No, Chinese…
Long-sleeved black t-shirts and tight trousers, black gloves, only their faces showing, the slender young men were Oriental themselves. One seemed to be in charge, and was pointing off toward Adventureland, then gestured forward, to Sleeping Beauty’s castle.
In their hands, their right hands, were weapons — automatics, affixed with extended snouts that Walt supposed were designed to silence their fire.
At that moment a distant but distinct mechanical grinding sound froze the two men, and caused Walt to sit up in alarm. Was that… one of the rides? On the midway?
The men in black conversed again in their foreign language — not loud, but not whispering — and then the leader used a word that was not Oriental, nor was it English, though this was one word in the flurry of percussive gibberish that Walt Disney recognized: Khrushchev. Then the two men split up, going in their separate directions, moving quickly.
Walt stood slowly (his arthritis allowed nothing else), and he covered his mustached mouth with a hand.
What could this mean? Why were two foreign intruders, with guns, stalking his park in the wee hours? Why would they mention the Russian chairman’s name, when Khrushchev was no longer scheduled to visit the park? Or did the two Oriental gunmen think Khrushchev was still coming to visit, tomorrow, as originally scheduled, and had sneaked in to be on hand to assassinate the premier when the sun came up…?
He was not afraid — he was surprised, but also he was angry, a cold fury unlike the volcanic resentment he’d expressed at the canceling of the Khrushchev visit. His Magic Kingdom had been invaded — and one thing you didn’t want to be, in Walt Disney’s world, was the son of a witch out to get Snow White or Sleeping Beauty.
Walt mentally kicked himself for putting no telephone in the apartment — no phones at the turn of the century, either, and anyway he didn’t want to be disturbed here — and dug his key chain out of his slacks pocket. A backroom behind the concession stands across the way had a working phone.
But who should he call? The Anaheim police? Or the State Department? Even without Khrushchev on the grounds, the foreign intruders at the park would seem to be the business of the American government, after all. Had he added that agent — what was his name, Harrison? — to the names and numbers in the little black book he carried?
Walt dug that out, too, knowing it was time to leave the charming past and re-enter the dangerous present.
Under the moon’s watchful ivory eye, revolver in hand, Jack Harrigan — with cadaverous CIA agent Munson on his heels — raced across the manicured lawn of the Beverly Hills Hotel, dodging the heavy foliage as if avoiding shell holes on a battlefield, heading for bungalow number seven.
Although it was well after two in the morning, a light in the front room shot rays out around the edges of the drawn curtains, tiny beacons of hope in Harrigan’s very dark night.
The State Department man ignored the bell, pounding on the door instead with the ball of a fist, his gun in-hand behind his back. “Miss Monroe, it’s Jack Harrigan… Open up!”
No sound came from within.
He banged again.
Impatient, Munson said, “Damnit man, I’ll break a window…”
Like a safety patrol boy at a grade school, Harrigan held his out a hand in “stop” fashion. “No — I hear something. Wait…”
And then the lock clicked.
The door cracked open, revealing wide, brown eyes that were not Marilyn Monroe’s, peering back out at them from behind the chain-latched door.
The secretary.
“It’s May, isn’t it?” Harrigan asked, forcing a smile, not wanting to frighten the woman further. “Forgive me, but I’ve forgotten your last name.”
“It’s Reis,” she said quietly, guardedly. “May Reis.”
“Do you remember me, Miss Reis?”
Her face bisected by the chain, the secretary nodded.
“I’m with the State Department,” he reminded her, “and this gentleman is another government agent… his name is Munson. It’s important that we speak with Miss Monroe.”
The secretary shook her head, eyes narrowing. “She’s not here.”
Harrigan glanced behind the woman, taking in what he could of the living room through the cracked door. Munson’s breath was hot on his neck, an over-eager suitor.
“Where is she, Miss Reis?” Harrigan asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Is she inside — with Mr. Khrushchev?”
The secretary’s eyes grew wide again… with fear possibly, and perhaps something else… The burden of a secret? Harrigan was certain she knew where the missing pair had gone.
“She’s not here,” May Reis insisted. “They’re not here.”
They’re not here!
“Has she taken him somewhere?” Harrigan demanded.
The woman said nothing, her mouth a tight line, her face blank but for a twitchy nervousness about the eyes.
“Please let us in,” he said firmly.
“No.”
“Miss Reis, this is a matter of national security, of international importance.”
“Do you have a warrant?”
“I don’t need a warrant in a case of crisis like this. Open the door, or we’ll open it. Understood, Miss Reis?”
The woman closed the door. Harrigan could hear the chain being unlatched. Then the door opened again, wide this time.
The two men stepped inside the lavish, white-appointed bungalow, Harrigan keeping the weapon behind him, Munson leaving the door slightly ajar.
Harrigan approached May, who had retreated to the beige sofa, but she didn’t sit. Her chin high, the little woman wore a blue robe and fuzzy slippers, her short, brown hair disheveled, dark circles rimming troubled eyes.
Munson went into the bedroom, returned moments later, shaking his head.
“So they’re not here,” Harrigan said, and returned his weapon to its shoulder holster.
“I told you they weren’t,” the secretary said, not successful at hiding her alarm at the sight of the gun.
Folding his arms, planting himself before the petite woman like a sentry, looking down at her gravely, Harrigan did his best to intimidate the secretary, to shake her professional cool. “We have to find them, and soon — their lives are at stake.”
“Lives…?”
“Didn’t Marilyn tell you? Somebody tried to murder Premier Khrushchev tonight… in his bed, here in the hotel.”
May collapsed onto the couch, sitting there numbly, staring at hands clasped tightly in her lap. Harrigan waited with strained patience, aware that Munson was pacing behind him, mindful that the CIA agent would use a more forceful tactic on the woman if Harrigan failed in his approach.
Finally the secretary spoke. “Marilyn told me not to trust anyone… not even you, Mr. Harrigan…” She looked up sharply at Harrigan, her distress turning suddenly to anger. “This is your fault!”
“My…?”
“Why didn’t you listen to her?” the secretary demanded. “You pretended to take her seriously… but you lied to her. You shrugged her off, because she was just some, some… dumb blonde to you!”
Munson stepped past Harrigan and loomed menacingly over the woman. “Lady, we don’t have time for your soap opera — where the hell are they?”
Eyes and nostrils flaring in fright, May reared back on the couch. Harrigan shot Munson a look, and the CIA agent backed off.
Harrigan took a seat next to May.
“Marilyn was right,” he admitted, his voice gentle. “The attempt to kill Khrushchev took place at two o’clock this morning, just as she’d predicted, based upon what she overheard…”