His Way_ The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra - Kitty Kelley [238]
“He’s running the country into the ground,” said Frank. “He scares me. I wouldn’t be surprised if they dump him in 1972. Whatever the situation, the Democrats have got to get together and beat Nixon in 1972.”
But he confounded party loyalists by endorsing Republican John Lindsay for mayor of New York City and contributing ten thousand dollars in New York to Republican Governor Nelson Rockefeller’s reelection campaign. Yet he also gave $1,500 to New York Republican Congressman Seymour Halpern, $500 to Kenny O’Donnell, JFK’s appointments secretary who was running for governor of Massachusetts, and $500 to George Wallace, the segregationist governor of Alabama.
Unbeknownst to Frank, an IRS investigation was under way at Caesars Palace into the relationship between the entertainment industry and the Mafia. Frank was among the targets of IRS surveillance.
On Sunday, September 6, 1970, during the graveyard shift, the IRS undercover agent working in the cashier’s cage in Caesars watched as one of Sinatra’s entourage came to the window with a pile of black chips and walked away with some $7,500 in cash. The undercover agent had been watching Frank carefully for weeks, because Frank had vast sums of money in markers (IOUs to the hotel) that were not being deducted from his salary or paid back by winnings.
“About an hour later, the same guy comes back to the window with some more black chips and cashes them in,” said the agent. “That’s when we knew that Sinatra was using us for petty cash. Whatever he was winning off the marker, he was putting into his pocket, and whenever he ran out of money to bet, he just signed another marker for ten grand.… It was a way for him to get some easy money.… We were concerned about his paying his back markers … Sinatra told people that he didn’t have to pay his markers. He said that when he performed at Caesars and then sat down to gamble, he attracted enough big money around him so that the casino made out and profited enough so that they didn’t need to collect from him.”
When the undercover agent got a call at around five A.M. from the blackjack pit saying that Frank had signed another marker, he called Sanford Waterman, the casino manager, who got dressed and came downstairs. After being told what was happening, the manager, who had been part owner of the Gal-Neva with Sinatra in 1963, stood quietly in a corner and waited for the man to approach the cage again. When he did, Waterman nodded, giving his approval to cash in Sinatra’s chips, and then went to the blackjack pit to confront Frank.
“Sandy walked up to him and said, ‘I want ten thousand dollars, in markers,’ ” recalled the agent.
“ ‘What’s the matter? My money isn’t good here?’ said Frank.
“ ‘Yeah, your money is good as long as you’ve got money. You don’t get chips until I see your cash.’
“That’s when the trouble started and Frank called Waterman a kike and Sandy called him a son of a bitch guinea. They went back and forth like that in front of a big crowd of people, including three security guards, until Sandy whipped out his pistol and popped it between Sinatra’s eyeballs.… Sinatra laughed and called him a crazy Hebe. … He said he’d never work at Caesars again and walked out.… Frank had carte blanche at Caesars—complete run of the casino—but it’s getting heavy when you have built up so much in markers and maybe fifty percent of it is petty cash in your pocket. This must have been going on for a long period of time, because Waterman got pretty excited about it.”
The next day District Attorney George Franklin said he was going to call Frank for “a little talk” to ask him about his ties to the Mafia.
“One remark he supposedly made to Waterman as he was going out the door was, ‘The mob will take care of you,’ ” said Franklin.