Half an hour later, in an alley in downtown Beverly Hills-somehow it was surprising Beverly Hills even had alleys-I helped Marilyn out of the Jag. I stuffed the nine-millimeter in the glove compartment, then joined her at the anonymous-looking door.
She was in an ordinary black suit, not the work of some top designer, with a full, flowing black wig and black sunglasses. Anywhere but this part of the world, or maybe certain parts of Europe, the sunglasses would have attracted attention this time of night.
The doctor-who had put a white jacket over a polo shirt and chinos-answered her knock immediately. I doubted this was a rarity, attending a celebrity patient after hours; certainly using the rear door wasn’t, since this was the top plastic surgery clinic in Beverly Hills, and gossip columnists were known to keep an eye on comings and goings.
His name was Dr. Michael Gordon, and he didn’t look old enough to have been the doc who gave Marilyn her minor plastic surgeries at the start of her career, in the late 1940s; but then he was a plastic surgeon, and probably had a few connections, should he want some work done.
He was tall, dark, and blandly handsome, but his aqua-blue eyes were an attractive feature that nobody but God had a hand in.
Ignoring me, he made a little pleasant small talk with her as he guided her into an examining room. I stayed out in the hall, unable to translate the muffled conversation behind the door, pacing like an expectant father. Among the things on my mind was wondering how Joltin’ Joe would like being on the other end of a Louisville Slugger.
Maybe fifteen minutes later, the doc emerged, and shut Marilyn within-I’d caught a glimpse of her sitting up on the end of an exam table on the usual crinkly white paper. She looked small and frightened, like a kid in for a tetanus shot.
Almost whispering, the doctor asked, “Is Miss Monroe under the influence of drugs this evening?”
“I think she had a Demerol or two. And a lot of champagne.”
“Explains the slurred speech.” Then the eyes hardened. “She says she was in her shower, and slipped and fell.”
I held up my hands in surrender. “Whoa, Doc-I’m not the culprit. I can guess who is, but she wouldn’t want me to say. I’m just the friend she called for a ride here.”
He studied me, as if he could diagnose whether I was lying or not.
I showed him my credentials, which he studied for maybe half a minute.
“I’ve heard of you,” he said with a nod.
“And I’ve heard of you. So how is she?”
“Well, her injuries might have been the result of a fall. But it’s more likely she was struck in the face. Probably in the nose, although she isn’t bruised there. When an injury is sustained to the nose, any bleeding under the skin shows up in the soft tissue under-”
“Doc, that’s okay-I been punched in the nose a few times.”
That got a wry smile out of him. “Anyway, the good news is that her nose isn’t broken. I could find no evidence of fracture and saw no need to take X-rays.”
“She’s hoping to go back to work soon. She has some photo shoots next week…”
“Miss Monroe may be fine as soon as Monday. A little makeup should take care of anything the healing hasn’t.”
I shook his hand, and he released Marilyn to me-she gave him a hug before we left, and I’m sure the doctor appreciated it, but I had a hunch it wouldn’t get her a discount.
“I’m taking you back to my bungalow,” I said, leading her to the Jag.
The Beverly Hills Hotel was minutes away.
“I’d like that.”
“Have you eaten anything?”
“No. Not since breakfast.”
“Could you eat?”
“I don’t know. I could try.”
She did pretty well, actually. We ordered room service, and on trays had a Polo Lounge Caesar Salad for two with shrimp. I vetoed champagne and she settled for sparkling water. I had the same.
That she might not have to postpone next week’s photo shoots made her happy. She had taken off the suit jacket and was in a white blouse (not the blood-spattered one) and the dark skirt, her legs bare, her kitten heels kicked off; her hair was disheveled as hell, once the wig was discarded, but I thought she looked great just the same.
We sat on the couch like an old married couple and watched television-no tiny portable sets for the Beverly Hills Hotel, this was one of those big twenty-four-inch numbers-with her curled up beside me, my arm around her, her head nestled against my chest.
We watched The Tonight Show and I said I wasn’t sure this new Carson kid was going to work out, but Marilyn disagreed, liking him better than Jack Paar, who she said was an obnoxious jerk. I wasn’t aware she’d acted with him in an early picture of hers.
Finally the late news came on and I switched off the set. The lights were otherwise out, though hazy illumination filtered in from the hotel grounds through the sheer curtains, the heavier drapes pulled back.
“Okay,” I said, “so what really happened?”
“… You have any smokes?”
“I didn’t know you still smoked.”
“Sometimes when I get nervous.”
“I don’t smoke.”
“I thought all detectives smoked.”
“I did in the service.”
“You were a Marine, weren’t you?”
“Yeah. I can ring and have some brought around.”
“I might have some in my purse.”
It was a little black thing she’d tossed somewhere. She went and got it, and found some smokes and lighted up using hotel matches. Then she paced in front me, moving in and out of the filtering light, the little amber eye of the cigarette bobbing along.
“I was showing Joe the herb garden I planted. Along that little brick path, between the guest cottage and the kitchen? We were talking about, you know, happier times. We did have a lot of good times together.”
“You weren’t married very long.”
“No, we weren’t, but even after, he was always there when things got tough. He’d come find me and he’d just be there. Like last Christmas? He knows how tough Christmas is for me, if I’m alone. He made sure I wasn’t alone. That was back in New York. Today was the first time he’d been to my new place.”
“Sounds friendly enough.”
“It was fine, as long we talked about what used to be. But, you see, from what he heard and read, he got the wrong idea. He heard about me getting fired and he just dropped everything, walked away from a really good job, because he thought things were going to be different now.”
“In what way?”
“He said he wanted to get married again, now that my-this is what he said, Nate-now that my career was over.” She laughed once, a bitter little burst. “That was always the battle between us, you know-he married me thinking I’d give it all up, the movies, the money, the fame, to be a good little Italian housewife and raise lots of Catholic babies. Well, I’m not Italian and I’m not a Catholic, and when I said this was just a bump in the road, that the press was full of lies and exaggerations, that I was going back with Fox for big money, and that nothing was more important to me than my career… he started getting angry.”
“And he hit you then.”
“Not then.” She shook her head. “Not then. It was… it was about something else.”
And there was the opening.
I said, “Maybe he’d heard the rumors.”
“Rumors?”
“About you and Jack Kennedy.”
