“We’ll decide what to do tomorrow. You’re exhausted, and I need you in fighting form so we play this right. Go get your beauty rest, okay?” Walls must have appeared reluctant, because his boss rose to walk him to his car, at which point he administered a fatherly pat on the shoulder. “Great work, kid. And don’t worry. We’re gonna nail this bitch.”
But he couldn’t rest. He could only imagine things he might have missed, scenarios he hadn’t yet considered. And on Sunday morning, having lain wide-eyed in the darkness counting twenty-two, and twenty-three, and twenty-four hours since he’d convinced Toll of Marilyn’s secret identity, he found himself fully dressed in a black suit of Italian wool that would be stifling once the sun climbed high, driving past the gated palaces of Beverly Hills as though without a fixed destination, but all the while moving toward her.
In this he was not alone.
When he arrived her cul-de-sac was already jammed with vehicles, and a helicopter raged overhead. Walls, possessed by the notion that Toll had staged a raid already and cut him out of it, parked with his wheels on the curb, a few blocks up Carmelina, and jogged heedlessly into the fray. But it was a different boss he encountered at her gate.
“Douglass.” For a moment Walls thought Alan would act surprised, but he seemed unable to summon the energy. His face was ashen, and his shirt was buttoned wrong so that its hem, which he had not succeeded in tucking under his belt, hung unevenly. “How did you—?” And then he answered several unspoken questions in rapid succession. “Oh, never mind. What does it matter now. I’m glad you’re here.”
Walls would have asked him what was happening if he’d had a single wit about him. Instead they started walking over the brick patio toward the house, where a pair of police officers stood at the door. “Who are those people?” he managed eventually.
“Press, mostly. I don’t know how they found out—they got here just as I did. Maybe they heard it over the police radio, or maybe the operator who took Ralph’s call couldn’t resist making an anonymous tip.”
“What did you tell them?”
“Nothing, yet.”
What is there to tell? he wanted to ask. But there wasn’t any need, because the police officers were standing aside to make way for the gurney pushed by a man wearing a checked sport coat and dark glasses who might have been of Japanese descent. A step behind him was a man with deep-set eyes and close-cropped, graying hair, in a tweed jacket. Walls could imagine him speaking in the steady, sober voice he knew as Dr. Ralph Greenson. As the procession moved into the sunlight, toward the hearse parked just inside the gate, Greenson reached out protectively, resting his hand on the white cloth that covered the body. In his face, Walls had a glimpse of what real sorrow looks like. Leather straps crossed the cloth, fastening her in place, and Walls found that he had involuntarily put his palm over his mouth as they shoved the whole contraption into the back of the vehicle.
The coroner’s van drove slowly through the mob and away. For a while he and Alan stood together in silence.
“How did—”
“We won’t know for sure until the coroner’s report comes back.” Alan sighed, lifted his gaze to the sky. “I hope to god it was an accident, but it smells an awful lot like suicide.”
Walls, too, looked at the sky. He felt tricked. Three years of his life had been devoted to following Marilyn, listening to her weird little voice telling tall tales, watching her wallow and wiggle and lie. He had thought about her more than he’d ever thought about anybody. He still wanted to punish her for what she had thought she’d get away with. This was entirely too sudden an end—but maybe death was always like that. He had apparently held the vague notion that in a moment like this one saw something—a cloud unfurling, branches bending, a flash downpour—while the spirit freed itself. But the setting did not accommodate. Besides the crowd of photographers jostling for position on the street, all appeared perfectly ordinary. “Was there a note?” he wondered out loud.
If Alan replied Walls didn’t hear it. He’d spotted Toll striding toward them, his brimmed felt hat tipped over his face and his trench coat flapping around his legs. He was flanked by five similarly dressed men, their shoulders broad under their black suits. Walls knew these men—he had trained with them, not so long ago—and he briefly remembered what he’d thought it would mean to be an agent of the Bureau. A rigorous and exciting life; inclusion in an elite pack. But as he watched the cavalcade approach, he felt apart.
“Agent Walls, who is this?” Toll demanded.
“Alan Jacobs, Marilyn’s flack.”
“Agent Walls?” Alan’s mouth trembled and his eyes grew large, as though he might cry. Instead he slapped Walls across the face.
“Get him out of here.” Toll was waving his badge in Alan’s general direction, and Walls, hoping it didn’t show how much the slap hurt, reached for his former boss’s elbow to lead him away. “Not him, you.”
“Me, sir?”
Toll didn’t meet his gaze, he just tipped the hat lower. “We have an investigation to see to, and someone pretty important needs to talk to you. Agent Amberson will escort you. Now, Mr. Jacobs, let’s not get in each other’s way, what do you say …”
There was more to their conversation, but Walls couldn’t hear, as Amberson was more or less pushing him through the gate. Walls looked over his shoulder, and saw how Toll’s head bent toward Alan’s in discussion as they strolled up the patio and disappeared into the house. The reporters and photographers assembled in the cul-de-sac called out to the two agents in their black suits for information, but Walls could only take a final glance at a crime scene he, too, would have done anything to understand.
The limousine was idling somewhat beyond his own poorly parked vehicle. Amberson pointed it out, and then retreated in the direction of Marilyn’s house, leaving Walls alone. One of the rear passenger doors was pushed open from inside, so he climbed into the backseat and found himself opposite the attorney general of the United States. He wore a tailored navy suit, but his hair flopped over his forehead.
“Hello, Douglass. I’m Robert Kennedy.”
“I know who you are,” Walls replied as the limo began to move.
“We’re all pretty impressed with you.”
“We?”
“SAC Toll and I.”
“So you know? That she was a—”
“Yes, I know what she was. Toll did the right thing. He called his boss, and his boss called me, and by chance I was in the area and able to come down and express my gratitude to you personally. My gratitude, and that of my entire family.”
“Sir, I should be back there.”
“Yes. You’re right, of course. And I want you to know I respect that—your tenacity in this case.”
“Thank you,” Walls replied with more diffidence than he had intended. He cleared his throat, deepened his voice. “But I’ve got to go back and search the property. I know more than anybody about their operation and what they planned. If the Russians disposed of her, they surely made it look like an accident, or suicide, but I could—”
“It’s not going to be that kind of investigation.”
“What? But she—”
“She’s dead, poor girl. She got herself mixed up with some bad people. But I did always like her personally.”
“ ‘Poor girl’?” Walls hoped he didn’t look as wretched and incredulous as he felt. Perhaps at birth, but the woman he knew was sly, manipulative, capable of unspeakable betrayals—anything but a poor girl.
“Listen, she’s dead. That’s what matters. She can’t do any harm now.”
“But what about the Gent? He’s still out there—”
“There was a homicide Friday night in a rented bungalow in a beach community south of the airport. A man who fits your description of her handler. They must have known you were on to them, that it was a matter of time, maybe they even knew you went to Agent Toll—someone in KGB decided to terminate the operation. Obviously they made the decision to elimin
ate the entire cell.”
“Well.” Walls exhaled in frustration and glanced at the window. “With all due respect, I don’t know if that’s obvious, sir. I’d like to make damn sure.”
The attorney general leaned in, forcing Walls to return his gaze. The muscles around his blue eyes constricted, and Walls couldn’t help but wonder how someone so young-looking could come across so grave. They had moved through similar rooms, but life had handled them differently. “Agent Walls, I’m going to be straight with you, all right?”
“All right.”
“The president of the United States was having an affair—we don’t want that generally known, but it’s nothing new, and our boys in the press rise above that sort of tawdry reporting. That he was having an affair with a Soviet spy is another matter entirely. I don’t think I really need to explain to you how deeply we need to bury this. Right now four people know—Toll, the Director, you, and me. And we’re the only people who are ever going to know.”
“But what about the agents Toll has combing the place?”
“They were told enough that they won’t guess at more. They know that she was a girl with some personal problems—everybody knows that—and that she had a thing with the president—which plenty of people already suspect. Toll told them she kept a diary of things she liked to talk about with Jack—on sensitive topics, about his opinions and policies and so forth—and that we have to clean her place out, make sure there isn’t anything incriminating she’s left behind. Anything that might pose a threat to national security.”
“Mr. Attorney General, I think you’re making a mistake,” he said with as much deference as he could muster given the fire in his chest. “You want to keep it a secret, sure. But I think this thing is much bigger than any of us know. I think you need to investigate it aggressively.”
“You are permitted your opinion,” Kennedy replied evenly as he switched the cross of his legs. “But you’re not going to share it with anyone. Do you understand? Your file on Marilyn is going to be destroyed, and that’s the end of it.”
Out the window sprinklers were churning rainbow droplets across bright green lawns. A boy on a bicycle was hurling newspapers over grand, gilt barriers, and Walls, watching them because he didn’t want to face the conversation he was having, realized how early in the day it was to feel so beaten. “Where are we going?”
“The Santa Monica Airport.” Kennedy lifted his wrist to check the time. “My wife and children are staying at a ranch up in Gilroy, and I’ve got to join them. Mass begins at nine thirty. After I’m dropped off, my driver will take you wherever you want to go.”
“Why did you need to tell me? Why couldn’t Toll have—”
“Because this is between you and me. And because you’re never going back to the Los Angeles division. You’ll get a healthy severance—and for a few months, you can do whatever you like.”
“You mean you want to buy my silence? I’m really not cut out to swan around poolside, you know, or jet off to Europe, or …”
“Yes, I knew you’d say something of the kind. And I wouldn’t insult you like that. So I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. When you’re ready, come back to Washington. Think about where you see yourself, where you want to go. Perhaps you’d even someday like to run for office. In the meantime, imagine how you’ll get there, wherever you’re going, whatever it is you’d like to become. Any job in government you are remotely qualified for, it’s yours. Think about it; get back to me. I’ll take care of everything.”
They had stopped at a traffic light, and Walls, whose jaw was too set in anger to talk anymore, opened the door and climbed to the sidewalk. He had no idea where he was or where he ought to go, which was fine by him.
“Agent Walls.” He glanced over his shoulder and saw the attorney general perched at the edge of the limousine’s rear seat. “Can I count on you?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll never speak of it.” As his gaze drifted over the clean concrete, he added bitterly, “Nobody would believe me anyway.”
V
1963
FORTY-TWO
Dallas, November 1963
THE diner on the corner of Maple and Winchester had big windows and two exits, a good view of the street. She’d been there once before—maybe two months ago, maybe four. As Mrs. Ivan Lancer she often went to diners. In her old life, breakfast had not been her bag, except occasionally in liquid form. The meal itself had seemed utilitarian, and the timing conflicted with the hours that were her best bet for sleep. But now she woke with first light, and had come to like the atmosphere in places that served chicken-fried steak and pecan pie with vanilla ice cream and flapjacks under brilliant lighting. Of course, as Mrs. Ivan Lancer she rarely used a name (Mary, if politeness required) and always paid cash, and made eye contact only long enough not to appear evasive. The waitress behind the counter was having a bad morning, and she waved Marilyn to a stool without a second glance.
“What’ll you have, honey?” the waitress drawled while wiping down the Formica to Marilyn’s left, her head tilted away as she surveyed coffee levels in the mugs of the customers lined up against the counter.
“Eggs over easy. Rye toast, no butter. Coffee, black.”
“You got it, hon.”
“Thanks.”
She went to bars, too, although she no longer drank much. Only when it would draw attention not to, and on those occasions she found she had lost her taste for alcohol. But like diners they were good places to overhear things, encounter people when their guard was down, and it was in a bar that she located Hank Foley. The first time he chatted her up it was at a joint called Florence’s Hotsy-Totsy, and he’d implied that he was an oil-and-gas man, but the working girls said that when he was drunk he sometimes boasted of CIA connections. They warned her to watch out for him, said he hit with a closed fist. For a while she demurred, rattling her wedding and engagement rings at him with a coy smile. Holding out did its neat trick. He became more persistent, almost desperate, tried to impress her by hinting at insider knowledge of government intrigue. Finally she let him rub against her one night while Sinatra was on the jukebox; the next week, she told him her husband was out of town. They’d walked into the parking lot, and his alcoholic breath stung her eyes right before he shoved her against his car.
In the morning, as they lay together in the motel bed (Hank also claimed to be married), he’d observed, “You know, if you dyed your hair, gained ten pounds, and stayed out of the sun, you’d look just like Marilyn Monroe.” He wasn’t the first person to say this to her, although it happened less frequently than she would have imagined.
“But I like the sun,” she had replied cutely. “And I’d be all wrong blonde. Anyway, we all know what happened to her.”
“Yeah, that was a damn shame.” He had shaken his head and lit a cigarette. “Beautiful girl like that.”
Her understanding of the events of August 5, 1962, was mainly patched together from this variety of interaction. She skirted discussions of the presumed suicide of Marilyn Monroe, but especially in the beginning it had been a big story, and she’d been unable to avoid it entirely. Later she guessed that people recognized her unconsciously, and were moved to express their true feelings about the deceased movie star. She herself only knew that she said good-bye to her house, and to Dr. Greenson, and swallowed the drugs he’d promised her. The ones that would make her sleep like the dead for twenty-four hours. When she’d come out of it, in a broom closet in the morgue, the coroner, Dr. Noguchi, had been chain-smoking, and appeared deeply relieved to feel her pulse growing stronger. “I’ve never heard of anybody your weight taking that stuff and coming out of it,” he’d said. Then she’d given him what she had promised, on her back on the autopsy table. That was the deal they had struck, the night she killed Alexei, when she had wandered into his office barefoot and distraught. After he’d smuggled her out of the police station in the trunk of his car, she had reminded him that if he ever told anybody she was alive he w
ould lose his job and his medical license, everyone would call him crazy, that he might be institutionalized, and that she personally would not rest until she had taught him the true meaning of pain. He assured her that he had an unidentified body—five-six, a hundred and sixteen, bottle blonde—already picked out to autopsy and cremate for the burial, and she flinched, and tried not to think what befell that poor honey. Then she removed the contents of Alexei’s suitcase—transferred to a lady-like tote—from the bus station locker where she’d stored it, and disappeared.
“Thanks,” he had said, with what she could only comprehend as sincere gratitude.
In her youth, trading sex in this way hadn’t seemed to cost her much. She’d traded shrewdly, and that had made all the difference. Later, after she’d realized that Arthur wasn’t going to become everything she hoped, she’d given it away vengefully, to almost anyone. But that was a long time ago. With the coroner, she had to set her teeth and tell herself that she was doing it for Jack, to keep Jack safe. Luckily she’d still been groggy and had managed to hold the retching for when she was alone. By the night she was first treated to Hank Foley’s labored breathing and copious perspiration, she’d come to think of herself as a kind of Joan of Arc, beyond the needs or denigrations of the flesh. Her skin was brown, her hair was an unremarkable shade of bark, and she had more or less forgotten the lure of her own glory.
It was not until recently that she understood how Hank fit in. They had left the Hotsy-Totsy together, not trying to hide it, and he was already cock-eyed. “Hey, gorgeous, mind if we take a detour? I need to do a quick check on one of my people.”
This was maybe their fifth assignation, and she had steered clear of him for the previous two weeks. She figured if she gave him the runaround he’d become stupid, try to show her how important he was. “All right,” she’d said indifferently, gazing into her compact. “But I’ve got to be home by midnight in case my husband calls from the road. He was suspicious last time; if it happens again he’ll load his shotgun, come looking for you.”