Max Collins - Bye bye,baby

“I shot him full of poison, just like he did Marilyn. I’m not going to tell you where the body is. Well, okay, it’s in an ocean. Here’s a hint. Not this one.” I jerked a thumb in the general direction of the Atlantic.

“I don’t believe you,” he said, but his expression said he was pretty sure he did.

“I wouldn’t burden you with this, Bob, but who else can I talk to about it, in a frank, open way? See, I pumped the guy for information before I…” I drew a finger across my throat. “… And to loosen him up, I said I wasn’t interested in small fry like him. That what I wanted were the big fish. But the truth is, I can’t go after the big fish. It’s vaguely possible I could get close enough to Giancana to put his lights out, but I figure he’s living on borrowed time, anyway. And your CIA pals, what’s my best course of action there? Go to D.C. and start popping guys in dark sunglasses and black suits?”

“This is lunacy.” He was frowning, and sitting on the edge of his chair, as if about to rise. “You should go, Nate. I’m disappointed in you.”

“Disappointed in me? Now there’s a laugh. Wouldn’t you like to know, just out of a sense of history, how this went down, Bob?”

“No.”

“Thought you would.” I shifted on the chair. “Peter Lawford calls Marilyn, knowing how she flipped out after you came over and started yelling at her-my God, did you slap her, and push her or…? She was bruised, Bob.”

He said nothing. His head swiveled toward the water.

“Calls her once late afternoon, then again around seven thirty, stepping away from his little Saturday night party to make sure she’s all right. But she isn’t all right-she’s saying things that sound like a verbal suicide note. As it happens, she wasn’t trying to commit suicide, and she hadn’t OD’d-just took a little too much of either chloral hydrate or Nembutal, enough to pass out, which she did on the phone. And scared the shit out of Peter.”

“This isn’t helpful.”

“Now, I’m not sure whether you headed right back to the Bates ranch, or whether you hid out at the Beverly Hilton. My guys couldn’t find evidence you’d stayed around town, but that doesn’t mean you didn’t. And Lawford called you either at the ranch or at that hotel, but in any event told you that Marilyn was in a very, very bad way. Maybe dying or dead, and there might even be a suicide note-and God knows what she may have written about you and Jack. And what did you tell your brother-in-law, Bob?”

He didn’t fill in that blank.

So I did: “You told him to take care of it. To get off his lazy ass and take fucking care of it.”

Not the faintest flicker of denial.

“And that’s all you gave him. That simple order. Vague but not to be ignored. You may have thought Peter would drive over there himself, and deal with it. Take care of it. Get her stomach pumped if she’d OD’d, destroy any suicide note if it was too late. And if the latter, put a general cleanup and cover-up in motion, much as what later did take place.”

“I didn’t initiate anything, Nate.”

“But you did, Bob-you said, ‘Take care of it.’ Only Peter couldn’t get off his lazy ass because he was drunk on his lazy ass. He could hardly navigate his way across the living room, if his guests that night are to be believed. So what did he do? Rosselli was out of town, in Vegas. Might have called him there, but you know who I think Peter called?”

He didn’t ask.

“I think he called Frank,” I said. “I think Peter called Frank, the superstar who helped elect your brother, remember? Who gave your brother-in-law a new lease on show business life. As he had so many times before, Peter asked Frank for help.”

Bobby offered up a skeptical smile. “This is silly guesswork, Nate. Please. Let’s not go any further with this kind of speculation.”

“Actually, it isn’t speculation. Sinatra came into Sherry’s last week. That’s the restaurant Fred Rubinski and I own, on Sunset. Frank’s a fairly regular customer. He was by himself. That’s unusual-he’s social, there’s usually at least one good-looking woman with him, often a whole group of people. He doesn’t like being alone. Nobody worships you, when you’re alone.”

Bobby was frowning. Openly unhappy. His tone grew clipped: “What does that have to do with anything?”

“I sat down with Frank. He gave me this really sad look. He looked like he’d been crying, Bob. Funny guy, Sinatra. Part heartless prick, part hopeless romantic. He didn’t order food. Just Jack Daniel’s. Sat in that booth drinking Jack Daniel’s, and when I sat down, he said, ‘I didn’t know, Charlie. I had no way of knowing.’ All I said was, ‘So that’s how it went-Lawford called you, and you called Mooney.’ He shook his head, Bob, but he wasn’t saying no. He told me he had no idea it would go that way. No idea anybody would ‘hurt that girl.’ And he said he was finished with Giancana, ‘fucking finished.’ Never wanted anything to do with that son of a bitch again.”

Bobby said nothing. A mild breeze was stirring. His hair ruffled, the pool rippled, the sun glided under a cloud. We sat in cool blue light.

“Giancana gave the order,” I said. “ He made the call. But your CIA friends had anticipated the need, and had provided the means. This was all part of that unholy marriage you officiated, between the Outfit and the Spooks. All to kill Castro, and how’s that going, by the way?”

His eyes were closed.

“Once Peter was informed she was dead, he began making his series of alarmed phone calls, to get people to check up on her-so somebody, anybody but him, would find the body. Poor bastard. If ever anybody was in over his head… Still, it was one of his more convincing performances.”

Bobby turned to me. He seemed much older than I remembered. Grooves, lines, shadows. His eyes were moist.

“What do you want from me, Nate?”

“Nothing. I guess I wanted to make sure Marilyn dying meant something to you. As your conscience, I like to think you learned something more than just, well, that you’d gotten away with it.”

“Goddamnit, Nate, I didn’t-”

“Sort that out any way you choose.” I waved it off. “The real reason I’m here, all kidding aside, is to ask you to mark me off in your address book. I’m retired from government service. Pass the word to Jack, too, would you? I’ve allowed myself to get involved with your various ill-advised crusades, from playing double agent with Jimmy Hoffa to your goddamn Operation Mongoose, and I am not available for future fun. Understood?”

“… Understood. I’m sorry it’s… Nate, I’m just sorry.”

I stood, and he did, too.

As we were trudging up the hill, I said, “Just so you know, that red notebook of Marilyn’s? It’s safely tucked away.”

“Safely tucked away where?”

“Where as long as nothing suspiciously fatal happens to me, it stays tucked away.” Those oldies but goodies. “So is a set of the tapes of that last night, too, though you can bet the killer turned his machines off before going inside and doing the deed.”

“You have the tapes?”

“Yeah. Somebody else may, too. Somebody in your camp, maybe.”

I stopped. We were on the terrace now.

“What the hell was Giancana after, anyway?” I asked him. “I mean, I understand the national security implications of Marilyn maybe running her mouth, and how unkindly the spooks might view that. But what good does taking Marilyn out of the equation do that wop bastard?”

The wind was kicking in. The sun had stayed under the clouds and it was cool.

Bobby said, “He doesn’t want Operation Mongoose exposed any more than we do. Hiring his people out as killers on the one hand, and consorting with the enemy, which is to say me and Jack, on the other.” He shrugged. “Maybe he thinks he has something on us now, and I’ll give him a free ride.” His eyes grew colder than the day had turned. “One thing I can promise you, Nate…”