The Devil May Dance - Tapper, Jake (short novels in english .TXT) 📗

“Really?” asked Martin incredulously. Then he leaned forward with a challenge: “Name your favorite film starring each one of us.”

Charlie sat up in his seat as everyone eyed him curiously. He loved being underestimated, though it seldom happened anymore.

“I liked you in Rio Bravo,” Charlie told Martin.

“I liked how they cast you against type, made you a lazy drunk,” Margaret added. This elicited guffaws from everyone, including Martin. “Good to see you branch out.”

“Sammy was great as Sportin’ Life in Porgy and Bess,” Charlie continued, going around the table. “May, I loved you in The Hunters. Obviously, Shirley was mesmerizing in The Apartment, and I liked Peter best in The Thin Man, but I know that was TV, so he was also stellar in Exodus.”

Charlie waved toward the serious-looking men to his left. “I don’t know who these two gentlemen are but I suspect they don’t care to be captured on film much.”

The men grinned. They sure didn’t.

“As for Mr. Sinatra,” Charlie said, “he’s giving a great performance in The Manchurian Candidate right now, but until that one’s released, I gotta say The Man with the Golden Arm. I know it’s probably trendier in this town to go with the role that won him the Oscar, but Frankie Machine still haunts me.” Charlie took a couple of swigs from his glass of bourbon, finishing it, while everyone stayed quiet. “If I’m still thinking about a performance years after I saw the picture, then the artist did something right.”

“See, politicians know plenty about what we do,” Sinatra said. “When I talk to TP, all he wants to hear is Hollywood gossip.”

“TP?” asked Margaret.

“The president,” Lawford explained.

They drank. And drank. Margaret was increasingly reminded of her 1940s fieldwork observing chimpanzees in the Belgian Congo. The monkeys were tribal, wild, focused on mating and alpha status, and the Rat Packers’ antics increasingly resembled the chimps’ as the night proceeded. Margaret whispered the observation to Charlie, who laughed heartily when Dean Martin coincidentally underlined her point with an operatic solo that recalled nothing so much as a primate’s pant-hoot.

It was maybe an hour later when Britt nudged MacLaine and gestured toward something behind her. MacLaine looked, then turned back to May and mimed sticking her finger down her throat in an exaggerated expression of nausea.

Margaret peered over her shoulder and saw an obese man in his fifties escorting a voluptuous curly-haired blond girl who couldn’t have been out of her teens to a table. His hands slid all over her—hips, legs, abdomen—as soon as they sat down. The room they were in was too dark for Margaret to see the girl’s facial expression.

“Yuck,” said Margaret. Charlie, focused on his cards, looked up at his wife, then back at his three aces.

“That’s Itchy Meyer, with MGM,” MacLaine said. “Total masher.”

“Who’s the skirt?” asked Sinatra.

“Dunno, I can’t really see her face that well,” said Britt.

“DC is a whole town of Itchy Meyers,” said Margaret. “Senator Itchy Meyer, Congressman Itchy Meyer…”

“President Itchy Meyer,” whispered Charlie.

Margaret squinted at the young woman again. “Jesus,” she said under her breath. “Violet,” Margaret said, walking toward her. “Violet!” she shouted.

The young woman looked around to see who was calling her name.

“How does your wife know her name?” Martin asked Charlie.

Charlie was too stunned to speak at first. “That’s her sister’s daughter, our niece Violet,” he finally said. “She ran away from home six months ago.”

Chapter SixBeverly Hills, California

December 1961

Margaret’s relief at seeing her runaway niece vanished quickly. Violet was glassy-eyed and looked as if she barely understood that someone, let alone her aunt, was approaching.

“Violet?” Margaret said. “Violet!”

No response. Violet looked around the room, past Margaret. She must be stoned, Margaret thought. On pills or something.

“Hi there,” Margaret said, extending a hand to introduce herself to Itchy Meyer, hoping to break the strange spell. He shot her a dirty look and then stood, took Violet’s hand, and briskly ushered her out of the club. Margaret was stunned. She called after her niece but was ignored as they walked out the door. She scrambled to catch her, but by the time she got through the crowd and made her way outside, they had vanished.

“What happened?” Britt asked Margaret when she returned, shoulders slumped in defeat.

MacLaine arched a perfectly penciled eyebrow as she examined the cards in her hand. “Here’s a guess,” she said. “He realized you might hasten her escape from his greasy paws, so he made up an excuse to vamoose.”

“He didn’t even bother acknowledging me,” Margaret said. “Out the door like Chuck Yeager.”

“She isn’t even eighteen yet, is she?” asked MacLaine.

“She isn’t even seventeen,” said Margaret.

“Not even seventeen and she’s got a figure like that!” Martin said under his breath. Charlie looked at Margaret, who thankfully didn’t seem to have heard over the din of the busy social club.

Britt batted Martin’s arm lightly with the back of her hand. “They’re worried about their niece, guys,” she said. “You can’t see the forest for the trees.”

“I can’t see the forest for her fun-bags,” said Martin. Margaret heard this time and made a face of disgust.

“The good news is it doesn’t look like she’s skipping meals,” said Lawford.

“Peter,” scolded MacLaine.

Charlie thought about objecting to Lawford’s comment, albeit against his better judgment—after a decade in Washington, DC, he had calluses on his tongue from biting it so much. But before he could say a word, he heard a familiar drawl.

“Hello, Francis” came the voice.

Charlie and Margaret turned and saw a tall, craggy-faced man. John Wayne.

“Duke,” said Sinatra uneasily from across the table.

“Haven’t seen you since that night at the Moulin Rouge,” Wayne said.

“Oy,” said Davis.

Lawford leaned closer to Charlie and said quietly, “They almost came to blows that night.”

“What about?” asked Charlie.

“Albert Maltz.”

About a year and a half before, Charlie remembered, Sinatra had hired screenwriter Maltz, one of the Hollywood Ten who’d been jailed for refusing to tell Congress whether he’d ever been a member of the Communist Party. Sinatra wanted him to write his picture about Private Eddie