by Lauren Jayne
Helen was only about ten years younger than Booboo, with golden hair that looked like it was a wig; I swear when she hugged me, it moved a little. She had greenish-gray eyes and fair skin.
When Helen walked away, Booboo told me again, “You have no idea how lucky she is. I saved her.”
Then Booboo started the walking tour through her immaculate house. The kitchen was tiled, and nothing was on any counter top. The bar was just beyond the kitchen and led to the formal sitting room. It was mirrored and had shelf after shelf of bottles of alcohol. But they weren’t like any bottles I had seen at a restaurant before. They were large, some of them were three feet tall, some with wax dripping down the sides, some with Milton’s name on them, in every shape you could imagine and each one with a story.
“This bottle,” she pointed with her cigarette filled fingers, “this is from Dean Martin; he was afraid he’d upset Milton, so he had this bottle messengered to the house. This is from a sheik in Dubai; I told Milton to leave it on the yacht, but he insisted we bring it back with us. And this bottle was handmade by Fat Eddie’s mother; it’s called Limoncello.”
Unable to catch myself, I asked, “Who’s Fat Eddie?”
Booboo looked up at me with her steely eyes and said, “You’re glad Milton’s at work. Sometimes if he just hears his name, he starts thinking of his linguini, and there’s nothing I can do but get him down there for a bowl of it. Once, when we were in New York City visiting Milton’s blood (that’s how he referred to his family), they brought us to a terrible place in Little Italy. Milton threw down his fork and told me to get him out of there. We drove from Little Italy to the airport, and within five hours, thanks to the Concorde, Milton was eating a bowl of Fat Eddie’s pasta in Rome.”
I didn’t dare ask what the Concorde was.
Booboo scooted over the rust-colored, double plush, softest carpet I had ever felt, to her shiny black baby grand piano. The white keys were covered with marks of red and coral from where Booboo’s painted nails had pounded on them. Five foot tall and under a hundred pounds, Booboo closed her eyes and played that thing like she was sitting in front of a packed Carnegie Hall. Rings banging, body swaying like Steve Wonder, the sound that was coming from the piano made it seem as if it were plugged into a record player.
When she was done, she said, “Did you know your Booboo played professionally? That’s right, I played for the silent movies when I was a kid. Now go and get changed for dinner. I’ve laid something out for you in the back bedroom.”
Hope met me in the hallway with her towel still wrapped around her head; she grabbed my hand and brought me back to her room. Hope looked like an exotic goddess, an undeniable beauty; her Italian dad must have been handsome. With long brown hair, perfectly tan skin even in December, and big, deep brown eyes, she had a childlike allure that surrounded her. Hope talked a mile a minute, leading me to the gift closet that she’d been telling me about for years. Walking into Booboo and Milton’s enormous room draped in light green velvet, she led me into the bathroom. Black and gold everywhere, Hope took a sharp right into the walk-in closet. Then she lifted her hands and twirled around.
“This is the gift closet! Want some perfume or a scarf? Need a little radio or a clock? Some of them are made from real gold.” Boxes upon boxes, some of them with little notes still tucked into them, lined the closet. Then Hope pointed to a square in the ceiling. “And that, that is filled with money. Want me to show you?” I was so nervous that Booboo would walk in, I grabbed a bottle of Hope perfume for Carmen, and we ran down to Hope’s room.
When we headed into the kitchen where Booboo was sitting at her round glass table on a bamboo chair with a padded cushion, she stood up, lit a cigarette and then started to inspect us. As I stood in Booboo’s navy blue, long sleeve, mock turtleneck sweater that she’d so kindly laid out for me, I thought I’d have a nosebleed in her always-eighty-degree house. With her empty hand over her mouth, her small eyes squinted and her lips pursed, she walked around us. I couldn’t help but pull my stomach in and my shoulders back.
After what felt like an hour, she spoke.
“Grab a sweater; we’re going to the hotel.”
Wasn’t I already wearing a sweater, I thought as I grabbed the white one from Helen’s outstretched hand. She hugged me and kissed my forehead and told us to have fun. Driving home from the airport at nine o’clock on a Saturday night was one thing, but driving around Vegas at eleven was quite another. Hope and I both sat in the back seat, coughing as the smoke threatened to suffocate us. Booboo thought she was rolling down the window as she tapped the down button on the shiny window controller. It moved down about 1/32 of an inch. Being thrown from one end of the white leather bench to the other with each turn, we laughed while we heard the banging on the wood steering wheel meet with her Liberace-esque rings. Even though the club was only a few minutes from her house, it took twenty, since Booboo had an only-right-turns rule she implemented without exceptions.
Cars from the packed hotel were spilling into the buzzing street. Cabs were honking, men in buttoned uniforms were whistling and pointing like New York City police officers on Thanksgiving morning. In a lane all her own, Booboo pulled right up to the front door. Hope and I were ducked down in the back seat, sure that we’d be mobbed by the crowd of people and cars that shrouded the hotel like the night. Booboo flipped down her visor, lifted her mirror, gave herself a confident nod of approval and, not to be rushed by any situation, as all four doors whipped open, flipped it closed. With her Chanel bag tucked under her tiny arm she stepped out of the car, wearing a mock turtleneck (just like the one I was reluctantly wearing, but hers was black), with tiny black trousers and a Chanel pearl pendant hanging from a gold chain around her neck.
“Hello, Mrs. Frank. Good to see you, Mrs. Frank. You look lovely tonight, Mrs. Frank…”
While they were mid-sentence, she walked away, never looking back. I ran up behind Hope and linked her arm with mine so we wouldn’t get separated as we followed Booboo through the jam-packed lobby. As she walked by, people would say, “Hello, Mrs. Frank, it’s nice to see you.” She kept her eyes straight ahead.
Hope was pointing out people and places to me like a fourth grader shows her girlfriend her bedroom. “That’s Martine and if you ever need anything, call him.” He waved to Hope. As we snaked our way through the hotel, getting bumped and pushed along the way, we kept our eye on the tiny silver-haired lady who was navigating this crowd like a hungry lion in a field of injured gazelles. Hope was pointing to the outfits.
“See, I told you, some of the girls just wear tape on their you-know-whats, and look at that – that’s a dress, not a shirt; look at all of the glitter! Doesn’t her shirt, I mean dress, look like a disco ball?”
Booboo was heading right towards the front of a massive line of people that snaked through the hotel’s packed casino and around the corner by the cashiers’ cage. The hair-sprayed and made-up blonde, Barbie-looking woman, greeted Booboo with a trace of fear in her accommodating voice.
“Don’t you look lovely, Mrs. Frank. Will you be dining with us tonight, Mrs. Frank? Mr. Frank was in earlier, but I’m afraid he’s left.”
“I know where my husband is. There are three of us and don’t put us in the back like dogs.”
“Of course not, Mrs. Frank. Never.”
In less than one minute we were seated at a linen-covered table for four dripping with glasses and silverware for about twenty. The barrage of uniformed people left their other tables mid-order to run to ours. As Booboo was being inundated with compliments, Hope signaled me to follow her. I looked at Booboo, who was basking in her glory, and followed Hope out of the restaurant, into the bustling casino. She grabbed my hand and pulled me up the stairs, down the hall, and to a bathroom covered in white marble and shiny gold-looking everything. The girl working in the bathroom knew Hope by name. Hope pulled a lipstick from her pocket, swiped it on, handed it over to me and we headed out.
Walking back to an a
uditorium, Hope pulled opened the door and someone was up on stage speaking. She had long black rope-looking hair with purple lips and no eyebrows.
Hope said, “That’s Whoopi Goldberg. She’s been here for a while; she’s some new comedian. Milton loves her, but we can’t go because she swears.”
The guy at the door asked Hope if she was OK. When we walked out, Hope led me through the hotel, clearly looking for someone or something. Then she grabbed my hand and lurched me toward a lady wearing a gymnastic-looking leotard with thick tan nylons and shiny gold heels; her eyes were lined like an Egyptian and her hair was pulled back into a high pony. A tray of cigarettes, gum and mints hung from around her neck.
“This is Jane,” Hope said. “Jane, this is my sister, Lauren.” They hugged like they were sisters. “Lauren, I’ve known Jane since I was a little girl. She’s like my big sister.”
“Good to meet you, Lauren. You girls look so much alike.”
Was Jane blind? My sister was an exotic beauty, and I was most certainly not.
They hugged again, and Hope turned to me and said, “Watch this.” She ran through the hotel heading back to Booboo, me traipsing behind, and then I noticed – there were three security guys with wires coming from their ears following us.
Hope waved up to the cameras hanging from the ceiling and said, “Say hi to Milton.”
When we arrived at the table, winded, Booboo had barely noticed we were gone. Hope and I were starving, as it was eleven-thirty now and we hadn’t had dinner yet. Finally, we ate.
Back at the house, Hope and I were lying on the fabric-covered couches that were the exact same color as the custom-dyed carpet. Listening to Hope tell stories of her travels around the world, I started to doze off as I heard the front door opening. Laughter filled the house as Milton and a large man walked into the entry. Hope ran up to greet him, and I followed her lead. He hugged her, and she said hi to Milton’s driver like he was an uncle. Milton told him he’d see him tomorrow and then he turned to me. Cocking his head sideways and holding his arms up to his side, he waited for me to walk over to him.
“What the fuck?” he said, laughing. I came closer, and he pulled me in for a hug.
Booboo scooted out in her red housecoat, gliding over the marble entry in her tiny-heeled Chanel slippers.
“Okay, Mr. Frank, the girls will get you settled and I’ll bring you something.”
“She talks to me like a two-year-old,” he laughed, slapping his thigh.
We escorted Milton to the couch, Hope and me on either side of him. Hope knowingly fluffed the pillow behind him and tucked one of Booboo’s knitted blankets around his stocking feet. Milton told us stories about the night.
“Tom was in tonight with Nicole. He’s a good kid, but a faygeleh of the worst order. He followed me around – ‘yes Milton, no Milton.’” Milton banged on his lap, laughing so hard tears were streaming down his makeup-covered cheeks.
Stupidly, I asked, “Tom who?”
“Cruise,” he answered, with the low, slow tone that let you know he was kidding, but serious. “Listen to this,” he said to Hope and me, as he called out to Booboo. “Ann – two aspirin, one tea!”
Just then Booboo rounded the corner with a black lacquered tray. On the tray was a rose in a glass bud vase, a folded linen napkin, two aspirin on a small plate, a glass of tea, and two pieces of Mandelbrodt, the Jewish version of biscotti that Booboo made just for Milton. I’d unknowingly reached for one off of the counter because I was starving after my flight and Booboo had slapped my hand. “Milton needs those!” like they were for a colicky baby whose favorite biscuits could only be special ordered from Italy.
Milton asked me to grab the book of matches that sat in the enormous crystal ashtray on their gold and glass coffee table so he could light a cigarette.
“Sometimes I just like a puff; don’t tell Booboo.”
When I picked them up, I noticed something strange. They read “Milton Frank.” Milton never allowed his name, address or phone number to go on anything, as he was paranoid that people would find him and kill him. Everything, including his checks, just read “Milton.” I flipped the black book over and saw a naked girl, outlined in gold, with bunny ears, holding a key. In a circle around her, it read, “The Playboy Club, The Playboy Club, The Playboy Club.” I asked Milton if he was a member there.
He lowered his voice and eyes and raised his hands and said, “Of course, Hugh brought a box of those to me himself, with a couple other gifts too; he’s a good guy.” Then he started hitting his lap and laughing like he was thinking of some great times with Hugh.
After telling his story and eating his snack, Milton told Hope to flip on the TV that was behind the doors of the hand-carved wooden armoire that sat where the fireplace once lived.
“Did you hear the story about this armoire? Booboo had the poor guy in tears. And forget about the fireplace – she had a team of twenty guys coming and going!” He was cracking himself up, and us too. “Oh, stop there,” he commanded, as Hope flipped through the channels with the remote. “Barbara Walters,” he said, as he did an inside whistle that I’ve only ever heard him do; he sucked the air in, instead of out, and shook his head. “She’s a fucking cunt.”
“You don’t like her?” I asked.
“I love her!” he retorted like I was crazy for thinking that calling someone a cunt was meant to be anything less than a compliment. “Keep going, I can’t take her right now.” Hope flipped through a few more channels until Milton yelled, “Here, stop here! This is Down to Rio. That’s Ginger Rogers. You know my dad had Bing Crosby and her and a bunch of their friends over for Friday dinner.”
“Did they come?” I asked.
“Of course they came, the bums. Free meal and they ate every scrap on the table. But she’s a good girl.”
Piecing together the little bits and pieces of Milton’s story from my mom, Booboo, Hope, and Milton himself (when he’d had one too many of his little white pills), this is what I’d figured out: Milton had worked as a runner at the Edison Hotel in Times Square since he was twelve years old taking the train, bus, and subway from Connecticut, where his family lived. When he was sixteen, he moved into various hotels in the city and worked as a soda jerk at the Edison. His dad was a recent immigrant from the old country, and with five brothers and sisters to help support, he quickly learned to work hard and follow directions. By the time he was seventeen, prohibition had started, and the mob guys had fallen in love with Milton’s work ethic and can-do attitude. If they had a job and were paying, he could do it. He started by bringing deliveries from the private card room in the back of the pharmacy and giving him bigger and bigger jobs. They eventually moved him to Jersey. His boss, Myer Lansky, was not only the head of the largest Jewish Mafia, but he was also one of Milton’s biggest fans, and after some time in Jersey, moved him down to Cuba to run the private card rooms. One night, at a huge swanky party that Mr. Lansky was hosting, they got a call from President Kennedy.
Milton said, “He told us we had to get out now, so I was on the next plane out. The guys that didn’t listen got busted or worse; they never left Cuba after that night. The Bay of Pigs was a blood bath. Yea, Kennedy, he was a good kid.”
My late night conversations with Milton taught me that just like all rock stars don’t do drugs and trash hotels rooms, all mobsters don’t break knees and bury bodies. Listening to him, I learned that Mr. Lansky was a devoted family man who loved his kids and was just doing what he knew how to do to take care of them. Milton did the same. Being a paid employee of Meyer Lansky for most of his adult life was just as much of a career as being a doctor or a lawyer.
After that, Milton had to lay low until things cooled off. He spent a short time at the CalNeva Lodge in Lake Tahoe and ended up getting off the grid for a while; that’s when he moved to Denver to help his brothers with their furniture stores.
Shortly before then, Booboo had been working at her friend’s dress shop in Denver. Always dressed impecc
ably, since she proudly fit in the sample sizes, she loved her job as a buyer and head salesperson. One night she came home to check on the brisket that she’d put in the oven before leaving for work hours ago, and she heard the phone ringing. She wiped her hands on her apron, crushed out her cigarette, lifted the large, black receiver and spoke. “Hello. Yes, I’m his wife. Okay, yes, I will be right down.”
Mom was upstairs in her room listening to the call, as back then a phone call usually meant there was a problem. Her brother Stanley met her at the top of the stairs as they watched Booboo tie the gray belt from her peacoat around her tiny waist and head out the door. When Booboo returned an hour later, she tapped across the hardwood floors, hung her coat, lit a cigarette, and on her way to the stove told her dad, Zade, who was sitting in the rocking chair in the living room, that Mom’s dad Jimmy was dead.
“I went down to ID him. It was a mess; he shot himself right in front of the hospital in his car.”
Mom overheard this from her spot at the top of the stairs and ran down the runner in the narrow hallway to her wallpapered bedroom and slammed the door. She fell on her bed with her head on her pillow, kicking her little five-year-old legs and sobbing. Her big brother, Stanley, was trying to comfort her when Booboo opened the door and said, “Get washed up for dinner.”
Booboo was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, which I thought was a little strange, being Jewish. Her parents had fled Poland when her little sister Florence was just a year and a half old. Shortly after Booboo was born, they moved to Denver with nothing more than the clothes on their backs. She watched as her Orthodox parents worked day and night to make a few shekels at the Skid Row men’s used clothing store that Zade owned. She was used to struggling, and the fact that her now dead, drunk husband had gambled away her family’s livelihood was nothing more than a blip on her radar. At five years old, my mom just knew that her dad was the one with the funny stories and hugs, and now he was gone. Fifteen years later, almost to the day, my Uncle Stanley, Mom’s brother and eighteen-month-older best friend, would do the same thing. Bad news seemed to be part of Mom’s DNA.