He grinned and his eyes damn near popped. “I’ll never forget going to that wingding! I was still in high school, and had to lie about my age to get in to see you.”
Her smile remained, but turned strained. She was aware of an inescapable fact-like the Frolics itself, she was an anachronism. Like strippers.
Like private eyes.
I was wishing I’d never suggested this, but the club manager surprised me.
“I will tell you right now,” he said, taking her hand and patting it, “no beating around the bush whatsoever, that I am prepared to book you in here.”
Nothing strained about her smile now.
“That’s wonderful, Ben,” she said, almost purring.
He raised a cautionary finger. “But here’s the thing-we may not be here long.”
“What? Why?”
Her question got an answer out of him, but he aimed it at me: “Nate, it’s that son of a bitch Wilson. Do I have to tell you he’s shuttered half the clubs in town?”
I shook my head-very old news. Plenty of the other strip joints had converted to movie houses, showing nudie-cutie fare like The Immoral Mr. Teas and Not Tonight, Henry. Apparently Mayor Daley’s reform police commissioner, Orlando Wilson, had less objection to cinematic skin than the genuine article.
The Summerdale police scandal a couple years back-eight cops had formed a burglary ring in their off hours-had forced Hizzoner to finally do something about police graft here in the City That Worked, hence Commissioner Wilson and his new broom. (Wilson’s presence probably had something to do with Dick Cain leaving the PD and winding up with the sheriff’s department.) I didn’t mind this Wilson character cracking down on some of the rampant police department corruption, but enough was enough. A guy might want to get a parking ticket fixed.
Ben was talking to both of us now. “We had a bad incident last month, and the hammer could fall any time.”
“Yeah?” I said. “Anything I can do?”
He shook his head glumly. “We had a bunch of doctors in here. I don’t know if you know much about doctors, when they decide to let their hair down, but they go wild, turn into one nasty bunch of assholes, in my experience. They caused a lot of trouble, got very plastered, threw tables and chairs around like a bar fight in a John Wayne picture, and played the kind of grab ass with our girls that we don’t put up with in a respectable club like the Frolics.”
“What did you do about it?”
“Our bouncers dragged them outside, beat the shit out of them, and dumped them in the gutter. What would you have done?”
Maybe something a little more diplomatic.
“Anyway, they filed a complaint,” Ben said, in a whaddaya-gonna-do manner, “and that gives Wilson just the ammunition he needs. Meaning we may be in the last days of this grand establishment.”
Helen said, “That’s awful news.”
He leaned toward her, his broad face apologetic, hands folded as if in prayer. “I only confide in you like this, Miss Rand, because if I give you a booking, and we sign a contract, and I don’t have this place no more … well, you have to be prepared for that, and agree not to sue my ass.”
“That sounds fair.”
“I think it is fair … and speaking of fair, we will make a big deal out of your appearance commemorating the thirtieth anniversary of the great Chicago World’s Fair. We’ll get Irv Kupcinet and Bill Leonard and Herb Lyon and all the big press guys on it, and if it turns out the Frolic is on its last legs, we will go out kicking.”
That was when I noticed Jack Ruby sitting up at a front table.
I sat forward and had to work not to put anything into my voice. “Ben, excuse me for changing the subject, but isn’t that Jake Rubinstein up there? I grew up on the West Side with him.”
“Yeah, you and Barney Ross. That’s Jake, all right. Jack, he’s called now. Jack Ruby. Last few days, he’s been going around town checking out the few of us that Wilson hasn’t snuffed out. Looking for talent for his club. Even went out to Cal City, scoping out the girls. He’s got clubs down in Dallas, you know.”
“So I hear.” I rose. “You and Sally have business to conduct. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll leave you two to it, and go say hello to my old friend.”
Helen gave me a smile that said, Thank you, giving me maybe more credit for this booking than I deserved.
Ben grinned. “Wait’ll you see who ol’ Jake is sitting with.”
I grinned back. “Ben, right now, nothing would surprise me.”
But I was a little surprised, because when I made my way to Ruby’s ringside table, his companion-whose tight, beaded white dress had a neckline exposing a shelf of bosom that you could rest a couple of martinis on, with little fear of spillage-was that platinum-blonde, blue-eyed, baby-faced stripper, Candy Barr.
Her presence was surprising because I thought she was in stir. Candy, who was maybe twenty-five, had several years ago drawn a stupidly harsh marijuana charge deep in the heart of Jack Ruby’s Texas. The well-known stripper, nude model, and occasional blue-movie star was also a former mistress of gangster Mickey Cohen, another old friend. The kind of old friend you don’t mind never running into again.
Ruby didn’t see me at first. The beauty-and-beast-type couple were talking-or anyway Ruby was talking while she blankly endured it-and there was no way not to interrupt. Sporting a dark-gray sharkskin suit with a lighter gray silk tie, he was gesturing with his left hand, which was missing the tip of its forefinger. Bit off in a fight.
I leaned in, a hand flat on the linen tablecloth, and said, “Jack, sorry to bust in, but I just had to say hello.”
Candy frowned after I used the word “bust”-I had a feeling she had suffered a lot of bad bosom jokes, so she was apparently always watchful. Like the men eyeballing her in that low-cut dress.
Ruby looked up, and his smile seemed genuine until I noticed the corners of his dark little eyes tightening. “Nate! Didn’t expect to see you again this trip.”
“I didn’t figure you’d still be in town,” I admitted.
Actually, I knew it was a possibility, because Lou Sapperstein had reported today that our sources in Dallas could not place Ruby either at the Carousel Club or his apartment. That only meant he was on the road, however, not that he was still in Chicago.
Turned out he was still in Chicago.
“Candy, this is Nate Heller. The famous detective? Nate, this is the famous Candy Barr.”
“We’ve met,” she said without enthusiasm.
That lack of enthusiasm did not reflect any bad blood between us. She just didn’t seem to have much enthusiasm, period. What she had was the best body I ever saw on a female and you may have noticed that I have an unseemly way of keeping track of such things.
Her real name was Juanita Slusher, by the way. If you thought she was born Candy Barr, we should probably part ways right now.
“Nice to see you, Candy,” I said, meaning it. Seeing Candy was always a treat. Talking to her was more like a toothache, but that doesn’t keep a kid from wanting candy, does it?
“Sit down, join us,” Ruby said, pulling a chair out for me.
I did. “I didn’t know you and Miss Barr were friends.”
“Oh, Candy and me, we go way back. I’m hoping to talk her into working for me at the Carousel, once her parole’s up. I told you that, didn’t I? At the 606?”
Was there anything pointed about the reference to the club? And the money drop?
“Maybe,” I said, and shrugged. I turned to Candy. “They won’t let you make a living? What kind of parole is that?”
“Well,” she said, “since the fuckers gave me fifteen years, it’s the kind of parole I’ll take.”
“Well-reasoned, Candy. What are you doing now, to pay the rent?”
“Breeding,” she said.
I’m sure there are hundreds of clever comebacks to a comment like that one, especially coming from the likes of Candy Barr, but what I said was, “Ah.”