The Devil May Dance by Tapper, Jake (the reading list .TXT) 📕

Dean Martin began singing “White Christmas,” prompting more yuks when he alluded to Davis’s hue. From there, he segued into a Rat Pack Noel medley. Margaret turned to the subject preoccupying her, her niece, hoping that Street might have some ideas on how to track her down. He didn’t, but he promised he would think about it.

It was after one a.m. when a familiar face appeared behind Street. The short, wiry man squeezed Street’s shoulders affectionately.

“Sammy!” said Street, standing to hug the singer.

“I saw you from the stage,” Davis said, grabbing a seat.

“All the way back here?” asked Charlie, surprised.

“You wouldn’t understand, my friend,” Davis said, patting Street on the back. “Not a lot of our kind can afford these Vegas shows. And I’ve been following this cat’s career for quite some time now!”

“Well, thank you, Brother Davis!” said Street with a smile. A waitress appeared, unbidden, with a drink for Davis. He took it and lit a new cigarette from the one still burning.

“You, sir,” Davis said, pointing to Charlie, “you, sir, are a mensch for helping Frank avoid that ass-stomping!”

“What exactly did you say, Charlie?” Street asked.

“Get this, man,” Davis said. “Charlie whispered to Wayne all the ways he knows to kill a man with his bare hands.” Davis started laughing uncontrollably. “By the time Charlie mentioned testicles, Gunga Din was Gunga gone, baby.”

Charlie was stunned. “How do you all know that?” he asked. “I only told Margaret.”

“And you certainly didn’t go into such exquisite detail,” Margaret observed.

“Oh, grapevine, baby,” Davis said. “Wayne told people. He thinks you’re psychotic, my man!” Davis and Street were both laughing now. Davis patted Charlie’s arm. “This is great. It’s why Frank loves you. It’s why you’re here!” He raised a glass and they all toasted Charlie’s terrifying Davy Crockett. “To the Alamo!” they cried. Clink-clink.

“Is May here tonight?” Margaret asked.

“No, she’s home with the baby,” said Davis. “I’m flying back in a few hours. I promised her I’d take Christmas and New Year’s off.”

“Yes, congrats on the wedding, Sammy,” Street said. “I read it was going to be last September, then I saw it was delayed a few months. She got jitters?”

Davis swiveled around dramatically to see if anyone was listening; he always moved with broad determination, as if a camera were recording every gesture.

“The old man, President Kennedy’s dad, made a specific request that I not get married before the election,” Davis confided. “The election was tight, and Jack was so publicly associated with our gang, he was worried about a backlash if I married May before the vote. Frank asked me to hold off, so I did. And I was rewarded by being blackballed from the inaugural gala. Pun intended.”

“You were blackballed?” Charlie asked incredulously. The Streets had brought the Marders to the event, which was held at the National Armory, hosted by Sinatra, and featured Gene Kelly, Milton Berle, Jimmy Durante, Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh, Laurence Olivier, and Bette Davis, among other stars.

“Nat King Cole and Sidney Poitier performed,” Margaret recalled.

“Maria Cole and Juanita Poitier ain’t white,” Davis noted. “This is, of course, entre nous. Frank would be furious if he found out I told you all this.”

“See, that really gets me,” Street said. “Why do you put up with that from Frank?”

“From Frank?” Davis said. “That wasn’t from Frank. That was from the president, man. Or, more accurately, from his dad—el padrino, the Ambassador.”

“Okay, but Frank delivered the message, and he’s the one making all those darkie jokes onstage,” Street said. “You’re up there saying, ‘Okay, Massuh Dean, Massuh Frank!’”

Charlie knew that Street, like Jackie Robinson, hid his righteous anger behind a polite veneer. Rarely, and only in discreet settings, would he express outrage at the indignities he suffered as a Black man in the United States of America. Charlie had never heard Street talk like this in public. He suspected his friend had imbibed a bit much, as had they all. Charlie tensed, unsure of how Davis would react.

The singer took a long drag on his cigarette and exhaled slowly.

“We’re just having fun out there, man,” Davis finally said. “I make jokes about them too. The audience loves it. You need to understand something about Frank. He took me under his wing. I was living in Harlem, my family was on welfare. We were just a hoofing act! Frank saw us and hired us for his show, paid us twelve hundred and fifty dollars a week. All the money in the world. Frank would come out, open up, sing a couple songs. He’d say things like ‘I want you to keep an eye on the little cat in the middle.’ He’d say, ‘You watch him, he burns the stage out!’”

“Really?” Margaret said. She’d never heard any of this before.

“Absolutely, my friend!” Davis said. “Frank’s the one who got the theater to hire us. More than that, Frank insisted—insisted—that we all got paid the same. The white acts and the colored acts. Then he pretended it was a surprise to him. ‘Glad we’re working together, Sam,’” Davis said, doing a spot-on impression.

“His orchestras had to be integrated, he said. He forced the Copa to seat me,” Davis continued. “He’s the one who got the Sunset Strip desegregated. Before him, I couldn’t sing here; I couldn’t sleep here.” Davis leaned in and lightly poked Street’s chest. “Listen, Congressman: This cat has done more for civil rights than all your Kennedys put together.”

Street threw his hands up in surrender and smiled ear to ear. “Don’t get me started on those motherfuckers!”

By two thirty a.m., Margaret was barely able to stay awake; she said her good nights to the men, and about an hour later Davis headed to the airport to catch a flight back to Los Angeles on the single-engine plane of Jimmy Van Heusen, Sinatra’s friend and songwriter. With lyricist Sammy Cahn, Van Heusen had won the Best Original Song Oscar two years before for “High Hopes” from the film A Hole in the Head, and two years