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
