Ask Not

Chapter 15

On Monday morning, back in Chicago, when I rolled into the A-1’s suite of offices around ten A.M., everyone was happy to see me, or at least pretended to be — I was, after all, the boss. Millie asked me how Dallas was and I told her great, and that I’d gotten her John Wayne’s autograph, but she merely informed me that John Wayne didn’t live in Texas. She was learning. Gladys dug down deep and found a smile for me and said she was pleased to have me back, and I chose to believe her, though mostly she just wanted to remind me about the eleven A.M. staff meeting, as if we hadn’t been doing that for decades.

I took my office manager up on her standard offer of coffee, and I was drinking it at my desk when Lou Sapperstein knocked shave-and-a-haircut, then leaned in without waiting for a response. His eyebrows were climbing his endless forehead, the dark eyes glittering behind the wire-frame bifocals.

I waved him in, and this big man in his seventies settled his still-brawny frame into the black leather client’s chair, his own cup of coffee in hand. He wore a pink button-down shirt, red necktie with matching suspenders, and navy-blue slacks, proof that Pop Art was injecting way too much color into the world.

He asked, “How about filling me in on your summer vacation?”

“It’s September, Lou.”

“Your skills of observation remain keenly honed. What the hell happened down on the Panhandle?”

“Dallas isn’t in the Panhandle.”

“Too bad, because it’s one of the few Texas terms I know. What gives?”

After our client, Mrs. Joseph Plett, had her double-indemnity claim belatedly honored, I’d been scheduled to come right back. All Lou knew was that I’d decided to extend my stay in Big D, having run into Flo Kilgore.

“I was just helping Flo out with a little investigative work,” I said, probably too casually.

“In Dallas,” he said, well aware Flo was an old flame of mine. “Covering a way-off-Broadway play, was she?”

“Not important.”

His jaw tightened. “It’s Kennedy, isn’t it? You took a left turn into that, out of the Billie Sol Estes thing. Or is that a right-wing turn?”

His skills of observation remained keenly honed, too.

“You talked to Bill Queen in the Manhattan office,” I said.

“I did. Also, over recent months, Miss Kilgore has received a lot of attention for her columns on the assassination. Thanks to her celebrity, she’s the most credible of those conspiracy kooks.”

“She’s not a kook,” I said, but didn’t add that it was a conspiracy.

“Is getting into that area wise, you think, after what happened?”

“After what happened?”

He sat forward, on the verge of losing a usually kept cool. “After you and your son almost got run down! Tell me you weren’t looking into other loose ends down there that got conveniently clipped off.”

The image of a once-pretty dishwater blonde floated across my mind — Rose Cheramie.

“I don’t keep much from you, Lou, but this time it might be better all around if—”

“Nate,” he said, shifting in his chair, “we just landed a huge insurance paycheck for a client by sniffing at a suspicious suicide tied to a bunch of suspicious suicides in Texas. We still have your friend Mac Wallace under surveillance in Anaheim, and—”

“Keep him that way.”

“How long?”

“Indefinitely. It’s okay, Lou. I get a good rate. I have an in.”

“Nate, it’s just... what are you getting yourself into? What are you getting the agency into?”

I raised a hand in a gesture that was half stop and half peace. “Lou, I have been encouraging Flo to shut down her investigation. She has more than enough to write a hard-hitting piece of journalism that will get her the respect she craves, and maybe make some useful waves.”

“That sounds dangerous.”

“Potentially it is, but it’s also potentially very high profile, and our role in it won’t hurt business one little bit.”

He sighed, nodded, leaned back. “You said you were encouraging her to shut it down, though?”

“Right. I’m meeting her in New Orleans two weeks from today for a few follow-up interviews, and then I promise you I will either convince her to write ‘thirty’ to this thing, or walk away.”

He was shaking his head. “Nate, I’m just an old Pickpocket Detail dick.”

“Right. You’re an old dick. I get that.”

“I feel like I should give you some fatherly advice right now, but you’re a little old for that, and I’ll be damned if I know what it is. What’s in New Orleans, anyway?”

“Besides Carlos Marcello, you mean? Possibly some of the people who killed Kennedy, or who helped kill him.”

“Jesus.” He shook his head again. “Jesus H. Christ. You’re going to get us all killed.”

“No. Honestly, Lou. I’m on top of this. Really.”

“Okay,” he said. He reached over and collected my empty coffee cup, just helping out his wife. “Okay... Uh, listen. It may not mean anything, but Mac Wallace isn’t in California.”

“What?”

“He flew out Saturday morning to Dallas. Does that matter? Your family is in LA, you’re in Chicago, your friend Flo is in New York. Who does that leave in Dallas?”

Fourteen or fifteen witnesses we’d interviewed.

From the doorway, Lou said, “We don’t have anybody in Dallas to watch the guy. There are agencies in those parts we could contact. What do you say?”

“No, I’ll make a call myself. Have one of our LA men determine when Wallace is due back in California and pick him up then.”

“You’re the boss.” He pointed at me and then at himself. “Now, if you get killed, then I’m the boss, right?”

“Right.”

“Okay then,” Lou said.

And he left me there with my apprehensions.

Coming into the office this morning, settling behind my desk in my inner sanctum, had given me a nice feeling of normalcy. As if everything that happened in Texas had been an episode, like a show on TV, and the show was over, the set clicked off.

But one of the witnesses, Rose Cheramie, was dead, just three days after we talked to her. Rose was a junkie and the kind of woman who could get herself killed lots of ways. But had we gotten her killed? Had I?

Clint Peoples wasn’t in, but he called me back after lunch.

“Nate,” the familiar mellow, folksy voice said, “I got some additional information for you, on the Cheramie woman’s death, if you’re interested.”

“That’s one reason I called.”

“Driver in question, a Mr. Jerry Don Moore, from Tyler, was heading home. Comin’ up level with a roadside parking area, he noticed three or four suitcases strewn on the highway, spillin’ over the yellow line. He swerved right, to miss them, and then there in front of him was a woman lyin’ prone on the shoulder, at ninety degrees to the road, head on the road, like the pavement’s her pillow. He braked, says he doesn’t know for sure if he hit her or not.”

“How’s that possible?”

“Moore says there was a sound, but it mighta been a shoe brake hitting on his old beater — it’s got bald tires and a single headlight. The fella admits to speeding, and drinking, by the by. Some colored folks stopped and helped him, moving the suitcases, putting Rose in his backseat. Moore took her to a doctor he knew in Big Sandy, who got her to Gladewater Hospital, where she was DOA. Cause of death... let me give it to you exact... ‘traumatic head wound with subdural and subarachnoid and petechial hemorrhage to the brain caused by being struck by an auto.’”

“Hardly a surprising diagnosis.”

“Maybe so, but Nate — there was also a ‘deep punctuate stellate wound above her right forehead.’ Now, this type of injury—”

“I know what type of injury that is, Clint.”

The result of a contact gunshot wound, the star-shaped wound from the bursting, tearing effect on skin of gasses trapped against flesh.

“Other odd thing is, Highway 155, where she was found? That’s a farm-to-market road, runnin’ parallel to US Highways 271 and 80. She’d have had a much better chance of hitchin’ a ride on either of those.”

“She was killed elsewhere and dumped.”

“Not much doubt about that — for one thing, she had tire tread tracks on her damn head... and that junker’s tires are bald, remember. Also, her estimated time of death was nine hours before she was admitted to Gladewater.”

“What now?”

“Well, despite these anomalies, I’m afraid my sister organization, the Texas Highway Patrol, has already closed the case.”

“Shit, that’s a little fast, isn’t it?”

“The officer in charge couldn’t establish a connection between the driver and victim, and Rose’s relatives do not wish to pursue the matter. If I may be blunt, Rose was a junkie prostitute, and those girls find imaginative ways to die each and every day. Wish I could say Mac Wallace doesn’t have an alibi, but he’s got one, all right — he flew from sunny Cal into Dallas on Saturday, and Rose died Friday.”

“That was the other reason I called, Clint — to make sure you knew Wallace was back on your turf.”

“As I mentioned the other day, we do keep track of the boy.”

“I’m glad to hear that, because I don’t have an A-1 office in them there parts to keep an eye on the bastard. I think I may have mentioned we’ve been maintaining surveillance on him in Anaheim.”

“Well,” he sighed, “can’t promise the Rangers are watching him as close as all that, but I have made a sort of hobby out of Mr. Wallace. You have any particular concerns?”

“Miss Kilgore and I talked to a number of assassination witnesses, who seem to be a vanishing breed, to put it in Texas terms.”

“You mean, more than a few folks are comin’ down with a bad case of suicide?”

“Or a terminal dose of getting their skulls crushed by a car after getting shot in the head. Would you like a list of the people we talked to? Other than Rose Cheramie?”

He wrote the names down, then said apologetically, “There is no way or manner I can offer all these individuals protection... but if I see any incidents involving them, I will get right on it.”

“And inform me, please. By the way, I’ll be in New Orleans for a few days, starting two weeks from today. I’ll be at the Roosevelt if you need me, or come up with anything.”

“Got it. Take care now, in Louisiana. That’s a foreign country, pardner.”

“Pardner, huh? Havin’ a little fun with me, Clint?”

“A mite.”

When I’d hung up the phone, I sat there staring at it as if it might be able to give me the advice that Lou said he couldn’t. Starting on the plane trip back, I’d been brooding over whether to fill RFK in on what I’d learned about his brother’s murder. On some level, I’d been working for him in Dallas — on the investigating side, sure, but also keeping tabs on Flo and what she discovered.

But if I reported everything we’d learned to Bobby before Flo had a chance to get her story or book out there, Jack Kennedy’s sibling might reach out with his considerable clout and squelch her efforts, even while plundering them for information. Still vivid in my memory was Flo’s bitter disappointment — and mine — when the work we’d done uncovering the truth of Marilyn’s murder had been spiked by her editor due to Kennedy family influence. It had created a rift between Bobby and me that had only recently sealed over.

I was still looking at the phone when it rang, which for just a second gave me a start, as if I had willed that to happen.

Millie was on the line: “Mr. Heller, I have a call here from New York, a gentleman who is not on our list. He sounds very upset, and is insistent on talking to you, but I can follow procedure and refer him to Mrs. Sapperstein if you prefer.”

“Who is he?”

“Frank Felton.”

I sat up. “Put him through.”

Flo’s husband. He’d been an actor once upon a time, and if Millie were ten years older, she might have recognized the name. Might.

“Nate, this Frank. Flo’s Frank.”

Though we’d only met a few times, his warm baritone, a trifle slurry, was immediately recognizable: he’d played Johnny Dollar on the radio for a while.

“Yes, Frank. Is everything all right? I watched the show last night, so I know Flo got back safely.”

“She did, but I have... Nate, I have...” Damn, was he crying? “We lost her, Nate... she’s gone.”

“Gone?” My stomach tightened, as a sick feeling flowed through me. “She’s... dead, Frank?”

“The damn booze mixed with pills. Damn booze and pills. How many times did I tell her... Listen, I can’t really talk... I have a number of calls to make, but I know you were close. That you were just with her. She thought the world of you, Nate.”

“Jesus. Frank, I’m sorry. So sorry. Hell. Was there any sign of foul play?”

“Foul play? No! Why would you...?”

“Sorry to bring it up. You do know what story she and I were working on in Dallas, right?”

“Yes. Yes.”

“Well, then I don’t have to tell you she was exploring very dangerous territory. Very.”

“No. You don’t.”

“When is the funeral?”

“Not till later in the week. To give her friends from around the country... around the world... a chance to get here, if they... they choose.”

“Frank — was there anything disturbed? Anything missing, any signs of struggle or possibly anything indicating a search of her things?”

“No! Nate... she died in her sleep last night, just hours after What’s My Line? She guessed two of the occupations, how... how about that? My little Florrie Mae.” His pet name for her. He was crying again.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “These are inappropriate questions right now. Forgive me.”

“I... I understand. She’s an investigator, too. Her mind works like that.”

She was still in the present tense for him. Me, too.

“Frank, would you approve my coming out there tomorrow? Talking to me, and giving me a chance to kind of look things over?”

“I don’t know, Nate... There are so many arrangements to make... people to talk to... and...”

“Just let me come out there and give me even half an hour.”

“I... I suppose that would be all right.”

“Tomorrow afternoon then?”

“Yes. All right. Fine.”

“Frank, do you know what happened to the tapes she made on our trip? The interviews?”

“No, but I can check where she keeps such things.”

“Do you have anywhere secure to keep whatever you find? A wall safe, locking file cabinet, something?”

“Well, yes, probably. Why?”

“Take whatever you can find from the Dallas trip, tapes, notes, and hide them away. Please. Do that one thing for me.”

“All right, Nate. I’ll... I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

We said our good-byes. He had stopped crying.

My turn to start.

West Side Ford New and Used on West Cermak Road in Riverside was indistinguishable from scores of other such dealerships in the Greater Chicago area. Its best shot at standing out from the rest of the pack would have been advertising a certain probable off-the-books custom job.

Back in May of 1962, the cops checked out a parked ’62 Ford sedan where two individuals were spotted ducked down on the floor of the backseat. The two individuals turned out to be notorious mob hit man Charles “Chuckie” Nicoletti and his frequent backup, Felix Alderisio. The officers discovered switches under the dash, one enabling the driver to disconnect the taillights (aiding in avoiding pursuit), the other opening a compartment in the center front-seat armrest fitted to hold shotguns and rifles. Reporters dubbed the vehicle the “hitmobile.” Asked to explain why he and Alderisio were crouching in the backseat, Nicoletti said, “We were waiting for a friend.”

Nicoletti grew up in poverty, his first killing (at twelve) that of his abusive father, then dropped out of school to join the slum delinquents known as the 42 Gang, whose members included “Mad Sam” DeStefano and Chuckie’s current boss, Sam Giancana. In Outfit circles, Nicoletti was perhaps best known for cold-bloodedly eating his spaghetti while Anthony “the Ant” Spilotro squeezed Billy McCarthy’s head in a vise till an eye popped out of its socket.

As to why I’d assume West Side Ford New and Used had done the hitmobile customizing: Chuckie Nicoletti was a co-owner and assistant manager there. This was essentially a cover story for the cops and FBI, of course, but Nicoletti was a charming guy for a psychopathic Mafia murderer, and got a kick out of selling cars.

And there he was on the lot, tall, affable, handsome for a hood, talking to a young couple in their early twenties about a shiny new red Mustang convertible. Several other salesmen in the brightly lighted lot — it was approaching closing time, eight o’clock — were similarly occupied. When I walked into the showroom, nobody was there but a busty brunette secretary on the phone at her desk, talking to her boyfriend. I walked past the various empty offices, found the central one labeled CHARLES NICOLETTI, ASSISTANT MANAGER, then went over to the brunette at her desk up front between showroom windows.

Smiling, I raised a finger, indicating I just wanted a brief word. She told her boyfriend to hold a second, covered the mouthpiece, and looked up at me with very big brown eyes, her lipstick a startling pink. She had a bouffant hairdo you could have bounced bullets off of, which considering who her boss was might come in handy.

“Sorry to interrupt,” I whispered. “Just tell Mr. Nicoletti that a satisfied customer is waiting in his office to thank him.”

She nodded, managed a smile, then went back to her important conversation, which seemed to be about selecting a discotheque.

Inside the glorified cubbyhole of Nicoletti’s office, leaving the door slightly ajar, I checked the desk — there was no filing cabinet, just walls with a few sales awards and framed color photos of current model cars — and found a Browning .22 automatic among the paperclips in the center drawer. Despite the seemingly small caliber, a .22 was typical for a hard-core hit man, being a weapon that silenced effectively. I removed the clip, thumbed each shell into the wastebasket, replaced the now-empty clip, and returned the gun to its drawer.

Sitting in one of two customer chairs across from the desk, I unbuttoned the jacket of my suit coat to give me access to my shoulder-holstered nine-millimeter Browning — which did not silence well at all. I scooted the chair into a sideways position to see Nicoletti as he entered.

It was possible that he might be armed, but I doubted it. Similarly, he might be escorting that couple into his office to write up a deal, but I doubted that, too. Those kids were window-shopping or whatever the car lot equivalent was. This late in the evening, a deal would not likely go down.

I sat for maybe fifteen minutes, about ten minutes into which the lights dimmed in the showroom, followed by the sound of the secretary and various sales personnel gathering their things, saying good nights and going. If the secretary told Nicoletti about my presence, I didn’t hear her do it.

He would return to this office, though, because a hat and raincoat were waiting on a metal tree in the corner. No weapon in any raincoat pocket, by the way.

When he came in, Nicoletti was already friendly and saying, “Susie said you were wanting to—”

And then Chuckie’s smile froze and his words stopped.

Even pushing fifty, Chuckie Nicoletti cut an intimidating figure — broad-shouldered, six two, big hands with frying-pan palms and fingers like swollen sausages. His handsome features had a vaguely swollen look, too, and the white infiltrating his ridge of dark, carefully cut-and-combed hair stood out starkly against his Miami tan. His suit was charcoal black and tailored, his tie white and black and silk, wider than current fashion and with a knot like a fist.

“Hi Chuckie,” I said as he stood in the doorway, the dark showroom behind him, neon signage giving him a halo of color. “Why don’t you shut that?”

I wasn’t holding a gun on him. Nothing so melodramatic. But my suit coat was open enough to make the butt of the nine millimeter apparent in its rig. So just melodramatic enough.

“Heller,” he said with a smile that hid its uneasiness. “I thought you drove Jags. Decide to try a good old-fashioned American ride like Ford for a change?”

“Sit down, Chuck. I just need a couple of minutes. Not to talk cars, though.”

He moved slowly behind the desk and eased down as if fearing I’d rigged the seat of his swivel chair to explode. “What subject?”

I moved my chair around to face him directly.

“I’m going to kind of build up to that.” My words were calm but I couldn’t keep the edge out of my voice. Since hearing about Flo earlier today, I had not been myself. Or maybe I was too much myself. “You were part of Mongoose, right?”

His dark eyes flared. He placed his hands on the edge of the metal desk, thick fingers on artificial-wood top, giving himself easy access to that .22.

“It’s okay to say so,” I said with a smile. “You can check with Rosselli about that. Didn’t John ever mention my role? He can confirm I set up the first meet between him, Mooney, and Santo.”

“Okay,” he said, with the expression of a man adjusting his shower temperature. “I was part of that. Not that we never got nowhere with it. That prick Castro is still smoking Havanas.”

“Yeah, and the poisoned ones never worked out, right? There was one plan I heard about, though, that might’ve come in handy — something about hitting Castro on his way to the airport from a high building. Using highly trained snipers. That’s plural, because triangulation was involved.”

Traffic on West Cermak was providing a discordant muffled soundtrack, an occasional horn honk stabbing the night.

His dark eyes were hooded now. “We’re all CIA assets, Heller. You and me and John and... plenty of other people. If you’re just trying to figure out who’s on what side, that would put us on the same side. Same team.”

“Okay.” He didn’t seem to be lying. On the other hand, he was a car salesman. “Chuckie, did John mention to you that earlier this month a Cuban tried to run me down? And that my son was almost a hit-and-run victim, too?”

“He did not mention that, no.”

“I spoke to John, and he assured me that if somebody was out there tying off loose ends, he was not involved.”

“I’m sure he isn’t. He likes you, Nate.”

Now I was Nate. Well, that was only fair. I was calling him Chuckie.

I said, “But the question is, are you involved?”

“In... tyin’ off loose ends? Hell, no.”

“You’ve tied off your share, Chuckie.”

“I suppose I have.”

“The estimate around town is twenty hits.”

“That sounds about right.”

“That’s about half the Japs I killed in the Pacific, but not bad for local work.”

Big white smiling teeth, caps or choppers, collided with his dark tan. “You done all right yourself, back in the States, ain’t you, Nate?”

“I don’t like to brag. Have we established that neither of us scares easy?”

He went for the gun and then I was just sitting there with him aiming its long snout at my chest. A head shot would have been messy here at the office. I waited to see if he’d fire or was just one-upping me.

“Why don’t you tell me what this is about, Nate?”

“Does that feel a little light, Chuckie? It might.”

He frowned.

“Because I removed all the bullets.”

Then I got out the nine-millimeter and he clicked on an empty chamber, twice, then sighed. Set the gun down with a little clunk.

“Okay,” he said. “So you’re right. Neither of us assholes scares easy.”

I kept the gun in my hand, but draped casually in my lap. As casually as a nine millimeter can be draped, anyway.

“I just got back from Dallas,” I said conversationally. “A little bodyguard work for a reporter who was looking into the aftermath of the assassination.”

“JFK.”

“Not Lincoln. I could have said McKinley, but at a Ford dealership, Lincoln seems more politic.”

“You are a fucking laugh riot, Heller.”

“Coming from a guy as uneasily amused as you, Chuckie, I take that as a compliment. So when Billy McCarthy’s eyeball popped out, did you even miss a beat scarfing down that spaghetti?”

“That story you heard is inaccurate.”

“Oh?”

“It was ziti.”

We smiled at each other. We were both laugh riots who were not easily scared. And yet we were both good and goddamned scared, and I was fine with that.

I said, “The reporter was Flo Kilgore.”

He frowned a little; it made white lines in his tan. “That skinny dame from TV? I heard on the radio she died. Accidental overdose, they said.”

I ignored that. “We were interviewing witnesses to the assassination, plus some peripheral figures.”

“What does that mean? Per what?”

“Fringe. Sidelines, but still in the game. They’re dropping like flies, Chuckie. Accidental deaths like Flo. Sudden suicides. Car accidents. Some people are just getting threatened or maimed, but one way or the other, they’re getting shut up.”

“And this is a bad thing?”

I gave him half a smile. “I’m aware you were there, Chuckie. I know you were part of it. Maybe even a shooter.”

His eyes narrowed. He was wondering if he could throw that .22 at me hard enough to buy him time to come around the desk and kill me with my own gun. Anyway, that’s what I’d have been thinking.

I raised a “stop” hand and said, “That’s between you and your maker. I’m not trying to solve the Kennedy assassination.”

“No?”

“No. I already knew it was a conspiracy before it went down — I was in the middle of the Chicago plot early November last year, remember? And I know who the big boys are. Oh, not necessarily all of them by name, but it’s oilmen and other right-wing wackos, and spook pals of ours from Mongoose and the Bay of Pigs, and their Cuban buddies, and of course, obviously, what we’ll quaintly call the Mafia.”

His eyes had disappeared into puffy slits. “If you know everything, Heller, what the fuck can I tell you?”

“Tell me this. Can I... can you... trust John Rosselli?”

“Huh?”

“When he says there is no Outfit cleanup crew dispatched to tie off loose ends, is he telling the truth?”

“On the grave of my kids,” he said, holding up both big palms, “I don’t know of any.”

“I think you mean on the life of your kids, but their graves might be more apt at that, Chuckie. As I said, my boy Sam was almost run down, and that pisses me off.”

He shrugged. “Sure. That’s over the line.”

“Good. It’s nice to talk to a fucking professional for a change. I don’t think it’s the Company. I have a contact there who I trust, as far it goes. And I don’t think those Cubans could organize a fart in the bathtub.”

“You’re tellin’ me?”

“Then who is tying off the loose ends, Chuckie? And be careful how you answer, because I ask you as one loose end to another.”

That got his attention.

“Only one possibility,” he said, shaking his head as if saying no, which he wasn’t. “That fucking Uncle Carlos. He’s a law unto himself. We do business with him, we have a kind of... understanding with him. But he stands apart. He doesn’t view this Thing of Ours as a club he’s in.”

“Most of the deaths are in Texas. Some that I haven’t looked into yet are in Louisiana.”

Chuckie nodded. “Marcello controls all of Texas and Louisiana, and he and Santo got Florida, too. So if I was to suggest something to you, Heller... as one pro to another... as one... loose end to another... if you want to shut this thing down, you already know where you have to go.”

“New Orleans,” I said.

“New Orleans,” he said, nodding.

Where in two weeks Flo and I would have continued our investigation, before this latest convenient tragedy had come along. I’d be taking that Big Easy trip all right, but my next stop would be Manhattan.

I got to my feet and slipped the nine millimeter into its leather womb. “You’ll find your slugs in that wastebasket, Chuck. If you reload your clip and come running after me, I’ll know I misjudged you.”

“You didn’t, Nate.”

He held out his big hand and I shook it.

Shook the hand of one of the likely assassins of John F. Kennedy.