“Probably not,” I admitted.
He smoothed his electrician’s uniform shirt with a palm. “I think you owe me an apology.”
“No. Time to tell me what you heard.”
“I fuckin’ told you! I wasn’t-”
“ Earlier that day. You said some ‘very interesting stuff’ took place.”
“Yeah. It did.” One shaggy eyebrow rose, and he lowered his voice, as if maybe somebody was listening, besides me. “Your friend Bobby Kennedy and Lawford dropped by…”
“What?”
“You heard me. Marilyn was fussing with Mrs. Murray over some spread of food. Guacamole she’d made, some other Mexican-type stuff she’d bought for the occasion. She was all excited about ‘the General’ coming by to see her-‘personally.’ Then Kennedy and Lawford showed up, around three fifteen. But I didn’t hear much of Lawford. I think they sent him outside or something.”
“What did you hear?”
“They were in the living room. It started out normal conversation level, and I couldn’t make it out. That’s not unusual. I mean, I had the master bedroom wired, and like I said before, it was right there off the living room, but the entryway is tiled, you know, and everything was kind of echoey and… at a distance.”
“Understood.”
He leaned forward. “But then their voices got louder-they were obviously arguing about something. Something about ‘broken promises.’ And their voices grew shrill. Especially that Kennedy, man, when he gets pissed off, hell, he sounds like an old lady, all high-pitched and screechy.”
“Were you getting words?”
“More… just the gist. She said, at one point, ‘I feel used, I feel passed around.’ Toward the end, Kennedy was wanting her to give him something-he kept saying, ‘Where is it?’ Or maybe it was, ‘Where are they?’ This he said over and over-they’d talk and argue, then more of this ‘Where are they’ shit.”
“But what that pertained to…?”
“No idea. Tapes? Anyway, Lawford must’ve heard them-I would guess he went out by the pool, to give them some privacy, but the pool is just off those glass doors in the living room, so he must have heard the yelling and got concerned. Because suddenly I could hear him talking.”
“Peter got in the middle?”
“Exactly. That actor voice of his was easy to tag. He says, ‘Calm down! Calm down!’ to both of them. Then he was saying something about ‘important to the family’ and I definitely heard him say, ‘We can make any arrangements you want!’ Then Kennedy said something, too muffled to make out, and Marilyn got very pissed-I think maybe things became physical, because there was this banging, flopping sound. Finally she was screaming at them, ordering them out of the house.”
“And?”
He shrugged. “And they left.”
“What happened after?”
“Next call of Marilyn’s was pretty soon, maybe ten minutes later. She called that Greenson character and he came right over. He was there several hours.”
“You hear any of their conversation?”
“No. I’m guessing they were talking in that sunroom. That’s where they usually consulted. He’s hardly been on any of these tapes over all these weeks. And that sunroom, it wasn’t bugged. No other rooms were-just the phones themselves and the master bedroom.”
I drew in some air and sat and thought. He let me do that.
After a while, he said, “Will you cover for me, Nate?”
“If you mean, am I willing to forget about the wiretap job Marilyn had us do… what wiretap job?”
He grinned. Nodded.
Now I leaned forward. Friendly. “But, Roger-you need to lay low. This thing, death of a superstar like Marilyn? It’s going to be big, and over the next few days, even weeks, nothing will be bigger.”
His eyes were tight. “I know, but if we-”
I had silenced him with a raised hand. “Think about it. You’ve talked to me-one of your clients. And you talked to the intel boys, who were also your clients, right? But I bet you haven’t talked to Sam Giancana or Jimmy Hoffa or any CIA spook, or any of their minions. Like Johnny Rosselli, for example, who could represent any one or all three.”
His eyes were wide and his jaw slack as the pieces came together. “And… and I gave their tapes up.”
“And you gave their tapes up. Here’s the best part-you gave them up to the cops. The intel boys, granted… but that still counts as cops.” I sat back. Shrugged. “I may do some minor poking around this thing-as I say, Marilyn was my friend-and until this nasty affair has shaken down, I would suggest you, as I said… lie low.”
“Where?”
“You’re not married, right? Not anymore?”
“Not anymore, right.”
“Still got that little house in the hills?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t go there. The tapes from before last night-where are they?”
“In my bank deposit box. I keep several boxes for sensitive material like this. Until delivery to the client, that’s how I routinely handle it.”
“No dupes or anything at your office?”
He shook his head. “No. Nothing. Not even any paperwork. Not on a deal like this.”
“Good.”
I got up and went into the bedroom, then came back with three C notes. “Go buy yourself a few clothes and supplies-groceries and sundries.”
“What? Why?”
“So you don’t get yourself killed. I’m calling Fred Rubinski. He’ll come over with a key to our safe house, and directions. You stay put a while. I’ll let you know when I think it’s okay for you to reapply to the human race.”
He didn’t argue. He just sat there and took the bills, rather absently, and then nodded and said, “I appreciate this. For a guy who’s kind of free with the physical stuff, you’re okay, Nate. But why help me out?”
“Because, like you said, we’re in this together. The same people looking for you might come looking for me, particularly if they found you first, and you made me popular with them.”
“You think I’d rat you out.”
“I know you’d rat me out.”
Roger didn’t argue the point.
So I called Fred, who bitched about being woken up blah blah blah, but when I said Marilyn was dead, and we needed to hide Pryor away for a while, my partner quickly got on board.
I didn’t wait for him, though. I got dressed, leaving the gun behind, and halfway out the door said to Pryor, “Fred’ll be here shortly. In the meantime, watch the place. Like, make sure nobody bugs it.”
“Where are you going?”
“Brentwood. Fifth Helena Drive.”
He was chewing on that when I shut the door and went out into windy warmth and a dawn throwing long shadows. My stomach hurt. I didn’t feel anything like grief yet, not even simple sadness.
But I did feel sick.
CHAPTER 14
The morning was bright and remarkably clear for smoggy Los Angeles, pleasantly warm thanks to desert winds, though experience said by midday we’d have a scorcher.
It was pushing 6:00 A.M. when I followed a cream-colored, somewhat battered Ford van down the dead-end that was Fifth Helena Drive. The vehicle’s side panels said WESTWOOD VILLAGE MORTUARY -no Roger Pryor