There were five people in the Quirinal bar after dinner, a high-class Italian frail who sat on a stool making persistent conversation against the bartender's bored: “Si ... Si ... Si,” a light, snobbish Egyptian who was lonely but chary of the woman, and the two Americans.
1939, (w), The Big Sleep, Penguin 2011, p. 148:
‘She's pickin' 'em tonight, right on the nose,’ he said. ‘That tall black-headed frail.’
1941, Preston Sturges, w:Sullivans Travels|Sullivan's Travels, published in Five Screenplays'', ISBN 0-520-05442-4, page 77:
Sullivan, the girl and the butler get to the ground. The girl wears a turtle-neck sweater, a cap slightly sideways, a torn coat, turned-up pants and sneakers.
SULLIVAN Why don't you go back with the car... You look about as much like a boy as w:Mae West|Mae West.
THE GIRL All right, they'll think I'm your frail.
To play a stringed instrument, usually a banjo, by picking with the back of a fingernail.