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

view. Rosselli turned to his left. Another familiar face popped up.

“Giancana,” said Street. The Chicago mobster sported his usual thick glasses and deadpan expression as he followed Rosselli into the hotel.

“So Maheu met up with Rosselli and Momo,” said Margaret. “So what?”

“I agree,” said Charlie. “We know Maheu knows Rosselli, and Rosselli knows Giancana.”

“So what are we missing?” Street asked as the film ran out and the tail end of the strip began clanging about. Frankenheimer turned the machine off.

“Wait, John,” Evans said. “Can you roll that last scene again?”

“Of course, darling,” he replied. He respooled the film and everyone watched Rosselli and Giancana walking backward out of the hotel, followed by Maheu traipsing backward in the opposite direction, toward the ocean. In the background the waves began in the sand and rolled toward the sea; birds flew in reverse.

“Look,” Evans said, pointing at the ocean. “No sunset.”

“I don’t follow,” said Frankenheimer.

“It’s dusk but the sun isn’t setting over the ocean,” said Margaret. “This isn’t Los Angeles. This isn’t even the West Coast.”

“But the palm trees,” said Charlie.

“It’s Florida, Charlie,” said Evans.

“Miami!” exclaimed Frankenheimer.

“Darn it!” said Street. “I should have recognized it. That’s the Fontainebleau.”

“Which means what, though?” asked Evans.

“Which means the mobsters were meeting with other people too, and it had nothing to do with Hollywood,” said Margaret.

Downstairs, the doorbell rang.

“I’ll be right back,” Evans said, leaving the room.

“Cuba,” said Charlie. He looked at Margaret, who was staring back at him. Each reached over to touch the other’s nose.

“What’s that?” Street asked.

“‘To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle,’” Margaret said.

“Orwell,” said Frankenheimer. “This is going to be one hell of a story when you finally tell me.”

“We’re still figuring it out,” Charlie said.

“Mobsters,” Margaret said. “Miami.”

“It’s only slightly less plausible than the Chinese brainwashing an American war hero,” Charlie said.

“Charlotte wanted us to see all of this,” Margaret said. “Not just Chris Powell at United and at the church, but Miami too.”

Frankenheimer smiled and stood. “I’m going to see who’s at the door,” he said just as Evans reappeared with Manny Fontaine.

“Manny, to what do I owe the pleasure?” Frankenheimer asked, shaking the publicist’s hand. Fontaine was impeccably dressed in a casual Sunday-brunch outfit—blazer and pocket square, open blue oxford shirt, dark sunglasses, and loafers—but he seemed nervous.

“I need to talk to Charlie and Margaret,” he said.

“How did you know we were here?” Charlie asked. He and Margaret were sitting on the back porch with Manny, the finches chirping and the salty sea air potent.

“You got a call through the studio switchboard; you weren’t at your hotel,” Fontaine said. “The guy on the other end of the line insisted that the operator patch him through to someone who would convey the message.” Fontaine patted his forehead with a white handkerchief he withdrew from his pocket. “That job fell to me.”

Charlie looked at Margaret. “That doesn’t really explain how you knew we—”

“Right,” Fontaine interrupted. “I was calling around to see if anyone knew where you were, and I called here.”

The explanation seemed unlikely, but Margaret put her hand on Charlie’s, a way to urge Manny to move on to why he was here. Surely, she thought, this had to do with the previous night’s events and Sheryl Ann. Fontaine reached into his left jacket pocket and took out a pack of Marlboros.

“So what was his message?” Margaret asked.

Fontaine lit the cigarette, took a deep drag, and exhaled. “The man said: ‘If you want your friend, bring the file tonight, including the film.’” He looked at Charlie. “What friend?” he asked. “What file? What film?”

Charlie glanced at Margaret, who asked: “Where are we supposed to bring it?”

“To the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium,” Fontaine said. “To the Academy Awards.”

Chapter Twenty-FiveSanta Monica, California

April 1962

“Good evening,” Bob Hope said, “and welcome to Judgment at Santa Monica.” He wore a white tie and tails and received a steady stream of polite laughter.

Sitting on the aisle in the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in a rented tux, Charlie wondered whether the laughs were real or just a sign of relief that the interminable opening—national anthem, orchestral overtures, and a stem-winder by the chairman of the Academy—had ended. Charlie fidgeted.

“Yes,” Hope said, “here we are at Santa Monica for the real West Side Story.” More rote ha-has.

Margaret, in an aqua dress she’d borrowed from Evans, allowed herself a moment to stargaze. Having already said hello to Sinatra, Martin, Davis, and Lawford, who had seats in the first few rows, she spotted Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, Warren Beatty and his girlfriend, Natalie Wood, Audrey Hepburn…

“In the lobby before the show everyone was shaking hands and smiling,” Hope continued. “And in a few minutes the suspense will be over, we’ll all know who to hate.”

Ha-ha-ha-ha. Margaret pushed out an obviously fake laugh, amusing Charlie, who adored her occasional displays of discreet subversiveness. He knew that in a different situation, one less anxious, Margaret might commit to this fake laugh for the entire Hope routine just to please Charlie (and fend off her own boredom). Hope had quickly descended into tiresome inside jokes about studio bosses and pictures in perpetual turnaround and complaints about not being nominated for an award for his first feature film, The Big Broadcast of 1938.

“There’s Fontaine,” Margaret noted, back to business, pointing to the nattily dressed flack as he strode purposefully from the front of the auditorium toward them.

Apparently the man who had reached out to Fontaine that morning had also told him to be by his office phone at five p.m. to be notified on how the quid pro quo would go down. Presumably, Fontaine was about to share that information.

When Fontaine had told them that the handoff of the secret file in exchange for Sheryl Ann would take place at the Oscars, Charlie and Margaret were stunned. But Fontaine—who seemed to have a vague idea of what was going on—argued it made a certain kind of sense. Crowds and cameras could guarantee a layer of security.

Fontaine