I turned on the nightstand light, slipped into my boxer shorts, put the confiscated nine-millimeter in the nightstand drawer, and got my own nine-mil out from under the Newsweek.
Still, Flo gently snored. I am almost tempted to say, at this point, When Nate Heller fucks them, they stay fucked. But that wouldn’t be gentlemanly.
Neither was trying to kill a guy in his sleep with a hypo full of who-the-hell knew. But soon I would know, because I’d have a lab the A-1 used check it for me… if I could find the goddamn thing…
And I could, and did-on the carpet near the foot of the bed, where my guest had unintentionally pitched it.
“Nate!” Flo said.
I looked up.
An alarmed Flo was sitting there, ponytail draped over a shoulder, her breasts exposed and perky, not that that was a priority right now. “What are you doing? What is that?”
She meant the needle.
Flo Kilgore was my client. That didn’t preclude me from lying to her, but what the hell.
I told her the truth.
And she understood exactly why I didn’t want to call the cops, and why starting tomorrow, over on Roxbury Drive, she would have two A-1 agents as sleepover guests.
Just not with my privileges.
CHAPTER 20
The next day, Thursday, a remarkable exodus began.
Pat and Peter Lawford headed to Hyannis Port for an extended stay at the family compound with the Bobby Kennedys. Under the circumstances, the trip was fairly predictable, but the Lawfords had invited along a surprising guest-Pat Newcomb.
This I learned from Thad Brown, who I’d called to request a no-questions-asked favor involving a certain nine-mil Beretta and noise suppressor-a favor the chief of detectives granted, proving his offer of friendship was genuine.
Mid-morning, at the A-1, when I called the Arthur Jacobs agency to find out when they expected Miss Newcomb back, I discovered something arguably even more interesting than the Hyannis Port trip.
“Miss Newcomb no longer works here,” the switchboard girl informed me.
I played a long shot and asked to be put through to Mr. Jacobs, and-even though I’d given my name-he actually took the call.
“Pat is no longer with us, Mr. Heller,” he said coldly.
“Might I ask why?”
“Her principal duties were as Miss Monroe’s personal publicist. That position has obviously terminated.”
“But why terminate Miss Newcomb? Why didn’t you just transfer her over to another client?”
He might have said that the Arthur Jacobs agency did not feel obligated to check with local private detectives before making their business decisions. Instead he just hung up.
I got Flo Kilgore on the phone-she was in her office at home-and informed her of the development.
“That puts a new angle on everything we know about Pat Newcomb,” Flo said. “And everything she’s said.”
“I already knew she was lying-saying Marilyn was in high spirits Saturday afternoon. Now we know why she lied.”
“What you may not know is that Eunice Murray has left town, too,” Flo said. “Taking an ‘extended European vacation.’”
“On housekeeper’s pay?”
“Don’t you mean out-of-work housekeeper’s pay?” She gave me a combined sigh and laugh. “Well, they can’t all leave town. I have appointments this afternoon to talk to Washington and Melson.”
That wasn’t a law firm or a dance act-they were respectively Hazel and Inez, Marilyn’s maid at the studio and her former business manager/current executrix. I had told Flo yesterday that my man watching the Fifth Helena house had seen both women there yesterday afternoon.
“Glad to hear they’ll talk to you,” I said. “But it does seem like we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel. I do have one major witness lined up-Norman Jefferies.”
“Remind me.”
“Murray’s son-in-law. The handyman who boarded up the window in that phony suicide rescue scenario. He’s been ducking the cops, the press, and my phone calls. But one of my agents caught up with him at a bar around the corner from his apartment in Santa Monica. He’s agreed to talk to me today.”
“Really? How did you swing it?”
“I offered him five hundred dollars of your money.”
I sat with Norm Jefferies on a wooden bench opposite the Playland Arcade on the Santa Monica pier. This was a weekday but also summer, pleasantly warm, so attendance was fairly heavy. The monumental many-spired Santa Monica ballroom, used for roller-skating now, was off to our right. And behind the row of food stands and gift shops loomed amusement park rides including a big enclosed carousel.
The smell of fried foods was mitigated by an ocean breeze. Teenage girls in belly-baring tops and short shorts, wandering eating cotton candy and nibbling on hot dogs on a stick, made pleasant viewing, and the dings and clangs and buzzers of pinball machines were softened by the rush of tide and wail of gulls.
The lanky, mournful-faced Jefferies wore a frayed dark button-down sport shirt with the sleeves rolled up, tan chinos with knee patches, and scuffed shoes. I’d come in a Ban-Lon polo and white jeans and was munching popcorn.
Jefferies slouched on the bench, legs akimbo, folded hands dangling between them; his voice was soft, medium-range, only occasionally expressive.
“Mr. Heller, couple things we need to get straight right away.”
“Okay.”
“This is strictly off-the-record. I don’t care what you do with this information, as long as you don’t attach it to my name.”
“All right.”
He shrugged. “That’s the terms. That, and cash.”
I stopped eating popcorn, reached into my right jeans pocket and brought the five folded C-notes out for some air.
When I’d returned them to my pocket, his eyes showed that the money had impressed him; then the mournful expression returned.
“First thing that nobody knows,” he said, “is I was pretty much there all day. I was remodeling Miss Monroe’s kitchen. Laid new floor tiles, among other things. Funny.”
“Funny?”
“Started out so average, such a nothing day. You never know, do you, when it’s gonna be the worst day of your life? Well, this one was right in there.”
A gull shrieked. A teenage girl laughed. I chewed popcorn.
Jefferies said he’d got to the house on Fifth Helena Drive around 8:30 A.M., and hadn’t left until after dawn Sunday morning, the same time I had.
“The first thing out of the ordinary,” he said, “was this argument between the Newcomb woman and Miss Monroe. It was about loyalty. About whether this Newcomb gal was loyal to her, or to the… you know, the Kennedys.”
“How did this come up?”
“I gathered Miss Monroe-it’s not disrespectful I call her Marilyn, because she let me call her that-Marilyn, she was expecting Bobby Kennedy-you know, the attorney general?”
Marilyn Monroe-you know, the actress?
“Yeah,” I said. “I know.”
“She’d been expecting him to come to the house Friday night. And he hadn’t showed. Way I took it, the Newcomb woman said she could make that happen, only it didn’t. Anyway, she fired her.”
“Who fired… What?”
“Marilyn fired Newcomb.”
“This was when?”
“Just before lunch. Newcomb gal slept till noon. Marilyn, she’d been out gardening in the morning. Also talking to some photographer who wanted to take pictures of her for Playboy. The guy was trying to talk her into it, and I guess she must’ve agreed at some earlier time, and was saying now how she had second thoughts, because of maybe it would make her out a sex object. Is what I gathered.”
“Back to Pat Newcomb…”
“Okay, Newcomb. They argue, Marilyn fires her, and then I was doing some work outside and missed why, but for some reason the woman is still hanging around all day.”
“Newcomb, you mean.”
“Yeah. Only she spends all her time in that room where the two phones are. Like she’s just waiting for one to ring, and maybe won something or her lab results are in. And in fact she’s still there when Kennedy and Lawford show up, and as far as I know never comes out.”