A Top 40 station was doing a live feed from a kiosk, loudspeakers bombarding the kids with rock ’n’ roll. Right now those who weren’t knocking a ball across a net were twisting right there on the beach to “Irresistible You.” Plenty of girls had the sort of platinum hair and stylized makeup Marilyn had made famous. Plenty of others were doing the Liz Taylor Cleopatra bit, before anybody knew if that movie would ever get finished, much less released.
A surprising number of kids were sitting on the sand reading a newspaper-not something you saw on this or any beach every day, but this wasn’t just any day, was it? Some were even handling the papers with care, when finished reading, folding and covering them with a towel or putting them inside a side pouch of a bag with other precious items like suntan lotion, insect repellent, or cigarettes.
Both the Herald and the Times had put out EXTRA! editions, first time since the Bel Air fire last year. The Times headline said it all, in eighty-six-point type: MARILYN, DEAD. I had to give them points for style-somehow that comma provided punch and poignance, separating MM from death, making her bigger than mere mortality.
Viewing all this from behind the comfort of my Ray-Bans, I’d been walking the beach, up and down, in a tan Ban-Lon sport shirt by Puritan, white Levi’s, white Keds, and no socks. For a guy almost three times as old as most of these infants, I looked young as hell; I’d been out here enough this summer to display a nice tan, if I kept my clothes on. The DJ was playing “The Wanderer” now, and that was about right. Since maybe nine thirty, I’d wandered this stretch of beach, and even found enough appetite for a hot dog and Coke at a stand, half an hour ago.
I’d returned to my bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel just long enough to decide against going back to sleep or having breakfast. I did call Fred Rubinski, who cursed me out for waking him up again but then stayed awake a while to say he’d helped Pryor out, and that the guy should be ensconced in our safe house by now. Fred also sat still for a rundown on what I’d seen and heard at 12305 Fifth Helena.
Typically gruff, he asked, “Then you figure it was an accidental overdose?”
“Yeah. But despite what I told ’em, I’m not with the coroner’s office. So we may want to wait for another opinion.”
“Here’s an opinion-definitely a cover-up. Studio… or…?”
“Don’t say it.”
He didn’t. “You finished with this? Satisfied?”
“Don’t know. We gotta get a handle on what’s going on, or we’ll be putting Roger Pryor up in that cottage till Christmas.”
“Suppose so. These are dangerous waters, Nate.”
I’d used those very words with Marilyn.
The waters looked not dangerous at all right now, the blue-green tide rolling in lazily. Not good surfing weather. But a fine day to walk along the beach or play volleyball or do the Twist on the sand near a radio station kiosk that was maybe five hundred yards from the sprawling Lawford beach house.
The curtains were drawn on the big old place. Even the picture windows onto the ocean were covered, shuttered, unusual for summer. No sign of life, no flurry of activity here. I knew the mistress of the house, our president’s sister, wasn’t home-she’d left Cal-Neva for Hyannis Port and was still out there, with various other family members, though Bobby wasn’t one of them. The paper said the attorney general was in San Francisco-had a speech to give on Monday to some other lawyers.
I walked up between houses where suddenly the Palisades Beach Road loomed, shockingly close to the beachfront properties. My Jag was parked up here, but I wasn’t going to retrieve it yet. I had a call to make.
The bell and my knocking weren’t getting a result, but I kept it up, alternating, until the Lawfords’ Negro maid-in a tan uniform the color of my sport shirt-finally answered. She did not look happy.
“We’re not receiving nobody today,” she said, and started to close the door.
I inserted a Ked-shod foot, and the door caught it, making me long for Florsheims. I pushed my way in, and she stumbled back and had a frightened look, but I slipped off my Ray-Bans and calmed her, patting the air with a raised palm.
“Honey,” I said, “I’m not a threat, and I’m not a reporter. I’ve been here before, remember? Or do we all look alike? Tell Mr. Lawford that Nate Heller is here to see him. Do it now.”
But she recovered her dignity and held her ground. “No. Mr. Lawford isn’t seeing nobody today.”
“Is he still in bed? I know where the bedroom is.”
Her eyes and nostrils flared, and she said, “Mr. Lawford is up but isn’t, as I clearly stated, receiving nobody.”
“Then I’ll just wait here till he does.” I leaned against the door behind me. “Let me know.”
She had no idea how to deal with that, and-huffing a little bit, muttering under her breath-she finally went off. A good five minutes passed and I figured maybe she called the cops. There were certainly no Secret Service around. Then I heard footsteps and thought maybe Lawford himself was coming, but it was just her.
“He’s in the den. Come with me.”
“No, that’s okay. I know where it is.”
The den featured big windows and a collection of comfortable chairs and couches and walls with built-in bookcases that were also home to some fancy hi-fi equipment. But no music was playing and the windows were covered, and Lawford-in a blue polo and white deck pants-was slouched in a dark brown leather overstuffed couch with his sandaled feet up on an equally padded ottoman. One small lamp was on, on a distant end table, and the room was damn near dark.
I took a matching chair opposite him. To one side of the ottoman was a low-slung, mostly glass coffee table with Esquire, Gentleman’s Quarterly, and Playboy magazines scattered, as well as a big glass pitcher of what might have been tomato juice but was probably equally vodka, a stalk of celery stuck in it. The coffee table was also home to a box of Kleenex, which had given birth to scattered wads of used tissues, some on the coffee table, others on the floor.
Lawford’s berry-brown face looked terrible-deep grooves, flesh that seemed to have been frozen in the process of melting. His eyes were mostly red, half-hooded, and his graying hair was uncombed. Little dark splotches on the sport shirt indicated he had occasionally spilled a bit of Bloody Mary on himself. A glass of the red stuff was in one hand, threatening to pour itself onto the Oriental carpet.
“Nathan,” he said, and he smiled, though it was among the sadder smiles I’ve witnessed. “Glad to see you, old boy.”
He got more British when he was sloshed.
He pitched forward and stuck out a hand and I shook it. To say it was a limp-fish shake would be to insult a limp fish. Then he flopped back.
“So kind of you to come. So kind…” He sipped the drink. “Would you like one? There are glasses over there, or Erma Lee can fetch you something else…?”
“No thanks,” I said.
“She’s dead, Nate. That poor girl’s dead. And it’s all my fault. All my fault…”
Then he began to cry. To sob. Spilled some drink on himself but managed to put the glass on the coffee table and then just rolled up in a ball and bawled, right there on the couch. It went on for several minutes. I didn’t comfort him.
When he seemed to have it out of his system, I said, “ Was it?”
“… What?” He righted himself. Looked at me like he’d forgotten I was there. Tears were all over his face, and snot, too. I pushed the box of Kleenex toward him. So I guess maybe I did comfort him.
“Was it your fault, Peter? Is it your fault?
His lower lip trembled as he frowned. He had wiped his face and nose clean, and added another little wadded-up ball to the floor. “You… you don’t blame me, do you, Nathan?”
“I don’t blame anybody,” I said. Yet. “I don’t even blame Marilyn. I was at the house this morning, early this morning-saw them wheel her out.”