Collins, Max Allan - Nathan Heller 08

by Blood (and Thunder) (v5. 0)

  The Stork Club was, obviously, for the class customer—the affluent, the prominent. Seymour was the only one in the party in a tux, however, though Huey had traded his green-silk pajamas for a light tan poplin suit, an expanse of tie that looked to have been splattered by its green-and-red colors and a lavender shirt with a checkered pattern. Explosion in a paint factory was right.

  Messina and McCracken were in their usual baggy mobster suits (McCracken had left his tommy gun in a bag behind), while I probably looked a little gangsterish myself in my rumpled dark suit. There hadn’t been time to have it, or my lightweight white spare, pressed at the hotel.

  But we were part of Senator Long’s party, and none of the stuck-up Stork Club staff dared say a word or risk a disapproving glance; the hatcheck girl, a curvy little redhead, even gave me a wink, a smile and a celluloid token in return for my fedora.

  Leaving the real world behind and entering into the fantasy realm of the rich, you were stopped at nothing so common as a velvet rope: the Stork Club had an eighteen-carat gold chain. This glittering barricade was lifted from our path by a dinner-jacketed captain who ushered us to the left, past a long, oval bar where, over cocktails, men in tails looking for tail murmured at frails in gowns that were no more expensive than your average Buick. Pretty chichi company for hoi polloi like me.

  Beyond a scattering of bar tables was the main room, where the Frank Shields Orchestra, on its tiered stage, was performing a rather listless “Begin the Beguine.” I hoped the onion soup was better.

  There were eight in our motley little party, all males, seated at a long table in the midst of the room like an island of riffraff in a sea of sophistication. All around us were men in white ties and ladies in dark gowns, both sexes smoking with that casual elegance only the rich (and, of course, movie stars who grew up in ghettos) can effortlessly affect, from barely legal debutantes to the barely living debauched, and all ages between, all dressed to the nines.

  Whether they were Manhattan society or tourists from Peoria who slipped the maître d’ a ten-spot, they were here to dine on the Stork Club’s specialty of the house: celebrity. You might see H. L. Mencken or Eddie Cantor; Ernest Hemingway or Claudette Colbert. Tonight, the main course was Kingfish.

  Not that anybody—except, perhaps, a tourist or two—gawked or gaped or any such thing. These raised-pinky types were more discreet. But out around the edges of their elegance, they were watching the Kingfish’s antics, taking it all in. What were they thinking, these rich people whose money Huey wanted to reclaim for the poor (and himself)?

  When a distinguished-looking older couple, on the way to the dance floor, stopped for a moment to pay their regards to the senator, he played modest. “Aw, I ain’t nothin’ much—only a little Kingfish from off yonder there.”

  When our waiter came for his order, the Kingfish said, “All I want’s a bowl of this here onion soup I been hearin’ so much about. And if it’s not up to snuff, tell that French chef of yours, I’m gon’ be back there next to ’im, with my coat off, teachin’ him how the Cajuns cook.”

  When the head bartender brought him over a complimentary gin fizz, a drink widely reported in the press to be Huey’s favorite, the senator at first declined, then relented, saying, “You know, I ain’t had a drink in eighteen months, but I’ll sample this, son, in order to be able to assure ya that it’s gen-you-wine.” He took a sip, said, “I think that’s all right, I think that’s all right…better be sure about it.”

  And he took another big drink, and flashed his rascal’s grin of approval around at all the eavesdroppers.

  But that was the last sip of anything alcoholic I saw him sip that night, or ever again, for that matter.

  When the onion soup arrived, it was damn good, a flavorful broth under a crust of browned swiss cheese that passed Huey’s muster. But when other people’s meals began to arrive, Huey—who hadn’t ordered anything but the soup—began casually plucking this and that off the plates of those around him. A boiled potato here, a carrot there, a bite or two of fish.

  Nobody at the table said a word about it, or even reacted; I wasn’t surprised, either—I’d noticed this behavior, back in Chicago in ’32. Par for the course, at mealtime with Huey. The only difference was, back then he ordered a plate of food for himself, as well.

  But now he was slimming down; preparing for the battle royal against “Prince Franklin.”

  In any case, I had positioned myself as far away from the Kingfish as possible. Nobody was getting a fork in this butter-smooth medium-rare New York strip steak but Nate Heller.

  As Huey dined on morsels plundered from the plates of others, he expounded on his enemies: Roosevelt’s postmaster and confidant Jim Farley was “the Nabob of New York,” Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace was “that ignoramus from Iowa,” Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes was “the chinch bug of Chicago.”

  Mostly, though, he railed about FDR.

  “He’s very popular right now, Huey,” Seymour Weiss said quietly, eating the few tidbits of lobster tail that Huey had left on his majordomo’s plate.

  “I can take him,” Huey said pugnaciously. “He’s a phony. I can take this Roosevelt. He’s scared of me, Seymour.” He snorted a laugh. “I can out-promise that son of a bitch any day of the week, and he knows it.”

  “Excuse me, Senator,” someone said. The voice was male, mellow, slightly nasal.

  At first I thought it was Jack Benny, and there was a resemblance, but then I realized this was another, if lesser, radio star: Phil Baker. I’d seen him in vaudeville in Chicago—the Benny similarity extended to his use of a musical instrument, an accordion substituting for Benny’s violin. Baker was a better musician, a pleasant singer, but not, in my opinion, particularly funny.

  “The Armour Jester!” Huey said, standing, brimming with enthusiasm. “Why, son, you’re the best thing on the Blue Network!”

  As they shook hands, the smiling Baker, hair slicked back, in a dark blue suit with dark blue bow tie, said, “I’m not gonna be on for Armour, anymore, Senator. I’m movin’ to CBS, for Gulf Oil.”

  “So long as it ain’t Standard.”

  They both laughed; everybody knew Huey Long and Standard Oil were bitter enemies.

  “I just signed the contract today, actually,” Baker said. “Real piece of luck.”

  “What’s that, son?”

  “I’m getting Will Rogers’s Sunday time slot.”

  Will Rogers and Wiley Post had died in a plane crash in Alaska two weeks ago. Real piece of luck.

  This good fortune had Baker bubbling. “Senator, I want you to meet the two most beautiful girls in New York, my wife, Peggy, and her niece, Cleanthe Carr.”

  Baker, who my trained detective’s eye placed at around forty, had a younger, quite attractive wife with dark blonde hair, chic and shapely in a black-and-white print satin evening dress with matching gloves.

  But next to her was a honey-blonde eyeful of probably eighteen, blue-eyed and sparkling of smile, her slender curves well served by a rose-color brocade taffeta gown that left her arms bare. Her shoulders were covered by puffs of sleeve tied with bows, her heart-shaped neckline modest but alluring.

  “Well, howdy do, ladies,” Huey said elegantly.

  “A pleasure, Senator,” Mrs. Baker said.

  “Cleanthe is Gene Carr’s daughter, Senator,” Baker said, as the Kingfish approached the girl with the same look in his eyes he would give the person-next-to-him’s plate of food.

  “What a charmin’ child,” he said, taking her hands in his. “‘Cleanthe’—that’s a nice Southern-soundin’ name for an East Coast kiddo like you, honey.”

  Her smile dimples seemed about to burst her pretty face; even for someone with a radio-star uncle, meeting the Kingfish was a big deal. And getting fussed over by the famous is hard to shrug off, even if you aren’t an eighteen-year-old girl.

  “Gene Carr is her father,” Baker told him again, as if that were important.

  “Gen
e Carr?” Huey asked absently, his eyes bulging and full of the girl.

  “The syndicated cartoonist?” Baker asked, seeking recognition. “His panel, ‘Metropolitan Movies,’ is very popular.”

  “Oh, that Gene Carr,” Huey said. He was still holding the girl’s hands. Staring at her. “Don’t imagine there’s a cartoon man anywhere on earth, under God’s livin’ sun, that’s better known.”

  I’d never heard of Carr, although Huey may have. Of course, I didn’t read the comics. But I would have said, “What about Walt Disney?” if I’d been part of the conversation, which I wasn’t.

  The girl, however, was beaming, hearing this praise heaped on her father.

  “Pull yourselves up some chairs, and join us!” Huey said gaily, nudging Seymour to make room for the honey blonde. Lou Irwin, on Huey’s other side, made room for Baker and his wife. I was next to Seymour, and scooted down accordingly.

  “Ha! Ha! Oh boy,” Baker said, treating us to an inane radio catch phrase of his. “Imagine finding a Kingfish inside a stork.”

  But Huey didn’t laugh or even seem to be paying attention to Baker; he was massaging the honey blonde with his eyeballs.

  “That’s my orchestra, you know,” Baker said, nodding toward the stage. “Frank Shields and his boys, I mean. They’re on my radio show.”

  “You want some champagne, young lady?” Huey asked her. “Seymour, pass that bubble water down heah!”

  “Cleanthe is an aspiring artist herself,” Baker said, finally grasping the only subject that interested Huey at the moment. “She’s going to study in France.”

  “Why get involved with them highfalutin’ suckers?” Huey asked her earnestly. “Honey, we got art classes at LSU.”

  The orchestra was making a decent enough job of “I’m in the Mood for Love.” Reading Huey’s mind, perhaps.

  “Just how good an artist is this little girl?” the Kingfish asked Baker, eyeing her in a manner that seemed unlikely to assess artistic skill.

  “She’s every bit as good a cartoonist as her father,” Baker said.

  Huey grabbed one of the napkins, with its top-hatted stork emblems. He dug in an inside pocket and came back with a fountain pen. He put the napkin before her, and held out the pen like a dare.

  “Then let’s see ya sketch me, young lady!”

  The young woman, who as yet had not spoken, did a quick, deft caricature of Huey with the fountain pen; in bold strokes, she caught him without flattering, or insulting him, which was a good trick for any caricaturist. She depicted him frozen in mid-hellfire speech: arms out, hair flying. Mouth open. It seemed the most natural way to depict him.

  He held the little napkin before him like a pocket mirror he was looking into, his eyes wide, his face a blank putty mask. Then he smiled, as if he relished the reflection.

  “Normally,” she said, in measured tones at odds with her college-girl good looks, “I work in wash, or charcoal.”

  “How would you like a job?” he asked her. He wasn’t looking at her with backwoods wanton lust anymore; he was appraising her as the talented young woman she was.

  “You mean, in the art field, Senator?”

  “I don’t mean in the cotton field, missy. I jest finished writin’ my latest masterpiece…li’l ol’ tome called My First Days in the White House. Thought I best write my memoirs of my presidential years ’ fore I got there, ’cause I’ll be too busy durin’, and after’s way too late.”

  I was eating my dessert, some cherry cheesecake; but sweet as it was, this latest explosion of Huey b.s. made me smile more. The guy was outrageous; you had to give him that.

  “Miss Carr,” he said almost formally, “I have been considerin’ adding some caricature illustrations to my book. Of myself and the other public figures depicted therein. And I think you’re the perfect man for the job. So to speak.”

  Her eyes were as wide as they were blue. She seemed flabbergasted, but had the presence of mind to say, “Why, I’d be honored, Senator.”

  “Is he serious about that book?” I whispered to Seymour.

  Seymour, who was pouring himself some champagne, nodded, and whispered back: “He finished dictating it last week. Intends it to be a major tool in his presidential effort—that’s why we’re in New York.”

  “What is?”

  “To place the book with a publisher.”

  Huey was saying, “Do you know what I want for my birthday, young lady? To show you how we cut a rug back in Loozyana.”

  He pulled her by the hand toward the dance floor, and she went willingly. As they were gliding around out there, he was making her laugh, obviously charming her, but the lack of animation in his features indicated he’d shifted gears. He was in that one-on-one mode of his, where he could exude a different sort of magnetism. Where he could harness the bull of himself and project a seductive gentleness…. I’d seen it this afternoon, when he’d told me how he needed a man…a man he could trust...

  “Hello, Seymour,” a female voice said; it was a melodic soprano.

  When I glanced up and back, I thought for a moment Claudette Colbert had shown up.

  “Well…Alice Jean,” Weiss said, clearly shaken by her presence. “Hello.”

  The bodyguards and male secretaries mumbled their hellos; I gathered her last name was “Crosley.”

  She was in her mid-twenties, slim yet bosomy, in a black satin dress with ruffles at the throat and cuffs, touched with winking rhinestones here and there; her hat was a black beret plumed with black ostrich feathers, at a rakish angle.

  The delicate features of her heart-shaped face were highlighted by hazel eyes, framed by perfect dark curls, though her mouth was thin, making a little bow of a smile.

  But the smile didn’t last long. It flattened into a single hard line at the sight of Huey dancing and flirting with Miss Carr.

  Seymour, noticing this, got suddenly conversational, half-turning in his chair. “What brings you to New York, Alice Jean?”

  “What do you think, you phony son of a bitch?”

  Alice Jean cut as straight a path as possible through the tables out to the dance floor, where the Kingfish and his new illustrator were taking the orchestra’s rendition of “Cheek to Cheek” literally. She tapped Cleanthe Carr on the puffy-sleeved shoulder.

  When Huey looked back to see who was cutting in, he frowned in surprised displeasure; even from this distance, his reddened face looked fearsome as he spat some harsh words at the pretty intruder.

  I couldn’t hear exactly what he said, but his young dancing partner looked as shocked as Alice Jean did hurt.

  Alice Jean almost ran from the dance floor, moving as fast as the tight gown would allow. She was biting her lower lip with tiny perfect white teeth, her big hazel eyes liquid with tears as she rushed out of the room, wearing dozens of café society eyes.

  “A dame with a shape like that,” I said to Seymour, “usually gets a warmer reception.”

  “She’s lucky Huey didn’t slap her,” Seymour said. “He told her to stay away.”

  “Why? Who is she?”

  “Alice Jean Crosley.”

  “I gathered. Who is she?”

  Seymour was pouring himself another glass of champagne. “She used to be his confidential secretary.”

  “Used to be?”

  He nodded. “She wanted to go to Washington with him, but he told her she couldn’t.” Seymour’s voice was only faintly edged with sarcasm, as he said: “After all, how would it look, an attractive girl like Alice Jean…and the senator, a happily married man with children…”

  “A ‘happily married man’ with his eye on the White House, you mean.”

  Seymour nodded.

  “So he gave her the brush,” I said, “and she’s pissed off.”

  Seymour laughed soundlessly. “Hardly. He left her home in Louisiana, all right…but he made her Secretary of State.”

  Before I could inquire of Seymour just how even a Huey Long could get away with appointing his mistress t
o a high office like that, the Kingfish was back at the table, holding the chair out for Miss Carr, his spirits high again.

  “Son,” he said to Baker, even though they were probably about the same age, “your niece is as light on her feet as she is proficient with a pencil.”

  The girl seemed a little unnerved, which didn’t escape the Kingfish’s notice.

  “Folks, I’m sorry about that nasty little spectacle out there,” he said. “’Fraid I lost my temper with the child.” He shrugged. “But when people throw stones at me, I throw brickbats back at ’em.”

  “Excuse me,” a female voice said.

  We all looked back and there she stood, Alice Jean Crosley, hands fig-leafed before her, head hanging, like a repentant little girl.

  “Could I please join the party?”

  She didn’t address him directly, but it was Huey she was talking to.

  Huey was glaring at her, but as he stared at her, something like real affection melted the stern expression. He nodded, and pointed down toward my end of the table. She pulled out the chair next to me, and sat.

  She leaned her head out to look down the table toward Huey. “I just wanted to surprise you for your birthday,” she said meekly.

  The Kingfish nodded. “I know you meant well, darlin’. Have yourself a li’l ol’ drink, and relax some.”

  Baker said, “Aren’t you having anything, Senator?”

  “Nope. But jest ’cause I’m off the likker don’t mean everybody else shouldn’t have a party.” He found a Havana in an inside pocket of his suit coat. “I’m jest gonna smoke this heah birthday cigar…the last one I’ll smoke ’til my presidential campaign is over. In keepin’ with my new, wholesome public image.”

  He winked at the honey blonde.

  Frowning, Alice Jean poured herself a glass of champagne. She drank it quickly, without glee.

  “My name’s Heller. Nate Heller.” I held my hand out. “Pleased to meet you, Miss Crosley.”

  She smirked at me, ignoring my offered hand, poured herself another glass; she kept pouring and drinking—I lost count how many times. She just sat drinking quickly, quietly, morosely, while Huey held court down the table, trading laughs with the unfunny radio comic.