Bombshell by Max Collins (pdf ebook reader TXT) 📕

“You know, no matter what happens, how much or how little we might see each other, that I care about you, very much. That I’m your friend, always will be.”

Marilyn nodded, swallowing, touched by his concern. “Rupert?” She took one of his hands.

“Yes, my dear?”

“I’m … I’m sorry I haven’t called you.”

He shook his head, shrugged. “We’ve both been busy,” he said.

It was so goddamn sweet of him to let her off the hook so easily.

“Let’s stay in touch,” she said.

“Let’s.” He gave her a tender smile. “Now … go knock ’em dead, Miss Monroe.” He looked her over, and raised his eyebrows. “With that dress … what there is of it … you can’t miss.”

As Marilyn watched him go—pausing to toss her a little wave and smile, before slipping out—she felt a surge of melancholy roll through her, and linger. Then, taking a moment to summon back her movie star persona—that character she had created, that she played so well, and that to some degree she had become, leaving Norma Jeane behind—she put on her sunglasses and exited the bungalow and walked out to the waiting limousine.

2 Welcome To L.A

In a remote corner of Los Angeles International Airport, from the yawning mouth of a North American Aviation hangar, Jack Harrigan—his mental and emotional state a mix of detachment, concern, and fatigue—watched as an Air Force 707 landed in the heat-shimmering distance. The forty-two-year-old agent, assigned these days to the State Department Security Division, had flown ahead the day before from Washington to finalize preparations for the visiting Russian delegation, arriving at this moment on that jet.

At six foot two, Harrigan had a shaggy, rugged handsomeness—there were those who said he resembled a leaner Robert Mitchum, the movie actor—that made him almost too distinctive for the security division, which favored banality in its agents’ appearance, the better to blend in with crowds. Among Harrigan’s distinguishing characteristics were hazel eyes, singed eyebrows (age nine; fire-cracker), and a re-set nose (age twelve; fist-fight), false front tooth (age sixteen; hockey puck); one other deformity, only his ex-wife and a few other females knew about: a fistful-sized chunk of his left buttock was missing (age twenty-five; German mortar).

A sorry excuse for a welcoming committee had gathered at the hangar to wait quietly for the premier of Russia—and the sixty-some entourage accompanying him. This small assemblage was a pale shadow of the festivities that had been arranged for Khrushchev back east, when he flew in to Idlewild a week ago. Mayor Wagner of New York rolled out a literal red carpet, complete with waving banners, effusive speeches, a huge cheering crowd, and three blaring brass bands.

Mayor Poulson of Los Angeles—that pain-in-the-ass prick— felt differently about having a communist dictator delivered to his bailiwick, viewing Khrushchev with the warmth reserved for a bastard child found in a basket on a doorstep.

As the plane began to taxi toward him, Harrigan stood motionless in the noonday sun’s withering heat; but behind the black sunglasses his trained eyes were darting from the handful of put-upon perspiring dignitaries lined up across from him, to the press corps held back behind a cop-guarded barricade, to the small crowd of citizens who’d been aware of Khrushchev’s coming, and cared enough—for whatever reason—to witness the historic moment.

Harrigan was cataloguing every movement, scrutinizing every face, looking for any hand-held objects that weren’t fountain pens, cameras, or little American flags … and looking for certain kinds of faces, hot with rage or, even more dangerous, cold with rage…

Just because the crowd was paltry didn’t mean the agent could let his guard down, not for a heartbeat; it only took one person—in one heartbeat’s time—to pull out a gun and assassinate Khrushchev, and send the United States to the edge of a precipice beyond which was an all-too-real nuclear abyss.

Yup—just another day in the life of Jack Harrigan.

And had Harrigan deemed to remove his sunglasses, to take a better look at the meager mob, something else would have been revealed about the agent: dark circles under his eyes, indicating the lack of sleep and abundance of stress he’d endured this past week, which had begun dubiously—a bad omen, for those who believed in that kind of thing (and he did)—with the initial arrival of the Russians on American soil.

The Soviets had put down at Andrews Air Force Base, fifteen miles southwest of Washington D.C., in a huge Russian Tupolev jetliner. The use of that airplane—considerably longer and taller than its American counterpart—was a disaster in and of itself: when the metal debarkation staircase was wheeled up to its door, the ramp was too short. It was a scene out of a slapstick comedy: chaos broke out on the ground, while Khrushchev and company were left cooling their heels, until some poor bastard finally found a common household ladder.

When the Russians finally climbed ignobly out, and down, like sweethearts eloping in the middle of the night, Nikita Khrushchev was not in the mood for love; the dictator was red with rage. The press had a field -day snapping him and the portly missus, her dress wrapped tightly around her legs for modesty’s sake, coming down the ladder. Harrigan, working closely with the Secret Service boys (until recently he’d been Secret Service himself), saw to it that any film—whether news organization or civilian—was confiscated.

When a reporter pal of his had bitched, Harrigan said, “No way I’m gonna let World War III start up over some fat Russian broad gettin’ embarrassed … but don’t quote me.”

Various pomp and circumstance had awaited the Russian premier and his people at Andrews—the usual twenty-one-gun salute, President Eisenhower on hand, honor guards, ten bands massed to play both the Soviet national anthem, “Soyuz Nerushimy Respublik Svobodnykh,” and “The Star-Spangled Banner.” A motorcade through the Maryland suburbs into Washington had been followed by a full-dress parade down Pennsylvania Avenue.

But none of it took the bite out of the ramp-and-ladder incident: strike one for the Americans—not at all an auspicious beginning to a last-ditch