The Blonde (7 page)

“Marilyn Monroe,” he said, when he was standing before her. He said her name low, emphasizing all five syllables, as though it signified some gorgeous stretch of landscape that he was appreciating for the first time. Then he thrust his hand forward and flashed his grin. “I’m Jack Kennedy. I hope I’m not interrupting. I wanted to tell you I enjoy your pictures.”

“Thank you, Senator.” A silly, suggestive wink as she dangled her fingers in the vicinity of his. “Any picture in particular?”

“All of ’em.” He caught her hand and pulled. “Will you dance?” Glancing in the direction of her publicity man, he added: “If that’s all right.”

She’d worn her publicity man down—he only waved his hand indifferently as she allowed Jack to draw her onto her feet. The evening dress she wore was black, spangled with jet, and though the neck was somewhat higher than usual, the back was open down below the narrow of her waist. As Jack led her to the dance floor, he put his hand on the naked skin of her lower spine. One of her straps slipped, and she left it resting there, halfway between elbow and shoulder.

“I’ve been thinking about you,” he said, leaving one hand on her back and using the other to draw her into a gentle sway. The band was playing mild jazz from a slightly raised stage in the corner, and she smiled at him mistily, as though she might have been thinking about him, too, or might not have. “You’re dangerous. They shouldn’t let you out looking like that.”

“They?”

“The government, I guess.”

“But you are the government.”

Neither had blinked since they began dancing. His face was lit with his gaze, and though he was not quite smiling anymore his mouth hung open. “I guess I’d be a hypocrite if I tried passing any laws against you.”

“Please don’t. I make people happy, you know.”

“I only care whether you make me happy.”

“How am I doing so far?”

“Grand.” Others in the room had noticed them, but he didn’t seem to mind. “I haven’t felt this happy in months.”

“Good.” She let her heavy lashes kiss the skin of her cheeks. “I think I’d enjoy making you happy.”

They were quiet for a while after that. Now she saw that he wasn’t really so handsome—it was the combination of tanned skin and confident, intelligent eyes that made him seem so. In fact, his features were rather piggish. But he was more appealing for it, more original. He was a good dancer, too, and she enjoyed being led. Though he gripped her loosely, she could feel the energy of his body—its heat was concentrated on her.

Time passed before she spoke again, and the pitch of her voice changed, as when something meaningful has occurred. “Where did you come from?” she asked.

“Washington,” he replied bluntly.

“Mmmmm …” she purred, as though he were just making sounds and she was in no state to absorb any information, instead of pressing him, on Alexei’s behalf, for some secret detail. “So you’re here on business?”

“Pleasure. Come to my room tonight.” It was half command, half request. His voice had lowered, too.

She shook her head faintly, a drop of sadness. “I can’t,” she whispered, as though denying herself something she wanted badly. She did want him, a little. But if they went to bed too quickly, she knew he wouldn’t talk at all. They couldn’t both have what they wanted. “But don’t leave me yet. Talk to me. I like the way you talk. Tell me anything—about your work. Did it bring you here?”

“In a way,” he replied evasively, without meeting her eye. The tautness of his muscles changed—abruptly his interest had slipped.

She summoned a pink warmth, let it spread over her cheeks. She averted her gaze before raising it to meet his, the vulnerability quivering and dense. Her body got heavy with it, so he almost had to hold her up. “If I did,” she went on, helpless and hopeful as a child. “If I came to your room, I mean, you’d forget about me as soon as you were done, wouldn’t you?”

“A broad like you?” He shook his head in disbelief at the suggestion. The moment of his flagging attention had passed; she had him again, and stronger this time.

“Maybe we could meet in Los Angeles. I keep a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel.” Her voice was halting, as though she were afraid of the suggestion—afraid of what it might mean, afraid it might be rejected. “My husband prefers New York, so I’m more free on the Coast. Plus it’s so nice in the sunshine, don’t you think? When the sun makes your skin real hot.” When she said
hot
she wrinkled up her nose, just like she had for Wilder’s picture.

“I’m going there in a couple of weeks. Maybe I’ll call you.”

“Would you?” she whispered, as though she wanted to trust him but was afraid to. They looked at each other, and she knew he couldn’t wait for it, for balmy California, to hammer her on the sand. She made her eyes big as buttons, like Betty Boop. “But tell me something now,” she went on in the breathy voice she used when she performed. “Tell me a secret. Tell me something real, something you don’t want anybody to know. That way I’ll have a little dirt on you, and you’ll have to come back and treat me nice.” Many times she’d practiced saying
nice
like that—girlishly, but so that any man who wasn’t queer couldn’t help but think of the word
naughty
—but it had never come out of her mouth quite so perfect.

He gave her that swanky grin, and turned her so that she was facing the direction he had been facing a moment ago. Over his white tuxedoed shoulder she could see the booth where he had eaten dinner, a table full of men who had just been staring at her. They’d changed their postures
quickly, but she could always tell, and suddenly she knew what Jack had been doing. He’d been holding her, on that spot, so that his friends would have the best view—the open back of her dress, that channel of white skin pointing down like an arrow to the fat black-sequined apple of her ass. The corners of her mouth curled, and she let her irises drift up till they were half obscured by her eyelids. Alexei had been right—she was going to enjoy stealing from Jack.

“See that man with the little glasses and the big sausage nose?”

“You mean at your table?” she asked innocently.

“Yes.”

“The one in the middle? The one who’s talking like everyone should pay attention?”

“Yes, that one. And everybody
is
paying attention. That’s Sam Giancana—he runs Chicago.”

“What do you mean,
runs
?” She gave him her widest eyes.

“I mean he’s the capo, baby. La Cosa Nostra. He’s in the mob. He
is
the mob.”

“Oh.” She let the fear shudder down her spine so that he’d feel it in his palm—which, now that she was turned around and only the band could see her backside, had drifted south. “You mean he’s one of the bad guys?”

Jack just kept giving her that grin, that fence of strong, bright teeth.

“He doesn’t hurt people, does he?”

The same teeth.

“But what are you doing sitting at a table with him? I mean, if you’re a senator, isn’t it your duty to bring him in or something?”

“That’s not how it works, baby. Not in this world.”

“What are you meeting with him for, then?”

He told it as matter-of-factly as though it were the story of how he was going to order his sandwich. “It’s business. When I make my run for president, he’s going to see that Cook County goes for Kennedy.”

“I see,” she said and closed her eyes. She rested her head against his shoulder and let her body relax against his. “I mean, aren’t you big and important,” she cooed drowsily. But she wasn’t tired. Her mind fizzed with the information. It had been so easy—all she’d had to do was act a little dumb and frightened, and he’d told her something she already knew was even bigger than Alexei could have hoped for. She was almost sorry that this would be the end of her spying, because in fact she found it quite satisfying. She was a natural, which was probably why they chose her. Perhaps she’d always liked digging for secrets.

Then her mind really did drift from their conversation, and she let him sway her for a few more songs. She enjoyed that part, too—his appealing, assertive features, his ragged energy, the way the room spun around him like he was its center. After that she yawned—girlishly, theatrically, sweetly—and told him she had better get her beauty rest.

“But I’ll see you on the Coast,” he said when she stepped away.

“You better mean it. Remember, if you don’t call me, I’m going to the papers with your secret.” She winked and let him lead her over to her publicity man. Jack was back at the booth of cronies before she was out the door, talking about what a fine ass she had, probably, but she didn’t care. After she got back to New York she was going to meet her father, and maybe fix things with Arthur, or if not start fresh in California—she’d buy a place in the desert, and make Father bacon and eggs for breakfast every morning.

The elevator sank fast through the hotel, the following morning, but she wasn’t frightened. She hadn’t slept much, and for once this caused her no agitation. She was alert, and her eyes in the mirrored walls that had contained her first meeting with Jack were shining and focused. She felt everything—her hair framing her face, a pulsing from the soles of her feet, the collar of her fur coat against her jaw as she hugged it close to her body. When she stepped onto the curb outside the Ambassador East, she saw Alexei right away. He
was carrying a sign that said
TWENTIETH CENTURY-FOX
, and wearing a chauffeur’s hat and the suggestion of a smile that was for her alone.

Leaving her publicity man to deal with her luggage, she wordlessly allowed Alexei to hold the door for her. She situated herself in the backseat—crossed legs, compact held aloft so that she could check her lipstick. It wasn’t until he’d pulled onto the freeway that she put away her makeup things and met his gaze in the rearview mirror. He had been watching her already, and she gave him the knowing, mischievous smile of a former lover who has never really gone away.

“How was last night, my dear?” he asked, returning her smile.

“Good.” She beamed. “I think you’re going to be kinda impressed with me.”

“The senator liked you, then?”

“Yes, right away.”

“Does he trust you?”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. I don’t think trust means very much with a man like that. He thinks I’m not too sharp, that’s the important thing—he didn’t worry much about telling me important things, because he believes I’m too dumb to understand.”

The face Alexei gave her was better than any she’d ever gotten from a director. “You really got his number, didn’t you?”

“Yes.” She savored the
yes
—they both did—as he maneuvered the car across the vast lavender ribbon of expressway.

“And what did he tell you, my dear?”

“He told me …” She bit her lower lip and closed her eyes. “He told me the reason he was in Chicago.”

“Which was?”

“He was in Chicago to see Sam Giancana, the man who runs the Chicago Outfit.” The story, as she recounted it, sounded almost harmless and quaint, like the oft-recited words of a fairy tale on the lips of a child. She closed her eyes and listened to herself tell the ending: “He was there
to make a deal with Giancana, so that when he runs for president, Illinois will go for Kennedy.”

Beneath her white pumps, through the floor, she could feel the car’s wheels slow slightly; Alexei was changing directions to bring her to her father. He was close by, and as a reward she would be taken there in time to make him coffee and read him the headlines. But when she finally opened her eyes she saw that the car was moving along in the same path—it was only that other cars were denser around them now, so he couldn’t maintain the same speed—and his gaze was no longer focused on her.

“Isn’t that what you wanted?” She hoped her voice wasn’t really so pathetic.

“I knew that already,” he replied quietly. He didn’t need to express his disappointment, because it was obvious in his changed posture. “How do you think I knew he’d be in Chicago in the first place? We have a girl in Giancana’s organization.”

The skin of her face went cold and her stomach made a fist as she apprehended what Alexei was involved in—what she, by extension, was involved in. She thought of the little man at Kennedy’s booth, his small glasses and thin lips, his shoulders creeping up around his neck like the shoulders of all corrupt people. About how he was a killer. The nameless girl who reported to both Alexei and Giancana was a killer, too. And so was Alexei, probably, if the situation demanded.

“You’re not going to introduce me to my father, then?” She didn’t sound like a child anymore, and her face was turned away.

He ignored her question. “How did you leave it with Kennedy?”

The fur coat was draped over her shoulders, and under its cover she fixed her arms across her chest. “He said he’d call me when he’s in California next,” she replied vaguely to the windowpane.

“Good. Then that’s where you’re heading. I’ll take you to the airport and get you a ticket. It will appear natural enough—it’s what Arthur’s been asking for; he won’t object. And if you stay longer than planned, you can tell him
that you’re seeing to his business, both your business, by trying to convince Mr. Gable to be in the picture. We understand Arthur hasn’t been able to convince Mr. Gable to play Gay yet.”

“That’s because Arthur doesn’t understand Mr. Gable,” she snapped bitterly, before she thought to ask how Alexei knew about
The Misfits
, Arthur’s latest obsession, or what she and Arthur fought about in private. “He doesn’t understand anybody besides himself.”