You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Kills You (24 page)

“Um … I’m sorry?” I said.

He waved my apology away. “Don’t be. It had to end some
time.” He stood up, straightened his Hawaiian shirt. “All right, come with me.”

He walked past us, out the door. We followed him down the hall to the basement door.

“You’ve been here before,” he said to me, “so mind your step.”

We went down the steps and he pulled on a new string someone had attached to the bulb, which was now a forty watt white.

The man seated in the wooden chair looked up at us. He had a lopsided grin on a bruised face.

“Damn it,” Danny said, “what took you so long, Eddie?”

Amazingly, the crazy fed let us all go.

“I’d invite you to stay for the party, but I’m actually pretty pissed at you,” he said at the front door. “Hope I don’t run into you again.”

“Likewise,” I said, as the door closed.

Now that we were outside I grabbed Danny in a bear hug.

“Goddamnit, man, I was starting to think that you were dead.”

“Lemme go, I got sore ribs!” he said, pushing me away. “They knocked me around a bit, but never really came close to killing me. How’s Penny doin’?”

“Worried sick.”

“And Marilyn?”

“I’ll tell you in the car,” I said, and then, “Oh, yeah, meet Fred Otash. Fred, Danny Bardini.”

“Hey, I know you,” Danny said, as they shook hands. “I saw your ad. How much did that set you back?”

“Like Eddie said, I’ll tell you in the car.”

We walked to my Caddy.

“You want to go to the hospital?” I asked.

“Naw, you know what I really want?” he asked. “A burger and a beer.”

I looked at Otash.

“I’m kinda hungry myself.”

“Okay,” I said, “but let’s go pick up Marilyn and we’ll make it a foursome.”

“I get to meet her?” Danny asked happily. His smile was so wide it split a scab on his lip.

“After what you’ve been through, old buddy,” I said, “it’s the least I can do. But first you’ve got to call Penny.”

A
COUPLE OF DAYS
later I drove to Palm Springs with two passengers, Danny and Jerry. Jerry had awakened the day before in his room with the two Johnny Roselli men watching him, took one look at them and said, “Hi, guys.”

Once he was awake there was no keeping him in the hospital. He was upset that I had gotten into a shoot-out without him, and he wanted to be by my side in case the FBI came after me.

Marilyn wanted Jerry to stay with her in the main house so she could baby him, and as appealing as that sounded, the big guy turned her down. We did continue to stay in her guesthouse, but that was it.

“Ya can’t trust the feds, Mr. G.,” he said, “and as long as I’m awake, I’m with ya.”

Taking Danny to Frank’s was the least I could do for him. Also, he wanted to go back to the motel, but I put him in a hotel not too far from Marilyn’s, that had room service and a pool.

So we pulled up to Frank’s place with a bandaged Jerry in the front seat and a bruised Danny in the back. I felt guilty that they had taken the brunt of the punishment.

“This is great, Eddie,” he said, looking at Frank’s Palm Spring enclave.

I stopped the car and turned off the engine. I could hear raised voices as George came down the stairs toward us.

“What’s goin’ on, George?” I asked.

“This is not a good day to visit, Mr. Gianelli.”

“Why not?”

“Mr. S. has gotten some bad news today.”

“From who?” Danny asked.

“Oh, George, this is my friend Danny, the one I’ve been lookin’ for.”

“Ah, so glad to see you looking so … well, sir.”

“Yeah, a few bruises, one cracked rib … but thanks. So what gives?”

George looked at Jerry. “Are
you
all right, sir?”

“I’m fine, George, thanks.”

“Mr. Lawford came to see Mr. S. today,” George said, leading the way up the stairs. “I’m afraid he told him that the president would not be staying here, as planned.”

“Oh,” I said. “That
is
bad news.”

When we reached the top we could see Frank and Peter Law-ford on the newly constructed wing. Frank was doing all the shouting, with Peter throwing in a plea or two when he could.

“Goddamn useless limey sonofa—” Frank was shouting.

“Not my fault, Frank,” was all we heard from Peter, and then suddenly he was tumbling backward down the stairs from the second level. I had never liked him, but I felt sorry for him, caught between the Kennedys and Frank.

As Peter hit the ground Frank came running down the steps. He stepped over Peter, walked around the side of the building and came back holding a sledgehammer.

“Is he gonna—” Danny said.

“I hope not.”

Peter was moving, which meant he wasn’t dead. But if Frank
took the sledgehammer to him, that could change. Frank stalked over to the concrete helipad he’d had constructed for JFK and began wailing away at it with the hammer. For a skinny guy, he was putting a lot of power behind it, and the concrete began to crumble.

“Ya want I should help Mr. S., Mr. G.?”

“No, Jerry,” I said. “Swingin’ a sledgehammer would only put you back in the hospital. Besides, I think Frank needs to do this himself.”

“He’s that mad about JFK not comin’?” Danny asked. “Maybe he’ll visit another time.”

“It’s not just that,” George said. “Mr. Lawford told Frank that the president would be staying at Bing Crosby’s house.”

“Whoa,” I said.

“Maybe we’d better—” Danny said.

“Yeah,” I said, “we better. George, you go help Peter up and get him out of here. Tell Frank we’ll stop by another time.”

“Yes, sir,” George said. “Sorry, sir.”

“That’s okay, George,” I said. “We understand.”

As we headed back to the Caddy we could hear Frank grunting with every swing of the sledgehammer, and in between every grunt, the cursing.

“Where are we headed now?” Danny asked.

“I’ve got one more favor to do for Marilyn.”

“Where?”

“Encino.”

“Clark Gable’s,” Jerry told Danny.

Clark Gable’s house was not a house, it was a ranch.

“Jesus,” Danny said, as we drove the winding drive. “What are you gonna say to make her see you?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “We’ll just try knocking on the door and see what happens.”

Jerry liked the horses we saw cantering in the pastures.

“The only horses I ever see in New York has got cops on ‘em.”

We drove up to the front of the house and parked. There were no other cars in view, but there could have been a dozen of them out of sight.

Walking up to the door Danny asked, “Got a story, yet?”

“I think I’ll just tell her the truth.”

We stopped at the door and I knocked. I expected it to be opened by a butler, or some kind of servant, but it was opened by an attractive, dark-haired woman.

“Yes? Oh, my. You poor men. What happened?” she said to Danny.

The bruises on his face had faded, but were still there. His lip stayed split because he kept smiling like a love-struck kid around Marilyn Monroe. Jerry still had a bandage covering his entire head.

“Oh,” Danny said, “a car accident. But I’m okay.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Jerry said, “me, too.”

“Well, then what can I do for you gentlemen?” she asked.

“Mrs. Gable,” I said, “my name is Eddie Gianelli. I’m a friend of Marilyn Monroe’s. May I speak with you, please?”

“Marilyn?” she asked. “How is she?”

“Well,” I said, “I guess that’s going to depend on you.”

W
E SPENT ONE MORE NIGHT
at Marilyn’s, three guys who, three weeks ago, thought of her only as a sex symbol. Now, Marilyn’s vulnerability had turned her into someone we adored and wanted to protect.

That night, while Jerry and Danny argued over the TV like a couple of brothers, I sat in the kitchen with Marilyn.

“I talked to Kay Gable yesterday,” I said. I’d kept it from her until that moment.

“Oh, God, Eddie, what did she say?”

“Marilyn, you didn’t tell me that Kay invited you to the baby’s christening last year.”

“Oh, yeah,” she said, “I forgot about that.”

“And you went?”

“Yes.”

“How did she treat you?”

“She treated me fine, Eddie,” she said, her eyes lowered.

“Then what are you worried about?”

“Well … that was in front of people. She could’ve invited
me, you know, so she’d look … oh, Eddie, I want to know what she thinks inside.”

“She thinks Gable exerted himself unnecessarily in a hot desert for the length of the shoot. She thinks he went on a dangerous crash diet, lost too much weight too fast, put a strain on his heart, and died. Gable was fifty-nine, Marilyn.”

She looked down again and her shoulders slumped. “I know all that, Eddie.”

“Remember what we said about good friends, Marilyn?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“You have to learn to rely on your good friends more. And as far as I can see, Kay Gable is a good friend.”

“Really, Eddie?”

“Really. Marilyn, you’ve got to stop worrying about what people think. You need to go back to work.”

“I know,” she said. “They’re trying to kick me off this picture, replace me with Lee Remick, but Dean is fighting to keep me on.”

“Dean’s another good friend.”

She reached out and grabbed my hands.

“Right now you’re my best friend, Eddie.”

“I’m one of your friends, doll, and you’re one of mine. What a pair we make.”

I brought her hands to my lips and kissed them.

“I love you, Eddie.”

“I love you, too, kid.”

Las Vegas, Nevada
Spring 2003

T
HAT WAS … FASCINATING
, Eddie,” J.T. Kerouac said. “But who hit Jerry?”

“You know, we never found out,” I said. “I think either Harris or Delaney did it, and didn’t want the other one to know they were prowling around Marilyn’s house. There was a point there, when they had the gun on me, where they looked confused and nervous. My money’s on Harris.”

“So then you killing them must’ve made Jerry real happy.”

In the telling of the story to J.T. I had changed a few things. I told her the same version I told Stanze, that I had killed the two men.

“Actually, no. Jerry said he was sorry I had to kill them. He knew it was something he could’ve forgotten, but I couldn’t.”

“What’s Jerry doing now?” she asked.

“That’s not part of the story.”

“Well, how much of this can I use?”

“Use? None of it.”

“What?”

“It was all off-the-record. I mean, use anything I said about old Vegas, or the Rat Pack, but nothing I told you about Marilyn is for public use.”

“But … you told me the story. I’ve got it all down on tape,” she said, touching the mini-recorder on the table.

“The meanderings of an old man,” I said. It wasn’t far from the truth. I tended to go on when people would let me talk about old Vegas.

“Eddie … why?”

“Because I don’t want anything I say to alter Marilyn’s legend?”

“Legend? She was a pathetic woman who couldn’t have a lasting relationship. Her only success was what she was in the imaginations of men.”

“That’s the slant you’ll be takin’?” I asked.

“What else is there?”

“She was much more than you think, much more than most people think.”

Maybe I should have told her that Marilyn saved both our lives, but I knew if I did that the newspapers the next day would all carry the same headline:
MARILYN MONROE COMMITTED MURDER
.

“Take a walk with me,” I said.

“Where?”

“Just a stroll through the casino. Come on.”

“I need to bring my recorder, my notes—”

“No, this really is off the record. Leave them there,” I said, “I’ll tell Melina to watch ‘em. Nobody’s gonna touch ‘em.”

“Well, okay …”

We got up and I conferred briefly with Melina, who nodded. We left the coffee shop by the door that took us directly into the casino. I exchanged greetings with several waitress and dealers, as well as a casino host. We didn’t have casino hosts back during
the Rat Pack days. If we had, maybe I never would’ve met the guys because some host would have been put in charge of seeing to their needs.

“You’re still known by a lot of people, Eddie,” J.T. said.

“Everybody in this town wants to stay connected to old Vegas,” I said. “But all around us are the signs of new Vegas. Look, right there.”

I pointed to a slot machine that had Dean Martin’s voice singing, “How lucky can one man be, I kissed her and she kissed me …”

“Dean Martin slot machines,” I said. “Dino must be turnin’ over in his grave. Look, over there … Elvis machines … Frank Sinatra machines … and come over here with me.”

I led J.T. to a bank of machines against a wall. There were four of them, the new kind, like TV sets rather than upright slot machines.

Above each machine was a different photo of Marilyn, and in each she was smiling and wearing a different gown.

“I don’t approve of all these things,” I said to J.T., “but they prove one thing. These people are all icons, especially Marilyn.”

“Eddie, there are a lot of icons, that doesn’t mean they were good people.”

“Well, Marilyn was good people,” I said. “If you write that I’ll swear to it.”

One of the shots above the slot machines was the one from
The Seven Year Itch
, with her standing in that white dress over the street grate. Back in the 1960s I never suspected how slot machines would grow and take over as the biggest moneymakers in Vegas. And I certainly never expected to see my friends pop up all around me in casino after casino.

“Okay, Eddie,” J.T. said, “I won’t use it.”

“You won’t?”

“No,” she said, “but tell me, what did you tell Marilyn? I mean, about being followed, and watched.”

“I struggled with that,” I said. “I really did, but I decided to put her mind at ease. I told her she was safe, that nobody was watching her anymore.”

“You lied to her then,” she said.

“Yes,” I said, “I did.”

“How did you feel after her death?”