Chicago Confidential

She rose, took the robe, and asked, “Do you mind if I take a shower, too?”

“No. Go right ahead.”

I sat in my bathrobe on the sofa with nothing on but the robe. Still not planning anything, listening to the muffled dance of water needles seep through the bathroom door, I wondered if maybe Vera had something in mind.

She did.

Her brunette hair damp, bangs turned into gypsy curls, she returned smelling like Lifebuoy (no Camay in my soap dish, unfortunately) with all the makeup washed away, looking fresh and innocent. Or anyway she looked fresh and innocent until she dropped the terrycloth robe to her feet, a puddle of white she stepped out of, letting the flickering flames dance all over her.

But even in the glow of firelight, her skin was creamy, and her figure was astonishing — tiny waist, wide hips, perfectly shaped, pink-tipped breasts displayed like awards on a wide rib cage.

She slipped her arms around me and said, “Thank you for saving me,” and presented her pretty face for a kiss.

Who was I to argue? The full lips were warm and moist and her tongue flicked at mine; then she was tugging that bathrobe off me, and we fell onto the couch and necked in the nude like we were both teenagers. A few minutes later her damp hair was tickling my thighs as she suckled me, making giggling, gurgling sounds, like she couldn’t have been having a better time with a lollipop; and when she crawled around on top of me, so she could continue her oral indulgence while I returned the favor, nose deep in curls, I realized this Texas teen was not as wholesome as first I had thought. We took a quick time out for me to find a Trojan, and I sat on the couch and she sat on me, and rode me like a kid on a carousel, making delicious little sounds, squeals and coos, my hands on her rounded bottom as I nuzzled first one ripe breast, then another, inducing further girlish glee. She was so fun-lovingly feminine, she was almost a cartoon — but a cartoon in Esquire.

Later she came back from the bathroom wrapped in the robe, saying, “That was a ball!”

Sitting on the couch in my own robe, I managed a nod. I felt like a truck had hit me — a 115-pound, well-stacked one.

“What do you want to do now?” she asked, plopping next to me, cuddling against me.

“Sleep?”

“No! It’s early. What about that place you own part of?”

“I don’t own part of anything.”

“Didn’t I read you own some restaurant on the Strip?”

“Sherry’s? No, the papers got that wrong... It’s my partner, Fred Rubinski’s place. You want to go there?”

She wanted to go there.

Sherry’s was a study in glass and chrome, ornate in a modern manner, and often was jumping, even on a Thursday night like this. Tonight was no exception at the Sunset Strip café, customer chatter colliding with clanking plates and the tinkle of Cole Porter on the piano, though the brightly illuminated restaurant seemed short on famous faces. Of course my gangster acquaintance Mickey Cohen had stopped hanging around here, after he and his entourage got shot up out on the sidewalk, last year.

Though it was open for dinner, Sherry’s was known as an after-hours joint, the likes of which had been suffering due to a postwar decline of nightclubs and theater; Ciro’s and the Mocambo were still doing good business, but many other clubs had shuttered, and big-name nitery talent had migrated to Las Vegas where top dollar awaited. Also, the Big Bands weren’t drawing like they used to — dancehalls had tumbleweed blowing through them, now that the kids were listening to Frankie Laine and Patti Page. Hadn’t been the same in this town since ’48, when Earl Carroll’s closed down after the boss died in a plane crash.

We were shown to seats by a waitress I didn’t make eye contact with (we had history); nonetheless, I was the owner’s partner, and got treated right by way of a cozy booth. Even in a starlet-laden burg like Hollywood, Vera’s striking figure caught many an eye; her simple powder blue college-girl attire was at odds with the after-theater finery around us. But a body like Vera’s in a town like this made up for a lot of sins. So to speak.

We ordered coffee and pastry — I had a Napoleon and Vera a cream puff, which we were in the middle of when Fred Rubinski came over to say hello (and to be introduced to the gorgeous brunette).

“Sit down, Fred,” I said, and Fred slid in next to Vera. “This is a client of ours — Vera Palmer. She has an ex-boyfriend who hasn’t come to terms with the ‘ex’ part. Vera, this is my partner at the A-l, Fred Rubinski.”

“I’ve read about you, Mr. Rubinski,” she said with a grin, then shook hands with him as she licked custard from one corner of her mouth.