32
OUR EVENING WAS NOT NEARING CONCLUSION, HOWEVER. “THAT MAN WHO spoke to me at the end is your boss?” she asked.
“We work together.”
“He doesn’t look much like an FBI man.”
“He isn’t.”
“You are. That’s why you are with me. To learn all about Sam Giancana.”
“You’re upset,” I said, “because the election is up in the air.”
“Of course I am upset. And I am drunk. But that doesn’t change it. You do want to know an awful lot about Giancana.”
“I couldn’t care less. All I really desire at this moment is to smoke some marijuana.”
“No,” she said, “not while the election is in doubt. To make love right now would be equal to desecrating a grave.”
“I think you are serious,” I said.
She nodded.
“I’m going to sleep,” I said.
“No,” she said, “you are going to stay up and watch it with me.”
“Well,” I said, “if we don’t make love, I am still going to smoke marijuana. That is the way I want to watch the returns.”
“We must have an understanding,” she said. “I will take some too, but only for the purpose of watching the returns with you.”
“That will work,” I said, “if you don’t get horny.”
“I am not about to,” she said. “But I will tell you this much about Sam Giancana. The only reason I didn’t go to bed with him is because of a private feeling.”
“Would you describe your private feeling?”
“I felt that if I indulged myself with Sam, I might lose the election for Jack.”
“Do you expect me to believe that?”
“When things count, people must keep their promises. I told Jack that I wouldn’t sleep with Sam.”
“Is Giancana that attractive to you?”
“Of course he is. He is a superior person.”
We went to my apartment that night and smoked marijuana. By one in the morning, the TV analysts were saying that the final result would depend on Texas, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Illinois. “At present, however,” said the television voice, “Illinois looks to be the swing state.”
Modene nodded profoundly. “Sam said he would bring it in for Kennedy.”
“I thought Mayor Daley was going to take care of that.”
“Mayor Daley will take care of some parts of Chicago and Sam will bring in the other areas. The Negroes and the Italians and the Latins and a lot of the Polish wards take orders from Sam’s people. He has the leverage on the West Side.”
“Sam told you all this?”
“Of course not. He wouldn’t talk to me about things like that.”
“Then how do you know?”
“Walter explained it to me. Walter used to work in Eastern’s office in Chicago. The airline people have to know all of that kind of stuff in order to get along with the local unions.”
“Do you still see Walter?”
Modene said, “Not since I started seeing Jack again.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I know that you get more from me than he could ever give you.”
“What makes you certain?”
“Why else would you spend time with me?”
“Because I am trying to discover if I have the temperament for marriage, and you might be suitable should I ever decide to come down to earth.”
“Do you want to get married?” I asked.
“To you?” she asked.
“Why not?”
“If you are not the poorest man I know, you are certainly the stingiest.”
We began to laugh. When we were done, I asked, “Do you really want Jack to win?”
“Of course. Do you think I want to look at myself as the mistress of the also-ran?”
“Is it better to be courtesan to the king?”
“That is absurd. I do not see myself as a courtesan.”
I remember feeling a peculiar glee. “I guess you really indulge the hope that he will divorce his wife and marry you. You do see yourself as First Lady?”
“Stop being nasty.”
“It could come down to that. First Lady or courtesan.”
“I do not look ahead.”
“You can’t. His wife is pregnant, and tomorrow, he and she will be on television.”
“I never realized before how cruel you are.”
“That is because you force me to look at the back of your neck while you are waiting for another man to come onto TV. He is not even in the room.”
The voice coming to us from the television set now said, “It looks as if Texas may be swinging toward Kennedy. Perhaps the choice of Lyndon Johnson as running mate will yet pay off.”
“You can see how wise he was,” said Modene, “to pick that awful man, Johnson.”
“I don’t care. I’m angry at having to look at the back of your neck. I want to take a little more marijuana and fuck.”
“I feel a little demented,” she said, “and you are causing it.”
“That’s the marijuana speaking.”
“No. It is because history is being made tonight, and I want to feel a part of it. Yet, I can’t.”
“Neither of us,” I said, “is any part of it at all.”
“I am. I certainly am—if you would stop badgering me.”
“Come on,” I said, “do you know how many girlfriends Jack Kennedy has?”
“I don’t care.”
“One in every port.”
“How do you know?”
“I know.” There had been FBI lists coming in from Harlot lately.
“Why don’t you tell me how you know?”
“Maybe,” I said, “I have seen a few reports.”
“Am I on them?” She began to laugh at the expression on my face, and I realized that whatever in her was most loyal to John Fitzgerald Kennedy was therefore most furious at him, and so she could enjoy the idea that she was now a center of attention to strangers who were observing her activities in reports. It occurred to me that she never minded undressing with the shades up.
“Do you mind,” she said, “if I talk about Sam? He is a very funny man.”
“I would not have thought of him as funny.”
“Oh, he is. He is so foul-mouthed when he chooses to be. But in a humorous way.”
“What do you mean?”
“Give me another toke.” She puffed on my stick of marijuana. “He loves to talk about sex. Like you, he wants to know what Jack is like.”
“Do you tell him?”
“I lie. I pretend that Jack is similar to you, and can be very attentive.”
“Although he isn’t?”
“Of course not. He’s too hard-working. He’s too tired. He needs a woman who can devote herself to him.”
“In which way?”
“Well, you know which way.”
I now felt the pang of knowing exactly.
“What does Sam say?” I asked.
She turned her eyes from the television set long enough to look at me. Her expression had never been more remorseless nor more attractive. “Sam says, ‘Honey, if I ever put my mouth on your yum-yum, you will, guaranteed, be fucking hooked forever.’”
“Chop me down,” I said, “Sam says that?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Are you tempted?”
“Sam is a man who would want every last bit of me. That is appealing.”
“Don’t I want every last bit of you?”
“Yes,” she said, “you do. And you certainly try to get it. But, after all, in your case, why not?” She began to laugh from the depths of a heart which, at this moment, did not sound free of rancor.
It was long past two in the morning when the announcer stated: “No concession has yet come from Nixon. Illinois, however, is now considered to be definitely in Kennedy’s total, and that, added to the victory in Texas, plus reports that Pennsylvania and Michigan look definite for the Democrats, enables us to go off the air with a firm expectation that the election has been won by John Fitzgerald Kennedy.”
Modene gave a whoop and turned off the set. “I know,” she said at last, “what he is going to say in the morning.”
“What will he say?”
“‘Now my wife and I prepare for a new administration and a new baby.’”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“Maybe he rehearsed it with me. He’s a devil.”
“Well, so are we all.”
She gave me one passionate long pent-up kiss, and with that, we made love, and I wanted every last bit of her. After all, in my case, why not?