Here, before you go. I'd like you to have these notebooks; they contain the notes I made on what happened. I wrote everything down soon afterward so I wouldn't forget the details. They might help you in your research.
Oh. One last thing you should know. This may be paranoia on my part, but, well, it has returned to me over and over. As I related to you, Brand told Dr. Rudo on the phone that the photos the detective had taken weren't very incriminating. That closeup of him with Sirhan Sirhan, Kennedy's assassin, was damning. Perhaps he was lying to Dr. Rudo, but why?
And I remember how much Clara wanted a photo of her Papa, and how I had left her alone with the photos when I had that argument with Jessica. That photo was definitely the best shot of Brand's face, of the whole batch. I keep wondering.
But now I'm being paranoid.
Come, let me put on my electric sleeve and I'll escort you to the subway station.
The Ashes of Memory
"I'd like you to ring Ms. Monroe's room."
The hotel clerk looked at Hannah as if he had gas. "I'm sorry, but Ms. Monroe has left very specific instructions that she not be disturbed. What did you say your name Was?"
"Rudo. Pan Rudo. R-U-D-O."
The clerk consulted his monitor, tapping at the keyboard. "Oh, I'm sorry, Ms. Rudo. Your names is on the list she left. You may use the white phone to your right. Dial asterisk, then 44."
"Thank you." Hannah went to the house phone and punched in the number. The voice that answered was still instantly recognizable: breathy, soft, and warm, not much changed despite all the years. "Hello?"
"Ms. Monroe, I must see you."
"Who is this?" The voice took on a touch of irritation. "Who gave you this number?"
"Nick Williams asked me to call, Marilyn. You remember Nick, don't you?"
There was silence on the other end. For a few seconds, Hannah thought that Marilyn had hung up, then the woman spoke again, and her voice sounded much older. "Where are you?"
"In the lobby of the hotel. I need to see you alone, Ms. Monroe."
"Give … give me a minute and then come on up. I'm in the Lindsay Suite. Seventeenth floor."
Riding the elevator, Hannah had time to wonder whether this was a mistake. In the three days since she'd spoken with Lamia — three days in which she'd found herself starting at every noise and peering suspiciously at every person that entered the apartment building — Hannah had come up empty. Clara van Renssaeler, who might or might not still have a photograph of her father with Sirhan Sirhan, refused to meet her the first two times she called. The third time Hannah reached her, there was such a strange tone in the woman's voice when she agreed to a meeting that Hannah deliberately missed the appointment. A friend of Father Squid's, known as Blind Spot, went by the restaurant and reported back that the establishment was oddly deserted except for a table of three suspiciously attentive men. Hannah didn't try to call Clara again.
Much of Lamia's notebooks consisted of hearsay from friends, and none of them Hannah contacted cared to discuss what had happened back then. Most of them seemed to have put Joan van Renssaeler out of their minds entirely. "Her? She abandoned her daughter. Just up and left her family…."
It was Father Squid who read in the paper that Marilyn Monroe was in New York for a charity revue. Hannah had nodded, thinkin it simply a mocking serendipity, but the mention had nagged at her. She knew already that there was little that the three of them could do. They had nothing, nothing but hearsay and a few interconnected names.
Marilyn, if Nick's story were true, had once had hard evidence: the copies of Hopper's files. Hannah wished she could have brought Quasiman with her, but Hannah had figured that there'd be enough trouble getting to the woman as it was; with an obvious joker accompanying her, there'd have been no chance at all. And as much as she hated to admit it, Quasiman was becoming a liability. He seemed to have reached the limit of his ability to maintain his focus on their problem. For the last few days, he'd forget her or Father Squid for an hour or more, then suddenly snap back to lucidity for a few minutes before drifting away again. "I want to come with you, Hannah," he'd said. "Please. Let me help you." But she'd said no. "Just … just keep thinking about me," she'd told him. "Come and bail me out if you sense that I'm in trouble. Can you do that?"
"I'll try. I'll try…."
The problem was that, even as she knocked on the door to Marilyn's suite, Hannah still wasn't sure what she was going to do. She saw the glass of the peephole darken as someone looked through.
"You're the one who called?" asked a voice through the door.
"Yes."
"Come in." The door opened just wide enough to admit Hannah.
Marilyn was in her late sixties, Hannah knew, but the woman who closed the door behind her looked at least a decade younger. She was dressed in an expensive silk robe, the lacy white top of her chemise showing at the top. Her waist had thickened over the years, there was a network of fine wrinkles around the eyes and at the corners of the mouth, and the skin under her chin sagged, but the allure and the underlying hint of innocent sexuality were still there. Her hair was shorter now, and she'd allowed a touch of silver to accent her temples, but the rest was a gold-flecked brown, artfully disheveled as if she'd gotten up from a nap.
Hannah found herself feeling oddly plain alongside her, like a daisy in a vase with a rose.
"Who are you?" Marilyn asked. Her gaze was skittish, yet Hannah was certain that she'd been appraised and judged already. "Where did you hear about Nickie? If this is some kind of joke …"
"Nickie …" Hannah said. "You killed him. You put a bullet in his chest to save your career. He's the father of your child. He loved you, he saved your life and gave you a son, and you murdered him."
It was either great acting or genuine emotion — Hannah couldn't tell which. Marilyn's haughty demeanor crumpled, as if it were a paper mask Hannah had ripped off to expose a lost, frightened child beneath. Her whole body sagged, almost as if she were about to faint, then she caught herself. She took in a long, gasping breath and tears shimmered in her eyes. Her hand came up to her mouth, as if she were stifling a sob, and she turned and walked into the living room of the suite, collapsing onto the couch with her legs drawn up to her body. Hannah followed her in. From beyond the balcony, the towers of Manhattan thrust through afternoon haze. A tape deck sat on top of the television set in the corner of the plush suite, a video playing softly in it — Hannah realized that the movie was Jokertown. She wondered if that was coincidence or if Marilyn had set it running as a deliberate backdrop, a bit of added scenery.
As a much younger, agonized Marilyn told a glaring Jack Nicholson about the Lansky / van Renssaeler plot, the real Marilyn looked at Hannah with stricken eyes. "How do you know …" she began, then stopped. On the TV, Nicholson vowed to put an end to the plot. "I loved him," Marilyn said. "I did. They were going to kill Nick anyway. If I hadn't shot him, we would have both died that night. I thought … I thought that at least that way one of us would live. I thought I could find a way to pay them back…."
"But you never did," Hannah said sharply. Her voice sounded shrewish and shrill against Marilyn's polished tones. "You and Nick stuffed the files into a toy tiger, but that's not what you gave Kennedy during that birthday party. You gave him a penguin. You never gave the president the information Nick died for, did you?"
Marilyn stared at Hannah, her cheeks as red as if she'd been slapped. The woman tugged her robe more tightly around her neck, as if she were cold. She sniffed, visibly trying to rein in the emotions. "How much do you want?" Marilyn asked Hannah. "I don't care what your proof is, I don't want to know how you know. Name your price, I'll pay it. Just leave me alone."