His Way_ The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra - Kitty Kelley [188]
“Frank loved owning that place,” said Chuck Moses. “He was always arranging parties, chartering planes, and flying up groups like Lucille Ball, Richard Crenna, and Marilyn Monroe. There were two crap tables there, and all those celebrities would get lucky and win, so he really took a loss.”
“Frank was a most convivial host,” said San Francisco columnist Herb Caen. “He was great fun and sort of nice to people—except every now and then when he’d flip out. Some guy would come over with his girl and say, ‘Frank, I want you to meet my girl.’ He’d do one of his mood turns and snarl at the guy: ‘You want me to meet your girl? What does your girl want? Does she want to meet me? Can’t she speak for herself? Who are you to do her talking? Is she deaf and dumb, this girl of yours? Can’t she speak up? Speak up, girl, speak up. Hey, girl, ya want to meet me? Ya want to meet me?’ By that time the couple were in complete shock, and the rest of us were so embarrassed we didn’t speak. Later, we’d say, ‘For Christ sake, Frank, what’s the big deal?’ He’d say, ‘I don’t know. I can’t help it. They’re just so goddamn dumb.’
“Most of the time, though, he was great fun. I saw him a lot at Cal-Neva when Sam Giancana was there. In fact, I met Giancana through Frank. He was a typical hood—didn’t say much. He wore a hat at the lake and sat in his little bungalow, receiving people. He and Frank were obviously good friends.”
The mere presence of Sam Giancana at Cal-Neva was illegal in Nevada, because he topped the Gaming Control Board Black Book list of men not permitted on the premises of any casino in the state.
“In order to avoid the possibility of license revocation for unsuitable manner of operation, your immediate cooperation is requested in preventing the presence in any licensed establishment of all persons of notorious or unsavory reputation,” the board’s orders declared.
“This was always of great concern to Hank,” said one of Sanicola’s business associates. “He agreed’ to go into Cal-Neva with Frank only on the condition that Giancana stay away. Hank put in $300,000 of his own money and didn’t want to lose his investment. He knew if Sam was around, the place would be turned into a garage. But Sam was as big a ham as Frank and he started coming around a lot, which made Hank real nervous because there were always a lot of federal agents swarming around Giancana. One night he had to take Sam out the back way because of the agents. Hank kept telling Frank that there was going to be trouble because Giancana was always hanging around, but Frank told him that he was a worrier. ‘Not to worry,’ he’d say. ‘Not to worry.’ ”
During the summer of 1962 Sanicola had had his hands full with federal agents investigating a prostitution ring at Cal-Neva that used women flown in from San Francisco. The operation was conducted openly from the main registration desk of the lodge.
Then there was the attempted murder of an employee, shot on the front steps of the lodge. A few weeks after that, Marilyn Monroe tried to commit suicide there, but she managed to contact the Cal-Neva operator in time to be rushed to the hospital to have her stomach pumped. (A few days later, in Los Angeles, she died of another overdose.)
The most worrisome event had taken place the night after the lodge opened, on June 30, 1962, when Deputy Sheriff Richard E. Anderson had come to pick up his wife, Toni, a cocktail waitress working the late shift. Anderson was aware that his wife, a brunette beauty, had been known to the staff as one of Sinatra’s girlfriends before her marriage. Although she and Anderson had been married for three months, he still resented the proprietary way Frank acted toward Toni and warned him to keep away from her. As Anderson stood talking to the dishwashers late that night in the Cal-Neva kitchen, Frank entered and asked him what he was doing there. Anderson said that he was waiting for his wife. Frank tried to throw