Ikon (17 page)

Kathy said, ‘No news?’

Daniel shook his head. ‘Nothing. Not even a ransom note.’

That isn’t a bad sign.’

‘It isn’t a good sign, either.’

I know. I’m not going to pretend that everything’s fine and dandy. It’s not my style.’

Daniel sat down, and stared at his plate of Canadian bacon and eggs. ‘You think they’ve killed her?’ he asked.

‘No, said Kathy. ‘Everything points away from it. I mean, why would they kill her? If they want money, they’ll keep her alive, if they want a hostage they’ll keep her alive. If they want you, they’ll keep her alive.’

‘Why would they want me?’

‘Maybe a little Air Force bird told them that you’d been snooping around the morgue at Williams Air Force Base. Maybe that’s the whole reason they kidnapped her.’

‘If they want me, why don’t they contact me? It’s this damned silence. I don’t even know if she’s dead or alive. I don’t even know where she is, or what they might have

done to her. And she’s mine, you know? My daughter. My responsibility.’

Kathy reached across the table and touched his hand. ‘You’ve got to stop blaming yourself. It wasn’t your fault.’

‘Nobody else was responsible. Not even her mother.’

‘Have you gotten in touch with her mother?’

‘Candii? What for? She wouldn’t care. Too busy whooping it up somewhere with some poor man’s Howard Keel.’

It was then that a man in a loud purple blazer sat down next to them, and said, ‘Okay if I join you people?’

‘Go ahead, said Daniel. Then, to Kathy, ‘Who have we got on the list today? Did you manage to get in touch with MGM? Isn’t there anybody else who might have known what Marilyn did on that last night? The police, maybe, or doctors?’

‘Excuse me, said the man in the purple blazer, ‘are you talking about Marilyn Monroe?’

Daniel and Kathy looked at each other, and then Daniel said guardedly, That’s right. We’re, uh, journalists. Writing a book on famous scandals in Hollywood.’

‘Well, there’s always plenty of material,the man grinned. He reminded Daniel of Ed Koch, only shorter. Same bald dome, same prominent Yiddish nose, and something of the same experienced glitter in the eyes. ‘But when you talk about Marilyn, then you’re talking. That was a scandal, all right. You talk about Marilyn and half the people in Hollywood start shitting their pants, even today, if you’ll excuse my Hebrew. I knew Marilyn. Sure, you don’t have to look surprised. I knew Marilyn just about as well as my cousin Fruma. And, to tell you the truth there wasn’t much in it, except Fruma has a bigger chest.’

Kathy said, ‘You saw Marilyn the night she died? Or that week?’

The man said, ‘Better than that. Or more interesting than that. But, listen, I should introduce myself. Rollo Sekulovich, I’m an agent. Most people call me RS. You’ve heard of Christy Welcome? She’s one of my girls. Girls, I handle mainly. New girls, giving them some kind of

movie work without the necessity to screw producers, excuse me. Call me a one-man social mission, if you like. But Christy Welcome didn’t have to sleep with Don Op-penheim to get that lead part in Triple Murder; and Jean Prisnik didn’t have to sleep with Jim Martin, although she did. Well, she liked him, he’s a nice guy. But let me tell you something else: I have the same surname as Karl Maiden, did you realize that? Maiden Sekulovich, that’s his real name. Can you imagine the Streets of San Francisco with Maiden Sekulovich? And Kirk Douglas was born Issur Demsky; so Michael Douglas would be Michael Demsky. Can you imagine that? A TV series with Sekulovich and Demsky?’

Kathy forked up the last slice of her tropical-fruit salad. ‘You want to tell us about Marilyn?’

‘Marilyn, sure. It’s an interesting story. Maybe you won’t believe it, who knows? But you can always check. Maybe the Brentwood police know somebody who remembers that night, one of their officers. It was twenty years ago, right? But I can remember it clear like today. You want to know why? I had a new girl called Vera Rutledge. What a name, you know? Vera Rutledge. Sometimes I think people become actors just to get rid of their crappy names, excuse me. Did you know that Robert Taylor was born Spangler Arlington?’

‘What about Vera Rutledge?’ Kathy persisted.

‘She was terrific,’ said Rollo Sekulovich. ‘She was blonde, natural blonde, and she looked exactly like Marilyn. Marilyn had a nose-job, you know that, but Vera didn’t need anything like that. She looked like Marilyn should have looked like, only her big disadvantage was that Marilyn happened to have looked like that first. Ten years earlier, I could have made Vera a big-name star. She had that luminous look about her skin, you know, like Marilyn had; and that kind of innocent-sexy come-hither look in her eyes. Vera Rutledge, one of the great names that never was.’

‘What happened to her?’ asked Daniel.

‘This is the point,’ said Rollo Sekulovich. ‘Vera Rutledge

was invited to a party the same night that Marilyn died … a party that Marilyn was expected to go to, too. I tipped off my friends on the Times that there was going to be a good look-alike picture if they could get Vera and Marilyn together - you know the kind of thing I’m talking about - ‘Marilyn meets Marilyn’ - or ‘The Twin Monroes’ - or something like that. Well - about midnight I’m still working on a new contract for one of my latest girls -Darlene Hughes, I think it was - yes, right, I’m sure it was, Darlene - and this guy Rick Montez calls me from the Times and says neither Vera nor Marilyn showed up at this party, and of course he’s pissed about it, excuse me.’

‘It’s a matter of history where Marilyn was,’ said Kathy. ‘So what are you telling me that’s new? A starlet called Vera Rutledge didn’t show up to the same party twenty years ago that Marilyn Monroe didn’t show up to?’

‘No, listen to me,’ said Rollo Sekulovich. ‘Neither of them was ever seen alive again. Marilyn Monroe was said to have taken an overdose of sleeping-pills, Vera Rutledge disappeared without trace. I hired two private detectives to look for Vera but they had to give up after six months. They found some strays, all right, and how many corpses of young girls, you’d be amazed. Two murderers were prosecuted as a result of that investigation, and one of them went to prison for life. But I never found Vera. She just vanished, piff, the same night that Marilyn died, just like she was a ghost or something; just like she and Marilyn were part of the same person.’

Kathy said, ‘Where did Vera live, Mr Sekulovich? In Los Angeles?’

‘She lived with her mother in Van Nuys. Not far from where Marilyn used to live with Jim Dougherty, when she was first married. Her mother always used to say that the Rutledge family were friends with the Doughertys, but I believe that was just a story. Her mother lives there still.’

Daniel finished his breakfast and pushed away his plate. ‘Mr Sekulovich/ he said, ‘why did you tell us all this?’

Rollo Sekulovich made a silly, sentimental face. ‘You want to know the truth? That Vera Rutledge was always a fantasy to me. I never took her to bed. I was true to my wife, God rest her soul. I always thought I had principles. But Vera Rutledge was special; much more special to me than Marilyn ever was. If you could have made Marilyn perfect, and bright, then that’s what Vera was. And I sent her off to that party that night. “It’ll be good for your career,” I told her. “Just go.” And so she went, and I never saw her again. Never. She could be on Mars.’

Daniel thought of Susie, that Susie could be on Mars, too, for all he knew. Vera Rutledge and Marilyn Monroe and Susie Korvitz, fellow wanderers on an alien planet; scared faces under scarlet skies.

That afternoon, they drove out to Brentwood. Before they went to Mandevttle Canyon Road, where Lieutenant Lindblad lived, they took a left off Sunset Boulevard and drove slowly past the rows of exclusive cul-de-sacs called Helena Drives. There are twenty-five Helena Drives, eighteen of them south of Sunset, and on Fifth Helena Drive, Marilyn Monroe used to live, and was supposed to have died.

They stopped. It was a hot, smoggy afternoon; and the sun was screened by lunch time pollution. The engine of their rented Monaco burbled and whistled, but on Fifth Helena Drive that was the only sound, apart from a distant radio playing, with almost absurd irony, Candle in the Wind. It occurred to Daniel that it could actually have been possible for Elton John to have known Norma Jean; if only anyone had realized that she was hiding in Phoenix in fear of her life, under the assumed name of Margot Schneider.

Kathy said, That’s the Monroe house. Not much, is it?’

‘It doesn’t look like anything at all. A cement-brick hacienda.’

Kathy said, ‘Please have courage. I’m sure Susie’s all right.’ ‘

‘Courage? What the hell does courage have to do with it?’

‘I’m not sure. But it’ll help.’

‘If you say so.’

Lieutenant Lindblad lived in a small white combed-stucco bungalow with red Mexican tiles on the roof and a wrought-iron sign on the wall announcing that this was La Casita Mia. He was sprinkling the lawn when they drew up, a thin 67-year-old in a white short-sleeved shirt and light grey slacks, the kind of man from whom all the flesh seems to have shrunk, leaving nothing beneath his darkly-tanned skin but sinews and bones and arteries. His clip-on sunglasses were raised, revealing eyes that were faded by years of sun and years of detective work. He raised his hand in greeting as they approached, and Daniel could see his bicep muscle rolling around on top of his humerus. A walking anatomy lesson.

‘You folks care for some guacamole? My wife made some fresh. Makes the best guacamole in Greater Los Angeles, I can tell you. Rosa, come out and say hi.’

A pretty, plump Mexican woman came out of the house, her hair stuck up in combs, and smiled and shook hands and said, ‘hi, and ‘hi, and that was about all. She wore a bright crimson-and-yellow frock that just about managed to contain her enormous breasts and her huge haunches, and she jiggled back into the bungalow as if every part of her body was dancing to a different maracas-player.

‘She’s a terrific woman, Rosa, said Lieutenant Lindblad. ‘My second wife. Just the sort of woman I always wanted. My first wife was thin and mean and sour as hell. I wanted a woman I could get hold of. You know what I mean? Never had so much damned fun in my whole life.’

They sat inside, in the cool, around a glass table with black wrought-iron legs, and ate guacamole with fresh-baked taco chips and drank Budweiser out of Budweiser glasses. ‘I came from Wisconsin originally, did my training

in Milwaukee. Can’t touch this Western beer, not for nothing.’

Daniel said. They told us round at the police station that you were concerned with the Vera Rutledge disappearance. Well, they checked it in the files.’

Lieutenant Lindblad steadily ground up a taco chip between his dentures. He took a swallow of Bud. Then he said, ‘Vera Rutledge, hunh? I thought you said you were writing a book on famous Hollywood scandals.’

‘Wasn’t Vera Rutledge a scandal?’

‘Vera Rutledge was a disappearance, that was all.’

‘Routine, yes? Nothing special about it?’

‘Not that I remember.’

‘I’m surprised you remember it at all/ said Kathy. ‘It was more than twenty years ago, after all. Just one case in a hundred thousand.’

‘She disappeared the night Monroe died, that’s all. That’s why I remember it.’

‘And she looked like Monroe?’

‘I guess so. That was one description.’

There was a very long silence. Lieutenant Lindblad looked from Daniel to Kathy and then back again. ‘Is that all you want to know?’ he asked them.

‘It depends whether that’s all you’re going to tell us,’ said Kathy.

‘What’s to tell? I was on duty that night; I was given a report that some blonde young starlet had gone missing. Then it came over the radio that we were supposed to go round to Fifth Helena, because Marilyn Monroe was suffering from some kind of an overdose. That’s all. That’s all I remember. We put out the usual searches for Vera Rutledge. We found quite a few bodies, quite a few stray starlets, but then you always do when you comb Hollywood real thorough. You could do it today and you’d find the same. But we never found Vera Rutledge.’

‘What time was Vera Rutledge reported missing?’

Ten o’clock maybe. I don’t exactly remember.’

‘And what time was Marilyn reported to have OD’d?’

‘Listen,’ said Lieutenant Lindblad, sharply. His dentures made a loud clicking noise. ‘You want history, you go to the history books. Don’t bother me about it. I was only doing my job.’

The history books are full of lies and discrepancies,’ Ka’thy insisted. ‘You know they are, because you were actually there, and you know what happened.’

‘What are you trying to say, that something happened different?’

‘I know something happened different.’

‘Well, there’s no use in asking me. I don’t remember too much about it. It was one of those nights, you know? Pretty confused. Lots of publicity, lots of confusion. And everybody lying their asses off to protect their reputations.’

Daniel said, ‘We know that Marilyn Monroe didn’t die that night.’

Lieutenant Lindblad stared at him. ‘Are you crazy?’

Daniel shook his head. His heart was bouncing like a dolphin at Sea World, but he was determined to stick to his story. ‘Marilyn Monroe didn’t die that night, but somebody did. Some girl who hadn’t eaten supper, like Marilyn had. Marilyn ate supper that night with Bobby Kennedy and Peter Lawford, as well as Pat Newcomb, and her housekeeper Mrs Murray. But the autopsy on the girl’s body showed that her stomach and her intestines were completely empty. Only her blood was thick with barbiturates.’

Kathy said, in her gentlest voice, ‘On the same night in 1962, Marilyn Monroe was supposed to have died in mysterious circumstances; and a girl who looked almost exactly like her disappeared without trace. Twenty years later, in Phoenix, Arizona, a woman was murdered; a woman who in all probability is Norma Jean Baker, aged 57. So what kind of a conclusion can you draw from that?’

Lieutenant Lindblad said, ‘What are you trying to suggest? Why don’t you say it straight?’

‘You want me to?’ said Kathy.

Lieutenant Lindblad sucked thoughtfully and anxiously at his dentures. Then he said, ‘I don’t know why you want to dig all this up. It’s all dead and buried, twenty years ago. It doesn’t make no difference, not now. If that woman who was murdered was Norma Jean; well, what of it? What difference does it make? They’re both dead now; and so are Jack and Bobby, and that’s the end of it.’