CAUTION Men in Trees

Caution: Men in Trees

C A U T I O N : M E N I N T R E E S obby Book wonders what the fuss over Bugsy Siegel is all about. Why the movies? Why the full-page spreads in newspapers, five columns deep plus photos? Bobby's father, Lewis, met Siegel. His shop did the sheet metal work for Siegel when he built the Flamingo in '46. Lewis, who's in his seventies, lives with Bobby and his wife. He has a cottage out by their pool where he sleeps till four everyafternoon , when he gets up, has one drink, Old Grand-Dadneat in his tumbler from the Mirage, hops on his left leg for half a minute and on his right leg for another half a minute, flips upside down and stands on his head, handsprings right side up, lifts free weights, gleaming eight-pounders, swims twenty-five laps in the pool, and then gathers together the bits and pieces of his threadbare yet still lethal body and heads for Caesar's Palace on The Strip. There he hobnobs with the old crowd, with men named Shoetree Walker, Walleyed Eddie, Rose-in-the-Pocket Jackson, old retired Twenty-one dealers who dealt when you were expected to hijack enough silver dollars your first go-round to make B up for the shit-ass pay,men who knew how to tuck chips up their sleeves and inside their waistbands, who in the 1990s in Las Vegas, Nevada,still callwomen "dolls." "Hey,"they saywhen they greet you, when they glad-hand you and cheek-kiss your wife, "win a dolly for your dolly." You ask him, and Lewiswill tell this story about meeting Bugsy Siegel. He goes to Siegel's hotel door when they're finishing up the duct work at the Flamingo, and a thug opens it. Guy's big as Jumbo. Siegel is behind him, pit-a-patting on his feet, jitterbugging to see who it is. Jumbo takes one step toward Lewis and clogs up the doorway. He raises his hands, saying, "Don't talk," and looks up and down the hall. He picks Lewis up and sets him aside. BehindJumbo, BugsySiegel is antsy, is saying, "It's not the guy at the door you worry about. It's the guy behind the guy at the door." Benjamin Siegel,Bugsy, Murder Inc.—theBug,they called him behind his back—was, according to Lewis, dumb as an anchor. "Why Bugsy Siegel?" Bobby asks his wife, Polly. They saw Bugsy at the fourplex one night, and now she's rented the video, and Alice, their daughter, is coming over to see it. Alice is as deaf as mahogany. "The man's handsome as a movie star," Polly says. "The man," Bobby says, "is rotting in a grave, is full of bullet holes. Those babyblue eyes, the teeth he paid thousands for,they blew them away." Bobby marks a circle on his face, his middle fingermoving from his forehead to his ear to his chin to his other ear and back to his forehead. He feels like he's somehow genuflecting here. "Whoever did it shot a perfect circle on Bugsy's face," Bobby says. Polly pretends to swoon. Bobby says, "He killed people." Caution: Men in Trees 91 Bobby's seen the porous gray photographs in the newspaper, and he can't figure out the attraction. Bugsy Siegel looks cheesy in photos. He had a short upper lip and was droopy-eyed. "It's more than good looks," Polly says. "Americais changing. The country's different." She tells Bobbythey've killed off the real Superman. The Lone Ranger's on kiddie shows, fat and lumpy in dippy Kmartreading glasses. She explains that the U.S.A. is a desperate country full of sad sacks. She tells Bobby your everyday mom and pop are in need of heroes. Bobby says, "Of all people, why BugsySiegel?" Bobby's question is part of the irritability he's gagging on. He's spent the last twohours with Archie Cohen out on Tropicana and The Strip. Cohen's a man Bobby'd not met until this afternoon. Archie Cohen dressed like amobster in amovie,like Bugsy Siegel He wore an eggshell-white suit, double-breasted, and he kept sticking his pasty, flat Napoleonic right hand between lapel and lapel and running it slowly up and down his potbelly. His pants hung forties baggy in...