Frank_ The Voice - James Kaplan [26]
There had been a dinner between the two families, Dolly and Marty generously making the trip to Lodi, but it had not gone well. Dolly—no surprise—had spoken her mind.
Still, Toni kept coming on strong even as Frankie continued to woo Nancy. For a while it was fun, Nancy and Toni coming alternate nights to the Cabin, Nancy the good girl sitting uneasily as the other women stared openmouthed at her Frankie. Nancy the good girl, with her sweet face and sweet hair and sweet kisses—and kissing was where it stopped.
Then, on the other nights, Toni the bad girl, or the girl with the promise of badness anyway. He couldn’t help himself; he was so desperate to have her that he gave her a ring, not a big stone, a cheap chip of diamond, but it did the trick. She let him take her to a hotel, and they registered as Mr. and Mrs. Sinatra. She teased him mercilessly as he lay there with his eyes rolled back in his head. Had anyone ever done that for him?
Certainly not Nancy. But then came the night after Thanksgiving, when Nancy and Frank were sitting in a booth between sets and Freddy the busboy brought the black telephone to the table. Freddy gave Frankie a funny look: For you, kid. Nancy, giving him her own look, a look of power and ownership, pushed Frank’s hand away from the phone and picked up the receiver.
He sat there with his hand over his eyes as she went at it pretty good. He was surprised at how tough she was. She’d pull Toni’s hair out by the roots if she ever caught her anywhere near her Frank.
His stomach warmed to hear that, but then, after she slammed down the receiver, he knew he was in for it. The bawling out, though, that was the easy part. The hard part was dealing with the other one.
Half an hour later, she stomped into the Cabin as he was about to start singing and walked toward him, but Nancy stopped her. Then they were flailing at each other like two cats. The music stopped and everyone stared. Before Frank and the other waiters and the busboys could get between the women, Toni had ripped Nancy’s good white dress.
It was a long night, but he stuck to his story: The woman was nothing to him. It had been a flirtation, and it was over. The woman couldn’t face the facts.
The next night, Saturday, things got worse. After he’d sung “Night and Day,” there was a stirring on the dance floor, and two cops in motorcycle boots stomped in and arrested him right in front of everyone.
Frankie tried to bluff it out. Mistaken identity, he announced, as they led him to the door, to scattered applause (which began with the band).
They took him to the county clink, in Hackensack—it was two in the morning—and booked him.
Even in a mug shot it is an astonishing face. The extravagantly sensual lower lip. The intelligence of the pale, wide-set eyes. The greasy hank of hair over the left eyebrow—he could have flicked it out of the way; he chose not to—is a rebellious 1930s touch worthy of a Dillinger or Pretty Boy Floyd. It is a sensitive face, but one of a man with full knowledge of his own importance.
Full-face he looked defiant, but in profile he looked weary. A night in jail had taken the starch out of Frank. Now he was allowed to make his single phone call. Dolly answered, and told him she would have him out in an hour.
It took a bit longer than that. The whole episode was an operetta in three acts, playing out over months, each part taking its own sweet time. The original arrest warrant stated that on November 2 and 9, 1938, Frank Sinatra, “being then and there a single man over the age of eighteen years, under the promise of marriage, did then and there have sexual intercourse with the said complainant who was then and there a single female of good repute for chastity