“Are you hurt?”
“Yes. But … no … I’m all right. But, yeah, I’m hurt.”
Okay.
“Honey,” I said, “there’s nobody else here?”
“No. Is that … your gun?”
“Maybe I’m just glad to see you.”
That didn’t get even a nervous laugh out of her; she seemed too dazed for my charm and wit to do any good.
I held her gently away from me and she turned her head to one side, but I’d seen what she didn’t want anybody to see—beneath her eyes the skin was black and blue, and an oval bruise colored her left cheekbone like a terrible oversize beauty mark.
“Who did this to you?”
“Nobody. I fell in the shower.”
So DiMaggio had slugged her. I’d heard about his fucking abuse from Whitey Snyder. I had never liked the guy and, since I am not much of a baseball fan, his celebrity never moved me.
“Really, I slipped,” she said, her eyes hooded above the bruising. She was not bothering to avoid my gaze any longer. “It was a stupid accident. I fell in the shower. On the tiles.”
I’d been in that bathroom. Billy Barty couldn’t have fallen in that shower, much less hit his face on the tile flooring.
A guy in my line has heard dozens of wife-beaters’ wives lie for and stick up for the no-good bastards, and it never makes for easy listening. You want to shake the babes till they tell you the truth, but that would rather be missing the point.
“What kind of pills have you taken?”
“Little Demerol I had squirreled away. And I been drinking champagne. It helps some.”
If nothing else, makes for a festive mood.
“Let’s go inside,” I said, and we did, hand in hand, like teenagers.
Just inside the door, she got on her toes and whispered in my ear: “Do you think my sunroom is bugged?”
Then I whispered in her ear: “Probably not. It’s probably your bedroom.”
She drew away and said, out loud, “Are they snoops or dirty old men?”
“There’s some overlap.”
So we wound up in the sunroom, where I’d spoken to Dr. Greenson just hours ago. She was lugging a bottle of Dom Pérignon, picked up along the way—I hadn’t noticed where she got it from, since after all I was only a detective.
We both sat on the little wicker couch for two and I slipped an arm around her. She offered me the bottle of champagne, like it was a Coke we were sharing, and I took a swig, just to be a good sport.
“I need your help,” she said. She seemed to be slurring a little less. A little. Would it disgust you if I said I found it sexy? If so, consider—Marilyn Monroe half in the bag and with a bunged-up face was still very much Marilyn Monroe.
“Which shower stall was it?” I asked.
“Well … mine of course. Why?”
“So I know which one to beat the shit out of.”
That made her smile. Her first smile since I got here.
“I have a number I want you to call,” she said.
“All right.”
“It’s a doctor. Plastic surgeon.” She touched her nose, and I was impressed she could do it. “He took the bump off my nose, a long time ago. And fixed my chin a little.”
“I should beat him up, too.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s the one who made you perfect. Before that, I might have had a chance.”
She looked up at me with exquisite sadness, her eyes lovely despite the black and blue beneath, shining with tears, and she kissed me, very sweetly, very tenderly.
“You came,” she said.
That was what she’d said when she spotted DiMaggio across the pool this afternoon. She really had to stop trusting men.
Marilyn had already written the number down on a piece of paper, which she got out of a jeans pocket, and then she told me what she wanted me to say. Why she couldn’t have made this call herself, I wasn’t sure. Perhaps because it was the doctor’s home number, and a doctor’s wife might answer, and raise suspicions real or imagined. Maybe she didn’t think she’d be taken seriously in her slightly inebriated state.
Anyway, I didn’t get a wife, I got the doctor, and I explained the situation and, while a long-suffering tone came into his voice, he agreed to accommodate his famous client. We would have to come to him, however—he might need to make an X-ray, so a house call was out of the question.
Half an hour later, in an alley in downtown Beverly Hills—somehow it was surprising Beverly Hills even had alleys—I helped Marilyn out of the Jag. I stuffed the nine-millimeter in the glove compartment, then joined her at the anonymous-looking door.
She was in an ordinary black suit, not the work of some top designer, with a full, flowing black wig and black sunglasses. Anywhere but this part of the world, or maybe certain parts of Europe, the sunglasses would have attracted attention this time of night.
The doctor—who had put a white jacket over a polo shirt and chinos—answered her knock immediately. I doubted this was a rarity, attending a celebrity patient after hours; certainly using the rear door wasn’t, since this was the top plastic surgery clinic in Beverly Hills, and gossip columnists were known to keep an eye on comings and goings.
His name was Dr. Michael Gordon, and he didn’t look old enough to have been the doc who gave Marilyn her minor plastic surgeries at the start of her career, in the late 1940s; but then he was a plastic surgeon, and probably had a few connections, should he want some work done.
He was tall, dark, and blandly handsome, but his aqua-blue eyes were an attractive feature that nobody but God had a hand in.
Ignoring me, he made a little pleasant small talk with her as he guided her into an examining room. I stayed out in the hall, unable to translate the muffled conversation behind the door, pacing like an expectant father. Among the things on my mind was wondering how Joltin’ Joe would like being on the other end of a Louisville Slugger.
Maybe fifteen minutes later, the doc emerged, and shut Marilyn within—I’d caught a glimpse of her sitting up on the end of an exam table on the usual crinkly white paper. She looked small and frightened, like a kid in for a tetanus shot.
Almost whispering, the doctor asked, “Is Miss Monroe under the influence of drugs this evening?”
“I think she had a Demerol or two. And a lot of champagne.”
“Explains the slurred speech.” Then the eyes hardened. “She says she was in her shower, and slipped and fell.”
I held up my hands in surrender. “Whoa, Doc—I’m not the culprit. I can guess who is, but she wouldn’t want me to say. I’m just the friend she called for a ride here.”
He studied me, as if he could diagnose whether I was lying or not.
I showed him my credentials, which he studied for maybe half a minute.
“I’ve heard of you,” he said with a nod.
“And I’ve heard of you. So how is she?”
“Well, her injuries might have been the result of a fall. But it’s more likely she was struck in the face. Probably in the nose, although she isn’t bruised there. When an injury is sustained to the nose, any bleeding under the skin shows up in the soft tissue under—”
“Doc, that’s okay—I been punched in the nose a few times.”
That got a wry smile out of him. “Anyway, the good news is that her nose isn’t broken. I could find no evidence of fracture and saw no need to take X-rays.”
“She’s hoping to go back to work soon. She has some photo shoots next week.…”
“Miss Monroe may be fine as soon as Monday. A little makeup should take care of anything the healing hasn’t.”
I shook his hand, and he released Marilyn to me—she gave him a hug before we left, and I’m sure the doctor appreciated it, but I had a hunch it wouldn’t get her a discount.
“I’m taking you back to my bungalow,” I said, leading her to the Jag.
The Beverly Hills Hotel was minutes away.
“I’d like that.”
“Have you eaten anything?”
“No. Not since breakfast.”
“Could you eat?”
“I don’t know. I could try.”
She did pretty well, actually. We ordered room service, and on trays had a Polo Lounge Caesar Salad for two with shrimp. I vetoed champagne and she settled for sparkling water. I had the same.
That she might not have to postpone next week’s photo shoots made her happy. She had taken off the suit jacket and was in a white blouse (not the blood-spattered one) and the dark skirt, her legs bare, her kitten heels kicked off; her hair was disheveled as hell, once the wig was discarded, but I thought she looked great just the same.
We sat on the couch like an old married couple and watched television—no tiny portable sets for the Beverly Hills Hotel, this was one of those big twenty-four-inch numbers—with her curled up beside me, my arm around her, her head nestled against my chest.
We watched The Tonight Show and I said I wasn’t sure this new Carson kid was going to work out, but Marilyn disagreed, liking him better than Jack Paar, who she said was an obnoxious jerk. I wasn’t aware she’d acted with him in an early picture of hers.
Finally the late news came on and I switched off the set. The lights were otherwise out, though hazy illumination filtered in from the hotel grounds through the sheer curtains, the heavier drapes pulled back.
“Okay,” I said, “so what really happened?”
“… You have any smokes?”
“I didn’t know you still smoked.”
“Sometimes when I get nervous.”
“I don’t smoke.”
“I thought all detectives smoked.”
“I did in the service.”
“You were a Marine, weren’t you?”
“Yeah. I can ring and have some brought around.”
“I might have some in my purse.”
It was a little black thing she’d tossed somewhere. She went and got it, and found some smokes and lighted up using hotel matches. Then she paced in front me, moving in and out of the filtering light, the little amber eye of the cigarette bobbing along.
“I was showing Joe the herb garden I planted. Along that little brick path, between the guest cottage and the kitchen? We were talking about, you know, happier times. We did have a lot of good times together.”
“You weren’t married very long.”
“No, we weren’t, but even after, he was always there when things got tough. He’d come find me and he’d just be there. Like last Christmas? He knows how tough Christmas is for me, if I’m alone. He made sure I wasn’t alone. That was back in New York. Today was the first time he’d been to my new place.”
“Sounds friendly enough.”
“It was fine, as long we talked about what used to be. But, you see, from what he heard and read, he got the wrong idea. He heard about me getting fired and he just dropped everything, walked away from a really good job, because he thought things were going to be different now.”
“In what way?”
“He said he wanted to get married again, now that my—this is what he said, Nate—now that my career was over.” She laughed once, a bitter little burst. “That was always the battle between us, you know—he married me thinking I’d give it all up, the movies, the money, the fame, to be a good little Italian housewife and raise lots of Catholic babies. Well, I’m not Italian and I’m not a Catholic, and when I said this was just a bump in the road, that the press was full of lies and exaggerations, that I was going back with Fox for big money, and that nothing was more important to me than my career … he started getting angry.”
“And he hit you then.”
“Not then.” She shook her head. “Not then. It was … it was about something else.”
And there was the opening.
I said, “Maybe he’d heard the rumors.”
“Rumors?”
“About you and Jack Kennedy.”
The cigarette stopped bobbing.
“You’ve heard about that?”
“Yeah.” Suddenly I felt defensive. “You’re not the only one around here friendly with Pat and Peter Lawford. And, you know, I worked for Bobby, back when he was on the Rackets Committee—”
“You know about Bobby, too?”
That hit me in the gut.
Suddenly I recalled Lawford responding to my question about his brother-in-law and Marilyn, and he’d said, “Jack, you mean?” Because I could also have been referring to Bobby.
And Bobby telling me he was handling the Marilyn problem “personally.” Personally was right.
And Jimmy Hoffa making what seemed a crazy statement about both brothers fucking Marilyn. Not so crazy, after all.
I worked to keep my voice calm, not accusatory: “Marilyn, what is going on with the Kennedys?”
Not what the hell is going on … just “what.”
The amber eye began to bob again.
“The thing with Jack is over. He really is kind of a louse. I mean, a great man, but a lousy guy. I’m really disappointed in him. Do you know that he changed his phone number, just so I wouldn’t call him?”
I didn’t know what to say.
“Anyway, Bobby is much nicer. Much smarter. His intellect is … really quite incredible. He’s going to make a much better president than his brother someday.”
“But you were with Jack.…”
Her silhouette shrugged and she paced and the amber eye floated as she gestured. “I go way back with Jack. First time Joe got jealous of him was, oh…’54? He was a lot of fun, Jack. Not much of a lover, no romance, just in and out. But fun, funny, charming, smart. And then he sort of sent Bobby to see me and do his … dirty work. But Bobby felt really bad about it. Very sweet, really sweet. When I was angry and saying how Jack changed his phone number, what did Bobby do? Gave me his! Such a wonderful listener. He and I get along really well. I think it surprises him, how much I know about things. The questions I ask. It’s funny.”
“What’s funny?”
“The things they tell me. In the dark. In bed? Both of them. I know such crazy things, things I really shouldn’t. Some of it I have to admit I really don’t approve of—like trying to kill Castro. I mean, that isn’t right! They don’t call it assassination, they call … what did Jack call it? ‘Executive action.’ That’s wrong, killing the head of state of another country, just because you don’t agree with them. What do you think, Nate?”
I think men will say a lot of things to impress a woman in bed. But the Kennedy boys had topped us all.
I said, “I think … you should come sit next to me.”
She did. She leaned across me to stab the cigarette out in a tray on the end table. I couldn’t see it there but apparently she could.
She snuggled against me again. “Someday he’s going to leave her.”
“Who is?”
“Bobby! He doesn’t love her. That Ethel. I don’t like her at all. Do you think she’s attractive? I certainly don’t.”
“Marilyn, stop.”
“What?”
“This afternoon—did you talk to your ex-husband about this?”
“Oh, Joe knew about Jack. I don’t know how, but he did. He also knew it was over, Jack and me. It was … I told you, it was hearing about Bobby that made him flip.”
I had no urge to hit her, but I got why DiMaggio had. The inside of his head must have gone redder than marinara.
“Marilyn, this is what I was trying to tell you earlier today—you need to focus on your professional life. You’re an actress, a gifted actress. And not just a movie star—they’re calling you a superstar. So popular they had to make up a new word to describe it. You need to make that be enough for you.”
But she was barely listening. “Nate, it’s so exciting, being with Bobby. It was exciting with Jack, but this is so much better. So much deeper. Can you imagine? Me in the White House?”
“No. That won’t happen, that can’t happen. Bobby won’t leave his wife and fa
mily for you, just like Jack wouldn’t. Not because they don’t want to, but because they are politicians who want votes and Catholics who want to go to heaven and a dozen other things that mean this is one dream, Marilyn, that you don’t get to have come true. They’re good men, in their way, but they use people. Hell, they’ve used me often enough.”
“I don’t want to hear this.”
“I don’t want to have to say it.”
She was looking away from me, staring into the dark.
I asked, “Mad at me?”
She shook her head, blondeness bouncing. “No. I called and you came.”
“That’s right.”
Something little girl came into her voice, possibly contrived, maybe not. “What if I promised you I’ll take your advice?”
“I’d be very pleased. These are dangerous waters, Marilyn—that Cuba stuff, you can’t ever talk about that again. To anybody. In these times of electronic eavesdropping, and with Bobby’s enemies including everybody from mobsters and the Teamsters to Soviet agents and the FBI, you have to grasp that these are treacherous fucking waters. Please, baby. Stick to make-believe.”
“You came.”
“Promise me you’ll take my advice.”
“Why can’t I love a guy like you? Just a normal everyday guy?”
That’s me—Nathan Heller, normal everyday guy.
“Go ahead and try,” I said. “I won’t stop you.”
She found a shaft of light coming in through the sheer curtains and when she stepped out of the skirt—she of course wore no panties—and got out of the blouse—no bra, either—she was naked as the day she was born. Of course, she hadn’t been born with that gallbladder scar, or the black-bruise circles under her eyes or the nasty purple bruise on her cheek. But she hadn’t been born with those perfect breasts, either, still full and pert despite her thirty-six years and God knew how much drug abuse and alcohol.
She was a creamy goddess who knelt before me, and unzipped me, and if you think the revelations about the Kennedys and their sexual trifling with her, and the dangers that were lurking out there, from Giancana to Hoffa to J. Fucking Edgar Hoover, if you figured all that would make it tough for me to get aroused, well, to paraphrase Bugs Bunny to Elmer Fudd, you don’t know me very well, do you?
Bye Bye, Baby Page 11