But for all of the lavish lengths that he’d gone to, to bring each of his “lands” to life, Walt himself remained most happy, most at home, with Main Street. Right now he sat on the over-stuffed sofa at the window, a black cigarette in one hand, glass of Scotch in the other, staring down at the dark street—empty of people, let alone horse-drawn streetcars.
His advisors had been after him to add a security force at the park, and he was considering doing so—perhaps he’d dress them like Keystone Kops—but he felt convinced that Disneyland was secure after dark. The Anaheim police did their drive-bys, didn’t they? In four years there had been no break-ins, no vandalism—that would have been un-American. That thought was just fading when the two figures in black moved down Main Street, into his God-like view.
Walt sat forward, eyes wide as Mickey Mouse. The window had been cracked open—no air-conditioning in his apartment, they didn’t have that back at the turn of the century, you know—and he could not only see the men, but hear them.
He could not, however, understand them: it was some Oriental language, Japanese, Korean… ?
No, Chinese….
Long-sleeved black t-shirts and tight trousers, black gloves, only their faces showing, the slender young men were Oriental themselves. One seemed to be in charge, and was pointing off toward Adventureland, then gestured forward, to Sleeping Beauty’s castle.
In their hands, their right hands, were weapons—automatics, affixed with extended snouts that Walt supposed were designed to silence their fire.
At that moment a distant but distinct mechanical grinding sound froze the two men, and caused Walt to sit up in alarm. Was that… one of the rides? On the midway?
The men in black conversed again in their foreign language—not loud, but not whispering—and then the leader used a word that was not Oriental, nor was it English, though this was one word in the flurry of percussive gibberish that Walt Disney recognized: Khrushchev. Then the two men split up, going in their separate directions, moving quickly.
Walt stood slowly (his arthritis allowed nothing else), and he covered his mustached mouth with a hand.
What could this mean? Why were two foreign intruders, with guns, stalking his park in the wee hours? Why would they mention the Russian chairman’s name, when Khrushchev was no longer scheduled to visit the park? Or did the two Oriental gunmen think Khrushchev was still coming to visit, tomorrow, as originally scheduled, and had sneaked in to be on hand to assassinate the premier when the sun came up… ?
He was not afraid—he was surprised, but also he was angry, a cold fury unlike the volcanic resentment he’d expressed at the canceling of the Khrushchev visit. His Magic Kingdom had been invaded—and one thing you didn’t want to be, in Walt Disney’s world, was the son of a witch out to get Snow White or Sleeping Beauty.
Walt mentally kicked himself for putting no telephone in the apartment—no phones at the turn of the century, either, and anyway he didn’t want to be disturbed here—and dug his key chain out of his slacks pocket. A backroom behind the concession stands across the way had a working phone.
But who should he call? The Anaheim police? Or the State Department? Even without Khrushchev on the grounds, the foreign intruders at the park would seem to be the business of the American government, after all. Had he added that agent—what was his name, Harrison?—to the names and numbers in the little black book he carried?
Walt dug that out, too, knowing it was time to leave the charming past and re-enter the dangerous present.
Under the moon’s watchful ivory eye, revolver in hand, Jack Harrigan—with cadaverous CIA agent Munson on his heels—raced across the manicured lawn of the Beverly Hills Hotel, dodging the heavy foliage as if avoiding shell holes on a battlefield, heading for bungalow number seven.
Although it was well after two in the morning, a light in the front room shot rays out around the edges of the drawn curtains, tiny beacons of hope in Harrigan’s very dark night.
The State Department man ignored the bell, pounding on the door instead with the ball of a fist, his gun in-hand behind his back. “Miss Monroe, it’s Jack Harrigan…. Open up!”
No sound came from within.
He banged again.
Impatient, Munson said, “Damnit man, I’ll break a window….”
Like a safety patrol boy at a grade school, Harrigan held his out a hand in “stop” fashion. “No—I hear something. Wait….”
And then the lock clicked.
The door cracked open, revealing wide, brown eyes that were not Marilyn Monroe’s, peering back out at them from behind the chain-latched door.
The secretary.
“It’s May, isn’t it?” Harrigan asked, forcing a smile, not wanting to frighten the woman further. “Forgive me, but I’ve forgotten your last name.”
“It’s Reis,” she said quietly, guardedly. “May Reis.”
“Do you remember me, Miss Reis?”
Her face bisected by the chain, the secretary nodded.
“I’m with the State Department,” he reminded her, “and this gentleman is another government agent… his name is Munson. It’s important that we speak with Miss Monroe.”
The secretary shook her head, eyes narrowing. “She’s not here.”
Harrigan glanced behind the woman, taking in what he could of the living room through the cracked door. Munson’s breath was hot on his neck, an over-eager suitor.
“Where is she, Miss Reis?” Harrigan asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Is she inside—with Mr. Khrushchev?”
The secretary’s eyes grew wide again… with fear possibly, and perhaps something else…. The burden of a secret? Harrigan was certain she knew where the missing pair had gone.
“She’s not here,” May Reis insisted. “They’re not here.”
They’re not here!
“Has she taken him somewhere?” Harrigan demanded.
The woman said nothing, her mouth a tight line, her face blank but for a twitchy nervousness about the eyes.
“Please let us in,” he said firmly.
“No.”
“Miss Reis, this is a matter of national security, of international importance.”
“Do you have a warrant?”
“I don’t need a warrant in a case of crisis like this. Open the door, or we’ll open it. Understood, Miss Reis?”
The woman closed the door. Harrigan could hear the chain being unlatched. Then the door opened again, wide this time.
The two men stepped inside the lavish, white-appointed bungalow, Harrigan keeping the weapon behind him, Munson leaving the door slightly ajar.
Harrigan approached May, who had retreated to the beige sofa, but she didn’t sit. Her chin high, the little woman wore a blue robe and fuzzy slippers, her short, brown hair disheveled, dark circles rimming troubled eyes.
Munson went into the bedroom, returned moments later, shaking his head.
“So they’re not here,” Harrigan said, and returned his weapon to its shoulder holster.
“I told you they weren’t,” the secretary said, not successful at hiding her alarm at the sight of the gun.
Folding his arms, planting himself before the petite woman like a sentry, looking down at her gravely, Harrigan did his best to intimidate the secretary, to shake her professional cool. “We have to find them, and soon—their lives are at stake.”
“Lives… ?”
“Didn’t Marilyn tell you? Somebody tried to murder Premier Khrushchev tonight… in his bed, here in the hotel.”
May collapsed onto the couch, sitting there numbly, staring at hands clasped tightly in her lap. Harrigan waited with strained patience, aware that Munson was pacing behind him, mindful that the CIA agent would use a more forceful tactic on the woman if Harrigan failed in his approach.
Finally the secretary spoke. “Marilyn told me not to trust anyone… not even you, Mr. Harrigan….” She looked up sharply at Harrigan, her distress turning suddenly to anger.
“This is your fault!”
“My… ?”
“Why didn’t you listen to her?” the secretary demanded. “You pretended to take her seriously… but you lied to her. You shrugged her off, because she was just some, some… dumb blonde to you!”
Munson stepped past Harrigan and loomed menacingly over the woman. “Lady, we don’t have time for your soap opera—where the hell are they?”
Eyes and nostrils flaring in fright, May reared back on the coach. Harrigan shot Munson a look, and the CIA agent backed off.
Harrigan took a seat next to May.
“Marilyn was right,” he admitted, his voice gentle. “The attempt to kill Khrushchev took place at two o’clock this morning, just as she’d predicted, based upon what she overheard…”
May was nodding at his words.
“… and, yes, it’s my fault. I wasn’t there to stop it. I promised her, and I let her down…. I let both of you down.”
Harrigan hoped that this admission of culpability would soften the woman, but her lips remained a tight, stubborn line.
Harrigan sighed. “And now she’s helped the premier, and made herself a target, as well. This is an assassin, Miss Reis—a highly skilled, completely ruthless killer… and he’s after both of them, right now.”
The secretary stiffened, turning toward him on the sofa. Her eyes were friendly, but still she shook her head. “Marilyn said they’d be safe, where she’s taken him… that nobody could ever find them… and in the morning…”
Munson broke in. “The fact that we didn’t find you with your throat slashed means the killer didn’t need the information you’re sitting on.”
She blinked. “What?”
Harrigan touched her arm. “Agent Munson is correct. The assassin would have broken in here and made you reveal what you knew….”
The woman stiffened. “I would never have told him.”
Harrigan knew an assassin like this would have the information out of her in about ninety seconds, but he said only, “I believe you, but you would have died protecting Marilyn. That the assassin did not bother you means he is already on their trail… that he most likely followed them, wherever they’ve gone.”
The woman’s eyes filled with terror. She stared searchingly at Harrigan for what seemed forever but was in reality about five seconds, during which the State Department agent waved the CIA man back.
“They’re at the amusement park,” she said, finally.
Harrigan frowned in disbelief. “Where in hell?”
“Disneyland.” May Reis swallowed. “Marilyn took Premier Khrushchev to Disneyland—you wouldn’t, so she did…. They went in a Buick… a blue rented Buick sedan. Please, Mr. Harrigan… please… make it up to her. Help them.”
Harrigan’s frown deepened, as he turned away from the secretary’s earnest, moist-eyed gaze. Could this be true? It seemed ridiculous to him, although considering Marilyn Monroe was the mastermind here, maybe not….
That was when Sam Krueger blew in. “Jack—that phone’s going to ring in a second… and it’ll be for you!”
“What?”
Krueger planted himself near that front door, hands on hips, smirking. “Pal, it’s the chief of the Anaheim police.”
“Anaheim… ?”
On the end table by the couch, the phone rang.
Harrigan reached for it, hand hovering over the receiver, and looked curiously at Krueger, who snapped, “It’s for you, I said.”
A crisply professional voice on the other end of the line said, “Agent Harrigan, this is Chief Coderoni at Anaheim.”
“Yes, sir.”
A pause, then: “Mr. Disney asked me to call.”
Chapter Thirteen
ROCKET TO THE MOON
HANDS ON HIS hips, Nikita Khrushchev stood in front of the entrance to Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, gazing up at the façade where a portrait of a frog—in human clothes, hands on his hips—grinned down at him.
This amused Nikita—or, that is, he was amused by the grotesque humorlessness of these odd things that Americans found funny.
In the darkness, Marilyn’s hand touched his. His eyes turned toward the attractive woman; the American fascination with Marilyn Monroe was much easier for him to fathom than a comical toad.
“I think the control box is over there,” she said, nodding toward the inside wall of the castle’s alcove.
She walked him there and, once again, Nikita removed a heavy brown shoe and brought this portable, multi-purpose tool slamming down on the steel box, springing its silver cover, which fell to the sidewalk with a metallic clunk. He peered back over his shoulder at Marilyn, who looked about apprehensively, a hand covering her mouth, as if someone might have heard them.
A jolt of memory froze him for a moment.
He was reminded of Galina, his first wife, that sweet young thing who had stood just so, watching nervously as he broke the lock to a government grain facility during the Ukrainian famine of 1922, so that he could provide food for his family. The children survived; Galina had not.
Nikita touched the girl’s shoulder. “We’re alone here. No need be frightened.”
She smiled and shrugged. “Besides—diplomatic immunity, right?”
“Is right.”
Nikita returned his attention to the metal box and flipped the toggle switch.
Suddenly the small castle was ablaze with lights, and from someplace—he couldn’t tell where exactly—music blared, voices singing slow and low at first, then becoming higher pitched, like a phonograph playing too fast.
What did the words of the strange song mean?
Why were the people singing on their way to nowhere? And not just nowhere, but nowhere “in particular!” English—such a terrible language, so cluttered with the refuse of other languages, no poetry at all.
And besides, what sort of fools go somewhere they don’t know they’re going?
Then, to Nikita’s breathless amazement, double doors flew open—at the right of the alcove—and an automobile came bouncing out, an old-fashioned one… he recognized it, an American Model T, jostling to a stop in front of them, chugging and wheezing like a living thing.
Marilyn, giddy with laughter, shouted above all the noise and clatter. “Come on, Nikkie! Get in!”
“Nikkie! Who is Nikkie?”
“You are, silly!”
And she gave him a nudge with her elbow.
Maybe he was Nikkie, and maybe he was silly, too, because Nikita—though he wasn’t certain he wanted to, and like the singers knew not where he was going—followed her valentine of a bottom up into the two-seater, climbing aboard.
Going nowhere in particular.
Marilyn pulled a metal bar back across their laps.
Nikita was alarmed by the absence in the Model T of a key element in the operation of an automobile; even that teacup had had one! “Where is wheel?” Nikita asked, raising his voice above the chugging and clanking din.
“There is no wheel, silly!”
“With no wheel,” Nikita informed her, patience strained, “we cannot drive car.”
Marilyn gave him a sideways look. “Nikkie, we don’t drive the car… Mr. Toad drives the car. It’s his wild ride, remember?”
He recalled her story about the foolish frog.
“Then this is bad ride,” Nikita concluded. “Frog, he is terrible driver. You yourself say this.”
Giggling, Marilyn slumped down in her seat. “No,” she responded, “this is fun!”
“More of your fun?”
“More of our fun, Nikkie!… Better hang on!”
And the car jumped forward on some kind of track, Nikita clenching the metal bar tightly—and his teeth.
The duo went rattling along toward another set of doors at the other end of the alcove, yet the car made no attempt to slow down. In fact, if anything, the automobile was increasing its speed.
Thinking that Americans had a sense of “fun” as strange as their sense of “humor,” Nikita braced for th
e crash. But at the last moment, the doors yawned inwardly open, and the car zipped through.
The premier of Russia sighed with relief; his stomach felt funny, like when, as a child, he had gone sliding down a steep, icy, snowy slope on his backside.
The automobile was hurtling along at a great speed, or so it seemed, lurching at every turn along a cartoon countryside. Nikita could make out part of a bright yellow haystack, coming up ahead, and a big barn, its red doors shut tight.
“Look out, Nikkie!” Marilyn yelled, and buried her face in his chest. He threw his arms around her and fought the urge to close his eyes; but he believed he understood this ride now, and—he was no frightened child, after all—he bravely kept his eyes open wide, comforting the scared girl in his arms.
Once again, at the last moment, the red doors burst open, and the two passengers in the Model T sailed through the barn amidst flying, clucking chickens and frightened, mooing cows.
Nikita frowned—the lighting was dim, but… were the animals real?
As the pair in the auto emerged from the barn, Nikita turned to look at Marilyn, who had tears in her eyes from laughing, which proved infectious: he joined her with his own loud, raucous laughter, until his sides ached.
Unlike the foolish spinning teacups, this ride had such wonderful tricks!
What would happen next? he wondered.
A faint whistle seemed to answer his question.
In Marilyn’s nearest ear, he shouted, “What is that?”
Her response was to raise her eyebrows and shrug; but her smile was knowing….
The whistle came again, this time louder. This whistle, it was familiar… it reminded him of the whistle of… a train!
Suddenly, the car veered off the road—he wasn’t sure how this was accomplished; it had happened so fast!—and then they were careening and rumbling down train tracks. Nikita stared ahead in astonishment at the unmistakable bright white light of a locomotive, coming straight at them, the chugging of its engine growing louder and louder, its whistle blowing a warning, “WHOO-WHOO!”
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