but after I parsed through a bit and looked at the comments in Hedda's handwriting on the attached page, the reason for the hooked cross and the size of the sword over Rudo's head became clear: In 1938, Dr. Pan Rudo was in Vienna, experimenting on mental patients with his
I thought of Wally in the hospital. The easiest thing to repeat is a mistake.
I took pictures of everything in the file, reading through occasional bits and glancing into related files.
Hedda seemed to have a whole clique of agents called the Card Sharks. Dr. Rudo was one, helping her in her crusade against wild cards, not that I would expect a Nazi to have any compunctions about genocide.
Hedda's partner, or perhaps just contact with other sharks, was J. Edgar Hoover. The files were stuffed with F.B.I. transcripts, courtesy of same. Likewise, money came from Howie Hughes and Willie Hearst, and they were responsible for some jobs. There was a copy of a letter from Hedda to Howie, blistering him for having bungled the job on the Santa Monica pier.
There was also a file on Will-o'-Wisp, the ace vigilante. Hedda had got my height and build right, but the rest was wild speculation and frothing. I was a major priority for the sharks, either termination or conscription.
Then I got to Marilyn's file, sticking a little out from the others. There had been a recent addition.
It was an obituary. It isn't unusual to find obituaries in the files of celebrities. What is unusual is to find them postdated, describing the manner of death. It was scheduled for May Third.
I remember that column as if I'd read it last Week. It was last week, for me.
The headline read: BRILLIANT CAREER CUT SHORT.
Hedda had written below that: Marilyn Monroe — brilliant life, tragic death. What happened? Ask Jack and Bobby! Pretty Marilyn was due to Wish Jack 'Happy Birthday' at his big fundraising bash in New York come the nineteenth, but evidently Jack wanted to have his present early. But he and Bobby played too rough and the pretty toy broke.
'Hedda told Marilyn never to go near that Lawford house. Marilyn paid the price for not listening to Mother, but let's see the Kennedy boys weasel out of this one! The Kennedys, the most famous crime family in America!'
It went on from there. The plot was simple: Tomorrow John and Robert Kennedy would be staying the night at Peter Lawford's. So would Marilyn, as I already knew.
Dr. Rudo would slip Marilyn just a few too many of Paula Strasberg's trademark tranquilizers, so the Kennedys would be sure to wake up with the corpse of Hollywood's greatest star.
The President and the Attorney General would be politically ruined. Paula Strasberg would be implicated for manslaughter. And Marilyn would be dead before the filming of
I got it all, then carefully put the files back in order, my hands shaking all the while and I know I was sparking from the stress.
I went out into the outer office, made sure to move the phone book and the telephone slightly out of line, locked up, then went and recharged my battery.
It was four A.M. by the time I got home. I put the film in the developer first thing. I wanted to call Marilyn but for all I knew, J. Edgar had the phone bugged. Hedda had her spies everywhere. I should know.
But oh my God, I didn't know where to turn. I could tell Welles, but what would he do? Make a film of it? Likewise with Trumbo and the rest. And Flattop? I could trust him, but there are some things people are better off not knowing. It would be like telling Poitier about the KKK.
The police were out of the question. Even the ones I knew I could trust would have to hand it up, and J. Edgar would know about it before the day was out. Hoover had been Hedda's conspirator since before HUAC.
There was only one possibility: Marilyn. Maarilyn Monroe was one of the worlds greatest actresses, no matter what the critics said. If she could just elude the Card Sharks' snare without arousing their suspicions, she could live to deliver the negatives to the President.
I knew just the time: Jack Kennedy's 'Happy Birthday' bash at Madison Square Garden. On a stage in front of a million people with a thousand flashbulbs popping, Hedda's Card Sharks wouldn't dare try anything. Marilyn could deliver the evidence into the President's hands without anyone the wiser and the sharks would all fry for treason.
I got the negatives and a double set of prints into an envelope and got to Marilyn's house just before seven. Her housekeeper, Mrs. Murray, let me in, and I surprised Marilyn in the middle of putting on her mascara.
I take it as a measure of her trust for me that she didn't do anything other than grab her makeup case after I got the overnight travel bag she always kept packed. My expression must have spoken worlds.
I don't know what Mrs. Murray thought. Maybe that we were eloping, I don't know.
I got Marilyn into the car. She took one look at my face, then silently paged through the stack of photographs I handed her. I headed west and we hit the Pacific Coast Highway.
It was either Northern California or Mexico. I headed north. I wasn't sure where we were going, but it had to be far away if we wanted to miss Dr. Rudo's May Day celebration.
At last, Marilyn put the photographs back in the envelope. 'These are Hedda's, aren't they?' I think she said.
I nodded, then I couldn't take it anymore. I pulled off the side of the road by one of the beaches and poured it all out to her.
She just listened silently, then asked for the keys. She said she knew a place up the coast, the Brookdale Lodge, an old inn up in the Santa Cruz mountains. It had bungalows in back and the folks who ran it were very discreet about who was staying there, at least until after they left.
The iron butterfly. It was such an appropriate name. I'd just revealed a plot against her life, and she calmly went about finding a place to hide until the storm was over. Marilyn made me take one of her tranquilizers, and I slept in the car on the way up.
It was then that I realized I had told Marilyn my secrets, my fears, my lies, all of them. And she still loved me. It was the most wonderful day of my life. It was also the most frightening.
Marilyn took charge of the espionage game as if she'd been born to it. She got us a room, then went to the local bank, rented a safe deposit box and secreted one set of photographs.
Then we went back to our hotel room and she called Welles, laughing and apologizing about having stolen his Golden Boy stand-in for a quick jaunt. She asked him to convey her apologies to the Lawfords and the Kennedys, but she just couldn't stand the pressure. But she'd make sure not to miss the 'Happy Birthday' bash later that month.
I was seeing a great actress at work: Pretend you've run away for a short fling, then call and apologize to everyone you've let down. The Strasbergs' Method served her well.
At the hotel gift shop, she bought a toy tiger. She ripped a seam in its neck and slipped the negatives inside, then stitched it back together with her sewing kit. It was the perfect thing to give the President as a present in front of a million people. I hid the last set of photographs under the catpeting in the trunk of my car.
The getaway was mad and beautiful. Marilyn took me out to dinner at the inn, which had a creek running through the old Victorian dining room. She said there was supposed to be the ghost of a priest or a drowned girl who walked through every once in a while, but we never saw it.
Funny, isn't it; a dead man telling ghost stories.
And then came the hardest thing I've ever done. We drove back down the next day, the day Hedda's column was supposed to run, and pretended that nothing had happened. Marilyn went on with her role, and Welles called me into his office and chewed me out. He'd hired me to protect his movie, dammit, not run off with the star, make them run a day over budget, and piss off the President and the Attorney General in the process.
I tried Marilyn's Method, doing Lovestruck Swain Grovels Before Boss. I managed not to get fired, but mostly, I think, because Welles didn't want to upset Marilyn. If I'd become her pet, well, he'd dealt with bigger expenses, and at least she'd lightened up on the pills.
Marilyn had gone off them all cold turkey, in fact. She couldn't swallow even one, knowing that they were the intended murder weapon had the Card Sharks plans for her succeeded. She drank more, though, and two days later fired Dr. Rudo. I got to watch the scene as she tore into him, calling him the most overpriced gigolo in Hollywood, and underendowed to boot. She threatened to tell the AMA and Louella Parsons how many times they'd had sex on
