Chicago Confidential

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.”

“Jesus, Joey, he’s your friend, too. You guys are bosom buddies.”

“Yeah, but he don’t respect me like he does you, Nate. Please. You gotta go talk to him — look at the size of the audience. He stiffs this crowd, his career really is over.”

Joey seemed so pitifully desperate, I gave in, asking, “Where’s Mortimer sitting?”

“Three booths down.”

“I’ll talk to him, first. Mortimer, I mean. I know him, a little. Maybe he’ll listen to reason.”

Joey was shaking his head; strangely, there was no rattle. “Anything, Nate... Oh — hiya, Jackie. What are you doing here?”

“I’m with him,” she said, nodding to me.

Joey looked from her to me and back again, a couple times.

“Joey,” I said. “One problem at a time?”

“Right,” he said, nodding, as if acknowledging there was only so much room inside there. “Right.”

“But you have to do me a favor.”

“Anything, if you just talk to Frank.”

I was already out in the aisle. “You sit here with Jackie. If your brother notices her, and comes over, you have to protect her for me.”

“What? But Rocky’s—”

“You just tell him you’re warming my seat up while I’m doing you this favor — you can do that, Joey. You’re up to the job.”

He sighed and nodded and said, “Yeah. Yeah. Go! Do it!”

To the tune of the orchestra playing “Enjoy Yourself (It’s Later Than You Think),” I made my way down a few booths, and found Sinatra’s nemesis.

Small, well-groomed, in his early fifties, Lee Mortimer had gray hair, a gray complexion and a gray suit; his tie was gray, too... but also red, striped. His eyes were tiny and hard-looking and his nose was large and soft-looking; his chin was pointed and his lips full and sensual. Seated in the booth beside him was a good-looking green-eyed brunette in a green satin low-cut gown; she was twenty-five and I recognized her from local TV commercials and print ads, a busty, raving beauty. Sinatra had spread the word that Mortimer was a “fag” and the reporter was overcompensating.

Mortimer was smoking — using a cigarette holder (maybe he wasn’t compensating enough) — and his hooded eyes opened slightly as he smiled in recognition.

“Nate Heller,” he said. “The man who doesn’t return my calls.”

“Can I join you, Lee?”

“Please. Please... Linda, this is Nate Heller.”

She offered her white-gloved hand. “I recognize him... Mr. Heller, you make the papers now and then.”

“So do you — Miss Robbins, isn’t it?”

She was pleased I knew her name, and she seemed genuinely impressed with a local celebrity like me. Shallow girl. I filed her away for future reference.

Mortimer was born and raised in Chicago, but he left in the twenties for New York, where he’d become a gossip columnist at the Mirror. I had ducked him when he was in town researching his Chicago Confidential book, and I’d been ducking him lately, too.

“What can I do for you, Nate? Not that I owe you any favors, rude as you’ve been.”

“You want me to be one of your sources, Lee... but I have a relationship with another columnist, and besides, you have Bill Drury in your pocket.”

The mention of “another columnist” perked him up. “Are you and Drew Pearson friendly again? I heard you were on the outs.”

“We patched it up. He paid his back bills, gave me a new retainer, and I forgave him his sins.”

“Chicago-style penance.”

A waitress brought Mortimer and the brunette a martini and Manhattan, respectively; I’d brought my rum and Coke along for the trip.

“You know, Lee, I just might give you an interview, at that.”

His hooded eyes seemed languid, but they didn’t miss a thing. “Really? Including information that I can’t get from your associate?”

“If by my ‘associate,’ you mean Bill Drury, he doesn’t work for me anymore.”

He plucked the martini’s toothpick from the drink and ate the olive. “I heard you met with Halley and Robinson today.”

“Am I supposed to be surprised you know that, Lee? It’s not ‘confidential’ that you and Kefauver are thick as thieves.”

He sipped the martini. “We aren’t anymore.”

“Why not?”

A sneer twisted the sensual mouth. “That son of a bitch Halley has come between us.”

“How so?”

“Chief Counsel Halley advised Kefauver against hiring me as an official investigator for the committee — me, whose book, whose original research, only inspired the goddamn inquiry!”

Mortimer’s desire to work for the committee in an official capacity was, of course, laughable: Kefauver could hardly hire a member of the press.

But I humored him. “What a crock... I understand Halley didn’t want Drury or O’Conner hired, either — not officially, anyway.”

“Right! And those two know more firsthand about the Chicago underworld than almost anyone alive — and Halley says they’re not viable because they were ‘fired’ from the force — fired!

Rooked off the crookedest department in the country, because they were honest, fearless—”

“You’re right. Doesn’t make sense.”

He blew a smoke ring and sent me a sly look. “It does if you realize Rudolph Halley is as dirty as Tubbo Gilbert.”

I grunted a laugh. “That’s a tough one to buy.”

“Listen — Halley’s law firm represents a railroad that the New York Syndicate boys hold scads of stock in. And I spotted the bastard at the El Morocco, cozying up to movie company executives — who are his firm’s clients, now. You don’t see Kefauver going after the Hollywood connection, do you?”

“No. Of course you know, I’m close to Frank.”

His upper lip curled in contempt. “Frankie boy? I know you are. You should have better taste.”

I swirled my drink, idly. “I’ve gotten friendly with Joey Fischetti, too. Maybe I can find out something about Halley and his Hollywood connivings for you.”

His eyes and brow tightened. “You’d do that?”

“Sure. We can talk about it later. Only, right now you have to do me a favor.”

“What’s that?”

“Leave.”

“What?”

“Lee, you and I both know you’re here just to rankle Sinatra, to get under that thin Italian skin of his.”

Mortimer’s sneer turned into a sort of smile as he puffed on the cigarette-in-holder. “I paid the cover charge. My pretty friend and I have a right to be entertained.”

“You leave, and maybe we’ll do business. Otherwise forget it.”

Mortimer thought about it. “All right. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

“Fine. Call me at my office... Pleasure, Miss Robbins.”

The brunette smiled and said, “Pleasure, Mr. Heller.”

I slipped out of the booth as Mortimer was paging a waiter to get his check. Then, nodding to Joey (sitting in the booth quietly with Jackie, who appeared calm), I headed backstage, where a couple of thugs who were Sinatra’s current retinue recognized me and showed me into the great man’s spacious dressing room. In addition to the usual makeup mirror, there was a couch and several comfy-looking chairs, as well as a liquor cart and a console radio.

Frank — still wearing that silly Gable mustache — was seated at the makeup mirror in his tux pants and a T-shirt; he looked lean and fairly muscular, not quite as skinny as many thought him to be. He sat hunched over the counter, smoking a cigarette, with a glass of whiskey nearby. His face had a ravaged look — hard to believe that, not long ago, he’d been the idol of countless girls and women.

“I’m not going out there, Nate — I’m not doing it. Not as long as that fucking fag cocksucker is in the house. No way, man. No fucking way.”

Lee Mortimer had blasted Sinatra countless times in his columns. Frank claimed it was because the reporter had once tried, unsuccessfully, to sell the singer a song (“a piece of shit!”). Mortimer had had a heyday running the story about Sinatra accompanying Rocco and Joey Fischetti to Havana for the big confab with Lucky Luciano in ’47, attended by a rogues’ gallery of mobsters. As a celebrity who could travel unhindered, Frank had reportedly carried a bag filled with tribute, the greenback variety. Though Frank attended none of the business meetings, he hobnobbed with Luciano in the casino of the Hotel Nacional, and even had his picture taken with the deported ganglord.

A while back Sinatra had spotted Mortimer in Ciro’s, and attacked the reporter, who won an out-of-court settlement from Frank, when Louis B. Mayer forced him.

I pulled up a chair. “I got rid of Mortimer, Frank. He’s gone.”

Sinatra looked up, the famous blue eyes taking on a startled-deer aspect. “No shit?”

“No shit.”

“How did you manage it?”

“I had to promise you’d blow him. I hope you don’t mind.”

He looked at me blankly, and then he burst out laughing. He laughed until he cried, and I laughed some, too.

Smiling, standing, he said, “You’re not kidding — he is gone?”

“I’m not kidding...”

Sinatra looked relieved.

“...you do have to blow him.”

Sinatra grinned, shook his head. “You fucker... He’s gone?”

“Out at home plate. A ghost. A distant bad memory.”

As he got into his shirt and tie, Sinatra said, “You’re just the guy I wanna see, anyway.”

“Yeah?”

“What I said out in Hollywood, at Sherry’s — it still goes. I want to hire you. I can have a thousand-buck retainer for you at your office in the morning.”

“For what?”

“I want you to fly out to D.C. and talk to this son of a bitch.”

“Kefauver?”

“No! Fuck Kefauver. It’s McCarthy I’m sweating, man. If they label me a pinko, I really am washed up. You said you know the guy — through Pearson, right?”

“I know McCarthy. He’s a good joe to drink with.”

“Well, find out what it’ll take to get him off my ass. See if he wants money, or if he wants me to sing at a fundraiser or what the hell. But I got to put a stop to this shit. Mortimer’s starting to spread that pinko crap around, already. People thinking I maybe have some gangsters as friends is one thing — they think I’m a Commie, man, I’m dead. Capeesh?”

“Capeesh,” I said.

“How’s the tie look?”

“It looked better when Nancy was making ’em.”

“Don’t start with me. What are you my Jewish mother?”

“No, I’m your Irish rose. Get out there and try not to cough up blood.”

He smirked at me. “Sweet, Melvin — you’re a real sweetheart.”

Sinatra was great. The crowd loved him. His voice did seem to have a rasp tonight, a kind of burr in it, but it was attractive, somehow, more mature. His ballads were heartbreaking — during “I’m a Fool to Want You” Jackie began to cry — and he seemed to have a new energy in the up-tempo stuff, like a peppy version of “All of Me” and the swinging “Saturday Night (Is the Loneliest Night of the Week).” Maybe he did have some career left out in front of him.

By the time Frank got on stage, however, Rocco had noticed us — and he would, from time to time, shoot daggers toward Jackie and me. Charley seemed to be trying to settle him down, touching his brother’s hand, even sliding an arm around Rocco’s shoulder, whispering.

In the middle of “The Hucklebuck” — a terrible song, typical of what Columbia was sticking Sinatra with these days — I told Jackie I needed to step out to take a leak. She was aware, of course, that Rocco had been shooting us death rays, and claimed to have to go herself.

While she was in the ladies’ room, I was — and I’m sure this will come as no surprise — in the men’s room. This wouldn’t be worth noting, if — just after I zipped up — Rocco hadn’t come striding in.

The men’s room at the Chez Paree — this one, anyway (there were several) — was good-size; we had it to ourselves, Rocco and I, the show being in progress and all.

“Hi, Rocky,” I said, voice echoing in this cathedral of porcelain altars and Crane confessionals, and went over to the sink and began washing up.

His voice, like his footsteps, echoed, too: “What’s the idea, Nate?”

I let the water run, soaping my hands. “Oh, I always wash my hands after I piss or shit — you ought to try it, Rocky. Latest thing.”

Rocco — who looked spiffy in his tux, very handsome except for that horror-show pockmarked puss surrounded by skunk-streaked hair — didn’t smile. That business about me kidding him, that treating-him-like-a-regular-guy routine, wasn’t going to play.

His voice boomed hollowly: “You know what I’m talkin’ about, Heller — I’m talkin’ about you picking up my castoffs... You gonna go through my garbage, too? See if there’s any sandwiches I didn’t fucking finish?”

Still washing up, I turned my head and said, “She’s not garbage, Rocky. She’s a nice kid. She’s still a nice kid, even after your beatings.”

More echoing footsteps — he was within arm’s reach of me, now. The close-set eyes under the black slashes of eyebrow were fixed on me like twin revolver barrels.

He grinned — a grin as terrible as he was. “Maybe you don’t know it yet, Heller — but that ‘nice kid’ is a goddamn ad — a fuckin’ jabber!”

He meant an addict who used a hypo.

I soaped my hands, a regular Lady Macbeth. “Rocky, you’re the one who turned her into a junkie. I’m the one who’s gonna help her.” I shot him another sideways glance. “I’m asking you as a friend, Rock — back off. She’s not your property, anymore.”

The black-slash eyebrows leapt up his forehead; his lip peeled back over white store-bought teeth. “Her ass will always be mine, you dumb fuck! All I gotta do is snap my fingers...” He snapped them. “...and she’ll come crawlin’ on her hands and knees, beggin’ for—”

I didn’t know whether he was going to say dope, or make some filthy sexual reference, but I didn’t care to hear it, in either case.

Which is why I threw a handful of soapy water in his wide-open eyes.

His hands came up to his face, like I’d splashed him with acid, not harmless sudsy water, and I swung a hard right (wet) hand into his balls.

His yowl of pain echoed as he folded up and went down, and now he was the one on the floor, crawling. While he was still helpless, I frisked him, found no firearms, and then I leaned over and hit him in the face — in the right eye, in his burning eye.

And then I slugged him in his other eye, his burning left. Two shiners for one seemed a fair exchange to me. Finally rage fueled him — and perhaps the stinging in his eyes abated — enough for him to rise up off the floor and come at me.

But I’d had plenty of time to get my nine millimeter out. He hadn’t seen me pull it, but he saw the gun now, and he froze — hands clawed before him, a werewolf in a tuxedo.

That was the tableau Charley Fischetti witnessed when he came in the John, looking for his brother, no doubt.

“No, Heller,” Charley said, approaching tentatively, hands up and out, sending a nonthreatening message. He too was in a tux, his dyed-blond hair combed perfectly back. His elevator shoes clip-clopped, echoing. “Don’t do it — let him go.”

I cocked the automatic; the click echoed, too, like another footstep.

“Doesn’t he know who he’s dealing with?” Rocky asked his brother, flabbergasted, astounded, frustrated by my actions. Then to me: “Don’t you fucking know who you’re dealing with?”

I smiled at him, but my gun hand was trembling — just a little. “You’re a tough man, Rock. A killer. I’d be impressed, only I killed more Japs in one afternoon than your goombah career total.”

Rocco was trembling, too — whether with fear or rage or both, I couldn’t say. At the same time, he seemed coiled to spring; and part of me welcomed that.

Charley stood next to us — had he moved forward two steps, he’d have been between us. “Come on, Heller — back off... Rocky, back off... back off!” Charley swallowed, eyes flicking from me to his brother and back again. “I know what this is about — it’s that girl, isn’t it? That goddamn girl...”

“Her ass is mine!” Rocco snarled.

I backhanded the son of a bitch.

He couldn’t believe it. Rocco just stood there with his red eyes and touched the red in the corner of his mouth and couldn’t believe it.

“You touch her again, you come near her again,” I told him, “I will kill you so fucking slow you’ll be begging me to finish you. I’ll shoot your toes off and let you bleed to death out your fuckin’ feet.”

Rocco didn’t know what to say. The skunk-haired gangster looked afraid; it did not seem to be a state he was terribly familiar with. People were, after all, supposed to be afraid of him.

“Rocky,” Charley said, gently, “you put the girl out on the street with her bags — you sent her away. If Nate wants to take up with her, that’s his business.”

Rocco looked at Charley in amazement, searching his brother’s face for some sign that these were just words meant to fool me. If he found that, I didn’t sense it.

Charley turned my way, his voice gentle, reasonable. “Nate — can Rocky go now? Could you and I speak, alone, for a few moments — just the two of us?”

I shrugged. “Sure. Rock, did you need to use the facilities before you leave? Maybe you want to throw some water on your face.”

Rocco’s upper lip curled back, like a Doberman about to growl — or attack.

“Go, Rock,” Charley said, and he took his brother’s arm and tugged him away from where he’d stood facing me. “Go sit at the table and enjoy Frankie and stay away from our friend, Mr. Heller here... and stay away from the girl.”

Rocco swallowed, nodded, and hurried out.

Charley, breathing hard, leaned against the sink counter. “Nate... Nate, are you insane? Aren’t you fucking aware my brother is a very violent man?”

“I’ll take those questions in order: yes I am insane; that’s how I got out of the Marines. And your brother is a violent man — almost as violent as I am, and much tougher with women than I’ll ever be.”

Charley was shaking. He reached a hand in his tux pocket and found the small round silver box, from which he selected two pink pills. He popped them in his mouth, and ran a faucet and stuck his face under the water and drank. Then he used a paper towel to dry his face and turned to me, his hazel eyes tight with apparent earnestness.

“Nate... I will handle my brother. I will make sure this unfortunate incident is a... one time thing... Just a sad falling out among old friends.”

“I’ll kill him if he touches her.”

“I know! I know... You made your point. What Rocco fails to understand is how... misguided he was in evicting Miss Payne.”

“Why is that? He was tired of her — she was nothing to him but a dog to whip.”

Charley drew in a long breath and let it out slowly. “This inquiry... with the potentially damaging publicity it could bring... Miss Payne might feel sufficiently alienated from my brother to do something unwise.”

“You mean, she lived in your penthouse for a long time, and saw people come and go, and probably heard things.”

He nodded, once, a kind of a sideways nod. “Now. If I... handle Rocco. Keep him away from her — and from you... will you see to it that Miss Payne does not become friendly with the senator from Tennessee and his little tea party?”

I considered that. Then I said, “You know, that seems fair.”

He sighed and beamed. “Good. Good... And thank you for helping my brother, my other brother out, with that Mortimer character.” He shook his head. “Such a lout. Such an uncouth lout.”

“Some people have poor social graces,” I said, holstering my nine millimeter.

Charley exited the men’s room, with me right behind him; no sign of Rocco. I think Charley was as relieved as I was. He turned to me and extended his hand.

“We have a deal, then?”

“Deal,” I said, shaking with him.

When Charley had headed back toward the showroom — where Sinatra was singing, “If I Loved You” — I glanced toward the ladies’ room door, and saw Jackie cracking it, peeking out.

“Come on, honey,” I said. “We’re missing the show.”

She rushed to my side, looped her arm in mine. “I saw Rocco come out! He didn’t see me, but I—”

“He’s not going to bother you, anymore.”

“What happened?”

“I didn’t kill him.”

And I couldn’t keep the disappointment out of my voice.