by Jon Jacks
Lee shouts back almost as loud.
What’s he given away to get that? You tell me, eh, you tell me!’
Brad puts an arm round my shoulders, like the supporting father.
I feel I’m supporting him, the way his weight leans against me now and again. His breath is stale, too close.
‘That JFK boy!’ He winks. ‘You gotta know, kid, cos you’re sure as hell gonna know soon enough, that he ain’t the fine upstanding young President you perhaps might think he is.’
He chuckles, splutters, repeats, ‘Upstanding!’
He gives a slow wave to Marina and Lee as he leads me out of the room.
‘I need to talk to the boy alone, if you don’t mind Marina, Lee?’
Marina smiles, nods. Lee waves dismissively with a raised hand.
Now Brad holds me tightly by both shoulders, leans down and looks me as straight in the eye as he can in his condition.
The father about to give his son a lecture – you need a grip on yourself boy!
‘Look kid, you might be wondering why, when you told me our Miss Monroe was too happy to commit suicide, I took it all with a pinch of salt, yeah?’
‘But you know she didn’t commit suicide. You’ve said that yourself now. You said she was murdered.’
‘Sure kid, that’s right; but we still don’t know who did it, right?’
‘Sure.’ I nod, wondering where all this is heading.
‘What I’m saying, kid, is that I never bought into all this she’s so wonderfully happy because she had a wonderful weekend with Joe sh–. Because I know things you don’t know kid.’
I say nothing. I just look up at him, warily.
He’s gonna tell me, I know he is. What it is, I don’t know.
‘See kid, it wasn’t Joe who arranged that wonderfully idyllic weekend up at Lake Tahoe like you think, comprende? It was Frank, Frank Sinatra, who’d set it all up. Him and his old friend Sam Giancana – a Mafia mobster kid, get that? Planning on plying her with drugs and taking compromising photos. Stuff they could use as blackmail if she threatened to expose the Kennedys. Old Joe, he turns up unexpectedly, late Saturday night. See, our sweetly innocent Marilyn had invited him. He’s furious, you bet, what with Sinatra and the Kennedys luring Marilyn there.’
‘The Kennedys? Why would they do that? Why get her up there?’’
‘JFK kid; he had been, shall we say, seeing your precious Marilyn.’
‘Seeing?’
I say it like I’m some dumb kid.
I’m just trying to get my thoughts together, know what I mean?
I know what he means.
He looks down at his feet, trying to think of another way of saying it.
‘I never saw it,’ I say.
He guffaws drunkenly.
‘You think she’d let you know kid? Fact that she’s dating the President? She’d keep it secret boy!’
‘She never kept a single secret from Ralph – and he told me most things.’
‘Ralph? Ah, yes, Ralph Roberts? Her masseur.’
‘She called Ralph her brother.’
I try to keep the envy out of my voice. I can feel my vocal chords quivering. Sh–.
‘There wasn’t much he didn’t know about her. You know what she said about Bobby Kennedy? She said he was puny. That she liked him, but not, you know, body wise.’
Ralph would massage her as she lay in front of the sunroom. By the pool she hardly ever used.
Ralph would prepare an ice bath, and Marilyn would add her perfume.
Chanel No. 5.
She’d use Nivea Skin Moisturizing Lotion. For her face, when not wearing makeup, she’d smear it with lanolin, olive oil, even Vaseline.
She’d also rinse her face fifteen times after every wash; part of her beauty regime.
She’d also regularly dine with Ralph out there, by the pool. Looking out over the most incredible views of the valley below.
‘Sure kid.’ Brad shakes me hard by the shoulder. ‘And you know what she said about the President? That he made love like an adolescent.’
He grins at this.
‘It was all over in about minute, know what I mean? But it didn’t stop the broads fancying the hell out him. Didn’t stop Marilyn dating him.’
‘She didn’t want to be the wife of no politician!’
‘We’re not talking politician here kid. We’re talking President. We’re talking First Lady.’
‘He was already married. He already had a First Lady.’
He snorts, trying to hold back his laughter.
‘You telling me you don’t think a sex puss like Marilyn couldn’t knock a sour puss like Jackie way out of the ball park? Let me tell you kid, you must know about the happy birthday bash for the President; where Marilyn stood up, sang, wowed the entire audience?’
‘Sure. Madison Square Garden. Who’s not to know about that?’
‘Wow, kid, let me tell you I was there. And if anyone had sung Happy Birthday to me like that, well – I’d think all my birthdays had come all at once, know what I mean?’
I shrug. Yeah, I know what he means.
Everyone who’s seen it knows what he means.
That dress cost her twelve thousand dollars. A Jean Louis beaded gown, she called it.
She’d told me, giggling, that she’d had herself stitched into the dress just before she went on stage. Making sure it clung to every curve of her body, like it was a sparkling, sliver skin.
Afterwards, they had to carefully snip her out of it. Bathe her with cool hand towels to lower her temperature.
Even when she’d simply stepped out into the stage lights, the audience had gasped.
They’d roared as she’d approached the mike.
She went out in an ermine wrap, letting it fall behind her into that limey Lawford’s hands.
Then she started singing.
‘Kid, she sang so breathlessly, it was like mass seduction out there, believe me. The crowd yelling and screaming for more. And you know what the President said afterwards? He thanked her for singing to him in “such a sweet and wholesome way”. But the crowd knew kid, they knew for sure after her singing to the President like that – she was the President's lover, kid.’
I shake my head, grin sickly.
‘Kid, that limey, Lawford; he knew it. He was teasing the whole crowd with in-jokes about a secret most of them already knew. Hell, even the First Lady knew it kid – she stayed away.’
‘So what gives? Why you telling me all this all of a sudden?’
Now he’s the one to shrug.
‘You telling me I’m so stupid I didn’t notice you had a thing for Marilyn? Even though she was way out of your league –your age group even, kid?’
He clutches me by the shoulders once again. Holds me so he can look directly into my eyes.
‘There are some broads we fall for who just ain’t attainable, savvy?’
He says it like there’s some hidden meaning behind it all.
‘Guess I’m just giving you a quick introduction to the hard facts of life, seeing as how pop ain’t around to do the deed.’
He lets my shoulders go, lets me step back.
‘Life’s hard kid. Makes us face up to things we don’t really want to face up to. What’d you think it was like for the First Lady, eh? You think Jackie knew what I know? That the fine, upstanding JFK maintained a penthouse in the Carlyle Hotel?’
He pauses, letting this sink in.
‘That’s where he went after the event with Marilyn. Me and a few other agents, we snuck them both in there. Tunnels running from Arthur Krim’s house to the hotel, you credit that kid? Krim, he’s a theatrical big wig. Held a party after the event. Marilyn’s there no more than an hour before Jack and Bobby take her away into a corner. A photographer took a picture; boy, were they pissed!’
I’m angry, the way he thinks all this is one huge joke.
‘There were other occasions too, kid. A weekend at Bing
Crosby’s house out in Palm Springs. Plenty of meetings down at the limey Lawford’s house. In her own house too. Probably when you weren’t around. One of our guys caught her nipping naked out of a shower the President was using. Like they didn’t care who knew what they were up to.’
‘You were the one saying the Kennedys weren’t involved in her death!’
‘Not in her death, kid. They weren’t involved in her death! The President called off the whole thing. Worried ’bout what it’d do to his political career, the family name.’
Another pause.
‘Can’t you get what I’m really saying here kid? Women are a lot more complicated than you seem to think they are. Just because they show you a bit of kindness, well, it don’t mean they’re coming on to you. It’s an easy mistake to make; even old Bobby, once the President had dropped her, even he got it into his dumb-ass head that he had a chance with her. That he could just pick up the pieces. He wanted it, you betcha. But I checked; their diaries, their schedules. She and Bobby were never alone together, unless you’re counting the time he called round to tell her the bad news – that the President was dropping her.’
‘You checked? You went through their diaries?’
‘Yeah, why not kid? When I start looking into these things, I check all angles. I’d heard the rumours about Bobby and Marilyn. Fact is, only contact they had was because the President got him to do his cleaning up for him. See, Marilyn was becoming a bit of a nuisance. Refusing to take the hint, even when her calls to the White House weren’t being answered. The number JFK had given her, see, had been changed. The operators gave her the usual kiss off; he was in an important conference, that sort of thing. But hey, this had been the real thing for Marilyn – she’d begun to imagine life as a future First Lady.’
He holds up the palm of his hand to me; he’s not going to listen to my protests.
‘Now JFK, he ain’t got the guts to tell her to her face that it’s over. He sends Bobby to do his dirty work. Bobby’s the expert at this sort of thing. He hides JFK’s affairs with a Mafia party girl, Judith Exner, classifying phone logs and documents as top-secret. He deports a young German broad soon as he finds out she’s also been seen around with a Soviet attaché. These guys are vicious, kid. So not long after she’s fired from the set of Something’s gotta Give, Bobby takes Marilyn for a walk round her own pool. Takes well over an hour to get it into her head that she’s gotta stop calling the White House. Then that’s it; the Kennedy family have quietly locked her out. She just don’t exist to them no more.’
‘You saying all this sh– was going on when she was having all those problems filming Something’s gotta Give?’
‘If you’re thinking that’s what might have caused her to be fired kid, I’m way ahead of you. I’ve checked Dr Greenson’s files too kid; he knew all this was going on. Says the damage to her fragile state of mind just couldn’t be imagined, know what I’m saying?’
‘But how could they treat her like that?’
‘To guys like these, it means nothing kid. It’s the rich college boy, see? Dumping the girlfriend from the wrong side of the tracks.’
*
Chapter 32
Marina sits with me, listening intently as I repeat what Brad’s just told me.
As I tell her what I can remember about Marilyn’s death.
Tell her that I’m sure Bobby was there that night.
*
‘Maybe he there to tell her for sure it all over with the President. Maybe she commit suicide, if she wanting to be First Lady.’
She says it all with a sad face. Like a mom telling her kid that Fido’s died.
I shrug.
I hadn’t told her about the autopsy. About the way the drugs had been… It all just seems like it’s an insult to Marilyn’s memory to talk about all that.
‘It hurt badly, Jack, when you told it all over. You reject, is that word?’
I smile, nod.
‘Rejected. You’re not wanted.’
‘Like you, like Lee, I from broken family Jack. I see Lee, I see it hurt badly. When your father leave, not want you. We feel crazy sometime, not know how deal it – deal it right words, yes? Deal it different ways. Marilyn she become sexy woman; no one, she think, leave sexy woman. But then someone do leave her.’
‘It weren’t no suicide Marina. Brad knows that, for sure. I can’t explain how I know. But we know it for sure.’
She places a hand on mine. The consoling hand again. The concerned smile.
‘You said President also have love for girl, Mafia girl? They kill everyone, the Mafia?’
I can’t help but grin at Marina’s naivety. She’s probably been told all about the Mafia in Russia. Or got her ideas ’bout them from the movies.
‘There ain’t no reason for them to go popping Marilyn, Marina!’
‘But you say Mr President, he make love like young boy, yes? So what they do when together all these times? They talk, yes? Maybe he learn some things from Mafia girl, he tell Marilyn. Mafia they want “shut her up”, yes?’
I laugh at her innocence, move my hand on top of hers and grip it tightly.
‘Yeah, suppose they could,’ I say. ‘But some how I don’t think so.’
Lee’s seated just behind us at the table, writing his ‘memoirs’. He’s obviously overheard.
He says, ‘It ain’t as crazy as you’d think, Jack.’
He stands up, comes round to our front. I quickly let go of Marina’s hand.
‘Think about it Jack; the Kennedys ain’t wanting it out that JFK’s been playing around with some broad on the FBI files as an associate of communists. A broad who even married a suspected communist, Arthur Miller. The Mafia’s pissed, Bobby Kennedy waging war on them. Take down the most famous woman in the world and you expose these guys as hypocrites. More so if you can somehow tie ’em in with her death.’
‘But it ain’t happened like that, has it Lee? No one’s really admitting Marilyn was killed. Let alone tying in the Kennedys.’
‘So the Mafia ain’t counting on how well Bobby could cover their tracks. Ain’t I hearing you say he’d made phone logs top-secret, so no one ain’t gonna access them? Who’s to say he ain’t done that here?’
‘But how’d the Mafia know about Marilyn and the President?’
‘Someone would know. The Mafia pay for information. They may have bugged her home. Who knows what JFK might have said to this Judith what’s-her-name, the Mafia chick? Right-wing organisations, like your CIA, Jack, they could be feeding information to the Mafia.’
‘Oh, Lee – Jack not want hear you going on about right-wing groups waiting take over America!’
‘Why would the CIA be helping the Mafia?’
I grin as I say it, thinking it’s all so crazy. Plus I don’t really like the thought that it might be the Mafia who’s out to kill me.
‘To bring down the President, Jack. To install their own regime. A symbol of the American way, Jack, is that we allow the existence of the Communist Party U.S.A. It’s a sign of our strength, our liberalism, that we allow them to operate, support their right to speak. Their views, no matter how misguided, no matter how much the Russians take advantage of them, must be allowed to be aired. But you think the far right agree with that? Now, you might think, like most Americans, that we’re not some Latin American country, where our government could be easily replaced by a military coup. But is that true? Sure, our Army, our Navy, our air force, are actually so vast, so spread out in bases across the world, that there’s little chance of them making such a move. What you need for a coup, Jack? You know? You need something smaller, concentrated in just a few bases. And with a permanent, hard core of officers. Know who fits that description Jack? Let me give you a clue; President Truman said the Marine Corps should be abolished.’
‘But weren’t you in the Marines?�
� It’s all I can think of saying.
‘My brother joined; I thought I should too. Got me away from mom.’
Marina says something to him in Russian. She sounds angry.
Thing is, though, a lot of things said in Russian sound angry. Harsh, hard words.
Lee answers back, sounding even angrier.
It’s worrying when they’re like this.
I’m sure Lee, like my Pop with Mom, hits her now and again when I’m not around.
Then again, Pop used to hit Mom when I was around. So there is a difference.
But Marina, like Mom, tries to make out that she’s banged her eye on a door, a cupboard, that sorta thing.
Like she’s a walking accident, who ain’t capable of passing a piece of wood without banging into it.
And Lee, like Pop with Mom, says he loves her. He just naturally gets a bit upset with her now and again, know what I mean?
‘Is there anything to eat?’
I look at them both as I ask. They both look at me, stop their squabbling.
‘I thought you said you were a reader, Jack,’ Lee says irritably. ‘So how come I never see you reading, eh?’
He storms off, out the door. Heading off somewhere outside.
Marina smiles at me.
‘I make you sandwich,’ she says brightly, turning and stepping towards what passes for a kitchen in here.
Yep, that’s what I feel like, I think; a sandwich.
*
Whenever Marina and Lee are out, I continue with what Brad calls my ‘self-improvement exercises’ in front of the mirror.
I stare at myself. I write on the pad.
‘Gin a body meet a body
Comin’ thro’ the rye.’
It all comes so natural, just repeating it time after time.
What was the rest, how did it go, what’s that poem?’
‘Gin a body kiss a body
Need a body cry?’
It reminds me of Marilyn, of Marilyn’s body. Her naked body. Her dead body.
Did the Kennedys cry?
‘Yet a' the lads they smile at me
When Comin’ thro’ the rye.’
They smiled at her. They used her.
They kissed her body. They pushed her aside.
She’s out of their life. It’s a relief to them, her death.
They won’t cry over her body.
‘JFK is a phoney.’
‘JFK is a phoney.’
‘JFK is a phoney.’
‘JFK is a phoney.’