Lady Blue Eyes_ My Life With Frank - Barbara Sinatra [17]
“Quick, open your purse!” she whispered once she was certain we were alone. Reaching into hers, she pulled out a fistful of chips. There were more stuffed inside her brassiere. I could hardly believe my eyes. “Now go home and hide them somewhere. I’ll pick them up tomorrow.” She left in a cloud of perfume and cigarette smoke.
I went back to my apartment feeling sick to my stomach. I was a nervous wreck, convinced that the police, the bosses, or both were going to burst in any minute. I didn’t dare count the chips, but I could tell there were several thousand dollars’ worth. Even though I knew they were legitimately hers, they felt tainted, so I threw them in a box and hid them under the bed. Kissing a sleeping Bobby on the forehead, I slid between the sheets to wait for Joe, terrified that I’d done something criminal. I barely slept a wink. When Marsha called the next day to collect her chips, she was surprised by my reaction.
“Don’t ever ask me to do that again!” I told her. “I don’t know how you did it and I don’t want to know.” Dear Marsha, she was determined to stash enough of a nest egg to pay for her return to her small town in Oklahoma to buy “the biggest house on the hill.” Stashing was tolerated so long as half was gambled back or she wasn’t too obvious about it. On no account could a girl and her beau move to another casino. Sadly, Marsha was caught in the end. A drunk she was with went broke at 5:00 A.M., then demanded some of his money back. She slid a couple of chips across the table, but he shook his head and said, “Come off it! You have a lot more than that.” There was a fight, and plainclothes security men arrived and unceremoniously tipped Marsha’s purse upside down on the table. I guess she’d had no one to pass to that night.
After that, Marsha went to work at El Rancho Vegas, the last stop for a showgirl on the Strip. That hundred-room hotel had been the first casino in town, co-owned by the Marx Brothers, but by then it was the end of the line. I hated to see that happen to her, and unfortunately we lost touch. Three years later, El Rancho Vegas burned down. I never knew if Marsha saved enough to buy her house on the hill. I sure hope so.
Marsha had also showed me another way of supplementing her income. It was common for a woman standing at a casino table to have a stranger walk up and put some chips down in front of her as a gift. No strings. Maybe he was a big spender being nice to the “little lady.” Maybe he was having a good night and feeling generous. His reward? In my case, just a smile. Needless to say, the other girls got hit on a lot more than I did. One night a funny little guy with a Kewpie doll face put stacks of hundred-dollar chips in front of me at the blackjack table, where I rarely placed a bet above five dollars. “Here, Barbara, have some fun,” he said.
I was shocked; I’d never been given so much before. Turning to him, I said, “I’m sorry, but I can’t accept that.” He looked surprised.
The girls who were with me whispered, “Are you nuts, Barbara? That’s Willie Alderman! Go on, take it.” The name meant nothing to me, and I shook my head. He left, taking his chips with him.
Penny couldn’t understand why I’d refused, so I told her straight. “Because some night in the future I’ll get a knock on my door from that weird little guy, and I don’t ever want to have to deal with that.”
Ida assured me that I’d never hear from him. “Oh, Willie isn’t like that!” she insisted. “He’s a sweetheart. He just likes to help the girls.”
I wasn’t convinced. It wasn’t until years later, when I read a book called The Green Felt Jungle, that I discovered how