Naked in LA (25 page)

“Reyes...”

“Maria is doing okay, by the way. She’s still a maid, but her boss is a general in the Jose Martí battalion. She sends her love and hopes that one day she sees you at the movies. I have her address, I wrote it on this piece of paper and put inside this first album right here. She’d like a signed glossy so she can boast about you to her friends.”

“How did you get this?”

“It wasn’t easy. But you remember that day we met in the Fontainebleau in Miami, you said it was the one thing you regretted leaving behind, you said you felt as if you’d lost a part of yourself. So I left no stone unturned. I would have done anything for you.” He held out his hand. “I want my spare key.”

I reached into my purse and gave it to him. “Let me get the check,” I said.

“No, I insist.” He threw some money on the table. Then he left, dropping the key in the fish tank on the way out.

That was a neat touch. He really knew how to underline his point, that man.

Chapter 34

The shooting schedule for
Coming Home,
Frank’s new movie, was around ten weeks, and so far it had gone without a hitch. He tried to seduce me on screen and off it but the only time I ever gave in was when it was in the script.

I had a limousine pick me up on the lot at the end of each day, but one day, instead of one of Carey’s Cadillacs, there was a black Plymouth with dark tinted windows. For a moment I thought it might be Jack. Then a thick set man in a dark suit got out from behind the wheel and came towards me. He didn’t have one of those little lapel badges like Kennedy’s guy had, and he was chewing a toothpick. He took my upper arm in a discreet but vice-like grip and led me toward the car.

He held the door open. I froze, wondered whether I should try to run. But my escort wasn’t about to loosen his grip, and besides, what was the use? Angel knew where I lived. He would hardly chase after me; if he wanted to talk he would just find a less discreet way to kidnap me.

I decided to retain some scrap of dignity and slid into the back seat as if I were the First Lady.

There was a bottle of Dom Perignon on ice. Angel cracked it and handed me a flute. He poured some of the champagne into my glass and then one for himself. His driver headed out of the lot toward Brentwood.

I sipped the champagne, sat back and waited.

“I told you we’d see each other again,” Angel said.

“Where’s my driver?”

“We gave him the day off.”

“You didn’t torture him and kill him, did you? It would create a lot of problems with the union.”

“I torture and kill who I like. Fuck the union.”

I guessed that would set the tone for the rest of our conversation. Angel really needed to get over himself. “How did you get in here? I thought Fox had security.”

“We got a lot of friends in this industry.”

How different he was from the scared boy I remembered. I wondered how many bodies he had to cram into a barrel and dump in the river before Bobbo promoted him to middle management. That was the trouble with the mob these days: they were promoting these boys right up to limousine status without ever giving them enough experience in the field.

“We need to talk,” he said.

“I’m listening, I have no choice.”

“We go back a long way, you and me.”

“Too long.”

“I was just thinking the other day how I helped you out in Miami. You remember? You were living in that shit hole with your old man, serving coffee and burgers to shitbags in baseball caps. You had all these medical bills. But I helped you out. It’s good to have friends, right?”

“What do you want, Angel?”

“And I was thinking what a nice funeral your father had. Nice headstone, too. Doesn’t seem so long ago. You know why? Because it wasn’t that fucking long, and now look at you, you’re a big movie star, and you forgot where you came from, forgot your roots.”

“You got well paid for your favours.”

“Yeah? Because I don’t think so. I can get tail whenever I want it and it doesn’t cost me what I was paying out for you.”

“I thought you did it because you loved me.”

“Well maybe now I’m asking you to love me back a little.”

“You want me to cuddle you?”

“You really crack me up, baby. What a sense of humour. Does your new boyfriend like how you make jokes all the time?”

I wondered how he knew about Jack, but then it hit me, if he were tight with Sinatra then it would be more surprising if he didn’t know.

“I went to meet him one night in Malibu. It was a bad mistake and it hardly counts as a love affair.”

“I think you should give it more time.”

I stared at him, looking for some hint of irony. I didn’t see any. “It’s my decision who I sleep with.”

“Now you’re being naïve.” He laid a hand along the back of the seat, played with my hair. I twisted away but that only seemed to amuse him.

“I’m not going to be the President’s whore again.”

“You see the way you twist things? The way to look at it, you’re helping your career.”

“I don’t need Jack Kennedy to get me parts in movies anymore.”

“I’m not talking about Kennedy, I’m talking about me.”

“You want me to be your spy?”

“No, we know what Jack and Bobby are doing. We know that Bobby is going after Jimmy Hoffa, and that he wants to shut down our operations on the east coast. We know all that.”

“So what is it you want?”

“I want you to kill him.”

It was like he’d slapped me. I stared at him with a stupid look on my face for so long that finally he waved a hand in front of my eyes, laughing. “Hey, baby. You okay? You need smelling salts?”

“Are you out of your mind?”

“I’m asking a favour, that’s all.”

“You want me to kill the President of the United States?”

“His name’s Jack, and he sleeps, fucks and eats like everyone else. It’s not an easy hit, I give you that, so we need to put someone close to him. Hey, Jackie hates him but she doesn’t hate him that much, even though she’s married to him. Besides, hate is not a good reason for killing people. You’d be doing this to show gratitude for all I have done for you, for all that I and my associates can do for you in the future.”

I tried to get out of the car even though we were doing fifty on the freeway. He grabbed my wrist, still laughing.

“Listen to me--you won’t believe how easy this is. We got some pills, the Agency gave them to us to use on Castro, They’re straight out of one of their labs. But we got bigger problems now than that bearded fuck. We kill him, and we still got Bobby Kennedy on our back. So I figured we take advantage of scientific progress and use it where it does us most good. You don’t have to worry about a thing, baby. These things dissolve in water; they don’t leave a trace. It will look like he’s had a heart attack while you’re giving him the ride of his life. Naturally first thing everyone does is hush it up, get you the hell out of there. By the time the autopsy results come back - and baby, this shit is almost impossible to trace - the new President is in the White House and he’s someone we can work with. There’s lots of guys in the Agency and the military who see things our way. Everyone will be happy to leave things just as they are. Meanwhile you got more friends than the Pope, wouldn’t surprise me if you win an Oscar next year.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Well there’s guys in Chicago and Miami, my father-in-law included, who think it’s a pretty terrific idea.”

“I won’t do this. I would never kill anyone, there’s nothing you can do to make me part of this.”

Where was the Angel I knew, the soft, vain, arrogant beautiful boy that I chased down the stairs into the street just by throwing my shoes at him? As much as I hated him, I wished him back now.

“Think it over, baby.” He stroked my hair. “You don’t want to go making hasty decisions.”

“It’s impossible,” I said. “I only saw him that one time. Even if I agreed to this--and I never ever will--it wouldn’t do you any good.”

He smiled. “That’s where you’re wrong.”

The limousine pulled into my driveway and Angel’s goon got out from behind the wheel and opened the door for me. After I watched them drive away again I slumped to my haunches and the big, glamorous movie star started to sob in utter despair on her own doorstep.

Chapter 35 

I had my own dressing room now with a gold star on the door where I could rest between takes. The shooting was not going well. I couldn’t get into my character, kept forgetting lines, the crew were getting frustrated, and Frank, never renowned for his patience, was shouting at everyone from the director to the coffee girl.

It was my big chance and I could feel it slipping away.

All I could think about was Angel:
“Well now I’m asking you to love me back a little.”

A couple of nights after our conversation in the back of his limousine I got a call from Peter Lawford, asking me to take a trip back out to the East Coast to meet Jack. At first I couldn’t believe that Angel had managed to orchestrate the invitation, but when I thought about it, everything slipped into place; a quiet word from Mo to Sinatra, he makes a call to Lawford, and suddenly I was on the White House A list again. They wouldn’t have any part in the plot, they would just do whatever they were asked to do.

I had told Lawford that I was too busy filming, but he said he had already spoken to Frank and cleared it with him. He was going to send me the air tickets and send a limousine to pick me up.

Again, I told him “no,” but he clearly didn’t believe me. I didn’t know what I was going to do. And somehow I was supposed to step on the set with Frank and be funny and seductive.

I sent my wardrobe girl and my dresser scurrying out of my room and lay on the sofa with my eyes closed and tried to shut everything out of my head except the script. I couldn’t screw this up.
You’ve got one shot at this, Magdalena, this is what you’ve worked so hard for.