Lawford was saying, “I called the operator, said I was concerned about a sick person at this number, and could she see if anyone was speaking on the line. No one was. The phone was either off the hook or out of order.”
“Then what did you do?”
“Well, I tended to my party, of course… but I was still bothered. Still worried.”
But apparently not enough to drive over there. Marilyn lived mere minutes away.
He dealt with that next: “I called Milt, my agent, and told him about the phone call, and not being able to reach her after that, and said I just had to go over there, and check on her. Milt told me absolutely not. He forbade me go. He said, ‘For Christ’s sake, man, you’re the president’s brother-in-law. If something has happened, how would it look?’ Obviously, he had a point.”
“… And that was it?”
“That was it, Nathan. My understanding is that Milt called Mickey Rudin, who checked up on Marilyn. I believe it took a while, because Mickey was out, and the call came into his answering service… but eventually he got ahold of that housekeeper, who said she checked on Marilyn and that Marilyn was fine.”
“Do you know the time frame of any of those calls?”
“No. Only of the calls I made, and I am somewhat vague there, as well. I mean, after all-I had no idea that there would be importance to any of this.”
“Come on, Peter. You say you thought Marilyn was killing herself.”
“ Threatening to kill herself. That was commonplace with her, you know that. Rudin himself called me, Nathan, and said, ‘Marilyn does this all the time.’ He said if there was any reason to be alarmed, he would know about it-because Mrs. Murray would have called his brother-in-law, Greenson.”
Lawford, apparently finished with his story-and it sounded like a story to me, an alibi-sat back and let out a chestful of air. He suddenly looked smaller. And older.
“You’ve been talking pretty freely,” I said.
“Well, yes. Why would I hide anything from you, Nathan? We’re friends, aren’t we?”
That was overstating it, but this was no time to go into that.
“Peter, what I’m asking is- How freely can we talk in this room?”
His eyes widened-my God they were red, like Christopher Lee in Horror of Dracula. Then he smiled for the second time since my arrival.
“Oh, the entire house is quite secure, old boy. Thanks to your tip, we had the place, uh, I believe the term is ‘swept’-and we do so once a week now.”
“Well, that’s swell. Now let’s talk about Bobby.”
Despite the tan, he went ashen. “What does Bobby have to-”
I raised a hand. “You need to not to lie to me. I have no desire to embarrass my friend Bobby or his brother. I am willing to be discreet. But I won’t be lied to, and I won’t be used. Any questions?”
He shook his head.
“You’d better refill your glass. You’re going to need it.”
He did, immediately bringing the bright red liquid back up to his lips.
I said, “I know Bobby was at Marilyn’s yesterday afternoon.”
“Bobby was in San Francisco!” he blurted.
“No fucking lies, Peter.”
“It’s not a lie, it’s-”
“It’s a lie of omission. He’s been in San Francisco since Friday afternoon. I read the papers. I have access to television. He’s there now. But he flew down here on Saturday. Secretly, but he flew. I am guessing that Marilyn, knowing Bob was going to be in California, pressed for that face-to-face meeting she’d been wanting.”
Lawford raised an eyebrow. “She was calling around for him. She… she called Hyannis Port. Talked to Pat, who did not give Marilyn the number of the Bates ranch, where he and the family were staying, but did tell her that Bobby would be at the St. Francis Hotel, off and on, through Tuesday. He has a speech to give there tomorrow night.”
“So Marilyn was still making waves.”
He nodded glumly. “I took Bob over to Fifth Helena in the afternoon, three or so. I didn’t hear much of what was said. She handed me a glass of champagne and I just went out to the pool and waited. I did go in when things got heated, and tried my best to settle them down. I think we’d all, Marilyn included, thought this meeting could once and for all settle things. Cool it all down. But it went badly. They yelled at each other. A terrible mistake. Bob flew right back to San Francisco.”
“How did he manage that, without attracting attention?”
“Helicopter. Flew into Fox and out again.”
Fox again. He was developing his Enemy Within picture there, and had plenty of support, even after the Zanuck coup.
“That sounds like the truth,” I said, knowing it matched up with what Pryor had reported hearing.
“You can see how important it is,” Lawford said, “keeping Bobby out of this. If it were known he saw Marilyn, the afternoon of her death…” He shivered. “… The ramifications are unimaginable.”
“Not if you can imagine the end of the Kennedys in politics. What do you know about Hamilton’s role in this?”
“James Hamilton? The policeman?”
Calling James Hamilton “the policeman” was like saying Marilyn Monroe “the actress.” No one short of Chief Parker himself wielded Hamilton’s kind of power and influence. The intel commander knew where the bodies were buried-sometimes, because he’d buried them.
“I told you Hamilton took over the investigation at Marilyn’s,” I said. “And he goes way back with Bobby, to racket-busting days. Is intel looking after Bobby’s interests in this?”
I didn’t feel Lawford needed to know about Roger Pryor and the tapes that had been seized by Hamilton’s boys.
“Nathan, I’m afraid you have me out of my depth…”
“Chief Parker is looking for J. Edgar’s job, and Hamilton is his Siamese twin. He’s also the guy in charge of security for Jack or Bobby, when either brother comes to town. What do you know, Peter?”
“Well, I don’t know the answer to that question. I truly don’t.” He swallowed, looked around nervously as if not sure his pronouncement of no bugs had been correct. Eyes narrow, he pushed up from the couch and somehow managed to get on his feet. “You wait here, Nathan-you wait here.”
I had no clue what this was about. I got up and went over to a window and pulled back the curtain enough to watch little Marilyns and little Lizs run and laugh and bobble prettily along the white beach.
Finally Peter came in with a white phone in his hands. He plugged it in somewhere and dragged it over to me and set the base on the coffee table and handed me the receiver. He gave me a raised-eyebrow look that said, Take it.
“This is Nate Heller.”
The voice accompanied by long-distance crackle was distinctive: “Nathan-Bob. Peter told me about your concerns. I, uh… we are getting some support from the LAPD Intelligence Division, yes. Nothing extralegal, mind you. Just… support.”
“Bob, the detective that Hamilton replaced was a good man. I’d already talked to him about Marilyn.”
“Is that right?”
“Yeah. I had him pretty well convinced that the oddness of the scene-and it was odd, Bob-had to do with Twentieth Century-Fox performing cleanup work. That kind of thing has gone on since the beginning of Hollywood.”
“So I understand. I feel terrible about this.”
“You should. Do you want to know what I observed at the scene? What I heard various parties say to the police?”
“… No. Do you have a feeling about this?”
“I may be kidding myself, but I don’t think Marilyn intentionally took her life. She was clean of drugs, relatively clean anyway, and it would have been easy for her to misjudge.”
“She, uh, did need pills to go to sleep.”
