A Conversation with the Mann (29 page)

T
AHOE WAS THAT OTHER SPOT
in Nevada. Different from Reno, Las Vegas, it was more a place for the outdoorsy crowd—people who dug shushing the High Sierra
slopes in winter, camping and boating in the warm months. Tahoe had few crowds, was light on traffic. It was the summer stock
version of Vegas. There was gaming, sure, but it was gaming as an afterthought: Okay, we climbed, we skied, we did the water
jazz. Guess we might as well drop five hundred at the tables. There was high living to be done, but it was high living done
on the low profile.

The Cal-Neva sat on the north shore of the lake. Smallish, ringed with bungalows, the joint itself was more lodge than hotel,
parlor room than casino. Its novelty was—like the claim of its name—the border ran right down the middle of the swimming pool.
You could sip highballs in California, then stroll on over to the Silver State to get a little roulette in.

I made the trip alone. Sid'd stayed in New York with Fran, had made a point of staying in New York with Fran. He was signifying
to me.

I flew into Reno where I would get picked up and driven the rest of the way to Lake Tahoe and the Cal-Neva. When I got off
the plane I didn't know what to expect, so I expected what I'd gotten from most of the hotels I'd played across the country:
cold stares and reluctant handshakes from the very same people who'd hired me. A room somewhere off the property. A “thanks
for coming, here's your money, now beat it, boy” attitude all around.

What I got was none of that.

What I got was picked up from my flight by some fellow driving a just-about-right-off-the-lot Cadillac Series 62, sporting
a uniform and the works.

He was strictly: “How was your flight, Mr. Mann? Is this your bag, sir? Let me get it for you. Right this way, if you please.”
He opened the back door for me, stood holding it. Stunned, I fell into the car.

The driver drove. I rode. Anxious for a while. Expecting at any moment to get hit with the punch line to the joke.

None came.

Two hours to Tahoe. The smoothness of the Caddy, the rhythm of the ride; I couldn't help but ease up, settle back. I gave
the inside of my eyelids a full examination.

When I came awake, we were cruising up the Cal-Neva's drive. Waiting for me was a clinging vine of uniformed laborers—luggage
marines—to heft my bags, check me in, show me this or that. Make sure I was taken care of. Endless in number, hot to please,
they reproduced faster than I could dole out tips.

One of the bellboys lackeyed me to my room. Nothing somewhere on the “dark” side of town. My digs were right there at the
lodge. King bed. View of the lake. Same as any other patron. Better than most. The kicker: Unlike any other patron, the house
was paying me to be there. The whole of it left me head-shaking stupefied.

But why? When I gave it thought, why should any of it—the car from the airport, the “yes, sir” service, the room—why should
it rattle me? I was star quality. I was headline status. I was breaking through. I was seeing light at the end of the long
tunnel I'd crawled from Harlem to stardom. I was right where I deserved to be.

I wished Tommy were there to share it with me. I wished Sid were there to enjoy it with me. I wished my pop were there so
I could take it all and rub it in his face.

He wouldn't've cared. He would've just wanted to know where the bar was and if the juice was gratis.

And then, almost as an “oh, yeah” afterthought to everything else, there were the shows, my reason for being in Tahoe in the
first place. The cabaret was small—if you did some pushing and shoving, you could get maybe fifty people in there, so by default
there wasn't a night during the week the room wasn't packed. And there wasn't a night during the week I didn't kill. The management
helped by building me up with some fresh-smelling propaganda: the new sensation straight from the Copacabana in New York.
A favorite opener for Buddy Greco and Tony Bennett. But more than the hype, I was just having good shows. My timing was on,
my presence was a definite. My self-confidence was treetop high. Maybe I hadn't found my voice yet, but from the way the crowd
howled things up, the voice I owned spoke just fine.

Thursday night. After the show. I was on my way back to my room, when this fellow stops me with: “Jackie.”

“Yes?”

He was a short guy. Plump. Round. He looked as if, under his clothes, he were trying to smuggle gelatin across the border.
“Jilly Rizzo.” He said his name like saying it should mean something to me.

It didn't.

I tried to put a little “yeah, and … ?” on my face. He didn't catch it.

Jilly said: “He wants to talk to you.”

“Who?”

I got tossed a look that was good and queer: How the hell could I not know who the hell he was talking about?

“Frank,” he said.

“Mr. Costello's here?”

He was trying to be patient, that was plain. But it was also plain this Jilly was a cat who didn't have much patience for
the uninitiated.

“Sinatra wants to talk to you.”

F
RANK
S
INATRA FILLED THE ROOM.

Not physically. Not hardly. Sporting an orange sweater over a white turdeneck with brown slacks, he was just a guy, somebody's
fashion-senseless uncle. About as imposing as a plate of sauceless spaghetti. He was rounding into middle age, heavier than
he'd been as the crooner from Hoboken. Balder. A combover took care of that. He was getting with lines on his face, the middle
of his forehead resembling a tilled field. But all those defects were shingled around eyes that were sky blue. Blue and sprouting
crow's-feet.

What could barely fit into the room wasn't the man himself but a combo of legend, myth, and good PR. There was the story of
a man going from Swoonatra to Charlie Has-been to Chairman of the Board—star of movies AND records AND television AND any
other form of entertainment shy of writing haikus. Pal, drinking buddy, and messiah to some of the biggest stars and hardest
livers that Hollywood ever turned out. Not so secretly the same with a slew of Mafiosos. There were the bobby-soxers paid
to take a dive, the “wrong door” raid he pulled with the Yankee Clipper, trying to dig a little girl/girl dirt on M.M. that
nearly landed them both in jail. There was the Oscar, the brawls, the face-punched reporters … And there were the love affairs.

There was
the
love affair. The off-as-many-times-as-on-again one he had with Ava Gardner—hot, hard, and violent, trips to the hospital
as often as trips to die flower shop. Made my beefs with Tommy look like a Mormon holding hands with a Quaker. Word on the
street: After Ava kicked him to the curb for good, Frank tried to off himself.

More than once.

That a star his size should want to check out over a chick, over any one chick … that's love.

The other thing filling the room was Frank's voice. His legendary voice. Still rich. Still as deep and as expressive as the
day he first cut a side.

At the moment it was expressing some of the foulest language I'd ever heard at some poor Harvey, withering, drenched with
his own perspiration. A sweat balloon that'd sprung a leak. The guy was too scared to move, to blink, to look at Frank, or
to look away from him. All he could do was stand there and take it. Lots and lots of
it
. From what I could pick out between variations on a theme of “fuck,” apparently someone had won and won good at the blackjack
tables. Probably counting cards. Frank the casino owner didn't much care for the fact that none of his employees saw fit to
cut the guy off before he walked out with a bundle.

“What the fuck do I pay you for, to hand some other fuckin' crumb money—my money—you stupid fuckin' guinea! ”

The cat on the receiving end sputtered. I couldn't tell if he was trying to talk or starting to cry.

“I ought to give you one.” Frank curled a fist to end any confusion as to what the one was he was thinking of giving away
was. “I ought to just haul off and … Go on, you lousy fink. Get the fuck out of here!”

The cat wasted no time in obeying.

“And I don't mean out of my lodge, I mean out of this fuckin' state! Don't stop. You hit fuckin' Canada, you don't fuckin'
stop!”

I doubted if he'd stop before he hit Iceland.

Done with the man, Frank crossed to a bar and did some mixing—went straight to it as though me and Jilly were vapor.

Jilly said: “Frankie …”

“What! ”

“You wanted to see Jackie.”

He looked up, looked at me.

Let me tell you: I picked up sweating right where that other guy had left off.

“Howzit, Charlie?” Frank's smile couldn't have been brighter, his voice any more even. It was as if what had just happened—the
yelling and the screaming—had happened a couple of years prior if at all. Moving toward me, hand out: “How's your bird?”

“My …”

His handshake was firm but friendly. “Want some gas, Charlie?”

I didn't know what I was agreeing to, but, “… Sure.”

As he headed back for the bar: “What are ya drinkin'?”

“A Coca-Cola will be fine, Mr. Sinatra.”

Frank laughed.

Jilly laughed.

But different from most times when people busted up over me— at least when I wasn't onstage—they weren't laughing at me. They
were just two guys having a good chuckle.

“It's all right, Charlie,” Frank assured. “We're all eighteen. Have yourself a little of Mr. Daniel's.”

“Thank you, Mr. Sinatra.”

“And what's with this Mr. Sinatra jazz? I'm strictly Charlie, same as you.”

He was so relaxed, unassuming. Talking with him, talking with Frank, was the same as talking with any other non-superstar
guy. Just another Charlie in a sweater, a fellow who could've been getting ready to watch a ball game or rake leaves. The
normalcy of the moment made it seem all the more unreal. Not that his being around should have been completely unexpected.
That Frank owned the Cal-Neva was common knowledge. You got that plain enough from the sign on the road leading to the joint:
WELCOME TO FRANK SINATRA'S CAL-NEVA LODGE. But who figured he would frequent a Tahoe lodge whether he owned the place or not?
And who in the hell would ever have figured he would want to have a sit-down with me?

As he handed me my drink: “Haven't had a chance to catch the act yet, but I hear you're puttin' on a real swinger of a show.”

“Yes, sir. They've been real good.”

“Yeah. Momo said Frankie C was ravin' about you, didn't he, Jilly?”

“Said you was a hoot.”

“So I told him let's get this kid in here. You ever meet Momo?”

Meet him? Last time I even asked about this Momo guy, all I got for my trouble was a verbal smacking. “No, sir.”

“You've got to meet him sometime. Sammy's a real good guy.”

“Sammy?”

“Sammy. Sam Flood.”

“Momo,” Jilly said, once again growing impatient with my rube-ness.

“Sure. I'd love to meet him someti—”

“So how's everything? Everybody treating you decent?”

“They're treating me decent. I don't think I've ever—”

“Nobody's giving you any trouble, are they?” The way he kept cutting me off, I got the feeling Frank could carry on a dialogue
just fine by himself. “'Cause you've got the run of the joint, Charlie. Anybody says different, you tell me.” A cloud fell
over Frank. He became a very dark man. “You tell me, and I'll tell them and tell them so they don't forget.”

“Yes, sir, but I haven't had any problems. None at all. Everybody's been real fine. Like I said, real fine.”

“Swell.” And quick as it'd come the cloud sailed on. Frank was all sunshine again. “Listen, you know I've got a piece of the
Sands in Vegas. I'm gonna talk to Jack about gettin' you in there.”

Just like that. With a word, with a mere wave of his hand, he was offering me a slice of my dreams with the same non-effort
that anyone else would offer a glass of water.

“The Sands in Vegas? You're … you're giving me the Sands?” The plane had crashed. I was thinking: My plane had crashed before
I'd even gotten to Tahoe. My plane had crashed, I'd been shredded and burned and killed, and I ended up here. I'd been a good
little boy, and I'd gone to heaven.

“I'm not givin' you anything you didn't earn by knockin' 'em dead from my stage, Charlie. How do you think it's done anyway?
Connections. Who you know. Now you know me.” Frank got with a smile, big and toothy. He liked being benevolent. He dug being
the king. “Have to slot you as an opener, but we'll make it worth your while. Jilly, how much we payin' Charlie?”

“Five-fifty.”

“Five-fifty? Why you lettin' me be so tight with the kid? How's he supposed to pitch dames livin' on the cheap?” To me: “How's
seven-fifty sound, Charlie?”

“That's just… I'd do it for free.”

“Let me tell you somethin': You're only worth what you say yes to. You say yes to nothin', you're worth nothin'. Vegas or
not, you do it for real money, you do it for keeps, or you don't do it at all.”

Some swinging lingo. But you don't rise and fall and rise again without learning a few things.