Everybody Kills Somebody Sometime

Forty-seven

I decided to try dropping in on Peter Lawford first. I had the feeling if I waited until the next day, Lawford wouldn’t remember me. He struck me as being a very self-involved type.

I called up from downstairs and he told me to come on up, assuring me that I would not be bothering him. When I knocked on the door of his suite he called “Come in.”

I entered and I saw he was on the phone. He waved at me to approach and pointed to a sofa. I noticed that his suite was not as spacious as Dean Martin’s.

“Yes, Pat,” he said into the phone. He was dressed casually in tan slacks and an open-neck white polo shirt. “Yes, dear.” He rolled his eyes at me and I shrugged. His hair was wet, presumably from his shower from the steam room. I’d also had a shower, using the facilities the hotel made available to employees.

“Well, just tell Jack that Frank-” He stopped short and frowned. “I am not Frank’s lackey, or his errand boy, dear.” He was remarkably calm for a man whose wife had just called him those names. “Frank is devoted to helping Jack get elected. All I’m trying to do is my part for the family. Yes, well, you ask Jack if he wants Frank’s help or not and see what he says. And then ask Bobby, see what he says.” He listened again, then jumped in, as if he was interruptingher. “I have to go now, love. I have to get dressed for the show. Yes, I know I’m an actor, not a performer. I act like I’m performing.”

Apparently, Peter’s wife agreed with both Jerry and me about his presence on stage with great entertainers like the rest of the Rat Pack. I had never met the woman, but found myself liking her.

“Yes, I will,” he said, leaning over to hang up the phone. “Yes … yes … yes …”

With the phone still against his ear he stooped down closer and closer toward the base, as if he was going to hang up any second.

“I love you too, dear,” he said, and finally hung up. “My wife,” he said, unnecessarily. “Are you married?”

“No,” I said. “Never have been.”

“Smart man. Can I get you as drink? Or a cigarette?”

“No, I’m okay,” I said.

“I’m going to have one of both.”

He walked to the bar, moved around behind it.

“I won’t take up too much of your time,” I said. “I know you have to get ready for the, uh, show.”

“Yes,” he said, pouring himself what looked like scotch. “Frank absolutely insists that I go on stage with he and Dean and the others. It’s ludicrous, really, but there you are. One must keep the leader happy.”

It sounded to me like he was talking about someone like Hitler, not Frank Sinatra.

The actor came around the bar with a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

“What did you want to talk to me about … Eddie, isn’t it?”

“That’s right,” I said. “Eddie. Mr. Lawford-”

“Oh, call me Peter, please,” he said interrupting me. “Any friend of Frank’s is a friend of mine.”

“Uh, on the phone a minute ago,” I asked, “the Jack you were talkin’ about, that was JFK, right?”

“Our next president,” he said, proudly, “if Frank and I have anything to say about it. Will you be voting for Jack Kennedy, Eddie?”

“I really don’t know, Peter,” I said. “The election is a long way off.”

“Indeed it is, but we’re working hard now too-oh, never mind that. You didn’t come up here to talk politics, did you?”

“Now, I didn’t,” I said. “The Sands is concerned that you be satisfied with your stay.”

“Is that why you’re here?” he asked, surprised. “To see if I’m happy with my room?”

“Not exactly,” I said. I went with a story I’d come up with just after leaving Frank. “Apparently some guests have been getting’ threats. We wondered if you’d received any.”

“What kind of threats?”

“Phone calls, letters, notes-”

“Death threats?” He looked concerned, took a good, long sip of his drink.

“Threats of bodily harm,” I said. “We haven’t really heard anything about death threats, uh, yet.”

“You know, my wife is part of the Kennedy family,” he said.

“I know that. Have you gotten any threats, Peter? Of any kind?”

“No, no,” he said, “no, none … yet. Other guests have, you say?”

“Yes.”

“Uh, regular guests, or celebrities?”

“I’m not really sure-”

“Because if someone is threatening the regular guests, well then, I suppose I’d have nothing to worry about, but if they’re targeting famous people-this could get into the papers, couldn’t it?”

“It might,” I said. “Publicity is good for an actor, isn’t it?”

“Normally, yes.”

“Normally?”

“Well, with the election and all, Joe-uh, Jack’s father, Joseph Kennedy is running JFK’s campaign-Joe wouldn’t like any bad publicity.”

I wondered if Joe Kennedy considered mugging on stage with the Rat Pack bad publicity.

“So, you haven’t been threatened?” I needed to get a straight answer from him.

“No,” he said. “No threats.”

“All right, then.” I put my hands on my knees and pushed myself up. “I won’t bother you with this anymore.”

“If I do get threats, uh,” he said, walking me to the door, “What should I do?”

I almost told him to call me, but in the end I simply said, “Call security. They’ll take care of it immediately.”

As I left I was thinking it sounded to me like Peter Lawford wouldn’t have minded some bad publicity-or publicity of any kind, for that matter.