After a summer of legwork, the reporter has opened the door to the Dakota with his words. As David Geffen had done during the bidding for the rights to Double Fantasy, Sheff impressed Yoko with a compelling telegram. September 10 is the first day of a conversation that will run three weeks, the interviews to be published in Playboy magazine.

“This will be the reference book!” John predicts.

John’s certainty is warranted, and it underscores security specialist Doug MacDougall’s deepest fear—that John and Yoko will be dangerously revealing of their daily schedule.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve done this kind of thing,” Yoko tells Sheff of his access to the couple. But she’s also, for the first time since the spring of 1975, granted sit-downs with the BBC, Newsweek, and other media outlets.

A parallel concern for MacDougall is the surge in the number of fans who have recently taken to congregating outside the Dakota, clamoring for John’s attention as he travels between the Dakota and the Hit Factory. All MacDougall’s years of FBI experience have failed to prepare the former agent for the complexity of a rock star’s popularity.

Chapter 58

Chapter 58

Fame, what you get is no tomorrow.

—“Fame”

John Lennon wakes up, reaches for his eyeglasses. At first the day seems like any other until he realizes it’s a special one. October 9, 1980, is his fortieth birthday—and Sean’s fifth.

Over morning tea, he indulges in a moment of happy reflection, counting “only two artists I’ve ever worked with for more than a one night’s stand, as it were: Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono.” He takes a little credit, too, joking, “So, I think as a talent scout I’ve done pretty damned well!”

Yoko laughs, and moments later, John’s hearing another of those two familiar voices. He picks up the kitchen phone to greet his old songwriting partner, who’s called to wish him all the best for the record launch.

“I believe the last time I spoke to John was when I was in England and we spoke on the phone,” McCartney says in 2019. “It was a pleasant conversation about mostly domestic matters. We had been experiencing a bread strike in England, so I was into making my own bread. He told me he was also doing the same thing around that time in New York, so we talked bread.”

Five-year-old Sean, whose diet is strictly macrobiotic—sugar-free and dairy-free—doesn’t want baked bread today. He wants birthday cake and ice cream.

And he’ll have his treats, as soon as his parents make a big announcement: in the spring of 1981, “John and Yoko will be touring Japan, USA, and Europe.”

But the family has an earlier flight to catch.