by Tim Baker
Hastings leant forward, the lighter’s flint suddenly loud behind the shelter of glass. He straightened, the wind back in his hair. ‘Did you get them?’
Luchino gave a Gallic shrug. ‘They sent me to the wrong offices. Quel bordel! And you . . . ?’
‘I got them . . . But couldn’t keep them.’ He watched Luchino out of his peripheral vision. A smile. ‘Old Man Bannister has them now.’
Luchino shook his head. ‘Such a pity . . . ’ He pointed to a turnoff heading west. ‘Do you know what was in these files?’
‘Monroe and Kennedy mainly.’
‘Mais oui . . . Cherchez la femme!’ The DeSoto kept going straight ahead. Even Miami CIA weren’t that careless. They were working a team. Hastings’s eyes kept flicking back to the mirror. ‘It’s the Pontiac Bonneville.’ Luchino sent the last word quivering with his French accent. Hastings still couldn’t spot it. ‘Red . . . ’ The car was lying far back, concealed behind a Chevy pickup. The driver was very good. ‘Don’t worry, my friend, it took me the long time with this one too. He is the most talented . . . So, have you told Monsieur Roselli about the files being missing?’
‘Not yet.’
‘I don’t think he will like it.’
‘There’s nothing to like or dislike. The Old Man’s better than him, that’s all.’ The Old Man was better than all of them. And always would be, until the day someone was able to kill him. Hastings was hoping that day would come soon.
The road was taking them out of town, past used-car lots, scrap metal yards and cemetery rows of nodding derricks futilely fanning the air. The red Pontiac had pulled back half a mile in the thinning traffic. Careful. Astute. The driver was a pro.
An enormous ranch house began to grow on the flat horizon, casting long shadows before it; a fata morgana of the oil lying under the earth, mapping it through the absence of light. Staking it out. Hastings didn’t like the look of their destination. His internal Geiger counter was cracking cricket noises. If he didn’t know any better, he’d suspect this was a setup, that Luchino was going to do what the others couldn’t off Point Dume. ‘When did you get into Dallas?’
‘Yesterday.’
‘And you’ve already been out here?’
‘They brought me straight to this house. Everyone is here, my friend. It’s bigger than we ever imagined. Bigger than—’ Luchino’s voice was lost in the blast of a truck heading east, big wheels spinning dangerously close, smashing Texas distance. A curtain of dust and grit aftershocked them, the whisper of sand peppering the windshield.
‘What’s that you said?’
‘I said, it’s bigger than us . . . Here, you turn in.’
Hastings spun the wheel, skidding the back tires, raising a flag of dust to the red Pontiac: here we are, come and get us.
They were stopped by a large contingent of armed sheriffs, Texas Rangers and Dallas police. A man in white short sleeves stepped out from behind them, his face falling apart when he saw Hastings. The man’s left arm was bandaged below the elbow. Blood oozed through the dressing, attracting the humming appreciation of flies.
One of the sheriffs turned to the man. ‘They clean?’ Hastings watched the man struggling with the answer. He half-nodded, looking away.
‘Ça alors!’ Luchino stared back as Hastings drove on towards the house, passing a slim stand of cottonwoods where a dozen government cars stood in the shade of branches pelleted with the black tremor of crows. ‘What did you do, fuck his girl?’
‘The Old Man did that to him.’
‘Fucked his girl . . . ?’
‘Cut his arm . . . ’
‘So why does he give that look to you?’
‘He thought I was dead.’
‘Why would he think this?’
‘Because he threw me off a cliff last night.’
‘Putain de merde!’ Luchino shook his head in disbelief. ‘What chance. In Corsica if we threw you off the cliff, you would not come back.’
‘I believe it.’
‘You want me to kill him?’
‘I’ll take care of him later, but tell me his name, if you know it.’
‘Mais oui, he is Fiorini, a troublemaker, but down here, they are calling him Frank Sturgis.’ He laughed. ‘Americans and their names . . . ’
The red Pontiac squealed as it turned off the road, not even slowing, the police jumping back, allowing it to power past. It hot-rodded after them, pulling up outside the homestead just ahead of Hastings and Luchino. A man jumped out without opening the door, stocky and dynamic; more like a circus acrobat than a mercenary, in white T-shirt, denim and blue suede shoes. ‘Hemming. Operation 40.’ He said it with false modesty, as though he expected them to be awed by the news; as though he didn’t give a fuck who they were. He was the star, they were the extras. Hemming strode into the house, past the envious gaze of a posse of agents, sweat stains tarnishing their suits. Their ties were all unloosened, their jackets all buttoned up. That meant J. Edgar was very close.
‘What’s Operation 40?’
Hastings got out of the car. ‘Just another name . . . ’ Like all the other names thugs and killers gave themselves to feel superior to the people they killed. To justify what they had become. Hastings and Luchino didn’t have that luxury. They were individuals without names. They were professionals; stone-cold assassins about to break the number one rule: never let it become personal.
Agents stood in front of the door, blocking the way. Roselli stepped out of the house, wiping the sweat away from his brow with a monogrammed handkerchief. He pointed to Hastings and Luchino. ‘Let ’em through.’ Hastings stepped into the damp, shadowy house. ‘The shooters are out the back, behind the stables.’ Hastings went first, barking his shin on a little green card table hiding in the darkness. ‘Jesus Christ, watch where you’re going. You don’t want to look like a meathead in front of our guests.’
They passed through a large kitchen, the smell of sourdough bread and cinnamon apples following them outside. The sunlight was even more intense after the gloom of the interior. The air was thick with flies and the keening country perfume of hay and manure. Horses whinnied inside the stables, cuffing the wood impatiently with powerful hooves. More cars were parked out back, sitting hot and forsaken in the sun. A table was set up under a big dogwood, crowded with jugs of beer pearled with evaporating frost, a servant setting down bowls of potato salad and barbecued Elgin sausages. A group of men watched them approaching, whispering to each other. Luchino nodded to them, pouring beers for himself and Hastings. Hastings burnt his fingers picking up a sausage and dipping it in chili. ‘You actually going to eat that shit, Daddy-O?’ the one called Hemming said. Hastings’s mouth went hot with the sausage, then spicy with the bite of sauce, then ice-cold with the beer. It was the first time he had felt truly alive since the Mexican’s coffee on the beach at Point Dume. He was suddenly ravenous. ‘Like, don’t it bug you, chowing down on chopped-up guts?’
‘Andouillette?’ Luchino asked, nibbling the tip of a sausage, then pulling a face. ‘Rien à voir.’
Silence as the men exchanged looks. Hemming narrowed his eyes. ‘So who’s the French cat?’
‘Corsican . . . ’ Hastings said, filling a plate with potato salad and sausage. He felt as if he hadn’t eaten in a week.
A snort of contempt, posing as humour. A man with a heavy goatee and wearing green military fatigues stepped forward. ‘There’s a difference?’
‘Have we met?’ Luchino asked, his voice tight with control as he refilled Hastings’s glass.
Hemming nodded to the bearded man. ‘He’s Loran Hall. You’ve heard of him. Deputy commander.’ He nodded towards a very large man speaking in Spanish to a group of Cubans by the stables. ‘And that’s El Jefe himself: David Sánchez Morales. One very dangerous mother. He started Operation 40.’ Hastings stared at the powerfully built man with his grey hair and
dyed moustache. Vanity always meant trouble in their line of work. It required prudence, not preening. Nuance, not narcissism. ‘Ex-82nd Airborne.’
Hall laughed, speaking to Luchino. ‘82nd whipped your sorry French asses during the war.’
‘I am Corsican, not French. And I fought alongside your countrymen, not against them.’
Hall muttered something under his breath to Hemming, then turned back to Luchino with a sneer. ‘Shit . . . Corsica. Cuba. The same goddamn thing. Tiny fucking islands causing way too much trouble.’
It never failed to amaze Hastings how blind people could be to the imminent threat of death. It was as though Hall had just deliberately glued his head to a railroad track in front of a rapidly approaching locomotive. Luchino stepped around Hastings, sliding a steak knife under his hand, ready to deliver a fatal lesson in manners to the red-eyed young man with a rash under his beard. ‘Wait till this is over . . . ’ Hastings whispered. Luchino froze. Intelligence guided his instincts. He believed in honour, not pride. But what had just passed between Hastings and Luchino—call and response; restraint and control—had gone unheeded by Hemming and Hall, who were too busy strutting their own importance to realize they were dancing on snakes.
‘The three of us control the fucking Cubans.’ Hemming pointed to the stables, where a dozen Cubans rested on their haunches, watching out of the corner of their eyes as Morales addressed them. ‘Nobody talks to them without going through us, understand?’ Like all young hotshots, what Hemming really needed was a swift hard kick in the ass. ‘And that goes for those fucks-in-suits over there . . . ’ Hastings glanced over at five men, two heavy and three thin, who were talking to Roselli on the back porch of the homestead. CIA. Who else? he thought. Two of them were even smoking pipes.
Hastings served himself more sausages and salad, the raking of the spoon against china chiming musically. Hall shook his head. ‘Shit, man, are you here to work, or just for the free lunch?’
Hastings looked up at Hall. ‘That mouth of yours is so big, I bet I could shove this plate right down your throat . . . ’
In the silence that followed they all could hear the sound of cooking coming from the kitchen’s open windows: the spatter of hot fat stinging griddles.
‘Whoa . . . Slow down, Daddy-O. No need to blow the jets. We’re all friends here.’
‘I thought we were all just killers . . . ’
Hall took a step towards Hastings, a sheathed bowie knife strapped below his right knee. Ostentatious and threatening. Always cover for unreliable and scared. Hastings could disarm him, chop his beard off and shove it up his ass before he’d even know what had happened. ‘What the fuck is your problem, man . . . ?’
‘Steady, Loran . . . ’ Morales came up to Hastings, standing right beside him, looking him up and down, measuring the flush of heat from Hastings’s body. ‘Let the man eat in peace. He’s travelled far, like we all have.’
Hall hesitated, then stormed off, humiliated by the subtext that even a beatnik dropout like him could understand: walk away now or this man will kill you. Luchino sipped his beer, enjoying the moment. He turned to Hemming. ‘You are from Miami, yes?’
‘No one’s from Miami. I’m from El Monte.’
LA Loser. Nothing more to know. Hastings dipped his last sausage into the sauce, not looking as he spoke to Morales. ‘How about you?’
‘Arizona . . .’ He was Mexican, not Cuban. That meant Morales had been working for CIA long before Fidel grew his beard and flipped his lid.
‘And now you both work with the Cubans out of Miami?’ There was something that could have been a nod. ‘So you were with them in Chicago on Halloween?’
Hemming and Morales exchanged alarmed looks. ‘Who wants to know?’ Hemming asked, running a comb through his ducktail. Hemming was the Jimmy Dean of Boys Town.
‘Two men who were also there,’ Luchino said.
‘If you have questions about Chicago, ask him . . . ’ Morales said, nodding over Hastings’s shoulder. Hastings turned. Roselli was walking towards them, his head bowed, as though ashamed to be associated with such a crew of felons. ‘He’s the asshole who screwed it all up.’ Tagging behind Roselli, like a couple of empty cans tied to a honeymooner’s car, were Nicoletti and Alderisio.
‘Okay, everyone, listen up. The last shooters have arrived . . . ’ Hastings and Luchino glanced at each other. How many shooters could there possibly be? Was this assassination or insurrection? ‘I want you all inside for the briefing.’ He looked at Morales. ‘The Cubans too.’
Roselli turned to go, banging into Alderisio, who was shadowing him too closely, both of them staggering backwards from the collision. Larry and Moe. Roselli shoved Alderisio out of the way, marching inside with as much dignity as he could muster, wearing Alderisio’s shoeprints on the toes of his polished wing tips. Morales waved for the Cubans to follow. Hastings watched them getting up, brushing desert dust off their trousers, extinguishing cigarettes. Weary, battle-hardened men, wary of their commander, but following orders anyway. Foot soldiers, all.
‘I knew a Cuban kid called Hidalgo . . . ’ Hastings said to Morales as they walked back to the house. ‘Used to work at Old Man Bannister’s joint.’ There was a single tremor in Morales’s jawline. Good control. ‘It was around the time of the kidnapping . . . ’
Morales stopped in his tracks and looked all around, making sure no one was lingering. ‘The information you have is still valuable. Very valuable . . . ’
‘What about Hidalgo? He said he was working for you, for Operation 40.’
Morales started walking towards the house. ‘I cut him loose. Joe Kennedy got to Hidalgo, worked him against Nixon till Hoover found out. Forget what they say about the Outfit, about the Five Families. It’s the Boston mafia that pulls the strings these days, especially that little shit, Bobby, breaking our balls. He’s worse than goddamn Castro!’ Morales held open the screen door for Hastings. ‘Remember what I said about the Bannister kid. Some people would pay big money . . . ’
‘Some people like who?’
‘Are you kidding? Howard Hughes, for one.’
Morales disappeared through the steam. Hastings followed him inside, kitchen clamour greeting him; the opera of pots and pans. Hemming helped himself to a piece of pie as the stragglers traipsed through the kitchen, a pretty young female cook slapping theatrically at him, Hemming dancing out of her way with a winning grin, licking his fingers. He could have been the kid next door in his final year at college, but he was a baby-faced killer in charge of mercenaries damaged by betrayal and defeat. Judge the plan by the planners. It didn’t take a giant crystal ball to predict the outcome, Hastings thought—this was all going to be one colossal, fucking mess . . .
They entered a library, the drapes drawn, filling the mistrustful room with the nitro cocktail of contained heat, unstirred air, and impatient testosterone. Chandeliers hung incongruously between the lethal horns and antlers that stabbed out of the walls, lighting the room with a funereal amber glow.
The spooks sat grouped in an adjoining music room, watching them all march in with the appraising eyes of casting directors. For Hastings they were just like the top brass in the Pacific, the old men who stared through binoculars from the bridge as the young men died, whispering orders then impatiently complaining about the wait, as though war were a drawn-out dinner in an overbooked officers’ mess.
Hastings scanned the library. New faces. Strange faces. One without any eyebrows or eyelashes, the resulting naked gaze alarming under an orange wig. There were Outfit faces. Small-time hoodlum faces. Three-grand-a-pop killers. There were Dallas police and sheriff uniforms. Hobo hopheads. The picture was getting even clearer. Hastings, Luchino and one or two other professionals would execute the hit, as originally planned. And then the rest of the men in this room would converge and kill the killers. It was going to be the way Hastings always imagined it. The only th
ing that had changed was the scale. It was overwhelming. It would be mayhem writ large.
Roselli clapped his hands in a futile effort for silence, then barked through the cigarette smoke. ‘Everybody, keep it down.’ He turned to Hemming and his group. ‘For Christ’s sake, for once in your life can’t you shut the fuck up?’ Hemming pulled a face but fell silent fast, feeling the faces staring at him. Roselli beamed at the hesitant quiet in the room. ‘That’s way better. We got special guests here, so show some respect.’ He nodded to the music room. ‘Now Frank here is gonna take us through the plans for the Big Event once and once only . . . ’ A song started up, tinny music coming from the kitchen. It’s My Party. Roselli looked up with annoyance, speaking over the music. ‘If you got any questions, I don’t want to hear ’em. Frank don’t want to hear ’em. You go back to your section boss and ask him, understand?’
Sturgis stepped forward, yanking a chart down that was hanging from the top of a projection stand. He tugged so hard that the stand toppled over. Guffaws all around. Vegas vaudeville. A ripple of appreciative anticipation. After the clowns, there’s always the girls. Sturgis picked up the stand, briefly making eye contact with Hastings before looking away. Hastings had read him right. He was scared shitless that Hastings knew who he was and what he had done. What he had tried to do. And Sturgis had very good reason to feel scared, starting with the most obvious question: how the hell did Hastings survive the old heave-ho into the sea?
Sturgis wasn’t the only one with questions. Why the hate during the interrogation? For Sturgis it had been personal, powering down on every single punch. Somewhere along the line, Hastings had made an enemy but he didn’t know why. He needed to find out before he killed Sturgis.
Sturgis prodded the map with a pool cue. ‘This is the map of the motorcade, Jackie Ruby got it off the Secret Service, thank you, Jack . . . ’ A short, stocky man with a fedora saluted acknowledgment. ‘A Team goes here . . . ’ Sturgis tapped a building marked Texas School Book Depository. ‘Rendezvous with patsy, then up to the sixth floor, last two windows, B Team goes here.’ He tapped the building opposite. ‘Dal-Tex Building. Second and third floors. Windows and fire escape.’
