“That’s right. Easy to see where she could take some pills, wake up, take some more, maybe repeat that. Possible she didn’t know how to self-medicate when she was cleaned up.”
“… Very sad. A tragedy.”
“Right. Anything I can do to help?”
“The biggest favor you can do me, Nate, is to just stay out of this.”
“Really.”
“Let this matter run its natural course. How is, uh, Peter doing?”
“How do you think? He’s a goddamn mess.”
“Too bad. Too bad. It might be better if Pat were there, but she’s… she’s taking it rather hard, I’m told. She and Miss Monroe were close.”
Miss Monroe, huh? Had he forgotten he’d been screwing her? I let it go.
“All right, Bob,” I said. “I hear you.”
“Thank you, Nate. We’ll get you out to Hyannis one of these days, and show you a good time. Get you out on a sailboat. Small payment for your loyalty.”
“Sounds great,” I said, but couldn’t muster much enthusiasm.
We said good-bye, I hung up, and Peter was right there, like a big eager hound.
“Well?” he said. “Everything straightened out?”
“Oh, yeah,” I said. “It’s fucking perfect. Can I give you a piece of advice? It’s free.”
“Certainly.”
“Getting plastered won’t bring her back or undo anything. Go to bed and sleep it off.”
“I’m sure that’s excellent advice.”
I left him there, pouring himself another Bloody Mary.
Outside, as I slipped the Ray-Bans back on, the urge hit me to walk back down on that beach and strip off my clothes and show these kids how a real man took a swim, and wait for the police to come take me away. Somehow I resisted. Maybe I was afraid it would be Hamilton.
Driving back to Beverly Hills, I couldn’t stop thinking about two things.
What Bobby had asked: The biggest favor you can do me, Nate, is to just stay out of this.
And that I wished he hadn’t.
CHAPTER 16
Lawford was among Marilyn’s celebrity friends whose reaction made the papers.
“Pat and I loved her dearly,” he said. “She was probably one of the most marvelous human beings I have ever met. Anything else I could say would be superfluous.”
Maybe not. Fred Rubinski had already heard Lawford was ducking the police, and hadn’t given them even the briefest statement.
As for the ex-husbands, DiMaggio refused to talk to the press, and went into seclusion. Arthur Miller said the tragedy was “inevitable,” and volunteered that he would not be traveling west for the funeral-“She’s not really there anymore.” Her first husband, police officer Jim Dougherty, wasn’t quoted anywhere I saw.
Among the movie stars who shared their thoughts, two were particularly interesting. When a paper called him with the news, Donald O’Connor blurted, “Not Marilyn! No, she’s too alive-she’s not the kind of person just all of a sudden to be gone.” And Gentlemen Prefer Blondes costar Jane Russell succinctly said, “Sounds like dirty pool.”
Of the insiders, Sinatra said he was “deeply saddened,” and would miss her very much. Lee Strasberg went on the record, and somewhat controversially.
“She did not commit suicide,” he told the New York Herald Tribune . “If it had been suicide, it would have happened in quite a different way. For one thing, she wouldn’t have done it without leaving a note. Other reasons, which cannot be discussed, make us certain Marilyn did not intend to take her life.”
By “us” he meant himself and wife Paula, the star’s final acting coach, the dreaded “Black Bart.”
The statements in the press from key witnesses-Dr. Hyman Engelberg, Dr. Ralph Greenson, housekeeper Eunice Murray, publicist Pat Newcomb, attorney Mickey Rudin-were sketchy and contradictory, painting no real picture at all.
Dr. Theodore Curphey became the pudgy, bespectacled, mustached bearer of official tidings. The coroner- whose horror-show, vermin-infested morgue was the most underfunded and understaffed of any major city-sat before a bank of microphones and a rapt sea of reporters, local, national, international.
“Marilyn Monroe,” he said, “definitely did not die from natural causes. She may have taken an overdose of pills. Her death will be probed not just by my office but by the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Team, the independent investigating unit of the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center at UCLA.”
The papers quickly dubbed this group the “Suicide Squad,” and to the public their appointment seemed to indicate local government’s intention to treat the Monroe tragedy with the special care and attention it deserved.
But something was missing.
And on Tuesday, I said as much to Flo Kilgore, who asked me to meet her for an early lunch at the Musso and Frank Grill on Hollywood Boulevard.
When she’d caught me on the phone at my desk at the A-1 Monday afternoon, she hadn’t said what the eleven o’clock meeting was for; but I knew. I mean, it had been months since we’d seen each other, so her spotting me at Fifth Helena Sunday morning meant this was Marilyn.
For a Hollywood landmark, Musso and Frank was fairly unassuming in appearance if pretentious in execution, a typical dark-paneled, men’s club kind of restaurant-with-bar, similar to Binyon’s back in Chicago. Though the steaks were among the best in town, Musso’s real claim to fame was its longevity-Hollywood’s oldest such establishment, dating to 1919, though in fairness the facility had moved in 1934 all the way from 6669 Hollywood Boulevard to 6667.
The mostly Mexican waiters and their bright red jackets, echoed by the red of the leather inside the mahogany booths, had been here almost as long as the restaurant-Jesse Chavez maybe before there was a Hollywood-and to my knowledge Jean Rue had always been the chef. I figured when he died, they wouldn’t bury him, they’d serve him.
Flo was already there, working on a martini, which was her idea of breakfast, seated in number one, the front corner booth and the only one with a window, though the blinds were drawn.
This was at once the most prominent spot in the place and the most private-all the booths were high-sided, but this had only one neighbor, currently vacant. This had been Charlie Chaplin’s booth, before people decided he was a Communist cradle robber, and prior to that Rudolph Valentino’s, who I guess left it to Chaplin in his will. Right now it was ours.
The columnist wore a simple black dress and pearls and looked attractive enough, but I found the bouffant hairdo unflattering, exposing more forehead than her weak chin could handle. That was her only really bad feature- the big blue eyes and flawless porcelain skin worthy of many an actress’ envy, as was her curvaceously slender, leggy figure.
I slipped into the other side of the booth, dressed for business in a lightweight black-olive Fenton Hall suit with a green-and-black Wembley tie. But was this business?
We made a little small talk, and Jesse took our order, fairly obsequiously (it was the tourists who got the snooty contempt). Flo ordered a shrimp cocktail and I went for the Tuesday special, corned beef and cabbage. It was too early but the cocktails were goddamn good here, so I asked for a gimlet.
“Marilyn came here fairly often,” Flo said, finally invoking the reason for our meeting.
Her voice was soft and rather high-pitched, girlish for so powerful a journalist.
Flo was saying, “She liked to tell the story about being at the bar with Joe and seeing some fans come rushing up, and dreading having to deal with them… but nobody even looked at her. They all wanted Joltin’ Joe’s autograph.”
“Must have been very young boys,” I said.
