Someone handed me my drink. I threw half of it back in one swallow. “Yeah. That and a few others. You have a remarkable memory, buddy. That’s better than twenty years ago.”
He smiled in false modesty, his pink skin crinkling in fleshy folds around his eyes. “One has to in my line of work, Mr. Buonomo.”
I girded myself for his answer. “Which is . . . ?”
“Oh, I write a society column for the Tribune, like Mr. Kupcinet does for the Sun-Times. Mr. Sinatra always makes for great press—and to have him here with a local war hero—well, that’s just dandy. Might we get a photo?”
I finished my drink, saw my heart lying there at the bottom of the glass next to the cherry. “Damn,” I said.
“Come again?”
“Sorry, uh . . . Sy, right?”
Nodding smartly, he said, “Yes, that’s right,” then proffered his business card.
I took it, read it aloud. “Sy Huser. Your eye on Society. Chicago Tribune, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.”
“The H is silent.”
I refocused on him. “Come again?”
“It’s pronounced Yoo-ser—no H,” he said without even a wisp of irony. He made the soft, dimply twinkle again.
“Is that right?” I couldn’t help but grin a little. “Sorry, Sy, no photos today. Mr. Sinatra’s your story here anyhow.”
I signaled to Frank, stepped back.
“But—”
“Please.” I turned, waved a hand over my head. “Hey, Frank, come finish your story for the boys here, huh? They’re on deadline.”
A waiter came wending through the crowd with a plate of rumaki, another behind him with caviar and crackers. I took a sniff, then passed on both and excused myself.
I marched over to Jilly, gave him the look, jammed my empty glass into his chest. He fumbled with it, spilling whiskey on his suit coat. “Sorry, Joe, I didn’t mean no harm.”
“Neither did Frankenstein. I’m gonna grab a hot dog. See you guys out front in thirty.”
“Okay, Joe.” The sheepish grimace on his face was almost comical enough to make me laugh. But not quite.
Two men held doors for me as I stepped out of the Ambassador in my tux, heading south toward Skinny’s Red Hots to get the bad taste out of my mouth and some real Chicago food into it.
I wasn’t that pissed at Jilly even though he should’ve known better. The truth of it was it really wasn’t that big of a deal—but it wasn’t a good omen. My own family didn’t even know I was in town, and publicity was one thing I never looked for.
I’d come home on a whim to help a good friend out then get back out of town before anyone knew I was there. Now there was no telling how many people this Huser character was going to blab to, with all the ensuing baggage that entailed. Revisiting old comments like “Whatever happened to Joe Buonomo? I heard he wasn’t right after the war” ranked just below “Turn your head and cough” on my itinerary. Butting heads with the Outfit ranked even lower, but that box had already been checked, too.
Right about then, I started to get that feeling that it wasn’t going to be all wine and roses for me that weekend after all.
6
The walk did me good. I went down Dearborn, burned a smoke on the way. Man, they had some houses up in that part of town, but everybody seemed to be hiding behind heavy curtains, and nobody—nobody—was hanging out on those big front porches. Granted it was November and fifty-four degrees, but front porches were made for hanging out on; that’s what we all did back on Taylor Street.
That got me to thinking about my old neighborhood for the first time. I quickly concluded I wasn’t ready for all that just yet and shunted the thought back to the crawl space of my brain. Better to limit my concerns to hot dogs and looking out for Frank than to delve into my old demons, I told myself. It wasn’t one of my more courageous decisions.
Skinny’s was right where I’d last seen it, hadn’t changed hardly a bit. The price for a dog and fries had gone up to almost half a buck, but it was still a bargain. I gave the counterman a nod, said, “Dog with everything, no onions.”
“Dat’s not everything den,” he replied, the Chicago thick over his native Mediterranean tongue.
I wrinkled my lip, turned up my palms. “Right you are, pal.”
He looked down at me from his booth. His fortyish face was nice but a little tired, his black hair well streaked. “So ya want it or what?”
“Huh?”
“Da dog . . . Ya want it or what?”
“Yeah, I want it. I just ordered it, didn’t I?” I said, tilting my head as I sized him up.
“Just checkin’, sounds like maybe you not so sure. French fryze?”
“Uh . . .”
“Dere’s onion rings, too.”
“Which is better?”
He shrugged. “Depends on you taste buds, bud.”
“Gimme the rings.”
“We’re all out.”
Now he got the full crooked stare. “You don’t serve Italians or something?” I asked, my voice rising.
“Nah, you Eye-ties are okay; I even serve da mavros. Where ya think ya are, fella, Birmingham or somet’in? Wake up, it’s nineteen-a-sixty-tree.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at his audacity. “Oh, that’s rich coming from a Greek. So what gives with the onion rings then, chum?”
“It’s Marco, okay? I just remembered I was out, all right? And who says I’ma Greek anyway?”
I was smirking now. “Your face, your accent, your occupation—your attitude. If you ain’t Greek, mister, neither was Diogenes.”
“Is dis Diogenes gonna come here and hassle me too?”
“Marco,” I said in exasperation, “you’re kind of a hard case, you know that?”
He leaned forward on his meaty knuckles, lowered his head beneath the glass, issued a growl that came from somewhere beneath Lower Wacker. “Guy wears a tuxedo to a hot dog joint and he wants to bust my balls?”
His sneer said he was ready to drop the apron, but then he relented, suddenly pressing his hands to his forehead. “Sorry, pal, forgive me. I’m havin’ hard times here. My fishin’ business went bust and the ol’ lady left me. Took everythin’ I had left to buy dis crummy dog joint with my brother Nick. Me serving sah-siggiz like some kinda malaka. Me—Marco Kabreros—I no canna believe it.”
He choked up right at the end. Somewhere I felt a crocodile tear welling up inside.
“What happened to Skinny anyway?” I asked.
“Skinny got fat, had a grabber.” He clapped his hands together, flourishing his eulogy with an, “Ohhhh!”
The tear receded.
“That’s tough,” I said, frowning.
“We all got it tough. Here’s your dog, buddy. Forty cents.”
“Thanks, Marco.”
I took the dog and grabbed a stool along the rail, chuckling over the encounter. The guy really was a hard case, but there was something likable about him beneath all the bluster. Just another palooka trying to make it in the big town, taking his lumps but answering the bell for the next round. Greeks, Negroes, Irish, Jews, Poles, paesanos: They were good people in Chicago—wore their hearts right out there on their workshirts. I missed ’em. Missed their grit, their honesty.
I wolfed the dog down, lingering on the fiery taste of the sport peppers and the tangy accent of the celery salt. You can’t get stuff like that in L.A. Out there, donuts and chiliburgers are the daily eats. It’s tragic.
I started to walk away, stopped, signaled to Marco. He looked out. “Yeah?”
“That’s a good dog, Marco. Top shelf—better than Skinny made.”
He nodded once. “Damn right. T’anks. Enjoy your show, fella. Dat new Chez Paree is openin’ tonight. You goin’ to catch Vic Damone down there?”
“Uh-uh,” I said mischievously, “Frank Si
natra.”
“Who you kiddin’, vre ? He ain’t in town tonight.”
I threw my hands up. “Okay, he’s not. Be seeing you, Marco.”
He waved me off, muttering as he turned back to his smoking grill while I walked away with a smile on my mug.
I was back at the hotel by 6:25. Frank was out front, signing autographs and posing for pics, a dark blue limo idling nearby. As I walked up to it, a smoked glass window slid down in the front, Jilly’s kisser appearing from the darkness. He motioned me to the back. I opened the suicide door and slid in. Our eyes met in the rearview mirror.
“Sorry, Jill.”
“Forget it. That was dumb of me.”
“Yeah, but I overreacted.” I reached forward, patted his arm.
Frank got in, closed his door, looked around. “What—you didn’t bring us anything?”
“You didn’t eat in there?”
“Frank Sinatra does not eat fish eggs. Christ, I’m starving, too. It’s your fault, Joe; you hadn’t a gone all sissy on us, we coulda landed at Meigs and eaten a proper meal at Tufano’s—ohh, that eggplant parm’ they got!”
“Jill,” I said, “turn right on Astor, then right on Division.”
“What for?”
“So I can get you guys a Chicago dog. Best in the world—better than those horseshit ones you guys eat in New York, for sure.”
They both started to raise a ruckus. “Don’t squawk, you know they’re better. And we’ll be in and out in two minutes. Besides there’s a guy there I’d like you to meet, Frank. He could use a pick-me-up.”
Frank Sinatra had endured many insults over the years, but skinflint was not one of them. Through gratuitous use of gratuities, he’d earned a reputation across the globe as a big tipper, maybe the biggest. I guessed he’d take to Marco and chew the fat with him a little, then leave him some more fat in the way of a juicy tip.
He did just that, pressing a C-note into the hard-luck fisherman’s hand as they shook good-bye.
Then we were off for the performance hall. I glanced back through the rear window as we pulled away, spied Marco leaning in the doorway underneath the neon sign, big bill in his paw and a touched-by-an-angel look on his slack-jawed face.
7
The Villa Venice was a great big, cheesy dago joint with columns, Roman statues, and even gondolas that carried guests along a canal through the lobby. Far from downtown Chicago, it had spent many years in slow decline until Sam Giancana had bought it and pumped a few fistfuls of fast cash into it. Frank, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis had played the backwater club’s grand reopening the year before, making a huge splash in Chicago with their weeklong engagement. There had been much speculation in the press about why the “Chairman of the Board” and his drinking buddies would play such an out-of-the-way venue, quite possibly for free, but Frank’s explanation on the ride in had pulled the curtain all the way back for me.
We slipped in the back way when we arrived so no one would get wise about Frank’s surprise show. Sam Giancana had sent a bottle of champagne to Frank’s dressing room in advance. Jilly popped the cork and poured, then handed us both glasses as he grabbed one of his own.
“Sure you want to drink that?” I asked Frank as he raised his glass.
He stopped short, eyeballed me over the rim, gave it a little thought. “Ahh,” he concluded, “it’s all right. I’ve been too jumpy. Drink up.”
We clinked the glasses together, drank the bubbly. It was rich, clean, and dry. “Ohh,” I said, “that’s good stuff. What is it?”
Jilly snatched up the bottle, read aloud. “Voo-vee Click-qwat. 1953.”
“That’s Momo,” Frank said. “He always gets me a good bottle from ’53—’cuz that’s the year I won my Oscar for From Here to Eternity. See, Joe, these Outfit guys aren’t so bad.”
“Sure, sure,” I smiled. “Like the guys in Havana, right? Good eggs to the core.”
He stared back at me, chastened, his slow nod acknowledging the unsaid: that without my intervention during an attempted hit that same year, he never would’ve won his Best Supporting Actor award—not unless it was for playing a corpse.
We killed another thirty minutes in the dressing room. Frank loosened up his voice, however that’s done, and Jilly loosened up his brain with the rest of the Veuve Clicquot. I took it light so I could keep a watchful eye on things.
A couple of message boys dropped in at different times, checking on Frank’s needs and informing him his rehearsal would begin after the first act began so the noise would not give him away. Frank asked one of them to summon Miss Claudia so he could say hello. The messenger returned three minutes later and reported that the lady was too busy preparing for her show to come out, but that she sent her thanks for the large bouquet of flowers. She also said she looked forward to meeting Mr. Sinatra again after his performance.
“I’ll be damned,” Frank said. “Can you beat that?”
“I like her already,” I chimed in. “Any gal self-assured enough to tell Frank Sinatra to hold the phone is okay by me. What gives with this Miss Claudia anyway—you sure she isn’t your new flame?”
“Flame, yes. Mine, no. I’m too busy anymore for that stuff. Vegas, movies, recording studios . . . I hire my girlfriends these days,” he said with a wink.
“You should be less busy.”
“Nah, it works for me. Besides, I think maybe Claudia is your type.”
“My type?”
“Yeah, beautiful—but a little sad. Like she’s got a secret or something. C’mon. You’ll see.”
“No no no—leave the lady be. You heard the kid, she goes on in a few minutes.”
“Ahhh,” he said, waving me off.
I stepped in front of the door, put my hands on my hips. “You. Sit. If she’s all that great, I want my first impression to be a good one.”
Frank shook his head at me contemptuously. “Okay, you win. Let some small-timer tell Frank Sinatra what’s what. Thanks . . . pal.”
He grabbed a chair, futzed around for about five minutes with various objects on the dressing table, grumbling about respect. I walked away to shake the empty champagne bottle. Frank jumped up abruptly and made for the door.
“Like hell that gal’s gonna make us wait; I set her up for this gig.”
He was ten steps ahead of me by the time I hit the hallway. “Slow down, Frank,” I whispered. “Get back here—you’ll blow my chance.”
“I’m gonna blow this brassy broad’s ear out is what I’m gonna do,” he replied, rapping loudly several times on her door. I arrived just as it flew open.
And there she stood, cross-armed in the doorway, oozing carnality in a green silk robe, a screw-you smile blooming beneath impossibly large almond-shaped eyes. The rest was a blur of swirling dark tresses, Alpine curves, lips lush as mascarpone.
She had it. All of it. Even the little bump in her nose was adorable.
“Claudia Cucciabella,” Frank said, leaning in to kiss her, “buona sera, signorina!”
She gave him just that much, holding perfectly still while he planted one on each cheek, her eyes burning holes middle-high-nowhere above his shoulder. She was hotter than Rome in August, but she kept it simmering just beneath the surface.
“Per favore, Francesco,” she began, her Neapolitan accent rising and swooping like a flock of starlings, “I am ’appy to see you, amore, but I must finish my preparations and get dressed.” She brought her hands together in prayer, shook them gently. “Ti prego, ragazzo.”
It was world-class work. Frank bought every piece, his wrath cooling away but quick. “Come on, bella bambina, just say hi to my pal Joey here. He’s a very close friend. I’ve been wanting you to meet him.”
She frowned at him, gave me an eye roll, held out her arm, hand extended down at the end. “Ciao, Giuseppe. Un piacere.”
The words we
re fresh out of the icebox. I was half surprised they didn’t stick to her tongue.
“Nice to meet you, too, signorina,” I said in the native tongue, hoping it might ingratiate me with her. It went over like garlic gum—there were nuns who’d given me more play.
She stepped back, closed the door halfway. “Okay, Frank, I see you boys later, wish me luck. Ciao, bello.”
She held that last note an impossibly long second, the way only they can. It was still hanging in the air as the door clicked shut.
Frank and I made mean faces at each other back in his dressing room until he left for his warm-up. I was pissed that he’d botched my intro to Claudia, and he was pissed that I was pissed. On his way out he asked, “You gonna stick around for my show or keep sulking in here?”
I put my fist in my mouth, bit a knuckle. He stuck his tongue out in response.
That made me smile ever so much. “Yeah, okay, I’ll watch you out there—that’s what I’m here for, right? Now get the hell outta here. Break a leg, an arm, whatever.”
Jilly went out. Frank followed, stopped in the doorway. “Claudia’s going on in five, the boys have you set up good in front. Give her a shot, she’ll come around.”
“I dunno, I think my hand’s still freezer burned where she touched me.”
“Just do it. You were right, I shouldn’t have bothered her. Happy?”
“No. But thanks.”
He slipped through the door.
“Hey . . .” I called out.
Half his face peeped back through the opening. “Yeah?”
“Everything else okay?”
“Yeah. I feel a lot better just having you here. We’ll have some fun tonight after the show—like old times.”
“That’d be nice.”
“Yeah.” He went out and closed the door, whistling brightly as he walked away down the hall.
8
People were still filing in as I took my seat at a front table. I ordered a bourbon and water and leaned back, scoping the room. The place was maybe half full but filling pretty quick. I thought I saw a mobbed-up guy or two, but no one I knew by name.
My Kind of Town Page 3
