You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Kills You Read Free Page A

eyes.
    “Hey, hey,” I said, taking her hand and leading her to a chair. She sat down and I crouched down in front of her.
    Marilyn couldn’t help herself. Even in that moment she was radiating not only sex, but sadness. I knew what Dean had meant when he said I’d see for myself how fragile she was. Of course I’d heard stories of her moods. Also, her tumultuous love life, marriage and divorce from famous men like Joe DiMaggio and playwright Arthur Miller, a love affair with Frank that ended when he got engaged to Juliet Prowse.
    Right at that moment, though, Marilyn looked alone and bewildered—much the way she had looked that day in Harrah’s Casino in Reno. The crowd had surrounded her and she had no one with her to help. I’d stepped in, took her to the elevator, and barely had time to tell her my name before the doors closed. But she’d had time to say, “Thank you, Eddie.” Later, after I finished with Sammy’s business and things were back to normal I’d thinkabout that moment, play back in my head Marilyn Monroe saying my name.
    Now I was alone in a room with her—not with the screen star, the icon, every boy or man’s wet dream—I was in a room with the real Marilyn—sad, lonely Norma Jean who, I sensed, was also very afraid of something.
    “It’s okay, Marilyn,” I said. I pulled another chair over, sat next to her and took both her hands in mine.
    “Dean said you could help me, Eddie.”
    “And I will, Marilyn,” I said. How could I not? “But for me to do that, you have to tell me what’s wrong.”
    “Oh, Eddie,” she said, squeezing my hands, “when it comes to my life, the question is … what’s right?”

Five
    E DDIE,” MARILYN SAID , in that little girl voice, “I’m being watched—followed.”
    I stared at her. Dean had said she was fragile, he didn’t say anything about her being paranoid. And I have to admit, I never read gossip—well, except for Hedda and Louella, and that was really only after I had met Frank, Dean, Sammy and Joey. It was kind of my way of checking up on them.
    The only TV I watched was detective and Western shows and—again—when the guys appeared on their own show, or someone else’s.
    My point is, if Marilyn had a reputation for paranoia I hadn’t heard about it. But so far everything Dean had told me I’d see, I had, so I had to believe my eyes, and ears.
    If she said she was being watched, and followed, I had to take it seriously.
    “By who?” I asked.
    “I—I don’t know.”
    “Okay, then why?”
    “I don’t know that, either.” She shrugged, and her sweaterfell lower down one shoulder. I was just glad she wasn’t wearing any of the stuff she’d worn in
Some Like It Hot
—that white, sparkly dress, the loose-fitting sweater she kept falling out of? That was, in fact, the hottest I’d ever seen her look, and I was having a hard enough time concentrating.
    “I have an idea, though …” she said.
    “Marilyn, tell me whatever you can.”
    “Well … after Clark died the newspapers were saying it was shooting
The Misfits
that killed him.”
    “Was it a tough shoot?” The film had been out almost a year, but I hadn’t seen it yet.
    “Very tough. He insisted on doing his own stunts, even though he was sick.”
    “Did everyone on the movie know he was sick?”
    “No,” she said, “he kept it to himself. Even John Huston, the director, didn’t know.”
    “So?”
    “He suffered two heart attacks, and the second one killed him,” she said. Then she released my hands and covered her face. “They said it was all the stress on the set that killed him … that because I made him wait and wait … that I was responsible.”
    Jesus, I thought, what a thing for her to have to live with.
    I crouched in front of her again, took her in my arms to soothe her. There I was with everybody’s sex symbol and I felt like I was holding a child. If someone had told me even yesterday that I could hold Marilyn Monroe in my arms and not be