You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Kills You (25 page)

“I was devastated.”

“Do you think she died because you lied to her?”

I turned and looked at her. “Why, J.T.,” I said, “I think you’re turnin’ mean.”

“I’m just tryin’ to get my story, Mr. Gianelli,” she said, and stormed off.

“Eddie?”

Melina was coming toward me. She handed me J.T. Kerouac’s tape. “I took another tape from her bag and replaced it.”

“Thanks, Melina. You’re a doll.”

“Anything for you, Eddie.”

“Here,” I said, handing her a twenty, “I know she’s gonna stiff you on your tip.”

“Thanks.”

I wondered how J.T. would feel when she got to her booth and found her notes gone.

I sat for a moment in front of one of the Marilyn machines. The night she died she had called Peter Lawford. He was supposed to have been the last person she spoke to. But that wasn’t true.

She had called me …

Las Vegas, Nevada
August 5, 1962
4:04
A.M.

“Eddie …”

“Marilyn?” I was home that morning because it was my night off. I glanced blearily at the clock next to my bed.

“Marilyn, what’s wrong?”

“Everything, Eddie,” she said, “everything’s wrong. It’s … all over.”

“What’s all over?” She sounded sleepy … or drugged.

“They won’t talk to me, Eddie … Jack, Bobby … I called Peter, but he won’t help … I talked to Joe … but you’re the only one who can help me.”

I immediately felt guilty. I had only spoken with Marilyn a couple of times over the past seven months. I had returned to Vegas, to my life, and read about her, or heard about her on the news, like everybody else. I called her once, she called me once, but we went back to our own lives.

“Help me, Eddie …”

“Marilyn, what did you do?” I asked. “Honey, talk to me. Did you take anything?”

“Pills … I have pills, Eddie …”

“Yes, but did you take them?”

I remembered the bottles I’d seen at her bedside that day, among them Nembutal and chloral hydrate. I’d meant to talk to her about them, but I never did. After Jerry got out of the hospital we had all said good-bye and driven back to Vegas. Danny returned to work, Jerry flew back to New York and I went back to the Sands.

Apparently, Marilyn had gone back to her private demons.

“Marilyn?”

“Eddie … help …”

The line went dead.

I dressed and got into my Caddy, drove as fast as I could to
L.A. I drove so fast I was stopped twice by the police, and neither time did they believe that I was rushing to L.A. to try to save Marilyn Monroe. They both gave me speeding tickets.

By the time I arrived at Marilyn’s house the police were there, and so was a crowd outside. I saw them remove her body, and I cried, but nobody noticed, because there were plenty of other people crying too …

Las Vegas, Nevada
2003

Years later, of course, there are so many different stories about Marilyn’s death, but I had seen the Nembutal and chloral hydrate on her night table myself. And one report said they attributed her death to an overdose, even though no glass had ever been found. But I always thought she could have taken the pills in the bathroom and then stumbled back to bed.

But the majority of people in the world don’t care about how she died. They only care that she lives on in movies, and in books and, of course, on slot machines.

God help us.

Detective Stanze was named in honor of Police Officer Robert Stanze, a St. Louis policeman who was killed in the line of duty. Deb House, Officer Stanze’s sister, emailed to tell me that she and her mother enjoyed my books, and asked if it would be possible to surprise her mother and name a character after him. It was my pleasure to do so. Deb, her mother, and other members of her family—including Officer Stanze’s widow—then attended a book signing of mine at Big Sleep Books in St. Louis. It was very gratifying to meet them all and to find out about MOCOPS.

MOCOPS (Missouri Concerns of Police Survivors) is a chapter of the National Concerns of Police Survivors, Inc. (C.O.P.S.). These organizations come to the immediate aide of families of fallen police officers to assist in rebuilding their lives. I’m happy to give a shout-out here to MOCOPS, and commend them on the work they do. Check out their Web site at:
www.missouricops.org
.

In 1972, when the actress Veronica Hamel and her husband bought Marilyn’s house they brought contractors in to put on a
new roof. In removing the old one the contractors discovered all sorts of surveillance equipment that was said to be “standard FBI issue.”

The presence of the equipment is odd because one report of the events following Marilyn’s death has Fred Otash being sent in to “sweep” the house for bugs and to remove them.

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