The Devil May Dance Read online

  “Can Dr. Peale cure seventy percent of man’s illnesses?” Hubbard demanded. “We can raise your IQ one point for every hour of auditing,” he continued as if he were on a stage. “Our most spectacular feat was raising a boy’s IQ from eighty-three to two hundred and twelve!”

  Margaret picked up the cans gingerly and felt a slight electric current, a not unpleasant tingle. She put the cans back on the table. “Didn’t Dale Carnegie make that same claim?” she asked.

  Hubbard smiled. “No, no. There’s no comparison.”

  His words alone were utterly unconvincing, but Hubbard’s avuncular charm and matter-of-fact presentation carried them into the neighborhood of believability. It wasn’t hard to see how someone vulnerable or eager to change or just plain hungry for human contact might be taken in.

  Julius returned, looking irritated, perhaps even alarmed. He leaned toward Hubbard and whispered briefly in his ear. Hubbard rose from his seat. “Will you ladies excuse me for a moment?” The two men hurried out of the room, Julius speaking in low, urgent tones to a newly serious Hubbard. They left the door open behind them.

  Margaret tilted her head toward the tin cans in front of her. “This is so weird. Can you adjust the current on the whatchamacallit there?”

  “E-Meter,” Sheryl Ann said.

  “Yes, yes,” said Margaret. “That.”

  As Sheryl Ann fiddled with the contraption, Margaret leaned back in her seat to peer out the open door, where she saw Hubbard and Julius in a heated conversation near the front desk. “Quick,” she said, “gimme the file.”

  Sheryl Ann slid the folder across the table. “I’ll keep an eye on the door,” she whispered.

  Margaret opened the folder to see a head shot of Chris Powell gazing up at her. Beneath that was a list of his credits, which tracked his career trajectory like a chart tracking population growth: bigger roles in smaller films, smaller roles in bigger films. The next page listed everyone in Powell’s life who was more famous than him, from the stars of Kid Galahad to his romantic attachments, including Lola Bridgewater, to others more peripherally in his orbit, such as Sinatra, Martin, and Davis.

  “This is strange,” said Margaret. She turned the page to a memo titled “Project Celebrity.”

  If we are to heal society at large, we must do something about its communication lines. A key part of this plan is Project Celebrity. There are many to whom America and the world listens. It is vital to put such persons into wonderful condition. It is obvious what would happen to Scientology if prime communicators benefiting from it would mention it now and then.

  The memo contained a list of potential enlistees, including Sinatra, Edward R. Murrow, Marlene Dietrich, Orson Welles, Danny Kaye, Liberace, Walt Kelly, Sid Caesar, Pablo Picasso, Greta Garbo, and more. These celebrities are well guarded, well barricaded, over-worked, aloof, the memo said. If you want one of these celebrities as your game, write us at once so the notable will be yours to hunt without interference.

  “What does it say?” Sheryl Ann asked.

  “The church desperately wants celebrities to join,” Margaret whispered. “There’s a section here on the wooing of Gloria Swanson, and how it’s helped them—”

  “They’re coming!” Sheryl Ann cautioned under her breath as Julius walked toward the door; Margaret stuffed the documents down the back of her dress. But instead of coming into the room, Julius closed the door—and they heard a key turning in the lock.

  Chapter Eleven

  Rancho Mirage, California

  January 1962

  “And here’s the pièce de résistance,” Sinatra proclaimed, half-hearted French accent easily defeated by Hobokenese.

  He was finishing up a tour of the Compound. Outside the ranch-style mansion, on the front lawn, a sign: FORGET THE DOG, BEWARE OF THE OWNER. Throughout the property: ocotillo and saguaro cacti and citrus trees. Sinatra led Charlie, Lola Bridgewater, and Judy past the pool house, which had been converted into a briefing room in preparation for JFK’s visit, then flung out his arm—“Ta-da!”—toward a sleek arrangement of concrete and granite occupying most of what used to be manicured lawn. Half a dozen masons were building a patio of sorts.

  Lola looked confused. “What is it?” She had a high, chirpy voice, like a nightingale. With her bleached-blond hair, she was a near-perfect composite of Jayne Mansfield and Kim Novak. Both she and Judy were still in clingy pajamas that left little to the imagination.

  “It’s a helipad!” said Sinatra.

  “For Marine One,” said Judy.

  Lola wrinkled her nose. Marine One?

  “That’s the name for whatever Marine Corps helicopter is transporting the president,” explained Charlie, ever the historian. “Ike used a Sikorsky Seahorse. I think Kennedy uses a Sea King.”

  Sinatra lit a cigarette and looked at Charlie. “I loved that license-to-kill riff I hear you laid down to Wayne,” he said. “Where’d you serve, Congressman?”

  “France,” said Charlie, “right after D-Day.”

  “I was four-F—busted eardrum,” said Sinatra. “Begged them to let me join.”

  Charlie didn’t know how to respond to men who rushed to explain why they didn’t serve. He had no absolution to offer. “Well, you did as much to lift up the spirits of the troops as anyone alive,” he said. “You did your part.”

  “There’s a military picture I’m trying to get made that I’d love to talk to you about sometime, Charlie,” Sinatra said. “The air force accidentally drops an A-bomb on North Carolina. B-fifty-two breaks up midair, crew has to ditch the two nukes they’re carrying. One almost detonates nears Goldsboro. Two guys killed in the crash. Big cover-up.” Sinatra looked right at Charlie. “You don’t think it sounds far-fetched, do you, Congressman? I can see it in your eyes. Doesn’t it feel like there’s a part of this government that’s gone off the rails? Like there are people who have no accountability and just do whatever they want? Wiretaps, thuggery, assassinations…”

  “Like in Manchurian?” Charlie asked.

  “Except real,” said Sinatra.

  “And you don’t know the half of it,” Charlie said, thinking about his work on the House Oversight subcommittee. “I’m not even sure what the foreign policy principles are anymore. Bay of Pigs was such a fiasco, it’s hard to understand how the president got talked into it.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Sinatra. “I mean, don’t get me wrong—Fidel is a real Commie, not the fake kind you see in Hollywood. Rough stuff. I wouldn’t cry if he slipped in the shower.”

  “Of course,” said Charlie. “He’s a monster and he’s in Khrushchev’s pocket. But that’s not the point. It’s what do we do in response.”

  “Exactly,” said Sinatra. “It’s who we are, not who they are. You’re like the first sane person I’ve talked to about this. Everyone else is just pro-Jack or pro-Ike, pro-Commie or anti-Commie. No nuance. No conversation.”

  “Putting on the team jerseys,” said Charlie.

  “Exactly,” Sinatra said again, smiling. He reached out and squeezed Charlie’s shoulder, then gave him a brotherly slap on the back. Charlie felt a little foolish for speaking so candidly with the express purpose of bonding with a celebrity. But what choice did he have? It was either that or let his dying father rot in jail. Either way, Sinatra was right on the issue, and Charlie was pleased to hear a more sophisticated Hollywood take on Cuba than he’d expected.

  Charlie looked at Lola. She smiled back patiently. Judy examined her nails.

  “Anyway, Charlie,” Sinatra said, “maybe you could read this script I got. It’s similar to the point I was trying to make with the Eddie Slovik script I was working on till Wayne stuck his fat face in.”

  “Not the first or the last favor you did for the Kennedys,” Charlie said.

  “Ha,” Sinatra said. “Don’t bring that up in front of Sammy! But I have all the rights to this script, and contractually the studio has to make it. After my Oscar, they offered me carte blanche but then they got all hinky a few
months ago when I told them I wanted to make the picture. We may end up in court. I don’t get why they’re so against it.”

  “I’d be happy to take a look,” Charlie said.

  “Good man,” Sinatra said, squeezing Charlie’s shoulder again, and Charlie was relieved that the ruse was working so well. He also had to admit it was almost impossible to resist the urge to please this man, whose moods were infectious and whose excitement about his script had a nervous edge to it, like a boy in love and afraid of how his affections were being received. “Charlie, I know you’re Republican, but you know the Kennedys maybe better than any of us.”

  Charlie shrugged. Sinatra probably didn’t want to hear that at that moment, he thought of them as cutthroat, calculating bastards.

  “I think the kid brother is getting cold feet about TP staying here. Maybe you could put in a good word, let them know how fine the accommodations are,” Sinatra said, and Charlie suddenly understood why he’d been invited to Rancho Mirage. “You know, Juliet and I recently got engaged; this will look like a Norman Rockwell painting by the time they get here.”

  Sinatra had earlier that month surprised the world by announcing he would wed South African dancer Juliet Prowse, whom he’d met on the set of Can-Can, though no date had been set and no one in Sinatra’s circle, including the man himself, talked about it much.

  “When Ike was president I had to deal with this bullshit. I wanted to go to Korea with the USO, but the army denied me clearance,” Sinatra said. “I had to meet with generals, then the State Department. I told these fuck-sticks what was what. Witch-hunting! I said, ‘Have any of you run a check on me?’ They said there were items in the press that raised questions about my sympathies. I said, ‘Gentlemen, if you feel I’m a risk, you can stick the Korean War in your ass.’ Fuck them, they think I’m a risk.”

  Charlie was kept from inquiring further about this by the appearance of Sinatra’s valet, neatly dressed in a bright white polo shirt under a dark blue cardigan and holding a bourbon (also neat) in each hand. “You have a phone call, Mr. S.,” Jacobs said, placing a tumbler in his boss’s outstretched hand. Sinatra nodded and turned toward the house. Jacobs gave the other bourbon to Charlie, who looked at his watch. Ten a.m.

  “George, do you happen to have a smoke?” Charlie asked.

  “Of course, Congressman,” Jacobs said, reaching into the pocket of his cardigan. He took out a pack of Marlboros and a shiny metal lighter etched with the image of a battleship.

  “Navy?” Charlie asked.

  “Yes, indeed,” Jacobs said. “Aide to Admiral Beatty in the Mediterranean. Then on an aircraft carrier in Korea. But nothing like you in the thick of it.”

  “Service is service,” said Charlie.

  And he knew that service of a different sort was still part of Jacobs’s life.

  Earlier that morning, the pneumatic drill had started rat-a-tat-tatting. Charlie had assumed that fellow hangover victim Sinatra would soon put a stop to it. But he didn’t, such was the urgency to upgrade the estate for the president’s arrival. So Charlie had dragged himself out of bed and headed to the empty kitchen, where coffee was already brewing. He poured himself a cup, walked outside to enjoy the fresh air, sat down on a chair next to the pool, and lit a cigarette. He took in the cloudless blue sky as a hawk passed overhead, his gaze following the creature over Mount San Jacinto. When the bird of prey was no more than a black speck in the distance, he stared blankly off into the sky. He thought about his father waking up in the prison infirmary at the Tombs, alone and afraid. Lost in those thoughts, Charlie sat in a daze, then slowly began to take notice of the shapes in front of him, the figures visible through the sliding glass door that led to Sinatra’s bedroom inside the house. Sinatra was sitting on a chair wearing only a towel wrapped loosely around his potbelly. Jacobs stood behind him carefully spraying what seemed to be paint on the bald spot at the back of his boss’s scalp. Jacobs then retrieved two different hairpieces from the closet, showed them to Sinatra, and placed one on his head. Seeing the great man half naked and half bald was unsettling; Charlie realized he’d been more dazzled by Sinatra than he’d wanted to admit. And in the casual intimacy of the scene, presumably one repeated every morning, he began to understand the deep bond between the two men.

  They walked away from the helipad site past several one-story bungalows curving around the main house to the pool area. Judy had her arm hooked through Sinatra’s in the front of the group; Lola lagged at the end, behind Charlie. She seemed bored.

  “Should we go back inside?” Lola asked.

  “No, the sun is so nice,” said Judy. “Let’s get towels and sit by the pool.” Even though there was snow a hundred twenty miles away in Los Angeles, the temperature in Rancho Mirage was in the sixties. Clear skies and a cozy desert heat.

  Jacobs supplied plush towels from the briefing-room closet and brought Charlie a book he’d left in the kitchen—an early review copy of Cuba Betrayed by Fulgencio Batista, the deposed former dictator. Batista hadn’t seen Castro coming, and Charlie was unconvinced by his attempts to explain himself, though he found insightful the descriptions of fumbling and duplicitous U.S. policy. The two women positioned themselves to face the sun; Charlie took a seat at a glass table a short distance away and motioned for Jacobs to join him.

  “Say, George,” Charlie said quietly, putting his book to the side. “I hear Mr. S. is unhappy about a favor Mr. Giancana had asked of him. Do you know what it is? Anything I can help with?”

  Jacobs looked earnestly at Charlie, seemingly taking him at his word. “I don’t know, Congressman,” he said. “I’ll see what I can find out and get back to you. Discreetly.” Perhaps Jacobs could actually help him. Charlie felt a moment of relief.

  Lola propped herself up on an elbow and tilted her chin in Charlie’s and Jacobs’s direction. “What was eating Frank this morning?”

  “Oh, the papers,” said Jacobs. “Some garbage in there about the Mob.”

  “What specifically?” asked Judy.

  “A wedding performance Sinatra supposedly gave for Angelo Bruno of the Philly Mob. Carousing with the Giacalones of Detroit,” Jacobs said. “But it’s nonsense,” he added staunchly. “Mr. S. doesn’t know them.”

  Lola rolled her eyes. “Why do they constantly go after him?” She affected a mock pout.

  “Go after who, chickadee?” asked Dean Martin, emerging from the kitchen looking sleepy, satin dressing gown loosely tied over pajama pants and a deeply tanned torso, Bloody Mary in hand.

  “Frank, Dino,” said Lola. “Why does the press attack him so much?”

  “Some of it’s those crazy John Birchers,” Martin said, collapsing dramatically onto a chaise beside Lola’s. “They’re convinced Frank’s a Commie because he made The House I Live In a hundred years ago, he supported the Hollywood Ten…”

  The confused expression on Lola’s face spoke volumes. “Oh, Lola,” Judy said, exasperated, “The House I Live In was this short film Frank made against bigotry, about these kids beating up a little Jewish boy. And the Hollywood Ten—”

  “I know who the Hollywood Ten are,” Lola said. “But honestly, it can’t help that he spends time with some pretty rough guys.” She unwrapped a piece of bubble gum.

  “Guys like Sam?” asked Charlie.

  “Oh, Sam’s a teddy bear,” said Judy. “He’s not mixed up with any of that. He can be tough, but show me a successful businessman who isn’t.”

  Martin looked at Charlie and rolled his eyes.

  “Frank can be tough,” Lola said to Judy.

  “Not like hitting-you tough,” clarified Judy, making Charlie wonder once again just what their relationship was. She signaled that she was dating Giancana, but the quiet looks and moments of affection between Sinatra and her were unmistakable.

  “No, no,” Lola said. “Like mean tough.” She seemed to have an incident or incidents in mind. Lola was a curious sort, Charlie thought. Beneath the stereotypical bimbo veneer, she’d clearly f
ormed some critical views of her host.

  “A few years ago the papers reported Sammy said something sideways about Frank and Frank gave him the silent treatment for months,” Martin recalled as he stood and walked toward Charlie’s table, where Jacobs had placed a pitcher of orange juice, vodka, and ice after cleaning up the empty glasses and full ashtrays from the night before.

  “What had Sammy said?” Charlie asked, lifting his drink so Jacobs could wipe the glass table with a wet cloth.

  “I don’t remember,” Martin said. “Something true, no doubt.” He sat down and poured himself a screwdriver. “Let me ask you a question.” He leaned toward Charlie and said conspiratorially, “I heard from a reporter that Bobby’s got a bug up his ass about Frank having Mob ties. It’s all bullshit—Frank’s no closer with the Mob than anyone else in showbiz.” He emptied his drink in one gulp then returned to leering at the ladies.

  “I don’t know one singer who doesn’t know at least a few connected guys,” Jacobs said, lighting Martin’s cigarette. “I mean, they own the clubs.”

  “The clubs! The studios! The unions!” Martin said. “Also, I mean, a whole lot of these cats were bootleggers back in the day, back in Jersey. Well, that’s not even a crime anymore.”

  Charlie looked over at Judy, who was writing in a small pink journal. Weird. What could she be writing? As she scribbled away, she and Lola continued chitchatting, unconcerned or unaware that the men could hear them.

  “Why did you break up with Frank anyway?” Lola asked Judy.

  The two women apparently didn’t know each other that well, Charlie realized. He had assumed they were friends. Blonde and brunette, Betty and Veronica, Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell; kind of a stupid assumption, he saw now.

  “Well,” Judy said, seemingly taking a moment to reflect on it, “I suppose the final straw was when Frank brought this colored girl into our bedroom one night. That’s just not me.” Realizing Jacobs was nearby, she quickly added: “Her being colored was not the issue. A third party being in the room—that was my problem.”