Bombshell by Max Collins (pdf ebook reader TXT) 📕

sports figures—but they came not merely for the prestige of the place, or even the elegant rooms and five-star service. Rather, the elite lodged here because of an added attraction that offset the otherwise somewhat stodgy air of the hotel: the renowned Coconut Grove nightclub.

Originally ensconced on the Ambassador’s lower level, the club had become so popular—after only four months!—that the management was sent scurrying to relocate the nightspot in the hotel’s grand ballroom, renovating it in keeping with the original’s tropical decor. Coconut palms (left over from the set of Valentino’s The Sheik) rose to a twinkling, azure sky, high above rococo Moorish furnishings in Deco-ish red, gold, and black. Simple cane chairs accommodated the ever-changing procession of famous backs and backsides, while a mural of island mountains and waterfalls added to the aura of a movie-set Pacific paradise.

No desert under a real starry purple sky could boast an oasis more dazzling, nor decadent. In the 1920s, Joan Crawford had won Charleston contests here, and John Barrymore brought his pet monkey to swing from the trees. In the 1930s Rudy Vallee headlined, Jean Harlow frolicked, and volatile lovers Lupe Velez and Johnny Weissmuller slugged it out; and until ’36, the prestigious place even hosted the Academy Awards. Throughout the 1940s—even after the war when nightclubbing waned—the Ambassador thrived, and remained Hollywood’s acknowledged “Playground of the Stars.”

As the 1950s wound down, however, the Ambassador Hotel and its famed Coconut Grove were beginning to lose their luster… If the grand old lady of Los Angeles wanted to continue to attract the ever-fickle Hollywood set, she would need a facelift at least as good as those of the older stars who still frequented the place. So in 1957 a $750,000 renovation toned down the palm-flung, Moorish ambience, a modernization appropriate to the likes of Jayne Mansfield, Jack Lemmon, Sophia Loren, and other modern stars.

In the fall of 1959—even as Los Angeles pushed itself west toward the ocean, threatening to leave the Ambassador straggling behind—the hotel remained the choice of many of the elite of show business and beyond.

It was not, however, the hotel that Jack Harrigan had chosen to house Nikita Khrushchev and crew—although the press had been told the premier was staying there, to throw the bloodhounds off the scent. Keeping tabs on the Russians at the Ambassador, along with all the other guests at the sprawling facility—not to mention the nightclub patrons—would have been a logistical nightmare … especially with the relatively small security team Harrigan had at his disposal.

Which was why the Soviet guests were staying at the more secluded Beverly Hills Hotel, where the main building was smaller than the Ambassador’s, and the landscaped grounds more friendly to Harrigan’s prowling security force.

But the dinner tonight would be held at the Ambassador, a fact that Harrigan deplored; this aspect of the dictator’s itinerary had not been his call.

After the State Department man had left Marilyn Monroe’s bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel, he’d returned to his own room, just down the hall from the Presidential Suite where the premier was billeted; the fat little man should be resting, at the moment, after a hard day of stirring the local shit. Khrushchev’s family was in a separate suite, away from the snorting snoring of their paterfamilias. The agent took a quick shower, and changed into another wrinkled suit—straight from his suitcase, there’d been no time to send the threads out for a pressing—and within minutes was striding through the Beverly Hills Hotel’s lavish lobby and out into the parking lot.

Soon Harrigan was driving along Sunset Boulevard in a government sedan, the California sun just beginning to set, casting soothing unreal shadows on the shabby reality of Hollywood. Traffic was on the slow side, giving Harrigan time to reflect on his meeting with the movie star.

He knew, from his first encounter with the woman, that Marilyn Monroe was no dummy—she had her scatterbrained side, yes, but that brain often scattered itself in most impressive and surprising ways. And certainly she had appeared sincere in her concern for the premier’s safety, and afraid of the ramifications his assassination might bring—she’d had tears in her eyes, for Christ’s sake!

But then, she was an actress, and like all of her ilk, prone to the over-dramatic.

One thing was for sure, though: her story, her concern, was no publicity stunt. After all, the woman had been cleared to sit in the balcony next to Khrushchev during the floor show at Fox Studios, and by her not being there, Marilyn had given up extraordinary media coverage, the kind any actress, or actor, would just about kill for.

Still, it seemed obvious to Harrigan that Marilyn Monroe was not exactly dealing with a full deck—not that he felt any guilt for taking advantage of her back in New York … she had manipulated him, hadn’t she? Any shame he felt was for the unprofessionalism of it. Not that he had minded her answering the door naked today—even now his trousers were tented with the memory.

By her own casual admission, the actress was under psychiatric care, and she’d even offered to play pharmacist for Harrigan. Not that any of this was news to the State Department man: extensive FBI files had been made available to him on everyone coming into direct contact with Khrushchev, including Marilyn, whose file mentioned the movie star’s daily trips to a shrink … and her heavy use of (and even possible addiction to) barbiturates and alcohol, which would naturally distort her perception…

The lovely actress had been correct about one thing, however, which had made the back of Harrigan’s neck tingle; in fact, the skin back there was tingling right now, as he tooled along Sunset. The agents guarding Khrushchev—besides being far too few— were burned-out cases about now, weary, bleary, not at the top of their game … himself included. Even if his boss Bill Larsen could arrange for more men tonight, they would be arriving pretty much after the fact: Khrushchev and his entourage