CHAPTER 5
The Lawfords lived in what Hollywood types would call a beach house but anybody else would call a mansion. The rambling marble-and-stucco neo-Spanish dwelling on Palisades Beach Road had been Louis B. Mayer’s, once upon a time, visited by-and making an impression upon-young Peter Lawford, back when he was a contract player at MGM.
It could still make an impression, though from without it was just another (if large) Santa Monica beachfront property like those of the neighbors, doctors or lawyers or agents; usually not movie stars, who preferred Malibu or Beverly Hills. Like Marilyn, who lived barely ten minutes away, the Lawfords cared more about comfort than status. When you’re the president’s sister and brother-in-law, status isn’t an issue.
Despite the size of the place-taking up two lots-you could park right in front of it, pulling in like you were at a roadside restaurant. I stepped out into the cool ocean breeze of late afternoon, shadows just starting to go to work, the pound of surf making foamy music.
I’d come right over from my encounter with Roger Pryor and his TV repair van, and had spotted two similar vans (though not ones I recognized as Roger’s) parked within a quarter mile of the fenced-in Lawford estate.
Slipping my Ray-Bans in my sport-shirt pocket, I was about to knock at the front door when two guys in black suits and black ties and black sunglasses materialized and made bookends of themselves. The one on my right was a little older-thirty-five?-and took the lead: “May we help you, sir?”
This was with the warmth of a UNIVAC spitting out a punch card.
“My name’s Nathan Heller,” I said, and got my wallet out and let the windows flip down, displaying my array of investigator’s licenses: Illinois, Los Angeles, New York State. “I’m a friend of Mr. Lawford’s, and of the president and the attorney general.”
That got something that might have been a smile out of the older one. I wondered what branch they were. Was there a permanent fed detail attached to keep an eye on the presidential relatives who lived here?
The younger one, who hadn’t said anything, departed, heading to a black Ford Galaxie parked two down from my Jag.
“Black suit,” I said to the guy on my right, “black tie, black sedan? You guys really know how to blend in here in sunny Cal.”
“Who says we’re trying to blend in?”
“Well, the sunglasses are a start. What if I asked to see your credentials?”
“You could ask.”
I didn’t.
But it only took five minutes for me to be cleared, and I didn’t even have to knock again, as a smiling and slightly chagrined Patricia Kennedy Lawford opened the door on us.
“Mr. Heller,” she said pleasantly, offering a hand for me to take and shake. “Nate. Nice to see you again.”
Pat Lawford wasn’t beautiful-too much Kennedy in her face-but she was certainly striking, tall, slender, not yet forty, fetchingly casual in a blue-and-white striped top and matching blue capris with white Keds.
“Sorry to stop by without calling, Mrs. Lawford. It’s important I see Peter.”
“Certainly, and it’s Pat, of course.”
She opened the door for me, and nodded and smiled tightly at the men in black.
“See you at the company picnic,” I told them, and then the door was closed on them. “Are they always here?”
“Sometimes they’re here,” she said, with a smile that had just enough crinkles in it to say that was none of my business.
I had been inside this house before. I knew it had a dozen rooms and yet managed to have a nice lived-in, comfortable feel while reeking of money.
The Lawfords had intimate parties two or three times a week, dinner and games and cards, with poker usually reserved strictly for “boys’ nights in.” I was not a regular, by any means, nor was I stranger. I’d been here often enough to know Pat made a great beef stew, and Peter’s specialty was liver and bacon with Brussels sprouts. The latter dish was enough to make some invitees inquire on the phone who tonight’s chef would be-Pat, Peter, or their cook.
Also, I was aware Pat could be moody. I’d seen her warm, I’d seen her hostile, I’d seen her indifferent. And I’d seen all that just being here maybe half a dozen times in three years. Today-despite being unsure whether to call me “Mr. Heller” or “Nate”-she was gracious, moving through the spacious, curving living room with windows on the ocean and French doors to wrought-iron balconies.
“Is Peter expecting you?” she asked, glancing back at me.
“No. This is something that just came up. I wouldn’t be so rude as to drop by this late in the day if it wasn’t important.”
“Don’t be silly. We haven’t even made dinner plans yet.”
I noticed she stopped short of inviting me to be part of them.
She guided me outside, down some steps onto the generous skirt of an enormous marble swimming pool separated by a fence from the Pacific, whose tide was rushing in just yards away. Down the beach, the voices of young people, teenagers probably, laughed and shouted, distant, like memories.
In a yellow polo shirt, white slacks and sandals, wearing sunglasses, Peter Lawford was semi-reclined in a lounge-style deck chair next to a small white metal table. He was reading Ship of Fools by Katherine Anne Porter. That was my first clue to something being amiss-like me, he was more the Harold Robbins type; that had to be Pat’s book.
On the white table was a pitcher of what was probably martinis, but the only glass was in Lawford’s hand. Maybe he was thirsty. The guy did put away a lot of booze, I could testify.
“Well, Nathan Heller,” Lawford said, with a sudden dazzling smile, tossing the book without marking his place, scrambling up to greet me, “this is a pleasant surprise.”
Always Nathan with him, not Nate.
We shook hands, pump-handle style. The last time I’d seen him, I’d taken two hundred bucks off him in poker, so this welcome was warmer than need be. This felt mildly staged, and I had a hunch I knew why.
Lawford looked typically tanned and slender, befitting his recent run as TV’s Thin Man; gray was coming in at the temples, but that was a full head of hair. Not exactly the biggest star in Hollywood, he still had the looks, and a certain grace, though he looked older than his mid-thirties. A limber six feet, he walked me over to a larger white metal table and tossed his sunglasses there-his eyes were as dark as the shades-where two chairs awaited under a white umbrella. Giddy laughter echoed up the beach. Surf rumbled. Sea birds called.
Pat brought over the pitcher of martinis, identifying it as such and asking if I’d like her to bring me a glass, or she could make me something else?
“You’re a gimlet man, if I recall,” she said.
Vodka gimlet, but damned close. I was getting waited on by the president’s sister. Wasn’t I special?
“No, I’m fine, Pat. Thanks. Shouldn’t be here long.”
She smiled tightly; her eyes weren’t as friendly as the rest of her face. “Well, then. I’ll leave you boys to it.”
And she went briskly inside. There was something military about it.
Lawford looked after her fondly. “I’ll never know how I managed that,” he said.
“None of us will,” I admitted, knowing the word was they were desperately unhappy. “I’m going to tell you something off the record.”
“Of course,” he said. He got a gold cigarette case out from his breast pocket, found a lighter in his pants, and lighted up. He didn’t offer me one-he knew I didn’t smoke.
“I can’t give you details without violating the trust of my client,” I said. “There won’t be any details. So don’t ask. All you get is a general warning.”
Now he was frowning. “What is this about, Nathan?”
“If my client wasn’t already compromised, I don’t think I’d even be here. This is a tricky one.”
