“No. It’s nice seeing you again, Pete…but no. You think you know who sent me-and you’re right. And he wants you to back off the smut.”
“You kidding?” Clifton smirked and waved dismissively. “I found a way to mint money, here. And it’s making me a star.”
“You think you can do that material on the radio, or in the movies? Get serious.”
“Hey, everybody needs an angle, a trademark, and I found mine.”
“Pete, I’m not here to discuss it. Just to pass the word along. You can ignore it if you like.” I sipped my drink, shrugged. “Take your dick out and conduct the orchestra with it, far as I’m concerned.”
Clifton leaned across the table. “Nate, you heard those laughs. You see the way every dame in this audience is lookin’ at me? There isn’t a quiff in this room that wouldn’t get on her back for me, or down on her damn knees.”
“Like I said, ignore it if you like. But my guess is, if you do keep working blue-and the Chez Clifton gets shut down-your silent partner’ll get no.”
The comic thought about that, drawing nervously on the Lucky. In his tux, he looked like he fell off a wedding cake. Then he said, “What would you do, Nate?”
“Get some new material. Keep some of the risque stuff, sure-but don’t be so Johnny One-note.”
Some of the cockiness had drained out of him; frustration colored his voice, even self-pity. “It’s what I do, Nate. Why not tell Joe E. Lewis not to do drunk jokes. Why not tell Eddie Cantor not to pop his eyes out?”
“’Cause somebody’ll pop your eyes out, Pete. I say this as a friend, and as somebody who knows how certain parties operate. Back off.”
He sighed, sat back. I didn’t say anything. The orchestra was playing “I’ll Never Smile Again,” now.
“Tell Nitti I’ll…tone it down.”
I saluted him with my nearly empty rum-and-Coke glass. “Good choice.”
And that was it. I had delivered my message. He had another show to do, and I didn’t see him again till the next afternoon, when-as promised-he took me out on his speedboat, a sleek mahogany nineteen-foot Gar Wood runabout whose tail was emblazoned Screwball.
And, as promised, we were in the company of two “cute skirts,” although that’s not what they were wearing. Peggy Simmons, a slender pretty pugnose blonde, and Janet Windom, a cow-eyed bosomy brunette, were in white shorts that showed off their nice, nicely tanned legs. Janet, who Pete had claimed, wore a candy-striped top; Peggy, who had deposited herself next to me on the leather seat, wore a pink longsleeve angora sweater.
“Aren’t you warm in that?” I asked her, sipping a bottle of Pabst. I was in a shortsleeve sportshirt and chinos, my straw fedora at my feet, away from the wind.
“Not really. I get chilled in the spray.” She had a high-pitched voice that seemed younger than her twenty-two years, though the lines around her sky-blue eyes made her seem older. Peggy laughed and smiled a lot, but those eyes were sad, somehow.
I had been introduced to Peggy as a theatrical agent from Chicago. She was a model and dancer, and apparently Clifton figured this lie would help me get laid; this irritated me-being burdened with a fiction of someone else’s creation, and the notion I needed help in that regard. But I hadn’t corrected it.
Janet, it seemed, was also interested in show business; a former dentist’s assistant, she was a couple years older than Peggy. They had roomed together in New York City and came down here a few months ago, seeking sun and fame and fortune.
The afternoon was pleasant enough. Clifton sat at the wheel with Janet cuddling next to him, and Peggy and I sat in the seat behind them. She was friendly, holding my hand, putting her head on my shoulder, though we barely knew each other. We drank in the sun-drenched, invigorating gulf-stream air, as well as our bottled beers, and enjoyed the view-royal palms waving, white-capped breakers peaking, golden sands glistening with sunlight.
The runabout had been bounding along, which-with the engine noise-had limited conversation. But pretty soon fton charted us up and down Indian Creek, a tranquil, seawalled lagoon lined with palm-fringed shores and occasional well-manicured golf courses, as well as frequent private piers and landing docks studded with gleaming yachts and lavish houseboats.
“Have you found any work down here?” I asked the fresh-faced, sad-eyed girl.
She nodded. “Some cheesecake modeling Pete lined up. Swimsuits and, you know…art studies.”
Nudes.
“What are you hoping for?”
“Well, I am a good dancer, and I sing a little, too. Pete says he’s going to do a big elaborate show, soon, with a chorus line and everything.”
“And he’s going to use both you and Janet?”
She nodded.
“Any thoughts beyond that, Peggy? You’ve got nice legs, but show business is a rough career.”
Her chin crinkled as she smiled, but desperation tightened her eyes. “I’d be willing to take a Chicago booking.”
Though we weren’t gliding as quickly over the water now, the engine noise was still enough to keep my conversation with Peggy private while Pete and Janet laughed and kissed and chugged their beers.
“I’m not a booking agent, Peggy.”
She drew away just a little. “No?”
“Pete was…I don’t know what he was doing.”
She shrugged again, smirked. “Pete’s a goddamn liar, sometimes.”
“I know some people who book acts in Chicago, and would be glad to put a word in…but don’t be friendly with me on account of that.”
She studied me and her eyes didn’t seem as sad, or as old, suddenly. “What do you know? The vanishing American.”
“What?”
“A nice guy.”
And she cuddled next to me, put a hand on my leg.
Without looking at me, she asked, “Why do you think I came to Florida, Nate?”
“It’s warm and sunny.”
“Yes.”
“And…” I nodded toward either side of us, where the waterway entrances of lavish estates, trellised with bougainvillea and allamanda, seemed to beckon. “…there’s more money here than you can shake a stick at.”
She laughed. “Yes.”
By four o’clock we were at the girls’ place, in a six-apartment building on Jefferson Street, a white-trimmed-pink geometric affair among many other such streamlined structures of sunny yellow, flamingo pink and sea green, with porthole windows and racing stripes and bas relief zig-zags. The effect was at once elegant and insubstantial, like a movie set. Their one-bedroom apartment was on the second of two floors; the furnishings had an art moderne look too, though of the low-cost Sears showroom variety.
Janet fixed us drinks and we sat in the little pink and white living room area and made meaningless conversation for maybe five minutes. Then Clifton and Janet disappeared into that one bedroom, and Peggy and I necked on the couch. The lights were low, when I got her sweater and bra off her, but I noticed the needle tracks on her arms, just the same.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing…. What are you on? H?”
“What do you mean?…. Not H.”
“What?”
“M.”
Morphine.
She folded her arms over her bare breasts, but it was her arms she was hiding.
“I was blue,” she said, defensively, shivering suddenly. “I needed something.”
“Where’d you get it?”
“Pete has friends.”
Pete had friends, all right. And I was one of them.
“Put your sweater on, baby.”
“Why? Do I…do I make you sick?”
And she began to cry.
So I made love to her there on the couch, sweetly, tenderly, comforting her, telling her she was beautiful, which she was. She needed the attention, and I didn’t mind giving it to her, though I was steaming at that louse Clifton.
Our clothes relatively straightened, Peggy having freshened in the bathroom, we were sitting, chatting, having Cokes on ice like kids on a date, when Clifton-in the pale yellow sportshirt and powder-blue slacks he’d gone boating in-emerged from the bedroom, arm around Janet, who was in a terrycloth robe.