“You Could Do It,” Truman Capote tells me, “You’re Very Attractive.”

This is bullshit and reminds me of a conversation I had once with a pimp.

I’ve been watching “Truman Capote Vs. The Swans”, the FX series about the rich society women who confided in Capote and were outraged when he spilled their secrets in Esquire Magazine, and I’d like to say that had those women been reporters, none of that would have happened.

Reporters know you cannot trust a reporter.

You’re telling a reporter who had a non-fiction best-seller about the time your husband banged the wife of the Governor of New York and the wife had her period and bled all over YOUR bed and you think the reporter is going to keep that quiet? The reporter’s brain whirligigged like a slot machine hitting the jackpot the minute he heard that story; three mind-boggling pictures have popped up in a row and they have the same image: GOLD.

Also, if anyone gave the impression of being a gossip, it was Truman Capote. It was in his bones, it was in the primal ooze of him.  When it came to seduction – the essential craft of the reporter—he was better than anyone I’ve ever met.

Substack, call up the Wayback Machine – and make it one with a chauffeur!

VROOM, VROOM, WHIIRRR!!!  Driver, take the East River Drive to the time warp and stop right here, in front of the United Nations Plaza apartment building.

Where are we parked, in the late ‘70s or the early ‘80s?  Capote publishes his tell-all short story, “La Côte Basque” and is banished from Rich Lady Land in 1975, then goes into a downward spiral of alcohol and drugs and will die, at 59, in 1984. Let’s say we’re somewhere in the early ‘80s.

I’ve left The New York Post after Rupert Murdoch took it over and now, a few years later, have an assignment from New York Magazine to do a story about how to marry money. I have zero interest in this assignment and will never write it, I see it as a way to meet Truman Capote and learn how he researched, “In Cold Blood”, his non-fiction account of the murder of a family in a small farming community in Kansas. I’m also impressed by the ear for dialogue Capote showed off in “Côte Basque”. Decades later, a lot of it will strike me as suspect, but in the early ‘80s, I am still a young reporter. 

There are interviews that are sensory as much as verbal. This is a shiny interview. Capote lives in a shiny apartment on the 25th floor, with glass walls and a dazzling view of lower Manhattan; Capote’s coffee table is filled with shiny glass globes; Capote’s semi-bald head is shiny and crisscrossed with black stitches from a recent facelift.

It’s interesting to me that Capote has made no attempt to hide the stitches. Is it a Fuck You, Take Me as I Am move? And if so, is it general or New York Magazine specific?  These are supposed to be Capote’s boozy, pill-taking days, but he appears sober.

Capote’s voice is high-pitched, a caricature of the girly, effeminate voice used in those days to ridicule gay men. He often speaks in italics.  It’s difficult to believe it’s not an affectation, but if you are going to affect something, why this, unless it’s another aggressive Take Me as I Am move? It’s insidious, relentless, a cat rubbing against your leg; a combination of fur and slime:  Oh, c’mon, baby, we both know there’s more to the story than that. 

Capote is also, as I said, the most seductive person I have ever met.

I feel it when I ask him about marrying money and he tells me about a woman who researched the habits of the man she wanted and, after learning that he regularly took the New York-D.C. shuttle, seated herself next to him and turned on the charm.

“You could do that,” Capote purr-slimes me. “You’re vehhhrrry attractive.”

This is bullshit. I am a Village girl, attractive enough to writers and artists and the occasional criminal lawyer, but not for someone looking for a long, lean trophy wife.  It also reminds me of a conversation I once had with a Times Square pimp. He was certain he could play me, I was certain I could play him; we could have given a joint course in manipulation at The New School. Capote is another league. Capote could take you under.

Having gotten the marrying money bit out of the way, I move on to what I care about, reporting.

Capote’s superb ear? He doesn’t take notes or use a tape recorder, Capote says – those are distracting to the subject. He trained himself by memorizing poetry. And as soon as the interview is over, he writes down what was important.

“In Cold Blood”? Capote was looking for a story he could do as a non-fiction novel and came across the case of the Clutter family, who had been found tied up in their farmhouse in the small community of Holcomb, Kansas, and shot dead. Capote traveled to Kansas with his old friend, writer Harper Lee, but no one would talk. Then Capote and Harper Lee went to Sunday church services and  Lee, Capote says, was so charming that the minister invited her and Capote to Sunday dinner. Once the minister, the head of the community, had given his seal of approval by inviting them into his home, the people in the community opened up. If you can’t get to the person you need, Capote tells me, get to the person who is closest to the person you need.

Slam, bam, thank you Truman – you just gave me what I needed. Where did I park the Way Back machine?

VROOM-VROOM! Touch down!

Oh, what a surprise!  We’ve landed not in 2024, but in 1986 and I am in London, doing a story for People Magazine about a wanna-be terrorist named Nezar Hindawi. Hindawi has just been arrested for trying to blow up an El Al jet by planting a bomb in his girlfriend’s luggage. And – get this -- the girlfriend, an Irish chambermaid, is pregnant with his child.

It’s a great story:  Ann Marie Murphy is an innocent, a Catholic School dropout from a large Dublin family who worked in a pantyhose factory before coming to London and meeting Hindawi. They have an affair — her first — and he disappears soon after she tells him she’s pregnant. A few months later he comes back, begs forgiveness and says he wants to marry Ann Marie in Israel, where he has family.

They won’t be able to fly to Israel together, Hindawi says, because his employer has given him a ticket on another airline, but he will buy Anne Marie a ticket on El Al. Hindawi also buys Anne Marie a rolling suitcase because, he tells her, in her condition she should not have to lift heavy objects. He doesn’t tell her about the 3 pounds of Semtex explosives hidden in it. Then Hindawi drops Murphy at Heathrow, where El Al security finds the explosives.

Anne Marie Murphy, the prosecution’s most important witness, who all the reporters of course want to get to, is in protective custody, the police refuse to say where. Dublin, where she has a large family, seems like a good bet. I fly to Dublin, plop a People Magazine moneybag onto the reception desk at the very swank Shelbourne Hotel, and start sniffing around.

The British tabloid reporters are on the case, too. I’m earnest about the sociological/economic underpinnings of the story; sheltered Catholic girl, unmarried and pregnant; although of course that’s second to the meatier sonofabitch done her wrong theme, but the story is, y’know, layered; the Brits, who travel in jolly packs of three, seem motivated by filing by 5 so they can get to the bar.

None of us are having any luck finding Ann Marie Murphy, but over drinks at the Shelbourne bar I tell the Brits how Truman Capote, author of the groundbreaking true crime novel, “In Cold Blood”, cracked a suspicious community by befriending the minister.

“So, 8 o’clock, tomorrow morning, that’s where I’m going to be,” I say. “The home of the family priest.”

The next morning, I knock at the priest’s door. He seems amused to see me.

“Your colleagues just left,” he says.

I have to laugh. I told my plan to a group of reporters, of course they were going to head out there.  And in this case, the pillar of the community tells me nothing.

Still, going to his house was good advice. Thank you, Truman.

And Swans, wherever you float these days: Never tell your secrets to a writer.