Spy in a Little Black Dress - By Maxine Kenneth Page 0,41
King Cole and Tony Bennett, and the movie offers aren’t rolling in right now.”
Suddenly, Jackie had a suggestion for Sinatra that she thought would cheer him up.
“You know, I just finished reading From Here to Eternity, and I think you’d be perfect for Private Maggio in the movie.”
A light came on in Sinatra’s eyes. “Say, that’s a great idea,” he said. “Maggio, the little Italian guy who has a lotta guts but no luck. Why didn’t I think of that? I’ll get on Harry Cohn at Columbia right away.” He looked at Jackie with new appreciation. “You’re a smart girl. Classy too. What are you doing after the show?”
Jackie knew that Sinatra had only one thing in mind, and she wasn’t interested. Besides, Guillermo and Giancana were deep in conversation—she caught the words “Castro” and “poison” in the same sentence—and that made her exceedingly nervous.
“I’m with someone, and I really must be getting back to him,” Jackie said, rising from the table, “but thank you so much for the drink, and good luck getting the part of Private Maggio.”
Emiliano looked worried when Jackie caught up with him at the bar. “Javier still hasn’t come,” he said, “but maybe he’ll show up during the show. It’ll be starting soon. I reserved a table for us.”
“Good. Maybe I’ll get to see the Mambo King perform. He was sitting with Sam Giancana and Sinatra. Is he like Pérez Prado?”
“Oh, he’s not a musician,” Emiliano said. “They call him that because he likes to use his machine gun to make his victims dance before he kills them.”
“How awful!” Jackie exclaimed. She shuddered and shook her head to rid it of the grotesque image.
Seated at an intimate table for two in the darkened room, munching on the tasty paella that Emiliano had ordered, Jackie heard the band launch into an opening number. She sat up expectantly as a line of curvaceous showgirls in low-cut, flashy, sequined gowns took the stage. Jackie thought that their towering Carmen Miranda–style headdresses looked as if a crate of fruit salad had fallen on their heads, but she admired their dancing. It was scandalously exciting, especially to the men ogling them ringside—one of them, Guillermo Sanchez, Jackie could recognize by the stage lights glancing off the rows of medals on his chest.
When the show was over, people started filing out of the room. Soon, except for some showgirls at the bar or deep in one-on-one conversation with male customers scattered about, Jackie and Emiliano were the only patrons left. And still, there was no sight of Fidel’s contact anywhere.
“I guess we’d better leave,” Emiliano said with a sigh. “It doesn’t look as if he’ll be coming.”
But someone else was arriving, walking through the door and into the nearly empty room, directly in Jackie’s line of vision. Oh God, not him, Jackie wailed to herself. But it was—Jack Kennedy—no mistake about it this time.
Catching up again with the senatorial candidate was high on Jackie’s to-do list, but certainly not in Havana—that would raise too many questions. It didn’t surprise her that Jack was here—the U.S. had vital interests in Cuba, and Jack also had a keen interest in Havana’s showgirls, according to Charlie Bartlett—but why did he have to come here now?
When Jack turned his head in her direction, Jackie suddenly sprang up and said to Emiliano. “I’ve got to go to the ladies’ room. I’ll be right back.”
Jackie didn’t know where the ladies’ room was, but she headed in the opposite direction from the bar. There’s got to be someplace I can hide, she thought as she made her way along a wall, but where? Ah, perfect: a room with a curtain hanging in front of it—probably a dressing room of some sort.
Jackie pushed aside the curtain and almost screamed. There, seated on a man’s lap, was a gyrating seminude showgirl, her gown lying on the floor, her naked breasts brushing back and forth across the man’s face.
Without making a sound, Jackie closed the curtain and kept searching for a hideout. A stairway. That must lead to the ladies’ room, she thought, and raced up the steps. She came to a hallway, but none of the rooms on either side had a sign on the door.
She heard the sound of laughter coming from the bottom of the stairs and turned to see Jack Kennedy, a showgirl on his arm, about to start up the steps. Oh God, now what am I going to do? Jackie asked herself, quickly turning away.