Stephen Leigh - Card Sharks

Dauerschlaf , that's what Rudo called it: The Long Sleep. Marilyn had first come to him for her insomnia, and then for her other problems. Sometimes she said she felt like a thousand women packed into one. Blythe was almost autobiographical.

Schizophrenia ran in her family. It had claimed both her mother and grandmother. She didn't want it to claim her.

Whatever the problem, I didn't believe that sex was a necessary part of any therapy. What did Dr. Rudo do with boys? But somehow, bastard that he was, Rudo's cure seemed to be working. Marilyn got better for all the bad dreams. She drank less, and slept more without tranquilizers.

And her acting became hearthreakingly beautiful. I wasn't the only one to cry when I saw her do Blythe's final scene. And her last coherent words:

"Tisianne, hold me. I can't bear them any longer."

Seeing her in the straightjacket as she descended into Blythe Van Renssaeler's madness, I was reminded of Wally Fisk. While Marilyn and I had made love, he'd swallowed his tongue and died in the hospital.

"A brilliant performance, no?" Pan Rudo stood next to me and lit another cigarette. The smoke curled lazily from his fingers. "You find it very beautiful, but very disturbing as well. Some personal meaning, perhaps?"

He shook forward a cigarette from his case, but I got out one of my own and used my own lighter. "Do you always state the obvious, Dr. Rudo?"

He tapped his unlit smokes back into line and snapped the case shut, slipping it into an inside pocket. "Frequently." He took a lazy pull from his cigarette as the scene broke down and Welles called it a wrap. "There are so many lies and self-deceits abounding, it's often useful to remind oneself of the facts. 'To thine own self be true,' as Shakespeare put it. Wouldn't you agree?"

I blew some of my own smoke his direction. "I've always been more of a 'Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain' man myself."

He laughed. "I never cease to be amazed by you, Mr. Williams. I always keep thinking I've found your heart, but all I get is another matrushka doll. What's inside the last would you say? Pins and sawdust? Clockwork springs? Or is there really a lion's heart of flesh and blood?"

I looked into his eyes, cold blue mirrors of my own. "Being that I don't wear it on my sleeve, Dr. Rudo, I don't think you'll ever have a chance to find out."

He leaned back on one heel, regarding me. "Perhaps, Mr. Williams. Perhaps."

He broke off the look abruptly. The witch had arrived, hat and all.

Hedda was wearing a salmon pink linen skirt and jacket, with a matching hat: salmon felt decorated with silver applique waves and, I kid you not, an honest-to-God, life-size gold-lame fish lunging after the fly that dangled from the miniature rod stuck through the crown.

"Pan, darling!" Hedda oooed. "And dearest Nicholas! What luck to find you both here!"

Rudo paused and looked to me. "You know Hedda, Mr. Williams?"

It was the first time I'd ever seen him taken off guard. Hedda breezed right in between us.

"Oh pish, darling," Hedda said, "you know I have my little spies everywhere." She reached up and pinched his cheek, then linked arms with me and patted the back of my hand. "Nicholas and I go back a long way."

Rudo took a long drag on his cigarette. "I should never be surprised by anything you know, Hedda."

Hedda laughed and led me a ways off into the set. "So, Nick, what you got for me?"

How should I put this? Hedda owned a lot of people in Hollywood. One of the ones she owned was me. She'd given me a couple breaks early in my career — back when I was nothing more than a frightened young actor — and she made sure I knew I owed her. I was part of her spy network, and that, more than anything, was what got me to turn pro at it.

That press contact I'd phoned in the Wally Fisk story to? That was Hedda. The job for Welles had been a conflict of interests since the beginning.

I wondered what Flattop would think. His hero, the ace Will-o'-Wisp, was a spy for Hedda the Hat.

I sighed, recalling the list I'd prepared for her. "Well, Jeff Chandler has a new girlfriend. And I told you about Wally Fisk … he died this morning."

"Old news, dearest," she said, patting my hand. "I put it in this morning's column. Now, tell mother what she wants to know: What's the job you're doing for Orson? Wally's old case.

"Now don't look so shocked, dearest," Hedda said as I struggled to keep my St. Elmo's from springing up and killing the old hag. "Mother knows lots of things, and who do you think it was who got you this lovely job? The moment I heard about poor Wally, all I had to do was have dearest Kimberly drop a word in Orson's pudgy pink ear and voila! Here you are.

"So now, my little Nicholas, tell mother the dirt."

Have you ever been caught so off guard you can't speak? That was me. I was so good at deceptions, I'm surprised I didn't come up with one immediately.

"And no lies, Nicholas," Hedda said. "Mother can tell. And," she said significantly, "since I know Kimberly, if I find out you've lied to me, I'll be forced to tell the truth to Jack Braun. You know him — the glowing freak with the photogenic bottom and the hands that can punch through walls? You're considerably thinner than a wall, Nicholas, and I'm sure he'd have no trouble at all getting through you. And wouldn't that be a horrid scandal."

She smiled, as if relishing the possibility, and I swallowed. Electric ace or not, there was no way I could stand up to Golden Boy.

I wish I'd had the stomach for cold blooded murder. Hedda had her arm around mine, and all it would take was one jolt to send the old harpy to Hell. But I knew the nature of the beast I was dealing with — upon her death, Hedda's lawyers would send packets to various addresses, and there was no way of knowing whether a sheaf of photographs would be her bequest to Jack Braun.

I settled for the simple truth and told Hedda the gist of Wally's investigation. All I said about my own work was that it had been fruitless — nothing about the little altercation under the pier, or the unprovable connections to Howard Hughes and Willie Hearst.

Hedda clicked her tongue. "My, my, how very interesting. You've done well, my little Nicholas. But isn't there something you're not telling mother?"

I shook my head, smiling. It was hard, but I told myself that even if Hedda found out, I could hide behind J. Edgar. Golden Rat may have been the strongest man in the world, but the one thing he was frightened of was the Feds.

Hedda pinched me on the cheek. "Oh come now, Nicholas, don't be so shy. I've heard the rumors. You've been seeing Marilyn, haven't you?"

I blushed, feeling the strangest mixture of fear and relief. There was a reason why Hedda called her home "The House that Fear Built."

She crowed with laughter. "You're so wonderfully ingenous, Nick. I think that's why you've always been one of my favorites." Hedda extended her hand to be kissed.

I did it carefully, holding down my gorge and my ace.

"Thanks, Nicholas," she said. "You're a dear. But as they say at Disney, TTFN, ta-ta for now!"

Hedda left, the fishing fly on her hat bobbing like some Satanic sound boom, and I slumped back against a piece of scenery. My life was swiftly becoming a nightmare.

But there's never bad without some good. That evening I lay in bed with Marilyn, just holding on. There was so much I wanted to tell her, but couldn't.

"Shh, Nickie," she said, stroking my hair. "Shh. You can tell me when you feel its time. But I have something to tell you."

"What, Marilyn?"

"I talked with Dr. Rudo this afternoon. He's interpreted my nightmares, and says I have a choice: I can be all women to all men, or one woman to one man." She paused and I looked up into her blue eyes. "Will you be my one man, Nickie?"