by Jim Fusilli
“I don’t envy you, Nino.”
Terrasini nodded. He’d already put away the sleeping pills and stashed the straight razor. “Do me a favor,” he said. “Call Rosa and tell her I’ll be with Bill. I’ll be in touch as soon as I can.”
“Of course,” Klein said as he completed his notes. “I’ll drive out. She shouldn’t be alone.”
A bellman rapped on the door and Terrasini crossed the suite, the long telephone wire snaking behind him.
He took the slip of paper. Two phone numbers, the second one Minton’s. Terrasini could see it: He’s surrounded by musicians, nobody gives a shit he’s Bill Marsala, something sweet’s playing and he’s bought himself a few minutes of peace. I tell him one sentence and everything blows to bits. It’s a toss-up whether he runs headlong into traffic or collapses into a catatonic state.
“He’s up in Harlem,” he said to Klein.
“I’ll have a doctor waiting for you when you return to the hotel.”
As he put down the phone, Terrasini tried to anticipate Bebe’s reaction: Is he lost or is he free? With most people, it’s a little of both. With Bebe, it’s either one or the other.
All or nothing at all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Mimmo waited at the TWA gate, his mind drifting. Then, through his sunglasses, he saw Rosa coming down the rolling steps of the silver bird holding Bill Jr.
Trailing with his briefcase and the baby’s diaper bag, Phil Klein strained for the right tone meeting Mimmo, then offered to retrieve the luggage. The baby went to Grandma, who loved her daughter more than she despised her son-in-law.
“How’s the trip?” Mimmo asked as they walked toward the terminal.
“Bill Jr. slept maybe five hours. He’s an angel.”
Rosa’s mother looked at the baby. He resembled his father.
“Is Bill here?” Rosa asked.
“Bebe’s at Kalm’s,” he replied, mentioning the funeral home. “With Vincenzo, the poor bastard.”
Late-afternoon humidity followed them inside the building and Rosa walked next to her uncle in silence. By the time she saw Klein, who paced as the bags were stacked, she could wait no longer.
“Mimmo,” she said, reaching for his arm. Her mother and Bill Jr. went ahead. “Did she really have a heart attack?”
“Sure,” he said, staring into her eyes. “Why not?”
“But is Bill in trouble?”
Mimmo couldn’t figure what she wanted to hear. “Not yet,” he said.
“Is he drinking?”
Mimmo said no. “You forgive him, don’t you?” he asked. “You’re taking him back.” They continued toward the baggage claim. “Rosa, you got to remember this is hard for him, not being nobody’s beautiful boy no more.” Then Mimmo quoted Anthony Corini. “Maybe he stops showing off and goes back to work. Buckles down.”
“Maybe,” she said. On the flight, she’d spent a lot of time thinking her husband was finally going to have to grow up.
Benno knew Catholics don’t have funerals on Sunday and they didn’t like to have them on Saturdays neither, that being the day for weddings and the last thing the bride wants is the smell of incense as she’s coming down the aisle. So Hennie stayed in cold storage at the funeral home until Monday. Like a festival for some saint, the wake was going to last the entire weekend.
For the first afternoon, the old-timers on Polk Street, mostly women in black who knew Hennie and Vincenzo as kids, paraded uptown to Kalm’s like they were on a pilgrimage. St. Francis sent the eighth grade in their uniforms, ashes to ashes even if your son is world famous. Flower trucks pulled up nonstop. Opening night, the men home from work and their wives got dressed and a line formed. Benno stood across the street, flat of his shoe against a brownstone wall, and he saw coming out a congressman he didn’t see go in and then Joey Aaron, that wacky Jew comedian, and it dawned on him that they were using the back entrance and maybe Frankie, Mimmo and the crew were already in there, listening to bullshit.
Then Bebe and Rosa came out and walked the line, shaking hands, accepting hugs and Mass cards from people who hated Bebe’s bony ass when he was a spoiled-rotten kid and he hadn’t given a thought since. A photographer appeared and Bebe and Rosa posed appropriately miserable and married.
The next day it was worse because Hollywood and Broadway arrived. Boo Chiasso and Fat Tutti were working the line with the Narrows Gate cops, and some guys from the county squad kept the kids across the street. Benno saw that Alan Ladd was four feet tall and not one doll who entered could touch Eleanor Ree, who had the good sense to stay away. Teen girls who never met Bebe were crying as they held up his picture and grownup dames came to show support. Even a bunch of GIs dropped by, saying they seen him with the USO. Klein behind him, Bebe nodded humbly and shook their hands. He introduced them to Rosa.
“Fuck this,” Benno said finally. He went around to Fillmore, intent on walking in where the big shots go. He figured Terrasini would be at the door or some Hollywood mook and he wondered if Leo was going to show, if they got the news in Yale Haven, down the shore or over in Kearny.
Bill Marsala made the cover of the News and the Mirror. “I’ve lost my biggest fan,” he said. Shell-shocked Vincenzo was pictured in his fireman’s outfit, flanked by his son and daughter-in-law.
“Hey, Nino,” Benno said. “OK I come in?”
“Sal, where the fuck you been?” he replied. “We could use you here.”
Terrasini was at the brink of disorientation. Besides keeping an eye on Bebe, he had to worry about the crew. Low-level guys were everywhere, rubbing shoulders with plainclothes cops. A florist brought in a wreath signed Carlo Farcolini. Cy Geller, that Jew who ran Miami, came in without ceremony. Terrasini told Benno he just got done passing off Milton Berle to Klein, plus the songwriters from the Wilshire Towers arrived thinking Kalm’s a good place to meet broads in distress.
“What do you need, Nino?”
“Ask Mimmo if he can lend me Boo or Tutti. I’m going nuts over here.”
“OK, sure. But first, seeing as I was the last one to talk to Hennie—”
A voice from down the hall said, “Let him in.”
By the water cooler, looking splendid in black silk, a white shirt and a cobalt blue tie, stood Frankie Fortune. To Benno’s surprise, Fortune shook his hand, clapped him on the back and led him to some kind of office, its accordion door pulled shut. Yanking it back, he let Benno enter.
And there on the sofa was Anthony Corini. He looked up, his expression calm and to Benno, even vigilant and wise. He stared right at Benno, his sleepy eyes wide. Mimmo was in the room, too, and the wise old man Geller, sitting. But Benno didn’t see them. Corini seemed more formidable than he did in the newspapers, out with this candidate or some guy who runs a big company.
“This is Salvatore Benno,” Fortune said in Sicilian. “The one who brings the food.”
Benno watched astonished as Corini stood to shake his hand.
“My pleasure, Mr. Corini,” Benno said in Sicilian.
“No. The pleasure is mine. The food is superb.”
“You eat it? Really?” Benno said.
Corini laughed and everyone else did, too. “What do you think I do with it? Food like that…”
“My Aunt Gemma,” Benno said, his stomach fluttering. “I’ll tell her.”
“Good,” Corini said as he returned to the sofa.
Fortune took a seat behind a desk that belonged to the funeral home’s owner, a picture of a saint on the wall behind him. Benno didn’t know the Irish saints or the Germans neither, but the guy’s head glowed right.
“Sal, tell Mr. Corini about you and Mrs. Rosiglino,” Fortune said.
Benno explained. “She asked me to take her to Bebe, that you wanted him straightened out. Maybe not you, but Frankie. So I went with her to the Hampshire House.”
The Jersey crew was listening for him to say the right thing. Benno could feel Geller studying every word.
“I didn’t hear
what she said too good,” he continued. “I was entertaining Eleanor Ree when Bebe closed the door.”
“Eleanor Ree,” Fortune said with disapproval, glancing at Mimmo.
“But when Bebe came out, you could see he’d got his ears pinned.”
“So he understands.” Fortune led.
“She said so. Hennie.”
Mimmo looked at Corini. “He’s making good with Rosa and this Klein says he’s set with the moving pictures.”
Corini knew that already. He’d spoken to Rico Enna, who continued to funnel the agency’s talent to Corini’s clubs at a square price.
“What else did she say?” he asked.
“Not too much, Mr. Corini, to tell you the truth. She looked pretty bad. Gasping. But she did say he should stop with the pictures and go back to singing.”
Corini nodded. He’d had the same idea. Shorten the leash.
“All right, Sal,” Fortune said as he went for the door.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Corini,” Benno said. But the dark-skinned man, his silver hair shining under fluorescent lighting, had turned to Geller.
As he headed for the back door, Benno saw that Terrasini had gotten his relief. A cop in uniform was on guard and Fat Tutti was blocking the moonlight. Terrasini was leaning against a banister, blowing smoke, exhausted, thinking, all I wanted to do was play the piano. He said, “You pay your respects to Bebe, Sal?”
“Nah,” he told him. There’s no point when Frankie Fortune brought you into a special private room and you got a glad hand from Anthony Corini.
Bebe looked at his father, who sat on his side of the couch, staring nowhere, sorrow etched in every line of his face. He knew he should go over, hang an arm across his shoulder, kiss his cheek and say, “Pop, what are you thinking? Pop?” But his father wouldn’t have replied. Never once in his life had he heard his father say what he felt.
“Be careful,” he’d say to his son, who chose to take it as, “I love you.”
“Pop, what are we going to do?”
Vincenzo sighed and tried a smile. “They broke the mold, huh?” In Sicilian, the old man said, “I can’t do nothing without her.”
“I know, Pop. I know.” Tears welling in his eyes, he turned as Rosa entered the living room, carrying a tiny cup of espresso. The phone was off the hook. Sophie and Dee were in the kitchen putting away the dishes, their husbands gone for the night. The house was grim and unfamiliar without Hennie’s spark. For a fleeting moment, Marsala wished they were back on Polk Street, crammed in a three-room railroad flat, everything fucked up but all right.
“Here you go, Papa,” Rosa said.
Vincenzo looked up with empty eyes, accepted the cup with a nod and placed it carefully on the end table. Earlier, when it was time to leave the cemetery, he had looked around for his wife, ready to offer her an elbow to hold. He listened for her booming voice, knowing full well he would never hear it again. Now somebody else had made the coffee and they put it in the wrong cup.
Marsala slipped his arm around his wife’s waist. The Irish have their wisdom, he thought. They drink at the wake, before the funeral, at the cemetery and late into the night to stave off the emptiness. Not us. We dive right into misery. We can’t wait to feel our hearts break.
“You had a wonderful life together,” Rosa said to her father-in-law.
Forlorn in his uniform slacks, starched white shirt, blue clip-on tie, the old man said, “We did, yes.”
Later, he shaved with his straight edge, put on a fresh undershirt and went off to sleep in the single bed in the room Hennie kept up for her son.
Now in the quiet of his parents’ bedroom, as moonlight peeked past the blinds, Marsala said, “I can’t do it. I can’t sleep in here.”
Earlier, Rosa had thrown open the windows, cleaned the carpet and changed the bedding, but Hennie remained, as if she was just over at the Chatterbox, maybe, or uptown at the Elks Club, regaling the crowd with the latest stories about her beautiful boy.
Even when she and Bill were 3,000 miles away in Southern California, Rosa could feel Hennie nearby, entering rooms where she’d never been, advising her on subjects she knew nothing about. As she signed her petition of separation, Rosa thought, What’s Hennie going to say? Sooner or later, Hennie’s opinion would be Bill’s too, even if he claimed she no longer had much sway in his life. Rosa knew Bill was still fighting his mother’s war against anyone who expressed a low opinion of him. She could feel it in almost everything he did, especially his childish behavior after the public’s blind idolatry faded. Bebe Rosiglino’s house was built on a cracked foundation. Bill Marsala knew it and could never forget.
“No, I can’t sleep here either,” Rosa said. “It’s like she’s still in this bedroom.”
That’s true, Marsala thought. But he needed to be with his wife and mend their relationship. It was his mother’s last request.
“Baby, what do you say we get out of here?” Bill Jr. was in Bayonne and Marsala could get an uncle to take the couch in case his father woke up confused. A patrol car sat at the hydrant outside the door. “We’ll just go.”
Where? Rosa thought. The Hampshire House? “I don’t know…”
“We’ll drive. Up the Palisades or down the shore. Like we used to.”
“It’s late—”
“Not in LA.”
He stepped in and kissed her, a peck on her bottom lip. The second time, he kissed her passionately and she returned it, relenting as he held her tight.
“Let me make things right, Rosa,” he whispered. “Let me show you I’m not some Hollywood phony.”
“Bill…”
“I made mistakes, sure.” He ran his fingertips along her spine. She shivered. “But I learn, kid. I learn.”
They kissed again. He probed long and slow. Gently, he nudged her toward the bed.
“Hold me,” he whispered.
He fell asleep in her arms.
Bell walked the Yale campus, looking up at ivy-coated stone towers, green grass underfoot. All around him, walking the paths or crossing at a distance, were people with drive, determination and purpose. He was impressed, though the thought of guys in beanies humming some heartfelt anthem made his skin crawl. Also, he had to go two miles to get a decent loaf of crusty bread and some prosciutto. He fell asleep with a used copy of Kant’s first critique on his chest, his question marks and exclamation points littering the book’s margins.
He still couldn’t tell if he belonged—not enough students around in the summer and the ones he saw were kids. Yale didn’t scare him away, which was too bad. If it had, he would’ve dug in to stay. But he couldn’t make up his mind. Maybe it was time to stop pussying around with reconnaissance and go talk to a counselor, the Army liaison. Maybe it was time to return Charlie Tyler’s calls.
He was thinking about an early dinner and then back to the boardinghouse. Though dreading a cucumber sandwich on white, he started toward the Commons.
At the sound of scuffling shoes, he turned to see Tyler, in uniform, trotting toward him.
“Bell,” Tyler said. He stopped and took a deep breath for composure. As they shook hands, he said, “I can’t say I’d considered that you might be rude.”
“I’ve got to make up my own mind, Captain.”
“Why don’t you tell us which way you’re leaning?”
“Who’s us?”
“Have you dinner plans?”
“Yeah, I’m—”
“This will be better,” Tyler said. “I assure you.”
Bell followed him to a black car parked near the cemetery, beyond the campus grounds, its engine running.
Five minutes later, they entered the Union League Club. At the top of the marble steps, Tyler was acknowledged, Bell’s hat checked and they swept through a dining room of middle-aged men who were sharing canapés and cocktails. Out the corner of his eye, Bell took in the dark wood paneling and stained glass in arched windows, the carpet that had been worn to antique perfection.
At the end of a narrow corridor lined with framed prints of old New Haven, Tyler ushered Bell into a small room filled with plump leather sofas, armchairs and crowded bookcases as high as the ceiling.
Major Landis, who had been gazing out the windows on Chapel Street, turned to greet them. “Leo,” he said. “Welcome.”
Gray-haired and burly, clear-eyed and persuasive, Landis seemed no less impressive in tweed than he’d been in uniform.
“Good to see you, lad,” he said. “Charlie here says you’re considering our offer.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, perhaps I can answer any questions you may have,” Landis added. “You’ll join us for dinner?”
They moved to a corner of the main dining room. Landis acknowledged discreet greetings with a nod of his head. When a man arrived to pull out his chair, Landis waved him off. At the major’s gentle insistence, Bell sat to his left, the room now spread before him.
Three drinks appeared. “Manhattans,” Tyler explained softly.
“What’s on your mind, Leo?” Landis said, lifting a pipe from a side pocket. “There shouldn’t be any confusion.”
“I guess I don’t understand what you want me to do, sir.”
Landis explained thoroughly, his voice barely rising above a whisper. President Truman was convinced of the need for a permanent intelligence agency with broad authority in domestic and international matters. Landis had been instructed to propose how his team’s expertise could serve the new organization.
When Landis paused to spark his pipe, Tyler leaned in and said, “You keep this on the QT, Bell.”
