Stephen Leigh - Card Sharks

Marilyn, however, thought him amusing. She said he'd followed her here from New York and had refused to go away ever since. I knew they had a relationship too.

Welles and Trumbo were at loggerheads over the direction of the script — pretty much whether it would be "Orson Welles's Blythe " or "Dalton Trumbo's Blythe " — and Trumbo went into a paranoid jag about capitalist interests wanting to subvert the proletarian heart of his story. Welles told him to get stuffed and that the heart of the story was the romance between a New York blue-stocking and an alien prince, and it would be hard enough getting it to play in Peoria without holding out for Moscow too.

Everyone at the party seemed generally enthused for the project with the exception of Paula Strasberg, and even she loosened up after Josh went on about the evils of the HUAC and how brave it was for Bobby and the President to end the Blacklist by going to see Spartacus .

Paula got drunk then and started to demand McCarthy's head on a stick, but people had to remind her that he was already dead and his head would be a bit mouldy.

After the requisite head-butting, Welles and Trumbo tried to figure out who to get for Golden Boy and Harstein. Pat Lawford then mentioned that jack Braun lived down the street.

I should have remembered that. After the eight-by-tens I'd taken, that's all he had left.

Marilyn, very drunk by this point, and stoned on an interesting mixture of Paula Strasberg's tranquilizers and Tommy's LSD, suggested that everyone invite him to the party. Who better to play Golden Boy than Golden Boy? He'd already done it in one movie.

This notion was entertained in varying levels of seriousness, but Trumbo thought it could be useful to at least get Braun's input in on the script, he being the only one of the Four Aces both easily accessible and living.

Marilyn and Tommy, bearing bottles of champagne and wearing nothing more than bathing suits, elected to be the ones to go be neighborly and invite him over. I, being the only sober person left, volunteered to shepherd them down the street.

I can't forget Jack Braun's expression. He had a bottle of cheap scotch in one hand and the door in the other and I knew he must think he was hallucinating. I mean, if you open your door at ten o'clock in the evening, you don't expect to see Marilyn Monroe in a bathing suit, accompanied by a teenager and the detective who'd taken pictures of you en flagrante delecti .

Of course, I'd made sure Braun never saw my face — I'm not suicidal, no matter what you might think — and you don't take candid pictures of the strongest man in the world if you expect him to know who you are. All he must have thought looking at me was that I was another Malibu Siegfried, even if I was half Irish.

I don't know of any man who'd say no to an invitation from Marilyn Monroe. That man was certainly not Jack Braun. He and his scotch joined the party at the Lawfords's, and everyone was still there except Paula and Josh.

Braun got a lot of attention, but didn't want to talk about the Four Aces, or the script. He said he'd had enough of playing Golden Boy and wouldn't take the part. That was probably a relief — I don't recall Welles ever offering it. "I'm not a hero," Braun said between drinks. "I just get paid to swing on vines and talk to chimps. I don't even do my own stunts — They've found it's cheaper to get an actor who doesn't glow when he slams into trees than to retouch all the negatives."

To demonstrate, he stood up and pounded his chest, flashing gold like a strobe light, then gave a yell as he jumped into the pool in his clothes. It may not have been part of the mystery I was paid to solve, but I at least knew why Tarzan always used the same closeup of Braun beating his chest.

The rest of the evening went by in a blur. I wasn't drunk or stoned, but everybody else was, and that helped. I played the sober gallant and drove everyone home who didn't crash at the Lawfords's.

Marilyn didn't do either. The next day I discovered that she'd spent the night at Jack Braun's.

Braun followed her to the set, as under her spell as any man, though he'd joined the circle who'd actually gotten to touch her. I hated him for it, but then there was a peculiar scene that made me wonder just what I had to hate.

Braun was drunk, as usual, and stumbled out of Dalton's trailer. He was shouting back at Trumbo: "No, you're right, I'm a scum and I betrayed my friends. Everything should stay except the last scene — I never got a chance to say goodbye to anyone."

Braun walked down the street, kicking rocks into Sherman Oaks, and a cloud of French cigarette smoke materialized next to me. "A very troubled man, don't you think? He is haunted by his past. He does not think himself a hero."

I looked over to see Dr. Rudo, smoking one of his trademark cigarettes. He offered me one and his lighter.

I lit up, figuratively, and passed the lighter back. "He's not a hero."

"He could be, Mr. Williams. That is his great lie. He cannot ever be close to another for fear of hurting them."

I wasn't sure whether he'd said that to gauge my reaction, or if he just got off on summing up people's lives in a couple of lines. I think it was a little of both.

That was the last I saw of Braun, but I saw a good bit more of Dr. Rudo.

Marilyn ran round the studio in a daze of alcohol and Paula Strasberg's tranquilizers. I knew, though not from experience, that if you mixed the two you got a feeling of euphoria.

If what Marilyn was going through was euphoria, you can have it.

In the next few days, they contracted Ron Ely for Golden Boy and Jeff Chandler for Harstein. I never saw much of either, Ely for the obvious reason, Chandler because what few scenes he had with Golden Boy, he practiced with Ron. Jim Bacchus, the eternal father figure, came on as Archibald Holmes and kept making Rebel Without A Cause jokes to Dean: "Well, I see you've gotten into trouble again. Now we've had to move across the galaxy . I hope you're satisfied."

I did a quick prowl around Wally Fisk's apartment, but his fire had been thorough, and I didn't find anything not already included in the notes I'd gotten from Welles. The only thing I'll say about Fisks's detective work is that he'd constructed an impressive case that someone was sabotaging pro-wild-card films. The question of who was left open. And the question of how Blythe was going to be killed was up in the air as well.

And the only man who might have a clue had gone mad.

However, the scuttlebutt had worked its way around and I heard about Wally from Flattop and about six others. Now that it was safe, I sought out Dr. Rudo.

He said he'd had one or two conversations with Fisk, but could hazard a guess as to what happened.

"Conscience, Mr. Williams," he said, flicking his cigarette. "Conscience can be a terrible thing. A private detective must bury his very deeply, or else it may rise up and destroy him. I suspect that is what happened to the unfortunate Mr. Fisk."

He asked if I knew what case Wally had been working on, but I said I didn't know. I didn't say how close he'd come to my own reservations about my profession.

That done, I called up a contact in the press. Now, I know I was supposed to keep my investigation secret, but let me explain: A major Hollywood detective had gone mad, and if I wanted an interview for a case I was not officially working on, I'd need an alibi for a case I was officially working on. Bit actors wear a lot of hats, and it's hardly unusual for one to pick up a bit of extra money as a spy or journalist. I slipped my Press Pass into the band of my fedora and headed down to County General.

Hospitals were places I'd always hated, and the lockdown ward was always the worst. It stank of urine and pain and sedatives. The set designers for Blythe had tried to convey the dismal inadequacy of a state hospital, but none of that could compare with the reality.