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?”
“Whenever I can. I don’t live out here, you know. He usually has holidays with me, back in Chicago.”
With a thoughtful frown, the smile gone, Rosselli said, “Very important, family.”
I wasn’t sure what “family” he meant.
“Listen,” the silver-haired gangster said, that endless smile back again, his manner good-natured, “it’s a nice coincidence, running into you. I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”
I gave him a smile-maybe not a dazzler, but it would have to suffice. “Lucky, too,” I said, “because I’m heading back tomorrow. I can take about a month out here and then I get the urge to date a female who doesn’t want to be in the movies.”
He chuckled at that. Then he turned to Sinatra and said, “Didn’t you have a phone call you had to make?”
“Yeah. That’s right, John. Thanks for reminding me.” The singer stubbed out his cigarette in a glass Sherry’s ashtray, and disappeared faster than Claude Rains. Nobody pushed Sinatra around, but if a mob guy said go fuck yourself, he would ask which hole.
That’s when I knew it wasn’t a coincidence.
I said, “So, you called the restaurant to see if I had a reservation?”
The gray-blue eyes twinkled. “Actually, I called your partner. I said I wanted to see you, and he said I better hurry because you were about to go home. And he was good enough to say I might catch up with you here.”
Great knowing my partner would pass along my whereabouts to any gangster who asked. Particularly when I was with my son.
“Johnny,” I said, “do we have any business? I don’t recall us having any business, not for a while.”
He lighted up a cigarette. Yeah, a Rolex.
“Nate, I need you to take a message to your friend Bobby.”
I didn’t suppose he meant Darin.
“You have an inflated idea of my importance,” I said. “I’ve seen him once in the past six months.”
“But you can reach him. And you need to take some responsibility here. This is about the Caribbean matter, Nate.”
He meant Cuba, of course.
“Johnny, I am no part of that. I set up a meeting. That makes me the guy that introduced the happy couple-but I had nothing to do with the baby.”
He leaned nearer; he smelled good, redolent of some cologne I didn’t recognize because I couldn’t afford it on sixty grand a year.
“You put this in motion, Nate, and I appreciate that, because it’s something I want to do. I hate the fucking Commies and I’m a good American. I’m a proud immigrant to this great country, which is partly why I am pissed off.”