Free "Patsy!": The Life and Times of Lee Harvey Oswald by Douglas Brode Page A

materials and the heightened business acumen of an unsavory corner of America's financial communities.
    This splendid concert served as a cover in case anyone should venture to ask why Sinatra slipped away from radio and recording gigs in the City of Angels, where he also danced and sang his way through gaudy musicals for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
    However happy Frank might appear now, in the limelight, basking in adulation and accolades, that was but a facade for the less than pleasant actuality of his life. Nor had it ever been easy for this fugitive from a rough section of New Jersey’s poorest Italian enclave. The star's popular image, all smiles and sweetness, allowed him to mask deep, smoldering insecurities that tortured this famous, gifted, complex man all his life.
    â€œThank you,” he beamed, standing center-stage. “Thank you!” Loud applause. A wide grin in return.
    This happened to be a particularly troubling time. During the postwar years, a new form of country-western, pioneered by one Hank Williams, added steel guitars and a pounding rhythm to traditional rural music. One entertainment-observer referred to this emergent musical style as The Big Beat. Surprisingly, the warbly hard-edged sound spread to the Midwest, then up to the industrial north thanks to recently created superstations, able to beam programming a quarter of the way across our nation. Now this New Music, as others called it, had coalesced with soulful black jazz from the ethnic south and blue-collar angst pouring out of crowded New York factories and Pennsylvania mine shafts to form an emergent, and important, musical idiom.
    Several years hence it would be dubbed rock ‘n’ roll. Already, this blend of contemporary hillbilly and old-time folk, underscored by electric guitars, had knocked pop standards, Sinatra’s specialty, off the charts. He could only hope, trust, and pray that this phenomenon would prove to be a passing fad.
    As if that weren’t enough, MGM's big-wigs, always keeping a close collective eye on box-office returns, had come to the conclusion that Frankie’s reign as idol to the bobby-soxer set was over. As a result, and according to their ownership of his services via a long-term contract, MGM now featured him in less prestigious pictures. Sinatra ran scared, and for good reason. Though a huge star, Frank knew he could lose all that he, with mentor Charley, had achieved. He vowed not to let that happen.
    Perhaps he’d need to ask Charley to speak directly to the Hollywood suits. It had been Charley who, a decade earlier, “persuaded” Tommy Dorsey to let Frank out of his long-term contract so that the youngster could emerge as a solo artist. Nobody's fool, Frankie knew the way things worked. You wanted a favor, you performed one for Charley first. Which explains, when Sinatra got the word as to this delivery, he didn’t hesitate.
    Nor did he ask any questions about the suitcase’s contents when it arrived at his home with the word that he should deliver it to Charley. When the call came, Frank Sinatra answered.
    *
    Though the message had come to him from Meyer Lansky in Chicago, Frank’s introduction to the Pearl of the Antilles had been arranged by Salvatore Luciana. Now Charles Luciano, older than Sinatra by 19 years, he had been born in Lecara Friddi, the same simple Sicilian village which those humble people Francis Albert claimed descent from had early in the century abandoned, hoping to find fame, fortune and their fates in America. The former two would be a long time in coming. As to Cuba, Charley, as his friends called him (the nickname ’Lucky’ was created by enemies who had failed to eliminate him) first arrived on the lush island shortly after World War II wound down. 'Lucky' had again proven that his nickname fit like the proverbial glove.
    He had been released from Great Meadow prison. Charley was sent there (after stints in Sing Sing and Clinton