The Devil May Dance

watch—it was just after eight p.m.
“Hey there, Manny.”
“Don’t tell anyone, but it looks like Chris Powell was a Mob hit.” Charlie could smell the gin oozing out of the man as he leaned closer. Manny’s face was alight with ghoulish enthusiasm. “Shot through the eyes. Both of them! Blang! Blang!”
“I heard that as well,” Charlie said, wishing he could extricate himself from the conversation.
“Well, this is no good for Frank or for the studio. Frank’s rival rubbed out by the Mob!”
Charlie was skeptical of that theory. “Because they were competing for a girl?”
“Competing for Lola now, competing for parts in pictures in a few years, maybe? Powell was a comer.”
“So the Mob had him killed on Frank’s behalf? You really think that?”
“Oh no, no, no, no, no, no,” Fontaine said. Suddenly a sober expression came across his face and he lowered his voice. “I don’t know, stranger things have happened. You know how they got Frank out of his first contract with Tommy Dorsey?”
“I’d heard rumors.”
“More than rumors,” Fontaine said, pushing a beefy thumb into Charlie’s lapel for emphasis. “Yes, Powell was in Kid Galahad, that stupid Elvis boxing movie, but he was a good actor. There was talk of him playing Frank’s younger brother in Come Blow Your Horn. You know, the Neil Simon play. You seen it? Anyway, Frank didn’t want Powell in the picture. Fought it. Maybe felt threatened by his looks and talent?” Fontaine shrugged. “Guess he won’t have that problem anymore.”
“Good Lord,” Lawford said under his breath to MacLaine when he returned to the table and found Sinatra ranting. “Who brought up Louella?”
“Handsome Johnny,” MacLaine said, motioning toward one of the two anonymous men at the other end of the table. “Said his girlfriend was reading it to find out more about Hollywood. It was like dropping a match in the Strait of Hormuz.”
“He has every reason to be upset,” Britt offered, also speaking in the hushed tone they had all adopted as if to avoid waking a sleeping baby. “Parsons goes into detail about everything, him leaving Nancy for Ava, the troubles he had with his voice in the fifties. Lot of dirty laundry. And she trashes a number of his performances.”
“That’s a pity,” said Lawford.
Sinatra continued his diatribe. Martin and Davis nodded along with his assessment of the gossip columnist and tried to convince him to forget about her. Charlie, returning to the table, tried to make sense of it all.
“She’s a nasty old cooze, Frank, just forget about her,” Martin was saying.
“Her latest column was nice, Pope,” said Davis. “She interviewed Janet Leigh, who gushed about how happy she was that you cast her in Manchurian, how you’re a great neighbor to her and Tony out in Rancho Mirage.”
“Who are those men at the end of the table, anyway?” Charlie quietly asked Lawford.
He shrugged. “Friends of Frank’s.” He didn’t seem to want to say any more.
Lawford took a swig of bourbon. “I read the book. There was a lot in there about Frank having successfully launched the greatest comeback in the history of showbiz. I wish he wouldn’t focus so much on the negative.”
“Why does he care?” Margaret asked. The passion and presence she’d seen in Sinatra just minutes before had morphed into something else: spite. He was a downed power line, writhing spasmodically. Out of control and best avoided.
“Honestly, I think what’s really pissing him off is Parsons’s crack about him losing his hair,” Lawford said.
“What was that?” Sinatra asked Lawford.
“Just talking about that cunty book, Frank,” Lawford said.
“Cunty is right,” Sinatra agreed, venom in his voice. The word echoed past their group, stopping conversations at other tables. The room got a little quieter.
“Well, you know what they say,” Margaret said, taking a sip of Charlie’s bourbon, “ask not what your cunty can do for you.”
Silence.
Followed by Sinatra’s face breaking into a smile, like an eggshell that’d been delicately tapped. A full grin. Teeth. Then Sinatra laughed and everyone exhaled and laughed along with him.
“Congressman, this one is a keeper,” Sinatra said, pointing at Margaret. “C’mon! Let’s get some swinging music going in here!” He raised his glass and held it up to Margaret.
From the speakers came a rapid race of trumpets and trombones, soon interrupted by Sinatra’s voice singing an old Mexican song from the 1930s that he’d covered in May and released on Swing Along with Me in June.
Granada, I’m falling under your spell
And if you could speak, what a fascinating tale you would tell…
Martin patted Sinatra on the shoulder and the two toasted each other.
“You’re the belle of the ball, Betsy,” Charlie whispered to Margaret, placing his hand on the small of her back.
“Or at least Best Supporting Actress,” she said. Charlie knew how much she loathed that particular word Frank had used. She’d deployed it anyway—to break the tension, to help the cause. But she’d hated doing it. She felt like a sellout.
And not for the first time. Margaret had put her career on hold to have Lucy and Dwight and she still beat herself up over it, resenting how her focus was now on dirty dishes and diapers instead of scholarship and the chance to gain recognition. Sensing her frustration, Charlie often told her he was eager to have her return to work full-time as soon as she wanted. She never said it, but she did wonder how sincere he was being.
After the momentary introspection, Margaret dived back into the sea of revelry, where neither the Sinatra songs nor the drinking ever stopped. Soon she and Charlie were dealt into the game. MacLaine mentioned how much she was looking forward to seeing the fellas in Sergeants 3, which was to hit theaters soon.
“That’s the one that’s based on Gunga Din but takes place in the Old West,” Margaret explained to Charlie.
“You’re not a big fan of pictures, Congressman?” asked Sinatra.
“Don’t get to go to the theater as much as I’d like,” Charlie said. “With work and the kids. We used to go every Saturday night. We’re