CHAPTER 30
Kathryn was pouring her six a.m. coffee when she heard The New York Times thump her doorstep. She didn’t get up from her table until the LA Times joined it. She was halfway to the door when she heard a timid knock and “It’s just me.”
Gwendolyn stepped inside, holding Kathryn’s papers. She dropped them on the table as Kathryn poured her a cup.
“Tell me everything. Did DiMaggio show? Did he see Marilyn? Did they reconcile—”
“Everything happened when your broadcast was on so I didn’t get to hear anything. It went off okay, didn’t it?”
By the time the curtain went up, Leo’s extravaganza had included chorus girls dressed as boxes of Betty Crocker cake mix, a rotating Westinghouse refrigerator, and a live band that had almost drowned her out, which was a relief.
“Nothing dropped on my head, and nobody fell off the stage. I call that a win. The suits are hard to read, but they appeared to be happy.”
Gwendolyn sighed. “When it comes to men, who knows what’s going through their tiny little pea brains?” She crossed her arms. “Tell me, honestly, am I a garden-variety, loud-mouthed shrew?”
Kathryn would have laughed if not for the earnest look on Gwendolyn’s face. “What the hell happened last night?”
“I’m not, am I?”
“Did DiMaggio call you that? He might be a world-class baseball player, but given how he’s treated Marilyn, he’s also a world-class cretin, so who cares—”
“It was Frank.”
“I hope you gave it to him with both guns blazing.”
Gwendolyn smiled. “You’d have been proud of me. I even threw a rock at him.”
“You didn’t!”
“It was really just a pebble, but Trevor Bergin never had better aim.”
Kathryn slotted two slices of bread into her toaster. “Start at the beginning and leave out nothing.”
Her jaw dropped open little by little as Gwendolyn relayed the disgraceful events of the previous night.
“I can’t believe I missed it!”
“I wish I had,” Gwendolyn said.
“You know it’s not true, don’t you? That business about being a shrew.”
Gwendolyn gave off an evasive shrug. “Getting married wasn’t something I yearned for. Does that make me some kind of freak?”
Kathryn clamped her hand over Gwendolyn’s. “Who cares what that skinny little twerp thinks? He’s lost one of the most beautiful women on the planet, so who’s he to hand out marital advice? And the same goes for Joe DiMaggio. How was Marilyn during all this?”
“You should have seen her when we heard Joe bust that door down. I thought she’d faint.”
“You remember what’s happening this afternoon, don’t you?” It was the day Winchell was planning to sneak onto the Fox lot to interview Marilyn on the Seven Year Itch subway set.
Gwendolyn nodded.
“Do you think she’ll show?”
“Marilyn’s become so erratic, it’s hard to pin her down.” Gwendolyn drained the last of her coffee. “I’d better get going. Charles has petitioned Zanuck to let me assist on Bette’s Virgin Queen costumes. They’re as complicated as hell and we’re slipping behind.”
“What happened to you being Zanuck’s special-projects assistant?”
“Lately I’ve been doing trivial stuff that anyone could do, so I told Charles to ask for me. I don’t want to waste an hour in case Zanuck changes his mind.”
After Gwendolyn left, Kathryn shoved her dishes into the sink and flipped open the LA Times. It was a slow news day when the big story was how the 100th citrus tree had been removed from the site Walt Disney was excavating for his planned amusement park.
She shoved the paper aside, turned to The New York Times, and gripped the edge of her kitchen counter when she read the headline.
EXECUTION DATE SET FOR
SUPPLIER OF SECRETS TO NAZIS
Danford to face electric chair in February
All this time, she’d assumed that Danford got a prison sentence, not a death sentence, so she thought she had time. Lots and lots of it. But now she had less than four months and the exoneration process could take years.
Halfway down the page was a photo of her father leaving the courthouse, his wrists manacled together, his head bowed and turned away from the cameras.
I should have been doing more. I should have flown to New York and cornered Winchell. Or to Boston and demanded to see my father’s file. Or Washington and pleaded my case to Hoover. They knew it was a frame-up. They have to serve justice. It’s their job.
A sharp knock on her front door startled her.
“GWENNIE!” She pulled at the brass doorknob. “You saw the paper?”
Frank Sinatra’s lids drooped over bloodshot eyes, his hair wild and uncombed. He ran a hand over two-day growth; the stink of a thousand cigarettes radiated from him. “Gwendolyn’s already told you, huh?”
“Yep.”
“I screwed up. Real bad. I need to make amends. I know, I know. I tried to do the right thing. Honest.” He made the sign of the cross. “But the whole situation got out of hand.” He stepped past her.
“I didn’t invite you in.”
“Don’t make me stand out there where half the Garden can hear us.”
Kathryn slammed her door with all the force she could muster. “I’m sure they heard that.”
“I haven’t had a hit since From Here to Eternity, and that opened a year ago. I’ve got a lot riding on this new movie with Doris Day.”
“You land on my doorstep at six in the morning to talk about your career?”
“Hear me out. I need Young at Heart to open big, but after last night I’m scared I’ll be dragged through the mud once word gets out.”
“Maybe you should have thought of that before you jumped into the mud.”
His ears reddened. “Someone had to talk him down. None of those other slobs were doing it. But when Joe gets mad, he gets crazy mad. You gotta believe me, I tried to stop it.”
“For crying out loud, Frank, I’m not mad about what happened last night—wait, yes, I am, but that’s not all.”
He blanched. “The Marcus thing?”
“YES, THE MARCUS THING!”
“Gwendolyn’s already ripped into me about that.”
“She told me your reply: ‘You don’t cross Frank Sinatra and get away with it.’ Of all the unmitigated ego—”
“One lecture is quite enough, thank you,” Frank bit back. “I sure as hell don’t need yet another one from yet another furious dame who—”
“—who you’ve ambushed asking for a favor to prop up your failing career.” She pressed him against the wall of her foyer with a sharp fingernail. “Marcus Adler is my best friend, and you screwed him over.”
“He had it coming. His photos wrecked my marriage.”
“No, Frank, you wrecked your marriage. You had it coming. But you used Marcus as a scapegoat. He’s stranded in a foreign country with no proper identification and roadblocked at every turn.”
She rolled the Times into a truncheon and brought it down on his head.
“HEY!” He tried to swat it down but was fighting fatigue.
“I am sick—” whack!
“—and tired—” whack!
“—of men like you—” whack!
“—who think they can do—” whack!
“—whatever they want—” whack!
“—just because they’re men!”
“Christ, Kathryn!” Frank yelled. “Get a hold of yourself.”
She backhanded the Times across his chest.
“You’re all the same!” whack!
“You!” whack!
“DiMaggio!” whack!
“Zanuck!” whack!
“Winchell!” whack!
“Voss! whack!
“Hoyt!” whack!
“Enough already!” He wrestled the bludgeon away from her and flung it across the room. “Who the hell is Hoyt and what the hell’s his crime?”
She pressed her forehead against the wall. It was still cool from the previous night. “Never mind. Not your problem.”
“Is he a problem I can help with?”
She opened her eyes and mustered a droll look. “Your sort of help, I can do without.”
He pulled his chin away as though she’d punched him in the jaw. “I deserved that.”
“Count yourself lucky I wasn’t holding a hammer.”
“How do I make amends?”
Frank sounded sincere but he’d had years of practice putting across mushy ballads. He’s got that movie coming out, she warned herself. He needs a hit.
Kathryn headed for the Chesterfields on her kitchen counter. I can’t believe Hoyt popped out of my mouth like that. “Marcus has been through so much,” she said, lighting up. “Why did you have to kick him while he was—”
“Tell me how I can fix it.” Frank helped himself to one of Kathryn’s Chesterfields and started tapping it against the back of his left hand. “And don’t tell me to call whoever I called in the first place. The—guy’s—dead.” His admission came out in strangled syllables.
“What did he die of?”
“Don’t ask.”
Kathryn dropped onto a chair and rested her head on her palms. The surprise attack with Winchell on the Seven Year Itch set this afternoon was more than enough to deal with; she didn’t need this crap, too. “Are we talking about the Italian Mafioso? Because I’ve been hearing rumors.”
“Remember three seconds ago when I said don’t ask?”
Kathryn had had enough gangland dealings with Bugsy Siegel, and wasn’t prepared to go another round.
“So you can’t set things right for Marcus?”
“I’m saying it’s not as easy as making a phone call.”
“You better go to Plan B.”
“There isn’t one.”
“You need to make one.”
“And if I do, will you plug Young at Heart?”
Everybody’s always selling. “Let’s see: my best friend’s future versus a plug for your movie. Yeah. Sounds fair.”
The chair scraped across the tile as Frank lumbered to his feet. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Kathryn waited for a full two minutes before she opened her front door. Feeling slightly paranoid, she wanted to be sure Frank really had left. The November night chill still lingered in the air as the Garden of Allah stirred to life. She waved to Marcus’s sister, who was walking past Gwendolyn’s tulip bed. That girl must be doing well at Columbia—it seemed like she left for the studio earlier and earlier these days. And those tulips! They’d taken their time to appear and had been pretty to have around, and would soon be pushing up a fresh crop.
The vision of The New York Times headline jumped into her head. February was only four months away.
* * *
Kathryn walked into Stage Ten on the Fox lot and onto an exact replica of the corner of Lexington and 52nd Street where the world’s most famous subway grate ran along the sidewalk. She scraped her heel on the grit that Wilder’s art department had strewn over the phony concrete.
“Realistic, isn’t it?”
Marilyn was dressed in a pair of nondescript brown slacks and a loose-fitting cream cashmere sweater. She had wiped her face clear of the heavy filming makeup that would have hidden the puffiness around her eyes and the pasty hue of her skin. The ensemble struck Kathryn as surprisingly casual for someone who had an interview with America’s most influential columnist.
“Aren’t you a little early?” Marilyn asked.
“Tomorrow’s column wrote itself, so here I am.”
In truth, Kathryn had arrived at the office too distracted to work, so she’d slogged out her column like Livingston through the jungle, cobbling together a bunch of emergency items, and called it a day.
“Did Gwendolyn tell you what happened?” Marilyn asked.
“Must have been awful.”
“The worst.”
“I had Sinatra on my doorstep this morning.”
“What a rat.”
“Claimed he was trying to talk Joe out of it. For what it’s worth, he seemed contrite.”
“Okay, so he’s a contrite rat, but he’s still a rat.”
Marilyn stepped onto the subway grate and looked down through the gaps to where wind machines would blow her white dress around her waist. “There are some good ones, I suppose.”
“You mean men?”
She dug the tip of her shoe into one of the slits in the grate. “Leo’s one of the good guys, isn’t he?”
“He is.” But The One Who Got Away has come back and now I don’t know what I want.
“It gives a girl hope to know there are some around.”
“Speaking of rats, are you ready for Winchell?”
“Is anybody ever ready for the king of the rats?” Marilyn let out a mournful sigh. “This interview is a three-way pact between Wilder, Zanuck, and Winchell. Filming that scene in New York was a great boost for the movie, so Wilder benefits. Winchell inserted himself into the drama by egging Joe on until he blew a gasket, so Winchell benefits. Meanwhile, Zanuck scores maximum publicity for his star, his director, his picture, and his studio, so he benefits. But what about me?”
Marilyn sauntered over to the shop window, where an elaborate display of paste jewels shone in the lights.
“Those were my panties on show,” she declared. “My marriage falling apart. What do I get out of it?” She thought for a moment. “If Winchell wants to use me, he gets the bare minimum.”
“Good for you. Don’t let the rats get you down.” Kathryn joined her at the window. “But what are you going to say if Winchell asks you about last night?”
Marilyn let out a breathless squeak. “Do you think Joe would’ve blabbed?”
“Stiff drinks loosen lips.”
Marilyn bunched her hands together. “I don’t know that I can do this. He’s too intimidating.”
“Miss Monroe?” A security guard stood at the entryway into the soundstage. “You wanted to know when Mr. Winchell drove on to the lot.”
Marilyn’s eyes turned wild with panic.
“Where is he now?” Kathryn asked the guard.
“I can see him from here, walking in this direction.”
Kathryn thanked the guy and shooed him away.
“What if he brings up last night?” Marilyn’s voice was now a hoarse whisper. “I’ll fall apart.”
“No, you won’t,” Kathryn said, soothingly. “You’re an actress; you know how to fake it. Tell him that your personal life needs to stay personal. You—”
“I can’t have this conversation right now. I’m still shaking like an earthquake from last night.” Marilyn started to back away. “You came here to confront him; he’s all yours.” She disappeared behind the liquor store.
Kathryn’s plan was to lurk behind the Seven Year Itch set until Marilyn gave a pre-arranged signal. Every time she’d stood up to Hoover or Wilkerson or Hearst it was for a high-flying principle, but this time it was about as personal as it could get and she felt her determination wilt around the edges.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Winchell barked. “Zanuck promised me Monroe. Is this an ambush?”
“Not exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I wouldn’t be here if you’d returned any of my messages, but instead you give me the silent treatment. I need to hear what you’ve tracked down about my father. I know about Amagansett and Operation Pastorius, and I know that his FBI file is missing. I assume you have it?”
Winchell started fanning himself with a battered Homburg. “Yeah, I’ve got it.”
Until now, Kathryn had pinned her hopes onto a slippery handful of ifs and maybes. But now she knew there really was a file, and everything she needed to help set her father free was inside it, and it was in the hands of someone she trusted less than Jack the Ripper.
Winchell ushered her into the recessed doorway of the liquor store even though nobody was around to overhear them.
“I have a contact at the FBI.”
“The disgruntled employee with a grudge to bear?”
“I don’t know how you know that, but yes. And he told me that I’m not the only one asking about Danford. I didn’t want the information I saw in the file to get into anyone else’s hands, and I knew you wouldn’t, either, so I took it.”
Kathryn had always prided herself on her ability to distinguish between authenticity and bullshit, but today it failed her. She wasn’t sure what to make of this version of Walter Winchell: kind, considerate, selfless. Was he putting one over on her? What was the end game? Expose her as the illegitimate daughter of a convicted felon? Or was this the real deal?
“Did the disgruntled FBI guy say who’s been snooping around?”
Winchell nodded until the caution in his eyes capitulated into resignation. “Robert Harrison.”
The last name Kathryn wanted to hear right now was Harrison’s—he was the notorious owner of Confidential, the smutty rag that ignored truth in favor of giving the insatiable public more of what they thought they wanted, regardless of how it destroyed careers and reputations.
Winchell continued, “That odious little turd is not someone you want sniffing around your private business.”
“I thought the two of you were the best of pals.”
“He likes to think we are, and that suits me. For now.”
“Why not just tell me that? I already said you could have the credit.”
“Because Harrison isn’t above tapping my telephone, or intercepting my letters and telegrams.”
Kathryn’s first instinct was to write him off as paranoid, but the guy wasn’t without enemies.
“Harrison knows I’ve been working on a big story. He keeps badgering me about it.”
“It must be killing him.”
“I need to put him off the scent.”
Whatever had strained their friendship must have been serious if Winchell wanted to distract Harrison from a big story. Kathryn saw that keeping those two apart was to her advantage.
“I want you to give me something,” he said. “And it needs to be big.”
Kathryn wanted to laugh in his face. “Stories like that don’t fall into your lap like oranges off a tree.”
“But you’re Kathryn Massey.” His tone had turned supercilious—more like the Walter Winchell she hated. “You’ve always got an orange or two.”
She looked at him blankly. “Is that what you think?”
“Don’t insult me with this Rebecca of Sunnypuke Farm act.”
“I’m sorry but I don’t—”
“What happened last night?”
“This is LA. Something happens every night.”
Winchell ripped off his eyeglasses and massaged the bridge of his nose. “DiMaggio and I had plans for a drink at the Beverly Hills Hotel. He arrived two hours late, completely at sixes and sevens. Could barely keep the conversation going. I asked him what was wrong but he kept changing the subject.”
“I’m not a sports writer,” Kathryn replied. “I wouldn’t know the first thing—”
“He’s separating from Monroe, who I was supposed to meet here, but instead I find you looking distraught. I want you to tell me what happened—and don’t leave out a single detail.”
Winchell was too astute to fool for very long. “It’s not my story to tell,” she said.
“Yes it is.”
“I wasn’t there.”
“Since when has that stopped either of us?” He bored into her with his pitiless eyes. “Isn’t your father’s freedom worth more than some lover’s tiff?”
“It was more than a tiff!” Kathryn looked down at her shoes. They were scuffed from the dirt and grime that the art department had applied to their Lexington Avenue reproduction.
Please forgive me, Marilyn. It’s for my father.
* * *
Leo already had a double Four Roses waiting for Kathryn when she arrived at Musso and Frank Grill.
She slipped into the red-upholstered booth. “How did you know I’d need one of these?”
“I read The New York Times.” They clinked glasses. “I’d have called, but I had so much to deal with after the show last night.”
Standing on the stage of the Pasadena Playhouse seemed like eons ago. “Not my favorite newspaper headline.” She took another whiskey slug and tried to catch the eye of a passing waiter.
“I told him to line up another one as soon as you sat down.”
It’s like Marilyn said—you’re one of the good guys.
He crinkled his nose. “You look like you have something to share.”
The waiter set down her second Four Roses and removed the empty glass.
I’ve betrayed Marilyn so that someone as heinous as Robert Harrison can be put off the scent. Maybe someday I’ll tell you, but not today.
Leo lifted his martini. “Here’s to us.”
Their glasses clinked gently over the gypsy violin music. Kathryn tipped the glass to her lips. Something touched them. She held it up. A twinkle caught the overhead light.
“What the hell—” Kathryn dipped her finger into the whiskey and fished out a gold ring topped with a marquise-cut diamond ring.
Leo took it from her and rubbed it dry with his napkin, then held it between his fingers. “Will you marry me?”
Kathryn thought of her mother. She’d only had one love, and circumstances had driven her clear across the country, where she’d spent the rest of her life alone.
Don’t be like her. Don’t turn away when happiness is right in front of you, holding an engagement ring. Nelson Hoyt was yesterday. He was a lost opportunity. And he’s too late. Look at that brave smile. If Leo can take a leap of faith, you can, too.
Kathryn smiled. “Yes,” she said. “I will.”