called for her?
I tried to imagine Rocco calling Jackie and convincing her to come back to him. He’d been tired of her, after all…but could his brother, the Machiavellian Charley, have advised Rock to take this potential witness back into the fold…at least for now?
When I was grabbing a burger at the hotel coffee shop, I spotted two Chez Paree showgirls—in babushkas over pin curls and no makeup, unrecognizable as glamour pusses—sharing a booth. They agreed to give me a call if Jackie showed back up around there. A long shot, but one of the things Rocco could have enticed Jackie back with —besides smack—was a return to the Adorables chorus line.
At the office, Gladys informed me that Bill Drury had called, wanting to meet with me this afternoon.
“You didn’t have anything in the book for four o’clock,” she said at her reception area desk, “so I wrote him in…. I can try to contact him and cancel if you like.”
“No, that’s all right.”
“I told him to bring back those Revere recorders, if he was dropping by.”
“He hasn’t returned them yet?”
“No. And he has a paycheck coming.”
I doubted Drury had been doing much A-1 work in the past several weeks, but I merely nodded at Gladys and headed for my office.
A knock at my door preceded Lou Sapperstein sticking his head in; he found me sitting at my desk, leaning my chin into an elbow-propped hand.
“How was D.C.?” he said, ambling over and depositing himself in one of the client chairs.
I’d made Lou aware not only of my trip, but that the A-1 was working for Sinatra, on the singer’s “pinko” problem.
“Fine,” I said. “A success. McCarthy’s laying off.”
“Great.” Lou didn’t ask how I’d managed it; he’d learned a long time ago not to ask me how I pull things off. “Have you called Frankie boy, yet?”
“No. I’ll do that.”
“Man, is he gonna be relieved…. You look a little peaked, my friend. Have a rocky ride home?”
I looked at him, wondering if “rocky” had been a dig; Lou’s deadpan showed nothing.
I said, “That girl I took in…the one Rocco threw out on her ass—Jackie Payne? She’s disappeared.”
He sat forward. “Shall we put somebody on it? I got two good boys sitting out in that bullpen, doing paperwork, just to keep ’em from playing with themselves.”
“She seems to have left my protective custody of her own volition.” I had not told Lou about Jackie’s drug habit, merely that she had been a punching bag of Rocco’s.
“Sometimes these masochistic dames go back for more from assholes like that,” Lou said, shaking his head. “I could send somebody around to talk to the doorman and janitor at the Barry Apartments.”
“Let me think on it. In the meantime, I’ll call Sinatra and tell him the good news.”
“I got a couple of jobs I need to talk over with you, this afternoon, Nate, if you’re up to it—that banker in Evanston, looks like his brother-in-law is embezzling, all right, and—”
“Sure. Let me make my phone call.”
Lou nodded, got up, and went quietly out.
I called Sinatra at the Palmer House, and filled him in, without sharing my theory that McCarthy had been rattling his cage at the behest of his mob friends. No reason to get Frank stirred up; better to let him think I was a miracle worker.
“You’re the best, Nate,” he said. “How did you like the new material, the other night?”
“You were great. Shave that mustache, and you just might have a career again.”
He laughed. “I’ll take it under advisement.”
“Yeah, definitely see what Ava thinks.”
“Fuck you, Melvin,” he said, cheerfully, and hung up.
For maybe the next half hour, I sat and tried to think if there was something I could do about Jackie—do
So I went back to work, and dealt with the matters Lou Sapperstein had for me, and a couple of other things. Then at four o’clock, Bill Drury was shown into my office, his usual natty self, blue suit and gray homburg.
“I’m not alone, Nate,” he said, the homburg in hand, exposing his thinning dark hair. “Someone’s with me—this is business. Can I have him come in?”
“Sure.” I hadn’t got up to greet Bill—I was still sitting behind the desk.
Drury turned to the open doorway and crooked his finger. A rather fleshy man in his mid-forties stepped in—six foot, hatless, with a square head, dark alert eyes highlighting strong features, and black, gray-at-the-temple hair, wearing a dark gray vested suit with a gray-and-blue tie. His name was Marvin J. Bas, and he was an attorney and Republican politician, in the Forty-second Ward—the turf of notorious saloonkeeper/alderman Paddy Bauler.
I stood up as Bas approached, smiling anxiously; we shook hands across the desk, said hello—using each other’s first names, though we didn’t know each other well, at all.
