Usually at a distance, although sometimes close enough to eavesdrop, I followed Frank Sinatra at midnight after the fight into the dawn of the next day.
I began as part of the audience in the Sands’s lounge watching his routine with Dean Martin and Joey Bishop, and then I took a taxi to pursue him and his friends to the Sahara, where, for more than an hour, they sat at a crowded table in the clubroom drinking and bantering, while at the same time Sinatra was being roasted in friendly fashion onstage by his pal the comedian Don Rickles. Finally, at close to four in the morning, he left the Sahara and headed back to the Sands with his retinue in tow, some of them carrying their glasses of whiskey with them, sipping along the sidewalk and in the cars, all of them dwelling casually and cheerfully in their chosen time zones.
