Narrows Gate

by Jim Fusilli

  When the applause died, a guy yelled in falsetto, “Oh Bill, you slay me.” Even the ex–bobby soxers sprinkled throughout the club laughed.

  “Thanks, doll,” Marsala replied. But the heckler’s remark stuck and by the time the band settled into the second ballad of the set, the crowd was behaving as if the music belonged deep in the background. “Sssh” went some distressed Marsala fan at stage left and “Fuck you, lady” came the reply from a guy as Marsala was trying to work a lyric, the band sweet but not syrupy and the brass biting right. Polite applause at the song’s end but he heard the clatter of silverware and china.

  Then Marsala said, “This next one’s from my new picture. It’s a swell number—” From the back, a coarse call for Marsala’s first hit in 1940. “Come on, fella,” Marsala said, annoyed. “We’re not in high school, are we?” The line fell flat and so did the new tune. Marsala signaled for “She’s Funny That Way” and the piano intro brought a decent reception, but the singer, thrown off his game, entered a beat too soon, rushing the rhythm section.

  At the side of the stage, Enna felt for Marsala. He sounded good: even now, listen to how he moved to the bridge, pulling it back so he could glide with the reeds. But the audience didn’t give a shit. Big town, every headliner in the country played it, every night a show worth seeing, so Bill Marsala at the Chez Paree wasn’t an event. He was something to do over dinner. Maybe they hoped Eleanor Ree would walk in.

  “Thanks very much, Chicago,” Marsala said when the tune ended. Maybe the crowd thought he was second-rate, just some jug-eared kid who became a star when the men were in Europe and the Pacific. But he had more to say, he was Bill Marsala, for Christ’s sake, and fuck these nobodies who couldn’t recognize talent. When he was behind the mic, he didn’t need to bend to anybody.

  In the audience, Big Mouth stood and again demanded the bittersweet ballad Marsala had struck gold with when he was a contract singer for that gruff, demanding trombonist who pushed him around, mocked his looks, scorned his popularity. “Sing it!” the guy shouted, hectoring Marsala like he was a performing chimp. “Come on, Billy boy! Sing it!”

  “Listen, buddy,” Marsala said, glaring at the back of the house. “Don’t you get it? I hate that fuckin’ song.”

  The liquor-soaked guys laughed, but Marsala heard a gasp from every woman in the room who had given her soul to him when she was a tenderhearted kid.

  “Good times,” Marsala added quickly as the uncomfortable rumble grew. “Great memories. But, oh that tune. Sometimes, you just want something different. Ollie, let’s try one of our new arrangements for these wonderful people. Ladies and gentlemen, the Gershwin brothers gave us this beautiful number…”

  The following night, a threat of a cold, cold rain turning to snow, a gale off Lake Michigan and fewer than 200 people came to the Chez Paree. Three of every four tables sat empty. Earlier, the Sun-Times had reported Marsala told Chicago to buzz off. “The has-been hasn’t got it,” a columnist wrote, adding that he performed with “the desperation of a drowning man. The smart set will stay away in droves for tonight’s sendoff, and no one doubts they’ll do the same when his latest Hollywood bomb is released this week. As far as we’re concerned, good riddance.”

  The Los Angeles Daily News ran the column. It usually cut the local mentions, but in this case, the editor bumped it to the top. The headline: “Marsala to Chicago: Buzz Off!”

  Frankie Fortune was in Marsala’s room at the Wilshire Towers when the singer arrived with Enna. The moment the door opened, he sprung from the darkness toward Marsala and grabbed him by the throat, pinning him against a wall. The singer’s feet dangled.

  “You told Chicago to fuck off? Who the fuck are you to tell anybody to fuck off?”

  Fortune let him drop.

  “Get up.”

  Marsala struggled to stand. The tumble jarred his bum leg.

  Enna retreated to turn on a light, avoiding the luggage he’d carried in. Behind him, Terrasini’s old room was empty, the furniture carted off and sold.

  Fortune said, “Every time you open your mouth, Bebe, we get fucked. Every fuckin’ time.”

  Marsala took out his handkerchief and wiped the spittle from his lips.

  Enna said, “Frankie, what they reported, Bill didn’t say it.”

  “Don’t make excuses for this—”

  “Frankie, the Chi crew was busting his balls, hecklers, and he said he hated a song, not the town.”

  “A song. What song?”

  Enna gave him the title.

  “He sings it every night,” Fortune said. He looked at Marsala. “Every night.”

  “Sure,” Marsala said. He knew what was coming even before he boarded the plane in Chicago. So far, he was getting off light.

  “Frankie, he was on. A great show in KC, the second night in Chicago.”

  Fuming, Fortune told them to bring a big-name columnist to the apartment and erase the mess. “Make everything better. Do it now, before the three nights at the Palm Tree Lounge. You don’t make the Gellers look like a couple of ciuccios for having you at their club. And get on your knees and beg until Hollywood forgives you for insulting Phil Klein. Dead, and everybody out here tells me he’s still a better man than you.”

  “I’ll make it right, Frankie.”

  Fortune jabbed a finger into Marsala’s chest. “There’s no next time, Bebe.”

  Marsala tried to turn away, but Fortune grabbed his chin and twisted.

  “This is the last shot. Fuck this up and I put you down myself.”

  How do you like this shit? Fifty degrees in Narrows Gate the first week of February and there’s a huge puddle outside Benno’s like the second Hudson. Benno push-broomed it toward the sewer and the fuckin’ thing came right back on its own. He stood there, scratching behind his ear.

  Bell was sitting on the stoop next door. He’d decided there was no way to finesse his pal. “Tell me about the suitcase.”

  Benno leaned on the broom handle. He tipped his hat to the back of his head. “Who told you about the suitcase?”

  “The suitcase, Sally.”

  He came closer. “You guys know?”

  “What ‘you guys’?”

  “Your Army pals.”

  “I’m asking you. Me, you.”

  “They made Bebe pay tribute to Don Carlo,” Benno told him.

  “How much?”

  “A lot of large.”

  “And you carried it to Havana.”

  Benno said, “Bebe carried it to Havana. I carried it to Bebe.”

  “Jesus, Sally—”

  Benno saw Bell was giving him a face. “No good?”

  “Where did they get that kind of cash?”

  “These guys? They can find a couple hundred Gs in the sofa cushions.”

  An Oldsmobile blew by, sending a wave of murky water over the curb. Benno skipped to avoid it.

  “Sal, this is no joke. They aren’t doing you any favors.”

  Benno knew Bell had done some kind of arithmetic that let him see the next steps. Bell was good like that.

  “Tell me,” Benno said. “Make it plain.”

  “No more suitcases, Sal.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Eleanor Ree was with Marsala at the Wilshire Towers when Louella Parsons arrived, Christmas decorations still on the mantle and walls, the tinseled tree in the corner. The Negro cook Enna hired whipped up a simple luncheon of roast chicken with potatoes and parsnips. The scent welcoming her, the columnist asked Ree if she made the meal. In a simple pale-green one-piece, flats on for the moment, the actress joked they were all lucky she hadn’t set foot in the kitchen.

  “I thought we’d have Italian food, Bill,” Parsons said as Ree served the meal.

  Marsala took it as a dig but let it pass. “Linguine with garlic and oil is the best I can offer. My mother’s gravy was always ‘a little of this, a pinch of that.’ For me, it never comes out right.”

  “Are you living here, Eleanor?”


  She said she was still at her home in Bel Air.

  “So Bill will move there?”

  “We haven’t discussed that yet,” she answered, hitting her lines right. “It’s possible, but of course not until the divorce is finalized.”

  Parsons took notes. “Bill, how is it coming along? Are you and Rosa on speaking terms?”

  “Sure. We had a fine Christmas. You know, Louella, I grew up with Rosa. We were kids when we started together. She’ll always be dear to me, and of course there’s Bill Jr.” He reached and clasped Ree’s hand. “But with Eleanor, it’s true love.”

  “And you feel the same?”

  Ree said, “I do.” She was jittery inside; the breakfast gin hadn’t quieted her nerves. She was sure Parsons knew about Mikindani Bay, and Ree still hadn’t told Marsala about the film.

  “Louella, I’d like to explain what happened in Chicago. I made a boneheaded play, a real dumb remark, and it blew up in my face.”

  After he told her the story, he said, “If Phil had been there…I can’t tell you how much I miss him. I was so angry when he died. Mad at him for leaving me like that—crazy, I know—and mad at myself for flying off the handle. I guess sometimes you don’t know how special someone is until they’re gone. His grandchildren will never go without, believe me. They’ll know how much this town adored him.”

  Parsons looked up from her notes. “But you fired Phil Klein.”

  “Ten times and ten times I begged him to come back. No, nine times. I didn’t get the chance to…” Feigning a tear, Marsala excused himself, returning to the table after hiding with the cook in the kitchen.

  Chocolate mousse for dessert. Parsons asked, “Eleanor, what’s your next project?”

  “I’m sure you’ve heard rumors,” Ree began, “but I haven’t committed to anything. I need to discuss things with Bill. Now that his career is about to take off, I want to offer all the support I can give him.”

  “You sound like a new bride.”

  “You know me, Louella. I’m just a tobacco farmer’s daughter from South Carolina. I want a family and a nice place for my husband to come home to. I love the pictures and my fans, but I’ve always known what’s most important.”

  Marsala sipped his coffee, nodding his agreement.

  “Will you travel with him?”

  “When I can, but I think I’d better let him concentrate on his music,” Ree replied. “Bill Marsala’s still the champ, you know. It’s so exciting.”

  Fortune read Parsons’s column. Ree is the brains of the outfit, he thought. “Get him back on the radio now,” he told Enna. “Don’t wait for the Sandpiper.”

  “On record or a show?”

  “Both.”

  The Palm Tree gigs in Miami went off without a hitch. Three nights, three home runs. Cy Geller and his wife led the applause, the old man sitting stork-like tall, cold judgment on his tanned face. The hated ballad from 1940 went over big, so did the jazz numbers: The local trumpeter, a Cuban, figured out that playing Sweets was the way to go. Ree flew in for the Saturday show and called in a big favor. America woke up on Monday to find a photo of Ree and Marsala with Ernest Hemingway between them, Papa saggy-eyed from drink and still weak from a flu he’d caught in Havana. “Heard they harassed you in my old hometown,” Hemingway said of Chicago, within earshot of a reporter from Life magazine as the famous trio shared stone crabs. “They can be bastards, can’t they?” The Miami papers tried to play the engagement cool—the fickle reporters didn’t know which way to jump—but they admitted Bill Marsala knew how to please an audience.

  The following week, Fortune flew with Marsala and Enna to the three-night engagement in Houston. Fortune came and went, camping out at another hotel, but he caught two shows. Another success, the locals friendly, and up in New York, Winchell wrote, “Oil Town gave Marsala’s oh-so-lovely performance applause by the geyserful. Narrows Gate’s favorite son will be lighting up Hollywood for 10 days before he returns to the main stem for two weeks at the Caribbean. Dollars to doughnuts sez it’ll be New York’s hottest ducat since he first conquered the Paramount.”

  “Who sucked his dick?” Fortune asked.

  “We owe,” Enna conceded.

  Fortune, Marsala and Enna went on to Vegas.

  Construction was back on schedule, Saul Geller told them. The first week of March was guaranteed. Enna promised his agency would turn out all its clients for the opening. “By the way,” Fortune said to Marsala, “your name is off the lounge.”

  Marsala didn’t respond. His throat was acting up, raw as a skinned knee. He feared the clits’ return.

  “I like you quiet,” Fortune said as they returned to the trailer, an oven in the Nevada sun.

  Marsala had two weeks until the engagement at the nightclub on Sunset Strip owned by Saul Geller’s new partner, Harry Milton.

  The weekly radio show was back on, Chesterfield as sponsor.

  Ree’s ex, Guy Simon, dropped by Marsala’s apartment, bearing ideas for arrangements he’d sketched to turn the old hits new. The “Cugat without the congas” approach was too heavy-handed for the studio, he said, leather patches on his elbows, pipe in his fist. Referring to the charts he proposed, he said, “Bill, they’ll hardly realize you’re serving jazz. In the studio, you go whichever way you choose.”

  “Give it a shot,” Marsala told him.

  The singer wore a cashmere sweater over a turtleneck. Concerned about his pipes festering, he had Canter’s send over chicken soup, which he sipped piping hot. Three days in a nightclub with four days off was one thing. But he was facing 10 nights in a club, recording sessions and the radio show, which meant appearances on his guests’ programs in return.

  “I’ll need funding, Bill,” Simon said.

  “Get in touch with Enna.”

  The next day, Enna called to say Simon’s charts were brilliant. “Let him arrange the new sessions,” he suggested.

  Eleanor Ree was naked on his disheveled bed. “It’s incest,” Marsala replied.

  She made a circle with her index finger near the side of her head.

  Marsala laughed. “Sure,” he said to Enna. “Hire him. What the fuck.”

  “You’re nuts, too,” Ree told him when he returned to bed.

  “For you, baby.”

  The following morning, Marsala was up before noon. Showered, shaved, a little coffee and a soft-boiled egg he’d made while he called Ree just to hear her voice. Then he told the valet to bring around his car. He was off to visit Rosa and Bill Jr. He felt bright today. He was certain he could pull it off.

  Nino Terrasini opened the door. He had Bill Jr. on his hip.

  “Glug,” said the boy, his chin glistening with spittle.

  “Where’s Rosa?” Marsala asked. He hadn’t expected this.

  “Out.”

  “And you’re in, I suppose. Or are you just the babysitter?”

  “Sitter. Still.” He lifted Bill Jr. and passed him to his father.

  The kid wailed and reached for Terrasini, who patted his cheek, kissed his forehead and walked into the sun, giving father and child a chance to settle down. When Terrasini returned, he found Marsala on the floor, stacking blocks for the boy to topple. Bill Jr. seemed content. Yesterday, Rosa had to use tweezers to get out an olive pit he’d jammed up his nose. “He’s curious,” she said.

  “He sure is,” Terrasini replied.

  “You living here?” Marsala walked to the liquor cabinet, a hitch in his step.

  Terrasini told him West Hollywood.

  “I’m trying to figure out why you split,” Marsala said, an inch or so of scotch in a tumbler.

  “I didn’t. You left.”

  “I left Rosa.”

  “And Phil.”

  Marsala said, “It would’ve blown over.”

  “Save it, Bebe. I know you and I knew Hennie. What else do I have to say?”

  “You think what you want,” he said. He swirled the glass, spinning the liquor and then polished off the drink.
“I’m here to talk to Rosa.”

  “She’s not here.”

  “Or she’s hiding.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “You tell her to hide from me?” Marsala said as he walked to the staircase. Terrasini heard him enter the master bedroom, the guest room and second guest room. Bathroom doors opened and closed. Coming back down the stairs, Marsala slid the empty glass on the bar and went into his office. He found it packed, the boxes stacked, the walls bare.

  When he returned to the living room, Rosa stood at the front door holding a bag of groceries high against her beige coat.

  Marsala said, “Hi Rose.”

  Terrasini retrieved the grocery bag.

  Marsala went in to peck her cheek, but she turned and took off her coat, revealing a brown one-piece and alligator belt that matched her shoes. “What are you doing here?”

  “I came to say hello,” he replied. “To see how Bill Jr.’s doing. He looks terrific. You, too.”

  Rosa shut the closet door and walked past him to lift their son. The boy’s expression didn’t change, but he dropped his head on his mother’s shoulder, looping his chubby arms around her neck.

  She rocked back and forth as she spoke. “Please call before you come.”

  Terrasini watched from the kitchen doorway.

  “Fair enough,” Marsala replied.

  “You can see Bill Jr. when you like, but just call. And don’t bring her.”

  “Rosa—”

  “If you don’t mind, I’ve got things to do.”

  “Jesus, Rosa, we can’t talk a little?”

  She stared at him. “‘We were only kids when we started dating,’” she said evenly, quoting Parsons’s column. “Is that right, Bill?”

  “Well, we were—”