You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Kills You Read Free

press would label Shirley MacLaine, Angie Dickinson and Ruta Lee Lady Rat Packers. I was always careful not to say Rat Pack around Frank. He didn’t like the name. He always referred to him and his buddies as “the Clan,” and their shows at the Sands as “the Summit.” It was the newspapers that dubbed them the “Rat Pack.”
    Anyway, I assumed—when the car pulled to a stop in front of cabin number three—that one of Frank and Dino’s lady pals needed help. I was kind of hoping it would be Angie Dickinson, but for selfish reasons. I had always had a thing for her, and meeting her had only strengthened the feeling.
    “Here we are,” Dean said.
    I looked at him.
    “You comin’?”
    “No,” Dean said. “I told her you were gonna talk to her.”
    “Alone?”
    “Yep.”
    I looked up at the front of the cabin. When I walked through that door I’d be alone with whoever was inside. Suddenly, I was as nervous as a schoolboy that it might be Angie.
    “Dean?”
    “Yeah?”
    “It’s not Angie, is it?”
    “Angie Dickinson? Hell, no. Why would you think that? There ain’t nothin’ fragile about Angie. That broad is a rock.”
    “And this one’s not, huh?”
    “No, Eddie,” Dean said, “this one’s not. You’ll have to take it easy with her. Listen to her, talk to her, but tread lightly, my friend.”
    “What makes you think she’ll trust me?”
    “The two of you have met,” Dean said.
    “When?”
    “She was very impressed.”
    “Come on, Dean,” I said, “who’s in there?”
    “You’ll see.”
    “What makes her so fragile?”
    “You’ll find out for yourself,” he said.
    “Why so secretive?”
    “Well,” Dean said with a bemused expression, “if I told you who was inside, maybe you wouldn’t get out of the car.”
    “Now I’m really curious.”
    He smiled and said, “I’ll wait here.”
    I got out of the car, went up the steps to the door and stopped. I looked down at the car, but couldn’t see if Dean was laughing at me or not. I knocked. When the door opened I caught my breath.

Four
    B LOND HAIR, RED MOUTH , flawless, pale skin. To the public at large that’s what Marilyn Monroe was. But they had never seen the Marilyn who was standing in front of me at that moment.
    “Eddie,” she said, in that breathy voice of hers. “Come on in.”
    I entered the cottage, speechless, and closed the door behind me. She was wearing a pair of capri pants that hugged her assets, and a sweater that listed to one side, leaving a single shoulder bare. A single smooth, creamy shoulder, I might add.
    “Miss Monroe—” I started, but she turned quickly, her hair swinging into her eyes. She tossed it back with a quick jerk.
    “Please, Eddie,” she said, “call me Marilyn. Is Dean outside?”
    “Yeah—yes, he said you wanted to see me alone. Marilyn, I don’t understand. We’ve only met once, and that was for about three minutes.”
    She laughed, her beautiful face brightening at the memory of that moment. “I remember very well. It was last year in Harrah’s in Reno. You rescued me from a crowd of people and helped me get to the elevator.”
    “And that was it,” I said. “We haven’t seen each other or spoken since then.”
    “Oh, but Eddie,” she said, “I have to tell you, the way you took control? I don’t think I’ve ever felt safer. And I feel safe with you now.”
    “Well, I wasn’t all that smart that time,” I said. “I was so involved in what I was doing I thought you were in town shooting
The Misfits
with Gable.”
    “B-but … Clark died months before that, like twelve days after we finished shooting.”
    “Sure, I knew that. I felt real stupid later when I thought back on it.”
    “I was in town doing some publicity.”
    Suddenly, her eyes got sad—the way they’d been when she opened the door—and her mouth quivered. And it wasn’t the famous Marilyn mouth I was looking at.
    “Eddie—” she said, reaching a hand out to me blindly as tears filled her