Stephen Leigh - Card Sharks

Marilyn was in her late sixties, Hannah knew, but the woman who closed the door behind her looked at least a decade younger. She was dressed in an expensive silk robe, the lacy white top of her chemise showing at the top. Her waist had thickened over the years, there was a network of fine wrinkles around the eyes and at the corners of the mouth, and the skin under her chin sagged, but the allure and the underlying hint of innocent sexuality were still there. Her hair was shorter now, and she'd allowed a touch of silver to accent her temples, but the rest was a gold-flecked brown, artfully disheveled as if she'd gotten up from a nap.

Hannah found herself feeling oddly plain alongside her, like a daisy in a vase with a rose.

"Who are you?" Marilyn asked. Her gaze was skittish, yet Hannah was certain that she'd been appraised and judged already. "Where did you hear about Nickie? If this is some kind of joke …"

"Nickie …" Hannah said. "You killed him. You put a bullet in his chest to save your career. He's the father of your child. He loved you, he saved your life and gave you a son, and you murdered him."

It was either great acting or genuine emotion — Hannah couldn't tell which. Marilyn's haughty demeanor crumpled, as if it were a paper mask Hannah had ripped off to expose a lost, frightened child beneath. Her whole body sagged, almost as if she were about to faint, then she caught herself. She took in a long, gasping breath and tears shimmered in her eyes. Her hand came up to her mouth, as if she were stifling a sob, and she turned and walked into the living room of the suite, collapsing onto the couch with her legs drawn up to her body. Hannah followed her in. From beyond the balcony, the towers of Manhattan thrust through afternoon haze. A tape deck sat on top of the television set in the corner of the plush suite, a video playing softly in it — Hannah realized that the movie was Jokertown . She wondered if that was coincidence or if Marilyn had set it running as a deliberate backdrop, a bit of added scenery.

As a much younger, agonized Marilyn told a glaring Jack Nicholson about the Lansky / van Renssaeler plot, the real Marilyn looked at Hannah with stricken eyes. "How do you know …" she began, then stopped. On the TV, Nicholson vowed to put an end to the plot. "I loved him," Marilyn said. "I did. They were going to kill Nick anyway. If I hadn't shot him, we would have both died that night. I thought … I thought that at least that way one of us would live. I thought I could find a way to pay them back…."

"But you never did," Hannah said sharply. Her voice sounded shrewish and shrill against Marilyn's polished tones. "You and Nick stuffed the files into a toy tiger, but that's not what you gave Kennedy during that birthday party. You gave him a penguin. You never gave the president the information Nick died for, did you?"

Marilyn stared at Hannah, her cheeks as red as if she'd been slapped. The woman tugged her robe more tightly around her neck, as if she were cold. She sniffed, visibly trying to rein in the emotions. "How much do you want?" Marilyn asked Hannah. "I don't care what your proof is, I don't want to know how you know. Name your price, I'll pay it. Just leave me alone."

"I want the evidence you never gave to the Kennedys. I want the prints that Nick took of Hedda Hopper's files. The ones that tell the story of the Card Sharks. There were three copies, or did you give them all to Rudo and Hopper?"

The gasp Marilyn gave could not have been faked. Her skin went pale, the hands that came up to cover her face trembled. She was crying now, rocking back and forth on the cushions. "Oh God, I've been so frightened ." She wept for a long time. Hannah waited, as Marilyn sobbed and on the television Jokertown burned. Hannah had come here with no sympathy for the woman at all. She'd come prepared to threaten, to blackmail, to confront Marilyn with her guilt. But Hannah now found that while she might not be able to forgive what Marilyn had done, she couldn't hate the woman at all. She was a victim too, as much as Nick. As Hannah had found with jokers, it was hard to blindly hate someone you understood.

"Ms. Monroe," Hannah said at last, softly.

Marilyn looked up, her face blotchy, her mascara now black streaks down either cheek. "Who are you? What are you after?"

"My name doesn't matter. What I'm after is the Sharks. What I'm after are the people who killed Nick and Jack and Bobby Kennedy and scores of others. I want to understand what happened."

"I was afraid," she said. "I knew Jack all too well; Bobby, too. They would have tried to do something with the information. Jack wasn't perfect, he wasn't a saint, but he wouldn't have left that kind of rot alone, and there were too many powerful people involved. They already hated Jack and Bobby both — hated their idealism and their liberal 'softness' and their courting of minorities: jokers, blacks, anyone. I was aware that they were already working against Jack's reelection. I knew there were a few who were already talking assassination and I was afraid that if Jack moved against them, that would be the last straw. I thought that by doing nothing, I might at least save him ." Tears had gathered in the corners of her eyes, rolling untouched down her cheeks as she gave a short, bitter laugh. "So I said nothing. And then Jack went to Dallas …" Marilyn wiped at her tears angrily, defiantly. "You have no idea what you're facing, young lady."

"I'm facing you ."

Marilyn took a sharp breath. "Me? I'm nothing," she said. "I never have been. Not to them. You want to know the truth? I hate them. I hate them more than I hate myself for never having the courage to do something about it." She sat up suddenly. "You have to go," she said. "You can't stay here."

"I'm not leaving until I have answers."

"Why?" Marilyn cried in that breathless little girl voice of hers. "What good is anything I know? Who can you go to? Who can you trust?"

"I don't know that yet. But I'll find out," Hannah answered. "I'll do something."

For several seconds, Marilyn just looked at her. "I'm not as flighty and reckless as the gossip says," she said finally. "Not really. They told me what I was to do if anyone ever confronted me. I was going to keep you here. I'd talk to you if I had to, pretend to give you what you wanted, until … Stay here a moment," Marilyn got up from the couch, moving now like an old person, and went into the bedroom of the suite, returning quickly. Hannah felt the breath go out of her when she saw what the woman held in her hands.

A bedraggled stuffed tiger.

"I kept this with me, all those years," Marilyn said. "The other sets I gave to Hedda — I had to, you understand. But these … I kept them, always thinking that one day I'd do something with them, that I'd pay them back for making me kill Nick. I must have started to do it a hundred times, even after the birthday party, but something always held me back. I was afraid of what they'd do to me, to my son. Every time I started to make the call, every time I wanted to call Jack or Bobby or anyone, I'd see Nick floating in my pool, the water going red around him and his open eyes staring at me, and I'd stop. After awhile, I didn't even try. Everyone I might have trusted seemed to be dead and I didn't know anyone else. I was so scared , don't you understand? So scared …"

She held the tiger out toward Hannah. "Here," she said. "Take it before I change my mind again. Now, please — "

Someone rapped on the door, several quick knocks. "Marilyn?"

Hannah knew the voice. Marilyn put a finger up to her lips, then pointed to the bedroom. At the same time, she seemed to draw on some inward calm, inhaling deeply and rearranging the robe around her. Her demeanor changed, seeming to be that of someone younger and more vulnerable. As Hannah clutched the tiger and moved quickly into the bedroom, Marilyn rose from the couch and went to the door. "Pan!" Hannah heard her exclaim, and then the words came all in a rush: "Oh, Pan, I was so scared. The woman called me from the lobby, saying that she knew about Nickie…."