The Blonde (28 page)

“I’ll think about it.”

“Did you get his gift?”

“The doorman called up about something, but I didn’t really care that much, and Lena’s been busy all morning. It’s from him?”

“Yes.”

“Well, okay. I’ll have Lena bring it up before she goes home today, and if he wrote the note himself, and if it’s not totally moronic, maybe—maybe—you can set up a date.”

“I’d go get it now.”

“Who gives a shit, Al? I’ve had roses before; if they die before I get to them, then it was their fucking time to go.”

“It’s not roses. Just go get it now, all right? And call me once you have.”

“Jesus, okay.”

Lena was in the kitchen, involved in the preparation of an elaborate lasagna, so Marilyn pulled on the first coat she saw—a white beaver that Arthur had given her when she first moved to the city—and went down to the doorman herself. She felt irritated and was already planning to call her P.R. man back and tell him that the gift had been inadequate, that she wasn’t interested in Sinatra. The more she thought about his solicitations the
more repugnant she found them. Did he want the reflected glory of laying the president’s most recently discarded piece of ass? Or were he and Joe not getting along—was she a pawn in some ornate Italian pissing contest? But these thoughts melted away, and her heart fluttered despite itself, when she saw the wicker bassinet on the marble desk, from which emerged the floppy white head of a little French poodle.

“Hello there, friend,” she cooed at him. To the doorman, she said: “How long has he been here?”

The doorman came toward the desk, and the dog scuttled around and let out several high, sharp yelps. “Three hours, I’d guess.”

“Oooooo, the poor thing!” She lifted him out of the bassinet and blew him a kiss, but he only kept staring at her with those giant helpless chocolate eyes, his small body shaking slightly. “He must be terribly uncomfortable,” she said, narrowing her eyes at the doorman. “Imagine if you were trapped like that for hours.”

“I’m sorry, I—”

“Never mind.” With the dog in her arms she proceeded across the lobby to the front door. The rabble of reporters lurched into motion when they saw her, and she paused for a moment, smiled brilliantly, and held the dog up for them to see. “May I introduce my new friend—a gift from Frank Sinatra—isn’t he darling?”

The photographers raised their cameras. The flashes singed her eyeballs. Her smile went on and on. “What’ll you call him?”

“Well, since he’s from Frankie, how about Mr. Mafia? Maf, for short. Because everybody knows how good Frankie is at playing tough guys.”

“Are you and Sinatra the new item?”

“Oh, we’re just friends.” She laughed suggestively, and the reporters, taking her meaning, scribbled on their little pads. “Okay, now you boys have something to print, how about giving this old girl a break? I’m going to take
my new friend for a walk, and when I come back, I’d just adore it if none of you were here.”

The poor dog was trembling in her arms, and she was sorry for having used him in this way. She pushed through the reporters, glaring to show she wasn’t kidding around anymore. The ground beyond the awning was dusted white, and the streets were caked with the new-fallen snow, and she half ran across the street to get away, seeking some partially protected place for the frightened creature to relieve himself. “That’s okay, darling,” she whispered. “Tonight you’re going to have real steak for dinner.”

By the time she had walked around the block the little dog had calmed down and begun to trust her. She’d only said the thing about the Mafia to make the story juicier in the hope the reporters would be sated awhile, but she was beginning to think the name Maf did sort of suit him. In fact, the dog had cheered her up, and she was wondering to herself if maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea to go on a date with Frank, just for show. Even if he was an unpleasant man, Alan was probably right that he’d be gentlemanly. Seeing him would mean a lot of slick parties, and perhaps it would be good for her to be out in the world, shake off her blues, have a few drinks and laugh some. These were the thoughts that absorbed her when the black car pulled up and caught her attention with a faint honk.

She bent and peered through the passenger window. As soon as she saw Alexei’s face, she knew she ought to have been better prepared for this moment. He was smiling at her, gesturing for her to join him. With the dog snuggled under her coat, she opened the door and got in. “I thought you’d forgotten about me.”

“How could anyone forget you, my dear? I’ve been keeping an eye on you, of course; I just wanted you to get some rest. But you’ve had it, and now it’s time to get back to work.”

“Look.” She pulled back her coat, showing Maf. “A gift, from Jack’s friend
Frank Sinatra, who apparently has the okay to make a pass. I’ve been handed down. It’s over. There’s nothing I can do for you, even if I wanted to.”

“So you won’t do it? Go back to work, I mean.”

She shook her head. “There’s nothing for me to do.”

“All right, my dear,” he said, slowing to the curb. They were arriving at a street corner, the car at a slow roll, when two men rushed toward them from a candy store and climbed into the backseat. The light was turning yellow, and she glanced around frantically, but by the time she realized that she should try to get out, Alexei had put his foot on the accelerator. She considered jumping, but one of the men in the backseat held down the lock as they sped through the intersection.

“She says no.” Alexei addressed the rearview mirror and gripped the wheel.

Marilyn opened her mouth, ready to rage at them, to tell Alexei to pull over immediately, to scream for help. But that only made it easier for the man behind her, reaching around, to stuff a cloth doused with cloying liquid in her mouth. She struggled against him, but he held her face with one strong arm and pinned her to the seat with the other. Her heart raced, and then it slowed. Suddenly her shoulders felt heavy, and after that very relaxed. The dog was barking, high and sharp, and clawing at her chest while the world went dark. She started to tell Maf that everything was going to be all right, but then she remembered the rag in her mouth, and that seemed kind of funny, and also exhausting, and she decided that in a minute she was going to summon the strength to break the man’s hold, but first she was going to close her eyes and get some rest.

Just for a second, or maybe two.

TWENTY-FIVE

New York, February 1961

THE dog was barking, and her heart was slow. The air was dense with the kind of cleaning product that is used in reform schools and DMVs and abortionists’ offices, and other places people do not go by choice. She had to will her eyes open, but the glaring fluorescence punished the effort. Blinking, she took in the room, white and windowless, and knew precisely where she was. All psych wards, she guessed, look pretty much the same. She imagined her mother pacing in one of these, and wondered if they might seem rather comforting to somebody truly insane. Whatever they’d given her had put her out a long time; she wasn’t completely back yet. Once she was, those walls were going to close in on her fast.

Was there also the smell of urine? Maf barked again, and she let her head loll in his direction, and she saw that he was sitting, primly, a little nervous, on a heap of white fur. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled. Her throat was dry and chalky, and her tongue was swollen like she’d had a Novocain injection. “Ima gonna get you outta here.”

A headache speared her forehead. She winced, and forced herself upright. The sudden movement upset her stomach, and she cupped her mouth but heaved only air. She took a breath, and put her hands on her chest, her middle, her thighs, as though to reassure herself she’d lost no limbs. The clothes she’d left her apartment in were gone, replaced by a mint-green hospital gown. Her toes were red, and this seemed a possible good omen, and she remembered that it was Lena who had painted them, the day before yesterday, assuming it was yesterday that she had gone out for a walk and been snatched by Alexei.

When she banged on the metal door it reverberated like a drum. “Help!” she called, but her voice was small and feeble. “Help me!” She rested her forehead against the door, and waited, but no one came, so she began to use both fists. As her panic escalated, her voice came back, and soon she was beating against the door with strength and volume she hadn’t known she possessed. Time passed, and she had no way to mark it, except that she strained her throat and became hoarse. Finally the slot in the door opened, and a pair of kohl-rimmed eyes appeared. The nurse stared at her, and Marilyn’s body sagged with relief over this proof of another human being. She put her palm against the door for support, and said, “Help me, please.”

The slot closed with a bang.

“Oh, shit, Maf,” she murmured, resting her cheek against the door. Then she raised her fist, slamming it repeatedly against the door. “Help me, you motherfuckers, help me!” She wasn’t sure how long she went on like that, but she didn’t stop screaming until the slot opened again.

“Marilyn.” It was a woman, patient and detached as a physician, and Marilyn—hearing a voice she recognized—began to cry.

“Oh, Dr. Kurtz, thank god,” she wailed. “Thank god, thank god.”

“Step back from the door, so I can come in, all right, dear?”

Marilyn did as she was told, and Dr. Kurtz pushed her stout body through the partially opened door, which was closed and locked once she was inside. Her frizzy hair, a mahogany streaked with gray, was done in her customary pincushion style, but she was wearing a white lab coat, which was unlike any clothing Marilyn had ever seen her analyst wear before. She smiled with half her mouth and frowned with the other, and sadness passed through her eyes.

“Sit down, dear.” Dr Kurtz arranged herself on the metal chair by the door as Marilyn retreated slowly to the cot she’d woken up on. “Now tell me, how are you feeling?”

“Like hell.” The initial relief ebbed, unease taking its place. “I don’t know why I’m here. But I don’t belong here. You’ve got to get me out.”

“That depends on you. Doesn’t it?”

“On my being sane? I am sane. Sane enough to want out.”

Dr. Kurtz crossed her legs and cleared her throat. “
Sane
is such a complicated word, isn’t it?”

“No.”

The analyst sighed. “I want to get you out of here. We all do. But first I need you to answer some questions.”

Marilyn nodded, stared fiercely.

“Where does your mother now reside?”

“In the Rockhaven Sanitarium, Verdugo City, California.”

“And how long has she been institutionalized?”

“Eight years, maybe. I’m not really sure.” This line of questioning unnerved Marilyn, but she tried to remind herself that Dr. Kurtz was someone who had helped her—someone she had paid extravagantly to help her—and if she could just play along now, maybe Dr. Kurtz would get her out of this prison. “She’s been in and out of mental hospitals for the last twenty years.”

“And where are you now?”

“I don’t know. New York, I guess.”

“And how long have you been here?”

“In New York?”

“In this hospital.”

“A day, maybe?”

Dr. Kurtz scribbled on a clipboard, met Marilyn’s gaze. “When did you last speak to John F. Kennedy?”

Marilyn’s eyes flashed. In her analytic sessions, she had spoken of lovers, but never of Jack. But she wanted to comply—wanted only to do what would free her. “November eighth, 1960.”

“And what was the nature of your conversation?”

“Oh, it wasn’t much. That was Election Day, and he was busy, of course,
and couldn’t talk long. We just sort of talked around things—he thanked me for a gift that I had sent him, and asked that I call him the next day.”

“Is that all?”

“He said he was nervous.”

“But you didn’t call him the next day.”

“I did—he never returned my call.”

“And how would you describe your feelings for President Kennedy?”

“Oh, I …” The headache reasserted itself, and she began to massage her temples. There was nothing to say but the truth. “I was—am—was—in love with him.”

“Ah.”

“But he doesn’t love me back. It’s not my fault, I tried to keep him, but he’s on to the next, or otherwise he’s playing it safe now that he’s elected. I don’t know. He’s married, obviously, and his life is so public. I was stupid to have fallen in love. Anyway, I should try to forget him now. He’s forgotten me.”

“We doubt that.”

“We?”

“In fact, we know that is not the case. He has had dates with a woman who is also an occasional lover of Sam Giancana—our Chicago source told us. If she can get to him”—Dr. Kurtz paused to snort—“surely
you
can. Unless you refuse. Unless you’ve lost your charm.”

Marilyn put her knees together and let her torso hang pathetically. The information that Jack had a new lover cut her, and the realization that Dr. Kurtz, in whose Upper East Side office she had replayed the story of her orphan girlhood, spilled her misery, was one of the people who had been manipulating her in secret, made her feel woozy and wretched.

“I won’t,” she muttered. “I can’t.”

Taking a fistful of hair, Dr. Kurtz yanked her patient’s head back so that their faces were inches apart. Marilyn smelled the sea breeze of a tooth gone bad. “You will,” Dr. Kurtz commanded with sudden, shocking violence.