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57

Wind rocked the car. Littell turned up the heat and pushed his seat back to stretch out.

His stakeout was strictly cosmetic. He might join the party himself-Mal would get a huge kick out of it.

It was a Bust the Blacklist bash. The Chicago Board of Ed had hired Mal Chamales to teach remedial math.

Guests walked up to the house. Littell recognized leftists with Red Squad sheets half a mile long.

A few waved to him. Mal said he might send his wife out with coffee and cookies.

Littell watched the house. Mal turned his Christmas lights on- the tree by the porch bloomed all blue and yellow.

He’d stay until 9:30. He’d write the bash up as a routine holiday soiree. Leahy would accept his assessment pro forma-their stalemate precluded direct confrontations.

His door-kicking episode and Lake Geneva time went unquestioned. He had thirty-nine days to go until his retirement. The Bureau’s no-confrontation policy would hold and see him through to civilian life.

He had the Fund books stashed in a bank vault in Duluth. He had two dozen cryptography texts at home. He had seventeen days logged in without an ounce of liquor.

He could send the Fund books to Bobby on a moment’s notice. He could delete Joe Kennedy’s name with a few swipes of a pencil.

Dead leaves strafed the windshield. Littell got out of the car and stretched his legs.

He saw men running up Mal’s driveway. He heard metal-on-metal pump-shotgun-slide noise.

He heard footsteps behind him. Hands slammed him across the hood and ripped off his gunbelt.

He gouged his face on a sharp strip of chrome. He saw Chick Leahy and Court Meade kick Mal’s door down.

Big men in suits and overcoats swarmed him. His glasses fell off. Everything went claustrophobic and blurry.

Hands dragged him into the street. Hands cuffed and shackled him.

A midnight-blue limo pulled up.

Hands grappled him in. Hands shoved him face-to-face with J. Edgar Hoover.

Hands slapped tape across his mouth.

The limo pulled out. Hoover said, “Mal Chamales is being arrested for sedition and advocating the violent overthrow of the United States of America. Your FBI service is terminated as of this day, your pension has been revoked, and a detailed profile of you as a Communist sympathizer has been sent to the Justice Department, the bar associations of all fifty states and the deans of every university law school in the Continental U.S. Should you go public with information pertaining to Kemper Boyd’s clandestine activities, I will guarantee you that your daughter, Susan, and Helen Agee will never practice law, and guarantee that the interesting coincidence of your three-week absence and the destruction of Jules Schiffrin’s Lake Geneva estate will be mentioned to key organized-crime figures who might find that coincidence intriguing. In keeping with your leftist sympathies and bleeding-heart concern for the fmancially wretched and morally impaired, you will now be deposited into a venue where your instincts for selfabnegatiqn, self-flagellation and pinko vicissitudes will be fully appreciated. Driver, stop the car.”

The limo decelerated. Hands uncuffed him and unshackled him.

Hands dragged him out the door. Hands dumped him into a South Side gutter.

Colored piss bums walked up and checked him out. Say what, white man?

DOCUMENT INSERT: 12/18/60. Personal note: Kemper Boyd to Attorney General Designate Robert F. Kennedy.

Dear Bob,

Congratulations, first of all. You’ll make a splendid Attorney General, and I can envision Jimmy Hoffa and certain others swinging from yardarms already.

Hoffa makes for a good segue point. The purpose of this letter is to recommend former Special Agent Ward J. Littell for a Justice Department counselship. Littell (the Chicago Phantom who has worked for us sub-rosa since early 1959) is a 1940 Bumma Cum Laude Notre Dame Law grad, Federal-Bar licensed. He is considered brilliant in the field of Federal Deportation Statutes and will be bringing with him a good deal of recently accrued anti-Mob, anti-Teamster evidence.

I realize that Littell, in his anonymous capacity, has been out of touch with you for some time, and hope that that fact will not dampen your enthusiasm for him. He is a splendid attorney and a dedicated crimefighter.

Yours,

Kemper

DOCUMENT INSERT: 12/21/60. Personal note: Robert F. Kennedy to Kemper Boyd.

Dear Kemper,

Per Ward Littell, my answer is emphatically “No.” I have received a report from Mr. Hoover that, though perhaps biased, persuasively paints a portrait of Littell as an alcoholic with ultra left-wing tendencies. Mr. Hoover also included evidence that indicates that Litteli was receiving bribes from Chicago Mob members. This, to me, negates the viability of his alleged anti-Mob, anti-Teamster evidence.

I realize that Littell is your friend, and that he did work hard for us at one time. Frank]y, though, we cannot afford even the slightest taint on our new appointees.

Let’s consider the Littell matter closed. The question of your Kennedy Administration employment remains, and I think you’ll be pleased with what the President-elect and I have come up with.

Best,

Bob

DOCUMENT INSERT: 1 / 17/61. Personal letter: J. Edgar Hoover to Kemper Boyd.

Dear Kemper,

Three-fold congratulations.

One, your recent evasion tactics were superbly efficacious. Two, your Marilyn Monroe aside had me going for quite some time. What a myth you have created! With luck, it will enter what Hush-Hush would call the “Peephole Pantheon!”

Thirdly, bravo for your appointment as roving Justice Department counsel. My contacts tell me you’ll be concentrating on voting rights abuse in the south. How fitting! Now you’ll be able to champion left-inclined negroes with the same tenacity that you embrace right-wing Cubans!

I think you’ve found your metier. I would be hardpressed to conceive of work more suitable for a man with such a lenient code of loyalty. I hope we’ll get the chance to be colleagues again.

As always,