I nodded.
Hedda clucked her tongue. "Nicholas, dearest, you're going to ruin your career if you aren't wiser with your choice of jobs. And," she said, "you may tell Marilyn that associating with these wild card freaks won't do her any good either. My husband had blue skin and not a hair on his body, and the only thing I can say is that it's a good thing for Wolfie that he died before this virus ever showed up. No good can ever come of it, no matter what anyone says."
I'd heard her stories about De Wolfe Hopper and knew that an overdose of silver nitrate and a bout of rheumatoid fever could make a joker out of anyone. I think bad memories of Hopper left her ill-disposed to any other "freak."
Hedda showed me out and locked up behind her, and then I played the next card in the game: I drained my own battery.
It Wasn't hard. I was a good enough actor to fake my car not turning over, then once I'd flipped up the hood and put my hand on the negative terminal, the battery was well and truly dead. The trick was keeping the charge from making me glow.
Hedda came over and tried to start my car, but of course she didn't have any luck either. She also didn't carry jumper cables and I'd made sure to leave mine at home.
In the end, I got what I wanted: Hedda let me into the office to use the phone to try to find an all-night towing service, and told me to lock up when I left.
Once she'd gone, I got out my camera and into her private files. Hedda kept great records and I'd taken impressions of the keys back when I'd worked for her.
Hedda really couldn't blame me. She'd taught me the trade.
There was the file: Rudo, Dr. Pan. I flipped it open and was immediately struck by the swastika stationery, but after I parsed through a bit and looked at the comments in Hedda's handwriting on the attached page, the reason for the hooked cross and the size of the sword over Rudo's head became clear: In 1938, Dr. Pan Rudo was in Vienna, experimenting on mental patients with his dauenschlaf technique under the auspices of the Nazi party. Five died before the Nazis felt it best for Dr. Rudo to leave for Switzerland. He'd gone to New York afterwards, perfecting his technique all the while.
I thought of Wally in the hospital. The easiest thing to repeat is a mistake.
I took pictures of everything in the file, reading through occasional bits and glancing into related files.
Hedda seemed to have a whole clique of agents called the Card Sharks. Dr. Rudo was one, helping her in her crusade against wild cards, not that I would expect a Nazi to have any compunctions about genocide.
Hedda's partner, or perhaps just contact with other sharks, was J. Edgar Hoover. The files were stuffed with F.B.I. transcripts, courtesy of same. Likewise, money came from Howie Hughes and Willie Hearst, and they were responsible for some jobs. There was a copy of a letter from Hedda to Howie, blistering him for having bungled the job on the Santa Monica pier.
There was also a file on Will-o'-Wisp, the ace vigilante. Hedda had got my height and build right, but the rest was wild speculation and frothing. I was a major priority for the sharks, either termination or conscription.
Then I got to Marilyn's file, sticking a little out from the others. There had been a recent addition.
It was an obituary. It isn't unusual to find obituaries in the files of celebrities. What is unusual is to find them postdated, describing the manner of death. It was scheduled for May Third.
I remember that column as if I'd read it last Week. It was last week, for me.
The headline read: BRILLIANT CAREER CUT SHORT.
Hedda had written below that: Marilyn Monroe — brilliant life, tragic death. What happened? Ask Jack and Bobby! Pretty Marilyn was due to Wish Jack 'Happy Birthday' at his big fundraising bash in New York come the nineteenth, but evidently Jack wanted to have his present early. But he and Bobby played too rough and the pretty toy broke.
"Hedda told Marilyn never to go near that Lawford house. Marilyn paid the price for not listening to Mother, but let's see the Kennedy boys weasel out of this one! The Kennedys, the most famous crime family in America!"
It went on from there. The plot was simple: Tomorrow John and Robert Kennedy would be staying the night at Peter Lawford's. So would Marilyn, as I already knew.
Dr. Rudo would slip Marilyn just a few too many of Paula Strasberg's trademark tranquilizers, so the Kennedys would be sure to wake up with the corpse of Hollywood's greatest star.
The President and the Attorney General would be politically ruined. Paula Strasberg would be implicated for manslaughter. And Marilyn would be dead before the filming of Blythe was complete.
I got it all, then carefully put the files back in order, my hands shaking all the while and I know I was sparking from the stress.
I went out into the outer office, made sure to move the phone book and the telephone slightly out of line, locked up, then went and recharged my battery.
It was four A.M. by the time I got home. I put the film in the developer first thing. I wanted to call Marilyn but for all I knew, J. Edgar had the phone bugged. Hedda had her spies everywhere. I should know.
But oh my God, I didn't know where to turn. I could tell Welles, but what would he do? Make a film of it? Likewise with Trumbo and the rest. And Flattop? I could trust him, but there are some things people are better off not knowing. It would be like telling Poitier about the KKK.
The police were out of the question. Even the ones I knew I could trust would have to hand it up, and J. Edgar would know about it before the day was out. Hoover had been Hedda's conspirator since before HUAC.
There was only one possibility: Marilyn. Maarilyn Monroe was one of the worlds greatest actresses, no matter what the critics said. If she could just elude the Card Sharks' snare without arousing their suspicions, she could live to deliver the negatives to the President.
I knew just the time: Jack Kennedy's "Happy Birthday" bash at Madison Square Garden. On a stage in front of a million people with a thousand flashbulbs popping, Hedda's Card Sharks wouldn't dare try anything. Marilyn could deliver the evidence into the President's hands without anyone the wiser and the sharks would all fry for treason.
I got the negatives and a double set of prints into an envelope and got to Marilyn's house just before seven. Her housekeeper, Mrs. Murray, let me in, and I surprised Marilyn in the middle of putting on her mascara.
I take it as a measure of her trust for me that she didn't do anything other than grab her makeup case after I got the overnight travel bag she always kept packed. My expression must have spoken worlds.
I don't know what Mrs. Murray thought. Maybe that we were eloping, I don't know.
I got Marilyn into the car. She took one look at my face, then silently paged through the stack of photographs I handed her. I headed west and we hit the Pacific Coast Highway.
It was either Northern California or Mexico. I headed north. I wasn't sure where we were going, but it had to be far away if we wanted to miss Dr. Rudo's May Day celebration.
At last, Marilyn put the photographs back in the envelope. "These are Hedda's, aren't they?" I think she said.
I nodded, then I couldn't take it anymore. I pulled off the side of the road by one of the beaches and poured it all out to her.
She just listened silently, then asked for the keys. She said she knew a place up the coast, the Brookdale Lodge, an old inn up in the Santa Cruz mountains. It had bungalows in back and the folks who ran it were very discreet about who was staying there, at least until after they left.
The iron butterfly. It was such an appropriate name. I'd just revealed a plot against her life, and she calmly went about finding a place to hide until the storm was over. Marilyn made me take one of her tranquilizers, and I slept in the car on the way up.