Montague John - The mysterious Montague: a true tale of Hollywood, golf, and armed robbery

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE
THE ADIRONDACKS 1930

CHAPTER TWO
HOLLYWOOD Four Years Later

CHAPTER THREE
EVERYWHERE 193537

CHAPTER FOUR
SYRACUSE July 10, 1937

CHAPTER FIVE
COAST TO COAST JulyAugust 1937

CHAPTER SIX
ELIZABETHTOWN, NEW YORK August 2426, 1937

CHAPTER SEVEN
NEW YORK August 26October 13, 1937

CHAPTER EIGHT
ELIZABETHTOWN, NEW YORK October 1925, 1937

CHAPTER NINE
ELIZABETHTOWN, NEW YORK October 26, 1937

CHAPTER TEN
FLUSHING, LONG ISLAND November 14, 1937

CHAPTER ELEVEN
HOLLYWOOD, MANILA, MEDINAH, ETC. 193740

CHAPTER TWELVE
HOLLYWOOD 194172

For Leigh Alan,

For Robin,

For Doug

and Jackson

The Future

Half the people in Hollywood are dying to be discovered and the other half are afraid they will be.

LIONEL BARRYMORE

A FEW WORDS OF INTRODUCTION

Reports are to hand of a mighty man of sport who would seem to combine the fabulous prowess of Paul Bunyan, John Henry and Popeye the Sailor with the remarkable social knacks of Ivan Petrovsky Skovar, the Muskovite hero of the old college doggerel who could imitate Irving, tell fortunes with cards and sing to a Spanish guitar.

The mans name is given as John Montague and his field of operations is Hollywood, but it seems unlikely that our story is a publicity plant, for he avoids publicity and will not permit anyone to take his picture if he can prevent it.

Westbrook Pegler
United News Syndicate
September 25, 1936

A man who never played in a tournamentnot even a modest sectional tournamentis the most discussed golfer in America today. His name is John Montague.

He is at once a myth, a marvel and a monster. On the one hand he is fabulously wealthy. On the other he is just an ordinary person who once in a while turns in an extraordinary round. This legend says he never shoots over 70. That legend insists he frequently struggles to get 90.

A sinister sort of mystery surrounds him. Hundreds of people have met him, no one knows him. His background is a blank wall. He is an Indian, a Mexican, a South American or just a native Californian. You can take your pick. Bull-necked, swarthy, thin-thighed, he has the strength of seven truck horses. No two men can hope to stand up to him. More than one has crumbled under the power of his fists.

Joe Williams
New York Telegram and Sun
March 11, 1937

He is the type of fellow that children like on sight and the ladies trust.

Damon Runyon
New York Daily Mirror
August 24, 1937

He lives in Beverly Hills with Comedian Oliver Hardy (284 lb.) whom he can pick up with one hand. When not in residence with Hardy he is somewhere in the desert where he is supposed to own a silver mine or gold mine. He owns two Lincoln Zephyrs and a supercharged Ford, specially geared for high speed. He is about 33, 5 ft. 10 in., 220 lb. He is built like a wrestler, with tremendous hands, bulldog shoulders and biceps half again as big as Jack Dempseys. His face is handsome, disposition genial. He can consume abnormal quantities of whiskey. He frequently stays up all night and recently did so five nights in a row. He is naturally soft-spoken and dislikes hearing men swear in the presence of ladies.

Time
January 25, 1937

He showed me a golf game that, even in my wildest dreams, I could never equal. He made me feel like a fool, a low, crawling fool, swatting away at a little white ball that hooked this way and sliced that, while, without effort, he sent his screaming down the fairway for 300 yards or more. He let me sock him in the belly. I hurt my knuckles, but not his belly. Then he picked me up with one hand and held me dangling.

Now I reach my point, friends. A guy has charm who can meet you at something at which you think youre pretty good, and show you up as a miserable ass and make you raging mad, but is so damn strong that he can tear you into little squares like a kid fixing the paper for hares and hounds.

You cant lick him at the game and you and a dozen like you couldnt lick him with your fists. You resent it, you resent it plenty, but you cant do anything about it.

So youre charmed no end.

Henry McLemore
United Press
September 8, 1937

It seems John was just as proficient with a pistol as he is with a putter, which just goes to show you shouldnt judge a fellow by his plus fours.

Jack Miley
New York Daily News
July 12, 1937

Let the tale begin.

CHAPTER ONE

THE ADIRONDACKS

1930

T he restaurant sat at the bottom of a large bowl of Adirondack darkness. The surrounding mountains, beautiful during the day, forest green and forest wild, still made their presence known during the night. They shut out all horizons: zipped up, locked down, tucked in the well-scattered population between the New York towns of Au Sable Forks and Jay, under a black and tight blanket. The lights from the restaurant were pinpricks of isolated civilization.

The porch light was still lit.

The inside lights were still lit.

Proprietor Kin Hana and his wife, Elizabeth, and an employee, Paul Poland, finished the work of Monday night in the first hours of Tuesday, August 5, 1930. The last three customers were gone, but money had to be counted, tables cleared, floors washed, stock replenished. A last cup of coffee had to be drunk, a joke told.

The restaurant, simply known as Hanas to the local residents, was a roadhouse on Route 9, the two-lane asphalt highway that meandered down from the Canadian border, fifty-eight miles to the north, then to Glens Falls and Saratoga Springs, then Albany and all the way to New York City, Broadway, 275 miles to the south. Adventure had come to the road in 1920, especially in the dark, with the advent of the Eighteenth Amendment, Prohibition, and an atmosphere of car chases and gunplay as smugglers tried to bring distilled spirits from one country to the thirsty citizens of another.

The restaurant was a modest part of the excitement. A man could buy a drink at Hanas, could also buy a bottle to take home, but this was not unusual. A man could buy a drink at most of the roadhouses along Route 9. The area was awash in alcohol. Farmers rented out their barns and hay wagons to smugglers. Mechanics in Saranac Lake fitted out automobiles for the chase, engines cranked to racetrack speed, false gas tanks and false bottoms installed to convey every possible ounce of hard liquor and beer. Freight trains contained hidden cargo. Boats on Lake Champlain carried more contraband than sightseers. The dance was a decade old, a formalized routine of winks and nods, hide-and-seek, punctuated by occasional murders and publicized court trials. Illegality was the norm.

I believe that 90 percent of the people in the county were opposed to Prohibition, one Au Sable Forks resident later said. Not one farmer in twenty-five would not shield, help, or hide a rumrunner. The usual compensation for their help was a bottle of liquor, more highly prized than money.