Collins, Max Allan - Nathan Heller 14 (10 page)

Then she was on the couch, lips open, arms open, legs open. I said I would get something, meaning a rubber, and she said, no, it’s a safe time, don’t use anything, I want to feel you inside me, and the warmth of her swallowed me, and her eyes rolled back in her lovely face as her hips churned with a desperation that made me drunker still and the intensity was dizzying, like a fever dream, and when she came, she cried, and maybe I did, too.

She kept crying, my little black-eyed blonde, and I held her and comforted her, for all the shit she’d been through, soothing her, kissing her, loving her, consoling her, assuring her I’d be there, and finally I took her hand and led her to my bedroom, where she slept with me that night.

On my back in bed, naked as the day I was born but with considerably more scars, staring at the ceiling like a man in a trance, I felt physically and emotionally drained. Making love with Vera Jayne had been a joyful carnival ride; making love with Jackie had been a different kind of ride entirely.

Jackie—who had crawled in bed in just the sheer panties—was asleep and the lights of the night were filtering in off the lake, bathing her in blue-tinged ivory. She looked lovely, childlike, her face puffy from crying, but also from youth; her mouth had a swollen bruised look that had nothing to do with Rocco’s abuse. When she turned toward me, the covers pulled down off her mostly naked form, I reached over to pull them back up, and tuck her in, like daddy’s little girl.

That was when I noticed the needle tracks.

This morning, in the cold light of day, we had talked about it, at my kitchen table, over the breakfast I’d prepared.

“I’ve been on it for six months,” she said.

“Why? Doesn’t make any sense, Jackie—a smart, talented kid like you, with ambition enough to buck her parents and pay for her own dance lessons….”

She wasn’t looking at me; she was staring down into the eyes of her sunny-side up eggs. “I got depressed. Rocky, when he was acting nice, said he could help me. Get me medicine. So I wouldn’t be blue.”

Wrapped up in the silver robe I’d first seen her in at Fischetti’s, she didn’t look at all bad—she certainly didn’t look like a junkie, and her young, pretty features, sans makeup, served her well.

“He got you medicine, all right,” I said.

She was shaking her head, stealing a look at me, now and then. “I was so damn depressed, I would have tried anything…including razor blades. Now…what am I going to do, Nate? I don’t even have a supplier—Rocky gave me the stuff, himself.”

“That fucking asshole.”

She heard the rage in my voice, and it startled her, scared her. Her eyes were wild, a hand held like a claw at the side of her face as she said, “You’re going to kick me out, too, aren’t you?” She looked down into her coffee cup; she hadn’t eaten a bite of her toast and eggs. “You’re going to throw me out on the street. Just like Rocco!”

“Shut up.”

The wild eyes dared me. “You want to slap me? Go ahead! Slap me!”

I almost did. But instead I just said, “When’s it going to get bad for you?”

She sighed, swallowed—air, not food. “Sometime this morning it’ll start.”

“Jesus.”

“I…I might be able to call a girl I used to know at the Chez Paree. I think she’s still at the Croyden. She smoked reefers all the time…she’s got a connection, maybe I could—”

“But you don’t have any money, Jackie. It costs thirty bucks a day, at least, to support a habit like yours.”

The eyes stayed wild but the voice turned timid. “Maybe…maybe you could loan me some. If I can have my medicine, I can get myself put together and go out and get a job—maybe now that Rocco doesn’t want me anymore, I can get a job singing or dancing somewhere.”

I shrugged, stirring sugar into my coffee. “You could always strip. You did a hell of one for me last night.”

I’d meant that as a dig, but instead it had only got her going.

“I think I could do that…. I think I could stand to do that. It’s dancing, right? It’s a kind of dancing.”

I looked at this girl, this sweet smalltown girl, and knew how close she was to the abyss.

“You’ll get a job, all right,” I said. “You’ll be over at the Mayfair Hotel with the other hookers.”

Horror filled the brown eyes, including the black-and-blue one. “No…. No I would never do that. How can you say that? Last night you were so kind…. How can you….” And she put her right hand over her face and began to cry.

She was trembling a little too, but I was afraid it had more to do with the stuff she was starting to crave than any sorrow or shame she might be feeling.

I sat forward. “Now listen to me—a friend of mine got hooked on morphine. He was on it for years, and he kicked it. You’ve only been riding the horse for a few months. Do you want to get off it?”

Shuddering, she said, “Oh yes…oh yes.”

“I can help arrange that. I’ll have to make a few calls, but I can arrange it.”

Her eyes searched my face. “How can I pay for that…for treatment?”

“I’ll float you a loan.” I had a sip of coffee. “And until we can get you into the right clinic, I’m going to make a few other calls.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

“Somebody’ll be around this afternoon with what you need.”

“Do I…understand you right?”

“You do. For the next few days, I’ll support your habit. The guy who comes around, he’ll be colored. You can trust him, far as it goes. You’ve got the works?”

“The what?”

Christ, she was a junkie and she didn’t even know the lingo. Can you beat that? A sheltered drug addict. Fucking Rocco Fischetti.

Patiently, I asked, “You have your own needle and so on?”

“In my suitcase, yes.”

“Do you have something nice to wear?”

“What? Why?”

“Because once you’ve had your medicine, and’ve had a chance to relax, I want you to make yourself presentable. We’re going out tonight.”

She was shaking her head, as if trying to clear her ears. “You’re taking me out?”

“That’s what I said.”

So when I came back to the St. Clair—after my meeting with the Kefauver crowd, and my encounter with Sam Giancana and Bill Drury, at the Stevens—she was herself again…a lovely, doll-faced innocent in a dazzling black cocktail dress, black crepe off-the-shoulder V-neck top and ruffled tiers of black net over a taffeta skirt. The sleeves of the black top, however, came down midforearm, covering sins. Pearls at her throat, cherry lipstick, white gloves….

“Do you approve?” she asked, bright as a penny, again outstretching her arms in
tah dah
fashion.

Her medicine had done wonders.

“You’re a knockout.”

She took my arm; she smelled wonderful—Chanel No. 5. “Where are we going tonight, my love?”

I grinned at her. “My pal Frankie is opening, tonight.”

“Frankie? Sinatra? Isn’t he…isn’t that…the Chez Paree?”

“That’s right.”

She looked horror-struck. “But Rocco and his brothers are bound to be there….”

“I know.”

“Oh, Nate…Rocco could start something.”

“One can always hope,” I said.

Like most of us in Chicago, the Chez Paree—that garish, glitter-and-glamour nightclub at Fairbanks Court and Ontario—had humble roots: the Near Northside’s fabled bistro had once been just another warehouse, before Ben Hecht’s artist pal Pierre Nuytens turned it into a fortress of festivity in the late twenties. A few years later, tired of paying off cops and fending off gangsters, Nuytens sold his Chez Pierre to Mike Fritzel, an old hand in the nightclub game, who, with Joe Jacobsen, immediately redubbed the gaudy barn the Chez Paree, inviting “the Last of the Red Hot Mamas,” Sophie Tucker, to crack a bottle of bubbly over the building’s name plate. Twenty years later, Sophie was still returning annually to celebrate that christening with maudlin tunes and filthy jokes.

The bright, immense showroom seated five hundred, and presented entertainment of the first magnitude, including such $10,000-a-week stars as Jimmy Durante, Henny Youngman, and Martin & Lewis, with orchestras like Ted Lewis, Paul Whiteman, and Vincent Lopez, all augmented by the prettiest chorus line in America. Add fine dining (not your typical nightclub’s third-rate food at cutthroat prices), and the joint almost didn’t need its backroom gambling casino, the Gold Key Club, to make it the top after-dark spot in town.

Almost.

Not that the celebrated showroom didn’t have drawbacks: its very size and noonday-sun brightness seemed at odds with the postwar trend for intimate clubs. Then there were the massive square pillars, causing patrons viewing problems; an art moderne pastel wall mural of the planets that dated the joint; and all those linen-covered tables mashed together treating high-class customers like passengers in steerage. Plenty of good seats to be had, though, arranged as they were around the dance floor onto which the Chez Paree showgirls frequently spilled down from the stage/bandstand to do their elaborate production numbers.

Tonight, on the occasion of Frank Sinatra’s opening, the showroom seemed especially packed, and I suspected extra tables had been crammed in. Normally such a great crowd would have spelled good news for Sinatra, who wasn’t drawing mobs like he used to, except for the Fischetti variety.

Unfortunately, the size of tonight’s Chez Paree audience probably had more to do with morbid curiosity than any new wave of Swoonatra frenzy. Frank had been scheduled to appear at the Chez a few months ago, but had to cancel, after he’d lost his voice and coughed up blood on stage during a Copa engagement in New York. The doctors called it a vocal cord hemorrhage and sentenced him to silence for several weeks.

In fact, the Chez was so jammed tonight, I didn’t think the fiver I slipped headwaiter Mickey Levin would do the trick, particularly since we’d skipped dinner. But the five-spot—which Mickey pocketed, of course—turned out to be unnecessary, as Joey Fischetti had kept his word and saved me a booth along the wall.

The booths weren’t the best seats in the house by a long shot, in terms of seeing the show, but they were comfortable and somewhat private. As we settled in, the floor show had already started. The Chez Paree Adorables—ten dolls in Hollywood’s idea of Dodge City dancehall-girl costumes, with red garters and mesh stockings—were parading around singing that annoying Teresa Brewer tune, “Music! Music! Music!,” accompanied peppily by the Lou Breese orchestra.

I sipped a rum and Coke, and Jackie—looking like a movie star in the black cocktail dress—had not touched her Tom Collins. She was rubbing her hands together.

“Take it easy,” I said.

“Don’t you see him?” she said, alarm dancing in her lovely brown eyes. The black eye had mostly gone now— she really was a fast healer—and makeup hid what remained.

“I see him,” I said.

On our side of the room, but still separated from us by a sea of people, Rocco and Charley, with two beautiful young girls in low-cut gowns, sat ringside, craning around at the moment to watch the Adorables out on the dance floor. Charley was married, by the way, but his wife lived in Florida when he was in Chicago, and in Chicago when he was in Florida.

“Why did you bring me here?” she asked, not angry, more confused.

“I thought you could use a night out.”

“You could have taken me anywhere but here.”

“Jackie—I’m making a statement: I’m letting the Fischettis know that you’re under my protection.”

“…protection?”

“This is a very tense time for them. You’re aware of this investigation, this Kefauver thing?”

“Vaguely.”

“Well, you lived in their penthouse for over a year. You saw people come and go. And you were rather rudely thrown out.”

“I’m not sure I understand…”

Or maybe she just didn’t want to.

I said, “You’re a potential witness, if those Crime Committee boys get wind of you.”

“Are you saying…I’m in danger?”

I nodded toward Rocco and Charley, who didn’t seem to have noticed us yet. “Not when these sons of bitches see that you’re with me. That you’re my girl.”

“Am I? Your girl?”

“If you want to be—position’s open.”

She clutched my hand. “Oh, I do, I do…and Nate—I’ll go wherever you want, to get well, to a clinic or hospital or whatever—”

I gave her a sharp but not unkind look. “We’re not talking about that, here. We left that behind, for tonight.”

“…okay.”

“I really do want you to have a good time.”

“I’ll try.”

“I’ll introduce you to Frank.”

“Oh, I met him when I was still in the chorus, here. He may not like seeing me very much.”

“Why?”

“I think I’m the only girl, except for a couple of married ones, who wouldn’t sleep with him.”

When the Chez Adorables had finished their number, the expected timpani roll and offstage intro of the headliner did not occur; instead, Lou Breese and his boys played “Begin the Beguine.” Murmurs of discontent and curiosity rumbled across the room—why wasn’t Sinatra coming on?

Suddenly Jackie jerked back in the booth—like maybe she’d seen a ghost, or a Fischetti—and her sharp intake of air made me jump.

I almost went for the shoulder holstered nine millimeter Browning, which my dark suit (tailored for me on Maxwell Street) was cut not to reveal. Normally I wouldn’t pack heat on a night out on the town…normally.

It wasn’t a ghost, just a Fischetti—the harmless one, the good-looking not-as-smart one, Joey, looking like a maitre d’ in his black tie and tux.

“Thanks for the booth, Joey,” I said.

“You gotta help me, Nate,” Joey said from the aisle, leaning against the linen tablecloth. He hadn’t noticed yet that the pretty blonde sitting next to me was his brother Rocco’s ex-punching bag.

“Slide in—join us.”

He did. His eyes were darting, his expression twitchy with panic. “Frank won’t go on.”

“Why not?”

“That fucker Lee Mortimer’s in the audience. I could kill Halper for not catching that reservation, and squelching it.”

I shrugged. “Just ask Mortimer to leave—refund whatever money he’s spent—”

“Nate, you know that bastard. He’ll make a scene. It won’t just be in his column, it’ll be in every paper in the country.”

“What do you want me to do about it?”

He clutched at my arm. “Go back and talk Frank into going on.”

“Jesus, Joey, he’s your friend, too. You guys are bosom buddies.”

“Yeah, but he don’t respect me like he does you, Nate. Please. You gotta go talk to him—look at the size of the audience. He stiffs this crowd, his career really is over.”

Joey seemed so pitifully desperate, I gave in, asking, “Where’s Mortimer sitting?”

“Three booths down.”

“I’ll talk to
him,
first. Mortimer, I mean. I know him, a little. Maybe he’ll listen to reason.”

Joey was shaking his head; strangely, there was no rattle. “Anything, Nate…. Oh—hiya, Jackie. What are you doing here?”

“I’m with him,” she said, nodding to me.

Joey looked from her to me and back again, a couple times.

“Joey,” I said. “One problem at a time?”

“Right,” he said, nodding, as if acknowledging there was only so much room inside there. “Right.”

“But you have to do me a favor.”

“Anything, if you just talk to Frank.”

I was already out in the aisle. “You sit here with Jackie. If your brother notices her, and comes over, you have to protect her for me.”

“What? But Rocky’s—”

“You just tell him you’re warming my seat up while I’m doing you this favor—you can do that, Joey. You’re up to the job.”

He sighed and nodded and said, “Yeah. Yeah. Go! Do it!”

To the tune of the orchestra playing “Enjoy Yourself (It’s Later Than You Think),” I made my way down a few booths, and found Sinatra’s nemesis.

Small, well-groomed, in his early fifties, Lee Mortimer had gray hair, a gray complexion and a gray suit; his tie was gray, too…but also red, striped. His eyes were tiny and hard-looking and his nose was large and soft-looking; his chin was pointed and his lips full and sensual. Seated in the booth beside him was a good-looking green-eyed brunette in a green satin low-cut gown; she was twenty-five and I recognized her from local TV commercials and print ads, a busty, raving beauty. Sinatra had spread the word that Mortimer was a “fag” and the reporter was overcompensating.

Mortimer was smoking—using a cigarette holder (maybe he wasn’t compensating enough)—and his hooded eyes opened slightly as he smiled in recognition.

“Nate Heller,” he said. “The man who doesn’t return my calls.”

“Can I join you, Lee?”

“Please. Please…. Linda, this is Nate Heller.”

She offered her white-gloved hand. “I recognize him…. Mr. Heller, you make the papers now and then.”

“So do you—Miss Robbins, isn’t it?”

She was pleased I knew her name, and she seemed genuinely impressed with a local celebrity like me. Shallow girl. I filed her away for future reference.

Mortimer was born and raised in Chicago, but he left in the twenties for New York, where he’d become a gossip columnist at the
Mirror.
I had ducked him when he was in town researching his
Chicago Confidential
book, and I’d been ducking him lately, too.

“What can I do for you, Nate? Not that I owe you any favors, rude as you’ve been.”

“You want me to be one of your sources, Lee…but I have a relationship with another columnist, and besides, you have Bill Drury in your pocket.”

The mention of “another columnist” perked him up. “Are you and Drew Pearson friendly again? I heard you were on the outs.”

“We patched it up. He paid his back bills, gave me a new retainer, and I forgave him his sins.”

“Chicago-style penance.”

A waitress brought Mortimer and the brunette a martini and Manhattan, respectively; I’d brought my rum and Coke along for the trip.

“You know, Lee, I just might give you an interview, at that.”

His hooded eyes seemed languid, but they didn’t miss a thing. “Really? Including information that I can’t get from your associate?”

“If by my ‘associate,’ you mean Bill Drury, he doesn’t work for me anymore.”

He plucked the martini’s toothpick from the drink and ate the olive. “I heard you met with Halley and Robinson today.”

“Am I supposed to be surprised you know that, Lee? It’s not ‘confidential’ that you and Kefauver are thick as thieves.”

He sipped the martini. “We aren’t anymore.”

“Why not?”

A sneer twisted the sensual mouth. “That son of a bitch Halley has come between us.”

“How so?”

“Chief Counsel Halley advised Kefauver against hiring me as an official investigator for the committee—me, whose book, whose original research, only inspired the goddamn inquiry!”

Mortimer’s desire to work for the committee in an official capacity was, of course, laughable: Kefauver could hardly hire a member of the press.

But I humored him. “What a crock…. I understand Halley didn’t want Drury or O’Conner hired, either—not officially, anyway.”

“Right! And those two know more firsthand about the Chicago underworld than almost anyone alive—and Halley says they’re not viable because they were ‘fired’ from the force—fired!

Rooked off the crookedest department in the country, because they were honest, fearless—”

“You’re right. Doesn’t make sense.”

He blew a smoke ring and sent me a sly look. “It does if you realize Rudolph Halley is as dirty as Tubbo Gilbert.”

I grunted a laugh. “That’s a tough one to buy.”

“Listen—Halley’s law firm represents a railroad that the New York Syndicate boys hold scads of stock in. And I spotted the bastard at the El Morocco, cozying up to movie company executives—who are his firm’s clients, now. You don’t see Kefauver going after the
Hollywood
connection, do you?”

“No. Of course you know, I’m close to Frank.”

His upper lip curled in contempt. “Frankie boy? I know you are. You should have better taste.”

I swirled my drink, idly. “I’ve gotten friendly with Joey Fischetti, too. Maybe I can find out something about Halley and his Hollywood connivings for you.”

His eyes and brow tightened. “You’d do that?”

“Sure. We can talk about it later. Only, right now you have to do
me
a favor.”

“What’s that?”

“Leave.”

“What?”

“Lee, you and I both know you’re here just to rankle Sinatra, to get under that thin Italian skin of his.”

Mortimer’s sneer turned into a sort of smile as he puffed on the cigarette-in-holder. “I paid the cover charge. My pretty friend and I have a right to be entertained.”

“You leave, and maybe we’ll do business. Otherwise forget it.”

Mortimer thought about it. “All right. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

“Fine. Call me at my office…. Pleasure, Miss Robbins.”

The brunette smiled and said, “Pleasure, Mr. Heller.”

I slipped out of the booth as Mortimer was paging a waiter to get his check. Then, nodding to Joey (sitting in the booth quietly with Jackie, who appeared calm), I headed backstage, where a couple of thugs who were Sinatra’s current retinue recognized me and showed me into the great man’s spacious dressing room. In addition to the usual makeup mirror, there was a couch and several comfy-looking chairs, as well as a liquor cart and a console radio.