The Devil May Dance by Jake Tapper (books to read fiction txt) 📗

“Hey there, Charlie,” Martin said as Charlie joined him at the bar. “How’s your bird?”

“Hey, Dean,” Charlie said. “Um, I guess it’s good. How’s yours?”

“Not so good,” Martin said. “And forget the bird, I gotta find that monkey.”

“Monkey?”

“The one that beat on my head and shit in my mouth,” Martin said. It was a hangover joke he’d clearly made before. Sporting only his red bathing suit, sunglasses, and a deep tan, Martin turned toward the pool and leaned back against the bar. He was surprisingly fit.

“Ah, look at the talent here!” he said, surveying the bevy of attractive young women—Copa Girls, dancers, models, actresses, and some, like Judy, whose occupations weren’t clear. “Next time your wife turns in early, you should sample the local wares. Vegas is a confectionery—it’s a chocolatier, a patisserie.” He nudged Charlie’s ribs with his elbow in case his words had somehow been too subtle. “Go ahead, buddy, bite yourself off some marzipan!”

“I’m good,” Charlie said. “Thanks.” He reminded himself that he had a job to do and couldn’t afford to alienate anyone.

Martin took off his sunglasses and squinted at Margaret. “You have two kids, you said? It doesn’t show.” His gaze remained on Margaret. “I’m sure things are different from the rabbit days when you first got together, though, right?” He slapped Charlie on the back.

“Your scotch, sir,” said the barkeeper. Martin reached back without looking and waited for the drink to be placed in his hand. He rattled the ice in his glass, swallowed half its contents, then stood a little straighter and adopted a sterner tone, as if speaking to a recalcitrant child. “You’re a man, Charlie, and you are perfectly entitled to behave as a man does, taking what you want and what you need.”

Charlie contemplated this. Truth be told, it was no different from how powerful men in Washington and New York City behaved.

“And speaking of what you need,” Martin continued, “pardon my French, but just why the fuck are you out here? None of it makes much sense to me. I’m not a fan of politics, but it seems fishy for a Republican congressman to take leave from his job to work on a picture and hang around with an actor who likes Democrats. Goldwater send you? Nixon?”

Charlie laughed. “I thought you weren’t a fan of politics.”

“I read the papers,” Martin said, smiling.

“If they wanted intel,” Charlie said, “they’d send a pro, or at least someone who could hold his liquor. Margaret needed a break from the New York winter and two little kids, so when the studio asked me to come out here, we jumped at the chance. Sunshine, movie stars…”

“Mmm-hmm,” said Martin skeptically.

“Scotch,” bellowed a voice. It was Rosselli, approaching the bar from the hotel lobby with another man. In his brightly colored Hawaiian shirt and bathing trunks, Rosselli looked like a handsome aging celebrity, and Charlie had a hard time reconciling what he knew about the mobster’s brutal reputation with the gregarious charmer before him.

“Frank’s in a state,” Rosselli informed them. “Calling the White House, trying to get through to Kennedy.” Rosselli massaged his forehead with a beefy thumb and forefinger. He pointed to his friend. “This is Bob,” he said.

“Bob Maheu,” said the man. He was bald and in his forties with a sad expression and a lumpy body, a bag of potatoes compared with the glamorous gangsters and stars at the pool. Charlie knew the name but he couldn’t remember how.

“So what’s your connection to these fine gentlemen?” Margaret asked Judy.

“Oh, Frank and I have known each other for a long time. And he introduced me to Sam.” She spoke with the casual assurance of someone who assumed her life’s details were well known.

“Sam?”

“Sam Hill, the distinguished older gentleman who hangs around here?”

Margaret didn’t see anyone by that description, only a pool full of young women splashing rather showily, careful to keep their hair dry and their assets on full display. They had an appreciative audience among the men who lounged nearby, most of whom barely bothered to conceal their interest.

“Who are all these other girls?” Margaret said, waving toward the pool.

“Oh, I don’t know them,” Judy said. “I guess they’re just here for the show and the sun and the company.”

Margaret pulled down her sunglasses to get a better look at the young women, all of them with dimpled cheeks, flawless skin. “What do they do?” she asked. The women in Las Vegas, the nontourists, seemed to do whatever they needed to do to survive—from Copa Girl to cocktail waitress to burlesque dancer to bed-hopper, with various levels of clientele. She didn’t know why she was judging the women this way. It was unlike her. Judy was silent, which made Margaret nervous.

Judy looked at Margaret as if noticing her for the first time. “You’re the congressman’s wife?”

“I’m a zoologist, but yes, I’m also his wife.”

“So you’re a zoologist but you married a congressman and now you’re hanging with the Rat Pack in Vegas?”

“Charlie and I met at Columbia University,” Margaret said. “He fought in Europe and then came back and we got married. Congress didn’t happen until almost a decade later.”

“We’re all just on a journey,” Judy said.

“Part of me looks at these…these girls, like lambs with the wolves around the pool, and I worry,” Margaret said. “Maybe it’s just the mom in me.”

“Those girls don’t need some housewife to protect them,” Judy said. “They’re fine. We’re fine.”

Among Rosselli’s insatiable appetites was a hunger for Hollywood gossip, and after his first sip of scotch, he began peppering Martin with questions about Natalie Wood.

“I mean, did you see West Side Story? Did you see Splendor in the Grass?” he exulted. “She’s an angel! And that figure—”

“You’re in luck, Johnny,” Martin said. “She and Bob Wagner are splitsville. Happy to introduce you if you’d like.”

“How old is she now? Maybe twenty-two?” Rosselli asked.

“Old enough,” said Martin with a leer that was quickly growing tiresome to Charlie. “I saw her on a date maybe two