American tabloid

44

The work was driving Littell schizophrenic. He had to satisfy the Bureau and his conscience.

Chick Leahy hated Mal Chamales. HUAC had linked Mal to sixteen Commie front groups. Leaky’s FBI mentor was former Chicago SAC Guy Banister.

Banister hated Mal. Mal’s Red Squad sheet was eighty pages long.

He liked Mal. They had coffee every so often. Mal spent ‘46 to ‘48 in Lewisburg-Banister built up a sedition profile and talked the U.S. Attorney into an indictment.

Leaky called him this morning. He said, “I want lockstep surveillance on Mal Chamales, Ward. I want you to go to every meeting he goes to and catch him making inflammatory remarks that we can use.”

Littell called Chamales and warned him. Mal said, “I’m addressing an SLP group this afternoon. Let’s just pretend we don’t know each other.” -

Littell mixed a rye and soda. It was 5:40-he had time to work before the national news.

He padded his report with useless details. He omitted Mal’s anti-Bureau tirade. He closed with noncommital remarks.

“The subject’s Socialist Labor Party speech was tepid and filled with nebulous cliches of a decidedly leftist, but non-seditious nature. His comments during the question and answer period were not inflammatory or in any way provocative.”

Mal called Mr. Hoover “a limp-wristed Fascist in jackboots and lavender lederhosen.” An inflammatory statement?-hardly.

Littell turned on the TV. John Kennedy filled the screen-he just won the West Virginia primary.

The doorbell rang. Littell hit the entry buzzer and got out some money for the A amp;P kid.

Lenny Sands walked in. His face was scabbed, bruised and sutured. A bandaged splint held his nose in place.

Lenny swayed. Lenny smirked. Lenny twirled his fingers at the TV-”Hello, Jack, you gorgeous slice of Irish roast lamb!”

Littell stood up. Lenny weaved into a bookcase and stiff-armed himself steady.

“Ward, you look marvelous! Those frayed slacks from J.C. Penney’s and that cheap white shirt are so YOU!”

Kennedy was addressing civil rights. Littell hit the off switch in mid-discourse.

Lenny waved goodbye. “Ta, Jack, my brother-in-law in the best of all possible worlds if I liked girls and you had the profile in courage to acknowledge my dear friend Laura that that gorgeously cruel Mr. Boyd drove out of my life.”

Littell moved toward him. “Lenny…”

“Don’t you fucking come any closer or try to touch me or try to assuage your pathetic guilt or in any way mess with my gorgeous Percodan high or I won’t spill my lead on the Teamster Pension Fund books that I’ve had all along, you sad excuse for a policeman.”

Littell stiff-armed a chair. His fingers ripped through the fabric. He started weaving on his feet just like Lenny.

The bookcase shimmied. Lenny was weaving on his heels- doped up and punch-drunk.

“Jules Schiffrin keeps the books someplace in Lake Geneva. He’s got an estate there, and he’s got the books in safes or in safedeposit boxes at some banks around there. I know because I played a gig there and I heard Jules and Johnny Rosselli talking. Don’t ask for details because I don’t have any and concentrating makes my head hurt.”

His arm slid. The chair slid behind it. Littell stumbled up against the TV console.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because you’re a tiny smidgen better than Mr. Beast and Mr. Boyd and in my opinion Mr. Boyd only wants the information for its profit potential, and besides I took a beating for doing some work for Mr. Sam-”

“Lenny-”

“-and Mr. Sam said he’d make a powerful man crawl for it, but I said please don’t do that-”

“Lenny-”

“-and Jules Schiffrin was with him, and they were talking about somebody called ‘Irish Joe’ back in the ‘20s, and how they made these movie extra girls crawl-”

“Lenny, come on-”

“-and it all felt so ugly that I popped a few more Percs, and here I am, and if I’m lucky I won’t remember all this in the morning.”

Littell stepped closer. Lenny slapped and scratched and flailed and kicked him away.

The bookcase fell. Lenny tripped and weaved out the door.

Law texts hit the floor. A framed photograph of Helen Agee shattered.

o o o

Littell drove to Lake Geneva. He arrived at midnight and checked in at a motel off the Interstate. He paid cash in advance and registered under a fake name.

The phone book in his room listed Jules Schiffrin. His address was marked “Rural Free Delivery.” Littell checked a local map and pegged it: a woodland estate near the lake.

He drove out and parked off the road. Binoculars got him in close.

He saw a stonework mansion on a minimum of ten acres. Trees enclosed the property. There were no walls or fences.

No floodlamps. Two hundred yards from the door to the roadway. Alarm tape bracketing the front windows.

No guard hut and no gate. The Wisconsin State Police probably kept watch on an informal basis.

Lenny said “safes or safe-deposit boxes.” Lenny said “Mr. Boyd”/”information”/”profit potential.”

Lenny was drugged up but lucid. His Mr. Boyd line was easy to decode.

Kemper was chasing Fund leads independently.

Littell drove back to his motel. He checked the Yellow Pages and found listings for nine local banks.

Discreet behavior would cloak his lack of sanction. Kemper Boyd always stressed boldness and discretion.

Kemper shook down Lenny on his own. The revelation didn’t shock him at all.

o o o

He slept until 10:00. He checked a map and saw that the banks were all within walking distance.

The first four managers cooperated. Their replies were direct: Mr. Schiffrin does not rent with us. The next two managers shook their heads. Their replies were direct: Our facilities do not include safe-deposit boxes.

Manager number seven asked to see a bank writ. It was no great loss: the name Schiffrin sailed past him, unrecognized.

Banks number eight and nine: no safe-deposit boxes on the premises.

There were several major cities nearby. There were two dozen small towns spread out in a hundred-mile radius. Safe-deposit box access was a pipe dream.

“Safes” meant on-site placement. Safe-alarm companies retained placement diagrams-and did not release them without suit for legal cause.

Lenny played an on-site engagement. He might have seen the safe or safes firsthand.

Lenny was too combustible to approach now.

But-

Jack Ruby was a probable Schiffrin acquaintance. Jack Ruby was bribable and acquiescent.

Littell found a pay phone. A long-distance operator patched him through to Dallas.

Ruby picked up on the third ring. “This is the Carousel Club, where your entertainment dollar goes-”

“It’s me, Jack. Your friend from Chicago.”

“Fuck… this is grief I don’t…”

He sounded flummoxed, flabbergasted and dyspeptically peeved.

“How well do you know Jules Schiffrin, Jack?”

“Casual. I know Jules casual at best. Why? Why? Why?”

“I want you to fly up to Wisconsin and drop by his place in Lake Geneva on some pretext. I need to know the interior layout of his house, and I’ll give you my life savings if you do it.”

“Fuck. You are grief I don’t-”

“Four thousand dollars, Jack.”

“Fuck. You are grief I don’t-”

Dog yaps cut Ruby off.