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and for the most part the crowd he was in, didn’t think or act like Strabala’s bosses did. Dick Powell and his crowd loved being moviemakers and didn’t want to lose their collective fame and fortune over getting laid, getting high or anything else that was too risky. Dick Powell would take chances in making movies, but not in his personal life or the lives of those he loved and respected.
    “Okay Strabala. I don’t have a clue on how to answer what you just told me. There are a lot of other actors out there… although Brando is perfect for the role. I’ll tell Howard and Oscar, and remember one thing,” Powell warned.
    “What, you’re going to threaten me with Hughes’ money?” an indignant Strabala asked.
    “No. Not at all. Paybacks in Hollywood are not pretty,” Powell warned as he hung up.
    And Dick Powell meant it. Now, he had to tell Hughes and Millard.
    “Miss Burchett,” Powell cried into the intercom system. “Please get me a couple of aspirins and some ice-cold water.”

    He gobbled down the aspirins and drank two glasses of water. He took a deep breath and decided to take a nap before he called Hughes. Dick Powell was procrastinating and he knew it. He was also resting up, because he knew he would be on the phone a long time with his boss, and then he would have to meet with Oscar and inform Millard that Fox had nixed MB. And of course, the way things were going, Oscar Millard
would have already convinced
Brando to be in the film during their get together.
    Could be worse. It could always be worse.
Dick thought to himself as he quickly dozed off.

    He woke and felt amazingly refreshed.
    “Naps are the best,” he once said to his wife June, after awaking from a nap on their den couch. He had dozed off while watching a football game on TV.
    “You first started your naps
listening
to sports on the radio. Now, when you can watch the game… you still fall asleep,” she said.
    “I did?” Powell said.
    “I call it the ‘third-quarter’ nap. Whatever the sport… by the time it’s three-quarters over, you’re asleep,” she stated. “By the way, wives and mothers don’t nap.”
    “You ought to try it,” he urged her.
    Dick couldn’t believe that he had only been asleep for 20 minutes. He made a mental note to try and take a nap for no longer than 20 minutes every day he was in the office. He called his wife and they decided that this Saturday would be the best day for him to fly off with Howard and scout the location.
    Howard… he decided to call him and get it over with. After all, the nap had refreshed him. He told his secretary to ring Hughes. Powell returned to read and answer some of his own fan mail while he waited for Howard Hughes to get on the line.
    Surprisingly, Hughes was on the line very quickly, and then Dick Powell was put on hold. Even more astonishing was that Hughes, once he took Powell off hold, was extremely calm about not landing Brando.
    “There are a lot of good actors in Hollywood. Not as good as Brando, but good. More importantly Dick, did you find a leading lady with the right dimensions to suit me?” Hughes asked.
    Dick Powell rolled his eyes upward and sighed
maybe I should have drunk three martinis instead of taking a nap
, he thought.
    “Well?” Hughes demanded.
    “What about Oscar?” Powell asked his boss, changing the subject, while wondering if Hughes thought about anything else other than women’s breasts… very large ones to boot.
    “I don’t want to talk about the writer. I want to talk about what actress with big tits you’re thinking about casting,” Howard Hughes said.
    I guess not,
Dick Powell mused, and then got bold. “Howard, how did you make so much money, when it seems that all you do is think about humongous breasts?”
    “I’m not telling,” Hughes said.
    “Well, what about Oscar?” Powell repeated.
    “I might tell him, I might not. I did love that movie he did about the navy divers. Regardless, he will be bummed and then