“Just that he’s a blade man,” Jerry said.
“Okay,” Jack said, “I’ll give it a try.” He looked at me. “Keep that asshole Ordway happy. I want him to drop a million!”
Jerry and I went out, passed the new girl, who nodded, and then he grabbed my arm in the hallway to stop me.
“Do people come here and drop a million?” he asked.
“Every day.”
TWENTY FOUR
We had four more high rollers that week and three celebrities. One of the high rollers—or “whales” — was a politician, so I really had to make him look clean while he was getting dirty as hell.
We were eating in the Garden Room one night — Jerry chomping on a salad, of all things, and eyeing my plate to see if I was going to leave any fries — when he asked, “So this is what you do every day?”
“This is it,” I said. “I get people what they want, or help them decide what they want.”
“It’s exhaustin’, ain’t it?”
“Yes,” I said, “a lot of the time. But then there are the times it’s enjoyable.”
“Like when Mr. S. and Dino come to town?”
“Exactly.” I had given up trying to figure out why Dino could be Dino, but I had to be Mr. G. and Frank had to be Mr. S.
“Also people like Sammy, Joey, Nat King Cole, Julie London —“
“Julie London?” he exclaimed. “Man, she’s gorgeous. You know her?”
“She plays Vegas every so often,” I said. “I’ve met her.”
“Met her?” he asked. “The way you ‘met’ Miss A. and Miss M.?”
He was talking about Ava Gardner and Marilyn Monroe, both of whom we had helped out of some sticky situations. Jerry had always thought I slept with both of them. But I only had sex with Ava. Marilyn, she was like a child. I just wanted to protect her. She called me the night she died, but by the time I got there she was gone. I think about that often. And Ava pops into my mind on more than one or two occasions.
“No,” I said, “not like that. She comes to town with her husband, Bobby Troupe.”
“Ain’t he a drummer?”
“That’s right.”
“Musicians,” he said, shaking his head. “They get lots of pussy, don’t they? Drummers, guitar players...”
“... and singers.”
“Yeah,” Jerry said, “especially them.”
He finished his salad—every leaf and nut in the bowl—and then hungrily eyed my plate.
“You gonna eat those?”
“I looked down at the small pile of French fries that were still on my plate, next to the meatless T-bone.
“No,” I said, pushing the plate to him, “go ahead.”
He grabbed it, did his thing with the ketchup, and started dipping and eating.
So far, during the first week, no one had come close to trying to kill me. A few men, strangers, had come close to me, but Jerry had quickly stepped in and determined that they were innocents.
“How’s your love life, Mr. G.?” he asked, as he bit a particularly long fry in half.
“Why do you ask?”
“Well, I ain’t even seen you talk to a woman all week unless she was a waitress, a dealer, a hotel clerk or a cigarette girl.”
“How do you know I’m not sleepin’ with a waitress, a desk clerk, or even a hat check girl?”
“You ain’t eve made a call,” Jerry said. “You ain’t seein’ nobody, these days?”
“Nope,” I said, “nobody. I almost made it with a divorcee in Miami when I was there, but it didn’t happen.”
“Why not?”
“A guy got killed in an elevator,” I said. “That kind of put a crimp in my plans.”
“It always does,” he said, and I wasn’t sure whether or not he was kidding. Death had been more a part of his life than mine.
Suddenly, he looked past me and said, “Oh, this can’t be good.”
I turned and saw Jack Entratter coming toward us. For Jack to leave his office and come looking for me rather than call me up there—yeah, Jerry was right. Not good.
“Shove over,” he told me and slid into the booth next to me. Sharing a booth with both him and Jerry was not only cramped but humbling. I felt like a small boy.
The waitress, a middle-aged woman who had been working there for years, came rushing over when she saw Jack.
“Mr. Entratter, we’re not used to seein’ you down here.”
“Hello, Molly.”
“Can I get you somethin’?”
“Just some coffee, thanks.”
“Right away, sir.”
She rushed off, came back immediately not only with a cup but a fresh pot.
“You gonna eat those?” Jack asked Jerry and reached onto my former plate for a fry. I thought Jerry was going to cry.
“What brings you down here among the unwashed, Jack?” I asked.
“I got a call from Frank. He’s been tryin’ to call you at your house. Since you weren’t answering he figured he’d call here and leave you a message.”
“Must’ve been some message to take you out of your office to deliver it,” I said.
“To tell you the truth, I don’t know what kind of message it is. From what I understand, he wants you to know as soon as possible.” He drank some coffee.
“About what?”
“Gleason.”
“Jackie? What about him?”
“He’s comin’ here.”
“To Vegas?” Jerry asked, excited. “When? Why? Is he playing here?”
“No,” Jack said. He looked at the plate again, but since he took one, Jerry had scarfed down the rest of the fries. “He’s comin’ specifically to see you, Eddie. He’ll be here tomorrow. Have a suite ready for him.”
“Sure, but what’s he comin’ to see me for?”
“I don’t know,” he said, “and if Frank knows, he didn’t tell me.”
“This has got to have something to do with what happened last week,” I said, “otherwise I have no idea. Maybe I should call Frank.”
“He’s still at Cal-Neva,” Jack said. “They got some problems there he’s tryin’ to clear up. He said he just wanted to give you a heads-up, but that Jackie would fill you in when he gets here.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it,” Jack said, finishing his coffee. “I’ve got to get back. Bein’ a goddamned errand boy for you ain’t in my job description, damn it!”
He got up and left before I could say anything.
I looked at Jerry.
“Can’t be about anything else, that I can think of,” I said.
“I guess you’ll find out when he gets here,” Jerry said. “Hey, I get to meet ‘im.”
“Yeah, you do,” I said. “He’ll like meetin’ another Brooklyn boy.”
Jerry poured himself some coffee from the pot Molly had brought to Entratter.
“Mr. E. took a French fry from me,” he muttered.
“I saw. I admire you for not removin’ his arm and beatin’ him to death with it.”
“I don’t like people eatin’ from my plate.”
I refrained from reminding him that it was my plate he had gotten the fries from.
TWENTY FIVE
“Are we gonna pick up Mr. Gleason at the airport?” Jerry asked as we left the café.
“No,” I said. “I’m gonna do my job until I hear from Jackie that he’s here, then I’ll arrange a time and place to see him. Besides, he’ll be coming in on Frank’s plane. So it could be any time.”
“What are we gonna do now?” he asked.
“I’m — we’re going to our suite so I can call Frank at the Cal-Neva and see if he knows anything.”
“Right.”
On the way across the hotel lobby floor to the elevators, it looked for a moment as if a man there was going to approach me. Jerry instantly moved to get between the two of us, but the man kept moving.
“He’s nobody,” I said.
“We don’t know that,” Jerry
said. “Maybe he kept goin’ because he saw me.” He looked after the man, who kept walking out the door. “I’m gonna be on the lookout for him.”
“Listen,” I said, “I’m just going up to the suite. Why don’t you see if the valets know anything about him? Or the hotel staff. And then meet me up there.”
“I should stay with you —“
“Go!” I said, “I’ll be fine in the room until you get back.”
He turned to head toward the lobby, but pointed at me and said, “Don’t leave the room!”
I watched him lumber across the lobby floor, then got into the elevator and went up.
***
I had to wait for somebody to find Frank and bring him to the phone. I chose to wait on the line rather than leave a message for him to call me back, because who knew when that would be?
He came on the line. “Eddie? What’s up, pal?”
“Frank, I just got word that Jackie is comin’ here to Vegas to see me.”
“Gleason? In Vegas? Not one of his usual haunts.”
“Do you know anything about this?” I asked.
“Well... I know he wants to talk to you, but I ain’t sure what it’s about.”
“All I can think of is the stuff that went on with the murder, and Marilyn.”
“Maybe...” he said, trailing off. I had the feeling he knew more than he was saying, and why not? He’d been friends with Gleason a lot longer than we’d even known each other. If the Great One had told him not to say anything, he wouldn’t.
It still made me mad, though.
“Yeah, okay,” I said. “Thanks for nothin’.”
“Hey, kid,” he said, “don’t get sore.”
“S’long, Frank,” I said, and hung up.
On Frank Sinatra.
Me.
Frank had a temper. It had been well documented in the trades many times. However, I had never been on the receiving end of it, and I had never really seen it, except during the whole Peter Lawford/Kennedy thing. When Jack chose to stay at Bing Crosby’s house instead of at Frank’s in Palm Beach — after Frank had built him a wing and a helipad — Frank destroyed the helipad with a sledgehammer, and almost did the same to Lawford. Peter had been cut off since then. Oddly, Frank’s anger was never directed at Der Bingle. He figured the fault was with Lawford and the Kennedys, not Bing.
Now I’d hung up on him. Was he going to get mad at me? I’ve got to say, at that moment I wasn’t too worried about it.
***
“You did what?” Jerry asked after I’d let him in and told him the story. “Hung up? On Mr. S.?”
“Well,” I told him, defensively, “he wasn’t very helpful, and I got mad.”
“Why?”
“He knows Jackie,” I said. “He probably knows why he’s comin’ here.”
“Maybe Mr. Gleason asked him not to say.”
I sulked a few seconds.
“I thought we were friends,” I said, finally.
“You are,” Jerry assured me, “but he knows Mr. Gleason a helluva lot longer.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know all that,” I said, waving my hands at him. “I’m just wondering if this is gonna have to do with that murder. I really don’t wanna have anything to do with that, anymore.”
“I can’t blame ya for that,” he said. “Nobody likes murder.”
Then I remembered why he hadn’t come up in the elevator with me.
“You find out anything about that guy?”
“Naw,” he said, “nobody in the hotel even knew who I was talkin’ about. And the valets just said he was a good tipper, but he didn’t give them any idea what he was doin’ here.”
“Then like you said, he could’ve been lookin’ for me, saw you and changed his mind.”
“Maybe.”
“Well, that guy’s probably nobody, but you’re right in the middle of my bullseye,” I said. “Maybe you should go home, Jerry.”
“Too late for that, Mr. E..”
“I know, he’s seen you. I’m sorry—“
“No, I mean, it’s too late because now I’m here and I ain’t leavin’ you. Nobody’s gonna take you out as long as I got somethin’ ta say about it.”
I was touched. “Thanks, Jerry.”
“We could probably use some back-up, though,” he admitted. “Or just another pair of eyes.”
“I know,” I said. “Danny.”
“The dick’s got a big opinion of himself,” Jerry said, “but ya can count on him.”
“I’ll give him a call,” I said. “And I’m sure he’ll like to know your opinion of him.”
“You tell ‘im what I said,” Jerry replied, “and I’ll call ya a liar.”
I laughed and went to the phone. For the moment I wasn’t mad, anymore.
TWENTY SIX
Since Frank had called Jack Entratter about Jackie Gleason coming to Vegas, Jack didn’t mind me leaving the property during working hours. Not as long as I was doing something for “the guys.”
Jerry and I met Danny at the Horseshoe casino coffee shop, down on Fremont Street. It was one of Jerry’s favorite places to eat in town, but I didn’t know how he was going to do on this new diet.
The coffee shops in Vegas were not high-class dining. Mostly you either ate breakfast there — best bacon’n’eggs in town at a cheap price — or just a burger platter.
Danny was already in one of the red leather booths when we got there.
“I ordered three burgers,” he said, as I slid into the seat across from him.
Jerry sat next to me on the end.
“Hey,” he said, “usually I got one cheek hangin’ outta here.” He wiggled a bit.
“What?” Danny asked.
“He’s on a diet.”
“Oh, ho!” Danny said. “You got a girl, Jerry?”
“I got diabetes.” His delivery was absolutely deadpan.
“Oh,” Danny said. “Uh, sorry to hear that, big guy.”
“It’s okay,” Jerry said. “I just gotta watch what I eat.”
“Well, I’m sure you can do it,” Danny said. He looked at me for rescue. “What on your mind?”
“There might be a hitman after me,” I said.
“Didn’t we go through this already? Last year? The year before?”
“Well, as far as I know there’s no hit out on me, officially,” I said, “but I got involved in something when I went to Miami with Frank.”
He listened while I told him everything that happened.
“Leave it to you to go to Miami Beach and find a body that’s not wearin’ a bikini,” Danny said, sitting back to let the waitress put down our plates. “Plus you blew your chance with a sexy divorcee.”
“That’s what you got out of that?” I asked.
“No, no,” Danny said, “I get it. The killer let you walk, but he might decide he’s made a mistake. I assume that’s why Jerry’s here.”
“Yeah,” Jerry said, picking up his burger, “but I can’t be with him every minute.”
“So you want me to... what? Be the back-up?”
“Yeah,” I said. “It was Jerry’s idea.”
“Is that right?”
“No,” Jerry lied, “it ain’t.”
“Well,” Danny said, picking up his own burger, “whoever’s idea it was, I’m in. We can’t have our pal Eddie ending up toes up in a morgue, can we?”
“No, we can’t,” Jerry said.
***
Over the course of the meal, we tried to figure out the best way to use Danny.
“You’re gonna see Gleason tomorrow?” Danny asked, eating his last French fry.
“That’s right.”
“When?”
“Whenever he arrives,” I said. “Frank’s flyin’ him in.”
“Frank didn’t tell you when?”
“Frank didn’t tell me anything,” I replied. “He was no help.”
“Whoa,” Danny said, “trouble in paradise with the Chairman?”
“Never mind,” I
said. “I’ll take Jerry with me to see Gleason, so maybe you can stay on the perimeter and watch our backs.”
“No problem,” Danny said. “I can do that.”
He sat back in his seat, pushed his plate away.
“You gonna eat that last piece of bacon?” Jerry asked him.
“I thought you were on a diet?”
“I ain’t finishin’ my fries,” Jerry argued, “but I can eat bacon.”
Danny didn’t think that was right, but since he knew very little about diabetes he said, “No, man, go ahead, have it.”
Jerry picked the piece of crisp bacon up from Danny’s plate and popped it into his mouth.
“How long do you think this is gonna go on?” the detective asked.
“I don’t know,” I said, “at least until the Miami Beach police solve their case.”
“You think they’re gonna catch the guy?”
“Probably not,” Jerry said. “Not unless they find out who hired him.”
“And that means they’ve gotta find out who wanted the dead guy dead,” I added.
“So you think maybe Gleason’s comin’ to town with some information?”
“I’ve got no idea why he’s comin’ to town,” I said. “Tomorrow we’ll know more.”
I pushed my plate away, purposely leaving a piece of bacon for Jerry.
“Mr. G.,” he said, “are you gonna—“
“Go ahead, Jerry, “I said. “It’s yours.”
TWENTY SEVEN
Jerry and I returned back to the Sands and I went to work. He hovered. People who would normally come over and talk to me seemed to hold back because of his slightly less than usual hulking presence.
“Jerry,” I said, at one point, ”you’ve gotta give me a little more space. You’re scarin’ my regular customers.”
“Sorry, Mr. G.,” Jerry said, “but I got to be close enough to do my job.”
“Your job?”
“That’s how I’m approachin’ this,” he said. “I wanna do it right.”
“You’re doin’ great,” I said, “but let’s see if you can do it from a little further back.”
[Rat Pack 11] - I Only Have Lies for You Page 8