Chapter 4: Filth

The talk over breakfast (plain oatmeal porridge) wasn’t conducive to digestion.

“Rimming is licking assholes?” I asked in disbelief.

“You are hunting perverts,” Athena reminded me. “They may even force you to eat their shit.’

“Those monsters get their kicks from corrupting innocence,” Zara informed me. “We have restored your hymen. You are a virgin again. So is Billie. Your bodies are bait to get you into their lairs.”

Fear has been my constant companion for the past 26 years—except when I was terrified. Zara terrified me. I hoped that I was good at hiding my terror.

“What have you decided about your Monroe investigation?” Athena asked.

“I’m looking into her death from a paranoid viewpoint,” I said. “A competent assassin will stage the death to resemble natural causes, accident, suicide or ordinary crime. If necessary, the murder will look like murder. Depends on the purpose of the termination. Is there a message? There’s always a price to pay and successful assassins pay that price by giving the authorities an acceptable answer, a scapegoat. I’m looking into who would gain from Miss Monroe’s death.”

“You sound so enthusiastic,” Billie quipped.

“I’ll come up with a list of the usual suspects,” I said, “but don’t expect conclusive evidence. Any such evidence will be destroyed, every bit of evidence I find will be suspect. The crime scene, the autopsy, the official investigation may be nothing more than theater. Unfortunately, I’ve seen that happen. I’d tell you about it, but there will be conclusive evidence supporting the official version.”

“Like George Patton?” Billie asked.

“I can neither confirm nor deny,” was my reply.

Gender is the basic identity for humans—for many mammals. For thirty-eight years I had been a male. Now I wasn’t. At least I had a job, food to eat, a place to sleep...

“What would you do if you found out who killed Patton?” Billie asked.

“The killer would just be a tool, much like a gun,” I replied. “A duce and a half driven by Sergeant Robert Thompson collided with Patton’s staff car. There was a Frank Krummer and a third soldier in that truck. Dead, alive, who knows? They vanished. Patton’s driver, PFC Horace Woodring, was blamed, but there was a decided lack of official interest in Patton’s accident.”

“Who would have benefitted from Patton’s death?” Athena asked.

“Lots of people. Stalin. Truman. Eisenhower. Europe at large benefitted from the war ending,” I said. “Let me tell you about Admiral Darlan and his assassin, a young man named Bonnier de La Chapelle. La Chapelle was a member of the French Resistance in North Africa and obtained a French-issue Ruby caliber 7.65mm pistol through the British. Darlan was shot twice in the chest and once in the face and a second man was wounded. De La Capelle was convicted of murder in a trial lasting less than an hour and then was executed by firing squad two days after he killed Darlan. The official story until 1945 was that the young lad was a lone nut seeking glory by killing a collaborator. A real overt assassination, the assassin immediately arrested, tried and executed. Case closed. That’s what happens when death is not disguised as an accident or suicide or natural causes. The assassin is picked up and dies within a short time.”

“So, what have you found out?” Athena asked.

“I have less than a dozen questions, ma’am,” I confessed. “I also want to look at similar cases. How common is it for actresses to kill themselves? Did someone scour the Monroe Residence and remove documents? What happened in the previous six months? Usually, an assassination victim spends years making enemies before being assassinated. Darlan was the Vichy leader of French Africa, buddies with Petain and Hitler. It’s unusual for an assassination to be launched overnight. The Heydrich assassination took months of preparation after Reinhard Heydrich spent years climbing the ladder of Nazi power before he was killed by a pair of Czechs under the control of British SOE.”

“You sure know a lot about assassinations,” Billie said.

“That’s why we recruited Jackie,” Athena said. “You were recruited because you are a talented pilot. We needed Jackie back in August but had to wait because Jackie was still cleaning up after the Missile Crisis.”

“You worry me, Jackie,” Zara said. “I expect you to be outraged.”

“Ma’am, I was expecting Retirement Plan Twenty-two,” I confessed. “That’s a .22 bullet from a silenced High Standard or Colt pistol to the brain. As I said, sometimes assassins are killed immediately after they complete their mission so that there’s no incriminating links to the people who ordered the assassination. Yes, I’m paranoid, but that doesn’t mean I was safe.”

Assassination is politics by other means. Politics is a filthy profession.

“You’ll take the camper and spend the weekend poking around Marilyn’s last home,” Athena said. “You’ll draw your equipment and cash. Jackie, do you want anything else?”

“I’ll need to see what I have. Maps? Library? Radio gear? Communications protocols?”

“Damn it!” Billie muttered. “We gotta wear clothes.”