The War of the Worlds Murder - By Max Allan Collins Page 0,69

dramatic broadcasts featuring Orson Welles and The Mercury Theatre on the Air.... Next week we present a dramatization of three famous short stories.... This is the Columbia Broadcasting System.”

When the clock hit nine P.M., the OFF THE AIR sign switched on.

That was when men in blue uniforms began to stream into the studio, and the grin on Welles’s face froze, like a jack-o’-lantern’s.

CHAPTER NINE

TIMES AT MIDNIGHT

WALTER GIBSON AND JACK HOUSEMAN, along with everyone else in the control booth, watched agape in astonishment as a dozen cops, billy clubs in hand, poured into the studio, like raiders in Prohibition days rushing a speakeasy.

Welles remained on his podium, a king surprised by revolting peasants, as his actors instinctively moved away, backing up almost against the far studio wall, and the blue invaders swarmed the platform. The police said nothing, but they were breathing hard, nostrils flared, nightsticks poised.

Then a plainclothes officer in a raincoat and fedora pushed through and looked up indignantly at the confused-looking figure and demanded, “Are you Welles?”

“Guilty as charged. What is—”

Gibson was following Houseman and Paul Stewart, who were on the heels of the CBS executive, Davidson Taylor, out of the control booth and down the handful of stairs onto the studio floor. The four men knifed through the small mob of blue uniforms.

The tall, slender, patrician exec faced the plainclothes officer, who was chewing on an unlit cigar.

“I’m in charge here,” Taylor said. “May I ask who you are, sir?”

“Inspector Kramer,” the copper said, flashing a badge, rolling the dead cigar around. “Don’t you people know you’ve incited a riot?”

Alland helping him on with his suitcoat, Welles came down off the podium, men in blue parting grudgingly to make way, and his expression remained confused though indignation was edging in. “Inspector, we’ve just finished a broadcast, of a fantasy piece. How in God’s name could we—”

The inspector had the remarkable faculty to squint and bug his eyes simultaneously. “You fake an invasion, with real-sounding newscasts, and you have the nerve to ask that?”

“How could anyone mistake what we were doing for reality?” Welles demanded. “It was little green men from Mars! We announced several times it wasn’t real!”

Taylor put himself between the two men like a referee, hands outstretched. When he spoke, the exec’s faint, gentlemanly Southern accent seemed suddenly more prominent. “Inspector, I understand you are responding to a genuine public crisis—”

Welles frowned. “Public...?”

The executive threw his star a quick hard look, then his face softened as he turned toward the stogie-chomping detective. “But this building and this studio remain private property, and I do not believe you have a warrant.”

The inspector had a water-splashed-in-the-face expression; the fragment of cigar almost fell out. “Warrant! Are you kidding?”

“No. I’m not. I’m going to advise Mr. Welles and everyone else involved not to answer any more of your questions until Mr. Paley arrives.”

“Who the hell is Mr. Paley?”

“The president of the network. He lives in Manhattan, and he’s on his way. These are our employees, and they have legal rights, like any other American.”

The inspector poked a thick finger at Welles. “Well, you keep these jokers handy, understand? Till we can talk to ’em. The citizens they terrorized have rights, too!”

“Fair enough,” Taylor said. “Would you mind taking your people out into the lobby, for the time being?”

The inspector frowned. “What, downstairs?”

“No—just right outside. The area by the elevators on this floor will do nicely.”

The inspector twitched a scowl, but he herded his nightstick troop back out again. Though space was again available for the actors to move back up, they stayed put, apparently hoping that they were bystanders and not accomplices.

Welles said, “Dave, what the hell is this?”

Taylor reached a hand into a suitcoat pocket and came back with a fat pile of notes. “This is just a sampling, Orson, of what the switchboard’s been getting since you finally broke in, after forty minutes, and identified the broadcast as fiction—outrage, indignation, death threats. You may especially enjoy the most recent one—it’s from the mayor of Cleveland.”

“Whatever have I have done to the fine city of Cleveland?”

“Oh, nothing much—apparently just unleashed mobs into the streets, sent women and children huddling in church corners, incited violence, looting. His Honor says he’s coming to pay you a visit, Orson—to punch you in the nose.”

Welles looked pale, much as he had when he spotted the body of the murdered woman. “I...I admit I thought we might light a firecracker under a certain lunatic fringe, but I...I apparently seriously underestimated the size