Cat in a Zebra Zoot Suit

35

A Pool of Suspects

It is not usual police procedure to convene a meeting on a murder case poolside in Las Vegas, but this was decidedly not a police operation.

The pool area was the only space at the Circle Ritz that could hold all the friends and neighbors of Electra Lark. And all of these people present were concerned about her being a person of interest in a spectacular murder case with overtones of an elaborate mob hit.

“A ‘mob’ of Fontana brothers, all ten, were an awesome presence on their own, especially accessorizing their pastel-cool summer suits with hot, black-framed sunglasses that would put them at home with George Clooney (the new Cary Grant) in a new Ocean’s Las Vegas heist film.

In tune with its vintage perfection, the Circle Ritz had a quaint little pool house with a striped awning to provide deep shade for Electra, flanked by Temple and Matt.

The Fontana boys had arrived with a large portable screen and small laptop computer. They proclaimed they had a “most intriguing” Powerpoint presentation based into their research into the scene of the crime.

“Not to worry, Miss Electra,” Aldo Fontana told the guest of honor, bowing like a prosecuting attorney about to put on trial the real “person or persons unknown” they were searching for. “If your custom falls off because of this cloud of unjustified suspicion, I assure you we Fontanas shall purchase and occupy any lost tenants’ residences.”

Temple sat boggled by the implications. Under Aldo’s plan, the Circle Ritz could become the coolest Fontana Brothers upscale frat house in Vegas. Hip people would kill to rent or own there. And the security would be Fort Knox-class.

“Wouldn’t it,” Matt asked, “be simpler to finger the fraudsters and the murderer or murderers without a mass move-in?”

“Of course,” Nicky said. “My bros don’t need cribs and could always take over a floor at the Crystal Phoenix, if they want.”

Temple was very glad Nicky’s wife and the hotel manager, Van von Rhine, wasn’t here to learn of her husband’s grandiose hospitality. But then, every Fontana brother was grandiose, and that would be criminal to stamp out.

Ernesto presented Electra with a suspiciously rum-colored giant cocktail glass accessorized with paper umbrellas and drew up a bamboo ottoman.

“Now you just rest your feet and sit back, Miss Electra. Let us boys figure out who mighta done it—even better, who we’d all like to nail for doing it—and who our concerned close friends, Mr. Matt Devine and Miss Temple Barr, need more information about once we have laid out criminally suspect persons in this local cast of Clue.”

Electra wiggled her toes in their carnival-colored cork sandals—once Ernesto had swept the ottoman under them—and sipped on the long, long straw in her umbrella drink. “I’m most intrigued to see your presentation, fellas.”

Temple smiled at Electra’s joie de vivre. Now that luxury brand Céline had made an octogenarian Joan Didion their ad icon and Yves Saint Laurent had done the same with septuagenarian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell (who’d written a song on the Magdalene asylums), Temple could revel in the idea of someday being a hip little old lady. She hoped to live long enough to be seriously removed forever from the “small and cute” and young category, like a lapdog.

Darn those Fontana brothers, their antique gallantry somehow got women feeling empowered! Of course the entire family fortune was based on Grandmama Fontana’s Italian sauce empire. Sauce equals sauciness.

“Now.” Aldo was evidently the chief prosecutor. “We have consulted family archives back to a time in which the Fontana escutcheon was slightly tainted in the public knowledge by the aura of Family connections not quite within the strict confines of The Law.” He turned, his double back-vented jacket swaying as gracefully as if on a Milano runway. “As some would say, not ‘legit’.”

Temple could hardly stop from laughing. Any minute now, she expected the assembled Fontana Brothers to form a Broadway musical chorus and break out singing the “Sit down, sit down, you’re rockin’ the boat” chorus from Guys and Dolls.

She conjured a paraphrased second line, tailor-made for Fontana, Inc.

“And the Devil will drag you under by sharp lapels of your Emanogildo Zegna coat. Stand up, stand up, you’re shakin’ the boat.”

Meanwhile, Ralph Fontana, his single diamond ear stud twinkling like a wink, hurried around the roomy patio to ensure the laptop computer projected the right image, a photo of the forlorn empty building.

“First,” Aldo said, “I wish to notify those not acquainted with police photos of crime scenes and the like, that some images may be hard to take. Happily, we start with an architectural long shot of the building in which the gruesome discovery, Mr. Jay Edgar Dyson’s dead body, was found.

“We Fontanas have been asked to research some of the possible perpetrators who might have what is called ‘mob’ corrections. Of course, we all know—” he pushed his impossibly stylish Italian sunglasses atop his head so his face was an open book, “—the FBI drove out all mob factions from Las Vegas by the end of the nineteen-eighties.”

Nicky Fontana cleared his throat. Loudly.

Temple knew mob activity remained alive and well in offbeat areas like controlling meat sales rather than the more glamorous gambling violations.

“Anyway,” Aldo went on, “we have learned that Mr. Dyson owned, as did his ex-wife, Miss Electra Lark, quite a bit of land surrounding this, what I can only call an abandoned hulk, on a nameless side street. Mr. Dyson, we learn, was lured to Vegas to discuss selling this vintage edifice, most recently a purveyor…” Here images passed in succession. “…of wigged-out old dolls (nothing personal to the older lady among us), chipped metal-painted toys and Depression glass, which I believe is called that because it is so depressing to look at, being all moss green and yellow colors, and often chipped besides.”

Temple cringed as the dolls with their balding wigs and cracked China faces passed by, looking like escapees from old horror movies.

“And,” Aldo added, “several hundred amps of rhinestone jewelry that Miss Temple Barr no doubt would covet.”

Since all the illustrated pieces were either G-strings or showgirl bras, Temple doubted that, particularly since she was a 32 AN. All Natural. Still, she was flattered Aldo thought she might be interested in something other than crime scenes.

“This building looks innocent of everything but urban blight,” he said. “Now we will segue to the Unusual Suspects.”

Aldo flipped the screen image to images from old photos to present film clip as easily as his suit jacket vents fluttered in a Vegas breeze.

“First, the understudies.” He clicked to a jail intake photo of a tough-looking guy. “In these shots, the suspects’ ‘performance’ names are noted,” Aldo explained. “Punch Sullivan did just that—punch and get punched—until taking too many ‘dives’ in fixed fights ruined his profile. Kat with a K was ‘Cathy’ with a C when she was assisting Vegas’s lowest-level con men and street magicians off the Strip, and hooking on the side. Naturally, they were soon ready for bigger money-making ventures. After they got together and shifted their focus, they became a Team around Town. We are looking at a pair of known adult entertainment figures, two of dozens in Las Vegas. You gonna open a strip club, you need sexperienced overseers to keep strippers and patrons in order.”

“Those two sound like something out of pulp novel,” Matt whispered to Temple. “You actually met this odious pair?”

“Sort of.”

Aldo went on. “In the Most Interesting Personality Involved category…” he said, bringing up a mug-shot photo. “The one, the only Leon Nemo,” he finished with a flourish.

“My money is on that guy.” Electra sat up and dumped her soggy paper umbrellas on a side table. “He’s a bad ’un. He could railroad a weakling like Jay Edgar. I’d bet my instincts about my last, and late, husband on that.”

Ernesto grabbed some copies of Nemo’s photo and marched around the assemblage to pass them out. The letters and numbers under Nemo’s photo were impressive, too, especially since they were in black and white.

“This jailhouse portrait was taken before nineteen sixty,” Temple said. “Nemo is old enough to have been active in the heydays of the Vegas mobs.”

Aldo’s long, buffed forefinger nail pointed to Temple. “A dollar to the little lady on the money! His dyed black hair aside, Nemo is as old as the dessert dirt that hid Ten Binion’s multimillion-dollar buried safe. He knows where the bodies as well as the booty in Vegas are buried, and if he’s involved in the Lust ‘n’ Lace takeover, it ain’t for the G-string dollar bills.”

Temple smiled modestly as he confirmed her suspicions. “Then what?” she asked.

Fontana brother padded shoulders lifted in unison. “To be determined later.”

“Having hit an impasse with the cast of crooks,” Nicky said. “I suggested we look into the strange scene of the crime.”

“And the bizarre manner of death, I hope,” Temple said.

“Our sources on the Vegas scene are impeccable,” Ralph stepped up to say. “For one thing, we have a bit of living history in our Uncle Macho Mario.”

“A bit? He is the entire Old Testament,” Julio said. “Problem is, he is a bit reluctant to testify against his old acquaintances. A matter of honor.”

“Surely,” Matt said, “such upstanding nephews can persuade an uncle to clear his conscience? If not, I could step in as a confessor. I still have the purple stole.”

“My blushes,” Aldo said. “We cannot have you assuming the mantel of a man of the cloth when you are so close to committing marriage. And also, by my admittedly old-fashioned uncle’s lights, if you would hear his confession, you would need to be committed to eternal silence, or death.”

Matt sighed. “Those are both pretty eternal. Temple might have objections.”

“I would,” she said. “If the dramatis personae are missing links on some fronts, what about the building in question? It’s as old as Las Vegas, apparently, and had a racy history before ending up as an antique mall.”

“That is easier to trace,” Nicky said. “On my request, Van sat Uncle Mario down with a bottle of Tia Maria liqueur and his bouncing baby youngest grandniece, Cinnamon Angela Fontana. Maria, I should mention,” Nicky addressed the company, “was the first name of our sainted and saucy matriarch and Mucho Macho Mario’s sainted mama, Maria Guadalupe Fontana. And ‘Angela’, of course, speaks for itself.”

“Between the oldest and the youngest of our Vegas line,” Aldo said, “Uncle Mario was soon teary-eyed and reminiscing for a concealed recorder about his arrival in Vegas as a lad, when Bugsy Siegel was losing sight of the ‘take’ and getting the visionary stars in his eyes blasted to smithereens.”

“Before someone shot out one,” Ralph added.

“Poor Bugsy.” Temple shook her head, sadly. “He had it right. Vegas was a pre-Disneyland theme park for adults and ahead of its time, but mob bosses tend to get so impatient.”

Julio had small sympathy for Bugsy. “Mob bosses are primitive, like sharks. They bite first and think about it later, while digesting.”

“So,” said Temple, “while Uncle Macho Mario Fontana was digesting Tia Maria, what did he come up with?” She was hoping this Fontana progressive fairy tale was soon going to produce a high-octane ogre. “Vegas grew apace after Siegel’s death,” Aldo said. “In the early days it was crude frontier-themed motels and attractions. It was wide open, like a town in a fifties TV Western. There were still injuns around, and Chinese from the railroad-building days and other folk that would not be tolerated in an expanding Vegas for red-blooded Americans.”

“Omitting red-blooded Indians, of course,” Matt said.

“Native Americans,” Nicky corrected. “Who are doing damn well in the casino business, better than Vegas or even Macao now. Leave ’em nothing and drive ’em out of anywhere desirable in the country and they end up getting future hot spots like the Oklahoma oil wells and the East Coast barrier tourist islands and, yup, casinos.”

“Back then they weren’t a mote in the mob’s eye,” Aldo said. “But there was one pesky type that hankered to come to Vegas like everyone else and had the numbers to be profitable.” He hit the control and a logo familiar only to dedicated Las Vegas historians appeared on-screen.

If what happened in Vegas, stayed in Vegas, à la the classic advertising motto, Temple knew that episodes of shameful history in Vegas also stayed buried in Vegas.

“I gotcha,” Temple said. “You’re referring to the Moulin Rouge hotel-casino, founded in nineteen fifty-five for an underserved clientele ignored by the burgeoning Strip enterprises.”

“Man,” Eduardo said. “I’ve seen pictures of those cursive neon letters, Moulin Rouge. Looked snazzy with those long, low, finned convertibles sitting out front of it like tethered Detroit automotive manta rays. The place didn’t last long, though.”

Matt quirked an interrogatory eyebrow at Temple, who’d now become lead presenter.

“It had the lifespan of a mayfly.” She shook her head. “I researched it recently in connection with the Crystal Phoenix Black & White band show. Black clientele, and even some performers, were frozen out of Vegas in those early days, when there were still national and local laws against ‘mixed’ accommodations and associations. There was no black mob, but a group created an all-black staffed hotel-casino across the tracks from the Strip, near the black neighborhood. Its major black performers made it so popular as an after-Strip-show hours joint for major white Strip performers who wanted to jam with the legends, that the Strip had to integrate its clientele in self-defense.”

“That’s a wonderful, ironic twist of history,” Matt said. “Why is the place so unknown?”

Temple shrugged. “The Moulin Rouge only lasted eight months once the Strip imitated it. All attempts to repurpose the building or designate it as a historical site over the decades seemed to be jinxed. Eventually it was torn down.”

“Sounds a lot like the old building near Electra’s place,” Matt said. “You’d think they’d salute the black and white mega-entertainers leading the pack in those days.”

“The Rat Pack itself was a game-changer,” Temple said. “I hate to say it, given Frank Sinatra’s mob connections and his huge case of little-people-crushing ego, but the Rat Pack’s Strip act—including a Brit actor who was a future Kennedy presidency in-law, Peter Lawford; a black super-entertainer, Sammy Davis, Jr.; a Jewish comedian, Joey Bishop, originally Joseph Gottlieb; and some young actresses the Rat Pack named ‘Mascots’—Shirley Maclaine, Judy Garland, Angie Dickenson, Juliet Prowse, and Marilyn Monroe—broke the racial and bigotry barrier in this town, all the while it remained sexist. Women always come last.”

“Not with we Fontanas,” Aldo said. “We know we owe it all to Mama.”

“And now Italians are the chic retro-villains in town,” Aldo pointed out, buffing his nails on his expensive lapels. Sit down, sit down, you’re rockin’ the boat.

“I get it,” Temple said. “You’re saying that abandoned building also rocked the boat in its day back in the fifties, like the Moulin Rouge. How?”

Aldo clicked to another image. Another neon-smooth cursive sign appeared. Zoot Suit Choo-Choo.

“Huh?” Temple said.

“I will be passing around black-and-white photos,” Aldo noted, “because negatives are all that remain of that building when it was first built, just like with the Moulin Rouge. However, you can see photos and films of similar joints’ interior on Internet boogie-woogie and jive sites and from Hollywood musical film clips.”

“And last but not least. Here is Jumpin’ Jack Robinson, Zoot Suit Choo-Choo star, maybe black, maybe Hispanic, maybe southern Italian. Founder, performer, the first freelance, un-mob affiliated entrepreneur near the Strip.”

“That’s not going to end well,” Matt whispered to Temple before she could say the same thing.

Still, Aldo wanted to finish his presentation with a bang.

“Jumpin’ Jack Robbinson, Zoot Suit dancing king and Sin City wild card.”

Up popped a black-and-white photo. A broadly smiling entertainer was caught in an expansive dance mode. He was balancing on the outstretched heels of his black-and white spectator loafers, his baggy pants stretched to the limit, three swagging watch chains swayed from hip to ankle, and arms spread wide to embrace the world and the audience.

Temple guessed the performer’s outfit and pose was an icon for the age of Zoot Suitery swag and swing. She remembered Fred Astaire doing a Bo Jangles tribute act that captured that black entertainment icon too.

“Found hung,” Aldo said.

The discrepancy between the frozen-life image and the bare, dead fact had everyone shocked and speechless.

Aldo took a prosecutor’s circular stroll around the assembly to come back front and hit the jury in the face with the facts. “Hung from an onstage light pole by the sturdy chain of a cheap toilet pull of the day, in nineteen fifty-six. In the basement of the building in question. The case was never solved.”

Temple was desperately seeking that ogre who was the key to it all. “Don’t tell me there were no suspects.”

“Dozens back in that day,” Aldo said. He adjusted his shirt cuffs. “One of the most colorful was capo of the Italian mob, naturally. Crude but effective. The cops called him ‘Jack the Hammer’.”

“That sounds like some shyster TV-ad lawyer’s nickname,” Temple objected. “That’s not even an Italian name.”

“Aldo was sparing the ladies’ sensibilities,” Ernesto said. “The mob boss was noted for taking guys out into the dessert and using a jackhammer to encourage them to talk, or keep quiet forever. Name of Giaccomo Petrocelli. Giaccomo. Italian for ‘James’, but in English it shortens to just plain ‘Jack’. Giacc the Hammer.”

Matt, beside her, shifted on his chair and coughed, as repelled as she by brutal mob execution styles.

Temple shuddered in the benign sunlight. “Not so plain,” she told Ernesto. “An ogre like Giacco Petrocelli would be capable of hanging a man by his own Zoot suit chain. What happened to him?”

Aldo shrugged. “Somebody offed him after the millennium. Most of his power was gone. He never adapted.”

More than fifty years ago a macabre message had been sent in a building a couple blocks from where she laid her head every night, Temple realized.

How on earth had Electra’s ineffective, ordinary-Joe ex-spouse’s body become the vehicle of another, undecoded message today? And who had sent messages by murder then and now? Obviously, two different killers. So who wanted to echo Vegas’s Bad Old Days of Italian, Irish and Jewish mob control and violence, and maybe even the ethnic unrest? And why?