Bob Burford - Part V

 I spent most of my time in Las Vegas playing at the Tropicana Hotel and Casino. A typical job was three sets with an hour break between shows. I was told by people who would know that if you live in Vegas, you do not gamble. I subscribed to that wisdom. So, every night I found myself with two hour-long breaks with nothing to do but hang out in the casino and people watch. 

It didn’t take long to become very much at home in the casino. I began to see familiar faces and they also recognized me. Eye contact soon became a nod, became a “hello,” became an introduction, became conversations. That’s how my relationship with Monica began. I noticed her frequently sitting in one of the lounges off the lobby. And she was always sitting by herself. She was from the Basque region of Spain and was stunningly gorgeous. And she exuded class. Lots of class. She obviously did not have any money problems.

So we would sit and visit over a cocktail ... at her invitation. She was easy to be with, totally comfortable in her own skin. No pretense whatsoever. Well-informed, literate, and smart as hell. She told me, totally unabashedly, that she was being kept by a wealthy doctor. She didn’t have an expense that wasn’t paid for with the doctor’s credit card. One of her other perks was a new Corvette. She was free to come and go at will. Her only obligation was to be available to hang on his arm whenever he visited Vegas. That was all covered in a conversation we had in a single break one night. The subject of her lifestyle was never broached again. 

It’s too easy to forget that at that time Las Vegas was run by the Mafia. It was probably the safest city of its size in the entire world. The Mafia didn’t take kindly to anyone who would cause anything negative to be published about the city. It was kinda startling when she told me one evening that the doctor would soon be asking her about this guy she’s spending time with in the cocktail lounge at the Tropicana. That would be me. Obviously, he kept a real tight rein on her. I took from that that the doctor had mob connections. I also took from that that the doctor most likely was something other than a doctor.

Fast forward a couple of months.

I left Las Vegas and moved to the San Francisco Bay area, specifically to the San Francisco Chronicle, my all-time favorite newspaper. I had a house on top of the mountain at the end of Fassler Drive in Pacifica (20 minutes south of The City) overlooking Rockaway Beach and the Pacific. I was a couple hundred yards shy of sitting right on top of the San Andreas Fault. 

It was an ideal location, great view of the Faralons, an easy drive into The City. One of my favorite things to do in the evening was go to the El Matador jazz club in North Beach where Cal Tjader regularly appeared. For a short while he had Al Zulaika, a piano player, with him who I particularly enjoyed. When Cal wasn’t playing I’d find any number of other major world-class jazz players holding court. 

The entrance to the club opened out onto the sidewalk. How pedestrians passing by don’t get hit is a mystery. So, I was leaving the club one night, pushed the exit door open, and ran into a woman. Physically. Literally bumped into her. As I was about to apologize, I was shocked to recognize the woman. It was Monica! from Las Vegas. What the hell?!

We crossed the street and walked down the block to a fairly nice restaurant where we had a late-night snack and caught up on what’s been going on. Of course, the big question for her was: What the hell are you doing here? Although she didn’t get into specifics, something not good had gone down in Vegas and she had to get the hell out of Dodge. Her life as she knew it no longer existed. She had no plans whatsoever. She was ad libbing her life one step at a time. Getting out of Vegas was the first step, of course. In her conversations with me back at the Tropicana, she got the idea that San Francisco seemed like a good place to go. So she packed her shit in her Corvette and headed for San Francisco. She assured me that she was not being hunted by the Mafia.

Since she hadn’t checked into a hotel yet, and given that she had no plans, I invited her home with me. I gave her keys to the house and told her to come and go as she pleased. And she did just that. It was a great arrangement. She was totally independent and way low maintenance. She would disappear without a word and stay gone for the night or a few days or a couple of weeks. I would wake up in the morning and find her sound asleep on the other side of the bed. I had another well-appointed master suite also complete with a California king bed but, for whatever reason, she chose to ignore it. That was our lifestyle for quite some time.

This is where the story gets bifurcated. I met a girl. Actually, I met two girls. One was Vicki, a tall drop-dead-gorgeous blonde who always looked like she just stepped out of a fashion magazine. Her best friend was Suzanne, a drop-dead gorgeous Sicilian. They, too, came and went at will. Sometimes I would wake up and find Vicki on the other side of the bed. Sometimes I would wake up and find Suzanne. And at other times I would wake up to find Monica sound asleep.

This is where it gets kinda dicey. Vicki and I had been out late and decided to go home and crash. I crawled into bed and was instantly out like a light. I woke up to Vicki screaming like a banshee in the middle of a manic episode. “WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?” she was screaming. What had her upset was waking up to find that sometime during the night Monica had come home and crawled into bed with us, as was her routine. Monica was awake, of course, just as cool as a cucumber, completely detached, not a stitch on, sitting back casually watching Vicki lose her mind. I finally got Vicki to calm down enough so that I could explain the situation. Eventually, she got back into bed and life was peaceful again. I left the two of them there and went to take a shower. I got dressed and walked out of the bedroom to find them in the kitchen cooking breakfast, having a helluva good time.

There was another time that Vicki woke me up screeching like a banshee. The librarian at school (Lincoln University School of Law) had an emergency and rushed to the hospital. I got a call from the school’s registrar asking me to go to the Red Cross and donate some blood for him, which I did. Now the Red Cross has my phone number. Fast forward a few weeks and I get a call in the middle of the night from the Red Cross. My blood type is O-negative, which means they can take my blood and give it directly to anybody else. An open-heart surgery and a baby transfer created an urgent need for blood. 

So I got out of bed, went to the clinic where they relieved me of some blood. They put a patch on my arm and sent me home where I got back into bed beside Vicki. The next thing I know Vicki is screeching at the top of her lungs. Standing beside the bed, eyes wide like saucers, pointing at the bed. A huge puddle of blood. The bandage had come off my arm and I bled all over. Of course, Vicki didn’t know what to think. For whatever reason she assumed I had mainlined some drugs and caused the mess. Of course, she was oblivious to my Red Cross adventure in the middle of the night. 

Other than the occasional little such surprises, though, life was completely grand.