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.
She smiled; it was a nice, thin-lipped, pixieish smile. “Would you care to tell me what you were doing there?”
She meant at Marilyn’s house Sunday morning.
“Would I? Hasn’t every reporter in town written ‘thirty’ on this one? I mean, it’s all human interest now. Now that there’s a verdict.”
Her smile was impish and the big blue eyes flashed. “You’re being clever again, aren’t you?”
“It’s a bad habit. Do you think anybody but the two of us noticed what really was put over?”
She sipped her martini.
Then she said, “You mean, that there isn’t going to be an inquest? That the coroner said Marilyn ‘may’ have taken an accidental overdose, then turned the inquiry over to a civilian group? No more police, no one interviewed under oath, nothing that can become part of the public record?”
Flo was right.
Right that I already had noticed all this, and right that the coroner-faced with doubt about cause of death-was abandoning his public duty to impose an inquest with subpoenaed witnesses, and launch a full-scale investigation.
“I thought the cutest part,” I said, “was handing this over to that ‘Suicide Squad.’ That tells the public it’s suicide, without having to go to the bother of actually finding out. The very name pre-supposes she killed herself-they don’t determine if there’s been a suicide, but try to determine why there’s been a suicide.”
Her smile had some sneer in it now. “I’ve done a little digging on the three members of the so-called squad-all of them are associates of Dr. Ralph Greenson.”
“I don’t know if that’s significant.” Jesse dropped off my gimlet, I thanked him, and he bestowed a nod. “Doctors out here are bound to know each other, have professional associations.”
Flo didn’t argue the point. “ Do you think it was suicide?”
“No. That’s not impossible, but I was with her a little over a week ago, and she had some personal problems, sure, but also a lot going for her.”
Her smile turned up at one corner. “I know all about the ‘personal problems.’” Then her expression sobered. “But I’m afraid I may have provided the… the spark that ignited this tragedy.”
“How so?”
Her thin eyebrows arched quizzically. “You don’t know? You didn’t read my Friday column?”
“If I say I didn’t, does that mean I have to pick up the check?”
She laughed a little. I didn’t have much trouble making her laugh, even in serious circumstances.
“No, Nate, I’m on expense account.” Flo leaned forward, spoke softly, though still no one was in the adjacent booth and I was pretty sure none of the waiters here really understood English. “I’ve been chasing this story for weeks, talking to everybody from chauffeurs to society reporters, even Fox publicists.”
“What story?”
“Please. The two Kennedy brothers, sharing Marilyn’s charms? Jack passing her to Bobby like a basket of these French rolls?”
So she knew that much. Not surprising. She’d started out as a crime reporter in New York for Hearst in the late thirties, and was much more than just frothy columns and game show appearances.
She cocked her head. “What I said, more or less, was this: ‘The appeal of the sex goddess of the 1950s remains undiminished in the sixties. Marilyn Monroe has proven vastly alluring to a handsome gentleman with a bigger name than Joe DiMaggio in his heyday.’”
“And you think that sparked Marilyn’s… what? Suicide?”
“We won’t use the right word just yet. But understand that that little squib was only the tip, with an iceberg to come.” She leaned forward, eyes on fire. “I was working on the story of my career, trying to get some kind of response from the Kennedy camp. I decided to nudge them with that little blind item… which is, in my opinion, what caused Bobby to visit Marilyn on the day she died. To tell her it was over and to lay off and… you can guess how she must have taken it.”
Of course, I didn’t have to guess. How did she know this?
“Your little Flo,” she said, dealing with my unasked question, “was pretty fast out of the gate on this one. I even did my own legwork, too.”
“Well, they’re nice legs.”
“Don’t change the subject. What would you say if I told you Peter Lawford’s neighbors are upset about a helicopter touching down on the beach, in back of the villa, early Sunday morning? Made a heck of a racket and blew sand into all the neighbors’ little swimming pools. Making them walk clear across their backyards to the ocean for a swim. What would you say, Nathan?”
But I didn’t say anything.
“And how would you react if I told you Peter and Pat Lawford’s next-door neighbor says he saw a Mercedes pull up, late Saturday afternoon, and Bobby Kennedy and Peter Lawford step out, and go on into the house.”
“A Mercedes and a helicopter? These Kennedys do have dough.”
“The helicopter is Fox’s.” Her smile grew dimples; she was proud of herself. “I’ve confirmed that via Fox studio logs.”
“You need a job? We’re hiring at the A-1.”
With a shake of her head that damn near moved the bouffant, she said, “You ain’t heard nothin’ yet.”
“I hope you’re not going to sing ‘Mammy.’”
She giggled. “Stop.”
I have to say I liked that about her. We’re talking about life and death and still she has the time to laugh at my dumb jokes. Maybe I could be her fifth husband. Now that Marilyn was gone, I was available. And a guy can always use a rich wife.