American tabloid

73

Kemper snorted a coke-”H” speedball. It was precisely his sixteenth taste of dope.

It was his twelfth since the doctor cut off his medication. It averaged out to 1.3 nonaddicted tastes per month.

His head twirled. His brain revved. His shabby room at the Seminole Motel looked almost pretty.

Memo:

Go see that colored preacher. He’s rounding up a group of voting rights complainants.

Memo:

See Dougie Frank Lockhart. He’s got two would-be triggers lined up for you to audition.

The taste hit all the way home.

His collarbone quit throbbing. The pins holding it together meshed clean.

Kemper wiped his nose. The portrait above his desk took on a glow.

It was Jack Kennedy, photographed pre-Pigs. His post-Pigs inscription: “To Kemper Boyd. I guess we both caught a few bullets lately.”

Taste #16 felt high-octane. Jack’s smile was high-test-Dr. Feelgood shot him up before the photo session.

Jack looked young and invincible. The last nine months knocked a lot of that out of him.

The Bay of Pigs fiasco did it. Jack grew up behind a tidal wave of censure.

Jack blamed himself-and the Agency. Jack fired Allen Dulles and Dick Bissell. Jack said, “I’ll smash the CIA into a thousand pieces.”

Jack hates the CIA. Bobby doesn’t. Bobby now hates Fidel Castro like he hates Hoffa and the Mob.

The Bay of Pigs postmortem was painfully protracted. He double-agented as Kemper Boyd, chaperone. He showed Bobby scores of sanitized exiles-the noncriniinal types that Langley wanted him to see.

The Study Group called the invasion:

“Quixotic,” “undermanned” and “based on specious intelligence.”

He agreed. Langley disagreed.

Langley thought he was a Kennedy apologist. They considered him politically unsound.

John Stanton told him this. He silently agreed with the appraisal.

He vocally agreed: Yes, JM/Wave will prove efficacious.

He silently disagreed. He urged Bobby to assassinate Fidel Castro. Bobby disagreed. He said it was too gangster-like and inimical to Kennedy policy.

Bobby was a bully with strong moral convictions. His guidelines were often hard to gauge.

Bully Bobby set up racket squads in ten major cities. Their one goal was to recruit organized-crime informants. The move enraged Mr. Hoover. Independent Mob-busters might upstage the Top Hoodlum Program.

Bully Bobby hates Bully J. Edgar. Bully J. Edgar reciprocates. It was unprecedented hatred-the Justice Department seethed with it.

Hoover staged protocol slowdowns. Bobby trashed FBI autonomy. Guy Banister said Hoover placed illegal bug/taps in Mob venues coast to coast.

Bobby had no inkling. Mr. Hoover knew how to keep secrets.

So did Ward Littell. Ward’s best secret was Joe Kennedy’s Teamster Fund “malfeasance.”

Joe had a near-fatal stroke late last year. Claire said it “devastated” Laura.

She tried to contact her father. Bobby prevented it. That threemillion-dollar buyoff was binding and permanent.

Claire graduated from Tulane magna cum laude. The NYU law school accepted her. She moved to New York City and took an apartment near Laura.

Laura rarely mentioned him. Claire told her he was wounded by a “random gunshot” in Miami. Laura said, “Kemper and ‘random’? Never.”

Claire believed his squeaky-clean version of the shootout. Claire zoomed down to Saint Augustine’s the second the doctor called her.

Claire said Laura had a new boyfriend. Claire said he was nice. Claire said she met Laura’s “nice friend,” Lenny Sands.

Lenny violated his order and resumed contact with Laura. Lenny always played things indirectly-that Hush-Hush Bay of Pigs piece was filled with double-edged innuendo.

He didn’t care. Lenny was extortable and long gone from his life.

Lenny dug up dirt for Howard Hughes. Lenny tattled certain secrets and quashed others. Lenny possessed circumstantial evidence on how badly Kemper Boyd fucked up in April ‘61.

Kemper sniffed another speedball.

His heart revved. His collarbone went numb. He remembered how last May compensated for last April.

Bobby ordered him to follow some Freedom Riders. He said, “Just observe, and call for help if Klansmen or whoever get rowdy. Remember, you’re still convalescing.”

He observed. He got up closer than reporters and camera crews.

He saw civil rights workers board buses. He tailed them. Hymns roared out of wide-open windows.

Shitkickers tailed the buses. Car radios blared “Dixie.” He badged a few rock throwers off, with his gun arm still in a sling.

He stopped in Anniston. Some rednecks slashed his tires. A white mob stormed the depot and pelted a Freedom Bus out of town.

He rented an old Chevy and played catch-up. He zoomed out Highway 78 and caught a mob scene.

The bus had been torched. Cops, Freedom Riders and crackers were tangled up off the roadside.

He saw a colored girl batting flames off her pigtails. He saw the torch artist peel rubber. He ran him off the road and pistolwhipped him half-dead.

I take a few tastes now and then. It’s just to help me keep things straight.

o o o

“…And the best thing about what I’m proposing is that you won’t have to testify in open court. Federal judges will read your depositions and my accompanying affidavits and go from there. If any of you are called to testify, it will be in closed session, with no reporters, opposing counsel or local police officials present.”

The pretty little church was SRO. The preacher rounded up sixty-odd people.

Kemper said, “Questions?’

A man yelled, “Where you from?” A woman yelled, “What about protection?”

Kemper leaned over the pulpit. “I’m from Nashville, Tennessee. You might recall that we had some boycotts and sit-ins there in 1960, and you might recall that we’ve made great strides toward integration, with minimum bloodshed. I realize that Mississippi is a whole lot less civilized than my home state, and as far as protection goes, I can only say that when you go to register to vote, you’ll have numbers on your side. The more people who offer depositions, the better. The more people who register and vote, the better. I’m not saying that certain elements will take kindly to your voting, but the more of you who vote the better your chance of electing local officials who’ll keep those elements in line.”

A man said, “We got a nice cemetery outside. It’s just that none of us want to move in real soon.”

A woman said, “You can’t expect the law around here to jump on our side all of a sudden.”

Kemper smiled. Two tastes and a two-martini lunch made the church glow.

“As cemeteries go, that one you’ve got is just about the prettiest I’ve ever seen, but none of us want to visit it until some time around the year 2000, and as far as protection goes, I can only say that President Kennedy did a pretty good job of protecting those Freedom Riders last year, and if those aforementioned white-trash, peckerwood, redneck-cracker elements turn out in force to suppress your God-given civil rights, then the Federal government will meet that challenge with greater force, because your will to freedom will not be defeated, because it is good and just and true, and you have the strength of kindness, decency and unflinching rectitude on your side.”

The congregation rose and applauded.

o o o

“…So it’s what you call a sweetheart deal. I got my Royal Knights Klavern, which is basically an FBI franchise, and all I gotta do is keep my ear down and rat off the Exalted Knights and Imperial Knights for mail fraud, which is the only Klan stuff Mr. Hoover really cares about. I got my own informants subcontracted into both them groups, and I pay them out of my Bureau stipend, which helps to consolidate the power of my own group.”

The shack reeked of stale socks and stale reefer smoke. Dougie Frank wore a Klan sheet and Levi’s.

Kemper smashed a fly perching on his chair. “What about those shooters you mentioned?’

“They’re here. They’ve been bunking with me, ‘cause the motels around here don’t differentiate between Cubans and niggers. ‘Course, you’re trying to change all that.”

“Where are they now?”

“I got a shooting range down the road. They’re there with some of my Royals. You want a beer?”

“How about a dry martini?”

“Ain’t none of those in these parts. And any man asks for one’s gonna get tagged as a Federal agitator.”

Kemper smiled. “I’ve got a bartender at the Skyline Lounge on my side.”

“Must be a Jew or a homo.”

Kemper laid on some drawl. “Son, you are trying my patience.”

Lockhart flinched. “Well… shit, then, you should know that I heard Pete found his four boys. Guy Banister said you’re still two short, which don’t surprise me, given all the integration work you’ve been doing.”

“Tell me about the shooters. Limit your extraneous comments and get to the point.”

Lockhart wiggled his chair back. Kemper slid his chair closer to him.

“Well, uh, Banister, he sent them over to me. They stole a speedboat in Cuba and ran it aground off the Alabama coast. They robbed some gas stations and liquor stores and renewed an old acquaintance with that Frenchy guy Laurent Guйry, who told them to call Guy for some anti-Fidel work.”

“And?”

“And Guy considered them too goddamn crazy for his taste, which is too crazy for just about anybody’s. He sent them to me, but I got about as much use for them as a dog does for fleas.”

Kemper moved closer. Lockhart backed his chair into the wall.

“Man, you are crowding me more than I’m used to.”

“Tell me about the Cubans.”

“Jesus, I thought we were friends.”

“We are. Now, tell me about the Cubans.”

Lockhart slid his chair sideways. “Their names are Flash Elorde and Juan Canestel. ‘Flash’ ain’t Elorde’s real first name. He just took it ‘cause there’s some famous spic boxer with the same last name as him who uses it as a nickname.”

“And?”

“And they’re both crack shots and big Fidel haters. Flash ran this prostitution slave trade in Havana, and Juan was this rape-o who got castrated by Castro’s secret police, ‘cause he raped something like three hundred women between the years 1959 and 1961.”

“Are they willing to die for a free Cuba?”

“Shit, yes. Flash says that given the life he’s led, every day he wakes up alive is a miracle.”

Kemper smiled. “You should adopt that attitude, Dougie.”

“Which means?’

“Which means there’s a nice colored church outside Meridian. It’s called the First Pentecostal Baptist, and it’s got a beautiful moss-hung cemetery next door.”

Lockhart pinched one nostril and blew snot on the floor. “So fucking what? What are you, some nigger church conno-sewer?”

Kemper milked his drawl. “Tell your boys not to touch that church.”

“Shit, man, how do you expect a self-respecting white man to respond to something like that?”

“Say, ‘Yes, sir, Mr. Boyd.’”

Lockhart sputtered. Kemper hummed the “We Shall Overcome” song.

Lockhart said, “Yes, sir, Mr. Boyd.”

o o o

Flash sported a Mohawk haircut. Juan sported a big testicle bulge-handkerchiefs or wadded-up tissue filled the space where his nuts used to reside.

The range was a vacant lot adjoining a trailer park. Full-dress Klansmen shot tin cans and swigged beer and Jack Daniel’s.

They hit one can out of four at thirty yards. Flash and Juan notched all hits from twice that distance.

They shot old M-1s in late-afternoon light. Better rifles and telescopic sights would make them invincible.

Dougie Frank circulated. Kemper watched the Cubans shoot.

Flash and Juan stripped to the waist and used their shirts to swat off mosquitos. Both men were torture-scarred from the hips up.

Kemper whistled and signaled Lockhart: Send them over, now.

Dougie Frank rounded them up. Kemper leaned against an old Ford half-ton. The bed was jammed with liquor bottles and guns.

They walked over. Kemper came on courtly and genteel.

Smiles and bows went around. Handshakes went down. Flash and Juan pulled their shirts on-a sign of respect for the Big Bwana white man.

Kemper cut the niceties off. “My name is Boyd. I have a mission to offer you.”

Flash said, “Sн, trabajo. Quiйn el-”

Juan shushed him. “What kind of mission?”

Kemper tried Spanish. “Trabajo muy importante. Para matar el grande puto Fidel Castro.”

Flash jumped up and down. Juan grabbed him and restrained him.

“This is not a joke, Mr. Boyd?”

Kemper pulled out his money clip. “How much would it take to convince you?”

They crowded up to him. Kemper fanned out hundred-dollar bills.

“I hate Fidel Castro just as much as any Cuban patriot. Ask Mr. Banister or your friend Laurent Guery about me. I’ll pay you out of my own pocket until our backers come through, and if we succeed and get Castro, I’ll guarantee you large bonuses.”

The cash hypnotized them. Kemper went in for the close.

He slipped a hundred to Flash and a hundred to Juan. One to Flash, one to Juan, one to Flash-

Canestel squeezed his hand shut. “We believe you.”

Kemper snagged a bottle out of the truck. Flash beat mambo time on the back fender.

A Klansman yelled, “Save some for us white men!”

Kemper took a drink. Flash took a drink. Juan chug-a-lugged half the bottle.

o o o

The cocktail hour segued into get-acquainted time.

Kemper bought Flash and Juan some clothes. They moved their gear out of Lockhart’s shack.

Kemper called his broker in New York. He said, Sell some stock and send me five thousand dollars.

The man said, Why? Kemper said, I’m hiring some underlings.

Flash and Juan needed lodging. Kemper braced his friendly desk clerk and asked him to revise his WHITES ONLY policy.

The man agreed. Flash and Juan moved into the Seminole Motel.

Kemper called Pete in New Orleans. He said, Let’s arrange a Whack Fidel audition.

They brainstormed.

Kemper set the budget at fifty grand per shooter and two hundred grand for general overhead. Pete suggested severance pay- ten Gs for each rejected shooter.

Kemper agreed. Pete said, Let’s dq the gig at Blessington. Santo can put Sam G. and Johnny up at the Breakers Motel.

Kemper agreed. Pete said, We need a spic fall guy-non-CIA! non-Cadre-connected. Kemper said, We’ll find one.

Pete said, My boys are braver than your boys.

Kemper said, No, they’re not.

Flash and Juan felt like drinking. Kemper took them to the Sky… line Lounge.

The bartender said, They ain’t white. Kemper slipped him twenty dollars. The bartender said, They are now.

Kemper drank martinis. Juan drank I.W. Harper. Flash drank Myers’s rum and Coke.

Flash spoke Spanish. Juan translated. Kemper learned the rudiments of slave prostitution.

Flash kidnapped the girls. Laurent Guery got them hooked on Algerian horse. Juan broke the virgins in and tried to perv them into digging random sex.

Kemper listened. The ugly things drifted away, compartmentalized and non-applicable.

Juan said he missed his balls. He could still get hard and fuck, but he missed the total shoot-your-load experience.

Flash raged against Fidel. Kemper thought: I don’t hate the man at all.

o o o

The six wore starched fatigues and camouflage lampblack. It was Pete’s idea: Let’s turn our shooter candidates out scary.

Nйstor built a range behind the Breakers parking lot. Kemper called it a jerry-rig masterpiece.

It featured pulley-mounted targets and chairs scrounged from a demolished cocktail hut. The audition weaponry was CIA-prime: M-1s, assorted pistols, and scope-fitted.30.06s.

Teo Paez fashioned straw-stuffed Castro targets. They were lifesize and realistic-replete with beards and cigars.

Laurent Guery crashed the party. Teo said he blew France rбpidamente. Nйstor said he’d tried to clip Charles de Gaulle.

The judges sat under an awning. S. Trafficante, J. Rosselli and S. Giancana-curled up with highballs and binoculars.

Pete played armorer. Kemper played MC.

“We’ve got six men for you gentlemen to choose from. You’ll be funding this operation, and I know you’ll want last say as to who goes in. Pete and I are proposing three-man teams, with Nйstor Chasco, who you already know, as the third man in all cases. Before we start, I want to stress that these men are loyal, fearless and fully comprehend the risks involved. If captured, they will commit suicide rather than reveal who set up this operation.”

Giancana tapped his watch. “I’m running late. Can we get this show on the road?”

Trafficante tapped his. “Move it, would you, Kemper? I’m due back in Tampa.”

Kemper nodded. Pete cranked Fidel #1 fifty feet out. The men loaded their revolvers and assumed the two-handed combat stance.

Pete said, “Fire.”

Chino Cromajor blew Castro’s hat off. Rafael Hernбndez-Brown de-cigared him. Cйsar Ramos severed both his ears.

The reverberations faded. Kemper gauged reactions.

Santo looked bored. Sam looked restless. Johnny looked mildly nonplussed.

Juanita Chacon aimed crotch-high and fired. Fidel #1 lost his manhood.

Flash and Juan fired twice. Fidel lost his arms and his legs.

Laurent Guйry clapped. Giancana checked his watch.

Pete cranked Fidel #2 a hundred yards out. The shooters raised their obsolete M-1s.

The judges held up their binoculars. Pete said, “Fire.”

Cromajor shot Castro’s eyes out. Hernбndez-Brown lopped off his thumbs.

Ramos nailed his cigar. Juanita castrated him.

Flash blew his legs off at the knees. Juan slammed a cardiac bullseye.

Pete yelled, “Cease fire!” The shooters lowered their weapons and lined up at parade rest.

Giancana said, “It’s impressive, but we can’t go off half-cocked on something this big.”

Trafficante said, “I have to agree with Mo.”

Rosselli said, “You need to give us some time to think about it.”

Kemper felt queasy. His speedball rush turned ugly.

Pete was trembling.