“Yes,” I said, “that’s small beer.”
“I still haven’t told you what I want you to do for me.”
“No, you haven’t.”
“Do you like Frank Sinatra?” she asked.
“Never met him.”
“I mean, do you like his singing?”
“Overrated,” I replied.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You oughtn’t to ask a question if you have no respect for the answer.”
She nodded, as if to indicate that she was certainly familiar with my variety of reply. “I know Frank,” she said.
“You do?”
“I dated him for a while.”
“How did you ever meet him?”
“On a flight.”
“And he took your number?”
“We exchanged numbers. I wouldn’t reveal something so private to me as my phone unless a celebrity was ready to offer his first.”
“What if his proved to be a false number?”
“That would be the end of him.”
“It seems to me that you got to know Sinatra well.”
“I don’t see how that is any of your business. But maybe I’ll tell you someday.”
We were now on our third drink. Six-thirty was certainly approaching. I was studying the pastel curls and whorls of the Mai Tai Lounge which suggested the French curves of a draftsman’s template. Through a plate-glass window, I could look out on an enormous pool, amoeboid in shape. Along one arm of that man-made lagoon was a man-made cave and there another bar had been installed where swimmers could sit in their bathing suits. Down the near distance, on the other side of a pedestrian walk, past a wide beach whose packed sand looked to have received fully as much treatment from rolling equipment as a tennis court, were the waves of a lukewarm sea.
I did not know how to pursue the subject of Frank Sinatra. Was he one of the two prominent gentlemen who did not add up when taken together?
“What is it that you want to find out about Sinatra?” I asked.
“That’s not the point of our conversation,” she replied. “I have no interest in Frank at this time.”
“Although he was once your port of choice.”
“You have a nasty streak,” she said. “And that’s just as well. Because what you may discover if we see each other again is that I might prove your equal.”
“Nothing could be more nasty than not seeing me again. So, I will tell you. I am sorry.”
“Let me make it clear. I do have a port of choice here in Miami. As you put it. Only, he’s up in Palm Beach when he’s in town. And I am in love with him.” She pondered this as solemnly as if she were indeed observing her heart, and said, “Yes, I love him when I am with him.”
“All right,” I said.
“But I am not often with him. He is a very busy man. In fact, he’s incredibly busy right now.”
“Well, what can I find out for you?”
“Nothing. In fact, you will never know who this man is.”
I swallowed the last of my drink. It was 6:28 and I decided to take one firm St. Matthew’s resolve that I would be up and on my way at the hair-crack exactitude of 6:30 P.M. “Then I guess there is nothing to do for you after all.”
“You have to stay a minute,” she said.
“I don’t know if I can.”
“Of course you can.” It occurred to me that she wasn’t altogether unlike my mother. Did imperious women pass on hints to one another along filaments of nocturnal silk? “In fact, this man is so seldom to be seen these days that I’m contemplating a change. There is another man paying a great deal of attention to me.”
I took a leap. “Is he a friend of Sinatra’s?”
“Yes.” She looked at me. “You are good at your work, aren’t you?”
I was beginning to wonder if maybe I might be. “Yes,” I said, “but I can’t do a thing for you unless you tell me his name.”
“Well, I can give you his name but it won’t be the right one. At least, I’m pretty sure it’s not.”
“Might be a start.”
“I know it’s not his real name. Sam Flood. He calls himself that, but I never came across anybody in the newspapers with that name, and he is a man whom others respect so much that he has to be prominent.”
“How are you certain that he counts for as much as you think?”
“Because Sinatra doesn’t respect anyone personally when they’re around him, but he respects Sam Flood.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow night,” I said, “same time here. By then I’ll know who Sam Flood is.”
“I can’t meet you. I’m supposed to work the 6:00 P.M. flight tomorrow evening,” she told me.
“Why don’t you get your executive in Washington to hold you over one more night? I thought you controlled such things.”
She took a new measure of me. “All right,” she said. “If you can leave a message before 2:00 P.M. tomorrow that you have the real identity of Sam Flood, I will take care of switching my flight day.”
We shook hands. I wanted to kiss her again but a glint in her eye suggested that I should not.
8
SINCE I HAD TO SEND A CODED REPORT TO QUARTERS EYE ON HUNT’S lunch with the Frente, it was necessary to go back to Zenith. Once there, it required no more than a hike down the hall to start a search for Mr. Flood.
Back in Washington, at the I-J-K-L, was a large computer called PRECEPTOR available to any Zenith computer linked to Quarters Eye. PRECEPTOR was reputed to have fifty million names in its data banks. I was not surprised, therefore, when sixteen listings for Sam Flood came back on the printout. Fifteen, however, did not seem notably eligible: a major in the Air Force stationed in Japan, a plumber in Lancashire, England, a Royal Mountie in Edmonton, a black marketeer in Beirut also known as Aqmar Aqbal—why go on? The entry of interest was Flood, Sam, resides in Chicago and Miami—see WINNOW.
WINNOW was a computer on a higher level than PRECEPTOR and required a code entry number for ingress. Such information was locked away in Hunt’s safe. Since I did not care to wait until morning, I decided to call Rosen. He was bound to be in possession of forty or fifty code entries he was not supposed to hold.
To my agreeable surprise, Rosen was not only in, but entertaining company. I did not have to satisfy him, therefore, on my need to know. He was obliged to get back to his guests.
“I do hate giving out an entry without some sense of your purpose,” he nonetheless complained.
“Hunt wants the background on a Cuban exile who we think has a criminal record.”
“Oh, well, see!” said Rosen. “You do well to confide in me. WINNOW will just send you on into VILLAINS. You probably need both call groups. Hold it. Here it is. Respectively, the punch-in code is XCG-15, and XCG-17A as in capital A, not sub-a.”
“Thank you, Arnie.”
“Let’s talk when I’m not so busy,” he said, “feeding drinks to friends and guzzlers.”
Rosen certainly had a sense of where the bodies might be kept. WINNOW did send me on to VILLAINS and there I located Mr. Flood. The printout offered the following agglutination of information:
SAM FLOOD (one of numerous aliases) for MOMO SALVATORE GIANGONO, born in Chicago May 24,1908. Better known as SAM GIANCANA.
Over 70 arrests for crimes since 1925. Has been booked for assault and battery, assault to kill, bombing suspect, burglary suspect, gambling, larceny, murder.
G.’s staff now estimated at 1,000 “soldiers” in Chicago. G. also maintains ruling position over such loosely associated small-fry personnel as burglars, collectors, crooked cops, extortioners, friendly judges, friendly politicians, friendly union leaders and businessmen, gamblers, hijackers, hit men (assassins), loan sharks, narcotics peddlers, policy runners, etc., estimated at 50,000 total.
Annual estimated gross in Cook County—2 billion dollars.
NOTE: Above is unverified Chicago and/or Miami police data.
FBI evaluation
: Giancana is verified solitary boss of the Chicago syndicate with interests extending from Miami, Havana (now defunct), Cleveland, Hot Springs, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, to Hawaii.
Giancana is one of three largest criminal figures in America (FBI estimate).
I went to sleep bemused. Join the Agency and discover the subterranean palaces of the world! I awoke, however, at four in the morning with one livid phrase in my head: Giancana is an avatar of evil! The words drilled through me with the shrill of a tin whistle. What was I getting into? I thought of my first rock face more than ten years ago. Indeed, I had the same thought: One did not have to do this!
When day came, I could pick up the phone and confess failure to Modene Murphy. She would take her 6:00 P.M. flight and see me no more. Then I could report a negative outcome to Harlot and be done with him as well. To keep on, however, as proposed—to hook the mermaid!—might be equal to catastrophe. It was obvious that Modene liked to talk. What I had most enjoyed about her just a few hours ago—that she was indiscreet, and so enabled me to get on with my job—did not delight me now. If we were to have an affair, and she told Sam Flood, well, which one of his fifty thousand hoodlums or one thousand soldiers would break my legs? Honest fear, jumping now like a raw tooth, called for a drink. I tried to estimate the risk. Coldly viewed, how much might it amount to? I could hear Harlot’s contempt: “Dear boy, don’t snivel. You are not a member of Mr. Giancana’s mob and he will not dismember you. Recollect—you belong to the campground of the Great White Folk; Sam, willy-nilly, was born into the fold of the dirty plug-uglies. They feel honored when we choose to mix our meat with theirs.”
With a second drink, I actually fell asleep. When I awoke at seven, it was another day, another state of expectations, and myself, another man. If my nerves were still awash, I could feel anticipation as well. Call it high funk. I thought again of rock climbing, and those days with Harlot when I awakened each morning to the knowledge that I was very much alive (because, after all, it could be my last day on earth). I was remembering how this sense of oneself as endangered and valuable was not the worst emotion to feel.
I also awoke with a great longing for Modene. By solipsistic measure, I now had one monument of a hard-on. Love for Kittredge, no matter how grand, could not subsist forever, I now decided, on letters rarely written and never sent. All the same, I felt conspicuously unfaithful to one-half of myself.
9
“I KNEW IT,” MODENE SAID, “YES, I CERTAINLY KNEW IT. SAM HAD TO BE out of the ordinary.”
She was reading my summary of the printout from VILLAINS for the third time. “Oh, it seems to add up,” she said, “but it doesn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I feel safe with Sam.”
I debated for a minute whether to introduce her to the paradoxical potentialities of Alpha and Omega, but then it occurred to me that I might like Fidel Castro if I met him, and there were those who said that Stalin and Hitler had been known to charm a few. Who could keep a true monster from presenting a wholly agreeable Alpha?
“You know,” she said, “Sam is an absolute gentleman.”
“One wouldn’t expect that, would one, after reading this?”
“Well, of course, I had the advantage of not knowing who he was. So I could study him for himself. He is very cautious with women.”
“Do you believe he is afraid of them?”
“Oh, no. No, no. He knows women. He knows them so well that he’s cautious. You ought to see him when he takes me shopping. He knows exactly what I want and how large a present I will allow him to buy me. For instance, it’s now understood between us that I won’t accept any gift that comes to more than five hundred dollars.”
“Why draw the line there?”
“Because the gift is still modest enough so that I owe him nothing. After all, I am giving him nothing.”
“Is that because you are otherwise engaged with your other two dates?”
“Are you condescending to me?”
“No,” I said, “I’m actually furious.”
“Yes,” she said, “there you are, sipping a Pimm’s Cup, looking just as cool as that ridiculous piece of cucumber they put in it, and you are pretending to be furious.”
She was wearing green shoes and a green silk dress as green as her eyes. That was the only visible change from the day before. We were at the same cocktail table in the same near-empty lounge by the same plate-glass window looking out on the pool and pancake beach and it was 6:00 P.M. again. A long brutal summer afternoon in Miami might be descending toward evening outside, but we were ensconced in the timeless comfort of drinking our way into twilight, and four in the morning of last night was far away. I leaned forward and kissed her. I do not know if it was my reward for punctual delivery, or whether she might even have been waiting for twenty-four hours to kiss me again, but I felt in some small peril. It might not be impossible to fall in love with Modene Murphy. The superficial precision with which she spoke was only a garment one could strip from her; beneath, unprotected, must be desire, as warm and sweet, as hot and out of hand as perhaps it was supposed to be. I knew now what she meant by earthy.
“That’s enough,” she said, “that’s enough of that,” and pulled herself back a critical couple of inches. I did not know whether to be more impressed with her or myself. I had never had such an effect on a girl, no, not even Sally. My only question was where to take her—would she possibly allow us to go to her room?
She wouldn’t. She sat there beside me, and told me I had to respect her rule. Did I have a pen, she asked. I did. She drew a small circle on a napkin, then divided it with a vertical diameter. “This is the way I lead my life,” she said. “I have one man in each half of the circle, and that has to be sufficient.”
“Why?”
“Because outside this circle is chaos.”
“How do you know?”
“I don’t know how I know, but it’s clear to me. Do you think I could actually go around kissing everyone the way I just kissed you?”
“I hope not. May I kiss you again?”
“Not here. People are still looking at us.”
Three middle-aged tourist couples sat at three separate tables considerably removed from one another. It was summer in Miami Beach. Poor Fontainebleau. “If you won’t,” I said, “give up your man in Washington, then why don’t you relinquish the one in Palm Beach?”
“I wish I could tell you who he is. You would understand.”
“How did you meet him?”
She was obviously proud of herself. It was evident she wished to tell me, but she shook her head.
“I don’t believe in your circle,” I said.
“Well, I haven’t lived this way all my life. For two years the only man was Walter.”
“Walter from Washington?”
“Please don’t talk about him that way. He’s been kind to me.”
“But he’s married.”
“It doesn’t matter. He loved me and I don’t love him, so it’s fair. And I didn’t want anyone else. I was a virgin when I met him.” She gave her gutty little laugh again, as if the most honest part of her must come forth from time to time. “Well, of course, I soon started to have another fellow now and again, but the second half of the circle did stay vacant much of the time. That’s when you should have come along.”
“Kiss me once more.”
“Stay away.”
“Next thing, Sinatra walked into your picture.”
“How do you know?”
“Perhaps I feel close to you.”
“You are up to something,” she said. “You may want me but you’re up to something.”
“Tell me about Sinatra,” I said.
“I can’t right now, and I won’t. I will say that he ruined it.”
“Will you ever tell me about that?”
“I don’t think I can. I have determined that one’s life should never extend beyond the full rule of the circle.”
&n
bsp; I was thinking: I am falling in love with another woman who likes nothing better than to talk about herself in her own self-created jargon.
“Why don’t you give up Walter,” I said, “and let me enter the circle?”
“He has seniority,” she said.
“Then take a furlough from the guy in Palm Beach. You never see him.”
“How would you feel if he came back,” she said, “and I said good-bye to you?”
“I might try to keep the new status quo.”
Her laugh came forth as if she liked me enormously, but I was, no matter how you looked at it, ridiculous.
“What is the first name of our fellow from Palm Beach?” I asked. “I can’t keep calling him Palm Beach.”
“I’ll tell because it won’t do you any good. It’s Jack.”
“Walter and Jack.”
“Yes.”
“Not Sam and Jack?”
“Definitely not.”
“Nor Frank and Jack?”
“Negative.”
“But you did meet Jack through Sinatra?”
“Oh, my God,” she said, “you’ve guessed right again. You must be terrific in your profession.”
I did not say it aloud: I had so little to choose from, that Sinatra had become the only option.
“Now, you have to go,” she said.
“No, I don’t. I’m free this evening.”
“Well, I have a date once again. With Sam,” she said.
“Break it.”
“I can’t. When I make a date with someone, it’s a contract. Iron-bound and lockjaw. That’s me.” She threw a kiss wordlessly from three good feet away, but in the pursing of her lips and their release, a zephyr of tenderness floated over. “I go out tomorrow at 8:00 A.M.,” she said, “and won’t be back for more than a week.”
“More than a week!”
“I’ll see you,” she said, “when I return from Los Angeles.”
“Unless Jack is with you.”
“He won’t be. I know that much.”