I then headed down to the lobby to call Hayes, but he was involved in a conference, so I took a seat at the drugstore’s counter to order lunch and consider my options. First, I decided that it was pointless to further associate with Mahoney. Since he had nixed my meeting with Mrs. Sinatra, I suspected that he had been involved in canceling other interviews with people who had initially agreed to see me, then offered various excuses to avoid me—among them was Sinatra’s double, Johnny Delgado; the toupee lady, Helen Turpin; Sinatra’s sidekick, Leo Durocher; the actor Richard Conte, who had appeared in a few of Sinatra’s films but said he might be available if I wanted to write about him; and Sinatra’s valet de chambre and resident cook, George Jacobs, a handsome and raffish, 38-year-old, African-American ex-sailor who later worked as a process server in Los Angeles, then as a Rolls-driving chauffeur for the Hollywood talent agent Irving Paul “Swifty” Lazar.
Still, I knew that my predicament was not entirely attributable to Mahoney. He was merely following the orders of Sinatra’s attorney, Mickey Rudin, and no doubt the singer himself. I could also understand why my presence now would make these people so uncomfortable and uncooperative. Sinatra was a prideful artist who functioned best when he was entirely in control, and having a prying reporter on the scene was hardly desirable when he was clearly not in control—when he was uncertain about the full use of his voice; when he was presumably being targeted as a Mafia crony on a CBS show to be aired this upcoming Tuesday; when he was starring in Assault on a Queen, a film about which he had misgivings; when he was now required to rise above his ailments, doubts, and distractions and guarantee a knockout performance in Burbank this Wednesday at the taping of the NBC special Frank Sinatra: A Man and His Music.
