Bye Bye, Baby

by Max Allan Collins

  Lawford was smoking, nervously. “Do you believe that guy?”

  He meant Sinatra.

  “You mean, you don’t think having Giancana drop by to goose Marilyn was a fun party idea?”

  He sighed, shook his head. “You have no idea what I’ve been through.”

  I took a wild stab: “Your wife tore you a new one?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Did she ever. From now on, when I sit upon the throne, it will be multiple choice, which orifice to use. But at least Frank has shooed that creature away.”

  “Mooney’s gone?”

  Lawford nodded, dropped the cigarette to the balcony floor and ground it out with a sneaker toe. “I think Frank realized he’d taken things too far. Do you have any idea, Nate, the ramifications of that man’s presence?”

  “Sure. FBI for one. Your wife’s reaction, for another. Irony is, I don’t think Marilyn, in the long haul anyway, scares so easy. You’d think Frank would understand that even though your brothers-in-law don’t.”

  “How so?”

  “Marilyn isn’t just another lay, Peter. That’s how Jack views her, and maybe how Bobby views her, although he’s got a naive enough streak to really fall in love with her, temporarily.”

  Lawford was slowly nodding. “Actually, I agree. Marilyn is like Frank. She’s on that level of fame, of importance. As someone wise once said, it’s Frank’s world—we just live in it.”

  “Right now he’s living in Marilyn’s world.”

  “I can’t disagree.” The president’s brother-in-law lighted up a cigarette and flashed that winning smile of his. “All right, friend Heller—I’ll tell one and all that Marilyn’s doing fine. You were with her all night?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No excess pills?”

  “Nope. She didn’t even order an extra champagne bottle from room service. She was a good girl.”

  Lawford frowned as he exhaled smoke. “Are you doing her, too, Nathan?”

  “Not last night.”

  And I went back inside.

  * * *

  By the time she woke up, around 1:00 P.M., breakfast had long since passed.

  I had watched a little television, with the sound way down, and on the news picked up on a tidbit of interest: Bobby Kennedy was in Los Angeles, giving an address to the National Insurance Association. Was Bobby’s being in LA this weekend another reason for spiriting Marilyn out of town? If Marilyn heard about this—make that when she heard about this—beauty would turn into beast.…

  Anyway, I managed to order up a light room-service breakfast for Marilyn, despite it being well into lunch hour, and had them bring me a Cobb salad. We ate on trays and said little, though Marilyn seemed in good spirits.

  She got dressed, getting back into the lime-green top and white capris, tying a white scarf over her messy hair. All I needed was to brush my teeth, having slept in the polo and shorts.

  On our way to the pool area, we made a stop at my cabin, where I returned the nine-millimeter to the suitcase and the toothbrush to a glass in the john. Marilyn was standing by my unused bed patiently, sunglasses on, looking less like a movie star than some tourist getting over a hangover.

  I said, “That killer we spoke about has taken a powder.”

  “You just love to talk like a private eye, don’t you?”

  “Why, didn’t you know they based the guy on 77 Sunset Strip on me?”

  She smirked prettily. “Who, the one who parks cars and combs his hair?”

  As it happened, I was combing my hair, having wet it down since I had morning cowlick. “Don’t you know Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., when you see him? Anyway, Giancana is gone. Should be smooth sailing, rest of the weekend.”

  Unless she found out about Bobby being in LA.

  It wasn’t far to the pool area, a short walk up a gravel incline. Buddy Greco was swimming and being gregarious, and a bare-chested Sinatra in shorts was sitting quietly, maybe even sullenly, reading Variety. Lawford was perched on a higher stool near Sinatra, like a good-natured bird of prey, trying to prove to the world and himself that Frankie and Charlie the Seal were still best of buddies.

  Marilyn posed for a few pictures and was in giddy good spirits. At one point she went over and kissed Sinatra on the lips, kind of a loud smack.

  “What was that for?” he said, looking up at her with a grin.

  “It’s because I love you, anyway.”

  The grin went away and something vaguely hurt took its place. “I’m always looking out for you, Zelda. I hope you know that.”

  “We shoulda got married, Frank. We really should. That would’ve given them something to talk about.”

  The grin returned. “Yeah,” he said, “for the three or four weeks we’da lasted.” Then he waved her off and returned to his paper.

  Soon Marilyn was over talking to Greco and a shapely brunette with a bouffant that made for a sort of Martian look. I was told the brunette was Roberta Linn, who was opening for Greco in the Indian Lounge, though I’d never heard of her. Not that she didn’t have a shape worth knowing.

  Anyway, they were laughing and talking, and Greco was pretending he was going to throw Marilyn in the pool. I went over and took the deck chair next to Sinatra. Lawford had wandered away—maybe because his idol wasn’t paying any attention to him.

  “I hear our friend Momo checked out,” I said.

  “Yeah. He had another engagement.”

  “Nice of him to support you like that, opening night and all.”

  “Are you cracking wise, Charlie?”

  “Not with Jilly and the other chipmunks around.” I nodded across to where several of Sinatra’s bully boys sat in bathing suits, in their own deck chairs, sunning themselves like big dead fish on a beach.

  Frank gave me a foul glance. “You think I like this?”

  “Being king of Cal-Neva? Sure. You love it.”

  He grunted a non-laugh. “I mean helping these jackasses handle Zelda. She’s too good for them.”

  “Then why help?”

  His eyebrows rose. “You have any idea the trouble that broad could cause, with what she knows?”

  “Sure I do.”

  “Anyway, I couldn’t use the grief.” He shook his head. “Not that I haven’t about had it with these damn Kennedys.”

  “You get asked to the White House, don’t you?”

  “Through the side door.” He said “fuck” silently. “This is all Bobby’s fault. Snotty little prick. Why did Old Joe have to get a fucking stroke for Christmas, anyway? Gonna give me one.”

  That comment resonated—it confirmed my suspicion that Sinatra had dealt with Joe Kennedy, not Jack and certainly not Bobby, when he arranged for Outfit help in the West Virginia and Illinois presidential sweepstakes. The old boy’s stroke last December had put his two oldest sons in charge of their own destinies. His reckless, arrogant sons.…

  Lawford and his wife, who wore a tan sport shirt and matching slacks, strolled onto the pool’s cement skirt hand in hand—and wasn’t that suspicious—and went over and spoke to Marilyn, who was sitting at the edge of the pool with her sneakers off, kicking idly at the water, her conversation with Greco and his opening act having passed.

  Soon Lawford was leading Pat and Marilyn—chattering like schoolgirls—away from the pool area. The trio went into the lodge, to do what, I had no idea.

  “Peter and Pat’s suite is in there,” Sinatra said, nodding toward the rustic main building that hovered over the pool area.

  “What’s up?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not in the inner circle, Charlie—are you?… Listen—something you should know.”

  “What?”

  “Marilyn’s ex showed up last night, trying to get in. How he knew she was here, I have no fucking idea. But we were booked up, and when I found out the bastard was around, I made sure he wouldn’t be allowed in, if somebody canceled.”

  “Which ex?”

  “Which do you think? DiMaggio.”

  Sinat
ra and DiMaggio and I had a history together. Back in ’54, paisans Sinatra and DiMaggio were drinking buddies, and one drunk night, they called up a detective attached to the A-1 Agency—not me; I was back in Chicago—and hired him to go check up on Marilyn, who Joe was sure was cheating. The detective promptly delivered them to the wrong apartment, kicked the door down, and some middle-aged gal got the shit scared out of her, only to later settle out of court. Marilyn was in a nearby apartment. Confidential magazine made this minor incident famous, dubbing it “The Wrong Door Raid.”

  Where I’d come in was a year or so later, when that detective got caught up in a statewide inquiry into shady practices in the private eye game. We had long since fired this jerk, who claimed Sinatra and DiMaggio had kicked the door down personally, when actually Sinatra stayed in the car, blotto as hell, and DiMaggio looked on, in full-blown ballplayer stupidity. Anyway, to help out the A-1 Agency’s rep, as well as my friend Sinatra and his friend DiMaggio, I looked into it, and through various witnesses and the discrediting of other witnesses, cleared them both.

  Luckily for them, Marilyn had mostly been amused, and both Sinatra and Joltin’ Joe had eventually wormed their way back into her good graces. But the two Italians had come out of the affair hating each other, though I never really understood why.

  “Just keep an eye out for that jerk,” Sinatra said. “My whole staff knows he’s on my shit list, and we can get a small army of bellboys to bounce his ass, if necessary.”

  “Okay,” I said. I was with Frank on this, considering what I knew about Marilyn recently “falling in the shower.”

  Then Frank went back to his Variety.

  Me, I spent the afternoon gambling. I could count cards well enough to make blackjack worthwhile, and by five or so had turned twenty bucks into one hundred and twenty. I figured we’d be going to the Sinatra show again, and went back to Marilyn’s chalet and knocked at her door, not sure she was in there.

  I had knocked enough times to decide she wasn’t, when she startled me by answering, her eyes red, her face streaked with tears.

  “Honey,” I said, “what’s wrong?”

  She was still in the lime-green top and white pants but the head scarf was gone and so were the sunglasses.

  “I hate them,” she said, her lower lip quivering. “I hate them!”

  I stepped inside and shut the door and she flung her arms around me and held me tight. I was patting her back and soothing her and doing the “there there” routine, when she turned her face up to mine and her mouth settled on my mouth and her tongue did things. She pulled away and looked at me desperately.

  “Make me feel better,” she said, and she slipped out of her capri pants. No panties, of course.

  She went over to the bed with the lime-green top on and all that flesh below the waist flashing, and she got on her back and planted her heels in the mattress and opened her knees and spread the petals of the flower between her legs. That her top was still on was crazily sexy and I went from three inches to seven in record, throbbing time.

  As I was getting out of the shorts, deciding to leave my polo on so we could make a matched set, she was saying impatiently, “Make me feel better! Make me feel better!”

  I went over there and did my best. She was moaning and crying and how much of it was me and how much was whatever she’d just been through, I had no idea. But her nipple tips poked at the lime-green top and her neck flushed scarlet and her eyes rolled back in her head as I drove myself into her with friendly fury.

  Then, out of breath, wondering if a man in his fifties could die like this but not really caring, I rolled onto my back and she cuddled against me.

  “I feel better,” she said. “I feel better.”

  I waited to see if maybe she’d fall asleep, but I could tell she was awake, so I broached it.

  “Who do you hate?” I asked.

  “Pat and Peter. They took me to their suite and they sat me down like a child and they lectured me. They fucking fucking fucking lectured me!”

  “I bet I know what subject.”

  “They said my relationships with Jack and Bobby were over. No more contact. No more phone calls, no more visits, no more cards, no more letters.”

  “Are you surprised?”

  “Aren’t they men? Jack sent Bobby to send me packing, and now Bobby sends his big sister? And do you know what those two had the nerve to tell me?”

  “No.”

  “That I had to do this for America. Because someday Bobby would be president, and someday—you’ll love this—someday Teddy will be president, and Teddy has a tough race right now, in Massachusetts? For senator? And bad publicity right now would just spoil everything.”

  “Did you fight with them?”

  “You mean argue? No. I just listened. I just nodded. I don’t remember saying anything. Then I came back here and I … I bawled my fucking eyes out. That’s where you came in, remember?”

  “I just hate coming in late on movies.”

  That made her smile, and she kissed me. It was messy, snot and tears and saliva, but it was still wonderful. For about fifteen seconds, I thought she loved me. Maybe she thought so, too. For fifteen seconds.

  “What now, kiddo?”

  She sighed. “Just get through this goddamn weekend. You think this dump has enough champagne to help me do that, Nate?”

  “I should think so. You want to skip Frank’s show tonight?”

  “No! I don’t blame him for this.”

  Apparently the Giancana infraction was forgotten.

  “Anyway,” she said, “I always listen to Frankie before I go to sleep. You come pick me up at seven thirty.”

  I said fine, and was halfway out the door when she called: “But I’m not sitting with those two traitors!”

  She meant the Lawfords.

  “Get us a table for two,” she said, “in back.”

  I made all that happen, and the Lawfords knew she was upset, though she was polite to them, saying she just didn’t want to be in the spotlight tonight, since she wasn’t doing the “full Marilyn.”

  Full or partial, she was lovely in a white satin dress that clung nicely to her lithe figure. She’d combed and arranged and sprayed her hair to decent effect, and the light touch of her makeup I thought looked swell. You could even make out her freckles under the light layer of powder.

  As for Sinatra, he did an almost completely different line-up of songs, and dedicated one to his “friend Zelda Zonk”—“My Funny Valentine.” Maybe he was less than a good man, but he sure was a great artist—“Goody Goody,” “Imagination,” “I Get a Kick Out of You,” and the sheer beauty and sensitivity he brought to “Moonlight in Vermont” was bewildering, if you knew the guy.

  As promised, Marilyn drank a lot of champagne that evening. I held it to a couple of gimlets, because I had a hunch she’d need some tending. We skipped the post-show cocktail lounge bit and I dropped her off at her chalet.

  “Stay again,” she said in the doorway. “I want you here all night.”

  “Can I leave my gun behind?”

  “That depends on what you mean by ‘gun.’”

  I smiled. Kissed her nose. “I’ll be back in five or ten minutes.”

  At my cabin, I got out of my evening clothes and into another polo and some H.I.S. slacks. Grabbed my toothbrush again, and the phone rang.

  “Heller,” I said.

  “Nate,” a rough, familiar voice said. “This is Joe. I’m glad I finally got you.”

  Joe DiMaggio.

  “Listen, that prick Sinatra won’t let me in there. I wanna see Marilyn. I wanna talk to Marilyn.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Not far. I got a room at the Silver Crest Motel. It’s practically next door. She’s there, right? They say at the desk she isn’t registered, but that housekeeper of Marilyn’s told me she was coming up there, to be with Sinatra, that lousy son of a bitch.”

  This was the most words at one time I’d ever heard him string to
gether. And by the way, you could always count on Mrs. Murray, right? What a gal.

  “You came to the wrong guy,” I said. “Kind of like when you and Sinatra went looking for Marilyn, that time?”

  “Huh?”

  “Slugger, you’re the last person on earth I’d put in touch with Marilyn.”

  And I hung up on the bastard.

  When I got to her chalet, Marilyn was watching television. It was a little console that she could see from the round bed, but she wasn’t under the covers, she was sitting on the edge of it, still in her white satin dress.

  Her eyes were wide. Whites showing all around.

  But she wasn’t doing a dumb-blonde Betty Boop shtick—oh, no. She was pissed off. Truly, royally pissed off.

  She looked at me with those eyes staying wide but going crazed. “I just caught the late news. Guess what? Bobby is in LA this weekend!”

  “Really?”

  “He gave a speech to a bunch of goddamn insurance agents. And he’s in to talk with executives at Fox, where he’s trying to get a movie made from his book.”

  “The Enemy Within.”

  “Yes. They say he’s going to be a regular Eliot Ness in the picture. Eliot Ness! Wasn’t he fictional, like Dick Tracy?”

  “Not exactly. Are you all right?”

  She got up, charged over to the set and hit the on/off switch with a little fist. “That’s why they brought me up here! Sure, to lecture me like a bad little girl … but mostly to get my ass out of the way, so I didn’t do anything embarrassing!”

  “I’d say you’re right on the money.”

  “He was in LA, Nate! He could have come to see me! Personally! To talk to me, and tell me himself it’s over. Maybe tell me he still loves me, but it’s a far better fucking thing than he has ever fucking done before! Does he have a spine, your friend? Does he have balls?”

  Now Bobby was my friend. That wasn’t fair.

  “Honey,” I said, “they’re a bunch of self-centered, self-interested bastards.”

  “And bitches! And bitches! Don’t forget Pat!”

  A knock at the door.

  “Get that!” she ordered.

  I got it—it was a bottle of Dom Pérignon in an ice bucket. I took it from the kid, gave him a half a buck and sent him on his way.