Behind the Candelabra: My Life With Liberace (26 page)

I called him at the Cloisters, screaming into the phone, “How dare you? How dare you do that to me? I could kill you!”

Again, I couldn’t face the night alone so I called Mr. Y and another friend who happened to be a former patient of Dr. Startz and who, like me, had become hooked on drugs. (As it turned out, this friend would later be my sponsor in a rehabilitation program.) This time cocaine didn’t cool my anger or soothe my pain. I paced the penthouse, ranting and raving at my friends. Meanwhile, Lee was back in Palm Springs, convinced that I now represented a serious danger to his health and happiness. He was scared to death. Of me!

He was due in L.A. the next day to rehearse for the Oscar ceremony, and he intended to stay at the penthouse. Common sense should have dictated that Lee book a suite at L’Hermitage or some other luxury hotel, in view of my occupancy of the penthouse and the problems between us. But Lee had no intention of changing his plans because we’d had a battle royal. Once he set a course of action he was unstoppable, plowing forward regardless of the consequences.

There would be no time for me to cool down, to gather my thoughts and emotions—no time for me to decide what to do about Lee, about myself, no time to sort out the events of the last few days. Lee wanted me out of that penthouse so he could move in. Hell, I don’t blame him. It was his property. He had a right to be there and, in his view, I didn’t. But I can’t help wishing he’d have changed his plans, just this once.

Instead he did what he always did when faced with an untidy problem that needed handling: he called Seymour Heller. He told Seymour I had to be removed from the penthouse no later than two o’clock the next afternoon. Lee himself planned to arrive shortly afterward and he didn’t want me anywhere near him ever again. He told Heller that I’d threatened him, which was certainly true. But if everyone who has ever said, in the heat of anger, “I could kill you,” carried out that threat, half the people in the United States would be in jail for murder. Right or wrong, Seymour regarded my threats as a serious danger to Lee’s life. He made preparations to act with force.

When I first left Tahoe to take refuge in the penthouse Lee had asked Heller to have me watched. As I later learned, Heller contacted Jay Troulman, Liberace’s business manager. Troulman subsequently got in touch with Tracy International, a private detective and security agency that had worked for Lee before. In the past, Tracy International had performed over a dozen investigations for Lee and provided bodyguards for him on special occasions. The firm, and specifically Tracy Schnelker who ran it, was given the task of keeping track of my comings and goings after I arrived in L.A. Schnelker would ensure that my departure from the penthouse was timely.

The night before the Academy Awards was one of the worst nights of my life. After my friends left I just couldn’t get to sleep. The wreckage of my life with Lee stared me in the face. I knew he’d never take me back after the things I’d said and done. But, despite my anger over his infidelity, I couldn’t stop loving him. It may have been wishful thinking but part of me thought if we could just sit down, face to face and man to man, we might be able to work things out.

I was still tossing and turning long after the television stations signed off. So I went into the living room and turned on the stereo. Lee had the lights rigged to respond to the music, dimming and brightening, and I finally dozed off early in the morning watching them. I would wake up a few hours later to find myself living a nightmare.

Lee woke up in the bed we had shared at the Cloisters on the morning of March 25, 1982, the day he would make his much-looked-forward-to appearance at the Academy Awards ceremony. As he’d done every morning when we were together, he kissed and cooed at the various dogs who slept in the bedroom, scolding them all if one had an accident during the night. Perhaps he even had a lover or two in bed with him that morning. By his own admission, he had continued to have the two young Frenchmen as his houseguests. Knowing Lee, I bet he’d already put the problem of what to do about Scott Thorson in someone else’s hands. From that day on, Lee would do his level best to pretend I didn’t exist.

From where he stood, it had been an exciting week. With the two Frenchmen he’d enjoyed the sexual variety he’d been craving and, in Cary James, he’d found a suitably youthful and malleable replacement for me. James would, in fact, become Lee’s next companion. As Lee dressed for the day he was already concentrating on the evening ahead, anticipating the acclaim he expected to receive from the glittering Academy Awards audience. It was shaping up to be one of the happiest days of his life.

But it would be one of the worst in mine. As I caught a few hours rest after a sleepless night, Seymour Heller made plans to remove me from Lee’s life—permanently. That morning, sometime after eleven, acting under Lee’s instructions, Seymour Heller met private investigator Tracy Schnelker, and three of Schnelker’s more imposing employees, in one of the offices on the ground floor of the penthouse building. Heller had also called my half brother, Wayne Johansen, asking him to be present during the meeting. While it may have made sense, from their point of view, to have my half brother present during a situation that could have been nasty, his presence is something I can never forgive. The subject to be discussed at that meeting: Scott Thorson and, more specifically, how to get me out of the penthouse before Lee arrived. Heller told everyone that I was in the penthouse using drugs, that Liberace wanted me fired from my job (I was on the payroll as a bodyguard-chauffeur-companion), removed from the premises, and, if possible, taken to a hospital where I could be treated for my addiction. He added the information that I carried a gun. Obviously, in Heller’s view, he was certainly doing his job, but I felt hurt and bitter.

Any detective hearing such a description would conclude that Scott Thorson was a very dangerous character, to be approached cautiously and with all available force. Later testimony indicates that Schnelker came to exactly that conclusion while he listened to what Heller had to say. I’m sure that, as he and his men rode the private elevator up to the penthouse, they thought they were going to be in danger. When the elevator doors whooshed open they stepped out, ready for anything—except what they found.

The penthouse is enormous. But Schnelker and his men had no trouble locating me because two maids, already cleaning the premises despite the fact that I was supposed to be armed and dangerous, told Schnelker where to find me. I was, in fact, still sleeping on the sofa in the living room.

The first thing I remember was being roughly shaken awake. My immediate thought was that I was being robbed. I saw four men standing over me, none of them looking friendly. One of them had a hook instead of a hand, which he brandished in my face. My God, I thought, they’re going to kill me. Desperate to escape, I began to struggle with Schnelker, ordering him to get the hell out of there or I’d call the police. That sounds ridiculous now, but I didn’t know what else to do. During the ensuing brawl someone sprayed me with Mace but they missed my face. Somehow, I managed to shake free of them all. Looking back, it’s almost comical. They were as afraid of me, and what I might do, as I was of them.

I sprinted through the penthouse wondering why the Pinkertons, who guarded the building and had spoken to me the previous evening, had let such dangerous characters inside. I could hear men pursuing me, knocking over furniture in their haste. Sometime during their pursuit I saw my half brother Wayne near the elevator. That brought me up short. My first thought was: What is he doing here? Why doesn’t he help me, call the police?

Then the truth hit me. I’d been set up. No one got up to the penthouse without the express approval of Lee or Heller. The only way up was by private elevator and you needed a key to operate it. At that moment Wayne moved toward me, saying, “These are private investigators, Scott. They’re here to get you to leave. Lee wants you to go.”

I was outraged. Wayne and I weren’t close, hadn’t been close for years. And yet there he was, asking me to leave, on Liberace’s behalf. “Who the fuck do you think you are, coming in here like this?” I shouted. “You have no right to be here!”

Then one of the four men, probably Schnelker, said he’d come to help get me to a hospital. The whole situation seemed unreal. There stood my brother Wayne, a man I rarely saw, and four hired goons, telling me I ought to go to a hospital. They tried to calm me down and I kept on telling them to “get the hell out,” and asking for Lee. By then the maids had appeared from wherever they had been working and were taking in the free show.

While I faced Wayne and the detectives, Lee was enjoying a leisurely breakfast before dressing for the day. The sun was shining and he may even have taken time for a stroll through his beloved gardens at the Cloister, perhaps stopping in his private chapel for a brief prayer. By noon he was in his limousine, relaxing in total luxury as he made the two-hour drive into Los Angeles. His conscience was clear, his mind at rest, his hands clean; according to his way of thinking, he was in no way responsible for the events taking place in the penthouse. That would be his unwavering testimony in the years to come, although he would freely admit ordering my eviction. That day, Lee focused on his upcoming performance rather than the end of our relationship.

I didn’t have that luxury. I’m a big guy, almost six feet three inches, and I weighed about 180 at the time, but in my pajamas and bare feet, I was clearly no match for four burly detectives who were determined to throw me out of the place I’d regarded as home for five years. My
only
weapon was anger. I couldn’t have presented a real threat. Nevertheless, one of them maced me again, this time managing to hit me in the face. I guess they expected it to slow me down, but it only made me more desperate. I got past the four of them and raced for a bedroom, where I planned to barricade myself. As I ran, thinking myself in a life-and-death situation, I heard one of the maids screaming, “He has a gun.”

At first I thought she was warning me that one of my attackers had a gun. Then, when I heard Wayne shout that I had two guns, I realized the warnings were meant for the detectives.

It is true that I had guns. Lee had insisted that I carry them and had obtained a permit for me from John Moran, a Vegas sheriff. But I’m not Dirty Harry. I didn’t intend to make detective Schnelker’s day. All I wanted to do was get to a phone, call Lee, and find out what the hell was going on.

Then I saw Seymour Heller, standing clear of the action but observing it all. Although I’d already been roughed up and maced, seeing him was the worst moment of the entire morning, because I knew Heller wouldn’t evict me on his own. He would be thereonly if he was acting on Lee’s behalf. And that meant Lee and I were finished.

I reached the bedroom ahead of my pursuers, locked myself in, and tried to think clearly. But my heart was pounding, my skin and eyes burned from being maced, and tears were pouring down my face. Meanwhile, Schnelker and Wayne kept on shouting through the door, saying that I ought to go to a hospital and that Lee would pay for my treatment. I didn’t trust those bastards, not after what they’d done to me, and I still couldn’t quite take the whole thing in. I was fired, they’d come to evict me. What did that have to do with me going to a hospital?

Obviously, I needed help. First, I called Irv Osser, an attorney I knew. I’m sure I must have sounded pretty incoherent as I tried to explain what was going on. Nevertheless, Osser told me to stay put, not to leave the penthouse under any circumstances. But that didn’t seem a likely option in view of the fact that Wayne and Schnelker and God alone knows who else were standing outside the door, telling me I had to leave before Lee arrived—or else. It was the implied threat behind the “or else” that scared me.

I would have cried like a baby if I’d had the time. Lee and I had been looking forward to this day for months, planning what he’d wear, who we’d see, which parties we’d attend after the Academy Awards ceremony was over. Michael Travis had designed special costumes for the event and Anna Nateece had designed magnificent furs to go with them. How I wished I could turn back the clock, start the week over. I couldn’t believe I wouldn’t get to see Lee in those costumes performing the Oscar-nominated songs. I couldn’t believe I’d never see Lee again, that he hated me enough to send detectives to the penthouse to forcibly evict me. But I knew no one else would have dared give orders like that; they had to come from Lee himself.

My next call was to Mr. Y, the underworld figure who had systematically insinuated himself into my life over the last year. I told Y what had happened and asked him to help me get out of the penthouse in one piece. My biggest fear at that moment was that Schnelker and his men would beat the hell out of me once I opened the bedroom door. Mr. Y warned me not to leave the penthouse with anyone, even if they promised to take me to a hospital.

“Do you know how easy it is to get rid of a body in the hills outside L.A.?” he asked. “Stay put until I can send help.”

Believe me, I had no intention of moving after talking to Y. He promised to send some of his employees, men he trusted to handle any situation, to help me in any way I required.

More than anything, I wanted to talk to Lee, to ask why he was doing this terrible thing to me. I called through the door, asking to speak to Heller. When he got there I said, “Seymour, what the hell’s going on here? Does Lee know what’s happening?”

“Lee wants you to leave,” Heller replied. “These are his wishes.”

I felt he was telling the truth even though I didn’t want to believe it. Despite all our problems I loved Lee and I thought he still loved me. This just couldn’t be happening. “Let me talk to him,” I begged.

Heller’s voice seemed devoid of feeling as he said, “What would it take to get you to leave?”

I knew he was talking money but I didn’t want money, I wanted Lee. “Just let me talk to Lee first and I’ll go peacefully.”

“You’re sick,” Heller said. “You should go to a hospital.”