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?”
