“Frankie? Sinatra? Isn’t he... isn’t that... the Chez Paree?”
“That’s right.”
She looked horror-struck. “But Rocco and his brothers are bound to be there...”
“I know.”
“Oh, Nate... Rocco could start something.”
“One can always hope,” I said.
7
Like most of us in Chicago, the Chez Paree — that garish, glitter-and-glamour nightclub at Fairbanks Court and Ontario — had humble roots: the Near Northside’s fabled bistro had once been just another warehouse, before Ben Hecht’s artist pal Pierre Nuytens turned it into a fortress of festivity in the late twenties. A few years later, tired of paying off cops and fending off gangsters, Nuytens sold his Chez Pierre to Mike Fritzel, an old hand in the nightclub game, who, with Joe Jacobsen, immediately redubbed the gaudy barn the Chez Paree, inviting “the Last of the Red Hot Mamas,” Sophie Tucker, to crack a bottle of bubbly over the building’s name plate. Twenty years later, Sophie was still returning annually to celebrate that christening with maudlin tunes and filthy jokes.
The bright, immense showroom seated five hundred, and presented entertainment of the first magnitude, including such $10,000-a-week stars as Jimmy Durante, Henny Youngman, and Martin & Lewis, with orchestras like Ted Lewis, Paul Whiteman, and Vincent Lopez, all augmented by the prettiest chorus line in America. Add fine dining (not your typical nightclub’s third-rate food at cutthroat prices), and the joint almost didn’t need its backroom gambling casino, the Gold Key Club, to make it the top after-dark spot in town.
Almost.
Not that the celebrated showroom didn’t have drawbacks: its very size and noonday-sun brightness seemed at odds with the postwar trend for intimate clubs. Then there were the massive square pillars, causing patrons viewing problems; an art moderne pastel wall mural of the planets that dated the joint; and all those linen-covered tables mashed together treating high-class customers like passengers in steerage. Plenty of good seats to be had, though, arranged as they were around the dance floor onto which the Chez Paree showgirls frequently spilled down from the stage/bandstand to do their elaborate production numbers.
Tonight, on the occasion of Frank Sinatra’s opening, the showroom seemed especially packed, and I suspected extra tables had been crammed in. Normally such a great crowd would have spelled good news for Sinatra, who wasn’t drawing mobs like he used to, except for the Fischetti variety.
Unfortunately, the size of tonight’s Chez Paree audience probably had more to do with morbid curiosity than any new wave of Swoonatra frenzy. Frank had been scheduled to appear at the Chez a few months ago, but had to cancel, after he’d lost his voice and coughed up blood on stage during a Copa engagement in New York. The doctors called it a vocal cord hemorrhage and sentenced him to silence for several weeks.
In fact, the Chez was so jammed tonight, I didn’t think the fiver I slipped headwaiter Mickey Levin would do the trick, particularly since we’d skipped dinner. But the five-spot — which Mickey pocketed, of course — turned out to be unnecessary, as Joey Fischetti had kept his word and saved me a booth along the wall.
The booths weren’t the best seats in the house by a long shot, in terms of seeing the show, but they were comfortable and somewhat private. As we settled in, the floor show had already started. The Chez Paree Adorables — ten dolls in Hollywood’s idea of Dodge City dancehall-girl costumes, with red garters and mesh stockings — were parading around singing that annoying Teresa Brewer tune, “Music! Music! Music!” accompanied peppily by the Lou Breese orchestra.
I sipped a rum and Coke, and Jackie — looking like a movie star in the black cocktail dress — had not touched her Tom Collins. She was rubbing her hands together.
“Take it easy,” I said.
“Don’t you see him?” she said, alarm dancing in her lovely brown eyes. The black eye had mostly gone now — she really was a fast healer — and makeup hid what remained.
“I see him,” I said.
On our side of the room, but still separated from us by a sea of people, Rocco and Charley, with two beautiful young girls in low-cut gowns, sat ringside, craning around at the moment to watch the Adorables out on the dance floor. Charley was married, by the way, but his wife lived in Florida when he was in Chicago, and in Chicago when he was in Florida.
“Why did you bring me here?” she asked, not angry, more confused.
“I thought you could use a night out.”
“You could have taken me anywhere but here.”
“Jackie — I’m making a statement: I’m letting the Fischettis know that you’re under my protection.”
“...protection?”
“This is a very tense time for them. You’re aware of this investigation, this Kefauver thing?”
“Vaguely.”
“Well, you lived in their penthouse for over a year. You saw people come and go. And you were rather rudely thrown out.”
“I’m not sure I understand...”
Or maybe she just didn’t want to.
I said, “You’re a potential witness, if those Crime Committee boys get wind of you.”
“Are you saying... I’m in danger?”
I nodded toward Rocco and Charley, who didn’t seem to have noticed us yet. “Not when these sons of bitches see that you’re with me. That you’re my girl.”
“Am I? Your girl?”
“If you want to be — position’s open.”
She clutched my hand. “Oh, I do, I do... and Nate — I’ll go wherever you want, to get well, to a clinic or hospital or whatever—”
I gave her a sharp but not unkind look. “We’re not talking about that, here. We left that behind, for tonight.”
“...okay.”
“I really do want you to have a good time.”
“I’ll try.”
“I’ll introduce you to Frank.”
“Oh, I met him when I was still in the chorus, here. He may not like seeing me very much.”
“Why?”
“I think I’m the only girl, except for a couple of married ones, who wouldn’t sleep with him.”
When the Chez Adorables had finished their number, the expected timpani roll and offstage intro of the headliner did not occur; instead, Lou Breese and his boys played “Begin the Beguine.” Murmurs of discontent and curiosity rumbled across the room — why wasn’t Sinatra coming on?
Suddenly Jackie jerked back in the booth — like maybe she’d seen a ghost, or a Fischetti — and her sharp intake of air made me jump.
I almost went for the shoulder holstered nine millimeter Browning, which my dark suit (tailored for me on Maxwell Street) was cut not to reveal. Normally I wouldn’t pack heat on a night out on the town... normally.
It wasn’t a ghost, just a Fischetti — the harmless one, the good-looking not-as-smart one, Joey, looking like a maître d’ in his black tie and tux.
“Thanks for the booth, Joey,” I said.
“You gotta help me, Nate,” Joey said from the aisle, leaning against the linen tablecloth. He hadn’t noticed yet that the pretty blonde sitting next to me was his brother Rocco’s ex-punching bag.
“Slide in — join us.”
He did. His eyes were darting, his expression twitchy with panic. “Frank won’t go on.”
“Why not?”
“That fucker Lee Mortimer’s in the audience. I could kill Halper for not catching that reservation, and squelching it.”
I shrugged. “Just ask Mortimer to leave — refund whatever money he’s spent—”
“Nate, you know that bastard. He’ll make a scene. It won’t just be in his column, it’ll be in every paper in the country.”
“What do you want me to do about it?”
He clutched at my arm. “Go back and talk Frank into going on.”