Indecent Exposure by David McClintick Page B

been trying hard to persuade IBM to let Columbia Pictures be the exclusive supplier of programming—the so-called "soft-ware"—for the IBM system. Security cloaking the system and Columbia's potential role in it rivaled that with which the Pentagon guards a new missile system, so it was in hushed tones and cryptic language that Hirschfield and A dle r discussed the latest developments with two IBM executives at La Cote Basque, which was situated on the Fifty-fifth Street side of the ground floor of the Columbia Pictures building, and functioned during most noon hours as the Columbia executive dining room.
    Hopeful that they had advanced their cause with IBM, Hirschfield and Adler returned to Columbia's eleventh-floor executive suite where Hirschfield had a 2:30 meeting scheduled with Mickey Rudin and Joe Fischer. Passing from one capsule of secrecy into another was especially difficult for Hirschfield , a man uncomfortable with secrets. Even more than most people, he loved to share good news instantly, and was quick to seek the solace of friends in the event of bad news. He had wanted to discuss the Begelman problem with Adler, whose judgment he valued, but he had resisted the temptation to do so, even though the two had been together a lot in recent days.
    As they parted at the door to Hirschfield's office, Adler suddenly asked: "Is something brewing around here? Joe disappeared Thursday and Friday and has been walking around with a long face all morning."
    Hirschfield rolled his eyes upward and sighed. "Please don't ask. You don't want to know, take my word for it. We'll fill you in some time this week, but I just can't do it now. And please don't say anything to anyone else." A confused Adle r sauntered down the hall to his own office, and Hirschfield went into his meeting with Rudin and Fischer.
    Whatever the problem of a particular moment, the presence of Mickey Rudin had always made Alan Hirschfield feel more secure. A heavy man with a deep voice made raspy by ten thousand cigars, Rudin moved slowly, talked slowly, and thought quickly and incisively. The son of a Russian-Jewish shmatteh manufacturer, he had grown up in a deteriorating section of the Bronx, moved to the Fairfax district of Los Angeles as a teenager, gone to Harvard Law School where he made law review, and practiced law in Beverly Hills since the late forties. Although he was best known for representing Sinatra, he served a varied clientele. There were few important people in the entertainment communities of Hollywood, Las Vegas, and New York whom Mickey Rudin did not know, few parts of the entertainment industry with which he was unfamiliar, few kinds of information to which he did not have access.
    Hirschfield and Fischer showed Rudin the Cliff Robertson and Peter Choate documents and told him all that they had been able to learn. Rudin had a close business relationship with the Wells Far go Bank and knew Joe Lipshe r, the vice president who had approved the cashing of the Robertson check, so he assured Fischer and Hirschfield that he could easily obtain any information in the bank's posse ssion. The name of Peter Choate, too, rang a bell, but for the moment Rudin could not recall why.
    Rudin suggested the retention of a handwriting expert to compare the endorsement on the Robertson check with other examples of Begelman 's handwriting. And, despite Hirschfield's eagerness to keep the Begelman problem quiet, Rudin urged him to inform other key Columbia people, including Todd Lang, the chief legal counsel, and Herbert Allen.
    "You can't sit on this yourself," Rudin told Hirschlleld. "You have an obligation to let the board in on it, or at least the executive committee, and your corporate counsel. You certainly have a moral obligation to tell Herbie Allen there's a problem. And you have to think about the SEC. There are some potentially very serious facts here, and I think you have to bring this to the attention of the SEC. That's my opinion to you, Alan.