rest of the so-called Red Scare years.”
I sighed and said, “Marilyn leaned left, but she was no Commie.”
“Her husband was and is.”
“Her ex-husband Arthur Miller? Far as I’m concerned, he’s just another one of these arty dilettantes. Like Marilyn’s poet pal, Norman Rosten, and for that matter the Strasbergs. What are you trying to convince me of? That a lot of stars and Beverly Hills doctors are politically naive? Sold. By the way, doesn’t your file say my father ran a leftist bookstore on the West Side in Chicago? So obviously I’m a Commie, too, right?”
“These are dangerous people, Mr. Heller. Zealots behind their American masks.”
A blurry color photograph came on of a heavyset guy who seemed vaguely familiar. He wore a Mexican-print shirt and was drinking a beer and smiling at somebody off-camera. Then I pegged it: his features echoed Eunice Murray’s husband.
“This is Churchill Murray, John’s brother, who runs a Communist propaganda radio station in Mexico City. He has countless questionable political contacts, including diplomats from the Cuban and Soviet embassies there.”
Now came a color surveillance photo of a balding guy with glasses and a pipe, talking to Churchill Murray outside a cantina.
“Frederick Vanderbilt Field-great-great-grandson of the railroad tycoon. Notorious silver-spoon Communist who was exposed as a Comintern operative and fled to Mexico City. There he was a mainstay of Zona Rosa, a colony of expatriate Americans, Communists mostly, including John Howard Lawson, Dalton Trumbo, Albert Maltz, and of course Churchill Murray-Eunice Murray’s brother-in-law.”
Wearily I said, “So Marilyn had some extreme leftists in her life. I would imagine that’s true of a lot of Hollywood stars.”
“I’m sure it is, Mr. Heller. But not a lot of Hollywood stars have had intimate access to the president and the attorney general.”
“Now you’re imagining Marilyn is a Commie spy?”
“No. A dupe. And we’re not imagining anything.”
A click announced a very recent picture of a beaming Marilyn at a restaurant table with Vanderbilt Field.
“Field is who Miss Monroe stayed with, Mr. Heller, when she went on her buying trip to Mexico, for new furnishings and decorations for her home, a trip on which Miss Monroe was accompanied by Eunice Murray.”
“Okay. So?”
“So, Mr. Heller-Frederick Vanderbilt Field is an active Soviet agent.”
I didn’t say anything. What had seemed foolish at first had become something real and troubling as hell. Marilyn getting friendly with Field, in the middle of her affairs with Jack and Bobby, had made security risks out of the president and the attorney general.
“We have surveillance tapes in which Field, in the guise of conversation, is heard pumping Miss Monroe for confidential information she learned in discussions with the Kennedy brothers.”
“Was Marilyn forthcoming?”
“She was. From her point of view, she was answering questions from an expatriate longing for news of home. Much of what she and Fields discussed was only tangentially associated with politics, her interest in civil rights for example, or her frustration that Jack Kennedy hadn’t fired J. Edgar Hoover. But she also talked about what she viewed as her own intellectual shortcomings, her desire to quit show business and change her life completely.”
The latter was typical Marilyn, and a daydream she would have under no circumstances pursued, at least not until age caught up with her.
Which now it never would.
“Mr. Heller… frankly, we believe Dr. Ralph Greenson, like Vanderbilt Field, is a Soviet agent. Greenson helped form, and then secretly ran, the National Arts, Sciences and Professions Committee, a major force in promoting Communist ideology on the West Coast. Heading up this group, Greenson has influenced sister organizations like the Doctors Professional Group, of which Engelberg was at one time a prominent member.”
“I thought the government had stopped looking for Reds under every bed.”
“Perhaps under beds, but not in psychiatrists’ offices. It is Soviet espionage policy for cell leaders to have psychiatric training, aiding them in the periodic need to interview key cell members, to appraise their state of mind and continuing loyalty. Mr. Heller, psychoanalysts’ offices around the U.S. have been regularly used by Soviet agents as safe havens for the transfer of intelligence.”
“And I’m supposed to buy that Greenson is one of those?”
“Yes. And to keep in mind that Engelberg is his longtime friend… you might say, comrade. Consider, Mr. Heller-how important a Soviet agent might Greenson prove, having access to the mind of a female who often shares the bed of the president? And/or of the attorney general?”
Well, that I couldn’t bat away with a flip remark.
“We believe that Greenson, with the aid of Engelberg and Mrs. Murray, created a web of influence around Marilyn Monroe devised to gather information from her relationships with the Kennedy brothers.”
“Why are you telling me this, again?”
“To simply aid you in your investigation. Help you avoid going down a blind alley. You see, Mr. Heller, we know that you are a man capable of… rough justice. That people in your life who meet with your disfavor sometimes reach a violent if unexplained end. And in other instances, simply disappear.”
That thick file they said they had on me again. How much did they really know?
“You’ll be free to go, in a very few minutes. Your weapon will be returned to you. First, however, there is something we would like you to hear.”
“Like the Commies say-it’s your party.”
I heard footsteps across from me, and when the radio-announcer voice returned, it was closer than before.
“You spoke to Walter Schaefer yesterday, and he told you a story. You will recall that he did not allow you to speak to the ambulance attendants who figured prominently in that story.”
Christ, whoever they were, they were everywhere…
“We interviewed the driver. His name is James Hall, and you can seek him out for yourself. Whether he speaks to you frankly or not, we can’t say. But listen to what he told us…”
A click was followed by the whirring of tape reels.
… happened to be close by, right around the corner practically, when we caught the emergency call. We got there in under two minutes, didn’t even hit the siren. We were met at the front gates of this Mexican-type home by a tall guy, who let us through. Then this frumpy middle-aged lady, leading a poodle on a leash, met us, and led the two of us into this small guest cottage.
That fit Norman Jefferies, Eunice Murray, and, for that matter, Maf.
The lady stayed outside when we went into the cottage, and, brother, did we get the shock of a lifetime. It was Marilyn Monroe, naked, faceup on a folded-out daybed. She was alive, but not in good shape, respiration and heartbeat slight, pulse rapid, weak as hell. To administer CPR, we moved her on the other side of this divider into this sort of foyer area. Wanted to get her on the floor, to provide better support, so we did that, put her on her back and, with an airway tube, started resuscitation. I had a perfect exchange of air going from Miss Monroe, and her color was coming back, and my partner agreed that it was safe to transport her to a hospital. We were heading out to get the gurney when her doctor showed, medical bag in hand. He had me remove the resuscitator and start mouth-to-mouth. I thought this took us in the wrong direction, but you don’t keep your job in my business disagreeing with doctors. There were no signs of vomit. No distinctive odors. Chloral hydrate, for example, gives you that pear-type odor. “So the doctor takes this big old heart needle out of his bag and fills it with adrenaline. He tries to inject it into her heart, but apparently the angle was wrong. Needle must’ve hit a rib. Her vital signs were nil at this point, and then the doctor used his stethoscope on her chest, but couldn’t get a heartbeat. He told us he would pronounce her dead, and said we should leave.
A questioner’s voice:
“Did the doctor give you his name?” “Yeah-Greenson. Her psychiatrist, I think.”
A snap and whirring-to-stop indicated the show was over.
“Well, Mr. Heller?”
“Could be real. Could be a phony. But I can tell you this-the deputy coroner didn’t report any sign of a chipped rib, or a puncture in the area of her heart.”
