I nodded. Andrade let my hand go and dabbed at his cut. Mickey Cohen cruised by and spieled payback. “My niece is having a birthday party. You think you could play it? You think you could dress up like Davy Crockett with one of those coonskin caps?”
I nodded. The fuzz filed out–a deputy flipped me the bird and muttered, “Draft Dodger.”
Mickey Cohen, Jr., sniffed my crotch. I tried to pet him–the cocksucker snapped at me.
* * *
Leigh and Chris met me at Googie’s. Nancy Ankrum and Kay Van Obst joined us–we packed a big booth full.
Leigh pulled out her scratch pad. “Steve Katz was furious. He made the bookkeeper pro-rate your pay down to one half of one show for one night.”
My hand throbbed–I grabbed the ice out of Chrissy’s water glass. “Fifty scoots?”
“Forty and change. They counted it down to the penny.”
Demons hovered: Leigh’s obstetrician, the Yeakel Olds repo man. I said, “They don’t repossess babies.”
“No, but they do repossess three month delinquent Starfire 88’s. Dick, did you _have_ to get the Continental Kit, ‘Kustom King’ interior, and that hideous accordion hood ornament?”
Chrissy: “It was an Italian rivalry thing. Buddy Greco’s got a car like that, so Dick had to have one.”
Kay: “My husband has an 88. He said the ‘Kustom King’ interior is so soft that he almost fell asleep once on the San Bernardino Freeway.”
Nancy: “Chester Boudreau, one of my _favorite_ sex killers of all time, preferred Oldsmobiles. He said Oldsmobiles had a bulk that children found comforting, so it was easy to lure kids into them.”
Right on cue: my three-girl chorus. Chrissy sang with Buddy Greco and sold Dexedrine; Nancy played trombone in Spade Cooley’s all-woman band and pen-palled with half the pervs in San Quentin. Kay: National President of the Dick Contino Fan Club. We go back to my Army Beef: Kay’s husband Pete bossed the Fed team that popped me for desertion.
Our food arrived. Nancy talked up the “West Hollywood Whipcord”–some fiend who’d strangled two lovebird duos parked off the Strip–just blocks away. Chris boo-hooed my Crescendo fracas and bemoaned the end of Buddy’s Mocombo stand two weeks hence.
Nancy interrupted her: Whipcord mania had her by the shorts. She was laying odds already: the Whipcord would reign as 195 8’s #1 psycho-killer.
Leigh let me read her eyes:
Your friends co-sign your bullshit, but I won’t.
Your display of manly pique cost us four grand.
You fight the COWARD taint with your fists, you must make it worse.
Radioactive eyes–I evaded them via small talk. “Chrissy, did you catch Dot Rothstein checking you out?”
Chris choked down a hunk of Reuben Sandwich. “Yes, and it’s been five years since the Barbara Graham gig.”
“Barbara Graham” tweaked Nan the Ghoul. I elaborated: “Chrissy was doing nine months in the Woman’s Jail downtown when Barbara Graham was there.”
Nancy, breathless: “_And?_”
“And she just happened to be in the cell next to her’s.”
“_And?_”
Chris jumped in. “Quit talking about me like I’m not here.”
Nancy: “_And?_”
“And I was doing nine months for passing forged Dilaudid prescriptions. Dot was the matron on my tier, and she was smitten by me, which I consider a testimonial to her good taste. Barbara Graham and those partners of hers, Santo and Perkins, had just been arrested for the Mabel Monohan killing. Barbara kept protesting that she was innocent, and the D.A.’s Office was afraid that a jury might believe her. Dot heard a rumor that Barbara went lez whenever she did jail time, and she got this brainstorm to have me cozy up to Barbara in exchange for a sentence reduction. I agreed, but stipulated no sapphic contact. The D.A.’s Office cut a deal with me, but I couldn’t get Barbara to admit anything vis-a-goddamnvis the night of March 9, 1953. We exchanged mildly flirtatious napkin notes, which Dot sold to _Hush-Hush_ Magazine, and they published with my name deleted. I got my sentence reduction and Barbara got the gas chamber, and Dot Rothstein’s got herself convinced that I’m a lezzie. She still sends me Christmas cards. Have you ever gotten a lipstick smeared Christmas card from a two hundred pound diesel dyke?”