American tabloid

93

Training officers formed a cordon just inside the front gate. They wore face shields and packed shotguns filled with rock salt.

Refuge seekers slammed the fence. The entry road was jammed with junk cars and dispossessed Cubans.

Kemper watched the scene escalate. John Stanton called and warned him that the raids went from bad to godawful.

The FBI hit fourteen exile camps yesterday. Half the Cubans on the Gulf Coast were out seeking CIA asylum.

The fence teetered. The training men raised their weapons.

There were twenty men inside and sixty men outside. Only weak chain-links and some barbed wire stood between them.

A Cuban climbed the fence and snagged himself on the barbs at the top. A training man blew him down-one salt round desnagged him and lacerated his chest.

The Cubans picked up rocks and waved lumber planks. The contract men assumed protective postures. A big bilingual roar went up.

Littell was late. Pete was late, too-the migration probably stalled traffic.

Kemper walked down to the boat dock. His men were shooting buoys floating thirty yards offshore.

They wore earplugs to blot out the gate noise. They looked like high-line, spit-and-polish mercenaries.

He moved them in just under the wire. They had free run of the campsite-John Stanton pulled strings for old times’ sake.

Ejected shells hit the dock. Laurent and Flash notched bullseyes. Juan fired wide into some waves.

He told them about the hit last night. The pure audacity thrilled them.

He couldn’t resist it. He wanted to see their faces ignite.

Laurent and Flash lit up happy. Juan lit up disturbed.

Juan’s been acting furtive. Juan’s been AWOL three nights running.

The radio reported another dead woman. She was beaten senseless and strangled with a sash cord. The local cops were baffled.

Victim #1 was found near Sun Valley. Victim #2 was found near Blessington.

The gate noise doubled and tripled. Rock-salt rounds exploded.

Kemper popped in earplugs and watched his men shoot. Juan Canestel watched him.

Flash made a buoy jump. Laurent nailed it on the rebound. Juan slammed three straight misses.

Something was wrong.

o o o

The State Police cleared the Cubans out. Black amp; whites escorted them to the highway.

Kemper drove behind the convoy. The line was fifty cars long. The rock-salt barrage blew out windshields and stripped convertible tops.

It was a short-sighted solution. John Stanton prophesied exile chaos-and hinted at much worse.

Pete and Ward called to say they’d be late. He said, Good-I have to run an errand. They rescheduled their meet for 2:30 at the Breakers.

He’d tell them Stanton’s news. He’d stress that it was strictly speculative.

The car herd crawled-both outbound lanes were jammed up bumper-to-bumper. Two black amp; whites drove point to keep the Cubans boxed in.

Kemper turned onto a switchback. It was the only shortcut to Blessington proper-dirt roads straight in.

Dust kicked up. A light drizzle turned it to mud spray. The Rapemobile passed him, full-throttle on a blind curve.

Kemper hit his wipers. The spray thinned out translucent. He saw exhaust fumes up ahead-and no Rapemobile.

Juan’s distracted. He didn’t recognize my car.

Kemper hit downtown Blessington. He cruised by the Breakers, Al’s Dixie Diner and every exile hangout on both sides of the highway.

No Rapemobile.

He grid-searched side streets. He made systematic circuits- three blocks left, three blocks right. Seven-come-eleven-where’s that candy-apple-red T-Bird?

There-

The Rapemobile was parked outside the Larkhaven Motel. Kemper recognized the two cars parked beside it.

Guy Banister’s Buick. Carlos Marcello’s Lincoln.

o o o

The Breakers Motel faced the highway. Kemper’s window faced a just-rigged State Police checkpoint.

He saw cops divert cars down an off-ramp. He saw cops force male Latins out at gunpoint.

The cops ran ID checks and INS checks. The cops impounded vehicles and arrested male Latins wholesale.

Kemper watched for one straight hour. The Staties busted thirty-nine male Latins.

They herded the men into jail trucks. They dumped confiscated weapons into one big pile.

He searched Juan’s room an hour ago.

He found no sash cords. He found no perverted keepsakes. He saw absolutely nothing incriminating.

Somebody leaned on the doorbell. Kemper opened up quick to stop the noise.

Pete walked in. “Have you seen what’s going on out there?”

Kemper nodded. “They were trying to break in to the camp a few hours ago. The head training officer called the Staties.”

Pete checked the window. “Those are some pissed-off Cubans.”

Kemper pulled the drapes. “Where’s Ward?”

“He’s coming. And I hope you didn’t call us all the way down here to show us some fucking roadblocks.”

Kemper walked to the bar and poured Pete a short bourbon. “John Stanton called me. He said Jack Kennedy told Hoover to turn up the heat. The FBI has raided twenty-nine non-Agency campsites within the past forty-eight hours. Every non-Agency exile in captivity is out looking for Agency asylum.”

Pete downed his shot. Kemper poured him a refill.

“Stanton said Carlos put up a bail fund. Guy Banister tried to bail out some of his pet exiles, but the INS has put a deportation hold on every Cuban National in custody.”

Pete threw his glass at the wall. Kemper plugged the bottle.

“Stanton said the entire exile community is going crazy. He said there’s lots of talk about a Kennedy hit. He said there’s a good deal of specific talk about a motorcade hit in Miami.”

Pete punched the wall. His fist smashed through to the baseboard. Kemper stood back and talked slow and easy.

“Nobody on our team has broken cover, so the rumors couldn’t have originated from there. And Stanton said he didn’t inform the Secret Service, which implies that he wouldn’t mind seeing Jack dead.”

Pete gouged his knuckles bone-deep. He threw a left hook at the wall-plaster chunks flew.

Kemper stood way back. “Ward said Hoover sensed it was coming. He was right, because Hoover would have stalled the raids and sent out warnings to the old-boy network just to screw Bobby-unless he wanted to fuel the hatred against Jack.”

Pete grabbed the bottle. Pete doused his hands and wiped them on the drapes.

The fabric seeped beige to red. The wall was half-demolished.

“Pete, listen. There’s ways we can-”

Pete shoved him against the window. “No. This is the one we can’t get out of. We either kill him or we don’t, and they’ll probably kill us even if we get him.”

Kemper slid free. Pete slid the drapes back.

Exiles were jumping off the highway abutment. Cops were going at them with electric cattle prods.

“Look at that, Kemper. Look at that and tell me we can contain this fucking thing.”

Littell walked past the window. Pete opened the door and pulled him in bodily.

He didn’t react. He looked glazed and hurt.

Kemper shut the door. “Ward, what is it?”

Littell hugged his briefcase. He didn’t even blink at the room damage.

“I talked to Sam. He said the Miami hit is out, because his liaison to Castro told him that Castro would never speak to any Outfit man ever again, under any circumstances. They’ve given up the idea of a rapprochement. I’ve always considered it farfetched, and now apparently Sam and Santo agree.”

Pete said, “This is all crazy.” Kemper read Littell’s face: DON’T TAKE THIS AWAY FROM ME.

“Are we still on?”

Littell said, “I think so. And I spoke to Guy Banister and figured something out.”

Pete looked ready to blow. “So tell us, Ward. We know you’re the smartest and the strongest now, so just tell us what you think.”

Littell squared his necktie. “Banister saw a copy of a presidential memo. It passed from Jack to Bobby to Mr. Hoover, then through to the New Orleans SAC, who leaked it to Guy. The memo said that the President is sending a personal emissary to talk to Castro in November, and that further JM/Wave cutbacks will be forthcoming.”

Pete flicked blood off his hands. “I don’t get the Banister connection.”

Littell tossed his briefcase on the bed. “It was coincidental. Guy and Carlos are close, and Guy’s a frustrated lawyer himself. We talk from time to time, and he just happened to mention the memo. What it all ties in to is my feeling that Mr. Hoover senses there’s a hit plan in the works. Since none of us have broken cover, I’m thinking that-maybe-there’s a second hit in the planning stages. I’m thinking also that Banister might have knowledge of it-and that’s why Hoover leaked the memo in his direction.”

Kemper pointed to the window. “Did you see that checkpoint?”

Littell said, “Yes, of course.”

Kemper said, “That’s Hoover again. That’s him letting the raids happen to keep the hate against Jack peaking. John Stanton called me, Ward. There’s supposed to be a half-dozen or six dozen or two dozen more fucking plots in the works, like the fucking assassination metaphysic is just out there too undeniably-”

Pete slapped him.

Kemper pulled his piece.

Pete pulled his.

Littell said, “No,” VERY SOFTLY.

Pete dropped his gun on the bed.

Kemper dropped his.

Littell said, “Enough,” VERY SOFTLY.

The room crackled and buzzed. Littell unloaded the guns and locked them in his briefcase.

Pete spoke just shy of a whisper. “Banister bailed me out of jail last month. He said, ‘This Kennedy bullshit is about to end,’ like he had some kind of fucking foreknowledge.”

Kemper spoke the same way. “Juan Canestel’s been acting strange lately. I tailed him a few hours ago, and spotted his car parked next to Banister’s and Carlos Marcello’s. It was right down the road here, outside another motel.”

Littell said, “The Larkhaven?”

“That’s right.”

Pete sucked blood off his knuckles. “How’d you know that, Ward? And if Carlos is in on a second hit, are Santo and Mo calling ours off?”

Littell shook his head. “I think we’re still on.”

“What about this Banister stuff?”

“It’s new to me, but it fits. All I know for certain now is that I’m meeting Carlos at the Larkhaven Motel at five. He told me that Santo and Mo have handed the whole thing to him, with two new stipulations.”

Kemper rubbed his chin. The slap left his face bright red.

“Which are?”

“That we reschedule out of Miami and work up a left-wing patsy. There’s no chance at a truce with Castro, so they want to build the killer up as pro-Fidel.”

Pete kicked the wall. A landscape print hit the floor.

Kemper swallowed a loose tooth. Pete pointed to the highway.

The cops were putting on full riot gear. The cops were running strip searches in broad daylight.

Kemper said, “Look at that. That’s all Mr. Hoover’s chess game.”

Pete said, “You’re crazy. He’s not that fucking good.”

Littell laughed in his face.