I came clean. Somewhat clean.
“Flo, I had that same story from another source, but I wanted confirmation before sharing it.”
She frowned. “What source?”
“Can’t tell you. Don’t you believe in that rule about journalists protecting their sources?”
“You’re not a journalist! You’re a private eye working for a journalist.”
I raised two palms in surrender. “Cut me some slack on this. For now, be satisfied knowing that Sydney’s story is backed up by a second source. Okay for now?”
She drew in a deep breath. Her frown turned into a reluctant smile. “Okay. I won’t deny I knew what I was getting, hiring Nate Heller.”
“Atta girl.”
We’d exhausted business talk but hadn’t yet tired of each other’s company, so I ordered us room-service dessert and coffee. The Polo Lounge had souffles so good they were damn near worth the price-chocolate for her, vanilla for me. Took a while to arrive, and we just sat on the couch and visited. The subject was mostly why we seemed to have a good time together, between her marriages, without it ever amounting to anything more than a friendship. No conclusion was reached.
During the souffles, which we ate at a table like an old married couple, we returned to business.
“These threats Marilyn was making,” she said, licking chocolate off her spoon. “Would she have done it? Would she really have given a press conference?”
“I don’t think so,” I said.
“Really? Why?”
“Just not in her nature. For my money, both DiMaggio and Miller were rats to her, but she never bad-mouthed them in public.”
“Then why the fuss with Bobby?”
“For attention. For respect. To be taken seriously. But I think after all the raving and ranting, she would have immersed herself in her career. I mean-when did she ever attack anybody in public?”
“She defended herself a few times-like when Joan Crawford accused her of looking slutty at an awards event.”
“I remember that. But she expressed her disappointment and hurt over the affront, saying how much she’d always admired Crawford. I don’t believe there ever was much of a chance she’d go public about the Kennedys. The real danger was if she ever did overdose and left embarrassing things behind.”
Flo squinted at me. “What kind of things?”
I savored a bite of vanilla, then said, “Marilyn kept notebooks-I saw a red spiral one in her bedroom, on her nightstand, that day she showed me around the place. And later she told me how she wrote down questions she wanted to ask Bobby, then would come home and record the answers, those and other things they’d talked about.”
“Surely not political things.”
“Yes, political things. International things. Mafia things. Cuban things. Things you don’t want to know about, Flo, not even for a scoop.”
She pushed the souffle aside, about two-thirds eaten-either self-control or the discussion had gotten to her. “Then… if she was murdered, it wasn’t the threat of what she’d say, but-”
“But what she’d leave behind. And it looks to me like that house on Fifth Helena was gone through top to bottom, between midnight and around five, and who knows by what people representing how many interests? We know of Fox for sure, having studio reps there to clean up. But who else? Mob? Kennedy cronies? FBI? CIA? Secret Service? Or, to use your phrase-all of the above?”
She swallowed. No souffle involved. “You’re scaring me.”
“Good. I’m scared. You should be, too.”
“Maybe I should stay here tonight.”
“You’re obviously welcome to.”
I’d thought that was a throwaway, but after I set the room-service tray outside the bungalow door, I returned to find her emerging from the bathroom in a sheer yellow baby-doll nightie she’d conjured somehow, dark sand-dollar nipples and triangular thatch showing through in splendid contrast. For most middle-aged women, that skimpy lingerie would have been a risk. On her it was a sure thing.
I switched off the living room lamp and took her hand and walked her into the next room. She was still in the ponytail, still looking closer to her teenage years than to the half-century mark that was closing in on her.
“You planned this,” I said, as I got out of my clothes.
“I tucked a little something in my purse,” she admitted, facing me, lifting the hem of the nightie girlishly. “Just in case. I was a Girl Scout. Be prepared.”
“That’s Boy Scouts.”
“Is it?”
She kissed me. The lights were out but the moon was filtering in the sheer curtains on the nearby French doors, touching her with ivory.
We got onto the bed, and she crawled on top of me and she kissed my mouth and my neck, and then moved on down, kissing along the way until she reached a point where her lips circled and enclosed and engulfed me, and the ponytail swung left and the ponytail swung right and left and right, until she sensed she should stop. Then she slipped out of the nightie top, leaving on the sheer panties, her breasts starkly white against tan lines, the nipples as starkly dark against the white flesh, as she positioned herself over me so I could stroke and cup and kiss and suckle those breasts. When she finally mounted me, just moving the panties aside to make room, she began slowly and sweetly and built to a nasty grinding finish that left me drained and woozy and raw.
Soon we were under a cool sheet, and she was nestled against me, lips against my chest, a hand playing in my chest hair. “Nate?”
“Yes?”
“Did you make love to her in this bed?”
“Yes.”
“Were you in love with her?”
“Yes. And no.”
“Yes and no?”
“I never loved her when I wasn’t with her. When we were apart, she was like… a city you moved away from. Fond memories but no ownership.”
The faint murmur of Sunset Boulevard reminded us a world was out there.
She said, “It’s… a little intimidating.”
“What is?”
“Making love to a man who’s been with Marilyn Monroe.”
“She’s no competition for any woman now.”
“Oh yes she is. And she always will be.”
Flo fell asleep before long, and so did I.
But mine wasn’t a deep sleep-I rarely sleep deep with a woman in my bed. Few ever stay the night, and when they do, it throws me a little. Which is why the faint creak of those French doors popped my eyes open.
The figure was in black, his back to the light from half a moon and whatever illumination was coming from the hotel grounds, making him a silhouette.
But even in daylight, he would have been a silhouette, because he was head-to-toe black: black long-sleeve shirt, black slacks, shoes, and even-and you didn’t see this on many August days in Southern California-a black ski mask.
He came in slowly, opening the doors carefully, and I’d heard no click from a key either, the blot of a man just slipping in. He was left-handed, or anyway the gun was in his left hand, an automatic with a noise suppressor. My nine-millimeter was on the nightstand, under a fanned-open Newsweek. Sleeping on my back, I could ease my hand over there, and make a reasonably certain grab; but with Flo next to me like this, she could easily be caught in a crossfire.
That was when I saw the glint of the needle.
The guy was not left-handed-the gun was backup-the primary weapon here was the hypo in his black-gloved
