Max Collins - Ask Not

Jack joined us and Carlos dug some bills out of his pocket and pressed them into his driver’s hand. “You take Nate here on back, and give him a nice close shave. He look like he could use one.”

The Little Man was waving from the porch as we drove off.

We hadn’t gone very far when I sat forward from the back and said, “No offense, Jack, but I’m gonna skip the shave. You thank Carlos for me anyway. Just take me to the Roosevelt.”

Jack nodded. “Sure thing.”

Since I was carrying a message for Marcello, I figured Jack probably wouldn’t have pulled anything, once he got me in that barber chair. Not unless Uncle Carlos had figured to make me the message.

And on the ride back, Jack didn’t try anything, just dropped me off with a friendly nod out front of the Roosevelt Hotel on Baronne near the French Quarter, home of big boobs and tight pussy.

I’m sure Uncle Carlos’s personal barber would have done a nice job for me. I just figured I’d had a close enough shave today already.

September 1964

The well-dressed queue down Walton Street, laughing, chatting couples and little groups of affluent-looking men, extended half a block. Not unusual outside the Playboy Club at nine P.M., and had this been a Friday or Saturday, not Tuesday, they’d have been standing four abreast. Their goal was the colorful entryway that engulfed the sidewalk, a horizontal box of modern art — inspired yellow, blue, and green panels, and larger off-white ones with the familiar bunny-head-on-black symbol. The cool, slightly breezy evening was pleasant enough to wait out in, and the heady charge of being part of the In Crowd was palpable, as cigarette smoke trailed skyward like lazy, unimpressed ghosts.

I edged on by — I didn’t have to wait. As they say, I knew Hefner “when.” The A-1 had been on retainer with Playboy since 1955, investigating threats, scams, and lawsuits, and I’d long been part of Hef’s inner circle. So I had a free membership and a permanent reservation anywhere in the club.

The lobby at once established a subdued atmosphere of low-key lighting, dark paneling, and modern furnishings, like a bachelor pad got out of hand. Circulating, greeting club members and their guests, was a small battalion of Bunnies, as the waitresses in their skimpy, satiny costumes were called.

Bunny Teddi took my Burberry — no hat: this private eye swore off snap-brims when Jack Kennedy took office — and deposited it at the coat check counter. At the sign-in desk, I requested that Bunny Cheryl not add my name placard to the wall display of key holders in attendance. The name of the man I was meeting was absent, as well.

It would be.

From the lobby, abuzz with well-dressed patrons and helpful underdressed Bunnies, walk-ins were shuffled one flight down to the Playmate Bar. This pleasant purgatory, with its endless bar, countless black high-backed stools, and walls of backlit nude pinup photos, was overseen by half a dozen bartenders and as many Bunnies. Some of the latter worked 26 tables, the same dice game that B-girls in Chicago bars had played with suckers since the Fire.

Those who called ahead were sent one flight up to the Living Room, a dining room with piano bar, legendary for its remarkable buck-and-a-half buffet. For a more secluded atmosphere and dining that wasn’t a buck-fifty, the VIP Room was up another flight. Showrooms featuring the likes of Ella and Sammy took up the top two floors, but my stop was the VIP Room, where After Six apparently had the clothing concession, not counting those skimpy Bunny costumes. My dark-blue Hanover Hall herringbone would just have to do.

The VIP Room was the only place in the Playboy Club where you could find some privacy — a dimly lit, soundproofed space with flickery candles in orange glasses that made the LeRoy Neiman paintings on the walls seem even more expressionistic. A Negro jazz trio managed never to drown out the tinkle of ice cubes and the laughter-spiked conversation.

My friend Edward “Shep” Shepherd — if a high-level spook could be considered anybody’s friend — had managed somehow to put an empty booth on his either side, despite the crowd waiting down on Walton Street, not to mention those damned souls suffering the attention of Bunnies in the Playmate Bar.

Of course, most of those below weren’t VIPs, while Shep certainly looked the part in his navy Brooks Brothers with his silk tie of wide black stripes and narrow red ones. What did CIA security chiefs make a year, anyway? Or was that Top Secret?

Shep was studying the menu like it was a U-2 photograph of a Soviet missile installation. He reminded me of a middle-aged version of Robert Morse from How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, sporting a similar sly, gap-toothed grin and twinkle in those dark-blue eyes. Those eyes were getting pouchy now, the blond of his hair getting lost in the gray. He was, as usual, drinking a Gibson, the pickled onion gone, always an immediate casualty with Shep.

Shep had done me a favor, a dozen years back, when I first butted heads with what they were now calling the Company. Two years ago he had done me no favors by enlisting my help in initiating Operation Mongoose, calling upon my patriotism. Whenever somebody tries to appeal to your patriotism, put one hand over your wallet and the other hand over your family jewels.

“Nate, what a singular pleasure,” he said, a fluid trace of the South in his lilting drawl. He gestured to the empty side of the booth. “I’m so very pleased about this coincidence.”

I slid in opposite him just as the jazz combo was starting up a swingy “Charade.” The coincidence he mentioned was that I had called him on Sunday hoping to come out to D.C. and see him. But he had said that “coincidentally” he was going to be in Chicago “the Tuesday after Labor Day.” We could get together then, if I pleased.

I pleased.

Like most detectives, I have an extremely low opinion of coincidences. I might have felt better about this one if I could have inquired about what non-Heller business brought him to town. But unless he were to offer up the information, a CIA agent like Shep is not someone you ask that kind of question. Nor could I ask him, Am I the reason you are in Chicago ?

His eyes were sleepy as his smile split his face. “How the hell is that boy of yours? Sam? Is he a senior this year? My God, the time flies.”

“Actually he’s a junior. He spent most of August with me. Put him on a plane home on Sunday. He was back in school today.”

“Such a fine young man.”

I didn’t remember Shep ever meeting Sam, but I didn’t mention that.

“And your son?” I asked. “Your daughter? Still in college?”

“Bradley has another year, Susan graduated. She’s working at a Manhattan bank. She’s engaged to a fine boy in pre-law. Won’t hurt her to have a little real-world experience before providin’ me with some grandchildren.”

Bunny Vicki, as part of her real-world experience, took my order for a gimlet. Those damn satiny costumes were just ridiculous, bunny ears, bunny tail; and I knew from several Bunnies I’d dated that even the best endowed of them had to stuff their bras to create that cleavage. The effect of long legs was phony, too, just the high-on-the-hip cut of the skimpy garment. What a crock. Magnificent.

“Fitting we should talk about our kids,” I said.

Shep’s eyebrows raised as he sipped his current Gibson. “How is that, Nate?”

I told him about the hit-and-run incident after the Beatles concert, and that my glimpse of the driver convinced me I’d recognized him. This I did to a backdrop of the jazz combo noodling on “Call Me Irresponsible.”