The Marilyn Tapes

Los Angeles 7:15 P.M

Sara

Sara Drury had never gotten over her midwestern fascination with Hollywood. During her lunch break she sometimes walked over to Mann’s Chinese Theater, that famous haunt of silent-era movie stars, and frequently spotted Tony Curtis wheeling around in his silver Bentley or Jack Lemmon out for a brisk walk or, one afternoon, Sandra Dee kissing Bobby Darin on a street corner. Sara sensed that they’d had an argument and were making up.

As editor of a magazine devoted to the history of Hollywood, Sara felt blessed with the assignments she sometimes pulled. Just last week she’d spent an entire enchanting afternoon with Ida Lupino, who was just now getting credit for being one of the first female movie directors. A month earlier, she’d spent an entire day with Myrna Loy. And before that had been John Wayne and Ray Milland and Fred Astaire and Barbara Stanwyck.

While interviewing these people, she always had a stray impulse to rush to a phone and call one of her old friends back in Omaha and say “You’ll never guess who I’m spending the day with!” Not that she meant to brag, but saying it aloud would reassure her that she was actually interviewing Ginger Rogers (not an easy woman to get along with) or Gary Cooper (who had not looked well when she’d interviewed him last year, and who had died just a few months later).

Of course, none of the stars would have granted her such lengthy interviews if they hadn’t had faith in her talent. On first glimpse, Sara was a pretty, quiet blonde woman given to earnest eyeglasses and shy smiles. But to those in the movie industry, she was one of the best interviewers of her era. She put stars at ease because she never asked for dirt or gossip; rather she wanted to know what Hollywood had been like in the thirties and forties, back when both James Cagney and George Raft had been chorus boys. Her interviews were widely quoted and were the most popular part of Insight, a slick magazine devoted entirely to the subject of Hollywood.

Most days she liked her work, but more and more, it seemed, she was away from her ten-year-old daughter, and the separations depressed her.

Especially when Laura was ill. During these crises, Sara — a single mother — experienced genuine desperation. Today, for instance, when Laura complained of not feeling well, Sara had felt real panic. She wanted to quit her job on the spot and take care of her personally. But instead she’d called the sitter, Mrs. Gregory, and asked her to serve as “mommy.” So Mrs. Gregory had taken Laura to the doctor to check out the scratchy throat.

Of course, it was only a sore throat, and Sara knew it was ridiculous to panic, but still she was frightully anxious all day. And now it was after 7:00 P.M. and Laura and Mrs. Gregory were still not home from their three o’clock appointment.

Sara sighed, focusing again on the sheet of paper in her Royal typewriter.

The subject was Val Lewton, a distinguished director of low-budget but effective horror films in the early forties. Lewton was dead but Sara had been able to find several of the actors who’d formed Lewton’s informal ensemble. She hoped that her article, illustrated with several startling black-and-white studio photos from I Walked with a Zombie, would convince serious students of film to check Lewton out. She was now typing some of the interview she’d conducted with DeWitt Bodeen, who had written Curse of the Cat People for Lewton. She tried hard to concentrate, to stop looking at the clock, stop staring at the telephone on her desk as if she could will it to ring, stop conjuring up images of all the health perils a young girl could encounter.

“Any word yet?”

She looked up at Jeff Williams, who was leaning in the doorway of her office.

Jeff had come to Hollywood right after World War II because a talent scout had told him that he had the same boyish quality as Van Johnson and other boys-next-door. Fifteen years had passed and the “boy” had hair that was turning gray, wrinkles around the eyes that were definitely not boyish, and a faint air of bookishness that never quite left him. Like Sara, Jeff had had the bad luck to draw a faithless mate. The disintegration of his marriage had been prolonged and aggrieved, and even now, two years after it had officially been put to rest, one still saw occasional flashes of sorrow in the quick dark eyes.

She shook her head. “No word yet. But you know me. I’m imagining the worst. God save us from over-protective parents.”

“You’re not being over-protective, Sara. You want to know where Laura and Mrs. Gregory are. That’s a natural reaction for a parent. For a good, responsible parent, anyway.”

Sara smiled. Jeff had never made any secret of his dislike for Michael, Sara’s estranged husband. Michael was also a failed actor but one who still, despite a lot of evidence to the contrary, believed he would someday be as big as Newman or McQueen.

“Meaning Michael isn’t?” she said.

“Meaning Michael isn’t.”

“You don’t give him any credit at all.” Sometimes she bristled at the way Jeff attacked her husband.

“And you give him too much credit. Maybe we should split the difference. How does that sound?”

She grinned. While she wasn’t in love with Jeff — not in the way he was with her, anyway — he had become her best friend during her long ordeal with Michael.

“And now you need some food,” Jeff said. “In fact, we both do. Cheeseburger sound good? I’ll go.”

She shrugged. Until she heard from Mrs. Gregory—

“Force yourself,” Jeff said.

“I guess you’re right.”

“I’ll be back in fifteen minutes. So please catch the phone.”

Sara went into the front office to the water cooler. Insight had been founded by the wealthy son of a banking magnate. Thomas Sylver was rich and quite bored. In addition to scandalously young girls, he had only two interests: yachting and the motion-picture business. Five years ago, he published the first issue of Insight to worldwide acclaim from students of movie history. He had personally hired Sara, obviously with the thought that they would one day sleep together. The fact that she was married didn’t deter him at all — indeed, he seemed to have been merrily challenged by this fact. Sara had no such intention. After a few passes, one of which was an invitation to accompany him for a weekend at his mansion in Mexico, she managed to end his ardor by threatening to quit if he didn’t leave her alone. Gonad-crazed as he was, Thomas Sylver was also a businessman. Sara was valuable to the magazine. He never bothered her again. Last year, however, several of Sylver’s biggest investments had taken some bad hits and suddenly he was left cash-poor. In order to keep the magazine up and running, he had to take on an investor: a crude, middle-aged man named Bellamy, who had spent thirty years publishing trashy Hollywood tabloids. It was an even trade — as half-owner, Bellamy got the prestige associated with Insight and Thomas Sylver got much-needed cash.

Sara had tried hard to like Bellamy. Sylver spent most of his time abroad these days, which meant that Bellamy ran the magazine on a day-to-day basis. His impact on editorial policy had been immediate. He always compared Insight sales figures to those of Confidential, and found Insight wanting. He instantly tried to give the magazine “sex appeal” by having Sara write articles about some of the sleazier scandals of Old Hollywood, including the woman who had allegedly been raped in Fatty Arbuckle’s hotel room; the decapitated Black Dahlia; Charlie Chaplin’s various flings with underage girls. Her inclination, after four issues of this, was to quit and find another job, but the country was in a recession; the studios were laying off, not hiring. There wouldn’t be any publicity jobs open. She couldn’t quit. She was Laura’s sole support. Even though Michael got an occasional TV part — he’d even done a “Studio One” a while back — he only rarely gave her any financial help. The maddening part of it all was that she still loved him.

Bellamy didn’t even look right in the magazine’s handsome offices. His cheap, wrinkled suits did not belong in the same room as the framed Modigliani prints on the wall; his “fuck you” to half the people he talked with on the phone clashed with the quiet, friendly conversations Sara had with Jeff; and he was forever flicking cigarette ashes on the gold carpet and the beautiful plum-colored fabric couch in the waiting area. Jeff even told her that Bellamy had blackmailed stars when he was starting out. For a certain amount, Bellamy would turn over photos of the star being weak and foolish.

Sara phoned home again. Still no answer. She tried the doctor’s office. An answering-service woman said that the doctor’s office was closed for the day. Great.

She went back to the typewriter and forced herself to plod through three more sentences about Val Lewton, about how Lewton’s movies weren’t really “horror” at all but rather elegant suspense tales driven by strange and often neurotic stories of romantic love.

She heard the outer office door open almost hesitantly, and then a harsh cough grate on the air.

Bellamy and his Chesterfield cough. She groaned at the thought. She could still hear those Arthur Godfrey radio commercials: “Chesterfield — good for your health!” The same brand of cigarettes that had killed Humphrey Bogart was now killing Bellamy.

The way the door had opened, Sara knew for sure that something was wrong. Bellamy always burst through doors, shouting orders; tonight he came in silent and limping. His white shirt, gray trousers, and hair were dark with sweat.

He was just inside when he collapsed.

Sara rushed to kneel beside him. Bellamy was still alive, but his breath came in ragged gasps.

She dragged him to his office couch, then went to the cooler and filled a clean coffee cup with water.

Incredibly, during her brief absence, Bellamy had dragged himself to his desk and poured himself a shot of whiskey from his familiar silver flask.

“Appreciate the help, kid,” he told her, coughing on a cigarette.

“Maybe you should lay off that stuff?”

“You’re really a fucking Girl Scout, you know that?”

Not until now, in this light, did Sara see that Bellamy had been in some kind of fight. His left eye was discolored, his lower lip swollen. And the way Bellamy rubbed his gut probably meant that somebody had hit him in the stomach.

“You better get out of here, kid.”

“Will you be all right?”

The knowing stare. “You’re classy. You know that? Classy and trustworthy. That’s a nice combination.”

“Thank you.”

“That’s why I’m going to tell you where you can find the combination to my safe. I may have to kind of disappear. You’ll have to open the safe and bring me something. It’s right here — taped beneath the top right desk drawer. The combination.”

“All right.”

“Now get out. I got some calls to make.”

“Are you going to be all right?”

“Don’t worry about me. I been kicked around harder’n this.” Another hack. “You remember where the combination is?”

She nodded.

Tolson

Clyde hadn’t thought about Melanie in several months, the bitch, and he wouldn’t have thought of her now if Edgar hadn’t been hinting about what a mess Clyde’s office was these days.

Clyde was a saver, and hadn’t cleaned out his desk drawers in more than three years. Among many other things, he saved matchbooks from posh restaurants, ticket stubs from sporting events, foreign cigarette packages, and cocktail napkins with bawdy jokes on them.

He used to have what he called his junk drawer, but that in time became two junk drawers, then three. Now five of the six drawers were junk drawers.

He began throwing stuff away, all the useless paper in his drawers. In no time he had only two junk drawers remaining.

He was just about to start on those when he found the photograph of Melanie Baines, a young, beautiful, red-headed woman in a red bikini standing on the stern of a yacht with her arm around another young woman of equal beauty.

Melanie Baines. He’d had one of the Los Angeles field ops tail her for a few days. This was the picture the op sent back. With no comment. Spoke volumes for itself.

Tolson looked at the photograph and shook his head. Edgar could be such a foolish bastard sometimes. God, for a time, Tolson had even worried that Edgar had developed a sexual interest in this young lady.

He took great pleasure in ripping the photograph into small pieces and letting them fall, like so much confetti, into the wastebasket.

Thank God that episode with Melanie Baines was over and behind them now. Edgar had nearly lost everything. Everything.

Clyde went on cleaning out the final two drawers.

Hoover

“Hold my calls.”

“Yes, sir. Even from Mr. Tolson?”

“Even from Mr. Tolson.”

“Very well.”

Hoover’s secretary clicked off, leaving Hoover alone in his office to put his head down on his desk and nap. He didn’t want anybody to know he did this, of course. There was enough gossip about him, especially these days, that he was getting too old for the job.

Bastards.

Didn’t they have anything better to do than whisper all those lies about him to anybody who’d listen?

He put his head down. Closed his eyes. Tried to drift off. It was amazing how much better you felt after even a fifteen minute nap.

Drifting off...

And then the movie started.

Technicolor. Symphonic sound. Cast of thousands. Lord, it was the biggest, loudest, most violent movie ever made and right at the center of it, the star of the whole shebang, was not Hoover himself but—

Melanie.

Yes, Melanie.

Shooting at bad guys. Kicking in doors. Going 125 miles per hour on the freeway while chasing somebody...

Hoover couldn’t help but admire her. If he’d been a woman, he would have wanted to be exactly like Melanie. Sometimes he even thought of her as his little sister.

Where both Hoover and Clyde were proper bureaucrats, careful not to violate laws and offend sensitive groups, Melanie had no such scruples.

Once, just to make a point, she had impaled a man’s penis to a kitchen chair with a staple gun. He told her what she wanted to know.

The man turned out to be a bottomless fount of invaluable information.

She’d once baited a trawl line with a particularly uncooperative congressional staffer and spent a long, languid hour trolling the shark-infested waters off Key West. The man soon saw his patriotic duty and identified six highly placed congressional informants.

Melanie had once dissuaded a young reporter — fresh from Iowa’s School of Journalism — from writing a story alleging homosexual conduct on the part of Hoover and Clyde Tolson. After Melanie’s explanation of the ethical implications of such journalism, the young man admitted his mistake, withdrew the story, and handed the disputed negative over to her.

All this had occurred after Melanie had branded the young man’s buttocks with a steam iron.

Looking back on the incident, Hoover could not help but remember her fondly. Her gift to him afterward had been so thoughtful, so typical of his little Melanie. Knowing Hoover’s passion for photography, she had provided him with snapshots of the particular operation.

Head down on his desk, eyes closed, Hoover recalled once again those extraordinary photos of the young man’s scorched derriere.

Even now, he smiled to himself.

Who could not help but smile at Melanie?

My God, the woman had more balls than any man the director had ever met, especially those swaggering cowboys the CIA was always coming up with.

If only Clyde understood.

Clyde loathed Melanie. Loathed her.

Sometimes Hoover even wondered if Clyde weren’t just jealous of the relationship Hoover had with Melanie.

Poor Clyde.

Hoover yawned.

He remembered being no more than five years old, putting his head down on his blanket in Miss Kenyon’s kindergarten class, and the luxurious drifting off into the world of sleep...

And that’s sort of how he felt now... still Miss Kenyon’s favorite because he was such a good boy... and so sleepy...

He luxuriously drifted off.

Tully

Weird that Tully would fall in love with a girl who had an artificial leg.

He had met her the previous fall, at an outdoor restaurant by the La Brea tar pits, where he was having a few drinks and watching the sunset.

As she drew near his little table, he saw how she kept her eyes downcast, as if shy or ashamed. She was really quite attractive, with big dark eyes and full, erotic lips.

She glanced up briefly and their eyes met, and everything he felt thereafter was as corny as a bad jukebox song.

Then she hurried on her way, her limp obvious beneath the autumn coat.

“I’d like to buy you a drink,” Tully said when he caught up with her, nodding to his table.

“No, thank you.”

“You have a husband?”

“No.”

“A boyfriend?”

“I, uh, guess not. But I don’t know you.”

Still, he felt that she was intrigued.

“Come on. I’ll buy as long as you promise not to get drunk.”

And she smiled and agreed.

It took him three months to get her into bed and another two months to make love to her.

Tully wasn’t used to this. He’d once seduced a coffee heiress — admittedly on VJ day when everybody went a little crazy in the posher watering holes of Gotham — and he’d once slept with a frisky lesbian who confessed that she’d never done it with a man before.

But Vanessa was different.

He was in love with her and she was, at twenty-four, a virgin.

After they first made love, she sat on the edge of his double bed in her sensible white underpants and sensible white bra and said, “I guess we might as well get it over with.”

“Get what over with, hon?”

“My leg.”

“Aw, hell, I don’t even think about that.”

“Sure you do.”

So she showed him. Around her waist was an elastic band that extended down to the artificial leg, affixed just below her knee, where it hooked to a buckle. The leg was made of wood painted a flesh tone.

It was the result of being hit by a truck when she was four years old.

He wanted to take her in his arms and hold her tight forever; this was more intimate than making love.

Four months later they were married.

On their wedding night, she unhitched her leg and then performed oral sex on him for the first time. “You know, hon, you really don’t have to do this,” he said. She was almost superstitiously afraid of his cock, not liking to see it or touch it, and certainly not liking to put it in her mouth. But that was exactly where she put it and he feigned great groaning bliss with her performance, even though her gnashing little teeth were tearing the shit out of his poor little pecker.

And afterward, after she went into the bathroom and brushed her teeth and used Listerine — afterward, she came back and sat in the nook of his arm, in the darkness of the hotel room, and he said, “You don’t have to do that anymore, hon.”

“But you like it, don’t you?”

“I like what you like, hon.”

“I’m so lucky to have you,” she said. “So darn lucky.”

When he came in the apartment door, she knew something was wrong.

He kept clenching and unclenching his hands. The knuckles were bloody. There was dirt on the sleeves of his blue blazer.

“You all right, hon? Did you get in a fight?”

He wouldn’t look at her. “Little scrape. Nothing serious,” he said, going straight for their bedroom.

She heard him open the top drawer of their bureau, the one that squeaked.

She could hear him hiding something under his socks and underwear. That’s where he always put secret stuff related to whatever case he was working on.

Tully worked as an operative for International Investigations. His specialty was electronic surveillance, mostly planting “bugs” in offices. He was a master of infrared and high-powered telephoto lenses.

He came out of the bedroom and went straight into the kitchen. He still hadn’t given her a kiss. He had changed clothes.

The clank of bottle to glass meant he was pouring himself Scotch.

Then he came back in and said, “I need to go out, hon. Just a couple of hours.”

“We’re having spaghetti.”

He leaned over and kissed her tenderly on the mouth. “Just a couple more hours, hon.”

“Something big?”

“Very big. It could make us a lot of money.”

“You promise?”

He crossed his heart. She liked it when he did that. This big Irish guy was cute.

“There’s a Jimmy Stewart picture on the late show,” she said.

“Great,” he said. “We’ll have that spaghetti and watch the Jimmy Stewart picture.”

Then he was gone.

She didn’t know why, but she was scared.

Sara

It was pleasant walking through the mild Los Angeles evening, the sky filled with opening-night search lights and the bright glimpses of airplanes on the way to LAX. And, it was comfortable to talk with Jeff. It took her mind off Laura.

He chuckled. “Bellamy is pretty tough to deal with, isn’t he? I keep trying to find something decent about the guy, but I can’t.”

“After I heard that he might be involved in blackmail...” She shook her head. “No wonder those movie stars show up every once in a while. When they’re so mad, I mean.”

“Would you like to come over?” Jeff said. “After you find Laura, I mean.”

“Think I need some sleep, Jeff. Maybe tomorrow night.”

He nodded and smiled but she could see the disappointment in his eyes. She wished that she no longer loved Michael, had all those awful, idle daydreams about getting back together...

They reached the smart, new office building where they worked. Their cars were in a parking lot behind the building, Jeff’s near the entrance. Hers was at the opposite end. “You want me to walk you over to your car?”

“I’ll be fine. But thanks.”

He kissed her, a quick chaste kiss. “Night,” he said, and climbed into his five-year-old DeSoto.

When she reached her car, she saw Bellamy walking toward his new red Caddy convertible.

“Are you feeling any better, Mr. Bellamy?”

Bellamy nodded and stuck a cigarette in his mouth. “I’m all right, kid. Don’t worry about me. Just remember about the safe.”

Bellamy wore a sports jacket, but it didn’t cover his considerable belly. Sara saw a pistol tucked in his belt.

Since when had Bellamy started carrying a gun?

Bellamy strolled over to his Caddy, and drove quickly from the parking lot.

Something more serious and scary was going on. And too close for comfort.

Melanie

Hospitals spooked Melanie. When she was ten, her dear uncle Mike had come to a hospital to get well, and had died hemorrhaging as she watched at his bedside.

Melanie stopped at the nurse’s station and asked for Jean Stephens. The nurse directed Melanie to wait in the lounge down the hall.

In the lounge were two orange plastic tables with matching chairs, a stack of well-thumbed Saturday Evening Posts and a noisy Pepsi machine. Next to it was a small table with two half-filled coffee pots on heating grids.

Melanie sat down, cold and trembling. She blamed the air-conditioning.

“Hi, stranger,” Jean said, strolling briskly in.

“Hi.”

Jean got coffee for them and they sat. “How’re you doing?”

“Fine. Just thought I’d stop in and say hi.”

“Bullshit.” Jean smiled. She was thirty-six, petite and graceful, with dark hair cut fashionably short and faint eyeliner flattering her green eyes. “You’re starting a new job?”

“Edgar’s lined something up.” She told her about the car chase.

“I’m happy you’re alive,” Jean said.

“C’mon, don’t you think it’s funny?”

Jean shook her head. “I worry about you. Just because you moved out doesn’t mean I don’t still care.”

They had lived together six months, but finally Melanie’s life-style brought them down. Though they were still friends, Melanie had taken an apartment in San Francisco. Whenever she came back to L.A. she got a hotel room.

“You could have been killed. Or the cop could have been killed. He probably has a wife and children.” Jean touched Melanie’s hand. “If you ever learn to accept yourself, then you won’t need to do all this. You can settle down.”

“And be bored.”

Jean smiled, withdrew her hand. “Still, you don’t need to constantly put your life in danger and...” She sighed. “I’m on my soapbox. Sorry.”

“You still on the hospice wing?”

Jean nodded.

“You’re a saint, Jean. You really are.”

Jean laughed, embarrassed. “Oh, yes, in fact the Vatican’s talking about canonizing me right now. First saint to ever be canonized before she dies.” Tenderness was in her eyes and voice. “I hope I can convince you someday that the world is filled with decent people, Melanie. You see that up here on the hospice wing, how people love and care for each other.” She smiled sadly. “Even people like us, Melanie. We’re decent, too. We don’t have to be—” She stopped herself. We don’t have to be crazy and violent and hateful, she always said at this point in the argument. But now she stopped herself.

“Maybe this is one you shouldn’t get involved in, Melanie. This job.”

“You don’t even know what it is.”

“I can tell you’re anxious. I’ve never seen you like this. Maybe it should tell you something.”

“I’ll be all right.” Melanie shrugged. “I guess I shouldn’t have come here. I... just had some time on my hands.”

“We’re friends, Melanie. Always. Any time I can help you, all right?”

Melanie stood up.

“Go easy on yourself, Melanie,” Jean said.

Melanie nodded and left, suddenly frantic to get out of the hospital, out of the burning whiteness and the tart antiseptic smells, and the proximity to death.

Tully

He skimmed the L.A. Times, had a couple of neat Scotches and then went to the phone booth in the back.

He put his handkerchief over the speaking end of the receiver to muffle his voice. Double-crossing clients was a treacherous business. A cool voice answered. “This is the Mayhews.”

“Mr. Mayhew please. This is Charlton Heston’s office.”

A half minute later, a rich male voice said, “Hello?”

“I’ve got some tapes you’ll want to hear.”

“Who is this?”

“I want a quarter of a million dollars in cash for these tapes. And if you don’t buy them, I know somebody who will.”

“Who are you?”

“I’ll call you tomorrow. At the studio. But in the meantime, I’d start getting that money lined up.”

Mayhew said, “You sonofabitch.”

Tully went back to the bar, had another Scotch, and thought about going back home. He’d always been true-blue, but tonight he needed to get out. Go to some dance clubs and check out all the nookie that came in from the Midwest, all those fine young women with their perfect ankles and perfect breasts and perfect smiles. Looking wouldn’t hurt anybody.

Especially when a fella was about to come into a quarter of a million dollars in hard currency.

Sara

Laura was fine.

They’d been late getting home because Mrs. Gregory’s car had stalled several blocks from the doctor’s office, and she’d had to call a service station.

By the time Sara got home, Mrs. Gregory had already put the young girl in bed for the night and straightened up the apartment.

Sara eased open the door to Laura’s room and saw that she was sleeping.

When she bent over to kiss her daughter, her lips touched a forehead and streamers of blonde hair that were damp with sweat. Laura smelled of warmth and sleep.

Sara looked at the array of Laura’s friends neatly lined along the wall. When she wasn’t sleeping, these friends filled the bed: two teddy bears, a doll in a Scottish kilt, a Sandra Dee dress-up doll, and smiling Bullwinkle.

When Sara returned to the living room, Mrs. Gregory was watching “The Garry Moore Show” and packing up her familiar Thermos, plastic sandwich container and various rosaries and prayer pamphlets and missals. Mrs. Gregory was a relentless Catholic. She’d once inquired, cautiously, trying to be inoffensive, about Sara’s religion. When Sara had made the mistake of saying “I used to be Catholic,” she’d had no idea of the fervor in Mrs. Gregory. Ever since then, Mrs. Gregory discreetly left holy cards and prayer pamphlets throughout the four-room apartment. She had obviously taken upon herself the burden of saving Sara’s soul. But despite her missionary zeal, she was a doggedly reliable woman who loved Laura with maternal passion. Mrs. Helen Gregory was in her sixties, all three of her own children long gone, and so she spent herself on young Laura.

Mrs. Gregory apologized again for worrying Sara.

Then she said, “Your husband called.”

Three simple words.

These days, Sara told herself that the worst of it was over. In the eleven months Michael had been gone, she had regained her equilibrium.

She also told herself that when he called, as he occasionally did, wanting to come over and see Laura, she would no longer feel her stomach tightening, or sweat breaking in her palms, or her heartbeat increase uncomfortably. But she felt all of these things now, along with bitterness.

She tried to act composed. “Did he say what he wanted?”

Stout Mrs. Gregory shook her graying head. “He never does. Said he’d call back.” Her disapproval of Michael was tart in her voice. The Drurys had lived in this apartment house for the past five years. Nice as these apartments were, with large rooms and shining hardwood floors and back windows that looked out on a wooded area, they had not been built to keep secrets. When you argued as frequently and angrily as Sara and Michael Drury had, everybody else in the apartment house knew your business. So Mrs. Gregory knew a great deal about Michael’s various dissatisfactions.

“Thanks, Mrs. Gregory.”

“If you want my advice, Sara, I wouldn’t let Michael see that little girl anymore. He’s not a good influence — living the way he does.”

Sara edged closer to her so that Mrs. Gregory would get the hint and leave.

Mrs. Gregory put a white meaty hand on the doorknob and gave it a sharp twist. “He’s a bad influence. You mark my words.”

“Good night,” Sara said. “I’ll have your money for you tomorrow.”

From the other side of the threshold Mrs. Gregory said, in a quiet voice lest her neighbors hear, “I know you think I’m a busybody, Sara, but I love that little girl and I just want the best for her.”

Sara smiled. “I know you do, Mrs. Gregory. And I’ll think it over. Good night, Mrs. Gregory.”

And then she was gone and the door was closed and Sara was left alone with her thoughts.

Tolson

Ever since he’d seen the snapshot of Melanie Baines, Tolson had been able to think of nothing else.

Edgar had promised to sever all ties with the woman.

Tolson closed his office door.

He dialed the number of an agent in the Los Angeles office, a man named Rollins. Tolson had used Rollins twice before to check on Melanie’s activities.

“Why, hello, Clyde.”

Rollins was a tall, fleshy man, not brilliant, but one hell of a good tail. He was also slick at getting records of phone conversations from the phone company.

“I’m nervous again, Hal.”

“Our old friend the beautiful redhead?”

“Yes. Check Edgar’s home phone number. And the office number here. See if they’ve talked.”

“I’ll be back to you as soon as I can. It’s probably nothing.”

“I hope you’re right.”

Melanie

West Hollywood was changing. You saw more and more clubs like The Icon now. Long fancy cars in the parking lot. Even a chauffeur or two. And carefully disguised movie stars rushing inside before anybody got a good look at them. The Icon was a lesbian bar, and while there was a lesbian underground in Hollywood, few people knew about it and even fewer talked about it. Sleaze magazines such as Confidential had hinted at it but not even they had dared run any substantive stories. The old-time studio heads had allowed them their dirty little mentions because the magazines hadn’t hurt box office grosses. But a serious investigation into the underground, with the naming of names... The studio heads were not above hiring killers. And keeping this in mind, the magazine publishers knew just how far they could go. They left places like The Icon alone.

Melanie came here looking for something. She wasn’t sure what.

It was early so the place was quiet. On the dance floor a pair of young women danced slowly to a moody saxophone on the jukebox. Along the bar, several couples talked and joked among themselves, giving Melanie the sense of apartness she had felt all her life. She didn’t belong anywhere.

The walls were painted with large gold Oscar statues. Every few feet along the bar a huge bowl contained an imposing blue gardenia.

Melanie sipped her spring water and lime. Should come back later when the craziness started. Maybe that’s what she was looking for: craziness.

“Hi.”

When she turned, she found an attractive young woman standing to her left at the bar. Strictly Kansas City. Staid blue suit and white pillbox hat. Little white gloves. White plastic purse.

“Hi,” Melanie said, trying not to smirk at the hayseed getup.

“They keep it pretty dark in here, don’t they?”

The girl’s voice was uncertain. Melanie recognized her as a first-timer. Tourist. Come to this den of lesbians to find out if this was where she fit. Always something wrong with her relationships with men, so maybe women were the answer.

“They like it dark.”

“Oh,” the girl said, nervously biting her lower lip.

“Where’re you from?”

“Springfield. Illinois, not Missouri.”

“Ah.”

“I lived there all my life. Till last year. When I turned twenty-one. Then I said good-bye to Roger and my mom and dad and just sort of... well, moved out here.”

“Roger being...”

“My boyfriend. Or ex-boyfriend. He told me two months ago that he met somebody else, a secretary who likes to water-ski.”

“You ever been here before?” Melanie said.

“No — well, yes. I snuck in here one night and just kind of looked around.”

“And then you—”

“Ran right back out. So anyway, I decided to give it another try tonight.”

“Well, I’m glad you did.”

The girl put forth a gloved hand. “My name’s Myrna.”

“Tracy,” Melanie said. “Tracy Deeds.”

“What an interesting name.”

“Yes,” Melanie said, “isn’t it, though?”

Washington, D.C

Hoover

He ordered up several special files and now he sat, door locked, poring over them in his orderly, efficient, but sterile inner office. Even the proud colors of the American flag seemed cold in this room.

People had no idea what Hoover knew about them.

Take this file. Martin Luther King, or Martin Nigger Coon, as some of the southern agents referred to him. A dozen secret snapshots of the high and mighty Reverend escorting various white ladies into and out of motels. Hoover had managed to bug a few of those rooms and he knew the kind of filthy things the holy Reverend went in for.

Then the file on Roy Cohn. Roy was always good file material. Stuff about Bobby Kennedy going after mobsters and Roy defending them. But the best parts were Roy’s boyfriends. He liked them big and blond. A little queer, hiding behind the American flag.

Or the file on Louella Parsons. Dear old Louella. While the FBI director and she ostensibly were friends, he knew that she’d been writing a book about Marilyn Monroe. He’d asked her to share with him names of the men — and women, if rumor were true — that Monroe had been sleeping with. He was especially interested in Marilyn’s relationship with the Kennedys. But Louella had amiably refused to tell him anything. And so, three months ago, he’d put her under surveillance. As yet, he didn’t have anything especially interesting.

And then there were the Kennedys, the whole tribe, right down to those still in high school. They all had the same randy sexual tastes, if not the skills. “Selfish,” as one woman said, not knowing that her phone conversation was being taped, “Jack slid his cock in me and started whaling away and a minute or so later, it was all over. And Bobby isn’t much better. And they seem to hate doing you, like it’s really dirty or disgusting or something. I mean, frankly, if they weren’t so good-looking, I’d just as soon do myself. It’s more fun.”

The president of the United States a bum lay.

This was just the sort of fact that made the director of the FBI smile.

Then there were files on Mayhew, the head of a Hollywood studio; and Rossetti, a mob man who had called Louella last night and hinted that he might have something for her; and Tully, a corrupt private investigator. He’d gotten these names from Melanie on her call earlier today. They all seemed to be involved in what she was looking for. And Hoover already had files on each of them because in some way their pasts had proved interesting to the agents.

But now the whole project rested in Melanie’s hands.

He wondered how Melanie was doing.

Bellamy

The apartment house was old, the faded wallpaper in the hall stained with moisture, the carpet bald in spots. He could smell spaghetti sauce. As soon as Bellamy said he was a police detective, she came to the door.

When she opened the door, Bellamy saw that she was pretty enough, but beneath the right hem of her housecoat was empty air. She didn’t have a right leg. She walked with a crutch.

“Do you have a badge I could see?” she asked pleasantly.

He lunged forward, shoving her into the apartment. She went over backwards, sprawling on the floor.

He closed the door and took the gun from his waistband.

“You know what I’m after, lady. Don’t waste my time. Where are they?”

He had the gun pointed right at her face, no more than three feet from the tip of her nose to the snout of the .45.

She propped herself up on her elbows and tried to struggle to her feet.

He put his foot on her stomach.

“Stay where you are.”

Her blue housecoat had pulled up around her left thigh, and he got a pleasant little glimpse of her dark pubic hair behind the white fabric of her panties.

But he wasn’t here for sex.

“Where are they?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Honest, I don’t.”

“I saw your husband leave. Where did he go?”

“I m not sure.”

“Bullshit. He’d tell you where he was going.”

“Sometimes he doesn’t. Honest.”

He looked around the apartment. Nobody would ever accuse them of living beyond their means. The furnishings were from the thirties and forties, big and heavy, everything claw-footed, the lamp shades soiled and all the arms of the couch and chairs covered with old-lady doilies. This was the kind of place his mean Irish grandmother lived in.

“What happened to your leg?”

“Car accident. When I was little.”

“You always use a crutch?”

She shook her head. She really was attractive in a sad, worn way. “I have an artificial one.”

He looked at her face and then at the stump of her right leg, cleaved off just below the knee.

“Too bad. You’re a good looking girl.”

“I’m really scared, mister. I don’t want to wet my pants but I’m afraid I’m going to.”

“I don’t have any reason to hurt you if you tell me the truth.” Sometimes that was the best approach with women, the soft, understanding approach.

“I don’t know what you’re looking for.”

“Something that old man of yours brought home with him in the last twenty-four hours.”

He saw the sudden recognition in her eyes.

He knelt next to her. He put the .45 right up to her crotch.

“Anybody ever fuck you with a gun before?”

“Oh, God. Please. Please, don’t.”

One minute and thirty-five seconds later, she told him what he wanted to know.

Rossetti

Salvitore Rossetti was a killer who got his break by saving the lives of killers.

At the end of World War II, the United States became the site of many bloody Mob wars. The generation of mobsters that had gone off to fight in Europe and the South Pacific returned wanting a much bigger piece of the action.

Prior to 1946, Rossetti was a Mob soldier who had pulled only small-time duties in the New York organization.

Then one night, he had been leaving a “carpet joint” — a Mob creation that combined the speakeasy with the gambling casino — when he saw a black car sweeping toward the entrance, the rear end fishtailing. Rossetti instantly grasped the scene. The car was filled with men and tommy guns. They were about to kill two of Rossetti’s bosses, men who’d just stepped out ahead of him and were walking to their car.

Rossetti dove for the men and knocked them down behind a parked car.

The men in the black car opened fire, but it was too late.

The bosses were grateful to young Salvitore Rossetti.

They asked Meyer Lansky of Miami and Cuba if he had a spot in his organization for a nice-looking young man, because otherwise the men in the black car would certainly hunt Rossetti down and kill him.

Lansky, who owed the two bosses a favor, quickly dispatched Rossetti to Havana, where Rossetti became a kind of glorified floor walker in one of Lansky’s lavish casinos.

It was like being in a movie, spending each night in a fresh tuxedo, wandering around the vast gaming floor while the full orchestra performed erotic rumbas or melancholy sambas, watching American movie stars and industrial magnates and champion boxers play blackjack or baccarat. They came to Havana to play.

He was the fixer. If a well-heeled customer was having trouble, it was up to Mr. Rossetti to make sure that both customer and casino were ultimately satisfied. With his easy-going charm, Rossetti found his duties rewarding in every sense — with one exception. He had seen men, and a few women, shot, stabbed, drowned, beaten, and pushed into beds of lime, and he had never developed a taste for it.

But he fell in love with the movie industry. Movie people were his favorite dinner guests in Havana — stars, directors, producers, and studio executives. The entire business dazzled him.

And the movie people liked him, a handsome (even dashing) and somewhat mysterious man whose charm brought him the favors of beautiful ladies from a dozen different nations.

Then came Castro and everything changed. Fidel, pledging to rid the country of parasites and immorality, burned the casino to the ground.

There were rumors that Fidel planned to execute some mafiosi. Mobsters fled the island.

Six months later, Rossetti found a niche as a fixer for the West Coast mob. The organization was infiltrating major businesses throughout the United States, and the movie industry looked ripe, especially to some of the Vegas kingpins who skimmed huge profits from their gaming tables.

Rossetti was the ideal man to serve as a bridge between the organization and Hollywood studios.

Sometimes when Rossetti sat in his light, spacious office — surrounded by Danish-modern furnishings and imposing black-and-white blow-ups of silent stars such as Buster Keaton and Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin — he felt comfortable, at ease, as if this were the very spot fate had had in mind for him.

Usually, anyway.

But not today. Today he was anxious. Mayhew was the key. If Mayhew did his job properly, Rossetti could bring down the entire government of the United States. He would know a power beyond imagining.

He dialed Mayhew’s private number.

There was no answer.

Rossetti mumbled obscenities and hung up.

Tolson

Clyde saw gossip as an effeminate habit, and hated it. Of course, he would never dare say this to Edgar.

Now, over a late meal at Edgar’s house, the director said to him, “Did I tell you about Anthony Perkins?”

“No.”

Edgar stopped cutting his roast beef. “What’s the matter?”

“Why?”

“The way you looked just then.”

“I’m a little tired is all.”

“I thought you’d want to hear about Anthony Perkins.”

“Of course.”

“I mean, if we didn’t have our agents looking in on these people we never would have been in a position to — well, we could get rid of the Kennedys.”

“With Anthony Perkins?”

“Of course not with Anthony Perkins. But with our friends in Los Angeles.”

“Ah.”

“Now let me tell you about Anthony Perkins.”

“Fine.”

“And don’t get that look on your face again.”

“All right.”

“You know how I hate that look.”

“Right.”

Then Edgar told him about Anthony Perkins.

Melanie

So Myrna said, “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know what?” Melanie asked.

“If I’m a... well, you, know.”

“Ah. You don’t know if you’re a you-know.”

“Did that make you mad? You seem like you’re mad.”

After The Icon, Melanie and Myrna went to Myrna’s two-room apartment where, after a couple of drinks, Myrna let Melanie pull down the Murphy bed, and they lay down on it with their clothes on.

“Can I ask you a question, Tracy?”

“Why not?” Melanie said.

“You sure you’re not mad?”

“Not mad. Honest.”

“You seem mad.”

“If you keep saying I’m mad, I’ll probably get mad.”

“That’s a good point.”

“You were going to ask me a question,” Melanie said.

“Oh. Right.” Giggling. Drinks apparent in her voice now. “It’s personal.” She giggled. “Have you ever done it? You know. With another girl?”

“Ah.”

“See. The way your jaw is all clenched up. You are mad.”

“Myrna, I’d like to kiss you.”

“Well.”

“Then we could do a couple of other things, too.”

“I guess you’re answering my question, aren’t you?” Myrna giggled.

“Yes,” Melanie said. “I guess I am.” She took the sweet, addled girl in her arms and kissed her.

Myrna was not responsive. “You don’t have a beard.”

“What?” Melanie said.

“I’ve never kissed anybody who didn’t need a shave before. I mean, kissed passionately.”

“Oh, Lord.” Melanie sat up and swung her feet to the floor.

“Now you’re really mad, aren’t you?”

“Just shut up, Myrna.”

“I want you to like me. I want you to help me find out if I’m, you know.”

Melanie stood and slapped Myrna’s face.

Myrna fell in a sobbing heap on the Murphy bed. Her skirt was hiked up to her hips. Garter belt and panties clear to see. Pubic hair dark behind the tan panties.

Melanie dropped to her knees and put her face between the sobbing girl’s legs and began to partake.

Myrna flinched. “Oh, no. This isn’t right.”

But she yielded. Melanie undid the garters, slid the panties off, and the girl began to gasp and moan.

In the low animal noises of the sweet midwestern girl, Melanie heard what she had been so frantically searching for today.

Afterward, as Melanie held her tenderly, Myrna said, “Who’s Jessica? You kept whispering her name.”

“Jessica was the best friend I’ve ever had,” Melanie said.

She was up and out the door before Myrna could see the tears in her eyes.

Michael

The first time Michael Drury ever sold himself to a woman, he was twenty-nine years old. An ample Beverly Hills matron had intimated to Michael that she would just love company this weekend on her trip to the Racquet Club in Palm Springs...

He had the matron pick him up in front of the Hollywood Hotel, where he said he was staying. She seemed amused with his little fiction.

He got in the back seat of her chauffeured silver Bentley. She took him shopping and bought him a new Beverly Hills wardrobe.

For a boy who’d grown up behind the Omaha stockyards, Rodeo Drive was paradise.

His only fear — which haunted him all the way to Palm Springs — was: What if I get in bed with this fat old woman and I can’t get it up? What kind of gigolo can’t get a hard-on?

He performed beautifully and often during those two long days, and she showed him off to her friends.

The affair ran five months. By the time she dumped him for another struggling actor, Michael had acquired a string of other rich playmates.

His marriage, of course, was now a joke. He came home at most two nights a week, always afraid that he would pass on a venereal disease to Sara. But after a time, Sara and he no longer made love, and his fear went away.

The pattern remained the same. The matrons he squired around showered him with gifts and passed him on to others. Kathryn Wilson was such a referral.

She was different. She paid for dinners, and tickets, and introduced him to sailing and skiing. But she did not give him lavish gifts, his customary allowance, or access to any of her credit cards or charge accounts.

Yes, she was different. After spending a few evenings at her weathered redwood frame house on the edge of a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, he found himself able to talk to her as with none of the others about his life.

He told her how one day he’d gone to the slaughterhouse and watched as his father took a huge machete-like knife and slashed open the gut of the cow that was hanging upside down. All the blood, all the innards... The nightmares lasted into early manhood. And he told her about how his mother spurned his affection, how even when he shipped off to the Army, she wouldn’t let him kiss her, only giving him a small peck on the cheek. And of Sara, how he’d let Sara and his daughter Laura down so many times...

The way she listened, he knew that she was in love with him. She was twenty years older, and the product of a most respectable upper-class California family (oil accounting for the bulk of their fortune), and she should not have been able to understand him at all. But she did. And after they made love, she was always tender, and told him how sorry she was for his past life, and how things would be different now — that she had never believed that she would love again after being widowed at thirty... but with Michael she was once more happy and whole... and she would make Michael happy and whole, too.

He even got used to saying “I love you” after their lovemaking. It made him feel less like a toy.

After six months, she began taking him to formal sit-down dinners with friends of hers, including James Stewart and Gregory Peck and Gloria Swanson. He saw Pickfair, and attended Buster Keaton’s birthday party, and was invited to play golf with a threesome that included William Holden and James Cagney.

Now he felt a part of Kathryn’s Old Hollywood, an accepted member. Going back home to Sara and Laura was increasingly difficult. Though he loved them, he could barely get through a night at the small apartment.

Then Kathryn asked him to marry her.

He was still trying to give her an answer.

“We should really try and stop.”

“God, it would be hard.”

“So would lung cancer,” Kathryn said.

She had read a Time story about the Surgeon General’s new report on smoking.

Now when they lay abed in the evening shadows, smoking their cigarettes after making love, Kathryn was inclined to give little speeches.

He laughed. “Can’t I enjoy my cigarette in peace?”

She leaned over and kissed him. “Are you still going to call Laura?”

“I already did.”

“Oh.”

“It’ll be nice to see her.”

“Yes, it will.”

Kathryn lay back. She always kept herself covered. She was self-conscious about her fifty-two-year-old body. Actually, she was an erotic woman.

“I know you’re scared about it, Kathryn.”

“I guess I am.”

“Just because I’m going to see my daughter doesn’t mean I’m going back to my wife.”

“You aren’t ever tempted?”

He wanted to be honest. “Sometimes. In some ways, I still love Sara.”

“I know you do.”

“But that doesn’t mean I’ll ever go back. It really doesn’t.”

“I hope not,” she said. “We have a nice life together. I don’t want it to end.”

He leaned over and kissed her gently on the mouth. “Neither do I, Kathryn. Neither do I.”

Sara

After watching Jack Paar for a while, Sara went into Laura’s room and gave her another good-night kiss, then went to bed.

She tried hard to forget how Michael, celebrating his first role in an “A” picture, had swept her up and carried her into this bedroom. Their lovemaking was tender that night, much as it had been back in Omaha when he was the class rebel and she was the earnest upper-middle-class girl from the area known as Happy Hollow.

How handsome he’d been, dark hair, menacing eyes — and how bright.

She remembered how they met. He surprised her one warm September afternoon of junior year when he strolled into her journalism class. Each was cautious around the other, but when Michael won the lead in the production of Our Town in which Sara had a small part, they found themselves sharing a common interest.

The rest was history.

The phone rang.

She snatched it up quickly. It was Bellamy.

“I’m gonna have to vanish for a little while but expect to hear from me.”

When she put down the phone, she was shaken. She’d never heard Bellamy this frantic.

Maybe this time he’d really done it.

Maybe he’d finally bitten off more than he could chew.

Bobby

It was 2:43 A.M. and Bobby still couldn’t sleep. He sat in his study at his desk, still in his shirt sleeves. He stared at a photo album he’d taken from a locked desk drawer.

He’d been crazy to take such a risk, all these photographs of himself and Marilyn, but...

He closed his eyes and remembered her. How sweet-natured she’d been. And how ineffably sad.

She’d had one of those terrible childhoods you read about in the sob-sister magazines, and it had left her scarred. She was all need, all feeling, inexpressibly lonely.

Tell me I’m pretty. Tell me I’m sexy. Do you like this new dress? Do you like my hair? Do you like me?

She wasn’t a star at all when you got to know her. She was this naive girl, intimidated by all the people who wanted something from her.

She was also the girl who took his virginity — not physically, but emotionally and spiritually.

He put his head back now and thought of all the ways she’d changed him.

She had taught him the beauty to be found in sunsets, in animals, in music, in holding each other. She had taken him away from a brutal world of dog-eat-dog and winner-take-all.

They had been so erotically attuned to each other, sometimes making love three or four times a night.

And she had taught him how to love.

And now, instead of loving her and venerating her memory, he had to think of his career, had to be the old Bobby: hard, controlled, insular.

He wanted the taste and scent of her. He wanted the soft-eyed little-girl tenderness. He wanted another job, another world, another life.

He wanted her.

And he wanted Lenihan to find the tapes and save his brother.

Most of all, he wanted to close his eyes and remember the waves crashing at Big Sur, remember how they’d swum in the moonlit ocean and then made love on the beach beneath a wool blanket, and how sometimes when Marilyn’s tiny cat sat on her lap in her bedroom they pretended that this was the child they would have someday.

Most of all he wanted her.

He wanted Marilyn.

Hoover

J. Edgar Hoover lay in his bed saying his nightly prayers. He used to kneel, but now the damned arthritis in his knees was killing him.

He prayed for himself and his good health, for Clyde and his good health, for the good health of his dogs, and for Melanie’s success.

Please God. This country needs a leader who is pure in both mind and heart and who will run it the way the Founding Fathers intended. And punish those who do not behave properly.

Please help Melanie succeed, Lord. She’s just like you and me. A real patriot, Lord; a real patriot.