Harrigan shifted his gaze to Marilyn. “That’s what the exchange you heard meant. ‘Two o’clock. Goodbye, Khrushchev.’ ” The agent spread his arms wide, like Al Jolson singing “Mammy.” “Now… do you see? Perfectly innocent.”
May was nodding; she seemed to accept Harrigan’s explanation. But Marilyn could not.
“I don’t care if those men are okra — or whatever you call them,” Marilyn said firmly. “I didn’t just hear what they said — I heard how they said it. And Agent Harrigan… they intend to kill Mr. K tonight.”
Harrigan sat next to the actress. “Okay,” he conceded, nodding, “let’s assume you’re right. Let’s say there’s a conspiracy among several of the premier’s key, most trusted guards, to assassinate him… political assassination is a way of life in Russia, after all.”
“Thank you,” Marilyn said.
Harrigan went on: “Then why wait until Los Angeles to do it? They could have just as easily assassinated Chairman Khrushchev in Washington, or New York.”
“But they didn’t,” Marilyn said, unconvinced. “They waited — knowing you would think exactly what you’re thinking, that you’d let your guard down. By waiting until the end of the trip, they have their best opportunity… because you and your men are all worn out.”
The agent seemed almost startled by this analysis. And her words clearly had struck a chord, because the agent gave her a sharp, respectful look.
“If you don’t mind hearing a dumb blonde’s opinion,” she added.
Harrigan nodded and smiled a little. “Very well reasoned,” he said, genuinely impressed.
“Thanks.”
Then he sighed and again got to his feet and looked down at her with a wry yet peace-making grin. “What if I promise you that I’ll be on hand… personally present… at the changing of Khrushchev’s guards, at two a.m. tonight?”
Marilyn gazed up at him. “Would you do that for me?”
“I’d do it for any concerned citizen,” he said, “reporting suspicious activity of such a vital nature… and I hope that will put your fears of an assassination attempt to rest.”
Marilyn rose and extended her hand, which Harrigan took, in a gesture that was half-handshake, half something else. “Thank you, Jack,” she whispered.
May patted Marilyn’s arm. “There now, dear — don’t you feel better?”
Marilyn nodded.
But after the State Department agent had gone, and May had disappeared into the bungalow’s kitchenette to fix them a salad for supper, Marilyn remained on the couch, fretting.
Would Jack Harrigan be able to rouse himself in the wee hours of the morning, exhausted as he seemed? Or would he sleep right through the execution of the conspirators’ plot?
Marilyn believed he’d been sincere; his promise to supervise the changing of the guards had seemed more than just giving her the bum’s rush… but Harrigan was a harried man, getting hit from all fronts and on every side. So she couldn’t take that chance. She had to do something, and fast.
Marilyn Monroe believed, however, that one should always make haste slowly…
So it took her a few hours to devise her own scenario… one that did not include a leading man, unless you counted Nikita Khrushchev himself.
Chapter Eight
The Hungarian Ambassador
On Wilshire Boulevard, between Seventh and Eighth Streets — set back on an expansive, immaculately manicured lawn, as if a palace had dropped from the sky into the midst of so unlikely a place as Hollywood, California — the Ambassador had been a mainstay in downtown Los Angeles ever since its grand opening on New Year’s Day in 1921.
The construction and decoration of the stately hotel had racked up the then-outrageous cost of five million dollars. Built on twenty-three acres of former dairy land, the H-shaped structure (“H” for hotel) boasted 1,200 rooms and suites; on the first floor, a guest could stand on the grand ballroom’s stage and gaze all the way through the elaborate fern-adorned lobby and into the immense dining room at the other end.
Anybody who was anybody stayed at the Ambassador — from movie stars to captains of industry, from statesmen to sports figures — but they came not merely for the prestige of the place, or even the elegant rooms and five-star service. Rather, the elite lodged here because of an added attraction that offset the otherwise somewhat stodgy air of the hoteclass="underline" the renowned Coconut Grove nightclub.
Originally ensconced on the Ambassador’s lower level, the club had become so popular — after only four months! — that the management was sent scurrying to relocate the nightspot in the hotel’s grand ballroom, renovating it in keeping with the original’s tropical decor. Coconut palms (left over from the set of Valentino’s The Sheik) rose to a twinkling, azure sky, high above rococo Moorish furnishings in Deco-ish red, gold, and black. Simple cane chairs accommodated the ever-changing procession of famous backs and backsides, while a mural of island mountains and waterfalls added to the aura of a movie-set Pacific paradise.
No desert under a real starry purple sky could boast an oasis more dazzling, nor decadent. In the 1920s, Joan Crawford had won Charleston contests here, and John Barrymore brought his pet monkey to swing from the trees. In the 1930s Rudy Vallee headlined, Jean Harlow frolicked, and volatile lovers Lupe Velez and Johnny Weissmuller slugged it out; and until ’36, the prestigious place even hosted the Academy Awards. Throughout the 1940s — even after the war when nightclubbing waned — the Ambassador thrived, and remained Hollywood’s acknowledged “Playground of the Stars.”
As the 1950s wound down, however, the Ambassador Hotel and its famed Coconut Grove were beginning to lose their luster… If the grand old lady of Los Angeles wanted to continue to attract the ever-fickle Hollywood set, she would need a facelift at least as good as those of the older stars who still frequented the place. So in 1957 a $750,000 renovation toned down the palm-flung, Moorish ambience, a modernization appropriate to the likes of Jayne Mansfield, Jack Lemmon, Sophia Loren, and other modern stars.
In the fall of 1959 — even as Los Angeles pushed itself west toward the ocean, threatening to leave the Ambassador straggling behind — the hotel remained the choice of many of the elite of show business and beyond.
It was not, however, the hotel that Jack Harrigan had chosen to house Nikita Khrushchev and crew — although the press had been told the premier was staying there, to throw the bloodhounds off the scent. Keeping tabs on the Russians at the Ambassador, along with all the other guests at the sprawling facility — not to mention the nightclub patrons — would have been a logistical nightmare… especially with the relatively small security team Harrigan had at his disposal.
Which was why the Soviet guests were staying at the more secluded Beverly Hills Hotel, where the main building was smaller than the Ambassador’s, and the landscaped grounds more friendly to Harrigan’s prowling security force.
But the dinner tonight would be held at the Ambassador, a fact that Harrigan deplored; this aspect of the dictator’s itinerary had not been his call.
After the State Department man had left Marilyn Monroe’s bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel, he’d returned to his own room, just down the hall from the Presidential Suite where the premier was billeted; the fat little man should be resting, at the moment, after a hard day of stirring the local shit. Khrushchev’s family was in a separate suite, away from the snorting snoring of their paterfamilias. The agent took a quick shower, and changed into another wrinkled suit — straight from his suitcase, there’d been no time to send the threads out for a pressing — and within minutes was striding through the Beverly Hills Hotel’s lavish lobby and out into the parking lot.