Bombshell

by Allan, Barbara

  Above the clatter and chatter of the crowd at lunch, Marilyn could hear the Greek-born Spyros talking to Khrushchev, telling him—through an interpreter seated on the other side of Spyros—that he, too, had once been a poor shepherd boy, but had risen to great power under capitalism.

  Khrushchev trained his bullet eyes on the president of Fox Studios, and spoke tersely in Russian. Said the interpreter to Spyros, “And I have risen to great power under communism!”

  Marilyn found that a sharp reply, witty even, and she covered her smile with her napkin.

  Spyros dropped the conversation.

  A few moments slid by, and then an aide of Khrushchev’s rushed up behind the premier, and handed him a note.

  Careful not to stare, Marilyn nonetheless watched as Khrushchev accepted the piece of paper, put on a pair of wire-framed glasses, and read it. His face turned white, then crimson… with obvious fury. He pushed back his chair, nearly toppling it over as he stood, fists balled, body shaking, and he slammed those fists on the table, spilling drinks, making the china jump.

  Everybody froze.

  Another hush had fallen, but a different one, a deadly one.

  Marilyn’s gasp caught in her throat. Something dreadful must have happened!

  As the interpreter translated, Khrushchev addressed those assembled in a quavering but strong voice, making no use of the dais microphone.

  “I have come to this town where lives the cream of American art. And just imagine, I, a premier, a Soviet representative….” He paused, shaking his head, his features tightening into a troll mask. “Just now I was told I could not go to Disneyland.”

  The room remained hushed, and yet a nervous undercurrent wondered: Is the premier joking? Is this Russian humor?

  “Your government has said I cannot go,” Khrushchev (and his translator) continued. “I ask, Why not? Do you have rocket-launching pads there? I do not know. Is there an epidemic of cholera there or something? Have gangsters taken hold of the place that can destroy me? Then what must I do? Commit suicide? This situation is inconceivable… I cannot find words to explain this to my people….”

  The premier bent down, removed one of his brown shoes, and, to the astonishment of everyone, proceeded to bang it on the table.

  Making a hammer of the shoe, he emphasized each word: “I… want… to… go… to… Dis… ney… land!”

  The room fell deadly silent, the guests looking on with amazement—unsure whether to laugh or cry or run screaming from the room into the nearest bomb shelter.

  Studio chief Spyros—his expression consisting of equal parts embarrassment and apprehension—stood, bowing his head in a respectful, dignified manner.

  “Mr. Khrushchev,” he said solemnly, working hard to minimize his accent, “our first concern is your safety.”

  Khrushchev scowled.

  “And,” the studio head continued, placatingly, “the Secret Service could not guarantee that safety at Disneyland. Even your own KGB could not guarantee it….”

  Khrushchev said nothing.

  “Now, we have lovely show for you next door on the sound stage… where we have been filming a delightful movie called Can-Can. We would please be honored if you would join us.”

  Ironically, Marilyn had been offered the female lead in the picture, which co-starred Frank Sinatra, who oddly enough she had never worked with; but, in spite of pleas from the Voice, she had turned down the lightweight part. It had gone to Shirley MacLaine—talented girl, but hardly in Marilyn’s league.

  Spyros Skouras turned to the audience and gestured graciously. “Everyone, please join us on the sound stage, where we will film an actual scene.”

  Relief flooded the banquet room, which soon began to buzz again, as the guests whispered, some snickering, over the spectacle they’d just witnessed. His shoe back on, Khrushchev, looking weary, was ushered from the head table, along with his entourage, and the crowd started to rise, and file out of the commissary.

  Soon the room was empty but for the bus boys and other kitchen staff…

  … and Marilyn, who hadn’t moved from her seat.

  A sadness cloaked her. She felt sorry for Khrushchev. He was a smart man but his background was unsophisticated, and the culture clash was surely jarring to him; his trip to the United States was just not going very well. The papers had reveled in plastering their front pages with his bellicose blusterings and outright threats. Didn’t he know such behavior wouldn’t go over with the American people?

  But she also understood the man’s frustration. She knew how the press could twist your words, and turn against you….

  Upset, preoccupied, Marilyn—getting in the way of the staff now—finally rose from her chair, left the table, and wandered off to the bathroom.

  Minutes later, she was straightening her dress in a stall, and about to flush the toilet when the door opened.

  Male voices trailed in, in that echo-chamber way.

  Mortified, she froze, wondering if she had—in her self-absorbed condition—gone into the wrong bathroom. Soon sounds of male urination confirmed this suspicion, and she could have just died….

  This wasn’t even the first time this had happened to her. She had once asked her analyst, Dr. Marianne Kris, why she so often did this, blundering into men’s restrooms; and the psychiatrist answered, “Perhaps you’d rather be in a man’s world.” And Marilyn had responded, “Only as long as I can be a woman in it!”

  For now, Marilyn stood motionless, hoping no male eyes would glimpse her high heels under the edge of the stall.

  Water ran in the sink.

  One rough voice said: “Sivodnya vyechiram.”

  Another rough voice answered: “Dva chisa.”

  A hollow laugh preceded a chilling Russian remark from the first speaker: “Da svidaniya, Khrushchev.”

  Through the crack of the door hinge Marilyn could see the men—two of Khrushchev’s people, in uniform… what was that spy agency called? The KGB—they were KGB agents! One wore thick wire-framed glasses and had a Kirk Douglas chin; the other had a pockmarked face and brown cow-eyes. The cow-eyed man with the ravaged face shut the water off, and they headed out, their boots slapping the tiled floor.

  The bathroom door opened and whooshed shut.

  Marilyn backed up into a corner of the stall. She had understood the words the two men spoke—that much she knew of the language—and those words sent fear rushing through her.

  “Tonight.”

  “Two o’clock.”

  Laughter. “Goodbye, Khrushchev.”

  She stayed there for a long time, trembling, eyes wide, leaning a hand against the metal of the stall. She knew what she had heard.

  Betrayal—unmistakable, in any language.

  Chapter Six

  CANNED CAN

  “OOO LA LA la,” Frankie sang, with the burr in his voice that characterized the older Sinatra, the silky smoothness of the younger Voice replaced with something equally sexy, in the ears of many women and even a fair share of men. The singer usually left Jack Harrigan cold, however—he’d seen the mobster-friendly singer’s FBI file, after all—even though the State Department agent’s stomach growling provided a slightly off-key harmony.

  Sinatra—now in costume, a black coat and vest and frilly cuffs and shirt and ribbon of a tie, an outfit that reminded Harrigan of Bret Maverick on TV, minus the cowboy hat—was swaying gently in the middle of the sound stage, performing a number he’d announced earlier as “C’est Magnifique,” a romantic, lightly up-tempo ballad written especially for him by Cole Porter for the movie Can-Can, which featured many of the famous songwriter’s standards.

  Watching from the sidelines on the movie soundstage—which had been transformed into an eighteenth-century French dance hall—Harrigan had to admit that as much as he disliked Sinatra the man (whose file began in 1938 with an arrest for seduction of a minor), Sinatra in action was pretty goddamn impressive.

  As he sang, Sinatra moved deftly along the glistening w
ooden dance floor, playing to the audience, as if each one of them was the specific person he was crooning to.

  Providing the performer with a lavish backdrop, a wide staircase with ornate banisters opened onto the second-floor set—the red velvet-and-tasseled living quarters of the saloon’s owner, played in the film by Shirley MacLaine.

  Just as Sinatra finished his tune, Harrigan’s stomach rumbled again, loud enough to be embarrassing, but fortunately got drowned out by thunderous applause from the hundred or so people who had come over from the commissary to see the show.

  Marilyn Monroe didn’t seem to be among those who’d accepted Skouras’s invitation—visiting a set on a soundstage would be nothing special to her, and the blonde star had already had her moment in the spotlight, with Khrushchev. Harrigan was relieved she wasn’t around—he’d been ducking her at the luncheon.

  Too busy with security matters to have eaten anyway, Harrigan had denied himself the meal (except for testing the portions fed to the premier himself). So far, the State Department agent had lost fifteen pounds on this strenuous junket; if it weren’t for his belt, he’d have his pants around his ankles. He’d stayed on the fringes, his Secret Service–trained eyes trained forward… in part to protect the premier, in part to avoid the famous sex bomb.

  Harrigan had made a professional blunder where the actress was concerned, and he was embarrassed as hell about it… and afraid encountering her again might somehow—perhaps by way of something Monroe said or did—alert his superiors to what was at least borderline misconduct on his part.

  About a month and a half ago, he’d been assigned the duty of approaching the actress, to request that she meet Khrushchev, who had seen her photos at some festival in Moscow and wanted to be introduced to the famous movie star. Monroe was a potential security risk because of her leftist leanings—and those of her playwright husband—and there was also some residual embarrassment about unsuccessful efforts by the CIA to manipulate her into sexually compromising Sukarno of Indonesia, back in ’56. That had fizzled, but the State Department wasn’t sure how aware Monroe might be of the attempt to use her.

  Harrigan had arranged to talk to her at the Millers’s apartment on East 57th Street in Manhattan, on a very warm Thursday evening. He’d taken a cramped elevator up to the thirteenth floor, where he rang the bell at 13E. The door was answered by an attractive woman who at first he didn’t recognize as Marilyn Monroe.

  Her blonde hair—more yellow than platinum, at the time—was rather curly and pinned back in a bun. She wore no make-up other than a touch of lipstick; her white blouse was sleeveless, and she was in light gray short shorts with a black patent leather belt. Shoeless, the curvy, almost pudgy woman was shorter than he ever would have imagined Marilyn Monroe to be.

  Of course, that might have been the memory of her looming, skirt-blowing-up billboard as it had hovered over Times Square for Seven Year Itch a few years ago.

  Anyway, she had a girl-next-door quality that was at once endearing and a little disappointing.

  “Yes?” Monroe seemed distracted, the famous eyes drowsy-looking. He sensed immediately an aura of sadness and vulnerability—and suspected she’d been drinking, though nothing about her suggested she was tipsy, much less drunk.

  “Jack Harrigan,” he said, and dug out his I.D. from the inside pocket of his lightweight tan summer suitcoat. “I was supposed to drop by—the Khrushchev matter?”

  The eyes brightened. “Oh! Sure! I must have forgotten…. Come in.”

  As Harrigan took in the place, she told him she was by herself—her secretary, May, wasn’t around, nor was her husband (“He’s at the farmhouse, in Roxbury—you know, writing?”)—and poured herself a martini from a pitcher, asking him if he wanted one.

  He was on duty—he shouldn’t have—but it was damned hot, even in the air-conditioned apartment. So he accepted her offer of a chilled martini.

  The place overlooked the East River, and the living room was large, particularly for Manhattan, a rhapsody in white: white walls, white wall-to-wall carpet, white draperies, even white furniture… though the couch, where she sat, curling up under herself, was beige. Sipping her own martini, she patted the cushion next to her and he sat, too, with his own cool cocktail.

  She was very unpretentious and relaxed, and smiled at him a lot while he filled her in about the Khrushchev visit, and the plans being made at the Fox Studios for a reception. For a long time she mostly listened, and then she asked him a lot of questions about himself, and she was particularly interested in his work with the Secret Service, asking about both Truman and Eisenhower.

  He also told her—how they got to this, he couldn’t quite recall—about his recent divorce, and she made him promise not to tell, but admitted her marriage was over, too.

  They’d begun to kiss, shortly after that—three or four martinis were involved—and somewhere along the way the girl next door became Marilyn Monroe and she was as naked as her calendar, a dizzying dream of creamy female flesh, and they made love on the beige couch, twice. He would never forget it. He would never be able to make love to a woman again without thinking, “Yeah, but I had Marilyn Monroe….”

  When he woke up in Arthur Miller’s bed the next morning, he was very hung over and embarrassed and more ashamed than he’d ever been in his life. Also, prouder.

  She fixed him some eggs and at the kitchenette table, sat there in a man’s white shirt, with no make-up whatsoever, not even lipstick, and said, “I’ll have to see materials on him, of course.”

  His lips paused over the coffee cup. “Huh? On whom?”

  “Khrushchev. Chairman Khrushchev. That’s why you’re here, right?”

  “Uh, sure. Right. But I’m not sure I understand….”

  “Well, I want to know more about him, before I say yes. I don’t want to shake somebody’s hand who turns out to be Hitler, someday. Who would?”

  “Right. Okay.”

  “And if I get in a situation where I have to talk to him, I want to do it intelligently. You know, I’m not just some blonde bimbo.”

  “Oh, I know.”

  “Everybody thinks I’m some round-heeled joke or something. And I’m not.”

  “I know you’re not.”

  Her eyes tightened with thought. “Didn’t he make a speech to the congress?”

  “No—Khrushchev’s never even been in America before—he…”

  “Not our congress, silly. The one in Moscow—after he took over from Stalin.”

  “Uh, yes. He spoke for a long time… something like six hours.”

  She smiled, perkily. “Well, that’s perfect, then.”

  “What is?”

  “Send me over the transcript of that speech. The State Department has it, don’t they?”

  “Well, sure, but…”

  “Send that, and anything else over that you think might be helpful. Do it right away, and I’ll give you a quick decision…. More coffee?”

  She had soon shooed him out the door—before anybody saw him, she said—and he left wondering who had fucked whom….

  Now, a month and a half later, as Harrigan wandered in and out of the standing guests, he was relieved that Monroe, like many of the movie stars, had skipped out on the after luncheon entertainment. Everyone here had security clearance, so he kept much of his attention on a balcony built to the right of the set, where the Russians were sequestered to watch the show.

  Khrushchev seemed to be enjoying himself, beaming, clapping loudly, like a trained seal. His wife’s plain, round face looked flushed… whether this was from the heat of the stage lights, or the well-documented effect Sinatra had on women, Harrigan wouldn’t hazard a guess.

  The premier seemed to be over his snit at being denied Disneyland, which relieved Harrigan, since the State Department man had, after all, been the one who’d pulled the plug on the excursion.

  It had been an embarrassment, too, where Walt Disney himself was concerned. Harrigan’s other dealings with the mouse mog
ul—arranging the details of the Khrushchev tour of the amusement park—had been pleasant, the famous animator businesslike but affable.

  When Harrigan had called Disney earlier today, however, to inform him of the decision not to allow the premier to visit the park, the father of Mickey Mouse had exploded like Donald Duck.

  “We’re ready to go with this thing!” Disney’s voice was gruff and not at all that of the kindly uncle of the television series that shared its name with the park. “Do you have any idea the trouble we’ve gone to? The expense?”

  “I do. But we simply don’t have the security, Mr. Disney. We’d been assured by Mayor Poulson that we would have the cooperation of the Los Angeles Police Department… but the mayor and the premier have rubbed each other the wrong way, and now Poulson’s pulled his people.”

  “Well, hell, man,” Disney said dismissively, “I have the Anaheim police in my pocket. They’ll provide whatever you need.”

  “They just don’t have the manpower, sir.”

  Disney roared back: “I’ve done my share of favors for the FBI, I’ll have you know! I will call J. Edgar Hoover myself, personally, and your job will be on the line, Agent Harrigan!”

  “Mr. Disney, with all due respect, I don’t work for Mr. Hoover. And this decision is final.”

  Disney’s response was the click of hanging up.

  As the applause for the singer faded, Frank Sinatra—flashing a smile of impressive wattage—made a gracious bow toward the seated Soviet guests.

  Then translator Oleg Troyanovsky stood in the balcony and said in a loud yet cordial voice, “Mr. Khrushchev would like to apologize for his earlier outburst; it was very hot in the dining room, and he was tired from our strenuous schedule… and while this is not Disneyland, he very much likes the show so far.”

  The room erupted into more applause.

  Harrigan was still not sure if he had the premier figured out—was he really this willful child, subject to almost psychopathic mood swings? Or was he playing all these Americans like a five-cent kazoo?