Max Collins - Ask Not

And that was where the A-1 Detective Agency came in. Alan Edelson, who was handling press arrangements in Chicago, said Brian Epstein himself had requested me. I pretended to be impressed, and later really was, when my son informed me that Epstein was the boy wonder who had discovered and signed the Beatles. Mr. Epstein had apparently read of me across the pond in a News of the World story about Hollywood’s “Private Eye to the Stars.”

In reality I remained Chicago’s private eye to anybody with a fat wallet, and spent at most maybe three months in California spread out over an average year. But Life and Look magazine articles, focusing on star clients like Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darin, and the late Marilyn Monroe, had made a minor celebrity out of me.

Normally as president of the A-1, I would have left this job to my staff and whatever add-ons from other agencies we might require. Sure, I’d likely stop around, shake a famous hand to provide the celebrity reassurance (and the A-1 a photograph), then go on my merry way.

But attending to the Beatles personally gave me an opportunity to maybe be a hero to my son.

We skipped the madhouse at Midway Airport because I knew the best opportunity for Sam to meet his real heroes was at the Saddle and Sirloin Club, the Stock Yard Inn’s restaurant. The medium-sized Tudor-style hotel itself was at Forty-second and Halsted, adjacent to the amphitheater. Sam and I were already there — half a dozen of my agents were doing the actual security work — when the Beatles arrived in a phalanx of blue uniforms.

The dining room — a replica of an old English inn with oaken paneling arrayed with hunting prints — was jammed with linen-covered tables at which only invited reporters whose credentials had been checked were allowed. Screaming teenagers outside held back by sawhorses made a kind of muffled jet roar. Blue cigarette smoke drifted lazily in contrast to a general air of tension. Every table had a photographer on his feet with flash camera ready.

They were so young, these four superstars who took chairs at a microphone-strewn banquet table on a modest platform. With the exception of Ringo Starr, who was maybe five seven, the others were around six feet, slender, smiling, amused. They wore sharp unmatching suits in the mod British style, Paul and Ringo in ties, John with his collar buttoned, George unbuttoned. A row of cops, their caps with badges on, were lined up behind them, as if not sure whether to protect or arrest.

Sam was in a suit similar to what the Beatles were wearing, but it was a Maxwell Street knockoff I bought him, not a Carnaby Street original; like George, he wore no tie and his collar was open. His shoes were something called Beatle boots that a lesbian might have worn to an S & M party. Not that anyone cared, I was in a dark-gray suit by Raleigh with a black-and-gray diamond-pattern silk tie. And Florsheims, not Beatle boots.

Before the questioning could begin, I approached the raised table with Sam at my side, and introduced myself to McCartney.

“You’re the private eye,” he said, pleasant if not overly impressed. He was smoking. They all were. My God, they were young. Not far past twenty. Just four years or so older than Sam.

I handed him my card. “These are my private numbers, if you need anything or there’s any problem at the hotel.”

After the concert, they would be staying, briefly, at the O’Hare Sahara awaiting their Detroit flight later tonight.

“Obliged,” McCartney said.

I took a shot. “This is my son — Sam. You mind signing something for him?”

They were all agreeable, signing a cocktail napkin. Sam was frozen, so I mentioned he was in a band himself.

“Watch what you sign, man,” Lennon said, as he was autographing the napkin. He winked at Sam, who took the flimsy paper square and nodded and said thanks to all of them. They had forgotten him already, but I will always remember that they were nice to my son.

“Have you fellas given any thought to what you’re going to do when the bubble breaks? ”

“Well,” Lennon said, “we’re gonna have a good time.”

“We never plan ahead,” Harrison said.

“ How about your retirement, or buying into a big business? ”

“We already are a big business,” Lennon said, “so we don’t have to buy into one.”

That was a smart-ass reply, which the reporter well deserved, but Lennon’s lilting accent took the edge off. Americans were suckers for a British accent; there was something seductive about it. I’d been with a couple BOAC stewardesses myself.

“ What do you think of Chicago? ”

Gesturing as he spoke, McCartney said, “I’m looking forward to seeing the gangsters with their broad-brimmed hats and wide ties.”

I’m sure the cute Beatle considered that a gag, but the day before, a restaurant got blown up on Mannheim Road for resisting the protection racket, and two mob factions were currently shooting at each other over control of gambling on the North Side.

Anyway, the lads were funny and made monkeys out of any number of smug reporters. Sam wore a big grin throughout, holding onto that cocktail napkin with both hands.

The concert started at 8:30, but the Beatles didn’t come on right away. The vast high-ceilinged chamber was packed with fifteen thousand audience members, most of them teenagers, chiefly girls, often with beehive hairdos. They didn’t scream much during the four opening acts — a couple of nondescript combos, an out-of-place R & B singer, and a long-haired blonde who looked like she belonged in the audience — and I started to wonder what all the fuss was.

I’d been told the audience would scream so loud, you couldn’t hear a damn thing. I was hearing these opening acts much better than I cared to. When the blond girl wrapped up her short set, meaning the headliners were next, the screaming kicked in, the sound like a burning building with flames eating away.

Finally at 9:20, the Beatles emerged, led onto the stage by Chicago cops, coming down stairs off to one side. Grinning and waving, the three front men strapped on their guitars — Ringo getting behind his drums on a little stage-on-the-stage — and the place went wild. Stark raving mad. Like the Playboy mansion the day JFK was shot, lots of mascara was running. The shrieking was unbelievable. That muffled jet roar wasn’t muffled now — the damn jet was flying around in circles in the place, which was almost possible, since they held indoor drag races in here. There were six hundred thousand square feet of it, after all, currently filled by thousands of girls having a nervous breakdown.

We had front-row seats and could almost hear the music. Well, Sam seemed to hear it just fine — he was singing along to “I Saw Her Standing There” and “Twist and Shout” and all the rest.

I officially joined the older generation by covering my ears. Oddly I could hear the music better that way, particularly the bass guitar and drums. The damn thing seemed to go on forever. I thought I might weep. Finally it was over — thirty minutes that had earned these four twenty-year-olds a grand a minute.

When the Beatles fled the stage, I took advantage of my security status to enlist a cop to lead Sam and me out a side exit while the audience was still on its feet screaming and crying. As for me, my ears were ringing. It was like I had a seashell up to either ear and could hear waves pounding the shore.

We came around to an ocean of cars — the lot held four thousand and was at capacity — but the kids hadn’t started to stream out yet, lingering inside in the afterglow of Beatle hysteria. All across the lot, parents were standing by cars, waiting, smoking, the little red tips bobbing like fireflies in the night.