Romantic Times

by Christina Skye

  I held my head up high, tried to stand taller when I got up, then realized my shoes were still off so height wasn’t mine this time. At least I’d had the good sense to take my shoes back to the chair. “I need to get back and soak in a long, hot whirlpool, darling. My feet are so sore.”

  Both Jagger and the doctor stared at me, but I kept on as I headed to the door. “Thank you for taking care of him. I’m sure this place keeps you quite busy,” I said as I grabbed Jagger’s arm (maybe a little too possessively) and walked him to the door with me. Me.

  Once outside, I let go, but he took my arm and led me to the elevator. Inside, he looked at me. I hoped he was going to kiss me but didn’t allow the magic of Vegas to confuse my thoughts. Soon it would be back to the reality of Hope Valley, Connecticut, working more fraud cases and, sniff, being partners in work only. We had the redeye back to Hartford tonight. The glamour, glitz and pretending in my mind that I was really here with Jagger would soon come to a screeching halt.

  “So?” Jagger asked.

  “Hm?” I looked at him. “Oh, right. Yes, I have photos showing her overcharging, providing unnecessary services and even recommending continued therapy with her. Not much on the bills matched the medical reports.”

  Jagger didn’t flinch. He took me by the shoulders, and I said a quick Saint Theresa prayer that the elevator would get stuck between floors, although I was a bit claustrophobic, and he looked me in the eye. “Atta girl, Sherlock.”

  The door opened and my knees just about gave out. Those words from Jagger were like an Oscar to a movie star. We headed down the hallway and into our lavish room for the last time. I realized that we weren’t even spending the night together, since the case was done. Damn. I’d have to be satisfied with our shoulders touching on the plane with every bout of turbulence. I’d find a way to make that sensual for sure.

  “You email the pictures to Fabio?”

  “Oh, not yet.” I slipped off my shoes and sat on the edge of the bed. “Good idea. I’ll do that right now. Then he can contact the police.” But before I could open the file, I felt him next to me, he eased my phone out of my hand and lifted me up to stand. “What…”

  “Shut up, Sherlock,” he mumbled and leaned forward.

  It was not my imagination this time. Jagger’s kiss was real. Real.

  And what was going to follow was more than real. Unreal in my Jagger/Pauline book…

  5

  kiss me and kill me with love

  Connie Corcoran Wilson

  Phyllis walked to the radio. She cranked the volume. The Theme from a Summer Place filled the large suite at the Excelsior Hotel. Percy Faith’s Orchestra engulfed the room with lush strings, the melody repeating the refrain from the 1959 Troy Donahue/Sandra Dee hit film.

  It was May of 1960, but the theme from the summer movie was still playing on every radio station in America. The hypnotically romantic melody reverberated in your head. Once heard, it was difficult to get it out of your head.

  Dorothy, the second oldest of the three McGuire sisters, yelled from the next room at her youngest sibling, “Phyllis, turn that down. You’ll wake the dead. It’s giving me a headache. I’m trying to think. We have to perform tonight, you know. And tonight is only three hours away.”

  “Dorothy, you’re in this movie,” twenty-nine-year-old sister Phyllis replied, with an impish smile. “You ought to be the one turning up the volume.”

  Thirty-two-year-old Dorothy looked peeved.

  “I hate that. You know I hate that. It’s bad enough that we’re always being told we copied the Andrews Sisters. Why couldn’t the other Dorothy McGuire at least change her last name when she started acting? Sylvia Hunter. That’s her character name in the movie. Maybe use ‘Hunter’ to keep us separate. Or use her maiden name.” Dorothy scowled.

  The sisters had had this conversation before, when the movie premiered. The singer named Dorothy McGuire also disapproved of the movie’s plot. Two married people in unhappy marriages (one of them played by the actress Dorothy McGuire) start an affair after many years apart, while their teen-aged children (Dee and Donohue) fall in love at first sight.

  “I didn’t approve of that movie. All that premarital and extramarital sex. Doris Day had it right. Don’t promise what you aren’t going to deliver. Dorothy McGuire may be a good actress, but Sylvia Hunter was a bad wife. It’s not the way we did things back in Ohio. It’s not the way Mom raised us in Middletown.” Dorothy shot a knowing glance at her youngest sister, who remained blissfully indifferent to Dorothy’s disapproval. Tacit criticism of Phyllis’ wilder lifestyle.

  “Oh, come on! Don’t go all virtuous on me. Sandra Dee and Troy Donohue were magic together, and Lord knows the Sylvia character deserved to have a little fun with her old flame. Her husband in the film was a drunk. Lighten up, Dorothy! You’re beginning to sound like Mom. You’re becoming old before your time.” Phyllis smiled.

  “Someone has to keep you two on the straight and narrow,” said Dorothy. Dorothy was only half-kidding. She was the oldest in attitude. Christine might be technically the oldest of the three, but Dorothy was the one enforcing rules and calling rehearsals. Dorothy felt the burden of setting a good example for her sisters, dispensing advice when necessary. Lately, it was more needed than earlier in their careers, which, in Phyllis’ case, began when she was only four years old. Phyllis had now been singing with her two sisters, Dorothy and Christine, for a quarter of a century.

  “Dorothy, you worry too much. This Dorothy McGuire is a fine actress. She was great in Old Yeller.” A smile played around the edges of Phyllis’ lips. She was egging her older sister on. It was what Phyllis did. She liked to get things going. Have fun. Be the center of the action. Be in the know. It was why Phyllis liked show business so much and wasn’t at all interested in settling down.

  Dorothy and Christine both had boyfriends. Dorothy wasn’t married yet, however, and her steady was back home in Ohio. She still could enjoy the attention of a handsome suitor. The difference was that Dorothy was more cautious about who she went out with than Phyllis was.

  Phyllis didn’t have the time or the inclination to think about settling down. Why worry, when there were so many fish in the sea? Her dance card was full. That was the way Phyllis liked it. As she often pointed out to her sisters when they tried to give her unsolicited advice, “I’m not even thirty yet. Give me a break!”

  What Phyllis didn’t like was the feeling that her older sisters were always trying to rein her in, trying to impose their moral code on her. Phyllis’ own motto was live and let live. If asked, she might have added, You’re only young once.

  Dorothy responded with sarcasm at the reference to the 1957 tear-jerker about a dog. Dorothy said, “Maybe she should have kept her original maiden name, so people wouldn’t confuse us.”

  Phyllis said, “Not likely. Her maiden name was Hackett.” Both women giggled at Phyllis’ mention of the Omaha-born actress’ unpleasant-sounding real last name.

  Dorothy smiled. Learning this, she said, “Then again, maybe not.” Both sisters laughed.

  The conversation turned to that night’s performance.

  The McGuire Sisters were opening for Johnny Carson.

  Carson was the daytime host of Who Do You Trust? His television pilot, Johnny Come Lately, was under consideration by the networks. When Carson, Red Skelton’s head writer, filled in for an injured Skelton on Skelton’s television show on KNXT in 1954 (Red knocked himself out one hour before airtime), Johnny’s monologue went well, giving the Corning, Iowa, native his big break.

  Louis ‘The Lip’ LaFica, the Excelsior’s owner, thought Carson was going places. He booked Carson in the Excelsior’s main ballroom. The room seated 1,500 people. Waitresses served dinner at long tables prior to (and sometimes during) the show.

  The hotel had been considering hiring a different comedy act, one that also had a show up for network consideration. That comedy team, Rowan and Martin, had submitted their pilot for The Rowan &
Martin Show, but it was rejected. So Carson, (who didn’t yet know if he was in or out on evening network television), was hired, instead.

  The Excelsior was banking on the better-known McGuire Sisters to pull in the customers. Vegas was firing on all cylinders. There was plenty of room for new talent in venues like the Excelsior, open since January of 1960. The Excelsior was still adding rooms to meet customer demand.

  The new Commander’s Tower was the Excelsior’s latest offering. Phyllis, Dorothy and Christine were currently housed in the penthouse of this newest part of the hotel. Their separate bedrooms featured mosquito netting draped around raised platforms on which king-sized round beds rested. Christine was constantly complaining about stepping up and down to walk around the large room, which had a joint sunken conversation pit area (all the rage in interior decorating now.) There were three adjoining bedrooms with private entrances, one for each of the famous sisters.

  Each sister’s private bedroom/bathroom area was 700 square feet. The three bedrooms were joined by the conversation pit central seating area. White shag carpeting. A wet bar. A desk. White couches facing each other in front of a large RCA color television. The suite had a panoramic view of the Strip below. The girls could easily see their hotel neighbors, the Dunes and the Desert Inn. Across Flamingo Boulevard, the pink monstrosity of the flamingo sign for the Flamingo Hotel assaulted their fashion sense. The Flamingo had small individual cottage-like structures in back of the main casino to house its guests.

  These individual Flamingo bungalows had fallen into disrepair by 1960. They made the Flamingo look dated and dilapidated when compared to the grandiose Excelsior across the boulevard, with its marble excess. Even the front entrance of the Excelsior was more impressive. It was set five hundred feet back from Flamingo Boulevard.

  The Excelsior’s stately cypress trees, expertly lit by night, and its white marble columns lined a 900-foot frontage entrance or winding driveway leading from Flamingo Boulevard to the Excelsior’s main lobby, a majestic pathway to the main desk. Fountains and statuary abounded.

  It was LaFica’s intention to maintain a “classy” image, and it was The Lip’s aim to be the first to spotlight up-and-coming talent. That’s what motivated him to hire stars on their way up, like Carson, especially those who might soon turn up on a network television show. The McGuire Sisters’ seven-year stay on Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Show was part of the sisters’ current crowd appeal. A shrewd businessman, The Lip hedged his bets by balancing new acts with seasoned pros like the McGuire Sisters. They were hot off the success of Sincerely, which charted at Number One on the Billboard Top 100.

  “We don’t want no has-beens at the Excelsior,” the Lip had once told a news crew. “Our stars are the stars of next year. They’re the future, not the past. When you come to a show at the Excelsior, you’re stepping into a wholesome environment. Our guests can be proud to go home and talk about their trip. We don’t got no slave girls wearing slutty costumes. We offer our guests waitresses who dress classy, like ladies. We’re not gonna’ be Quakers about it, but our acts and our staff are top-notch.” Here, Louis gestured with his hands up, as though he were pleading with the reporters to get it right. “There’s no two ways about it. We’ve got the McGuire sisters singing their little hearts out onstage right now. Straight out of Middletown, Ohio. America’s sweethearts. You won’t hear no blue language from them. Come on in. Experience Vegas entertainment the way it should be.”

  Ever the showman, Louis managed to get this free commercial in on his way into a Las Vegas courtroom to give a criminal deposition about a high-stakes female baccarat player who climbed on the table and danced lasciviously in the middle of a game. (The Oriental dancer eventually cost the casino $25,000 in fines levied by the Nevada Gaming Commission.) Louie was not happy about it. He banned the girl from the place forever. “It don’t look good for our image. You know what I mean?” he told Sam Giancana’s man in Vegas, Johnny Rosselli.

  Louis “the Lip’s” reputation was questionable. He was fond of saying in his own defense, “All the places out here are mobbed up. But the Excelsior is a wholesome joint. Midwesterners don’t need to come here and be afraid the casino manager will pull a gun. (That happened with another casino when the inebriated star of their show insisted the stakes per hand be raised above the limit.). Customers want to know they’re sitting next to somebody at a dinner show who isn’t going to do somethin’ stupid. They don’t want nobody dangerous sittin’ next to them. You know what I mean?”

  “Something stupid” might be as small an offense as lighting up a cigar during a singer’s act.

  Dorothy looked over at Phyllis. She asked, “Did you meet Johnny Carson?”

  “Yeah. He’s cute, but he’s taken.”

  “So, who did you meet that isn’t taken?” asked Dorothy.

  “Dan Rowan. Do you know him? He’s a hunk.”

  “What’s so hunk-y about him?” asked Dorothy.

  “Everything.” Phyllis smiled coquettishly.

  Dorothy returned her youngest sister’s smile and said, “Glad to hear you’re going to stop hanging around with that old short Sicilian widower from Oak Park.”

  Phyllis’ gaze darkened. “I didn’t say that. You know I owe Sam. He saved my life.”

  Dorothy returned Phyllis’ earnest gaze silently. Finally, she said, “He paid off your gambling debt, Honey. How much was it, again?”

  Phyllis mumbled, “$16,000.”

  Once again, Dorothy snorted derisively. “Wasn’t it closer to $100,000?.”

  “What difference does it make how much I did owe. I don’t owe Louis ‘The Lip’ anything anymore. Thanks to Sam.”

  “Good. And you don’t owe Sam Giancana anything anymore, either,” responded Dorothy.

  “That’s not true, Dorothy. He’s always been there for me. You just don’t understand.”

  “What’s to understand? He’s the head of the Chicago Outfit. Has been for three years. That can’t be good. You know Louie wants all of us to be squeaky clean. It’s part of his image for the Excelsior. We can’t afford to have it get out that you owed a big gambling debt. Or that you’re going out with a known mobster.”

  “I’m not ‘going out’ with Sam. It’s strictly platonic.” Phyllis pouted.

  “Right,” Dorothy said, sarcasm coloring her voice. “And I’m in training to be a nun.”

  Just then, Christine entered. She was carrying shopping bags and seemed eager to share the news of her purchases. “Look at this hat,” she burbled. “Doesn’t it look just like the one that Jackie Kennedy was wearing in that photo in the New York Times last week?” Christine pulled a pillbox hat from her shopping bag. The hat featured edges that dove in and out, festooned with velvet ribbons, and complementing the light blue of the chapeau with darker blue ribbon. “It matches my blue dress with the darker blue collar. Do you think we could all three get hats alike to wear onstage?”

  Dorothy again snorted derisively. “Why hats? Just because Jackie Kennedy is wearing one in a photo? Why would we be wearing hats onstage during a show? We pay hairdressers a small fortune to make our hair look good. We sit for hours getting our hair and makeup done, and then we wear hats?”

  Phyllis, always the smart-ass of the group, said, “Maybe we’d be on our way to a Catholic mass. We’d have to have something on our heads.” She looked from one sister to the other. Christine was still holding the blue hat in her hand. Dorothy was preparing to leave the room.

  “We aren’t Catholic, Phyllis. Mom was a minister at the Miamisburg First Church of God in Anderson, Indiana. How soon you forget. “ Dorothy smiled, knowing that Phyllis had not been serious when she made the church comment. Lillie, their mother, really was a minister for a decidedly non-Catholic congregation. The sisters had begun their singing career in her church.

  Phyllis was deadly serious about owing Sam Giancana. She seemed resistant to severing ties with Sam, a known member of La Cosa Nostra.

  Changing the subject ab
ruptly, Dorothy said to the newly-arrived Christine, “Guess who Phyllis has a crush on this week?”

  Phyllis responded by rolling her eyes in denial. “I don’t have a crush on him. I just think he’s cute.”

  Christine, having arrived mid-conversation, said, “Who’s cute?”

  “Dan Rowan.”

  “Oooo. He is dreamy,” said Christine. “And so interesting! He has the most unusual background. Generally, I don’t like smokers, but he looks so distinguished when he’s holding that pipe.”

  There wasn’t a singing group in town that liked having to sing over the sound of waiters clearing dishes while smoke drifted up and choked the vocalists onstage, but smoking was all the rage. You just weren’t cool if you didn’t smoke.

  “Wait,” said Dorothy. “Why do you know this? Don’t tell me you have a thing for Dan Rowan too?”

  “No, I don’t have a ‘thing’ for him, but I thought he and his partner, Dick Martin, were going to be our opening act, so I did some research. Dan Rowan was born on a carnival train in Boggs, Oklahoma. Tell me that isn’t interesting.” She looked from sister to sister. Neither contradicted her.

  Both sisters were silent. Listening.

  “His mom and dad died when he was only eleven. He’d been onstage with them before that. After they died, he spent four years in the McLelland Home for Boys in Pueblo, Colorado.” Christine paused, but said, “And that’s not even the most interesting stuff.”

  Phyllis bit. “What’s the most interesting stuff?”

  “His name isn’t even Dan Rowan,” said Christine.

  Phyllis interrupted. “Well, what is his real name?”

  “Daniel Hale David.”

  “Why did he change it?” Phyllis asked. She seemed genuinely puzzled.

  “No idea,” said Christine, unconcerned, putting the blue pill box hat back in her shopping bag.