I staggered to the edge of the beach where surf lapped, as if there might be something I could do. There was: the two children hugged me, sobbing, and I hugged back. Terrible moments passed, the waves roiling as if digesting a meal.
Then Bob and the boy popped up, the father having hold of his son, and wearing a vast smile in the churning tide. Both were on their feet by the time they reached the edge of the surf, the child coughing up water, the man bracing him, a scarlet red smear across Bob’s forehead from a cut over one eye. Both bore skinned patches here and there from where they’d gone down to the pebbly bottom in the water just deep enough to drown.
I was there to help but Bob smiled and waved me off, his arm around the boy as the little party trooped back toward the starkly modern white house, boxy shapes spread along as if spilled there, their many picture windows on the ocean like silent witnesses.
The interior of the Frankenheimer beach house was all pale yellow-painted brick walls enlivened by striking modern art, bright colors jumping. The living room and dining room were separated by framed panels of glass that added up to a wall. From the stereo came the Mamas and the Papas, Simon & Garfunkel, the Association, adding a soft-rock soundtrack. During the buffet lunch, the film director’s lovely brunette wife, actress Evans Evans, circulated slowly in a hippie print dress, making all their guests feel important, which they probably were.
Bob was buttonholed by several apparent political advisors I didn’t recognize as well as two Teds I did — his brother Edward Kennedy, who I’d never met, and Theodore White, the Presidential historian I’d seen on TV. The kids were on the patio with a college boy who’d been hired to look after them. The children, bored with eating, were fussing over David and his Band-Aid badges of courage.
Ethel, who I’d been told was pregnant but didn’t look it in her white sleeveless almost-mini dress, approached me with a smile, bearing a small plate of appetizers that didn’t seem touched. Her words didn’t go with her smile: “I suppose Bob told you not to carry a gun.”
“He did.”
She shook her head. “I wish you wouldn’t listen to him. He’s getting more and more death threats. I’m getting worried.”
“He’s stubborn about it.”
A weight of the world sigh was followed by a quick angry grimace. “He’s so darn fatalistic. Just resigned to accept what comes. Yesterday — in Chinatown, in San Francisco, in a convertible, as usual? A string of firecrackers went off and I thought they were shots and practically jumped out of my skin. I ducked down to the floor, just frozen. Bob? He just kept smiling and shaking hands. Barely flinched.”
She shook her head, laughed a little, and was gone. That may have been the worst laugh I ever heard.
A row of televisions had been brought in, and guests huddled around the screens after lunch to keep tabs on the sporadic network coverage; exit polls were coming in and the news was promising. Bob was not among the watchers.
I found him out by the circular pool, stretched between two deck chairs, napping. He looked like hell, a cut over his eye from the drowning rescue, as unshaven as a beachcomber. He was in another polo and baggy shorts and sandal-shod bare feet.
An easy mellow voice said, “Not the best image for our favorite candidate.”
I glanced to my right. John Frankenheimer — in a crisp pale yellow linen shirt, sleeves rolled up, and fresh chinos — might have been one of his own leading men. He stood a good three inches taller than my six feet, his black hair only lightly touched with white at the temples, his heavy eyebrows as dark as Groucho’s only not funny. We’d met but that’s all. He motioned me over to a wrought-iron patio set with an umbrella. I brought along a rum and Coke; he carried a martini like an afterthought.
“At least he cleans up good,” I said.
“He does. And takes direction.” He took a sip. “Or anyway he does now.”
“What do you mean he does now?”
His shrug was slow and expressive. “A while back, his guy Pierre Salinger flew me from California to Gary, Indiana, where Bob was speaking. To shoot a campaign spot. And I’m not cheap.”
“I believe you.”
“Bob said he only had ten minutes to give me, and I said then why fly me out from California? The result was awful — the camera caught his hostility. Later he called me at my hotel and asked if we could try again. I said we could if he gave me an hour and a half to show him how not to project cold arrogance. He took that on the chin, and I went over and did the spot fresh, and we’ve been friendly ever since.”
“He’ll need makeup for that cut.”
He studied his slumbering subject. “I’ll give it to him. Saved his son, I hear. He is one remarkable guy. Ever hear about how he taught himself to swim? Jumped off a boat in Nantucket Sound and took his chances.” Chuckled to himself. “Then when Bob and Ethel honeymooned in Hawaii, he saved some guy from drowning.”
“He should’ve been a lifeguard.”
“This country could use saving.”
I sipped. “You’re following the campaign with a camera crew, I understand?”
He nodded. “Yes, for a documentary but also to grab footage for more campaign spots. He’ll need both to beat Tricky Dick. You’ve known Bob a long time, I take it.”
“We go back to the Rackets Committee. And before.”
That seemed to confuse him. “You worked for the government, back then?”
“Not directly. I have a private investigation agency in Chicago. We have a branch here. The A-1.”
And that seemed to amuse him. “Oh, I know who you are. ‘Private Eye to the Stars.’ How many stories has Life magazine done about you, anyway?”
“Too many and not enough.”
His laugh was a single ha. “Too many, because it’s like James Bond. Him being a spy is an oxymoron.”
“Or just a moron. And not enough, because publicity is good for business. Do I have to tell a film director that?”
He gestured with an open hand. “Necessary evil.”
I leaned in. “John... your film The Manchurian Candidate? Stupid question, but... do you think that could happen in real life?”
His smile came slowly and then one corner of it twitched.
“Yeah,” he said. “I do.”
Bob was coming around.
“Star needs makeup,” Frankenheimer said, getting to his feet. “And better wardrobe.”
I needed to find a bathroom to put on my Botany 500 for tonight. I’d have to leave my nine millimeter Browning at the Ambassador desk to be locked in their safe. When I emerged I found Bob looking similarly spiffy in a blue pin-striped suit and white shirt. Frankenheimer was in the process of expertly daubing stage makeup on the candidate’s scraped, bruised forehead.
In the background, Ethel was giving orders to that college kid to deliver her children to the Beverly Hills Hotel, where they rated two bungalows to my measly one. We would be driven by Frankenheimer to the Ambassador and Ethel, not ready yet, would follow in another vehicle.
The film director’s car turned out to be a Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud. Even though I had made Life a couple of times, this would be my first ride in one. Frankenheimer, who’d seemed so cool before, betrayed himself otherwise on the Santa Monica Freeway with his bat-out-of-hell driving. When he accidentally raced right by the Vermont off-ramp and got snarled up in the Harbor Freeway exchange, he swore at himself and pounded the wheel.