Fever City (13 page)

There is the silence of consideration. ‘Maybe JFK killed Marilyn?'

‘I doubt that very much.'

‘Then someone who was close to Marilyn killed JFK to revenge her.'

‘Avenge . . . '

‘Avenge her. It's a motive, isn't it?'

‘Pretty wild.'

‘But possible . . . '

‘Anything is possible, angel . . . '

‘You're not supposed to call me that.'

Angel. ‘Call you what?'

‘We're divorced, Lew . . . '

Saying it almost as if it's news to me. Sometimes it feels exactly like it is. Sometimes I wake up and am still surprised to find myself alone. ‘You're right, I shouldn't have called.'

‘Anyway, it sounds promising . . . '

‘Really?'

‘Well, more promising than your other leads . . . '

The problem with divorce is that it doesn't stop the knowing barbs. Exactly what made you want to get a divorce in the first place. I can still feel the sting as I look up from the photo of Marilyn singing ‘Happy Birthday, Mr. President,' to the man who has promised information linking her to JFK's assassination. ‘Some dress . . . '

‘Isn't it?' He taps the photo of the crumpled, jug-eared author on the dust jacket. ‘Norman Mailer had information proving the connection between the murders of Marilyn and Kennedy but unfortunately it was withheld from publication when his book came out . . . ' Mr. Dwayne Wayne, amateur photographer, would-be bounty hunter and full-time conspiracy buff, shakes his head in regret.

‘Why would they leave that out? Claims like that are exactly what sell books.'

‘Mailer didn't want to but he had no choice.'

This is the problem with all conspiracy theories. Nobody
ever
has any choice. Things just happen and no one can stop them. Everybody knows that events are covered up, but no one can prove it. No one can produce the smoking gun, although anyone can see it—all you have to do is stare real hard. Evidence is not forensic, it's fantastic.
Blow Up
meets the Rorschach test.

In the Age of Conspiracy, Plausible Deniability has been replaced by Plausible Doubt. Any possible crack in a single detail is enough to bring into question not just an event but an entire political system; the whole course of Modern History. The Conspiracy Theorist is the latter-day boy at the dyke, only instead of putting his finger into the hole, he's threatening to take it out. Catastrophe is better than Cover-up. He is Samson in the Temple. The pillars shall fall, the Son of Sam shall perish, but the truth will out: you don't shave a man's head without his consent. You don't conceal UFOs in Area 51. You don't pretend to land a man on the moon. You don't force Elvis into the Witness Protection Program. And you sure as hell don't blame seven gunshot wounds on a single Magic Bullet. ‘You said you'd found a connection between JFK and Marilyn's deaths . . . '

‘Murders . . . '

'What was the connection, Mr. Wayne?'

Dwayne Wayne smiles. ‘Kennedy was being blackmailed.'

I play along. ‘LBJ?' Dwayne Wayne shakes his head. ‘J. Edgar?' He wags a finger. Not even close. He's got me. ‘I give up. Who?'

‘Howard Hughes.'

‘What did Hughes have on the president?'

‘TFX.'

Tactical Fighter Experimental.

A big-ticket item smack-bang-boom in the middle of the Atomic Age. The largest single government contract ever. Four hundred and sixteen billion dollars in today's currency.

‘TFX is an interesting story, but how exactly does it relate to blackmail?'

‘Hughes was in bed with General Dynamics. He pushed the F-111 as the winning design.'

‘So what? Hughes was a billionaire airman and gambler. He'd be involved in any big aviation contract.'

‘This wasn't involvement, this was manipulation. It all adds up. One: Hughes bought his TWA Convair fleet from General Dynamics. Two: Hughes Aircraft bought General Dynamic's Missile Systems Division. Three: both Hughes Aircraft and General Dynamics had access to the same technology—'

‘Wait—what technology?'

‘TFX technology for starters.'

‘The plane was a fiasco.'

‘The engineering was a fiasco. But the concept—swing wings, turbofan propulsion, TERCOM navigation—that was perfect, Mr. Alston. Revolutionary. Where did the technology come from?'

‘General Dynamics?' He gives me a long, sad stare of amazement, then shakes his head knowingly.

Here it comes, I can feel it: Jerry Fletcher Redux. ‘The Russians?'

‘Roswell.'

Well, they both start with the letter R. As in ridiculous.

‘Not as ridiculous as it sounds . . . ' He intercepts my thought waves. ‘Reverse engineering. Hughes financed most of it himself.'

‘Mr. Dwayne, I mean Wayne. That is just . . . ' I hesitate, lost for a soft synonym, but he jumps right in.

‘Crazy? Is it? Explain how Hughes went from plywood seaplanes to Syncom satellites in less than fifteen years. To soft landings on the moon; to Pioneer and Galileo? Everything that Hughes Research laboratories has done, from inventing lasers and ion propulsion units to reconstructing metallic microlattice comes from the Roswell Saucer.'

Dwayne Wayne stares at me with a bright, intent smile and brown eyes rimmed all the way round by white—if they looked any more startled, they'd burst. Monica's voice comes back to me. ‘The problem with you, Lew, is that you're too polite.' I asked her what was wrong with being polite. ‘Nothing,' she said, kissing me, ‘as long as it's with the right people.' I didn't need my ex-wife to tell me that Dwayne Wayne is not the right people. It is time to pack my bags and leave this madhouse city. ‘We're done here . . . ' As soon as I say it, I shudder. I just unconsciously quoted Adam Granston, the horn man. It must be Stockholm syndrome.

Dwayne Wayne blocks my way. ‘Kennedy was against the F-111. Hughes had to recuperate the money he'd invested in Area 51, and the only way to do that was via TFX, even if he had to resort to blackmail. Stand back and look at the big picture, Mr. Alston.'

‘I'm sorry.' Too polite, again. ‘The problem is that no one ever looks at the big picture. Instead, all anyone ever does is peer at the minute details. That's where coincidence exists. And coincidence feeds conspiracy.'

‘Coincidence is the first sign of conspiracy.'

‘Lincoln was shot in the Ford Theatre, Kennedy was shot in a Lincoln. Does that mean the automobile industry was behind both assassinations? If you want to find connections, you'll always find connections. Like Orion's Belt . . . '

‘The constellation?'

‘The miniature galaxy in
Men in Black
. Billions of stars inside a tiny globe. The closer you look, the more there is to see.' I gather the little things that are the sum of my existence in this city: iPhone, sunglasses, rental car keys. ‘Stop looking so closely at things, Mr. Dwayne.'

‘Wayne.'

Whatever . . . ‘You need to come up for air.'

‘But the devil's in the details.'

‘Wrong, Mr. Wayne. The details are the devil.'

‘Don't go, Mr. Alston. There's more.'

‘I just wish that for once someone actually had physical evidence, rather than wild theories and suspicions.'

Wayne hands me an old manila envelope. On the outside is an address in Chula Vista, California. On the inside are photos. ‘How about these . . . ?'

I stare at a face in one of the pictures, her eyes challenging me to look away. I can't. How could I? The eyes belong to Marilyn Monroe.

T
he night was fragrant with the scent of datura, the bell-shaped flowers hanging heavy amongst lush leaves, like bats enfolded within their wings; nocturnal and still.

Hastings moved through a small orchard of oranges and came out at a kidney-shaped pool. Immediately beyond was a Spanish-style bungalow. This was exactly what LA aspired to be: palms, pool, perfumed. Perfect. But there's one thing a house with a garden can never really provide: security.

Every night across America, trespassers prowled the darkness. Strangers stared through windows, cataloguing secrets, decoding possibilities, identifying valuables. Snapping photos. Windows were tested, locks compromised, interiors cased; animals silenced. Our dreams were patterned by the torch beams of burglars as our wealth was harvested by gloved hands and passed across windowsills. No matter how well-protected, our homes, like our loves, are always vulnerable to the touch of others, to unexpected entries and silent exits; our secrets, like our wallets, slipped into the back pockets of cunning intruders.

The door to the kitchen was unlocked. Hastings paused, feeling the cold flush the kitchen's terra-cotta tiles gave to the summer night. Remembering Bella and the murdered fence. He exhaled but there were no clouds of condensation. The dead weren't walking. Yet.

He listened carefully. Nothing at first, then a moaning. He paused at the entrance into the living room. There was a dull yellow light spilling out from under the door of a bedroom. It wasn't supposed to be like this. The house was supposed to be empty. Maybe a car broke down. Maybe someone got sick and a vacation was cancelled. Maybe the owners had left and the help or a teenage son were taking advantage of the absence. Or maybe Roselli lied.

Hastings had seconds to decide. No one was supposed to get hurt. But no one was supposed to be there either. He was supposed to find the book and get out without being seen.

Without being caught.

He glanced around the living room. A clean fireplace. Shades half drawn. Not much on the walls. It felt like a house that had just been moved into; or just moved out of. It wasn't close to being a real home. He crossed the thick carpet towards the bedroom door, freezing when he heard a man's laugh—light; unauthentic. Through the door he recognized a woman's voice, but couldn't quite place it. Rich with anger. Distended with irritation, and maybe liquor. The man's voice was low with frustration. Hastings couldn't make out what he was saying, just the rhythm of patronizing repetition.

Headlights swept across the room, Hastings pulling back into the shadows beside the fireplace. He could feel his heart beating against the wall as he unholstered a suppressed .45. Two car doors opened, then slammed shut. Visitors. It wasn't supposed to be like this. The whole scene stank of a setup. Of death. Maybe even his.

The doorbell rang.

The door to the bedroom opened and a slight, young man with a long, careless cowlick charged out, heading straight for the front door, never glancing at the shadows where Hastings hid. Hastings looked back at the bedroom and caught the silhouette of a woman projected on the floor, her words slurred with hurt, the hairs on his neck rising in wonder as he was finally able to put a name to the voice. ‘Tell him to go to hell!' The shadow retracted, the voice talking to itself now, distant and sad: ‘They can all go to hell . . . '

Hastings crossed quickly, standing in the shelter of the still open door, listening to a flurry of restrained sobs slowly ebbing. He could see through the angle of the living room window that the man was arguing outside on the porch with the two visitors. They looked like government men in dark suits and hats. One held a black medical bag.

The throb rose inside Hastings's head, singing its way across his mind, contracting his thoughts to a single impulse: action.

He listens. It's silent in the bedroom.

He enters the bedroom, closing the door until it's just ajar. Her breathing is laboured but steady. Probably sleeping pills; possibly booze. He feels the dorsum pulse on her right foot. Slow; steady. She's not in any trouble. His eyes travel up her leg to the still-wet trace of lovemaking on the sheet, one of her thighs gleaming with a sticky sheen. It is a private and transgressive moment—the revelation of an intimate act made public; without consent. A classic Movie Star moment . . . if you were
Confidential Magazine
.

Hastings modestly covers the sleeping woman with the top sheet and puts a spare pillow across the bedside lamp. The room drops into twilight, the filtered lampshade still providing enough light for him to see. He sets to work fast, starting with the drawer of the bedside table, stepping back in surprise. Roselli had asked him to find a diary. There are at least twelve books inside the drawer. Hundreds of pages of notes, confessions, pleas, tirades and observations. Names leap out and hit him across the face with their celebrity: DiMaggio, Miller, Sinatra, JFK, Eva Marlowe . . . Rex Bannister.

Hastings swears aloud.

Marilyn stirs, turning onto her back, the sheet getting caught up in her legs. Hastings freezes, staring at her eyes. They stay closed. He approaches the door, and checks outside. The faces of the three men on the porch are furrowed with conflict. A car is parked across the road, full of darkness. He watches it for a long moment and then sees the telltale red pulse of a cigarette half-concealed inside a closed fist. Someone waiting. Someone watching.

The man in the car across the street raises something to his face. A camera. The men pause on the porch, arguing in hot whispers, unconscious of the dual surveillance.

Marilyn sighs. He looks back at her, a wisp of hair caught across her lips, rising and descending with her breathing, as regular as a metronome. He opens a chest of drawers. More diaries. He hadn't figured on that; he hadn't figured on the naked movie star or the man watching in the car either.

Hastings starts packing the diaries into a vanity case. He checks an antique secretary desk. Nothing but a manila envelope.

Inside are catch-your-breath photos of Marilyn. In all of them her face is creased unconscious from dope or booze. He slips the envelope inside the case and turns back to the sleeping woman. Whatever she's on, she's breathing normally; she's as safe as someone like her can be.