A Conversation with the Mann (42 page)

Close to three hours of driving got me to Frank's place, which wasn't a place. It was a compound—a ranch house in the middle
of a few acres on Wonder Palms Road just off the Tamarisk Country Club. Tennis court, pool, a couple of guest cabins ringed
with cactus and ocotillo and prickly pear; it was the desert outpost of some swinging missionary.

I parked, went for what I thought was the front door. The welcome mat read: GO AWAY.

Nice.

I rang the bell.

The desert was hot, the air was baked sandpaper rubbing at you, rubbing at you.

A second ring of the doorbell made Jilly eventually appear.

“Hey, Jackie,” he said but said flat, not happy to see me, but was, like a couple of months of winter, resigned to my being
around. Jilly's sole occupation in life was being Frank's friend. I got the feeling he didn't much care for other people intruding
on his work. “C'mon back and say hey to Frank.”

Jilly led and I followed. The house was mostly decorated with memorabilia—posters of Frank's movies. Frank's gold records,
pictures of Frank with this or that famous person. In fact, the overriding motif was Frank. If most men's homes were their
castles, Frank's was a temple to himself. It was that, and it was orange. Frank loved his orange.

“Orange is the happiest color,” he said as he welcomed me into his living room. “I never get tired of it.”

I could tell. He was wearing an orange sport shirt with brown pants. I guess they went together. Sort of.

“What are you drinking?” Frank asked.

I said: “It's a little early for me.”

Dismissing that: “It's never too early to be somebody. Jilly, put some Jack over ice for Charlie.”

Jilly did as told.

I stepped to some glass panes that ran from ceiling to floor and looked out over the pool and off into the desert. “It's a
beautiful place you've got.”

“I dig the desert. Hot, dry, sun cooks it all day … Makes the land tough. Makes everything that lives out there tough. You
know what lives in the desert?”

“What lives in the desert?”

“Stuff that won't die.”

The three of us gave the thought a moment to marinate.

Jilly handed me my drink.

Frank wanted to know: “How the shows going?”

“Good. Good so far. In fact, I really shouldn't stay long. I've got to make the show tonight.”

“Well, I'm glad you could come out and visit. This place is for my friends. You're a friend now. Friends are always welcome.
Ain't that right, Jilly?”

Jilly made some kind of noise.

“I appreciate that. I appreciate your time, and you looking out for me… .” How did I go into what I had to get into? There
was no smooth way. I just started talking and hoped I'd stumble to a point same as I stumbled into this situation. “Friendship
is really, really important. I know you know that. A friend of yours is a friend forever. And the reason I bring that up is
I saw … I was talking to Sammy—”

One word. One word out of my mouth and Frank went as red as the walls were orange. “That lousy son of a bitch! That crumb.
Who the hell does he think he is, bad-mouthin' me?”

I sputtered but said nothing, just wanted to stay out .of the way of the lava flow. Remembering
the party
, I moved away from the plate windows.

“Bad enough he's got to talk me down on the radio, but he does it in Chicago. Chicago!”

“You got friends in Chicago,” Jilly piped in, tossing gas on the fire.

“I got a lot of friends in Chicago, and he gets on the air and humiliates me? And after what I done for him. That backstabbin'
dirty nigger,” he spat without regard to me.

I didn't think, I didn't believe, that Frank had suddenly gone Klan. In that moment that word was for Sammy alone. Frank just
wanted to hurt and was willing to use all the weapons at hand.

“Thinks he's big? Thinks he's bigger than me? I'll crush him.” He looked dead at me. “I'll smash any crumb that crosses me.”

Jilly smiled.

The eruption was subsiding. If I was going to say anything, there was no better opportunity.

“Well, he asked for it.”

That was a little left turn Frank wasn't expecting from me. “You think so?”

“Even if he did believe that nonsense” —I hit nonsense hard— “about him being a bigger act than you—and I know in his heart
he doesn't believe it—no, he's got no business going on the radio and spilling his guts.”

“No. No, he don't. See, you get it, Jackie.” To Jilly: “See how Jackie gets it?”

Jilly made some kind of noise.

“That crumby kike screwed up, and now I got to teach him somethin'.”

I said slowly, loading in a lot of doubt: “… I guess.”

What I said, how I said it, it got Frank's attention. “What do you mean ‘you guess’?”

“Oh, I'm agreeing with you. You could crush Sammy. I know you could, he knows it. Everybody knows it. It's just too bad you'll
give them ammunition.”

Frank looked from me to Jilly and back to me. “Ammunition? What are you talkin' about? Who the hell is
them
?”

The way I figured it, there was no way to talk, argue, logic, or reason Frank into forgiveness. The only tool big enough to
move a star Sinatra's size was ego.

“Them. The press, the gossip rags. Louella and Dorothy.”

That struck bone. “Kilgallen? That goddamn chinless wonder.”

“Well, that's what I'm saying. Day and night they're sharpening pencils for you. They're not going to write it up as Sammy
getting what Sammy's asking for. The headline's going to read: Sinatra crushes guy for sport. Like I said, you're giving them
ammunition.”

“What's he supposed to do?” Jilly wanted to know.

“Well … ” I took a pause, played as if the idea I was working toward was just then popping into my head. “You could do what
nobody would expect you to do. You could forgive Sammy. I mean, after what he did, you forgive him, what are people going
to say but ‘Now, that Frank, there's a decent guy. There's a guy who's got some heart.’ You do the right thing, and you look
good doing it. Just let the chinless wonder try to write something bad about you then.”

Frank wasted not a tick in saying: “You're shining me, kid.”

He'd seen right through me. Maybe he had an ego that went with his stature, but it wasn't so big that it blinded him. Either
that, or I was just too damn obvious.

I felt like the ax was starting to fall and it wasn't just Sammy's head that was going to roll.

I wound up my last pitch. “Then you want to know why you should forgive him? Because he's your friend. Because no matter what
he said, he's the same guy you dropped everything for and drove out to sit with after his smash-up and he got his eye taken
out. You should forgive him because he loves and worships you. Yeah,
worships
you. He knows he owes you everything. He knows if it weren't for you, he'd be nothing, just another Negro kid out dancing
for his lunch money. He's one of the most talented guys on the planet, and he's
always
—always—going to be living in your shadow. If things were flipped, if you had all that weight crushing down on you, don't
you think just once you might go a little crazy, say something just a little stupid?”

Jesus.

Jesus Christ. If Sammy knew the things I was saying he'd probably take Frank's death sentence over the picture I was painting
of him: a luckless no-talent who was only earning a living because someone else once took pity on him. But this wasn't just
about saving Sammy anymore. He had put us in the same boat and I wasn't about to go down with him.

Following my little speech, nothing happened. Frank didn't react one way or another. He just stood where he was, looking out
into the desert, every now and again taking in more of his drink.

Finally: “Have a good show tonight, Jackie.”

And he was done with me. I set down my otherwise untouched glass of Jack Daniel's and headed for the door. Jilly made no move
to show me out.

I got in my car and shy of three hours later arrived back in Los Angeles. With just enough time to shower and shave, I made
it to Ciro's. Louis and Keely put on a hell of a show, but unlike the previous nights, it didn't feel like a party.

A
T SOME POINT
during the week I realized I was thinking about Liliah Davi. I was thinking about Liliah Davi more than most guys normally
did. What started with me replaying our meeting evolved into me obsessing on it. I started breaking down our encounter, analyzing
the event same as a pulp detective sifts through a crime scene: She came to meet me. She wanted to meet me.
Wanted
, Herman had said. She was alone when she came meet me, no guy escorting her. Her hand in my hand. She let her hand linger
in my hand. Her dialogue: “I enjoyed watching you.” Not I
enjoyed your show
. “I enjoyed watching you.”

Enjoyed.

Enjoyed watching
you
.

She'd asked me how long I would be in L.A. Did she want to know because … Did she want to know … “I will see you,” she had
left me with, not…

Two minutes. Me and her talking in my dressing room amounted to two minutes' time. If even. But there wasn't a moment of those
two minutes I didn't process second by second by second, first convincing myself of one thing, then telling me I was crazy
for getting ideas in the first place. I didn't know what to make of the thoughts jumping around in my brain box. And I didn't
know what to do about them. But no matter how the mental coins I flipped came up, the truth was, some opportunities come once
in a lifetime. You do something about them or you watch them fade into the past.

“H
ALLO
?” Liliah's voice was Bacallesque, and I swear I could feel the warmth of her breath even over the phone.

“… Miss Davi, it's Jackie Mann.”

Again, “Hallo.” This time a statement, not a question.

“I'm sorry to … I hope you don't mind me calling you, but I wondered—and I got your number from Herman, by the way. Herman
Hover.”

Nothing was said to that.

“He said he didn't think … He thought it would be all right. To call. I wanted to know, uh, I'm sure you're very busy, but
if you, maybe, wanted to have dinner som—”

“What time?”

“Tonight?”

“What time?”

I'd wished for it. Sure I had. Spent time fantasizing on it. But I never once figured Liliah'd really say yes, so I hadn't
planned things beyond her giving me a no and hanging up. I picked a time.

“Seven o'clock? I hope that's not too early, but I have to make the show la—”

“Where?”

The first classy joint that popped into my head was “Chasen's.”

“I will see you there, Jackie.”

She hung up. No small talk, no chitchat. Just a ready okay to my request for a date.

I hung on her good-bye, on her speaking my name. Liliah's accent made Jackie come off as
Zhaqué
.

A good twenty seconds later I laid the phone back on the cradle.

C
HASEN'S
. S
EVEN FORTY-THREE
. Liliah and I at a table. All eyes on us. Actually, all eyes on her, and by default on me as well. About half the crowd wondering:
Who's this lucky stiff sitting with Liliah Davi? The other half wanting to know: Why's Liliah Davi eating with a Negro?

She wore a gown, another gown—white with sparkles and a falle—that was two-thirds silk and one-third cleavage. Upon arriving
at the restaurant, she had flowed through the room as effortlessly as wine from a bottle, her every movement executed with
a certain ease. There was an economy to everything she did—her gestures, her expressions. She gave you very little, leaving
you wanting so much more. She was style and grace and sophistication. She was the embodiment of allure. She was sexuality
personified. So close to perfect, at times the woman seemed almost fabricated. Not an act of birth, a work of art—a living,
breathing Vargas girl. But for all that made her artificial, Liliah had a way of engaging that made her more than human. When
I talked to her, she looked at me, not over, around, or past me, trying to see and be seen by the rest of the Hollywood horde
downing their dinners. She had a way of listening that made me feel as though I were being
listened to
. When I was with her she had a way of making me feel as though I should be with her, not that I was just fortunate to be
near her.