Naked in LA by Colin Falconer Read Free Book Online

wedding.”
    “Only if you’re going to get married tomorrow.”
    I knew he was right. He looked more frail and shrunken every day. It had been a mistake seeing Freedman, it had taken away his last hope. “Lena’s coming in to sit with you.”
    “You think she’ll be safe? I might try to sleep with her while you’re gone.”
    The cab was waiting outside. I kissed him on the cheek. “I won’t be home late.”
    “Are you going to bring him home so I can meet him?”
    “Who?”
    “This boy you’re seeing.”
    “There’s no boy, Papi,” I said, and ran out to the taxi before I told him any more lies.
     

     
    Frank Sinatra was playing at the Fontainebleau. The show was sold out, but when we arrived they pulled a table right in front of the stage for us.
    He introduced me around to his friends; there was an old guy called Mo, with glasses that made him look like an owl, and two other mob guys whose names I couldn’t remember, one had a shirt open to the third button and a gold chain thick enough to anchor a battleship - I think his name was Johnny - and a mousy-looking guy who just sat there not saying much, just undressing me with his eyes.
    “So what do you do, Magdalena?” Mo asked me.
    “She works for me at Resorts International,” Angel said, before I had the chance to reply and embarrass him by demonstrating I was capable of independent thought. “She’s my personal assistant.”
    A look passed between the men. They could all guess what I assisted him with.
    “Where you from?” Mo said.
    “She’s from Havana. Her father ran a club, the Left Bank.”
    What was I, a ventriloquist’s dummy? I glared at Angel, but he ignored me. It was clear he wanted to make a good impression and I was supposed to just sit there and look decorous.
    I waited for more questions but that was it, I guessed they weren’t that interested to begin with.
    “Do you fellas want to come party in Frank’s suite later?” Angel said.
    Mo shook his head. “I dunno. I had it up to here with these Hollywood fruitcakes. He told me him and Bobby Kennedy was in tight, I got more influence with the fuckin’ president of India than he has with the Kennedys. He shoots his mouth off everywhere and it don’t mean a fuckin” thing.”
    “We should teach him a lesson,” Angel said.
    “And do what, precious?” Johnny asked, and Angel flushed at the insult.
    “You mean hit Frankie boy?” Mo said. “Don’t think I haven’t thought about it. That two-dollar whore.”
    The conversation moved to politics, as it always did with those guys, the usual vitriol about Fidel and the Beards in Cuba, how they gave him arms and money and he promised them the casinos would keep operating once he took over the government. “But now he’s gone Commie and fuckin’ nationalized the casinos,” Angel said, making it sound as if it was his money he’d stolen.
    Then they all started bad mouthing the president and his brother as well.
    “This is just bullshit,” Mo said. “I won that motherfucker Chicago, wasn’t for him, he wouldn’t be in no White House. And what the fuck do I get in the way of appreciation?”
    “That clusterfuck in Cuba is down to him,” Johnny said. “He hadn’t cancelled the air strike, we would have been back in Cuba eighteen months ago.”
    “And don’t start me on that little fuck Bobby,” Mo said. “Fuckin’ vendetta is what it is. I got to get these Feds off my fuckin’ back. They don’t leave me alone, night or day. I go to take a piss, They’re hiding in the bowl. Why do I gotta put up with this bullshit?”
    “He won’t be around to bother you or anybody much longer,” Angel said, and the way Mo looked at him, you would have thought he just broke wind. Everyone looked at me and then they shut up. The house lights came down and the show started, and they all looked pretty relieved about it.
    Frank came out singing “Come Fly With Me,” then he came down off the stage, shook hands with Angel and