Frank: The Voice (74 page)

Nellis gave Sinatra a hard stare. “And you had given him your phone number where you were staying?”

“Yes, he asked me for the phone number, and I gave it to him.”

“Now, you rode over together on the same plane?”

“Yes.”

“When you got off the plane, you got off with them together?”

“No, actually I didn’t know. As a matter of fact, I suspect, now that we discuss it, that when the plane landed, they may have seen the guys with the cameras. They may have seen somebody with a camera because why should they fall behind. I found myself alone …”

“Were you carrying any baggage off the plane?” Nellis asked.

“Yes.”

“What was it?”

“A tan piece of hand luggage, a briefcase like,” Frank said.

“Could you have had a paper-wrapped bundle?” Nellis asked.

“No, I don’t remember actually, but I don’t think so. I think I had a topcoat and a bag.”

“What was in the bag?”

“Sketching materials, crayons, shaving equipment, general toiletry.”

“Did you habitually carry that bag?”

“All the time, constantly,” Sinatra said. “I am now. I also use it for papers.”

“How large a bag is it?”

“It is about the size of a briefcase with a handle on it. Instead of carrying under your arms, like a little overnight bag.”

“Did either of the Fischettis give you anything to carry into Cuba?”

“No, sir.”

“Did anybody else give you anything else to carry into Cuba?”

“No, sir.”

The lawyer made a sour face. “Will you go ahead with the rest of your story,” he said.

In his lengthy account Frank described leaving his room at the Hotel Nacional (in the company of a Chicago columnist he had encountered, Nate Gross of the
Herald American
) and proceeding to have a series of accidental meetings with a group of gangsters who kept showing up wherever he went—the bar of the Nacional, the hotel dining room, an “American show” downtown. One of the gangsters was Lucky Luciano.

“I remarked to Nate, I said that name is familiar,” Frank recalled. “Yes, he said, that’s the guy you think it is. He started to tell me something of the history of this man. I was a boy and remember when his trial was on and remember reading about it …”

That night, according to Sinatra, was the last time he ever saw Luciano.

Nellis shook his head. “There has been stated certain information to the effect that you took a sum of money well in excess of $100,000 into Cuba,” he said.

“That is not true.”

“Did you give any money to Lucky Luciano?”

“No, sir.”

“Did you ever learn what business they were in?”

“No,” Frank said. “Actually not.”

“Where did you get started in the entertainment business?” Nellis asked.

“In a small club in Hoboken; I must have been around seventeen.”

“What’s your attraction to all these underworld characters?”

“I don’t have any attraction for them,” Frank said. “Some of them were kind to me when I started out, and I have sort of casually seen them or spoken to them at different places, in nightclubs where I worked, or out in Vegas or California.”

“Do you know Frank Costello?”

“Just to say hello. I’ve seen him at the Copa and at the Madison, and once we had a drink at the Drake where I stay when I’m in New York.”

“What about Joe Doto?”

“I’ve met him,” Sinatra said. “He’s the one they call ‘Adonis,’ right?”

“Right. How well do you know him?”

“No business,” Frank said. “Just ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye.’ ”

“Well, what about the Jersey guys you met when you first got started?” Nellis asked.

“Let me tell you something, those guys were okay,” Frank replied. “They never bothered me or anyone else as far as I know.” He was wringing his hands now—almost as though he were washing them. “Now,” Frank said, “you’re not going to put me on television and ruin me just because I know a lot of people, are you?” His famous voice was wavering a little. Nellis couldn’t help feeling a little thrill of power.

“Nobody wants to ruin you, Mr. Sinatra,” the lawyer said waspishly. “I assure you I would not be here at five in the morning at your lawyer’s request so that no newsmen could find out we’re talking to you if we intended to make some kind of public spectacle of any appearance before the committee.”

Frank wasn’t placated. His voice rose and tightened. “Well, look,” he said. “How in hell is it going to help your investigation to put me on television just because I know some of these guys?”

Nellis shook his head impatiently. “That will be up to Senator Kefauver and the committee,” he said. Then he softened ever so slightly. “Right now, if you’re not too tired, I want to continue so we can see whether there’s any basis for calling you in public session. Let’s get
back to what I was asking you about. And I will ask you specifically: Have you ever, at any time, been associated in business with Moretti, Zwillman—”

“Who?” Frank asked.

“Abner Zwillman of Newark,” Nellis said. “They call him ‘Longy.’ Or Catena, Lansky, or Siegel?”

“Well, Moore, I mean Moretti, made some band dates for me when I first got started, but I have never had any business dealings with any of those men.”

“But you know Luciano, the Fischettis, and all those I have named?”

“Just like I said; just in that way.”

The sky outside the dirty windows was still black. “What is your attraction to these people?” Nellis repeated.

“Well, hell, you go into show business, you meet a lot of people,” Frank said. “And you don’t know who they are or what they do.”

The lawyer’s eyes flashed behind the circular lenses. “Do you want me to believe that you don’t know the people we have been talking about are hoodlums and gangsters who have committed many crimes and are probably members of a secret criminal club?”

Sinatra had to stifle a smile.
Club
. That was rich. Like the Turk’s Palace, with secret handshakes and orange and black silk jackets. Well, it was a little like that, actually. Except for the silk jackets.

“No, of course not,” Frank said. “I heard about the Mafia.”

“Well, what did you hear about it?”

Frank shook his head, elaborately disingenuous. “That it’s some kind of shakedown operation,” he said. “I don’t know.”

“Like the one you were involved with in the case of Tarantino?”

Finally, Sinatra allowed himself a half smile. It was almost six in the morning; the torment was almost over. Out over the East River, the sky was beginning to lighten. “I’m not sure that one was anybody’s idea but Jimmy’s,” he told Nellis.

What’s your attraction to these people?
The question was by no means a simple one: no wonder Joseph Nellis asked it not just once but twice during the session. However much revulsion or incredulity the government lawyer may have felt at Sinatra’s associations, he also understood the Mafia’s mystique. His boss, after all, was scoring the biggest success in the brief history of television by putting these people on the air. Something about the Mob got—and still gets—to everyone. To a great degree the American fascination with gangsters stems from the pleasant fantasy that they have razored away the troublesome complexities of life by sheer, brutal acts of will. Sinatra sometimes fantasized that his celebrity had accomplished the same end. It was an illusion he would entertain until the end of his life, but the chickens always came home to roost. Life’s troubling messiness won out in the end. So it went, too, with gangsters: there was no escaping the condition of being a human being.

And yet every time Frank shook the hand of one of these powerful, magnetic men, the man on either end of the handshake enjoyed the same fantasy about the other:
This fucker has got it knocked
. The smiles broadened; the handclasp grew firmer as the warm thought took hold.

Gelb assured his client that it had gone reasonably well, but Nellis had handed Frank a subpoena before he left, and Frank didn’t see much assurance in his lawyer’s eyes. Sinatra thanked Gelb, dismissed Sanicola, went back to the Hampshire House. He took two Seconals, chased with three fingers of Jack Daniel’s, and paced. A fucking subpoena. If they called him in to testify, he was well and truly fucked. He got in the shower and ran the hot water for twenty minutes; he couldn’t stop yawning. He sat on the side of his bed, towel around his waist, and drank another glass of whiskey. Gelb had assured him he was unlikely to be recalled. How unlikely? The lawyer met his eyes with a hard gaze. Unlikely, he repeated. Frank swished the whiskey in the glass. A crazy thought intruded: He was standing on the bar at Marty O’Brien’s, naked, trying to sing, unable to
make a sound. The old men stared at him; Dolly tapped her stick on her palm. When he opened his eyes again, it was after five thirty, and the sun was setting over the Hudson.

Later that morning Nellis reported to Kefauver. Sinatra had been lying, the lawyer said; he was certain of it. On the other hand, “
He’s not going to admit any complicity concerning Luciano or the Fischettis in terms of being a ‘bagman’ or courier for them or anybody else,” Nellis said. “If we take him into public session, his career will really be jolted—possibly beyond repair. He may even balk at the TV cameras and raise a lot of hell without saying anything.”

Kefauver accepted Nellis’s recommendation not to call Sinatra to testify. The senator was less concerned about Frank’s career than his own: people were already calling the hearings a show; there was no sense turning them into a circus.

They were rowdy at Toots Shor’s that night, making pleasantly filthy jokes about Kefauver, and Frank felt braver. The next evening, trailed by Sanicola, Silvani, and Ben Barton, he strode into the Columbia studio at Third and Thirtieth to record two numbers from the new Rodgers and Hammerstein show,
The King and I
. It didn’t get any better than Rodgers and Hammerstein. Axel was there to conduct his arrangements of “Hello Young Lovers” and “We Kiss in a Shadow,” and it didn’t get any better than Sibelius. Frank joshed with the violinists; he joked with the drummer Johnny Blowers about the miniature Zildjian cymbals Axel had brought to give the music a Siamese sound. Then the engineers turned the tape on; Stordahl brought down his baton. Sinatra put up his hand.