American tabloid

10

Freddy left a note under the wiper blades:

“I’m getting some lunch. Wait for me.”

Pete climbed in the back of the van. Freddy had a cooling system rigged: a fan aimed at a big bowl of ice cubes.

Tape spun. Lights flashed. Graph needles twitched. The place was like the cockpit of a low-rent spaceship.

Pete cracked a side window for some air. A Fed type walked by-probably listening-post personnel.

Air blew in-Santa Ana hot.

Pete dropped an ice cube down his pants and laughed falsetto. He sounded just like SA Ward J. Littell.

Littell squeaked his warning. Littell smelled like stale booze and sweat. Littell had jackshit for evidence.

He could have told him:

I whacked Anton Gretzler, but Hoffa killed Kirpaski. I stuffed shotgun shells in his mouth and glued his lips shut. We torched Roland and his car at a refuse dump. Double-aught buckshot blew his head up-you’ll never get a dental-work ID.

Littell doesn’t know that Jack’s big mouth killed Roland Kirpaski. The listening-post Fed might be sending him tapes-but Littell hasn’t put the scenario together.

Freddy climbed in the van. He adjusted some graph gizmo and spritzed grief straight off.

“That Fed that just walked by keeps checking out the van. I’m parked here at all fucking hours, and all he needs to do is sweep me with a fucking Geiger counter to figure out I’m doing the same fucking thing he is. I can’t park around the fucking block ‘cause I’ll lose the fucking signal. I need a fucking house around here to work from, ‘cause then I can set up some equipment that’s fucking powerful enough to pick up from the Shoftel babe’s pad, but that fucking Fed bagged the last fucking For Rent sign in the fucking neighborhood, and the fucking two hundred a day you and Jimmy are paying me ain’t enough to make up for the fucking risks I’m taking.”

Pete snagged an ice cube and squeezed it into shards. “Are you finished?”

“No. I’ve also got a fucking boil on my fucking ass from sleeping on the fucking floor here.”

Pete popped a few knuckles. “Wrap it up.”

“I need some good money. I need it for fucking hazardous-duty pay, and to upgrade this operation with. Get me some good money and I’ll kick a nice piece of it back to you.”

“I’ll talk to Mr. Hughes and see what I can do.”

o o o

Howard Hughes got his dope from a nigger drag queen named Peaches. Pete found the drop pad cleaned out-the queen next door said Peaches went up on a sodomy bounce.

Pete improvised.

He drove to a supermarket, bought a box of Rice Krispies and pinned the toy badge inside to his shirt front. He called Karen Hiltscher at R amp;I and glommed some prime information: the fry cook at Scrivner’s Drive-In sold goofballs and might be extortable. She described him: white, skinny, acne scars and Nazi tattoos.

Pete drove to Scrivner’s. The kitchen door was open; the geek was at the deep fryer, dipping spuds.

The geek saw him.

The geek said, “That badge is a fake.”

The geek looked at the freezer-a sure sign that he stored his shit there.

Pete said, “How do you want to do this?”

The geek pulled a knife. Pete kicked him in the balls and deepfried his knife hand. Six seconds only-pill heists didn’t rate total mayhem.

The geek screamed. Street noise leveled out the sound. Pete shoved a sandwich in his mouth to muzzle him.

His dope stash was in the freezer next to the ice cream.

o o o

The hotel manager gave Mr. Hughes a Christmas tree. It was fully flocked and decorated-a bellboy left it outside the bungalow.

Pete carried it into the bedroom and plugged it in. Sparkly lights blinked and twinkled.

Hughes blipped off a Webster Webfoot cartoon. “What is this? And why are you carrying a tape recorder?”

Pete dug through his pockets and tossed pill vials under the tree. “Ho, ho, fucking ho. It’s Christmas ten days early. Codeine and Dilaudid, ho, ho.”

Hughes scrunched himself up on his pillows. “Well… I’m delighted. But aren’t you supposed to be auditioning stringers for Hush-Hush?”

Pete yanked the tree cord and plugged in the tape rig. “Do you still hate Senator John F. Kennedy, Boss?”

“I certainly do. His father screwed me on business deals going back to 1927.”

Pete brushed pine needles off his shirt. “I think we’ve got the means to juke him pretty good in Hush-Hush, if you’ve got the money to keep a certain operation going.”

“I’ve got the money to buy the North American continent, and if you don’t quit leading me on I’ll put you on a slow boat to the Belgian Congo!”

Pete pressed the Play button. Senator Jack and Darleen Shoftel boned and groaned. Howard Hughes clutched his bedsheets, dead ecstatic.

The fuck crescendoed and diminuendoed. Jack K. said, “My goddamn back gave out.”

Darleen said, “It was goooood. Short and sweet’s the best.”

Pete pressed Stop. Howard Hughes twitched and trembled.

“We can have Hush-Hush print this up if we’re careful, Boss. But we’ve got to watch the wording real close.”

“Where… did… you… get that?”

“The girl’s a prostitute. The FBI had her place wired, and Freddy Turentine hooked up on top of it. So we can’t print anything that would tip the Feds off. We can’t print anything that only could have come from the bug.”

Hughes plucked at his sheets. “Yes, I’ll finance your ‘operation.’ Have Gail Hendee write the story up-something like ‘Priapic Senator Dallies with Hollywood Playgirl.’ We’ve got an issue coming out the day after tomorrow, so if Gail writes it today and gets it to the office by this evening, it can make that next issue. Have Gail write it today. The Kennedy family will ignore it, but the legitimate newspapers and wire services might come to us asking for details to enlarge the story, which of course we will give them.”

Big Howard beamed kid-at-Christmas-like. Pete plugged his tree back in.

o o o

Gail needed convincing. Pete sat her down on the watchdog-house veranda and laid out a line of sweet talk.

“Kennedy’s a geek. He had you meet him on his goddamned honeymoon. He dropped you two weeks later, and kissed you off with a goddamn mink coat.”

Gail smiled. “He was nice, though. He never said, ‘Honey, let’s get a divorce racket going.’”

“When your old man’s worth a hundred million dollars, you don’t have to do things like that.”

Gail sighed. “You win, like always. And you know why I haven’t been wearing that mink lately?”

“No.”

“I gave it to Mrs. Walter P. Kinnard. You took a big cut of her alimony, and I figured she could use some cheering up.”

o o o

Twenty-four hours zipped by.

Hughes kicked loose thirty grand. Pete pocketed fifteen. If the Hush-Hush smear exposed the bug, he’d be covered financially.

Freddy bought a long-range transceiver and started looking for a house.

That Fed kept eyeballing his van. Jack K. didn’t call or drop by. Freddy figured Darleen was only worth one poke.

Pete stuck by the watchdog-house phone. Geeks kept interrupting his daydreams.

Two Hush-Hush stringer prospects called: ex-vice cops hipped on Hollywood lowdown. They flunked his impromptu pop quiz: Who’s Ava Gardner fucking?

He made some calls out-and planted a new Hughes double at the Beverly Hilton. Karen Hiltscher recommended the man: her scabby wino father-in-law. Pops said he’d work for three hots and a cot. Pete booked the Presidential Suite and placed a standing room-service order: T-bird and cheeseburgers for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Jimmy Hoffa called. He said, The Hush-Hush thing sounds good, but I want MORE! Pete neglected to share his basic opinion: Jack and Darleen were just a two-minute mattress ride.

He kept thinking about Miami. The cabstand, colorful spics, tropical sunshine.

Miami felt like adventure. Miami felt like money.

o o o

He woke up early publication morning. Gail was gone-she’d taken to avoiding him with aimless drives to the beach.

Pete walked outside. His first-press-run copy was stuffed in the mailbox, per instructions.

Dig the cover lines: “Tomcat Senator Likes Catnip! Ask Nipped-At L.A. Kittens!” Dig the illustration: John Kennedy’s face on a cartoon cat’s body, the tail wrapped around a blonde in a bikini.

He flipped to the piece. Gail used the pen name Peerless Politicopundit.

U.S. Senate cloakroom wags say he’s far from being the most dedicatedly demonic Democrat dallier. No, Senator L.B. (Lover Boy?) Johnson probably tops political polls in that department, with Florida’s George F ‘Pass the Smackeroos’ Smathers coming in second. No, Senator John F. Kennedy is rather a tenuously tumescent tomcat, with a tantalizingly trenchant taste for those finely-furred and felicitous felines who find him fantastically fetching themselves!

Pete skimmed the rest. Gail played it half-assed-the smear wasn’t vicious enough. Jack Kennedy ogled women and “bewitched, bothered and bewildered” them with “baubles, bangles, beads” and “brilliant Boston beatitudes.” No heavy-duty skank; no implied fucking; no snide jabs at Two-Minute-Man Jack.

Perk, perk, perk-his all-star feelers started twitching-

Pete drove downtown and cruised by the Hush-Hush warehouse. Things looked absolutely first-glance SOP.

Men were wheeling bound stacks out on dollies. Men were loading pallets. A line of newsstand trucks were backed up to the dock.

SOP, but:

Two unmarked prowl cars were parked down the street. That ice cream wagon idling by looked dicey-the driver was talking into a hand mike.

Pete circled the block. The fuzz multiplied: four unmarkeds at the curb and two black amp; whites around the corner.

He circled again. The shit hit the fan and sprayed out in all directions.

Four units were jammed up to the loading dock-running full lights and siren.

Plainclothesmen piled out. A bluesuit cordon hit the warehouse with cargo hooks.

An LAPD van blocked the distribution trucks off. Swampers dropped their loads and threw their hands up.

It was fucking scandal-rag chaos. It was fucking skank-sheet Armageddon-

o o o

Pete drove to the Beverly Hills Hotel. A Big Ugly Picture formed: somebody ratted off the Kennedy issue.

He parked and ran by the pooi. He saw a big crowd outside the Hughes bungalow.

They were peeping in Big Howard’s bedroom window. They looked like fucking ghouls at an accident scene.

He ran up and pushed to the front. Billy Eckstine nudged him. “Hey, check this out.”

The window was open. Two men were jacking up Mr. Hughes-double-teaming him with Big Verbal Grief.

Robert Kennedy and Joseph P. Kennedy Sr.

Hughes was swaddled in bed quilts. Bobby was waving a hypo. Old Joe was raging.

“…You’re a pathetic lecher and a narcotics addict. I am two seconds away from exposing you to the whole wide world, and if you think I’m bluffing please note that I opened the window to let your hotel neighbors have a sneak preview of what the whole world will know if you ever allow your filthy scandal rag to write another word about my family.”

Hughes cringed. His head banged the wall and sent a picture frame toppling.

Some all-star voyeurs dug the show: Billy, Mickey Cohen, some faggot Mouseketeer sporting a jumbo mouse-ear beanie.

Howard Hughes whimpered. Howard Hughes said, “Please don’t hurt me.”

o o o

Pete drove to the Shoftel pad. The Big Ugly Picture expanded: either Gail snitched or the Feds exposed the piggyback.

He pulled up behind Freddy’s van. Freddy was down on his knees in the street-cuffed to the front-bumper housing.

Pete ran over. Freddy yanked at his shackle chain and tried to stand up.

He’d scraped his wrist bloody. He’d ripped his knees raw crawling on the pavement.

Pete knelt down in front of him. “What happened? Quit grabbing at that and look at me.”

Freddy did some wrist contortions. Pete slapped him. Freddy snapped to and focused in half-alert.

He said, ‘The listening-post guy sent his transcripts to some Fed in Chicago and told him he was hinked on my van. Pete, this thing plays wrong to me. There’s just one FBI guy working single-o, like he went off half-cocked or some-”

Pete ran across the lawn and bolted the porch. Darleen Shoftel ducked out of his way, snapped a high heel and fell on her ass.

The Big and Ugly Final Picture:

Spackle-coated mikes on the floor. Two tap-gutted phones belly-up on an end table.

And SA Ward J. Littell, standing there in an off-the-rack blue suit.

It was a stalemate. You don’t whack FBI men impromptu.

Pete walked up to him. He said, “This is a bullshit roust, or you wouldn’t be here alone.”

Littell just stood there. His glasses slipped down his nose.

“You keep flying out here to bother me. Next time’s the last time.”

Littell said, “I’ve put it together.” The words came out all quivery.

“I’m listening.”

“Kemper Boyd told me he had an errand at the Beverly Hills Hotel. He talked to you there, and you got suspicious and tailed him. You saw us black-bag this place and got your friend to put in auxiliary wires. Senator Kennedy told Miss Shoftel about Roland Kirpaski testifying, and you heard it and talked Jimmy Hoffa into giving you the contract.”

Booze guts. This skinny stringbean cop with 8:00 a.m. liquor breath.

“You’ve got no proof, and Mr. Hoover doesn’t care.”

“You’re right. I can’t arrest you and Turentine.”

Pete smiled. “I’ll bet Mr. Hoover liked the tapes. I’ll bet he won’t be too pleased that you blew this operation.”

Littell slapped his face. Littell said, “That’s for the blood on John Kennedy’s hands.”

The slap was weak. Most women slapped harder.

o o o

He knew she’d leave a note. He found it on their bed, next to her house keys.

I know you figured out I soft-soaped the article. When the editor didn’t question it I realized it wasn’t enough and called Bob Kennedy. He said he would probably be able to pull strings and get the issue pulled. Jack is sort of callous in some ways, but he doesn’t deserve what you planned. I don’t want to be with you any more. Please don’t try to find me.

She left the clothes he bought her. Pete dumped them out in the street and watched cars drive over them.