“Didn’t I read you own some restaurant on the Strip?”
“Sherry’s? No, the papers got that wrong…. It’s my partner, Fred Rubinski’s place. You want to go there?”
She wanted to go there.
Sherry’s was a study in glass and chrome, ornate in a modern manner, and often was jumping, even on a Thursday night like this. Tonight was no exception at the Sunset Strip cafe, customer chatter colliding with clanking plates and the tinkle of Cole Porter on the piano, though the brightly illuminated restaurant seemed short on famous faces. Of course my gangster acquaintance Mickey Cohen had stopped hanging around here, after he and his entourage got shot up out on the sidewalk, last year.
Though it was open for dinner, Sherry’s was known as an after-hours joint, the likes of which had been suffering due to a postwar decline of nightclubs and theater; Ciro’s and the Mocambo were still doing good business, but many other clubs had shuttered, and big-name nitery talent had migrated to Las Vegas where top dollar awaited. Also, the Big Bands weren’t drawing like they used to—dancehalls had tumbleweed blowing through them, now that the kids were listening to Frankie Laine and Patti Page. Hadn’t been the same in this town since ’48, when Earl Carroll’s closed down after the boss died in a plane crash.
We were shown to seats by a waitress I didn’t make eye contact with (we had history); nonetheless, I was the owner’s partner, and got treated right by way of a cozy booth. Even in a starlet-laden burg like Hollywood, Vera’s striking figure caught many an eye; her simple powder blue college-girl attire was at odds with the after-theater finery around us. But a body like Vera’s in a town like this made up for a lot of sins. So to speak.
We ordered coffee and pastry—I had a Napoleon and Vera a cream puff, which we were in the middle of when Fred Rubinski came over to say hello (and to be introduced to the gorgeous brunette).
“Sit down, Fred,” I said, and Fred slid in next to Vera. “This is a client of ours—Vera Palmer. She has an ex- boyfriend who hasn’t come to terms with the ‘ex’ part. Vera, this is my partner at the A-l, Fred Rubinski.”
“I’ve read about you, Mr. Rubinski,” she said with a grin, then shook hands with him as she licked custard from one corner of her mouth.
This action froze Fred for a moment, but he managed to smile and say something or other. Fred—a compact, balding character who resembled a somewhat better-looking Edward G. Robinson—was as usual nattily attired. He had opened a one-man P.I. agency in the Bradbury Building before the war, gradually garnering an enviable movie industry clientele; my national reputation had been growing at the same time, and in 1946, we had thrown in together, in what was now the L.A. branch of the A-l.
“You must want to be an actress,” Fred said.
Vera said, “That’s what I’m studying at UCLA.”
“She’s a finalist in the Miss California contest,” I said.
Fred was patting Vera’s hand. “Well, when you’re ready to talk to the studios, don’t forget us.”
“Oh, I won’t!” And she giggled and cooed—sounds I’d last heard when she was on my lap.
Then Fred turned his sharp, dark eyes my way; his rumpled face tightened, as much as it could, anyway. “Sapperstein called me today.”
“Yeah. Me too. He thinks I’m needed in Chicago.”
“I agree with him. You gotta get back there and deal with your friend Drury.”
“Not you, too, Fred! I’ll call him….”
Fred waggled a scolding finger. “Nate, this is bad for business. Neither one of us—in either of our towns—can afford to have the kind of enemies Drury is making for us.”
“I’ll handle it.”
Fred shrugged, but his eyes were unrelenting. Then he asked Vera if she minded if he smoked, and she said no, she was finished with her dessert and was going to have a smoke, herself.
So Fred lit up a Havana and Vera had a Chesterfield. I just had my coffee. I was not a smoker—I had only smoked during the war, when I was overseas, on Guadalcanal. The only times I craved a cigarette now were certain kinds of stress reminiscent of combat.
“Listen, Nate,” Fred said, “Frank’s here.”
“Which Frank? I know a lot of Franks.”
“Frankie.”
“Oh,” I said. “That Frank.”
Vera was trying to follow this. “You don’t mean Frank Sinatra?”
I nodded and her eyes glittered.
“He’s been wanting to talk to you for a couple weeks,” Fred told me. “Remember, I said he called?…Why don’t you go back and say hello, get this out of the way. He’s with Ava.”
Vera’s hazel eyes popped. “Ava Gardner?”
I shook my head. “Poor kid’s on the way down.”
Fred shrugged. “He just had a hit record.”
“Yeah, well his tank’s on empty and he’s running on fumes. He’s had his run, Fred.”
“Boy’s got talent.”
“The public’s gonna have his ass, leaving Nancy.”
“Maybe. Say hello to him. Maybe you can see what this job he has for us is all about—he won’t tell me.”
