Carole Douglas - Cat in a Zebra Zoot Suit

“Surely,” Matt said, “such upstanding nephews can persuade an uncle to clear his conscience? If not, I could step in as a confessor. I still have the purple stole.”

“My blushes,” Aldo said. “We cannot have you assuming the mantel of a man of the cloth when you are so close to committing marriage. And also, by my admittedly old-fashioned uncle’s lights, if you would hear his confession, you would need to be committed to eternal silence, or death.”

Matt sighed. “Those are both pretty eternal. Temple might have objections.”

“I would,” she said. “If the dramatis personae are missing links on some fronts, what about the building in question? It’s as old as Las Vegas, apparently, and had a racy history before ending up as an antique mall.”

“That is easier to trace,” Nicky said. “On my request, Van sat Uncle Mario down with a bottle of Tia Maria liqueur and his bouncing baby youngest grandniece, Cinnamon Angela Fontana. Maria, I should mention,” Nicky addressed the company, “was the first name of our sainted and saucy matriarch and Mucho Macho Mario’s sainted mama, Maria Guadalupe Fontana. And ‘Angela’, of course, speaks for itself.”

“Between the oldest and the youngest of our Vegas line,” Aldo said, “Uncle Mario was soon teary-eyed and reminiscing for a concealed recorder about his arrival in Vegas as a lad, when Bugsy Siegel was losing sight of the ‘take’ and getting the visionary stars in his eyes blasted to smithereens.”

“Before someone shot out one,” Ralph added.

“Poor Bugsy.” Temple shook her head, sadly. “He had it right. Vegas was a pre-Disneyland theme park for adults and ahead of its time, but mob bosses tend to get so impatient.”

Julio had small sympathy for Bugsy. “Mob bosses are primitive, like sharks. They bite first and think about it later, while digesting.”

“So,” said Temple, “while Uncle Macho Mario Fontana was digesting Tia Maria, what did he come up with?” She was hoping this Fontana progressive fairy tale was soon going to produce a high-octane ogre. “Vegas grew apace after Siegel’s death,” Aldo said. “In the early days it was crude frontier-themed motels and attractions. It was wide open, like a town in a fifties TV Western. There were still injuns around, and Chinese from the railroad-building days and other folk that would not be tolerated in an expanding Vegas for red-blooded Americans.”

“Omitting red-blooded Indians, of course,” Matt said.

“Native Americans,” Nicky corrected. “Who are doing damn well in the casino business, better than Vegas or even Macao now. Leave ’em nothing and drive ’em out of anywhere desirable in the country and they end up getting future hot spots like the Oklahoma oil wells and the East Coast barrier tourist islands and, yup, casinos.”

“Back then they weren’t a mote in the mob’s eye,” Aldo said. “But there was one pesky type that hankered to come to Vegas like everyone else and had the numbers to be profitable.” He hit the control and a logo familiar only to dedicated Las Vegas historians appeared on-screen.

If what happened in Vegas, stayed in Vegas, à la the classic advertising motto, Temple knew that episodes of shameful history in Vegas also stayed buried in Vegas.

“I gotcha,” Temple said. “You’re referring to the Moulin Rouge hotel-casino, founded in nineteen fifty-five for an underserved clientele ignored by the burgeoning Strip enterprises.”

“Man,” Eduardo said. “I’ve seen pictures of those cursive neon letters, Moulin Rouge. Looked snazzy with those long, low, finned convertibles sitting out front of it like tethered Detroit automotive manta rays. The place didn’t last long, though.”

Matt quirked an interrogatory eyebrow at Temple, who’d now become lead presenter.

“It had the lifespan of a mayfly.” She shook her head. “I researched it recently in connection with the Crystal Phoenix Black & White band show. Black clientele, and even some performers, were frozen out of Vegas in those early days, when there were still national and local laws against ‘mixed’ accommodations and associations. There was no black mob, but a group created an all-black staffed hotel-casino across the tracks from the Strip, near the black neighborhood. Its major black performers made it so popular as an after-Strip-show hours joint for major white Strip performers who wanted to jam with the legends, that the Strip had to integrate its clientele in self-defense.”

“That’s a wonderful, ironic twist of history,” Matt said. “Why is the place so unknown?”

Temple shrugged. “The Moulin Rouge only lasted eight months once the Strip imitated it. All attempts to repurpose the building or designate it as a historical site over the decades seemed to be jinxed. Eventually it was torn down.”

“Sounds a lot like the old building near Electra’s place,” Matt said. “You’d think they’d salute the black and white mega-entertainers leading the pack in those days.”

“The Rat Pack itself was a game-changer,” Temple said. “I hate to say it, given Frank Sinatra’s mob connections and his huge case of little-people-crushing ego, but the Rat Pack’s Strip act—including a Brit actor who was a future Kennedy presidency in-law, Peter Lawford; a black super-entertainer, Sammy Davis, Jr.; a Jewish comedian, Joey Bishop, originally Joseph Gottlieb; and some young actresses the Rat Pack named ‘Mascots’—Shirley Maclaine, Judy Garland, Angie Dickenson, Juliet Prowse, and Marilyn Monroe—broke the racial and bigotry barrier in this town, all the while it remained sexist. Women always come last.”

“Not with we Fontanas,” Aldo said. “We know we owe it all to Mama.”

“And now Italians are the chic retro-villains in town,” Aldo pointed out, buffing his nails on his expensive lapels. Sit down, sit down, you’re rockin’ the boat.

“I get it,” Temple said. “You’re saying that abandoned building also rocked the boat in its day back in the fifties, like the Moulin Rouge. How?”

Aldo clicked to another image. Another neon-smooth cursive sign appeared. Zoot Suit Choo-Choo.

“ Huh ?” Temple said.

“I will be passing around black-and-white photos,” Aldo noted, “because negatives are all that remain of that building when it was first built, just like with the Moulin Rouge. However, you can see photos and films of similar joints’ interior on Internet boogie-woogie and jive sites and from Hollywood musical film clips.”

“And last but not least. Here is Jumpin’ Jack Robinson, Zoot Suit Choo-Choo star, maybe black, maybe Hispanic, maybe southern Italian. Founder, performer, the first freelance, un-mob affiliated entrepreneur near the Strip.”

“That’s not going to end well,” Matt whispered to Temple before she could say the same thing.

Still, Aldo wanted to finish his presentation with a bang.

“Jumpin’ Jack Robbinson, Zoot Suit dancing king and Sin City wild card.”

Up popped a black-and-white photo. A broadly smiling entertainer was caught in an expansive dance mode. He was balancing on the outstretched heels of his black-and white spectator loafers, his baggy pants stretched to the limit, three swagging watch chains swayed from hip to ankle, and arms spread wide to embrace the world and the audience.

Temple guessed the performer’s outfit and pose was an icon for the age of Zoot Suitery swag and swing. She remembered Fred Astaire doing a Bo Jangles tribute act that captured that black entertainment icon too.

“Found hung,” Aldo said.

The discrepancy between the frozen-life image and the bare, dead fact had everyone shocked and speechless.

Aldo took a prosecutor’s circular stroll around the assembly to come back front and hit the jury in the face with the facts. “Hung from an onstage light pole by the sturdy chain of a cheap toilet pull of the day, in nineteen fifty-six. In the basement of the building in question. The case was never solved.”