discuss, is that for a long time she was seeing many doctors-most of whom did not know of one another’s existence.”
“So she could get prescriptions from a raft of them. It’s an old dodge.”
He nodded grimly, then gave me a half smile that seemed almost a smirk. “Right now she has only two doctors, her internist, with whom I work closely, and myself. I completely weaned her off all of these drugs-my God, Mr. Heller, when we first met, she was on a laundry list of medications… Demerol, Sodium Pentothal, phenobarbital, Amytal, Nembutal… and currently she is clean. She uses a little chloral hydrate for her insomnia problem, but that’s all.”
“This internist-what’s he giving her? I assume you know.”
“Right now, Dr. Engelberg is giving her injections of vitamins and liver extract. This is strictly for her sinusitis.” He shook his head. “You know those bastards at the studio, they were giving her what they call ‘hot shots’-God knows what was in them, methamphetamines certainly.”
“During the shooting of Something’s Got to Give, you mean?”
“Yes.” His expression turned bitter. “I was out of the country during much of the filming, unfortunately, having booked speaking engagements far in advance. I delivered her into their arms clean, and they turned her dirty with drugs again.”
“But now?”
He sipped his Scotch, shrugged. “She’s fine. She has amazing recuperative powers, this child.”
“Marilyn told me she was blessed with a rare ability to go cold turkey without suffering the usual heebie- jeebies.”
The half smile again, and it was definitely a smirk. “I might put it somewhat differently, Mr. Heller, but yes. She’s a remarkable woman.”
“Yet she needs a shrink.”
“She needs psychotherapy, yes she does.”
“And you’re providing it. You make a habit of making house calls to your famous patients?”
“No, Marilyn is a special case.”
“How special?”
“You know I can’t get into that. I will tell you, Mr. Heller, that I have made myself available to her on a twenty-four-hour basis.”
“Really? How often do you see her?”
“As often as every other day.”
“My God, can even Marilyn Monroe afford that?”
“She cannot afford to do otherwise. Mr. Heller… she is not just a patient to me. She’s like… a member of the family.”
That was weird.
“So then what’s the family rate?”
He thought about whether he wanted to answer that. After several long seconds, he did: “I charge her half of what I regularly bill my patients.”
He was making me work for it.
“What’s your regular rate?”
“One hundred dollars an hour.”
“So what’s Marilyn’s normal monthly bill?”
“Really, Mr. Heller…”
“Okay. That was overstepping.”
But if he was seeing her every other day, for say two hours a session, that worked out to something like fifteen hundred bucks a month.
Suddenly Marilyn was leaning against the door frame. “So this is where you boys went to. Getting along?”
“Famously,” I said, and gave her a reassuring smile.
Greenson said, “Your friend Mr. Heller has been probing to see what makes me tick. He would make an excellent psychoanalyst himself.”
“We’re both snoops, Doc,” I said with a shrug.
Marilyn smiled at that, but I could see in her eyes that she was wondering if we’d been trading secrets. Her secrets.
The psychiatrist rose. “I should be getting back.”
As we moved through the kitchen, where Greenson placed his empty glass in the sink, Marilyn glanced my way.
“Dr. Greenson mostly works out of his home, you know. You should see it! It’s a dream. Like a hacienda out of some wonderful old movie.”
“Really?”
Did that explain the house she’d chosen for herself?
Marilyn stayed framed in the doorway while I spoke briefly with Greenson as I walked him to his BMW.
“Our approaches may differ,” I told him quietly, “but I’m going to take you at your word-that we both want what’s best for Marilyn.”
“I hope so, Mr. Heller,” he said. He offered his hand, and I shook it. “I hope so.”
Inside, Marilyn hooked her arm in mine and whispered, “Do you want to inspect your accomplice’s gadget?”
“Sure,” I said.
She took me to the fitting room, shut us inside, and pointed to the phones. “They don’t look any different, do they?”
“No, they wouldn’t. The gizmo’s inside.”
“But look at this.”
She walked me to a small closet. Several hatboxes were stacked on a high shelf. On tiptoes, she handed them to me, one by one, and I stacked them on the floor. When she was done, she had exposed a tape recorder.
“The reels aren’t spinning now,” she said, pointing up at the machine. “Because it’s voice-activated, your man said. He was very nice.”
“Yeah, Roger’s okay.” I thought he’d be operating from his van, but didn’t say anything. What she said next explained it, though.
“He said he could make the recordings,” she said, “from a distance? But I wanted to be able to listen to them myself. And collect them myself.”
I had no comment. I helped her put the hatboxes back in place and she gave me a wicked little smile.
“This spy stuff is fun, isn’t it?”
“Not really,” I said.
I crooked my finger and she frowned, but followed me as I led her through her house and back into the living room, where I slid open a glass door onto the pool area. She stayed right with me as I slid the door shut.
I pointed to the black wrought-iron chairs on the opposite side of the pool, she nodded, and we went over there.
She perched on the edge of one chair, her arms draped between her open legs, hands folded. “You’re acting funny.”
“Marilyn, something’s occurred to me.”
“What has?”
“If you’ve thought about tapping your phone, somebody else could have done the same.”
Her eyes widened as her forehead tightened. “Did your associate say they were already tapped?”
“No. I’m just saying… if things are serious enough in your life, for you to take this step… somebody else could have taken that step, too… only not with your best interests in mind.”
“You think my phones may already be tapped?”
“It’s possible. And you can just about bug an entire house through nothing but the phones. I mean, you can hear not just phone conversations but things being said in the room, even other rooms.”
