You're nobody 'til somebody kills you rp-4

by Robert J. Randisi

  He sniffed.

  “Lots of people wear Hai Karate.”

  “Do you?”

  “No.”

  “Your partner.”

  “No.”

  “You work with anybody who does?”

  He thought a moment, then said, “Okay, I get it.”

  “The towels were dry, and so was the bottom of the tub. Danny takes a shower every day, so he wasn’t in here last night.”

  “No luggage?”

  “He might not have had any,” I said. “He was following Marilyn, so he didn’t have much time to pack. He would have picked stuff up when he landed.”

  “Like a toothbrush and cologne.”

  “Right.”

  Stanze nodded, put his hands on his hips and looked around.

  “Okay, let’s go.”

  “Wait,” I said, “that clerk is lying, Detective.”

  “I know.”

  “You … you what?”

  “I know he’s lying,” he said. “I’ve been a detective for more than five minutes, Mr. Gianelli. I saw how he didn’t know where the key was. And if he was a longtime desk clerk he would’ve come up here and let us in. He never would’ve given up the key that easily.”

  “Really? You think clerks are that efficient?”

  “This is a hot sheet motel,” he said. “The last thing they want is a cop snooping around on his own.”

  “Then you do believe me,” I said with relief.

  “I believe something is going on.”

  “So you’ll take that guy Max in?”

  “No,” Stanze said. “You and me are going to make him think that I believe him and not you, and then I’m going to watch him and this place. I also want to talk to Miss Monroe.”

  “That’s not a problem.”

  “Good. Then let’s go downstairs and put on a show for our friend.”

  Twenty-five

  We pulled up in Marilyn’s driveway. Stanze allowed me to go in first and prepare her. He had heard that she was “fragile.”

  I went to the door and rang the bell.

  “Eddie-” she said when she opened it, but I grabbed her shoulders, pushed her inside and closed the door behind us.

  “Marilyn, where’s Jerry?”

  “He’s in the kitchen,” she said, eyes wide. “He made me these fantastic grilled cheese sandwiches. He’s a great cook-”

  “Let’s go in the kitchen.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Tell you in a minute.”

  “Hey, Mr. G.,” Jerry said when we walked in. “You want something to eat?”

  “No, Jerry. Listen up. I’ve got a cop outside. A detective. I checked with the LAPD and they have no record of arresting Danny. Also, he’s not in the morgue. This detective is being very helpful, and he believes what I’m tellin’ him.”

  “Why wouldn’t he, Mr. G.?”

  “I’ll tell you later,” I said. “Right now I think you should go out the back to the guesthouse and stay there. We’ll keep you being here to ourselves, as insurance.”

  The doorbell rang.

  “We need insurance, Mr. G.?” Jerry asked.

  “We might, Jerry. Somethin’s goin’ on. I’ll tell you about it later.”

  “Okay, Mr. G., whatever you say.”

  Jerry went out the back door.

  “Should I let the detective in, Eddie?” Marilyn asked.

  “I’ll get it, Marilyn,” I said. “Listen, you can tell this man the truth, just don’t mention Jerry, okay?”

  “I understand, Eddie. How do I look?”

  “Like a dream.”

  “Oh, Eddie …”

  I went to answer the door.

  Stanze didn’t want it to show, but Marilyn had the same effect on him that she had on all men, especially in person.

  “Miss Monroe, I just need to verify a few things that Mr. Gianelli has told me, and then ask you a few other questions. All right?”

  “Okay.”

  He looked at me. “No offense, but I’d like to do this alone.”

  He didn’t want me coaching her.

  “No problem. I’ll wait in the kitchen. You, uh, want a grilled cheese sandwich, Detective?”

  “No, thanks.”

  I went into the kitchen. The sandwiches had cooled off, but they were still good.

  Marilyn told me later how the interview had gone down …

  “Mr. Gianelli tells me he met you through Dean Martin. Is that true?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “You’re friends with Mr. Martin?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ma’am, I really don’t mean to offend you, but-”

  “Dino and I are just friends, Detective,” she said. “I do have men in my life who are just friends.”

  “Like Eddie?”

  “Yes,” she said, “exactly like Eddie.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  They went over Marilyn’s problem about her feeling she was being watched. Also, the way she felt about being blamed for Clark Gable’s death.

  “Well, that’s just silly,” Stanze said. “I read about him doing his own stunts. He was too old to be doing that stuff.”

  “I know,” she said. “We tried to tell him …”

  “We?”

  “Me and Kay, his wife.”

  “I see. Now, Mr. Gianelli tells me you never saw his friend? Danny?”

  “No, sir. I guess he was very good at his job.”

  “Um, yeah … have you seen anyone watching your house lately?”

  “No.”

  “Following you?”

  “I haven’t been out in days.”

  “Why not?”

  She shrugged. “I guess I don’t want to be followed.”

  “So you feel if you go out someone will follow you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you don’t mean, like, photographers?”

  “Oh, no. They’re always there. No, I mean … someone else.”

  “Like who?”

  She shrugged again. “I don’t know. Just somebody.”

  “Miss Monroe, what is Eddie Gianelli supposed to do for you?”

  “Protect me,” she said. “Make me feel better.”

  “Why would Dean Martin ask him to do that for you?”

  “He and Dino are good friends,” she said. “And Dino, if he came around me, that would just attract more attention. Do you see? And people would get the wrong idea. Like they always do.”

  “I see,” he said. “I do.” He closed his notebook. “Ma’am, do you want to make a report about being followed?”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Why not?”

  “The studio wouldn’t like it. I’m supposed to start a shoot soon, and they wouldn’t like the publicity.”

  “Ma’am, there’s a man missing, and you could probably use some protection.”

  “Oh, but I have-” She stopped short, realizing she’d almost said she had “Eddie and Jerry.”

  “You have what?”

  “I have Eddie.”

  Stanze had a few more words for me after questioning Marilyn.

  “Look,” he’d said, “I know something’s going on, I just don’t know what. I’d like to believe you don’t know what, either, and that you’re not keeping anything from me.”

  “We’ve told you everything.”

  “No offense,” he said, “but it’s my experience that no one tells the cops everything.”

  He started to leave, but had one more question.

  “Tell me, why did you have your friend Danny tail Marilyn instead of introducing him and having him travel with her, stay at her house with her?”

  “The truth?”

  “That would be refreshing for a cop.”

  “Danny’s my best friend, but he’s a dog with women. I didn’t want to expose Marilyn to him. I didn’t want him to be tempted.”

  “You didn’t trust your own friend with Marilyn Monroe?”

  “I’ve never trusted Danny
with any woman.”

  “Okay,” he said, “I get it.”

  He left, telling me he’d be in touch. I told him I’d be in the guesthouse, and we gave him that phone number, which was separate from the main house.

  When Jerry came back inside I filled him and Marilyn in about Danny’s motel, and how the clerk denied he’d ever spoken to me before.

  “What’s goin’ on, Mr. G.?” Jerry asked. “Why would the clerk tell you he was there, and then tell the cops he never heard of either one of you.”

  “Whoever’s behind this doesn’t want the cops to believe anything I say.”

  “But why?” Marilyn asked. “And what does it have to do with me?”

  “Marilyn,” I said, “the only thing I think we can be sure of is that it all has something to do with you. It begins and ends with you.”

  “So … what do we do?” she asked.

  Jerry looked at me, expecting me to come up with an answer.

  “We have to do something,” I said, “that nobody would expect.”

  “Like what?” Jerry asked.

  I looked at Marilyn, who was gazing up at me with that Marilyn look, breathing through her mouth.

  “We have to take Marilyn away from them.”

  Twenty-six

  Jerry made dinner that night.

  The atmosphere in the kitchen was festive. Marilyn got a big kick out of the fact that Jerry had managed to throw together a hot dinner using what little food she had in her cupboards and refrigerator. She laughed with delight like a little girl, and I wondered why her life couldn’t be like this every day. Why was there so much sadness and fear in her world when, to the world at large, she seemed to have everything?

  But beneath the laughter that night was my concern for Danny and Penny, my confusion about what had happened at the motel.

  When Marilyn excused herself to use “the little girl’s room” I asked Jerry, “Did you check the grounds today for any sign that somebody’s been watching the house?”

  “I took a walk around,” he said. “I ain’t Daniel Boone but I know what a bunch of cigarette butts behind a tree mean.”

  “So there was someone?”

  “The butts seemed fresh,” Jerry said. “They haven’t been rained on yet. We could check and see when it rained last, but I’d say somebody’s been in the bushes recently.”

  “Somebody who has the resources to make Danny disappear from a motel.”

  “According to that one clerk,” Jerry said. “Didn’t you say you paid a maid to let you in the room?”

  “That’s right, I did.”

  “Seems to me that maid might know somethin’ more than she let on,” Jerry said. “That is, unless she disappeared, too.”

  “Okay, so I’ve got to go back to that motel and talk to more employees and the owner. But still, that leaves us asking who these people are who got the clerk to lie?”

  “Whoever they are they had to spread a lot of money around that place,” Jerry said. “But since you don’t have as much money to spread, you need me to make the difference.”

  “You have to stay with Marilyn.”

  “I gotta stay with you, Mr. G.,” Jerry argued. “We can find someplace to stash Marilyn where she’ll be safe. Like you said before, we gotta take her away, put her where they can’t find her.”

  “That still doesn’t tell us who they are, or what they did with Danny.”

  “Once they can’t find her,” Jerry said, “they’ll come after you.”

  “You know,” I said, “she’s been connected to so many people-Johnny Roselli, the Kennedys-”

  “Joe DiMaggio,” Jerry said.

  “Well, she was married to him, and just recently divorced Arthur Miller.”

  “Joe DiMaggio wouldn’t have nothin’ ta do with this,” Jerry said with finality. “Maybe that Miller guy is havin’ her watched because he’s still in love with her.”

  But I was thinking about the Kennedy family. Old Joe had suffered a heart attack the year before, right after I’d talked with him at a house in Tahoe. Even though he’d survived, it had put him in a wheelchair, from which he was still running the Kennedy clan.

  He never approved of Jack’s friendship with Frank, certainly didn’t approve of his son, the president, having show business friends. Did Joe know about Jack and Marilyn? Did he know about Bobby and Marilyn? Was any of this gossip true?

  And if it was, to what lengths would Joe go to keep them apart? Would he use the Secret Service, as he had done last year when I was trying to help Sammy? Or would he use the FBI? No, Hoover would never allow that. Hoover hated the Kennedys.

  So to what length would Hoover go to discredit the Kennedys?

  Hoover and the Secret Service. They’d have plenty of money to spread around. And they would certainly have a lot more than just money.

  “So where are we gonna take her-” Jerry started, but I shushed him.

  “What-” he started, then got it when I pointed to my ear.

  “Any more of that casserole left?” Marilyn asked, coming back into the kitchen.

  “Sure is, Miss Monroe.”

  “Jerry, sweetie,” she said, “I asked you to call me Marilyn.”

  “I know, Miss Monroe, but … I just can’t.”

  He spooned the last of his tuna casserole onto a plate and put it in front of her.

  “I know!” she said excitedly. “Could you do for me the same thing you do with Eddie?”

  Jerry looked confused.

  “Could you call me Miss M.?”

  “Sure thing, Miss M.,” he said. “I can do that.”

  We all watched TV together until Marilyn announced she was going to bed. She came around and kissed us both good night on the cheek before she went. She smelled so damned good.

  “Night, Eddie,” she said. “Night, sweetie.”

  “Night Miss M.,” Jerry said.

  I wondered when Jerry had become “sweetie” while I was still “Eddie.”

  “I think I hate you, Mr. G.,” Jerry said from his supine position on Marilyn Monroe’s sofa.

  “Why?”

  “I used ta think Marilyn Monroe was the sexiest doll in the world.”

  “And now?”

  “Now? She’s like my little sister. I hate you for that.”

  “I know what you mean,” I said. “I hate Dean Martin for the same reason.”

  “Aw, ya can’t hate Dino.”

  “And you,” I said, “can’t hate me. I guess we better turn in, too. Is there a sofa in the guesthouse?”

  “Yeah, but you can have the bed.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “I’ll take the sofa. I’m smaller.”

  “Yeah, you are.”

  I stood up and beckoned him to follow me. We went to the front door and stepped outside.

  “What are ya thinkin’, Mr. G.?” he asked, going right back to our conversation in the kitchen.

  “The Kennedys,” I said. “The Secret Service. Hoover. The FBI?”

  He stared at me, and then suddenly a light dawned. “You think somebody might have her house bugged?” he asked, lowering his voice.

  “Could be,” I said. “Just in case, I don’t want to discuss plans inside.”

  “What about the guesthouse?”

  “Might be bugged, too. Let’s just talk out here.”

  “Okay, we could put her in a hotel.”

  “Somebody might recognize her.”

  “She could stay with a friend.”

  “I get the feeling that’s not an option.”

  “Well, who does she trust?” Jerry asked.

  “Dino … I guess.”

  “Where does he live?”

  “Beverly Hills,” I said, “but we don’t know if he’s home.”

  “What about Mr. S.?” Jerry asked.

  I stared at him. “That’s a damned good idea,” I said. “He lives in Palm Springs, and he’s home because he’s getting the house ready for Jack Kennedy’s visit.”

  “D
o we want Miss M. to be there with JFK?” Jerry asked.

  “No,” I said, “we’ll get her out before he arrives. We just need Frank to keep her safe for a few days.”

  “Well, he’s got George,” Jerry said, “and he uses enough bodyguards to keep an army safe.”

  “We’ll need to call him first,” I said.

  “He’ll say yes.”

  “We still need to call him, but not from here.”

  “I got his number,” Jerry said. “We can head for Palm Springs and call him on the way.”

  “Okay,” I said, “we’ll get Marilyn up early and head out.”

  “How far is Palm Springs?”

  “About a hundred miles, give or take.”

  “In your car we’ll be there and back in a snap. And then we can check out the motel.”

  “Good. Now why don’t you turn in?”

  “I’m gonna take a walk around the grounds first,” he said.

  “And just to be safe,” I said, “I’ll sleep on Marilyn’s couch instead of the one in the guesthouse.”

  “Why don’t we all just sleep in the house?” he asked.

  “That’s a good idea,” I said. “We’ve already had an unexplained disappearance. Why chance any more?”

  “Or we can all disappear at the same time.”

  “I could have done without hearing that, Jerry.”

  “Sorry, Mr. G.”

  He turned to leave and I grabbed his arm.

  “Forget about checking the grounds. Let’s go back inside. We’ve got to stay together.”

  “But if they’re watchin’-”

  “Let ‘em watch,” I said. “Let’s get some shut-eye.”

  “Okay.”

  As we turned to go in I said, “You’ve got your gun, right?”

  He patted his chest and said, “Right here, Mr. G. Right here.”

  Twenty-seven

  In the morning we got Jerry’s suitcase from the guesthouse and mine from the car. Marilyn objected to being woken up so early. She was definitely not a morning person, which was probably why she had a reputation for being late to the set.

  “Where are we going so early?” she kept demanding.

  “We’ll tell you later,” I said. “Let’s just get going.”

  “I have to shower,” she said, “and do my makeup and hair.”