by Jim Fusilli
“Where?” The streets were empty, not even a gum wrapper or bottle cap, never mind a car sitting at the curb.
Benno looked around for cover. Then he said, “Ah, fuck it.” He stepped out and walked up the path to Ree’s front door. Halfway, he turned and flicked his fingers, saying, “Come on, Leo.”
Marsala kneeled on the sofa to look through the curtains. Coming up the path was a serious guy, tall with a dimpled chin and wire glasses and New Jersey written all over him. Somebody else was pounding the knocker.
Enna had already called to warn him. “There’s a chance you could be compelled to appear.”
But they wouldn’t ship a process server across the country.
Maybe the guy is from Corini and Fortune, Don Carlo approving a hit after Chicago. Oh, Jesus. Would he do that now that I’ve made good with Klein’s family, sweet-talked Parsons and Life? I tried to talk to Rosa and now I’m working my ass off earning. Jesus Christ.
Fearing the pounding would wake Miss Ree, the houseboy opened the door.
Panicking, Marsala heard the visitor ask for him by name.
“Who shall I say—sir—”
Marsala froze.
Benno turned into the living room. “Bebe!” he said, smiling, his arms flung wide.
The one-eyed kid from Narrows Gate. Marsala sagged in relief.
“Whoa. Look at you,” Benno said.
Marsala wore a paisley silk robe that hung open to show his bony frame and fresh boxers. Black socks.
“Sal,” he managed, his throat dry and aching. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I’m in for Frankie, which should make you happy. He’s dodging Dummy and the commission.”
Bell appeared at the door.
“That’s Leo from Polk Street, too,” Benno said. “He’s the driver. So, yeah, I’m promoted.” He pointed at the singer, then at himself, back and forth. “Which means we don’t fuck up. Am I right, Bebe?” Then Benno said Marsala owed him another suit. “You don’t want some bum at your back.”
Marsala laughed. “Sure, kid. A new suit. Why the hell not?”
Benno bought Bell a tie, saying, “Here you go, Sluggo” and Marsala laughed again, glad it wasn’t Fortune holding the leash. At the Formosa Café, Benno ate inside while Bell headed off in search of a sausage-and-pepper sandwich. At the rehearsal hall, Benno went in but came out about 10 minutes later, saying, “You won’t believe this but Eleanor Ree’s husband, that bandleader Guy Simon, he’s in there, and him and Bebe talk like it’s nothing.”
“Enjoy your lunch?” Bell asked, the sun bearing down on Santa Monica Boulevard.
“Yeah, it was swell. All the stars eat there. It’s like the Warner Brothers cafeteria.”
“You seen Porky Pig?”
“Porky—Wait. You ain’t pissed off, are you?”
Bell stared down at his friend. “Nah,” he said finally. “You’re doing good. You’re sitting on him right.”
“Bebe’s rehearsing with the band so now we got the afternoon off.” He clapped Bell’s arm. “What do you say we hit the pool?”
A long way from diving off the piers into the Hudson. At the Beverly Hills Hotel they bring you drinks; all Benno had to do was sign his name. “To the good life,” he toasted.
At five o’clock, Bell chauffeured him to Bel Air to retrieve Eleanor Ree. He departed as Bell walked the path toward the house.
“Salvatore Benno,” she said as she swept into her vestibule. Maybe she was only going to be on radio, but she was dressed to be seen. Shimmering hair, an emerald-green gown and shawl, heels that made her legs a miracle and glittering gold jewelry. The way she walked said, “I’m me, who the fuck are you?”
“Eleanor Ree. You know, you’re kind of cute.”
“Thank you, Mr. Benno.”
He held out his arm and as the houseboy opened the door, she took it. Together, they stepped into the warm November twilight. Too bad Bell was already gone. What he could’ve told them on Polk Street!
He put her in Bebe’s car. By the time he reached the driver’s seat, she had a little silver flask in her hand.
“Do you enjoy a drink, Sal?” she asked.
The way she said it, Benno would’ve swilled iodine to please her. “I like a cold beer when it’s hot,” he replied, backing the car out.
“Sorry. No beer in here.” She took a long swig.
“Gin,” Benno said. “You ride the express, huh?”
“It does give the world a certain glow.”
Benno had to get them onto Sunset Boulevard, then look for something called La Cienega. “You know your lines, Eleanor?”
“I most certainly do.”
Bebe said the guest star was some comedian, but Ree was going to make a surprise appearance. Over lunch at Warners, Benno thought of asking him how come he never put Rosa on one of his programs, but he was having too much fun to throw Bebe into a mood.
“I’m thinking maybe America wants you tiptop.”
Ree looked at him, his arm hanging out the window, flickering neon reflected on his glasses, wearing a grin she didn’t think he could lose. I used to be that happy, she thought, that innocent. No, I wasn’t. Not ever. She gave Benno the flask. “Save it for later.”
“You bet,” Benno said.
A messenger delivered a list of names from Tyler and Bell didn’t recognize any of them, save Sigmund Baumstein, who was already dead, and Eugenio Zamarella, who probably made him so. From the phone booth off the hotel’s Crystal Ballroom, active now with some sort of black-tie civic affair, Bell reported his ignorance of the West Coast mob.
Tyler replied, “With these men, you’ve got drug dealing and you’ve got the racing wire.”
“I got nothing,” Bell replied, “and if Fortune knew you were going to serve him, you’ve got a snitch.”
Tyler admitted LA was empty of top crooks, who were now scattered across the country and beyond. They had three mugs who would testify in public, strictly low-level slime who were bartering to reduce their sentences. The commission was losing its momentum. Radio had intended to broadcast, but they withdrew. Even Hearst’s papers, having demanded a national investigation, now mocked the commission’s show in LA. “Second-rate doesn’t play well here, Senator Dunney,” some editor wrote. “We’re a long way from South Carolina.”
“Quit while you’re behind and go where you can do some good,” Bell said. “I mean, why cut the tail when you know where the head is?”
“We’ve got no jurisdiction in Cuba, Leo.”
“Oh, really?” Bell replied. The papers said the Department of Justice told the U.S. drug companies to stop shipping product to the island until the Cuban government beefed up its activities against illegal narcotics, meaning Farcolini’s operation. So far, the Cubans, with Senator Balboa as their spokesman, declared the embargo “an act of imperial aggression.”
Bell added, “And I hope you’ve got better boys in Miami than the numb nuts you got out here.”
“Go to the hearings,” Tyler said. “See if you recognize anyone.”
“No soap,” he told him. “They spot me and I’m there for you or I’m there for Corini. Either way, I lose.”
A big cheer rose from the crowd in the ballroom and flashbulbs popped as the guest of honor was handed his award. Bell saw the commotion as a sign he should leave. “Best I can do is read the papers,” he said quickly.
“Leo, wait,” Tyler said. “What would you suggest?”
Bell was standing in the booth, hunched below the overhead lamp. He leaned into the mouthpiece on the box. “Arrest Cy Geller. Take his passport. Make him testify in public.”
“Is that—”
“And put a few fuckin’ boats between Havana and Biscayne Bay.”
“Pretty funny, Bebe,” Benno said when Marsala, Ree and Rico Enna came down the corridor toward the parking lot. He’d watched the show from the back of the house, closing his eye when the distracting sights ruined his idea of a good radio program.
“And you should do comedy, Eleanor. I’m telling you—you’re a riot.”
For that, Sal Benno got a kiss on the cheek from Hollywood’s hottest broad. Madonna mio, he’d be lying if he didn’t admit little Sally wiggled down there.
In the skit, Bebe was in a restaurant with that jolly comedian—of course they were just standing at a couple of music stands reading their lines—and the waitress comes in. It’s Ree, and to get a rise out of the crowd, they had her walk onstage to some guy making sounds like a horse clopping. She started to giggle two seconds into it, but she had the crowd in the palm of her hand with those eyes and that smile, mugging it when they made it like she spilled hot soup on Bebe.
When it ended and the applause wouldn’t quit, Bebe said, “Eleanor Ree, ladies and gentlemen.” Then he added, “I love you, baby.” After Bebe sang that song with the pale moon that don’t excite him, he said, “Bedtime, Bill Jr. Give Mommy a big kiss good night,” and the crowd liked that fine.
Now he said, “Sal, no offense but we eat alone. Rico, buy the kid dinner. He’s all right.”
They stepped into the parking lot and a bunch of people, not just kids, rushed in for autographs.
Benno said to Enna, “I’m supposed to stick with him.”
“È bene,” Enna replied. “We know where he’ll be.”
“OK,” Benno said, not exactly suspicious, but if this Enna was so good, they don’t need me out there.
“Sal,” Marsala said. “Come get me at one o’clock. Tomorrow.”
For dinner, Enna chose the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Enna knew everybody in the joint and at his request, they seated them behind this thick, twisting tree. Bell thought the big gun from the talent agency didn’t want to be seen with two guys from Narrows Gate, but he reconsidered when he realized that Enna was a street guy who had sanded the edges and learned legalese.
“You have to understand something,” Enna said. “This is make or break for Bill Marsala.”
Benno was working on a pretty decent–sized steak. “You mean with Corini and Farcolini,” he said, his mouth full.
“His career. He blows it here and he loses Vegas. It’s all over but the shouting.”
“I don’t get you. He’s Bill Marsala, right?”
“Not for long if he doesn’t pull this off. He’s back doing cocktail lounges along the Palisades. Kid, out here, if you’re not coming, you’re going.”
Bell watched as Benno ran it through his head. He knew he was thinking, Wait. I saw Bebe at rehearsal with all those musicians ready to serve him and then Eleanor Ree dolled up and the people cheering on the radio…
Enna leaned in, the candlelight dancing under his chin. “Bill hasn’t had a solid hit in years. The music in the can, people won’t go for. His pictures bleed—to tell you the truth, Sal, I don’t see he has a career in pictures. You heard 200 people showed up to see him in Chicago—in a room holds five times that many?” Enna shook his head. “It’s not good.”
“So,” Benno said, “how do we help him?”
“Get him where he needs to go and tell him he’s swell. Any bad news comes along, you intercept it. Make sure he rests. It’s too bad he cleaned out Terrasini’s room. You could’ve moved in.”
Bell had a question for Enna. “Can I ask something?”
“Sure. Go right ahead.”
“Can he do it?”
“Look, Bill Marsala has a million-dollar voice and a two-cent head,” Enna replied. “Growing up in Narrows Gate, you guys know that. When he’s singing and the crowd’s cheering, the world’s his oyster and he puts his crazy impulses aside. So, yeah, he can do it. Eleanor is a big plus. She’s as nuts as him, but she stands up.”
Benno still had Ree’s flask in his pocket.
“The thing is to finish the record, knock ’em dead on the Strip, do the same in New York and open like gangbusters at the Sandpiper.
“So to answer your question, he keeps singing and everything’s all right. He don’t and we’re all fucked.”
“Not me,” Benno said. “Not Leo.”
“This thing blows and nobody’s walking away, Sal. I know Anthony Corini since I was a kid. And I don’t have to tell you about Bruno Gigenti and what he thinks. They don’t lay out this much jingle and say, ‘Fuck it. We gave it a shot.’ Am I right?”
Benno shrugged, but he had to agree.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Being that it was Friday, Mimmo went out looking for fish for lunch, maybe some nice sarde a beccafico or a thick piece of tonno a la Siracusana. But the motherless bastards in the old familiar restaurants in Narrows Gate looked at him like he stunk or with pity, maybe he was ready to be burnt up with the rags. Hungry, he started to wander, his mind out of focus with greater frequency now and he wound up on the tubes again, a crinkled old man sitting there bundled up in a topcoat, hat, scarf and sunglasses. This time he got off at Christopher Street and wound up on Mulberry, his nose leading him toward a first-class Sicilian meal.
And who should he see but Bruno Gigenti. The underboss limped, but with two young iron slabs on either side, he presented his power. The people out in the cold sun nodded at him, a few men raising a chilly finger to tap the brim of their caps. Scowling, Gigenti ignored them.
“Bruno,” Mimmo said.
The young guys turned together to shield Gigenti’s back.
“Bruno, come va?” he shouted, his hand in the air. “Mangiamo il pranzo, eh?”
Gigenti turned and elbowed between the two giants. “I told you I got nothing for you,” he said in Sicilian.
“I’m saying let’s eat lunch.”
“With you? No.”
The grin fell off Mimmo’s face. “Why not me?”
Gigenti shot him a look long from his shoes to his hat that told him he was a sorry old nobody on Mulberry Street, too.
He wanted to reply sharp and hard, reminding Gigenti he owed him for word of Fortune’s plan to embarrass him. But he couldn’t summon an argument, couldn’t operate his brain right, facts lost in a mist. Instead, he saw a paesano of maybe 20 years turning his back. “What did I do?” he asked.
The two young guys looked at each other, wry smiles on their lips. “Go away, Mimmo,” Gigenti said. “Do yourself a favor and go away.”
They left him standing there, dumbstruck. He couldn’t recall where he was or where he was supposed to go.
A big day, but you couldn’t tell by Bebe. The same routine, except he spent last night at the Wilshire Towers, though first he had steaks on the grill at Ree’s, button mushrooms in butter, a little vino and a couple of nightcaps. Bebe slept until noon, then he told Benno to have lunch sent over, so they ate, if you call chicken soup eating. Then Ree’s ex, Guy Simon, came in, that pipe-sucking snob, and he showed Bebe some dots on lines, and he said, “It’s golden, Bill.”
“Wasn’t golden at rehearsal.”
“Entirely my fault,” Simon said. “I’ve elongated the reeds.”
Next came Bebe’s rubdown, this big Russian broad or Hungary, and she beat the living shit out of him. Benno sat there on the sofa, wondering if he should go in the bedroom and wrestle her off him, but he came out oiled, pink as a baby, a towel around his waist. “Kid, you haven’t lived,” he said. “You want a go?”
“Fuck no,” Benno told him. “I thought she was murdering you in there.”
Out she came, her table tucked under her hammy arm. He said, “See you next week, Cuddles,” reaching like he’s ready to pinch her ass. She giggled.
And they drove over to the club, the mooks were sweeping, cocktail waitresses dragging as they put matchbooks in the ashtrays, the bar was getting stocked, and Bebe’s piano player was making the band play this number and there’s Ree’s ex again, ol’ King Shit. “You want to run it down, Bill?” Simon asked.
Bebe waved him off as he we
nt to find his dressing room. “Sal, see if they can bring me some hot tea.”
He put horseradish in it.
“Wake me up a half hour before the show,” he said as he wrapped a towel around his neck. Pants off, he pulled over a chair, put his feet up, wriggled until he was comfortable. His hands on his chest, he was out, boom, snoozing in seconds.
Benno was thinking, This guy Enna, he don’t know shit. He’s got him on death row and meanwhile Bebe’s like he’s on a cruise ship, not a worry in the world.
He went outside to meet Bell.
“Been busy?” Benno asked.
“Homework.” They were on Sunset, not too far from the nightclub, cars rolling by, and the moon low on the other end of the boulevard.
“Since last night?”
Bell said he drove over to see footprints in the sidewalk.
The morgue at the Los Angeles Times gave him information to wire back to Tyler in New York, but it wasn’t more than any secretary could’ve located. The guys on his list were career criminals. They had records before their balls dropped. If the FBI didn’t know them, Bell concluded, we’re all in trouble. And the Times and the Examiner treated Dunney’s hearing like something between a nuisance and a joke. Two days of bullshit, and the senator and his troupe packed up and were off to Chicago. Maybe they look hard enough they could find a couple of gangsters there.
“You talk to Imogene?” Benno had a suit bag over his shoulder, his finger crooked in the hanger head.
“I did.”
“You miss her?”
“I miss her. I even miss the A&P. You?”
“I don’t know.” Benno kicked the sidewalk. “I sent my aunt some postcards. I wouldn’t mind being home. But,” he smiled as he looked at his friend, “this place is some fuckin’ place, no?”
“If somebody else is paying, sure.”
“Ain’t that the truth.”
“What’s in the bag? You get another new suit?”
“No. It’s Bebe’s tux. Which I’d better get inside.”
