Nobody argued when Sinatra invited everybody to join him in the cocktail lounge. It was one of the resort’s most popular spots, with a big circular bar under a colorful stained-glass dome. Frank had reserved the section by the tall windows overlooking the lake, whose surface was playing mirror for the sickle-slice moon. There, on stools, sat the Lawfords, Sinatra, Marilyn, and I-no sign of Giancana, but then green-felt tables lined the periphery. Definitely the Nevada side.
The drinking was heavy and the talk was light, dominated by praise for Frank’s show (Lawford’s fawning got fairly sickening). Resort guests who said hi to Frank would get nods and smiles, even if he was in the midst of conversation; he was a convivial host unless somebody overstepped.
One guy in his forties with a thirtyish female on his arm came right up and said, “Frank, I want you to meet my girl.”
Sinatra gave him a snarl of a smile and said, “You want me to meet your girl? Does she want to meet me? Can’t she speak for herself? Who are you to do the talking? Is she deaf and dumb, this girl of yours?”
The couple froze in shock, then melted away.
Peter, finding a little spine somewhere, said, “For Christ’s sake, Frank, why do that?”
Sinatra shrugged and returned to his martini. “I don’t know. I can’t help it. Some people are just so goddamn dumb.”
A few celebrity types stopped by to pay their respects to the Chairman of the Board-a nickname bestowed on Sinatra when he thumbed his nose at Capitol Records, who’d revived his career, and started his own label, Reprise.
The respect-payers included singer Buddy Greco, between shows in the Indian Lounge, and restaurateur Mike Romanoff and his wife, Gloria. Greco was a talented guy and cocky, and treated Sinatra like an equal, which was dangerous. Romanoff was that well-liked fraud who pretended to be Russian royalty, a dapper, homely little septuagenarian with a mustache and a beautiful brunette wife many decades younger.
I knew Romanoff only slightly, from his restaurant, and his wife not at all; but they were close friends of both the Lawfords and Sinatra, because “Prince” Michael had been part of Humphrey Bogart’s original Rat Pack, of which Frank’s current crop was an extension.
As they gabbed, Marilyn probably appeared bored or even in a haze to onlookers; perhaps that was why no one, famous or otherwise, came over to talk to her, just acknowledged her with a smile. Even resort guests didn’t speak to her or ask for an autograph, merely moved slowly by, gazing, as if at Mount Rushmore.
I knew she’d been shaken badly by Giancana’s presence. And in forty-five minutes or so, she’d put away enough champagne for a small wedding party. She’d spilled some, and it shimmered on her black dress like embedded jewels.
I whispered, “Want to get out of here?”
She just nodded, and gathered up her little black purse.
I went over to Sinatra. “I’m gonna walk Marilyn home.”
“Walk her all the way to Brentwood,” he said unpleasantly, “far as I care. I hate a sloppy broad.”
I gave him a look.
He gave me one back. “You think I arranged that? I didn’t know Momo would be here. He comes to a lot of my openings. You’re not calling me a liar, are you, Nate?”
“Not while you’re my client,” I said. “Maybe off the clock, next week, I’ll have a different opinion.”
He decided to laugh at that.
I went over and took Marilyn by the arm and walked her out into a warm but breezy night. The occasional splash of neon and the shrill sounds of gambling and drink were at odds with the beauty of the Cal-Neva grounds, the fir trees, the rocky hillsides, the shelves of granite, touched lightly by moonlight.
“That awful man,” she said, and shuddered. She was clutching my arm as if afraid to fall from a height.
“I don’t suppose you mean Romanoff,” I said. She might have meant Sinatra. But I didn’t think so.
“You know who I mean. He has a lot of names. Mooney. Gold. Flood. Giancana. Frank calls him Momo. What kind of name is that for a man-Momo?”
“I’m surprised you know him by any name,” I said.
“I don’t know him, really. But he’s a friend of Frank’s. So I’ve met him. He’s not supposed to be here, is he?”
“No.”
“Did Frank invite him?”
“Maybe. Or maybe he just showed. The guy is a co-owner of this place.”
“He’s also a killer, isn’t he?”
“He used to be.”
“Why, can you stop being one?”
Damn good question.
Suddenly she put on the brakes and clutched my arm even harder. “I need you to stay with me tonight.”
“Well, sure.” Some men might turn down an offer like that from Marilyn Monroe, but I wasn’t one of them.
“Only… we need to stop by your cabin first. Isn’t that your cabin? Right there?”
My nod affirmed that.
“Well, I want you to go get your gun.”
“What?
“I want you to go get your gun and you’re going to protect me.” She wobbled. “You’re my bodyguard, aren’t you?”
“Sam Giancana isn’t going to come shoot you, honey. Or send anybody, either.”
Her inebriation had her overenunciating, the way she did in comedy roles. “I am a threat. I am a threat to ev-ery-body. Haven’t you been paying attention?”
“Sweetie, the last thing Giancana or your friend Frankie would want is a dead body turning up here on their premises. A famous dead body would be even worse. Your famous dead body, particularly.”
She had started shaking her head halfway through that, her platinum tresses struggling to free themselves of their hair-sprayed helmet. “Get your gun. Get your gun. Get your gun.”
I got my gun.
She came in and peed while I traded my formal wear for a polo and chinos and sandals. The nine-millimeter, extracted from my suitcase, I stuffed in my waistband. My toothbrush I stuck in my pocket. A man with a gun and a toothbrush can go anywhere.
We made it up the stairs onto the balcony of her chalet, despite her stumbling a little. She found her key in the purse and let herself in, and I followed. It was a fairly standard if nicely appointed motel room, similar to mine, somewhat larger, same beige walls and rather small bathroom. The only extra touch was a round bed, like Hefner’s (minus the gizmos), with a pink satin bedspread. In the corner, angled to face the door, was a white, overstuffed chaise lounge.
She pointed at the lounge. “That’s your post.”
“Okay.” But I didn’t take my position just yet. “Gonna hit the hay?”
It was about 1:00 A.M.
She was over by the foot of the bed, or where the foot would be if the thing weren’t round. “I think so. I’m reading some scripts.” A pile sat on her nightstand. “I may take a few sleeping pills.”
“Just so you don’t overdo.”
She headed toward the bathroom. “I’ll be fine. Just a little chloral hydrate.”
“In my business we call that a Mickey Finn.”
“In mine,” she said, pills in her mouth, water running, “we call it Marilyn’s little helpers.”
I went over to the chaise lounge and stretched out. Comfy. Nearby, a floor lamp provided the only illumination. The nine-millimeter nudged me in that half-sitting position, so I placed it on the floor to my right.
She came out in a sheer bra and nothing else, her amber tuft nicely unruly.
“If I’m not being ungentlemanly,” I said, “why a bra and no panties?”
She cupped her breasts. “Pussies don’t sag.”
Wasn’t that a mystery novel by A. A. Fair?
She clicked on her bedside lamp and suggested I switch my light off, unless I wanted to borrow a script to read. I declined, and she got under the covers and read for a while, and in maybe five minutes was asleep. I went over, put the script on the nightstand stack, turned off the lamp, and returned to my post.
I was fairly tired, and maybe a little drunk, though nowhere near as tipsy as Marilyn had been. So I might have fallen asleep quickly if my mind hadn’t insisted on tormenting me with various nasty thoughts, the first of which was that I had brought a gun into the motel room of a woman notorious for suicide attempts.
If Marilyn used my nine-millimeter, at some despairing point in the night, I might as well use it on myself, too, for how little career I’d have left.
Then there was Sinatra. I didn’t believe for a second that Giancana’s presence wasn’t his idea, to remind Marilyn just how deep and dangerous were the waters she was swimming in, and I didn’t mean Lake Tahoe or the kidney-shaped pool.
But Giancana’s presence could cost Sinatra his gaming license, and guaranteed a weekend presence at the lodge of FBI agents, male and female, racking up fun expenses on Uncle Sam’s account. This, at the very time Marilyn-a Communist sympathizer in J. Edgar’s view-and President Kennedy’s sister were also Sinatra’s guests at Cal-Neva.
I couldn’t imagine Pat Lawford had been thrilled to find her brother Bobby’s nemesis playing host. But she was complicit nonetheless-this weekend wasn’t about celebrating MM’s new Fox contract, was it? It was about Peter and Pat putting the pressure on Marilyn. A real three-ring circus, and Sinatra was providing the tent.
But confronting Frank was pointless. First, the damage was done-Giancana had shown his lizard-like face and spooked Marilyn, and whether he was still around tomorrow was a moot point. Second, Sinatra was my client, and while I was Marilyn’s bodyguard, the Voice was paying the freight.
Don’t think it wasn’t tough work for a guy, trying to get to sleep in a lounge chair with a mostly naked Marilyn Monroe a few feet away. She was snoring a little, but that didn’t help, because even her goddamn snoring was sexy…
When the knock came at the door, sunlight was edging around the drapes.
Mouth thick, I glanced at my wristwatch-ten o’clock.
The knock wasn’t insistent, sort of tentative, but I went to answer it fast, because Marilyn was still sleeping, stretched out on her tummy with her dimpled fanny up and uncovered, and I didn’t want to disturb her. Or spoil the view.
While I knew it was ridiculous, I took my gun with me. Stuffed in my waistband again, but in back this time.
I cracked the door and looked over the night-latch chain at Peter Lawford. He looked quietly sporty in a black pullover and gray slacks.
“Nathan? Is Marilyn all right?”
I undid the latch, slipped out and onto the balcony. The sun was bright and glancing off the lake in golden shafts that cut through the green of firs.
“She’s fine,” I said softly, almost whispering. “Sleeping. She had a lot to drink last night. Let’s let her sleep it off.”
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.”
Sinatra 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 together. 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 Perignon in an ice bucket. I took it from the kid, gave him a half a buck and sent him on his way.
“Somebody sent you champagne,” I said.
“Right. Somebody who loves me. Me.”
We sat on the bed, backs to the headboard, sipping champagne. Or anyway I sipped it. She pretty much gulped. She told me in detail about her relationship with Bobby, how many times they met, how many times they’d made love, all of the elaborate promises he’d made, including leaving Ethel for her. In Bobby’s defense, if Marilyn Monroe is in your arms, any man is probably going to want to leave any woman named Ethel.
Then she got up and walked around the room, pacing, stalking, describing everything she was going to say and do in public. Telling me about notebooks she’d kept and how she had Bobby on two of the tapes, thanks to my wiretap. Shit, and I’d warned him! Finally she got tired and came back with a glass in one hand and the champagne bottle in the other.
“What kind of notebooks?” I asked.
“Spiral kind. Started when I would get help from Romy and from his son, Danny, to come up with good questions to ask Bobby. I’d write those down in a spiral. Bobby’s an intellectual. I know current events okay, but not enough to talk to the General.”
That’s what she called Bobby sometimes: the General.
“So,” she was saying, in her comic overenunciated way, “I’d come home and write down the things he’d say. Answers to my questions. Wouldn’t like some of that to come out, would they? Cuba, for instance?”
She was too drunk to reason with, so I just agreed with her.
It was probably around two or maybe even later when she passed out. I lifted her like a bride about to be carried over a threshold, and somehow maneuvered the covers back and nestled her in there.
I slept on the chaise lounge again, considering this bodyguard duty. I’d had my reward this afternoon.
The next morning, she woke before I did. In fact, she jostled me awake.
“Nate? I’m getting some air. Sorry. Go back to sleep, sugar. Didn’t want you to wake up and see I was gone.”
She was in a white bathrobe and slippers. I watched her slip out, like a ghost, then got up. Like yesterday, I was already dressed. I took time to pee and brush my teeth.
My watch said 6:00 A.M. Fog was settling in along the lake shore. I found Marilyn sitting at the pool again, her sandals off, kicking water gently, like a very small child. But her eyes were on a nearby hillside, a patch of green and granite up between cabins, including my own, where a figure stood like a sentry.
It was a guy in a red sport shirt and blue slacks, the colors making him pop out of the wilderness setting. And even from a distance you could tell it was Joe DiMaggio. They were staring at each other.
Fuck it. I went in to see if I could get myself some breakfast. No matter what I thought of the guy, they deserved their privacy.
And he was far enough away he couldn’t swing on her.
We flew back that afternoon, on Sinatra’s jet. She had spent the rest of the morning in her chalet. I offered to stay with her but she told me, very sweetly, she needed to be alone.
Pat and Sinatra did not make the trip back. Mrs. Lawford flew to San Francisco, to make a connection that would send her to Hyannis Port; and Sinatra still had performances to give at Cal-Neva. I had my usual bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel booked ahead, since I wanted to take advantage of this Frank-funded trip to do some business and see my son again.
So it was just Lawford, Marilyn, and me on the plane. Very little conversation ensued. Both Peter and Marilyn were quite drunk, the former napping, the latter having even more champagne, courtesy of Joni, Sinatra’s stewardess, whose number I snagged.
I didn’t bother Marilyn, but as we were about to land-darkness had fallen in Los Angeles-I told her I’d be in town for a week or so.
“What we talked about last night,” I said softly, Lawford snoring up a storm across from us, “you need to just forget all of that, and move on. With your career. Your life.”
The beautiful face, bearing only lipstick and light powder, was an expressionless mask. “Are you lecturing me now, Nate?”
“No. I’m just a friend who wants the best for you.”
“I know.” Almost a smile. “I know.”
When the wheels touched noisily down, Lawford woke up briefly, then settled back to sleep as we taxied.
“With this Fox thing settled,” I whispered, “you want me to stop by and take out that wiretap?”
“You’re free to stop by,” she whispered back, and squeezed my arm. “But leave the wiretap.”
“What for, honey?”
“You’re not always around, Nate. And I may need protection.”
A limo was waiting for her. There’d been rain earlier, and she was in her bare feet, tiptoeing toward the vehicle, lugging a red leather cosmetic case and matching bag. She was in her head scarf but no sunglasses, still in the trusty lime-green top and white capris. The driver opened the door for her, and she got in.
Then she was just a pretty face smiling at me from the window, tiny hand waving, disappearing.