“Where, at Ellis Island?”
“No. I’m a Brooklyn-born Russian Jew, Mr. Heller. But I studied for many years in Vienna, and that explains the accent.”
Or the affectation.
“Greenschpoon is a mouthful,” I admitted, “and I guess if I had a wife and she was going to a shrink named Romeo, it might give me pause. Probably a good call, changing it.”
His smile froze. He wasn’t sure what to make of that.
“Tell me,” I said, “if I’m not overstepping—am I right in thinking that Marilyn’s doing pretty well right now? For the blow she got, from those pricks at the studio, she ought to be reeling. But she seems to be thriving.”
Nodding, he said, “She is. She’s in excellent shape. One of her problems, and this I think is fair for us to discuss, is that for a long time she was seeing many doctors—most of whom did not know of one another’s existence.”
“So she could get prescriptions from a raft of them. It’s an old dodge.”
He nodded grimly, then gave me a half smile that seemed almost a smirk. “Right now she has only two doctors, her internist, with whom I work closely, and myself. I completely weaned her off all of these drugs—my God, Mr. Heller, when we first met, she was on a laundry list of medications … Demerol, Sodium Pentothal, phenobarbital, Amytal, Nembutal … and currently she is clean. She uses a little chloral hydrate for her insomnia problem, but that’s all.”
“This internist—what’s he giving her? I assume you know.”
“Right now, Dr. Engelberg is giving her injections of vitamins and liver extract. This is strictly for her sinusitis.” He shook his head. “You know those bastards at the studio, they were giving her what they call ‘hot shots’—God knows what was in them, methamphetamines certainly.”
“During the shooting of Something’s Got to Give, you mean?”
“Yes.” His expression turned bitter. “I was out of the country during much of the filming, unfortunately, having booked speaking engagements far in advance. I delivered her into their arms clean, and they turned her dirty with drugs again.”
“But now?”
He sipped his Scotch, shrugged. “She’s fine. She has amazing recuperative powers, this child.”
“Marilyn told me she was blessed with a rare ability to go cold turkey without suffering the usual heebie-jeebies.”
The half smile again, and it was definitely a smirk. “I might put it somewhat differently, Mr. Heller, but yes. She’s a remarkable woman.”
“Yet she needs a shrink.”
“She needs psychotherapy, yes she does.”
“And you’re providing it. You make a habit of making house calls to your famous patients?”
“No, Marilyn is a special case.”
“How special?”
“You know I can’t get into that. I will tell you, Mr. Heller, that I have made myself available to her on a twenty-four-hour basis.”
“Really? How often do you see her?”
“As often as every other day.”
“My God, can even Marilyn Monroe afford that?”
“She cannot afford to do otherwise. Mr. Heller … she is not just a patient to me. She’s like … a member of the family.”
That was weird.
“So then what’s the family rate?”
He thought about whether he wanted to answer that. After several long seconds, he did: “I charge her half of what I regularly bill my patients.”
He was making me work for it.
“What’s your regular rate?”
“One hundred dollars an hour.”
“So what’s Marilyn’s normal monthly bill?”
“Really, Mr. Heller.…”
“Okay. That was overstepping.”
But if he was seeing her every other day, for say two hours a session, that worked out to something like fifteen hundred bucks a month.
Suddenly Marilyn was leaning against the door frame. “So this is where you boys went to. Getting along?”
“Famously,” I said, and gave her a reassuring smile.
Greenson said, “Your friend Mr. Heller has been probing to see what makes me tick. He would make an excellent psychoanalyst himself.”
“We’re both snoops, Doc,” I said with a shrug.
Marilyn smiled at that, but I could see in her eyes that she was wondering if we’d been trading secrets. Her secrets.
The psychiatrist rose. “I should be getting back.”
As we moved through the kitchen, where Greenson placed his empty glass in the sink, Marilyn glanced my way.
“Dr. Greenson mostly works out of his home, you know. You should see it! It’s a dream. Like a hacienda out of some wonderful old movie.”
“Really?”
Did that explain the house she’d chosen for herself?
Marilyn stayed framed in the doorway while I spoke briefly with Greenson as I walked him to his BMW.
“Our approaches may differ,” I told him quietly, “but I’m going to take you at your word—that we both want what’s best for Marilyn.”
“I hope so, Mr. Heller,” he said. He offered his hand, and I shook it. “I hope so.”
Inside, Marilyn hooked her arm in mine and whispered, “Do you want to inspect your accomplice’s gadget?”
“Sure,” I said.
She took me to the fitting room, shut us inside, and pointed to the phones. “They don’t look any different, do they?”
“No, they wouldn’t. The gizmo’s inside.”
“But look at this.”
She walked me to a small closet. Several hatboxes were stacked on a high shelf. On tiptoes, she handed them to me, one by one, and I stacked them on the floor. When she was done, she had exposed a tape recorder.
“The reels aren’t spinning now,” she said, pointing up at the machine. “Because it’s voice-activated, your man said. He was very nice.”
“Yeah, Roger’s okay.” I thought he’d be operating from his van, but didn’t say anything. What she said next explained it, though.
“He said he could make the recordings,” she said, “from a distance? But I wanted to be able to listen to them myself. And collect them myself.”
I had no comment. I helped her put the hatboxes back in place and she gave me a wicked little smile.
“This spy stuff is fun, isn’t it?”
“Not really,” I said.
I crooked my finger and she frowned, but followed me as I led her through her house and back into the living room, where I slid open a glass door onto the pool area. She stayed right with me as I slid the door shut.
I pointed to the black wrought-iron chairs on the opposite side of the pool, she nodded, and we went over there.
She perched on the edge of one chair, her arms draped between her open legs, hands folded. “You’re acting funny.”
“Marilyn, something’s occurred to me.”
“What has?”
“If you’ve thought about tapping your phone, somebody else could have done the same.”
Her eyes widened as her forehead tightened. “Did your associate say they were already tapped?”
“No. I’m just saying … if things are serious enough in your life, for you to take this step … somebody else could have taken that step, too … only not with your best interests in mind.”
“You think my phones may already be tapped?”
“It’s possible. And you can just about bug an entire house through nothing but the phones. I mean, you can hear not just phone conversations but things being said in the room, even other rooms.”
Alarmed, she whispered, “Are you saying my house is bugged?”
“I’m just saying it’s possible.”
“God.” Her hands were fists now, tiny and white. “What should I do?”
“Just take care about what you say, and where you say it. If you’re going to have a conversation that nobody else should hear—such as this one—then find a safe place to talk.”
She poi
nted to the cement at her feet. “Like here.”
“Like out by the pool. In your yard. Away from this house.”
She thought about that. The furrow between her brow only made her look prettier.
“All right,” she said. “That’s good advice.”
“Yes it is. Now. Is there anything else you want to share with me?”
“Huh?”
“Anything else going on in your life that worries you.”
“Besides the studio.”
“Besides the studio.” If I’d sat forward any farther, I’d have fallen off the chair. “Marilyn, I’m somebody you can tell things to. I’m not Greenson, that’s not what I’m talking about—I don’t need to hear chapter and verse about your childhood. But stuff going on today? I can protect you in ways your good doctor can’t.”
She smiled. “You mean, because you’re a big bad private eye.”
“Yeah. I’m not as young as I used to be. But I am still big and bad. If you need protection—and I don’t mean to scare you, honey, but if you need a guy with a gun? I’m that guy.”
She frowned again, more confused than worried or scared. “You have a … gun?”
I smiled, shook my head. “Not on me. But yes. Back in my bungalow at the Beverly Hills.”
Her chin was crinkling with amusement. “So I’m safe, if somebody attacks me … in your bungalow at the Beverly Hills.”
“Yeah. Unless, of course, it’s me who’s attacking you. But I promise only to do that in the most friendly way.”
She laughed softly. Touched my face with her hand. “You don’t have to attack me. Just ask, Nate. Just ask.”
I kissed the hand and gave it back to her.
“I’m serious,” I said.
“You’re sweet.” She shook her head and the tousled white-blondeness bounced and her smile was bigger and better than in CinemaScope. “But Nate—don’t you know that everything’s turning around for me? Have you seen the interviews?”
“Yeah. That was a great one you gave Flo Kilgore. I loved where you said when a studio executive gets a cold, he can call in sick, but not a star. That you’d like to see a top executive act in a comedy with a temperature and a sinus infection.”
Her eyes sparkled and her smile made dimples. “From sources inside the studio, I know for a fact that thousands of letters and telegrams of support have come in from my fans all around the world.”
“Doesn’t surprise me.”
“And Fox thinks they know how to work the publicity mill?” She started ticking off on her fingers: “How does this grab you? Vogue, Life, Redbook, Cosmo—articles or interviews, all with full photo spreads. Top photographers. I’m shooting one tomorrow with Bert Stern, and I’m busy all next week.”
I had to grin at her. “They didn’t know who they were messing with.”
“And Peter Levathes—you know who he is? He’s the head of the studio—he wants to come over next week to talk to me, here at the house.”
“What for?”
“For the terms of my reinstatement, Nate! They’ve already offered me a two-picture deal—we’ll finish up Something’s Got to Give, then we do a musical, What a Way to Go!”
“That’s great.”
“Guess how much per picture? Just guess. Half a million each! My first million-dollar contract. Let Liz Taylor stick that up her fat ass!”
There was just enough of the comedienne in that delivery to make me laugh.
I reached out and took both her hands in mine. “I am so pleased for you. And I think you’re doing the right thing, putting the focus on your professional life.”
Her head tilted; she was smiling but not quite following me. “What do you mean, Nate?”
I gave her back her hands. “Well, uh, all I mean is, sometimes we focus on our personal lives, other times on our professional, and I think for you, now’s a good time for … not personal.”
“What are you talking about?”
I was talking about Jack Kennedy, and her dreams of being a First Lady, and threats of woman-scorned press conferences; but I couldn’t bring myself to spell it out. Not even safely away from any likely bugging devices.
The troll who tended Marilyn’s toll bridge stepped out from the living room onto the skirt of the pool opposite where we sat. Her sleepy voice echoed across the pool: “Someone here to see you, dear.”
“Who?”
The guest answered that question himself.
Joe DiMaggio, wearing a cream-colored sport shirt and tan slacks, looking as tanned as any movie star, not counting his creamy pale ex-wife, waved shyly.
Marilyn leapt to her feet and clapped her hands in delight. “Joe! You came!”
She instantly forgot all about me, and ran like a schoolgirl around the pool and into the arms of the big, rather goofy-looking lug who had been called our greatest living baseball player, as well as the Yankee Clipper, Joltin’ Joe, and, for a time, Mr. Marilyn Monroe.
They were talking, and I overheard him saying, “I woulda got here sooner, babe, but I was in London.”
“Doing PR for those PX people,” she said, nodding.
I learned later that DiMaggio had been working for a corporation back east that supplied American military post exchanges. But at the moment what she said sounded like gibberish to me.
“That’s right, babe, but when I heard about your troubles, I quit ’em on the spot, and now here I am.”
“Oh, Joe … you’re the best.…”
She was hugging him. In her bare feet, she looked very small, compared to her ex-husband’s six foot two. His dark brown hair had gone largely white, but otherwise he was still the rugged, boyish-looking slugger.
I came around and joined them, giving them plenty of space.
“Joe,” I said with a nod. “Good to see you. Nate Heller.”
Marilyn moved to one side, but remained under a protective DiMaggio arm, and he grinned awkwardly and held out his hand. It was the firm grip you’d expect, but he didn’t overdo.
“I remember you, Nate. Nice seeing you.”
I’d helped him out of a jam once, though it had almost got me in dutch with Marilyn.
Of course, by now I was that celebrated third party in a three’s-a-crowd scenario. Even Mrs. Murray had had the sense to do her disappearing act.
So I said brief good-byes and headed through the house and out to my Jag.
I got in and just sat there a while, trying to digest my conversations with first Greenson and then his patient. I caught a glimpse of Marilyn, arm in arm with DiMaggio, showing him around the grounds, pointing out flowers she’d planted, telling him what she’d done, and what she planned to do.
It was as if they were the happy, domestic couple Marilyn’s ex had always hoped they’d be. Except instead of a picket fence, they had a stone wall.
How happy would Joe be, I wondered, if he knew his competition for the once and maybe future Mrs. DiMaggio was the president of the United States?
Plus, I was pretty sure DiMaggio was a Republican.
CHAPTER 9
The voice on the phone was unmistakably Marilyn’s, but not the upbeat girl I’d left at Helena Drive, what, five hours ago?
“Nate,” she said pitifully, “can you help me? I need your help. Please help me.”
She was slurring, either drugged up or drunk, but the plea was genuine.
“You bet, baby,” I said, sitting up straighter.
I’d been in my bungalow slouching on the sofa with my feet up on an ottoman, watching Love That Bob (ironically, Joi Lansing was on, doing her Marilyn shtick), and had turned off the TV with one of those remote gizmos when the phone rang next to me on the end table.
I said, “Where are you, honey—home?”
“Yes. Home. No one else is here. Mrs. Murray isn’t here tonight. I couldn’t reach Dr. Greenson. I thought of you. You can help me, can’t you?”
She sounded like somebody either going into or coming out of a coma.
“I’ll be right
there,” I said. “Just take it easy.”
“Thank you. Thank you. You are so sweet. Bye-bye.…”
“Be right there.”
I hung up, grabbed my suit coat, and didn’t bother snugging the well-loosened tie. But I did make one small addition to my wardrobe: from my suitcase I got the nine-millimeter, and stuck it in the beltless waistband. I left the suit coat unbuttoned, because it hadn’t been tailored to accommodate a Browning.
Maybe I was being melodramatic. But with Giancana and Hoffa hovering in the wings, being armed seemed a sensible precaution. More likely this was something else, the kind of emergency where a firearm was useless.
I’d heard and read stories about Marilyn and drugs and overdoses and even suicide attempts, though I felt fairly confident that if Dr. Greenson ever broke doctor-patient confidentiality, he’d say the latter were of the cry-for-help variety. Anybody who self-medicated to the degree Marilyn had over the years knew just how many pills to take to cry wolf, or to play dead forever.
Mid-evening was busy along Sunset Boulevard, and under such conditions the trip between the Beverly Hills Hotel and the Fifth Helena hacienda should take maybe fifteen minutes. I was aggressive enough to make it in twelve, though I hadn’t broken any speed limits, since I really did not want to get sidelined when Marilyn was calling out to me. Especially not carrying a nine-millimeter, even if it was licensed.
The scalloped-topped wooden gates at the dead-end of Helena were ajar, with her leaning between them—she’d been waiting and watching for me. Still barefoot and in the same white shirt and jeans. She opened the gates wide, and the Jag slipped in, and she closed them behind me.
If she had any yard lights, she’d turned them off, and precious few windows glowed in the house. But there was a nice chunk of moon and the night was clear enough that I could see pretty well.
The moment I got out of the car, she was in my arms, and she was sobbing. I held her close, but didn’t hug her, because I had glimpsed something on the white blouse—dark spatters that might be dried blood.
“I don’t know if I can stand for you to see me,” she said into my chest. “I don’t want anybody to see me.”
Bye Bye, Baby Page 10