Chicago Confidential

This action froze Fred for a moment, but he managed to smile and say something or other. Fred — a compact, balding character who resembled a somewhat better-looking Edward G. Robinson — was as usual nattily attired. He had opened a one-man P.I. agency in the Bradbury Building before the war, gradually garnering an enviable movie industry clientele; my national reputation had been growing at the same time, and in 1946, we had thrown in together, in what was now the L.A. branch of the A-l.

“You must want to be an actress,” Fred said.

Vera said, “That’s what I’m studying at UCLA.”

“She’s a finalist in the Miss California contest,” I said.

Fred was patting Vera’s hand. “Well, when you’re ready to talk to the studios, don’t forget us.”

“Oh, I won’t!” And she giggled and cooed — sounds I’d last heard when she was on my lap.

Then Fred turned his sharp, dark eyes my way; his rumpled face tightened, as much as it could, anyway. “Sapperstein called me today.”

“Yeah. Me too. He thinks I’m needed in Chicago.”

“I agree with him. You gotta get back there and deal with your friend Drury.”

“Not you, too, Fred! I’ll call him...”

Fred waggled a scolding finger. “Nate, this is bad for business. Neither one of us — in either of our towns — can afford to have the kind of enemies Drury is making for us.”

“I’ll handle it.”

Fred shrugged, but his eyes were unrelenting. Then he asked Vera if she minded if he smoked, and she said no, she was finished with her dessert and was going to have a smoke, herself.

So Fred lit up a Havana and Vera had a Chesterfield. I just had my coffee. I was not a smoker — I had only smoked during the war, when I was overseas, on Guadalcanal. The only times I craved a cigarette now were certain kinds of stress reminiscent of combat.

“Listen, Nate,” Fred said, “Frank’s here.”

“Which Frank? I know a lot of Franks.”

“Frankie.”

“Oh,” I said. “That Frank.”

Vera was trying to follow this. “You don’t mean Frank Sinatra?”

I nodded and her eyes glittered.

“He’s been wanting to talk to you for a couple weeks,” Fred told me. “Remember, I said he called?... Why don’t you go back and say hello, get this out of the way. He’s with Ava.”

Vera’s hazel eyes popped. “Ava Gardner?”

I shook my head. “Poor kid’s on the way down.”

Fred shrugged. “He just had a hit record.”

“Yeah, well his tank’s on empty and he’s running on fumes. He’s had his run, Fred.”

“Boy’s got talent.”

“The public’s gonna have his ass, leaving Nancy.”

“Maybe. Say hello to him. Maybe you can see what this job he has for us is all about — he won’t tell me.”

I nodded again, and got out of the booth. Vera looked at me like a greedy child who wanted a pony.

“Come along,” I sighed.

Frank and Ava were at a booth near the kitchen — not really such a good seat, but out of the way. I didn’t know Ava very well — only that, beautiful as she was, she was a hard-nosed broad with a vicious streak.

“Nate!” Frank said, bolting to his feet; he stuck out his hand, which I took.

He looked skinnier than ever, sporting a Clark Gable mustache that was wrong for him. He swam in a tan gabardine sportcoat and a yellow shirt with an open collar; he wasn’t wearing a rug and his thinning hair made him look old for his thirty-five years. Next to him, in a foul mood that rose from her like heat off asphalt, sat Ava; she was smoking a cigarette and her makeup seemed heavy to me, though she was unquestionably lovely, her attire simple but striking: an orange blouse with a mandarin collar.

I said, “Hiya, Frank. Ava.”

The actress looked away.

Frank said, “Have you been ducking me, Melvin?”

He was calling everybody Melvin that year.

“No. Uh, this is Vera Palmer. She’s a client.”

Frank beamed at the girl and extended his hand. “Pleasure, Miss Palmer.”

Ava stamped out her cigarette on the tablecloth and said in her husky alto, “I suppose you’re sleeping with this broad!”

Frank looked at her, aghast. “What? I just met her! Are you crazy?”

“I must be,” Ava said, and scooted out of the booth, grabbing her wrap, and then stormed out through the restaurant, brushing Vera roughly aside.

“Excuse me,” Frank said, and followed her.

Vera looked at me as though she’d been poleaxed.

I shrugged. “That’s pretty much par for the course with those two. Let’s go back to our booth.”

Which we did, and we were on our second cup of coffee (Fred was off schmoozing with other customers) when Frank — looking like a whipped puppy — came back in, spotted us, and joined us, sitting next to me.

“Jesus,” he said. “All I have to do is look at a pretty girl, and bam, Ava and me, we’re off to the races.”

I didn’t say anything. I was irritated with him; we’d known each other a long time, and I knew he was a tomcat, but I didn’t think he’d ever leave Nancy and the kids. And after what I’d been through myself, I wasn’t too keen on cheaters.

“I can’t stay,” Frank said, “but I’ll be in Chicago next week, at the Chez Paree. Are you heading back, by any chance?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe.”