American tabloid

40

Jack Ruby said, “I am desperate. That well-known indigent Sal D. owed me a bundle when he died, and the IRS is climbing up my you-know-what for back payments I ain’t got. I’m overextended on my club, Sam already turned me down, and you know I am a great friend to the Cuban Cause. A pal and me brought strippers down to entertain the boys in Blessington, which was strictly voluntary on my part and has nothing to do with the request I just made.”

Santo Junior sat at his desk. Ruby stood in front of it. Three fat German shepherds drooped off the couch.

Pete watched Ruby grovel. The office stunk: Santo gave his dogs free run of the furniture.

Ruby said, “I am desperate. I am here before you like a supplicant before his local pontiff.”

Trafficante said, “No. You brought some girls down when I was locked up in Havana, but that is not ten grand’s worth of collateral. I can let you have a thousand out of my pocket, but that’s it.”

Ruby stuck his hand out. Santo greased him with C-notes off a flash roll. Pete got up and opened the door.

Ruby walked out fondling the money. Santo spritzed cologne on the spot where he stood groveling.

“That man is rumored to have strange sexual tastes. He could give you diseases that would put cancer to shame. Now, tell me some good things, because I don’t like to start my day with beggars.”

Pete said, “Profits went up 2% in December and January. I think Wilfredo Delsol’s okay on his cousin, and I don’t think he’d ever rat off the Cadre. Nobody’s stealing from us, and I think the Obregуn thing put a good little scare out.”

“Somebody’s fucking up, or you wouldn’t’ve asked to see me.”

“Fulo’s been running whores. He’s got them turning tricks for five-dollar pops and candy bars. He’s turning over all the money, but I still think it’s bad business.”

Trafficante said, “Make him stop.”

Pete sat on the edge of the couch. King Tut put out a cursory growl.

“Lockhart and his Klan buddies built a social club down the road from the campsite, and now they’re tallcing about lynching spooks. On top of that, Lockhart’s pals with that Dallas cop guy J.D. that drove down here with Ruby. Chuck Rogers wants to take J.D. up in his plane and drop some hate leaflets. He’s talking about saturation-bombing South Florida.”

Trafficante slapped his desk blotter. “Make this foolishness stop.”

“I will.”

“You didn’t have to run this by me.”

“Kemper thinks all discipline should initiate with you. He wants the men to think we’re labor as opposed to management.”

“Kemper’s a subtle guy.”

Pete stroked King Farouk and King Arthur. Fucking King Tut evileyed him.

“He’s every bit of subtle.”

“Castro turned my casinos into pigsties. He lets goats shit on the carpets my wife picked out personally.”

Pete said, “He’ll pay.”

o o o

He drove back to Miami. The cabstand was packed with loafers: Lockhart, Fulo, and the whole fucking Cadre.

Minus Chuck Rogers-up in his airplane dropping hate bombs.

Pete shut down the stand and laid down The Law. He called it the Declaration of Cadre Non-Independence and the New KKK Bill of Non-Rights.

No pimping. No robbery. No flim-flam. No B amp;E. No extortion. No hijacking.

No lynching. No nigger assaults. No church bombings. No racial shit directed at Cubans.

The Blessington Klan’s specific mandate:

Love all Cubans. Leave them alone. Fuck up anybody who fucks with your new Cuban brethren.

Lockhart called the mandate quasi-genocidal. Pete cracked his knuckles. Lockhart shut his mouth.

The huddle broke up. Jack -Ruby came by and begged a ride- his carburetor blew, and he needed to run his girls down to Blessington.

Pete said okay. The girls wore capris and halter tops-things could be worse.

Ruby rode up front. J.D. Tippit and the strippers rode in the back of the truck. Rain clouds were brewing-if a storm hit, they were screwed.

Pete took two-lane roadways south. He played the radio to keep Ruby quiet. Chuck Rogers flew down from deep nowhere and spun tree-level backflips.

The girls cheered. Chuck dropped a six-pack; J.D. caught it. Hate leaflets blew down-Pete plucked one out of the air.

“Six Reasons Why Jesus Was Pro-Klan.” #1 set the tone: because Commies fluoridated the Red Sea.

Ruby eyeballed the scenery. Tippit and the girls guzzled beer. Chuck blew off his flight pattern and brick-bombed a nigger church.

The radio signal faded. Ruby started whining.

“Santo don’t possess the world’s longest memory. Santo stiffs me with one-tenth of what I asked him for ‘cause his memory’s nine-tenths on the blink. Santo don’t understand the tsuris I went through bringing those ladies down to Havana. Sure the Beard was giving him grief. But he didn’t have no crazy Fed from Chicago leeching onto him.”

Pete snapped to. “What Fed from Chicago?”

“I don’t know his name. I only met him in the flesh once, praise Allah.”

“Describe him.”

“Maybe six foot one, maybe forty-six or -seven years of age. Glasses, thin gray hair, and a boozer in my considered opinion, since the one time I met him face-to-face he had whisky on his breath.”

The road dipped. Pete hit the brakes and almost stalled the truck out.

“Tell me how he leeched onto you.”

“Why? Give me one good reason why I should share this abuse with you.”

“I’ll give you a thousand dollars to tell me the story. If I like the story, I’ll give you four more.”

Ruby counted on his fingers-one to five a half dozen times.

Pete tapped a little tune on the wheel. The beat ran 1-2-3-4-5.

Ruby lip-synched numbers: 1-2-3-4-5, 1-2-3-4-5.

Pete held up five fingers. Ruby counted them out loud.

“Five thousand if you like it?”

“That’s right, Jack. And a thousand if I don’t.”

“I am taking a tremendous risk in telling you this.”

“Then don’t.”

Ruby fretted his Jew-star necklace. Pete splayed five fingers out on the dashboard. Ruby kissed the star and took a bigggg breath.

“Last May this farkakte Fed braces me down in Dallas. He makes every conceivable threat on God’s green earth, and I believe him, ‘cause I know he’s this crazy goyishe zealot with nothing to lose. He knows I’ve sharked in Big D and up in Chicago, and he knows I’ve sent people looking for high-end loans to Sam Giancana. That’s what he’s got this colossal hard one for. He wants to trace the money that gets loaned out from the Teamsters’ Pension Fund.”

It was vintage Littell: bold and stupid.

“He gets me to call him at a pay phone in Chicago once a week. He gives me a few dollars when I tell him I’m running on fumes. He gets me to tell him about this movie guy I know, Sid Kabikoff, who’s interested in seeing this loan shark named Sal D’Onofrio, who’s gonna shoot him up to Momo for a Pension Fund loan. What happened after that I don’t know. But I read in the Chicago papers that both Kabikoff and D’Onofrio have been murdered, so-called ‘torture-style,’ and that both cases are unsolved. I’m not no Einstein, but ‘torture’ in Chicago means Sam G. And I also know that Sam don’t know I was involved, or I’d have been visited. And it don’t take an Einstein to figure out the crazy Fed was at the root of all this pain.”

Littell was working outlaw. Littell was Boyd’s best friend. Lenny Sands worked with Littell and D’Onofrio.

Ruby plucked a dog hair off his lap. “Is that five thousand dollars’ worth of story?” – -

The road blurred. Pete damn near plowed a gator.

“Has the Fed called you since Sal D. and Kabikoff died?”

“No, praise Allah. Now what about my five-?”

“You’ll get it. And I’ll pay you three thousand extra if he calls you again and you get back to me on it. And if you end up helping me out with him, I’ll make it another five.”

Ruby went apoplectic. “Why? Why the fuck do you care to the extent of all this money?”

Pete smiled. “Let’s keep this between the two of us, all right?”

“You want secret, I’ll give you secret. I’m a well-known secret type of guy who knows how to keep his mouth shut.”

Pete pulled his magnum and drove with his knees. Ruby smiled-ho, ho-What’s this?

Pete popped the cylinder, dumped five rounds and spun it.

Ruby smiled-ho, ho-Kid, you’re too much.

Pete shot him in the head. The five-to-one odds held: the hammer hit an empty – chamber.

Ruby went Klan-sheet white.

Pete said, “Ask around. See what people say about me.”

o o o

They hit Blessington at dusk. Ruby and Tippit got their strip show ready.

Pete called Midway Airport and impersonated a police officer. A clerk confirmed Ruby’s story: A Ward J. Littell flew to Dallas and back last May 18. -

He hung up and called the Eden Roc Hotel. The switchboard girl said Kemper Boyd was “out for the day.”

Pete left him a message: “10:00 tonight, the Luau Lounge-urgent.”

o o o

Boyd took it casual. He said, “I know Ward’s been chasing the Fund,” like he was too bored to breathe.

Pete blew smoke rings. Boyd’s tone pissed him off-he drove eighty miles for a display of fucking ennui.

“It doesn’t seem to bother you.”

“I’m a bit overextended on Littell, but other than that, I don’t think it’s anything to be concerned about. Do you feel like divulging your source?”

“No. He doesn’t know Littell’s name, and I’ve got him cowed pretty good.”

A tiki torch lit their table. Boyd flickered in and out of this weird little glow.

“I don’t see how this concerns you, Pete.”

“It concerns Jimmy Hoffa. He’s tied to us on the Cuban thing, and Jimmy is the fucking Pension Fund.”

Boyd drummed the table. “Littell is fixated on the Chicago Mob and the Fund. It doesn’t touch on our Cuban work, and I don’t think we owe Jimmy a warning. And I don’t want you to talk to Lenny Sands about this. He’s not conversant on the topic, and you don’t need to trouble him with it.”

It was vintage Boyd: “need-to-know basis” straight down the line.

“We don’t have to warn Jimmy, but I’ll say this loud and clear. Jimmy hired me to clip Anton Gretzler, and I don’t want Littell to burn me for it. He’s already made me for the job, and he’s just crazy enough to go public with it, Mr. Hoover or no Mr. Hoover.”

Boyd twirled his martini stick. “You clipped Roland Kirpaski, too.”

“No. Jimmy clipped him himself.”

Boyd whistled-trиs, trиs casual.

Pete got up in his face. “You cut Littell too much slack. You make fucking allowances for him that you shouldn’t.”

“We both lost brothers, Pete. Let it go at that.”

The line didn’t compute. Boyd talked on these weird levels sometimes.

Pete leaned back. “Are you watchdogging Littell? How tight a leash are you keeping on him?”

“I haven’t been in touch with him in months. I’ve been distancing myself from him and Mr. Hoover.”

“Why?”

“Just an instinct.”

“Like an instinct for survival?”

“More of a homing instinct. You move away from some people, and you move toward the people of the moment.”

“Like the Kennedys.”

“Yes.”

Pete laughed. “I’ve hardly seen you since Jack hit the trail.”

“You won’t be seeing me at all until after the election. Stanton knows I can’t be dividing my time.”

“He should know. He hired you to get next to the Kennedys.”

“He won’t regret it.”

“I don’t. It means I get to run the Cadre solo.”

“Can you handle it?”

“Can niggers dance?”

“They surely can.”

Pete sipped his beer. It was flat-he forgot he ordered it.

“You said ‘election’ like you think the job’s going through to November.”

“I’m reasonably certain it will. Jack’s ahead in New Hampshire and Wisconsin, and if we get past West Virginia I think he’ll go all the way.”

“Then I hope he’s anti-Castro.”

“He is. He’s not as voluble as Richard Nixon, but then Dick’s a Red-baiter from way back.”

“President Jack. Jesus Christ.”

Boyd signaled a waiter. A fresh martini hit the table quick.

“It’s seduction, Pete. He’ll back the country into a corner with his charm, like it’s a woman. When America sees that it’s a choice between Jack and twitchy old Dick Nixon, who do you think they’ll get between the sheets with?”

Pete raised his beer. “Viva La Causa. Viva Bad-Back Jack.”

They clinked glasses. Boyd said, “He’ll get behind the Cause. And if the invasion goes, we want it to be in his administration.”

Pete lit a cigarette. “I’m not worried about that. Put Littell aside, and there’s only one thing to be worried about.”

“You’re concerned that the Agency at large will find out about our Cadre business.”

“That’s right.”

Boyd said, “I want them to find out. In fact, I’m going to inform them some time before November. It’s inevitable that they will find out, and by the time they do my Kennedy connection will make me too valuable to dismiss. The Cadre will have recruited too many good men and have made too much money, and as far as morality goes, how does selling heroin to Negroes rate when compared to illegally invading an island?”

More vintage Boyd: “self-budgeted,” “autonomous”-

“And don’t worry about Littell. He’s trying to accrue evidence to send to Bobby Kennedy, but I monitor all the information that Bobby sees, and I will not let Littell hurt you at all, or hurt Jimmy for the Kirpaski killing or anything else related to you or the Cause. But sooner or later Bobby will take Hoffa down, and I do not want you to meddle in it.”

Pete felt his head swim. “I can’t argue with any of that. But I’ve got a pipeline to Littell now, and if I think your boy needs a scare, I’m going to scare him.”

“And I can’t argue with that. You can do whatever you have to do, as long as you don’t kill him.”

They shook hands. Boyd said, “Les gens que l’on comprend-ce sont eux que l’on domine.”

En francais, Pierre, souviens-toi:

Those we understand are those we control.