Max Collins - Target Lancer

Helen said, “That’s awful news.”

He leaned toward her, his broad face apologetic, hands folded as if in prayer. “I only confide in you like this, Miss Rand, because if I give you a booking, and we sign a contract, and I don’t have this place no more … well, you have to be prepared for that, and agree not to sue my ass.”

“That sounds fair.”

“I think it is fair … and speaking of fair, we will make a big deal out of your appearance commemorating the thirtieth anniversary of the great Chicago World’s Fair. We’ll get Irv Kupcinet and Bill Leonard and Herb Lyon and all the big press guys on it, and if it turns out the Frolic is on its last legs, we will go out kicking.”

That was when I noticed Jack Ruby sitting up at a front table.

I sat forward and had to work not to put anything into my voice. “Ben, excuse me for changing the subject, but isn’t that Jake Rubinstein up there? I grew up on the West Side with him.”

“Yeah, you and Barney Ross. That’s Jake, all right. Jack, he’s called now. Jack Ruby. Last few days, he’s been going around town checking out the few of us that Wilson hasn’t snuffed out. Looking for talent for his club. Even went out to Cal City, scoping out the girls. He’s got clubs down in Dallas, you know.”

“So I hear.” I rose. “You and Sally have business to conduct. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll leave you two to it, and go say hello to my old friend.”

Helen gave me a smile that said, Thank you, giving me maybe more credit for this booking than I deserved.

Ben grinned. “Wait’ll you see who ol’ Jake is sitting with.”

I grinned back. “Ben, right now, nothing would surprise me.”

But I was a little surprised, because when I made my way to Ruby’s ringside table, his companion-whose tight, beaded white dress had a neckline exposing a shelf of bosom that you could rest a couple of martinis on, with little fear of spillage-was that platinum-blonde, blue-eyed, baby-faced stripper, Candy Barr.

Her presence was surprising because I thought she was in stir. Candy, who was maybe twenty-five, had several years ago drawn a stupidly harsh marijuana charge deep in the heart of Jack Ruby’s Texas. The well-known stripper, nude model, and occasional blue-movie star was also a former mistress of gangster Mickey Cohen, another old friend. The kind of old friend you don’t mind never running into again.

Ruby didn’t see me at first. The beauty-and-beast-type couple were talking-or anyway Ruby was talking while she blankly endured it-and there was no way not to interrupt. Sporting a dark-gray sharkskin suit with a lighter gray silk tie, he was gesturing with his left hand, which was missing the tip of its forefinger. Bit off in a fight.

I leaned in, a hand flat on the linen tablecloth, and said, “Jack, sorry to bust in, but I just had to say hello.”

Candy frowned after I used the word “bust”-I had a feeling she had suffered a lot of bad bosom jokes, so she was apparently always watchful. Like the men eyeballing her in that low-cut dress.

Ruby looked up, and his smile seemed genuine until I noticed the corners of his dark little eyes tightening. “Nate! Didn’t expect to see you again this trip.”

“I didn’t figure you’d still be in town,” I admitted.

Actually, I knew it was a possibility, because Lou Sapperstein had reported today that our sources in Dallas could not place Ruby either at the Carousel Club or his apartment. That only meant he was on the road, however, not that he was still in Chicago.

Turned out he was still in Chicago.

“Candy, this is Nate Heller. The famous detective? Nate, this is the famous Candy Barr.”

“We’ve met,” she said without enthusiasm.

That lack of enthusiasm did not reflect any bad blood between us. She just didn’t seem to have much enthusiasm, period. What she had was the best body I ever saw on a female and you may have noticed that I have an unseemly way of keeping track of such things.

Her real name was Juanita Slusher, by the way. If you thought she was born Candy Barr, we should probably part ways right now.

“Nice to see you, Candy,” I said, meaning it. Seeing Candy was always a treat. Talking to her was more like a toothache, but that doesn’t keep a kid from wanting candy, does it?

“Sit down, join us,” Ruby said, pulling a chair out for me.

I did. “I didn’t know you and Miss Barr were friends.”

“Oh, Candy and me, we go way back. I’m hoping to talk her into working for me at the Carousel, once her parole’s up. I told you that, didn’t I? At the 606?”

Was there anything pointed about the reference to the club? And the money drop?

“Maybe,” I said, and shrugged. I turned to Candy. “They won’t let you make a living? What kind of parole is that?”

“Well,” she said, “since the fuckers gave me fifteen years, it’s the kind of parole I’ll take.”

“Well-reasoned, Candy. What are you doing now, to pay the rent?”

“Breeding,” she said.

I’m sure there are hundreds of clever comebacks to a comment like that one, especially coming from the likes of Candy Barr, but what I said was, “Ah.”

“Jack gave me two dachshunds to get me started,” she said. “I like dogs. They’re better than people, don’t you think?”

“That’s kind of faint praise,” I said, and she actually smiled a little. “You and Jack traveling together?”

“No,” she said, “I’m opening Friday in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter ? at Pheasant Run.”

“Oh, that’s that new dinner theater in St. Charles.”

About an hour outside Chicago.

“It’s an easy part,” she said with her trademark lack of enthusiasm. “I did it before. Mostly I walk around half naked, but it’s not stripping so my parole officer said it was okay. Even let me travel out of state to do it.”

“So you’re doing more than just breeding.”

“Girl’s gotta make a living.”

Having no argument with that, I turned to Ruby and said, “I think the show’s about to start up again-are you staying for it?”

He nodded. “We came in late. Rumor is this place may shutter, and these girls will have to work somewhere-why not Dallas? People get tired of seeing the same old tail.”

Yes sir, Jack Ruby, class all the way.

I gestured with a hand that had all its fingertips. “Could we talk out in the lobby, Jack? Just for a few minutes? Would you excuse us, Miss Barr?”

“I wish you’d make your mind up,” she said to me.

“Huh?”

“Is it Candy or Miss Barr? One or the other.”

That was a little bitchy, but then she was a dog breeder.

In the meantime, Ruby had been thinking over my request. He would surely doubt my presence here could be coincidental, and likely assume I’d been trying to track him down. And I had been trying to track him down, through Sapperstein anyway; but our meeting tonight really was a coincidence-though in fairness to fate, the world of Chicago strip clubs was small these days, in part thanks to the police commissioner.

In the lobby, we took a position near the mouth of a hallway that led to restrooms, planting ourselves next to a big gaudy girl-arrayed poster under glass ( Folies Bergere! Moulin Rouge! ). We had decent privacy. Our only company was a bouncer in a tuxedo who was chatting up the hatcheck girl at her window, and they were blocked from view.

“What can I do for you, Nate?” The pudgy oval of his pasty face was smiling, except for the tiny black eyes, which were almost as shiny as his slicked-back, thinning hair. “I’m not really sure if we should be seen together.”

I kept my voice down but pulled no punches. “Why is that, Jack? Operation Mongoose?”