“And you’re all from Louisiana, too, aren’t you?” Lana burbled.
Sam couldn’t wait to see what she stepped in next. “No, Harry and Lavert are. I live in Atlanta.”
“Oh. I see. But you grew up there, didn’t you, Sam?”
“No.” What was she getting at?
“Oh, I guess I’m confused. You and Harry look so much alike….”
They did? Short dark curly hair, but beyond that—?
“I misunderstood. I thought you were Harry’s big sister.”
Everyone froze, except Sam, who, without missing a beat, turned from Lana to Ma and purred, “So, I understand you’re a longtime Miss America buff, Mr. Amato?” She’d even the score later. Had no one never told the little bimbo of the power of the press?
“Call me Ma, please. A buff? I don’t know I’d say that. I do think Miss America’s good for Atlantic City, so I do what I can for the pageant in whatever small way. Also, I know that it’s an unpopular stance these days, but I think we’ve probably come to the end of civilization as we know it when it’s wrong to admire beautiful women.”
Lana batted her big brown eyes and purred.
“I’ll drink to that.” Harry raised his glass. “To beautiful women.” He winked at Sam, and it was a heartfelt wink, full of love. Sam smiled back. That was more like it.
Then Sam’s gaze landed on another pretty woman. “Lovely painting over the fireplace. You paint, don’t you, Michelangelo?” She loved saying the line. She’d like writing it, too. Michelangelo Paints Pageant Cuties.
“I dabble.” But his smile said the odalisque was his, the nude concubine reclining on a golden chaise draped with blue.
“Lovely,” said Lavert.
Harry asked about the model. “A former Miss America hopeful?”
Lana protested. “We do not pose like that!”
“Oh, there have been those who did,” laughed Sam. Then she told the story. It was in 1935 that the San Diego Fair called its beauty contest winner Miss America. The young lady, a curvaceous blue-eyed blonde named Florence Cubbitt, was crowned by two promoters who also ran the fair’s nudist and midget concessions. They awarded her the privilege of posing in the nude for two years.
When Atlantic City finally got around to choosing its Miss America, she was Henrietta Leaver, a high school dropout who was working in a five-and-dime. Henrietta, however, was barely crowned when a Philadelphia sculptor unveiled a nude statue he’d done of her. Henrietta protested that she’d worn her swimsuit the whole time, and had been chaperoned by her grandmother, but the press was having none of it. Henrietta’s goose was cooked.
Sam considered adding the one about Janice Hansen, Miss New Jersey 1944, another busty blonde who was found one day in 1958 shot full of holes along with her close personal friend Anthony “Little Augie” Pisano—but she didn’t.
Ma laughed at the Henrietta story. Then he turned to Lavert. “Now what do you think about this, Mr. Washington, Gianni’s pièce de résistance?”
The main course was duck cakes with sun-dried-tomato butter and arugula and artichoke hearts. Hazelnuts and porcini mushrooms were grace notes in the symphony of flavors. Lavert got it all on the nose. He insisted he be allowed to return the compliment by cooking a Sunday lunch for all assembled, Gianni the chef, and perhaps Michelangelo would like to include his mother, and other friends?
“Artichokes!” Lana exclaimed. “That’s how I got involved in pageants!”
“Do tell.” Lavert seemed to be amused by Miss New Jersey, a species of dumb blonde you hardly ever saw anymore.
“Should I?” She turned to Ma, her benefactor, sponsor, Big Daddy, who knew?
Ma spread his hands.
“Well, I was in San Francisco visiting my Uncle Tony, who’s in the wine business, and he does something with shipping and owns a few clubs—anyway, that was five years ago, I was still in high school, and while I was there, there was this Marilyn Monroe look-alike contest, see? The thing was, Marilyn had modeled for the California Artichoke Advisory Board thirty-nine years ago, and the artichoke people had a contest in honor of that. There were thirty-nine contestants, and, well, my Uncle Tony had always called me Little Marilyn as a joke—so I entered the contest without telling him as a joke back on him. I asked him to meet me the day of the contest down at the Embarcadero Plaza, and there all of us girls were handing out free artichokes. He almost swallowed his cigar when he saw me. You remember that dress Marilyn wore in that famous photograph, the white one, with a pleated full skirt and a halter top with no back?”
“The one in the picture where her dress blew up?” said Lavert.
“That’s right! The Seven Year Itch. That’s the one! Well, that’s what we were all wearing, and we paraded across this stage they’d put up, and the crowd that day, it was at lunchtime, voted by applause. And I won!”
Sam could see the crowd: financial district suits, their ties loosened for their 30-minute lunch break, cheek by jowl with construction workers. Had that contest taken Lana to Miss California?
“No. I couldn’t have qualified, because I didn’t live there, but the artichoke thing gave me a taste of it, you know. What it would be like to compete.”
Lana liked the competition?
“Oh, yes. It’s the greatest thing I’ve ever done. The girls are really wonderful. You know”—she dropped her voice—“people say that women can be, well, bitchy, when they go after the same thing, but I think most of them are sweet. There are exceptions, who I won’t name, but most of them help you out. Give you tips. Lend you things.”
“Like lipstick?” Lavert was a master of the poker face.
“Lipstick, nail polish, anything you need.” Lana paused. “You know, though, even though it’s wonderful, I think some of the girls, well, they try too hard. Some of them almost have nervous breakdowns, they’re so serious about it all. It’s just not that hard, you know. All you have to remember is: Don’t cry on stage. Never let the judges see you lick your lips. Be prepared. Believe in yourself. And smile a lot—naturally.”
“You sound serious,” said Lavert.
“Oh, I am. Don’t get me wrong. But”—Lana chewed on her bottom lip—“if I don’t win, I’m not going to die. You know what I mean? Actually, I don’t even want to win. Can you imagine, traveling around for a whole year with first one chaperone and then another? Yuk! But, like, for some of these girls, this is the first chance they ever had to dress up in pretty things—and I, well, you know, my Uncle Marty runs one of the clubs here in AC, and my Uncle Ennio manages a casino in Vegas—so I’ve spent lots of time dressing up.”
Wasn’t it interesting that Lana had so many uncles in so many influential positions in so many different cities?
“You haven’t seen my talent yet, but—” She drew a deep breath that threw her chest dangerously close to the top of her sequined dress. “I’m a torch singer. That’s what this is all about, for me.” She waggled a hand. “This Miss America thing. Oooooooh!” Lana interrupted herself as the dessert tray arrived.
It included chocolate gelato; hazelnut biscotti with black pepper and lemon and orange zest; and, as a little closing joke, a cornmeal “pizza” with figs and raisins, served with Marsala custard. A salute to the pizza king of Atlantic City.
“Sweets for the sweet,” said Ma.
“So you’re competing, not to win, but for the—exposure.” Sam licked custard off her fingers.
“Oh, yes. I want to be discovered. Lots of girls who didn’t win pageants have gone on to be stars, you know.” She ticked them off. “Delta Burke, Cloris Leachman, Vanna White. Betty Buckley in Cats—she placed fourth in Miss Texas. Debbie Reynolds—she’s Carrie Fisher’s mom—was in Miss California. And Donna Dixon—a Miss Something, I forget—she’s married to Dan Aykroyd. She does Revlon commercials.”
“You’ve certainly done your homework,” said Sam.
Lana beamed. “Well, I don’t read much, but I go to the movies a lot and listen to people. I’ve watched
tons of educational TV getting ready for the interviews. And, you know, I watch a tape of Some Like It Hot every single day. Because I do one of Marilyn’s songs in it for my talent.”
“I’d think you’d already have a foot in that door—show biz—through your family connections,” Sam said smiling.
“I do,” Lana nodded seriously. “But I want to be famous on my own, don’t you know? I don’t want to be beholden to nobody.”
Even Ma had to look away at that one. Espresso appeared at the table along with a cigar humidor and Gianni the chef to take his bows.
“And it’s working already, you know,” Lana bubbled right along. “Already, people are starting to take notice. You know Bill Carroll, the famous game show host? Well, I met him this week, and you know what he said to me? He said, I would give my right arm to have you come on my show.”
20
Michelangelo Amato sat in the back of his black Lincoln Town Car watching three TV monitors.
On one, this new Wednesday Night Football, first of the season, the 49ers were slaughtering the Giants. Ma liked that. Not only personally—he’d always hated the New York Giants, a bunch of schmucks, in his opinion—but professionally. The “smart” money had gone to New York. Ma would clean up.
On the second monitor, a filly named Miss America, now wasn’t that a great coincidence, was gaining on the outside in a breeders’ cup at Santa Anita. That was good for business, too. Big bucks had gone down on last year’s Preakness winner, a deep-chested bay called Double Dip.
On the third monitor was the second night of the pageant’s preliminary competition from Convention Hall.
“Hey, Willie.” Ma tapped on the glass to his driver, twice. Willie was getting a little deaf. “You know I’m the only person in the whole world watching the Miss America play-offs on TV?”
“That’s great, boss.” Willie would say that to anything, in his mushy way—he wouldn’t wear his dentures.
But it was great, and it came from having connections. Influence in the right places. Not bad for a kid from MacDougal Street, huh? And, well, okay, in his business there was more than a little happening in the electronics field. If it went over the phone lines, computers, modems, whatever, it was electric, you name it, Ma had incorporated it into his bookmaking operation.
So it was no big deal to have one of his guys figure out the way to go was to bribe the guy who ran the television equipment van for the pageant in the hall’s parking lot. The signal ran from the cameras inside through cables out to the van, then from there it traveled on phone lines to NBC in Rockefeller Center in New York. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday nights, they weren’t broadcasting the show, just recording and fiddling with it, figuring out the commercial spots, all that stuff. But the man with the van could tap into those phone lines, then, with cellular phone capability, dial it up and bring it to the monitor in the limo. No big deal.
But still, it was a kick in the pants to know this show was his alone. Now he was watching that silly whatsizname, the guy in the black suit, made Ma ashamed to be Italian, doing some faggy dance. The same one he’d seen last night. But on the first monitor, whoa! Way to go, Montana! Pop ’em for another 10-yard gainer. On the second monitor, the filly was now behind by only a nose. And a pretty nose it was. Ma threw the horse a kiss and told Willie to pull over.
He wanted to talk to a man inside Tommy’s, and it wasn’t about a horse, either. It was about Ma’s best girlfriend.
As Ma walked into the bar/pizza parlor, the man, a geezer named Angelo who ran his pizza businesses amd did some old-fashioned bookmaking, a little shylocking on the side, was polishing glasses behind the long stretch of mahogany. On the TV above the bar 49er Ronnie Lott almost ripped the head off a Giant receiver.
“Ma! How you doing?”
Michelangelo nodded. OK.
“You want a drink? What can I get for you?”
Michelangelo shook his head. Nothing. After all that fine wine, why did he need the rotgut in Tommy’s? And how did he know it was rotgut? He supplied it, that’s how.
“Hey, Ma? Cat got your tongue tonight?” Angelo was twisting his head around, getting a little nervous.
Ma knew that. You didn’t talk, guys would always blab faster. Guilt abhorred a silence. That was one of the things Ma believed.
When Michelangelo did talk, his speech was an interesting phenomenon. Put him at the dinner table at Va Bene with educated people, he spoke like an educated man—which he was, if you counted the school of hard knocks supplemented by a fine library of leather-bound editions, all well-thumbed, in his white brick mansion down in Margate. Put him at one end of a table of ebony and purple heartwood surrounded by other members of a legitimate board of directors, he could dazzle you with facts and figures. With a lady, he could quote Romantic poetry like an Oxford don. But put him on the street and he spoke the argot, blasting it out of the corner of his mouth like bursts from a sawed-off shotgun.
“Come here, Ange.” He knew Angelo wouldn’t want to do it, but he would. The old man limped forward. Come on, Ma gestured with one hand up, four cupped fingers gently goosing Angelo closer.
In a very quiet voice, so soft no one else in the place could have overheard him if they’d tried, not that they were, Ma said, “Ange, now you know I got no patience for arguing. I got a short temper, rather use my hands than talk, so don’t get me mad.”
“I don’t intend to get you mad, Ma.” Angelo laughed nervously. The old man had been around, had paid some dues in various federal establishments, which is where he got his bad leg, and could still break chops with the best of them, but with Ma—well, it paid to pay respect. Besides, he had a personal interest.
“Okay, good. Now here’s what I want you to do, no discussion. I want you to stay away from my mother.”
“Michelangelo!” Angelo’s hands went up, protesting his innocence. “Hey, listen. I mean no disrespect—”
“I know you don’t. But I also know you knew my father.”
“May he rest in peace.”
“May he rot in hell,” said Ma. “That son of a bitch was no damned good. But the point here is you knew them when they were married.”
“Right, Ma, I did, but—”
“No buts, Ange. You knew them, they were married before God.”
“I was best man in their wedding at St. Anthony’s in the old neighborhood. Sullivan Street. You know that.”
“That’s right. You were like my uncle. I brought you to Jersey with me, made sure you had a job, a good job, and now how do you repay me?”
“Ma, my intentions are—”
“There are no honorable intentions where my mother is concerned.”
“I took her to the pictures. I took her flowers. That’s all.” Angelo sweated when he lied. He wondered, could Ma smell him?
“Don’t say that! Don’t say that’s all! Don’t even make me think about other possibilities. I’ll go crazy, and you’ll go down an elevator shaft.”
“No, no. You’re right, Ma. You’re right. I just thought, you know, your dad’s been dead thirteen years, your mother might want a little company.”
“My mother don’t need company. She has me. I go over to her house for supper. She comes to mine. She wants to see a picture show, she turns on the big-screen TV I brought her. She gets cold on winter nights, I buy her another hot water bottle. You understand, Angelo?”
“I understand, Ma.”
Back in the car, Michelangelo lit a cigar and muttered, “Nobody’s got no respect anymore.”
Willie asked, “Where to, boss?”
“Ventnor,” Ma answered, and Willie headed the heavy car toward Michelangelo’s main office.
“How’d my filly do?”
“She won, boss. Eighteen to one.”
Great. And his boy Joe had pumped another one into the end zone. The 49ers were ahead by 14, three minutes left in the game. Up on the Convention Hall stage some old lady who was Miss America about a hundred years ago was trading jokes with
that Gary Collins jerk.
But hey, wait a minute. Ma took a closer look. That wasn’t Collins. What the hell—? Was that who he thought it was?
Ma grabbed his remote and punched up the volume.
Oh, Christ, it was. It was Billy Carroll, that little schmuck. He was playing the lounge at the Monopoly, still doing his Sinatra look-alike thing he’d been practicing for twenty years. Now there he was.
“—what a privilege and honor it is to be asked to fill in on this show of shows. Not, of course, that anyone could ever fill the shoes of that grand gentleman, Gary Collins—and we hope you’re feeling better, Gary.” Carroll gave a big smile and wave out to TV land, out to Collins, wherever he was.
Probably home puking his guts out, thought Ma, if he wasn’t already, seeing this jerk up there. Ma had known little Billy Carroll since 1978, when the casinos first opened. Already a regular loser in Vegas, Billy couldn’t wait to come and drop a bundle in AC when he was on the East Coast.
That’s how guys with the sickness operated. They weren’t playing to win.
Little Billy there—looking even more like a midget up on the big stage, barely taller than that Phyllis George—would grab a bundle at baccarat, he couldn’t wait to get to a phone and drop it on the ponies. His horse’d come in, he’d be looking for the next race, the next game, the sure thing…that’d bust him. Guys like Billy who had the sickness didn’t know how to behave unless they were up to their eyebrows in hock—God love ’em.
And Ma was in the business of making it easy for Billy and all his brothers to give him their money.
Gone were the days of the MacDougal Street candy store owner who would leave you waiting while he went to the back of the store to take bets by phone. Kids like Ma who grew up making pocket money running errands, picking up betting slips for barbershop storefront gambling operations, had to look elsewhere.
She Walks in Beauty Page 17