice, I took a taxi to the airport and asked for a ticket to anywhere. They thought I was mad—and probably by then I was, a little.
Now—ice-cold sane—I was approaching a far more dangerous destination: Haiti. The first black republic was only some 700 miles away, but its reputation made trigger-happy Floridians seem cool and chummy. This poorest country in the Western hemisphere survives with 80 per cent of its population below the poverty line.
I was on my reluctant way to examine Papa Doc’s republic—and Papa Doc, I had heard, was about to examine me. Not everyone walked away from those check-ups, our pilot told me cheerfully. In the world’s kidnap centre the dungeons were active, with Papa Doc as a frequent spectator.
Our jet, not surprisingly, was almost empty. It was a good plane to miss. We flew across the fringe of the Sargasso Sea, which seemed a suitable setting for any adventure, landed at François Duvalier Airport in Port-au-Prince, and drew breath. So far, so still alive.
This despairing nation was under the lash of a President for Life whose years of absolute power had brought terror to his people and ruin to his country. As I walked through the damp heat towards the decrepit arrivals building I saw, seared across the peeling white plaster of the wall that confronted me, a pockmarked line of bullet holes.
This was a fairly emphatic take-it-or-leave-it statement. It didn’t say whether it was a gesture from the Tourist Division of the Chamber of Commerce, but it was surely more arresting than the traditional view of Port-au-Prince from the mountains. It was the only airport welcome Haiti offered its rare visitors, and it was right in character.
Inside the building, a more friendly reception from the Pres-ident’s official greeter, Aubelin Jolicœur. This small, unctuous executive silenced the customs men who had scented rich pickings from us with a wave of his ivory-handled cane. I recognized him instantly: he had been drawn to perfection as Petit Pierre in Graham Greene’s frightening The Comedians.
He may have been smiling, but the Haitians watching us in the arrivals hall were expressionless, which suggested he wasn’t all that funny. Tontons Macoutes no longer stripped or frisked arrivals, though I was uncomfortably aware that the airport had just experienced one of those dramatic bloodlettings which would have seemed improbable fiction from Graham Greene.
The eldest of Dr Duvalier’s three daughters, his favourite Marie-Denise, had just married the 6′3″ Commander of his Palace Guard, Captain Max Dominique, who instantly became a Colonel. Then Papa Doc, acting upon different advice, decided his new son-in-law was involved in the plot against him for which he had just executed nineteen brother-officers.
Having considered the pleas of his wife and daughter, then pregnant, he spared Col. Dominique, but sent him into exile and out of the way as ambassador to Spain. As they left for Madrid, the President and Mrs Duvalier came to the airport to bid a sorrowful farewell to Di-Di.
For the traditional VIP goodbye picture the young couple stood at the aircraft door, waving to parents, friends and staff. As the door was closing upon the happy couple, there came a nod from Papa Doc. Their chauffeur and two bodyguards were shot down in front of them. Dr Duvalier was making his own farewell gesture of disapproval.
He turned and left the bloodstained tarmac without another glance at the dying men. They lay in the sunlight under the eyes of the few horrified passengers en route from Miami to Puerto Rico. The aircraft then departed abruptly. An American airman who had seen it all told me, “That captain practically took off with the door open. They just wanted to get out of there.”
There were no further executions on the evening of our arrival, but the scarred walls were adequate reminders. Outside we were distributed among waiting taxi drivers. They were all Tontons Macoutes, Papa Doc’s private army licensed to extort. Driving a cab was the best-paid job in the land at the time—the only one in which a Haitian could get his hands on foreign currency.
My personal Tonton was silent and sinister, with a Gauguin face. He had the poetic name of Racine. He also had red eyes.
There was no question of hotel selection; you went and lived where you were put. Racine drove us skilfully through the bumps and up the hillside to the white concrete Castelhaiti Hotel, overlooking the town. It was empty—but ready for us.
That evening ours was the only occupied table as we tackled some stringy chicken. Groups of listless waiters stood around in the gloom, watching and whispering while a piano and violin wailed mournfully in the shadows. Outside the fearful town, hushed and tense, awaited its regular power cut.
My