American tabloid

75

Pete rubbed his neck. It was all kinked and knotted-he flew out in a coach seat made for midgets.

“I jump when you say ‘jump,’ Jimmy, but coast-to-coast for coffee and pastry is pushing it.”

“I think L.A.’s the place to set this up.”

“Set what up?”

Hoffa dabbed eclair cream off his necktie. “You’ll see soon enough.”

Pete heard noise in the kitchen. “Who’s that poking around?”

“It’s Ward Littell. Sit down, Pete. You’re’ making me nervous.”

Pete dropped his garment bag. The house stunk of cigars- Hoffa let visiting Teamsters use it for stag nights.

“Littell, shit. This is grief I don’t need.”

“Come on. Ancient history’s ancient history.”

Recent history: your lawyer stole your Fund books-

Littell walked in. Hoffa put his hands up, peacemaker-style. “Be nice, you guys. I wouldn’t put the two of you in the same room unless it was good.”

Pete rubbed his eyes. “I’m a busy guy, and I flew overnight for this little breakfast klatch. Give me one good reason why I should take on additional fucking work, or I’m heading back to the airport.”

Hoffa said, “Tell him, Ward.”

Littell warmed his hands on a coffee cup. “Bobby Kennedy’s coming down unacceptably hard on Jimmy. We want to work up a derogatory tape profile on Jack and use it as a wedge to get him to call off Bobby. if I hadn’t interfered, the Shoftel operation might have worked. I think we should do it again, and I think we should recruit a woman that Jack would find interesting enough to sustain an affair with.”

Pete rolled his eyes. “You want to shake down the President of the United States?”

“Yes.”

“You, me and Jimmy?”

“You, me, Fred Turentine and the woman we bring in.”

“And you’re going at this like you think we can trust each other.”

Littell smiled. “We both hate Jack Kennedy. And I think we’ve got enough dirt on each other to buttress a non-aggression pact.”

Pete popped some prickly little goose bumps. “We can’t tell Kemper about this. He’d rat us in a second.”

“I agree. Kemper has to stay out of the loop on this one.”

Hoffa belched. “I’m watching you two humps stare at each other, and I’m starting to feel like I’m out of the fucking loop, even though I’m financing the fucking loop.”

Littell said, “Lenny Sands.”

Hoffa sprayed eclair crumbs. “What the fuck does Jewboy Lenny have to do with fucking anything?”

Pete looked at Littell. Littell looked at Pete. Their brainwaves meshed somewhere over the pastry tray.

Hoffa looked dead flummoxed. His eyes went out of focus somewhere near the planet Mars. Pete steered Littell to the kitchen and shut the door.

“You’re thinking Lenny’s this big Hollywood insider. You’re thinking he might know some women we could use as bait.”

“Right. And if he doesn’t come through, at least we’re here in Los Angeles.”

“Which is the best place on earth to find shakedown-type women.”

Littell sipped coffee. “Right. And Lenny was my informant once.’ I’ve got a hold on him, and if he doesn’t cooperate, I’ll squeeze him with it.”

Pete cracked some knuckles. “He’s a homo. He shanked this made guy in an alley behind some fruit bar.”

“Lenny told you that?”

“Don’t look so hurt. People have this tendency to tell me things they don’t want to.”

Littell dumped his cup in the sink. Hoffa paced outside the door.

Pete said, “Lenny knows Kemper. And I think he’s tight with that Hughes woman that Kemper had a thing with.”

“Lenny’s safe. If worse comes to worse, we can squeeze him with the Tony Iannone job.”

Pete rubbed his neck. “Who else knows we’re planning this?”

“Nobody. Why?”

“I was wondering if it was common knowledge all over the Outfit.”

Littell shook his head. “You, me and Jimmy. That’s the loop.”

Pete said, “Let’s keep it that way. Lenny’s tight with Sam G., and Sam’s been known to go apeshit when people get rough with him.”

Littell leaned against the stove. “Agreed. And I won’t tell Carlos, and you won’t tell Trafficante and those other Outfit guys you and Kemper deal with. Let’s keep this contained.”

“Agreed. A few of those guys hung me and Kemper out to dry on something a couple of weeks ago, so I’m not prone to tell them much of anything.”

Littell shrugged. “They’ll find out in the end, and they’ll be pleased with the results we get. Bobby’s been riding them, too, and I think we can safely say that Giancana will find whatever we had to do to Lenny justified.”

Pete said, “I like Lenny.”

Littell said, “So do I, but business is business.”

Pete traced dollar signs on the stove. “What kind of money are we talking about?”

Littell said, “Twenty-five thousand a month, with your expenses and Freddy Turentine’s fee worked in. I know you’ll need to travel for your CIA job, and that’s fine with both Jimmy and me. I’ve done wire jobs for the Bureau myself, and I think that between you, me and Turentine, we’ll be able to cover all our bases.”

Hoffa banged on the door. “Why don’t you guys come out here and talk to me? This tкte-a-tкte shit is wearing me thin!”

Pete steered Littell back to the laundry room. “It sounds good. We find a woman, wire a few pads and luck Jack Kennedy where it hurts.”

Littell pulled his arm free. “We need to check Lenny’s Hush-Hush reports. We might get a lead on a woman that way.”

“I’ll do it. I might be able to get a look at the reports Howard Hughes keeps at his office.”

“Do it today. I’ll be staying at the Ambassador until we get things set up.”

The door shook-Jimmy had his tits in a twist.

Littell said, “I want to bring Mr. Hoover in on this.”

“Are you insane?”

Littell smiled, kiss-my-ass condescending. “He hates the Kennedys like you and I do. I want to re-establish contact, leak a few tapes to him and have him in my corner as a wedge to help out Jimmy and Carlos.”

Not so insane-

“You know he’s a voyeur, Pete. Do you know what he’d give to have the President of the United States fucking on tape?”

Hoffa barged into the kitchen. His shirt was dotted with doughnut sprinides-every color of the rainbow.

Pete winked. “I’m starting not to hate you so much, Ward.”

o o o

Hughes’ business office was marked RESTRICTED ACCESS now. Mormon goons flanked the door and checked IDs with some weird scanner gizmo.

Pete dawdled by the parking lot gate. The guard chewed his ear off.

“Us non-Mormons call this place Castle Dracula. Mr. Hughes we call the Count, and we call Duane Spurgeon-he’s the head Mormon-Frankenstein, ‘cause he’s dying of cancer and looks like he’s dead already. I remember when this building wasn’t full of religious crackpots, and Mr. Hughes came in in person, and he didn’t have this big germ phobia and these crazy plans to buy up Las Vegas, and he didn’t get blood transfusions like Bela Lugosi-”

“Larry-”

“-and he actually talked to people, you know? Now the only people he talks to besides the Mormons are Mr. J. Edgar Hoover himself and Lenny the Hush-Hush guy. You know why I’m talking so much? Because I work the gate all day and pick up scuttlebutt, and the only non-Mormon people I see are the Filipino janitor and this Jap switchboard girl. Mr. Hughes can still wheel and deal, though, I got to say that. I heard he’s pushed the TWA divestment price way up, so when he gets the gelt he can funnel it straight into some account he’s holding, like some kind of zillion-dollar ‘buy up Vegas’ fund…”

Larry ran out of breath. Pete whipped out a hundred-dollar bill.

“They keep Lenny’s stringer reports in the file room, right?”

“Right.”

“There’s nine more of these if you get me in there.”

Larry shook his head. “That’s impossible, Pete. We got virtually an all-Mormon staff here. Some of the guys are Mormon and ex-FBI, and Mr. J. Edgar Hoover himself helped pick them.”

Pete said, “Lenny’s in L.A. lull-time now, right?”

“Right. He gave up his place in Chicago. I heard he’s writing Hush-Hush as some kind of restricted mimeo sheet.”

Pete forked over the hundred. “Look up his address for me.”

Larry checked his Rolodex and plucked a card. “It’s 831 North Kilkea, which isn’t that far from here.”

A hospital van pulled up. Pete said, “What’s that?”

Larry whispered. “Fresh blood for the Count. Certified Mormon-pure.”

o o o

The new gig felt good, but strictly second-string. The main gig should be WHACK FIDEL.

Santo and Company quashed it. They acted bored, like the Cause meant jackshit.