(LOS ANGELES, 2:03 A.M., FRIDAY, 6/1/62)
Shrink job. I’m up on the fourth floor. I jiggled the hallway door and got clicks. The spacers worked. The door popped open. I stepped inside.
I stood in the reception room. I’d crowbarred an alleyway door and breached the building there. That door looks locked. If the F-car cops shake alleyway doors, I’m fucked.
I’d parked my sled at Linny’s deli. My squarejohn attaché is a tool kit. I’m dressed squarejohn. The building rates Z-grade secure. I excel at security breaches. I know how to break, enter, steal, and/or perv and get out.
Man Camera flashback. I reprised my first glimpse.
There’s the waiting room. There’s the receptionist’s cubicle. That’s the connecting door to the right. I bit down on my penlight. That door should be unlocked.
I walked to the door and turned the knob. There’s the click. I’m in the shrink-prototype side hallway.
I penlight-flashed the walls. I noted two closed doorways left, two closed doorways right. Unmarked doorways, right. Marked doorways, left. I know this floor plan. I pulled six shrink jobs for Confidential.
Shrink-session rooms, right. Shrink’s offices, left. Tasteful name plaques anoint them. Dr. Greenson’s toward the front, Dr. Wexler’s toward the back. The last door’s the file room. Where’s the narcotics safe?
Eyes right, eyes left.
The floor plan confirmed my prior jobs. I jiggled the right-side doorknobs. The doors popped wide. I flashed the interiors and confirmed details.
Shrinkee couches and chairs. Shrinker chairs. Shrinkee entry/exit doors. Shrinkees were skulkers and back-door habitués. They feared exposure and ducked reception rooms.
I jiggled the left-side doorknobs. Greenson’s door was open. Wexler’s door was locked. The probable file-room door was locked.
My first thought: The probable file room’s a shrinkee pissoir. The receptionist has her own pissoir. Greenson and Wexler have en suite pissoirs. Where’s the file room/where’s the dope safe/your alleyway entry marks a 459 PC. Don’t fuck with locked doors and leave tool marks. Don’t individuate this office for 459 PC.
Let’s imprint details. Here’s the office of Ralph R. Greenson, M.D.
A big Danish Modern desk. Crazy tubular chairs. Picasso wall prints. Greenson’s hep, Daddy-O. Hep plus smart. Dig his glass-encased shelves.
Floor-to-ceiling shelves. Crammed with patient files, stored spine out. Code numbers on the spines. No names revealed. Heavy glass. Eight hinged panes for reach-in access. Triple key-locked, eight times across. Burglar alarm tape seals all perimeters. I confront stymie, stalemate, defeat. This gig is fucked.
I peeped the room. I peeped the john. I sniffed Greenson’s high-end toiletries. I peeped the receptionist’s cubicle. Where’s the dope safe? Maybe Wexler’s got the dope safe. His door’s locked. If I breach that door, I individuate this location. If there’s no dope safe, there’s no junkie-burglar ruse. Big Freddy O. takes it up the shit chute.
I walked back to Greenson’s office and crashed in his desk chair. I yanked the right- and left-side drawer pulls and got no give. I tried the shallow middle drawer. It slid open, easy.
Peep it, numbnuts. It’s your métier. It’s all you’re going to get.
I saw postage stamps, pens, pencils, erasers. I saw a brochure for the L.A. Civic Light Opera. There’s a Richfield gas station receipt. Note the circa ’50 Monroe publicity still. There’s no visible ejaculate on it. But—there’s a tape-spool box marked “Home Session, 2:40 p.m., 5/29/62.”
It tweaked me. I closed my eyes and conjured. I smelled typewriter whiteout and heard typewriter keys tap.
Robbie Molette. His rolling stakeout report, three days back. Marilyn leaves her house at 2:26. She arrives at Greenson’s house at 2:38.
I’m a toss pro. The drawer was still virgin. I know not to touch. I popped my attaché and grabbed my camera. It was prerigged with flashbulb attached.
The drawer was full extended. I framed the clutter and popped off a shot. I saw spots and smelled Marilyn’s bedroom. I counted off sixty seconds and pulled out the print.
I overpacked for this gig. Gunpowder wicks and drills for the dope-safe ruse. My portable tape rig. The off chance I’d need to record on the spot.
The rig paid off. I felt like a taste now. I cracked the alleyway door at 1:59. It was 2:46 now. I could duplicate the tape on the premises. I could random skim and groove the gist now.
I slid the tape out of the box and spooled it on my rig. I kept the volume soft-murmur low. Marilyn said, “You make such good martinis.” Greenson said, “It’s not a skill I possess. My housekeeper whips them up.” I goosed the volume. I pushed Forward/Stop/Forward and skimmed ahead on whim.
I caught Monroe in free-form monologue. It was all stale film-biz tattle. The reel spooled halfway through. I caught eleven “Jack betrayed me” prompts. #11 ran straight into a Greenson tut-tut.
Marilyn giggled. Marilyn said, “Hey, he speaks.”
Greenson went tut-tut. Marilyn brought her voice butch-baritone low.
“I’ve got ugly, slimy dirt on Jack. I was just getting to it when you cut me off. I go back fourteen years with Jack. I’ll use that dirt if he goes back on his promises to me, and if you keep cutting in on me just when I get to the punch line, I’ll find myself a shrink who’ll cosign all my crazy and not very nice ideas, and I’ll leave you in the lurch like I leave everyone who stands in my way or starts to bore me.”
The tape clicked off. Monroe’s Jackalogue jazzed me. Baby, you closed strong.