Funnymen (81 page)

There was a small band. A drummer, a bassist, a pianist, a trumpeter and a saxophonist, and a guitarist.

The boat was going to pull into Florida the next morning, and after the show I was walking around, keeping an eye on everything. We were on the top deck . . . I saw Reina wheel Vic out. It was drizzling out and very windy and there was nobody else outside. All I could make out were a half-moon and shadows. She put the brake on the chair. I heard Vic trying to say something, something like, “Please . . . don't . . . please . . . oh, God . . .”

A few seconds later I heard steps coming up the stairs and another shadow appeared with Reina. It was a tall man, tall and round. The two of them whispered to each other, I couldn't hear a thing. The man was carrying something. It was—I didn't make it out at the time but it all came out in the investigation afterward—a trumpet case. He opened it and pulled out a pearl-handled gun.

I had to do something. I had to. This was it. But it was a gun! When Guy had called me from Los Angeles and told me to take this celebrity cruise and keep an eye on Vic, I had no idea it was going to be like this! You have to remember: I'm a klutz. I can barely tie my own shoes or balance a checkbook or do anything!

I started to step toward them, toward their shadows. I heard her say, “Don't use a gun! We'll use this.” And she took her belt off. They were going to strangle him and throw him overboard. But Floyd Lomax, who I recognized as the trumpeter in the band I'd seen an hour before, said, “I wanna use the gun. This is unfinished business.”

I was about ten feet away. I wasn't thinking . . . I was just scared. I said, “Freeze! Don't move.”

Floyd Lomax said, “Fuck off.”

Reina wrapped the belt around Vic's neck and I heard Floyd cock the gun. He was aiming it at me.

From out of nowhere, from out of the drizzle and the darkness and the wind, I saw another shadow . . . Floyd Lomax turned to it and the shadow kicked him in the crotch. I ran up to Vic's wheelchair and pulled Reina and her belt off of Vic. I heard Vic wheezing, gasping. I wrestled Reina to the ground, right near where Lomax was doubled over with the pain from the kick.

I was out of breath. Vic was okay. I think I was more out of breath than he was.

“Vic, it's me, Freddy. Freddy Bliss.”

“Ziggy's boy?”

“Yeah. Him.”

“Freddy!” he said feebly. A tear was in his eye. “Freddy . . .”

He smiled and reached for my wrist and gave it a squeeze.

In the small red
EXIT
light on the wall near us, I could make out the face
of the man who had kicked Floyd Lomax. It was the same old guy who'd stopped Vic's chair from rolling a few days before.

“Who are you?” this man asked me.

“My name's Freddy Bliss.”

“Ziggy Bliss's son?” he said. “I knew your father. Years ago.”

“What's your name?”

“Your father and Vic,” he told me, “used to call me Cat.”

GUY PUGLIA:
Freddy Bliss sure come through all right, didn't he? He come to Los Angeles a few weeks afterwards and the old gang showed him the best time he ever had. Reina and Lomax were in jail, and Vicki and Joe Yung and Ices Andy was taking care of Vic again. That Reynolds Catledge was a big hero too, he was all over the papers. I think it's the first time the guy ever cracked a smile in his life, and it must have lasted a whole week.

A few months after the cruise, me and Little Guy are in the shack. It's about six at night and the sun is setting. Little Guy, he always has the radio on, and him and me, we argue about the music. He listens to the rock 'n' roll thing and me, I like the oldies. So we were doing that and he was steamin' some clams and out our little window I see a van drive up. It comes to a stop and Joe Yung and Andy Ravelli get out. “Hey, Ices Andy!” I yell out, and the two of 'em look at me. Joe Yung opens up the rear door and meanwhile Ices Andy is helping Vic Fountain out of his seat. Joe pulls out the wheelchair and Ices Andy lifts Vic up and they put him in it, real delicate-like.

They wheel Vic up to the shack. Little Guy's mouth is dropped open, he can't believe it any more than me.

I hadn't seen Vic in a while, a really long while. And he didn't look too good.

“Hey,
paisan,
” I said.

“Goomba
Guy,” he says to me very weakly.
“Goomba
Guy.”

I put my hand on his shoulder and he put his hand on my hand. His hand was trembling and I started to tremble too. I clutched his hand with mine, I gave it a tight squeeze.

He nodded his head . . . he was lookin' at something. I turned around. He was looking at the swordfish on the outside of the shack. I saw half of his face smile. His hand and my hands were still clutching.

“That old fish,” he said. I could hardly hear him, I had to lean in real close.

“Hey, Gramps,” Little Guy said, and he kissed his granddad's forehead and Vic smiled again, as much as he could.

“What'll it be, Vic?” I said. I could hardly talk, the lump in my throat was so big.

Vic said something but I couldn't hear it. I says to him, “Can you say that again?” I leaned in real close so's I could hear him.

“A bucket of steamers,” he whispered, “and a lobster roll, please.”

He could barely eke it out.

Three minutes later, Joe Yung was opening a steamer for him and dipping it in the butter, and Ices Andy was putting it in his mouth. They were sliding down his throat like liquid pearls. Vic nodded. Little Guy put the tip of the lobster roll in his mouth and Vic chewed on it. We watched him. Vic widened his eyes and we could tell he wanted another bite. Hell, he wanted the whole goddamn thing! “This is marvelous,” he whispered to me slowly.

They wheeled him up to the beach. Little Guy got a blanket from the van and wrapped it around his
nonno
's shoulders. He was still eatin' that lobster roll.

He looked out at the beach. There were boys and girls, men and women, walkin' around, running around, in their bathing suits. Some kids were playing volleyball. The waves were big, big and very blue and gray, and they made that thunder sound when they smacked down, and it was the biggest reddest sunset you ever seen in your life. Vic looked out at the ocean and at that red sun settin' and he shook his head and said again, “This is just marvelous.”

When they put him back in the van I said to him, “You be sure and come here again.”

But that was the last time I ever seen my best friend. Five days later he was dead.

ARNIE LATCHKEY:
Vic's funeral was just as he would've wanted it, with more than just a touch of the opulent about it. Garish might even be the word. But Vic would've loved it, he would've eaten it up. Ernie Beasley even said at the memorial, “Vic said to me, ‘Make sure it's a blast, baby.'” They sent out invites to every single celebrity who ever was and most of 'em turned out. Vic, Shep Lane's kids told me, had wanted to be buried at the Pebble Beach golf course but they wouldn't allow that up there, those
momzers.
So Vic's buried next to Vince and his mother, at Forest Lawn, three generations of Fontanas all in a row. Vic's stone is made of Iranian turquoise, and once a week for the next thousand years, they'll polish it. The man took care of everything.

On the stone it says il ragazzo con i capelli blu come la notte.

Hunny Gannett was flown in from his hospital in Vegas. Guy and Edie wheeled him up to the tombstone and Hunny let drop a red rose.

Vic was paying all of Hun's hospital bills, it turned out. Danny said to me that Hunny will probably outlive all of us—he just won't realize it.

Lulu stood with Sally. Sally had her arm around her. Did you know that
in the last three days of Vic's life, he'd moved back in with Lu? It's true. The woman finally got her wish, and he died in her arms.

Some wiseass in the press said that Vic had died as he sang: in his sleep. I gotta admit: It's a great line. But Vic Fountain wrung more out of one second of life, asleep or awake, than most people do in twenty years. It's just that, I admit it, sometimes he wrung it the wrong way.

He got about two minutes on the newscast the night he died. They played his records, his hits, for a few seconds. They showed him when he was a kid, they had a picture of him with that barbershop quartet trio he was in, then with the Don Leslie band; they showed clips from all the lousy movies.

“He was so gorgeous,” Estelle said to me.

Yeah. He sure was.

A few days after Vic was buried, his sister and his brother were going through the mansion in Beverly Hills. Vicki was there, so was Joe Yung. They came to the cellar door and couldn't open it. “Where's the key?” Cathy asked, and Joe Yung went to the liquor cabinet and found it. He tells them he's never been down there either. Joe opens the door and they walk down these steps, it's like a goddamn horror movie, boy, they don't know what or who's down there.

Joe Yung feels for a light switch and finds one and flicks it. One by one, lights go on. Their eyes were almost blinded by the glowing silver and white. There wasn't one speck of dust, and everything—the red leather stools, the long shiny counter, the tiles—was perfect and in its place and the chrome was radiant.

“Oh, my God,” Cathy gasped. She and her brother Ray couldn't believe their eyes.

“It was a soda fountain,” Cathy told me. “A soda fountain right out of the 1930s. It was an exact copy of the one he used to work at. Jiggs Cudahy's place.”

When Vic died, my phone rang off the hook for a few days. Every vulture and jackal and termite wanted to know about Vic, about Ziggy, about Fountain and Bliss; they're asking me this question and that question. How'd they meet? When was it? Did they ever get along? What made them click? I realized, after the ten thousandth question, Hey, I don't even have to answer this stuff anymore. What the hell? So I didn't.

However, this one reporter asked me one particular question. And it was something that hadn't ever occurred to me, which is rare, because a lot occurs to Arnold Latchkey, which is maybe my problem.

He said, “A lot of entertainers are not very happy people. They're insecure and lonely, they're often miserable.”

“I'm well aware of it,” I said.

“A lot of comedians aren't very happy. Or funny.”

“I'm quite, quite familiar with it.”

And he asked me if I thought that Ziggy and Vic were funny—that
anyone
at all is funny—because of the pain. Because of some searing pain deep inside. Do people become funny because of some inner agony, some gnawing emptiness or torment?

I said to him, “Who do I look like to you? Henri Bergson? Sigmund Freud you think I am? I'm just a goddamn business manager!”

After I hung up on the guy, I started thinking about it. Was it so? Is that what makes people funny? I've known a lot of funny people who weren't ever in any kind of agony, who weren't ever miserable or lonely, and I've known lots of unfunny people, believe me, who were.

So the answer to this $64 question is this: No, being miserable and knowing pain, torment, loneliness, and emptiness does
not
make you funny. It doesn't.

But, you know, it probably helps.

Enzo Aquilino
—voice teacher

Barney Arundel
—nightclub owner

Ginger Bacon
—dancer, Vic's mistress

Harry/Harriet Bacon
—musician

“Big” Sid Baer
—Rosie McCoy's husband, a hotelier

Dr. Howard Baer
—gynecologist

Rosie McCoy Baer
—hoofer, entertainment director, and wife of “Big” Sid Baer

Ernie Beasley
—songwriter, friend of Vic's

Billy and Mary Beaumont
—dancing partners

Hugh Berridge
—member, with Teddy Duncan, Rowland Toomey, and Vic Fountain, of the Three Fours

Louis Bingham
—bandleader, radio host

Bobby Bishop
—record executive

Freddy Bliss
—Ziggy's son

Harry and Florence Blissman
—Ziggy's parents, entertainers

Ziggy Bliss, born Sigmund Blissman
—entertainer

Mike Boley
—guitarist

Thalia Boneem
—Floyd Lomax's girlfriend

Clive Bonteen
—playwright, existentialist

Pernilla Borg
—Ziggy's second wife

Archibald Bratton
—president of Bratton Theater Ventures

Buzzy Brevetto
—comedian

Kid Burcham
—boxer

Betsy Cantwell
—actress, Danny McGlue's wife

Reynolds Catledge IV
—soldier, employee of Vigorish, Inc.

Charlotte Charlot
—chanteuse, Nazi

Maeve Clarity
—Jack Enright's secretary

Father Claro
—a Codport priest

Mickey Cohen
—mobster

Harry Cohn
—movie mogul

George S. Collier
—director

Pete Conifer
—entertainment director, entrepreneur

Wanda Conifer
—Pete Conifer's widow

Artie Conway
—TV producer

Mandy Crane
—actress

Angie Crosetti
—childhood friend of Vic's

Jiggs Cudahy
—Vic's boss, owner of a soda fountain and pharmacy

Betsy Cunningham
—General Woodling's mistress

Pops Deegan
—trainer

Fritz Devane
—singer, actor, legend

Roger Dillard
—trumpeter

Debbie Dubin
—Snuffy Dubin's wife

Snuffy Dubin
—comedian

Teddy Duncan
—member of The Three Threes

Jack Enright
—agent

Dick Fain
—vocalist

Ferdinand the Fantastiq
—magician

Enrico Fermi
—physicist

Tony Ferro
—Vic's friend

Hilda Fleury
—columnist

Ursula Fischer
—physicist

Bruno and Violetta Fontana
—Vic's parents

Ray Fontana
—Vic's brother

Sal Fontana
—Vic's brother

Louise “Lulu” Mangiapane Fountain
—Vic's first wife

Vic Fountain, born Vittorio Fontana
—entertainer

Vicki Fountain
—Vic's daughter

Vincent Fountain
—Vic's son

Tommy and Jimmy Fratelli
—mobsters

Tony Friedman
—Lenny Pearl's producer

Hunny Gannett
—pugilist, raconteur, saloon keeper, greeter

Morty Geist
—publicist

Joe Gersh
—agent at MCA

Clarence L. “Ned” Gilbert
—director

Hal Gordon
—record producer

Ezra Gorman
—movie producer

Grayling Greene
—columnist

Seymour Greenstein
—childhood friend of Ziggy's

Pip Grundy
—polydactyl guitarist

Bobby Hale
—columnist

Tony Hampton
—golfer

Vern Hapgood
—musical arranger

Reina Harbin
—Vic's third wife

Bud Hatch
—columnist

Jean Hatch
—Bud Hatch's wife, also known as “SL”

Bernie Heine
—Catskills hotelier

Cody Lee Jarrett
—musician

Timothy Jones
—FBI agent

Bertie Kahn
—publicist

Gus Kahn
—movie mogul

Ed Kapler
—TV director

Murray Katz
—agent at WAT

Faye Kendall
—actress

Donny Klein
—Sally and Jack's son

Jack Klein
—real-estate lawyer, Sally Klein's husband

Sally Klein
—Ziggy Bliss's cousin, co-manager of Fountain and Bliss

Mickey Knott
—drummer

Shep Lane
—accountant, Fountain and Bliss's money manger

Veda Lankford
—actress

Arnie Latchkey
—co-manager of Fountain and Bliss

Estelle Latchkey
—Arnie Latchkey's secretary and wife

Howard Leeds
—production chief

Don Leslie
—bandleader

Anna Lipscombe
—actress, Clive Bonteen's wife

Floyd Lomax
—bandleader

Lou Manganese
—Al Pompiere's son-in-law

Dominick Mangiapane
—Lulu's older brother

Julie Mansell
—singer

Louis B. Mayer
—movie mogul

Taffy McBain
—actress, Vic's second wife

Ed J. McDowell
—journalist

Danny McGlue
—joke writer

Stevie McGlue
—Danny and Betsy's son

Marty Miller
—radio and TV producer

Jerome Milton
—Harry and Flo Blissman's agent

Larry and Stu Morrell
—musicians

“Myrna”
—stripper

Cecil Newcombe
—radio host

Tony Newport
—golfer

Barbara Nordquist
—actress, stripper

Casper Nuñez
—private detective

The O'Hares
—vaudevillians

J. Robert Oppenheimer
—physicist

Lenny Pearl
—comedian, fellow trouper with Harry and Florence

Westbrook Pegler
—columnist

Dolly Phipps
—Ziggy's girlfriend, comedienne

Joan Pierce
—neighbor of Ziggy and Jane White

Al Pompiere
—mob boss

Jimmy Powell
—nightclub employee

Gino Puccio
—hotel employee, Guy Puglia's cousin

Kathy Puccio
—his wife

Theresa and Paul Puccio
—their children

Gaetano “Guy” Puglia
—Vic's best friend, restaurateur

Billy Quinn
—Lenny Pearl's radio announcer

Ices Andy Ravelli
—bodyguard

Joe Ravelli
—ices salesman, grandfather of Ices Andy

Carmine Ricci
—Cathy Ricci's husband

Catherine Ricci
—Vic's sister

Scarlet Robideaux
—Ferdinand the Fantastiq's assistant

Billy Ross
—bandleader for Fountain and Bliss

Millie Roth
—secretary at Vigorish, Inc.

Barry and Manny Singer
—writers

Edmund Sligh
—radio actor, producer, director, and writer

Baldwyn Sloate
—FBI agent

Edie Smith
—Guy Puglia's wife

Hank Stanco
—agent at WAT

Sid Stone
—writer

Rocco Straccio
—hoodlum

Emmett Strang
—movie director

Clotilde Sturdivandt
—couthier

Gershon Susskind
—rabbi to the stars

Cueball Swenson
—musician

Merwyn Swick
—lawyer

“Steady” Eddie Teller
—physicist, putative pugilist

John Timmons
—orderly

Rowland Toomey
—member of the Three Threes

Constance Tuttle
—actress, lover of Vic

The Macy Twins
—songstresses

Bubbles Van Boven
—waitress

Joseph Weissblau
—Jane White's father

Grace Wheelwright
—Constance Tuttle's roommate

J
ane White
—Ziggy's first wife

Norman White
—writer

Ruth Whitley
—vocalist

Billy Wilson
—Vic Fountain's double

Earl Wilson
—columnist

Walter Winchell
—columnist

General Emmett Woodling
—U.S. Army general

Lucinda Woodling, née Hodge
—his wife

Joe Yung
—Vic's valet