CHAPTER 10
Two weeks later, more or less, I was sitting in a booth at Sherry’s with my son, the occasion being I was heading back to Chicago tomorrow.
The restaurant had once been among the “in” nightspots on the Sunset Strip, especially after hours. But Ciro’s had closed in ’57, the Mocambo in ’59, making a dinosaur out of Sherry’s, its brightly lighted interior, glass- and-chrome decor, and Cole Porter-playing pianist suggesting a yesterday that seemed forever ago.
Nonetheless, my teenaged son loved to come here. It wasn’t the celebrities, a good number of whom had stayed loyal, though you were more likely to see Susan Hayward than Sandra Dee, Robert Taylor than Troy Donahue. For Sam the appeal of Sherry’s was simple-I always let him order the lobster tail. Apparently his big-shot producer stepfather was too cheap to spring for the four bucks.
You see, I had a piece of Sherry’s. Fred Rubinski was the restaurant’s principal owner, and had let me in on what had at the time been a good investment. It might still be a good investment, if Fred ever realized he needed to throw in the towel and sell this valuable hunk of real estate.
We’d had the soup and salad and were waiting for my son’s lobster and his father’s filet. Sam was in the required suit and tie, looking very Sunday school though this was a Thursday evening. I wore a blue plaid Palm Beach sport jacket with a pale blue shirt, navy tie, and navy slacks, cool in more than one sense of the word and suddenly out of place in my own restaurant.
“Tell me how Marilyn’s doing,” my son said.
Sam knew nothing of anything I’d done for her (much less with her), but like everybody in the world, he was aware of her woes from the papers and TV.
“She’s doing fine,” I said. “She’s renegotiated with Fox, and has been doing all sorts of photo shoots and interviews.”
Sam nodded, sipped his glass of iced Coke, and said, “That’s called a media blitz, Dad.”
“I’ll try to remember that.”
Actually I hadn’t seen Marilyn since that night at my Beverly Hills Hotel bungalow. We’d spoken on the phone a number of times, usually but not always initiated by me. Funny thing was, she didn’t make any reference, not even veiled, to that evening. This was a little troubling, since she’d indicated she would take my advice and close the chapter on the Kennedy brothers, and the last thing I wanted out of her right now was selective amnesia.
But, from our phone chats, I could tell her focus was her career, just as I’d suggested. So I felt all right about it. Not great, but all right. And, anyway, her phones were tapped, weren’t they? Naturally she would watch what she said.
Most of my time these past couple weeks had been taken up by agency work, Fred talking me into booking a number of client meetings, on matters ranging from divorce to home security. I even went out to several celebrity homes to check out possible security problems-these were people you’ve heard of, but as they have nothing to do with this narrative, we’ll respect their privacy.
The thousand-dollar retainer from a certain labor leader had been dealt with as well. I had twice called the attorney whose name Hoffa had provided, and informed him that Marilyn had privately confirmed that she’d indeed had affairs with both Kennedy brothers. I also shared that she indicated both men were history, as she was going full-speed ahead with projects ranging from two films, a television special (a new version of the old whore-versus- man-of-God play, Rain ), and possibly a Broadway show, the latter obviously Lee Strasberg getting into the act.
Passing along this stuff, garnered from that night at my bungalow and our handful of phone calls, was no betrayal of Marilyn. Hoffa had already known about Jack’s and Bobby’s respective dalliances, and almost certainly had the tapes to prove it. And the showbiz stuff was in the press or soon would be.
So everything was fine, considering-I’d even had a medical checkup that came out A-OK. At Nate ’n Al’s for breakfast after my night with Marilyn (whom I’d driven home around 2:00 A.M.), I had considered ruefully the distinction of my morning worries-that I was fearful of having caught VD from Marilyn Monroe because she’d been sleeping with the president of the United States.
But I had a clean bill of health, and Marilyn seemed to be buzzing happily along, causing no international incidents that I was aware of. I was in the company of my son, who loved me-I was buying him lobster, remember-and tomorrow I would be back in that more familiar lunatic asylum known as Chicago, Illinois.
So I was in a good mood, until I noticed the two men dining in a booth across the way.
One was Frank Sinatra, who was nice enough to frequent the restaurant (probably the biggest star who still did) and his presence was not what put me off my filet. It was his companion, a gent named Johnny Rosselli, who should have known better than to grace our premises. Had he not been with Frank, someone would have said something-if Fred Rubinski had been here, he might have even with Sinatra present.
Back in ’49, Sherry’s had been the scene of a failed but bloody attempt on gangster Mickey Cohen’s life. A cop had almost died, and one of Mick’s bodyguards did die. The botched hit got lots of press, and the wrong kind of publicity, except where morbid tourist trade was concerned. So Fred had sent out word that we were no longer friendly to that breed of customer.
Not that Rosselli looked like a hood. You might take him for a successful agent or producer, with that perfectly coiffed silver-gray hair, deep tan, cool blue-gray eyes, and flashing smile. His chocolate-brown jacket hadn’t cost more than your average used Buick, his crisp yellow button-down shirt with green striped tie looked plenty smart, and that watch catching the light and winking at me would almost certainly be a Rolex.
I knew Johnny fairly well. He was a guy who’d been around in mob circles, aligned with this group and that one, and had even been described as a gangland ambassador, who could mediate problems and pave the way for alliances.
Mostly, though, he was Chicago, with strong Outfit allegiances, and his history with Hollywood went back to the days of Frank Nitti’s attempted takeover of the movie unions. This had led to Nitti’s suicide (or maybe murder) and jail sentences for such top Outfit guys as Paul Ricca, Louis Campagna, Phil D’Andrea and… Johnny Rosselli.
Before the indictments, Rosselli had been a big shot around Tinseltown, wining and dining studio bosses, hitting the nightspots, dating actresses, winding up married to one for a while. They called him “The Hollywood Kid” in those days. Now, as an elder mob statesman, he was “The Silver Fox.”
And he didn’t live in Los Angeles anymore, at least not full-time. Since ’57, he’d been Giancana’s man in Vegas, and was the entrepreneur behind the Tropicana, whose owners were a who’s who of mob bosses from New York’s Frank Costello to Florida’s Meyer Lansky, from Louisiana’s Carlos Marcello to, yes, Chicago’s Giancana.
Sliding out of the booth, I said to my son, “I need to talk to a couple of people.”
“That’s Frank Sinatra sitting over there, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. I need to pay my respects.”
“Don’t tell him I’m an Elvis fan.”
“I’ll try not… Listen, when you’re finished with that lobster, order yourself the biggest, nastiest dessert on the menu. I may be a while.”
“Deal,” he said, dunking lobster meat into melted butter.
I went over and both men smiled at me. Sinatra had a great smile, of course, a kind of beacon in that ravaged face; but Rosselli could beat him at that game-the Silver Fox had a dazzler, wide and seemingly sincere. He waved the hand with a few thousand in diamond rings and bid me join them in their half-circle booth between two empty ones. Not an accident. I got in next to Rosselli.
They had eaten and were working on after-dinner drinks-Sinatra his usual martini, Rosselli his trademark Smirnoff on the rocks. I flagged a waitress down and ordered a gimlet.
Sinatra was in a blue sport jacket and lighter blue shirt with a yellow-and-blue tie. He looked sharp, but next to the immaculate Rosselli, he seemed an overage college kid.
“Charlie,” Frank said (that was the name he used for all of his friends), “is that big galoot your son?” He was nodding toward Sam.
“Yeah. Good kid. His mother hasn’t ruined him, which speaks well for his character.”
Frank twitched a half smile. “Yeah, I know the creep your ex married. I did a picture for him once. He should only drop dead, twice.”
Rosselli said to me, “You spend a lot of time with the boy?”
