by James Ellroy
The cell looked familiar. He swung his legs off the bunk and got his identity straight.
I’m Special Agent Kemper C. Boyd, FBI, interstate car theft infiltrator.
I’m not Bob Aiken, freelance car thief.
I’m forty-two years old. I’m a Yale Law School grad. I’m a seventeen-year Bureau veteran, divorced, with a daughter in college—and a long-time FBI-sanctioned car booster.
He placed his cell: tier B at the Philly Fed Building.
His head throbbed. His wrists and ankles ached. He tamped down his identity a last notch.
I’ve rigged auto-job evidence and skimmed money off of it for years. IS THIS AN INTERNAL BUREAU ROUST?
He saw empty cells down both sides of the catwalk. He spotted some papers on his sink: newspaper mock-ups topped by banner headlines:
“Car Thief Suffers Heart Attack in Federal Custody”/“Car Thief Expires in Federal Building Cell.”
The text was typed out below.
This afternoon, Philadelphia Police enacted a daring arrest in the shadow of picturesque Rittenhouse Square.
Acting on information supplied by an unnamed informant, Sergeant Gerald P. Griffen and four other officers captured Robert Henry Aiken, 42, in the act of stealing an expensive Jaguar auto-mobile. Aiken meekly let the officers restrain him and—
Someone coughed and said, “Sir?”
Kemper looked up. A clerk type unlocked the cell and held the door open for him.
“You can go out the back way, sir. There’s a car waiting for you.”
Kemper brushed off his clothes and combed his hair. He walked out the freight exit and saw a government limo blocking the alley.
His limo.
Kemper got in the back. J. Edgar Hoover said, “Hello, Mr. Boyd.”
“Good afternoon, Sir.”
A partition slid up and closed the backseat off. The driver pulled out.
Hoover coughed. “Your infiltration assignment was terminated rather precipitously. The Philadelphia Police were somewhat rough, but they have a reputation for that, and anything less would have lacked verisimilitude.”
“I’ve learned to stay in character in situations like that. I’m sure the arrest was believable.”
“Did you affect an East Coast accent for your role?”
“No, a midwestern drawl. I learned the accent and speech patterns when I worked the St. Louis office, and I thought they’d complement my physical appearance more effectively.”
“You’re correct, of course. And personally, I would not want to second-guess you on anything pertaining to criminal role-playing. That sports jacket you’re wearing, for instance. I would not appreciate it as standard Bureau attire, but it’s quite appropriate for a Philadelphia car thief.”
Get to it, you officious little—
“In fact, you’ve always dressed distinctly. Perhaps ‘expensively’ is more apt. To be blunt, there have been times when I wondered how your salary could sustain your wardrobe.”
“Sir, you should see my apartment. What my wardrobe possesses, it lacks.”
Hoover chuckled. “Be that as it may, I doubt if I’ve seen you in the same suit twice. I’m sure the women you’re so fond of appreciate your sartorial flair.”
“Sir, I hope so.”
“You endure my amenities with considerable flair, Mr. Boyd. Most men squirm. You express both your inimitable personal panache and a concurrent respect for me that is quite alluring. Do you know what this means?”
“No, Sir. I don’t.”
“It means that I like you and am prone to forgive indiscretions that I would crucify other agents for. You’re a dangerous and ruthless man, but you possess a certain beguiling charm. This balance of attributes outweighs your profligate tendencies and allows me to be fond of you.”
DON’T SAY “WHAT INDISCRETIONS?”—HE’LL TELL YOU AND MAIM YOU.
“Sir, I greatly appreciate your respect, and I reciprocate it fully.”
“You didn’t include ‘fondness’ in your reciprocity, but I won’t press the point. Now, business. I have an opportunity for you to earn two regular paychecks, which should delight you no end.”
Hoover leaned back coax-me style. Kemper said, “Sir?”
The limo accelerated. Hoover flexed his hands and straightened his necktie. “The Kennedy brothers’ recent actions have distressed me. Bobby seems to be using the McClellan Committee’s labor racketeering mandate as a means to upstage the Bureau and advance his brother’s presidential aspirations. This displeases me. I’ve been running the Bureau since before Bobby was born. Jack Kennedy is a desiccated liberal playboy with the moral convictions of a crotch-sniffing hound dog. He’s playing crimefighter on the McClellan Committee, and the very existence of the committee is an implicit slap in the Bureau’s face. Old Joe Kennedy is determined to buy his son the White House, and I want to possess information to help mitigate the boy’s more degenerately egalitarian policies, should he succeed.”
Kemper caught his cue. “Sir?”
“I want you to infiltrate the Kennedy organization. The McClellan Committee’s labor-racketeering mandate ends next spring, but Bobby Kennedy is still hiring lawyer-investigators. As of now you are retired from the FBI, although you will continue to draw full pay until July 1961, the date you reach twenty years of Bureau service. You are to prepare a convincing FBI retirement story and secure an attorney’s job with the McClellan Committee. I know that both you and Jack Kennedy have been intimate with a Senate aide named Sally Lefferts. Miss Lefferts is a talkative woman, so I’m sure young Jack has heard about you. Young Jack is on the McClellan Committee, and young Jack loves sexual gossip and dangerous friends. Mr. Boyd, I am sure that you will fit in with the Kennedys. I’m sure that this will be both a salutary opportunity for you to practice your skills of dissembling and duplicity, and the chance to exercise your more promiscuous tastes.”
Kemper felt weightless. The limo cruised on thin air.
Hoover said, “Your reaction delights me. Rest now. We’ll arrive in Washington in an hour, and I’ll drop you at your apartment.”
Hoover supplied up-to-date study notes—in a leather binder stamped “CONFIDENTIAL.” Kemper mixed a pitcher of extra-dry martinis and pulled up his favorite chair to read through them.
The notes boiled down to one thing: Bobby Kennedy vs. Jimmy Hoffa.
Senator John McClellan chaired the U.S. Senate’s Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor and Management Field, established in January 1957. Its subsidiary members: Senators Ives, Kennedy, McNamara, McCarthy, Ervin, Mundt, Goldwater. Its chief counsel and investigative boss: Robert F. Kennedy.
Current personnel: thirty-five investigators, forty-five accountants, twenty-five stenographers and clerks. Its current housing: the Senate Office Building, suite 101.
The Committee’s stated goals:
To expose corrupt labor practices; to expose labor unions collusively linked to organized crime. The Committee’s methods: witness subpoenas, document subpoenas, and the charting of union funds diverted and misused in organized crime activities.
The Committee’s de facto target: the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the most powerful transportation union on earth, arguably the most corrupt and powerful labor union ever.
Its president: James Riddle Hoffa, age 45.
Hoffa: mob bought-and-paid-for. The suborner of: extortion, wholesale bribery, beatings, bombings, management side deals and epic abuse of union funds.
Hoffa’s suspected holdings, in violation of fourteen antitrust statutes:
Trucking firms, used car lots, a dog track, a car-rental chain, a Miami cabstand staffed by Cuban refugees with extensive criminal records.
Hoffa’s close friends:
Mr. Sam Giancana, the Mafia boss of Chicago; Mr. Santo Trafficante Jr., the Mafia boss of Tampa, Florida; Mr. Carlos Marcello, the Mafia boss of New Orleans.
Jimmy Hoffa:
Who lends his “friends” millions of dollars, put to use
illegally.
Who owns percentages of mob-run casinos in Havana, Cuba.
Who illegally funnels cash to Cuban strongman Fulgencio Batista and rebel firebrand Fidel Castro.
Who rapes the Teamsters’ Central States Pension Fund, a cash-rich watering hole rumored to be administered by Sam Giancana’s Chicago mob—a loan-shark scheme wherein gangsters and crooked entrepreneurs borrow large sums at usurious interest rates, with nonpayment penalties up to and including torture and death.
Kemper caught the gist: Hoover’s jealous. He always said the Mob didn’t exist—because he knew he couldn’t prosecute it successfully. Now Bobby Kennedy begs to differ.…
A chronology followed.
Early ’57: the Committee targets Teamster president Dave Beck. Beck testifies five times; Bobby Kennedy’s relentless goading breaks the man. A Seattle grand jury indicts him for larceny and income tax evasion.
Spring ’57: Jimmy Hoffa assumes complete control of the Teamsters.
August ’57: Hoffa vows to rid his union of gangster influence—a large lie.
September ’57: Hoffa goes to trial in Detroit. The charge: tapping the phones of Teamster subordinates. A hung jury—Hoffa escapes sentencing.
October ’57: Hoffa is elected International Teamster president. A persistent rumor: 70% of his delegates were illegally selected.
July ’58: the Committee begins to investigate direct links between the Teamsters and organized crime. Closely scrutinized: the November ’57 Apalachin Conclave.
Fifty-nine high-ranking mobsters meet at the upstate New York home of a “civilian” friend. A state trooper named Edgar Croswell runs their license plates. A raid ensues—and Mr. Hoover’s longstanding “there is no Mafia” stance becomes untenable.
July ’58: Bobby Kennedy proves that Hoffa resolves strikes through management bribes—this practice dating back to ’49.
August ’58: Hoffa appears before the Committee. Bobby Kennedy goes at him—and traps him in numerous lies.
The notes concluded.
The Committee was currently probing Hoffa’s Sun Valley resort outside Lake Weir, Florida. Bobby Kennedy subpoenaed the Central States Pension Fund books and saw that three million dollars went into the project—much more than reasonable building costs. Kennedy’s theory: Hoffa skimmed at least a million dollars off the top and was selling his union brothers defective prefab material and alligator-infested swampland.
Ergo: felony land fraud.
A closing addendum:
“Hoffa has a Sun Valley front man: Anton William Gretzler, 46, a Florida resident with three previous bunco convictions. Gretzler was subpoenaed 10/29/58, but now appears to be missing.”
Kemper checked the Hoffa “Known Associates” list. One mame sizzled:
Pete Bondurant, W.M., 6′5″, 230, DOB 7/16/20, Montreal, Canada.
No criminal convictions. Licensed private investigator/former Los Angeles County deputy sheriff.
Big Pete: shakedown man and Howard Hughes’ pet goon. He and Ward Littell arrested him once—he beat a Sheriff’s inmate to death. Littell’s comment: “Perhaps the most fearsome and competent rogue cop of our era.”
Kemper poured a fresh drink and let his mind drift. The impersonation took shape: heroic aristocrats form a common bond.
He liked women, and cheated on his wife throughout their marriage. Jack Kennedy liked women—and held his marriage vows expedient and whimsical. Bobby liked his wife and kept her pregnant—insider talk tagged him faithful.
Yale for him; Harvard for the Kennedys. Filthy-rich Irish Catholics; filthy-rich Tennessee Anglicans gone bankrupt. Their family was large and photogenic; his family was broke and dead. Someday he might tell Jack and Bobby how his father shot himself and took a month to die.
Southerners and Boston Irish: both afflicted with incongruous accents. He’d resurrect the drawl it took so long to lose.
Kemper prowled his clothes closet. Impersonation details clicked in.
The charcoal worsted for the interview. A holstered .38 to impress tough guy Bobby. No Yale cuff links—Bobby might possess a proletarian streak.
His closet was twelve feet deep. The back wall was offset by framed photographs.
His ex-wife, Katherine—the best-looking woman who ever breathed. They debuted at the Nashville Cotillion—a society scribe called them “southern grace personified.” He married her for sex and her father’s money. She divorced him when the Boyd fortune evaporated and Hoover addressed his law school class and personally invited him to join the FBI.
Katherine, in November 1940:
“You watch out for that prissy little fussbudget, do you hear me, Kemper? I think he has carnal designs on you.”
She didn’t know that Mr. Hoover only fucked power.
In matching frames: his daughter, Claire, Susan Littell and Helen Agee—three FBI daughters hell-bent on law careers.
The girls were best friends split up by studies at Tulane and Notre Dame. Helen was disfigured—he kept the pictures in his closet to quash pitying comments.
Tom Agee was sitting in his car—working a routine stakeout for some bank heisters outside a whorehouse. His wife had just left him—Tom couldn’t find a sitter for nine-year-old Helen. She was sleeping in the backseat when the heisters came up shooting.
Tom was killed. Helen was muzzle-burned and left for dead. Help arrived—six hours later. Flash particles had scorched Helen’s cheeks and scarred her for life.
Kemper laid out his interview clothes. He got some lies straight and called Sally Lefferts.
The phone rang twice. “Uh, hello?”—Sally’s little boy picked up.
“Son, get your mother. Tell her it’s a friend from the office.”
Sally came on the line. “Who’s this from the U.S. Senate clerical pool bothering this poor overworked aide?”
“It’s me. Kemper.”
“Kemper, what are you doing calling me with my husband in the backyard right now as we speak!”
“Ssssh. I’m calling you for a job referral.”
“What are you saying? Are you saying Mr. Hoover got wise to your evil ways with women and showed you the gate?”
“I retired, Sally. I utilized a dangerous-duty dispensation clause and retired three years early.”
“Well, my heavens, Kemper Cathcart Boyd!”
“Are you still seeing Jack Kennedy, Sally?”
“Occasionally, dear heart, since you gave me the gate. Is this about trading little black books and evil tales out of school, or—?”
“I’m thinking of applying for a job with the McClellan Committee.”
Sally whooped. “Well, I think you should! I think I should put a note on Robert Kennedy’s desk recommending you, and you should send me a dozen long-stemmed Southern Beauty roses for the effort!”
“You’re the southern beauty, Sally.”
“I was too much woman for De Ridder, Louisiana, and that is a fact!”
Kemper hung up with kisses. Sally would spread the word: ex-FBI car thief now seeking work.
He’d tell Bobby how he crashed the Corvette theft ring. He wouldn’t mention the Vettes he stripped for parts.
He moved the next day. He walked right in to the Senate Office Building and suite 101.
The receptionist heard him out and tapped her intercom. “Mr. Kennedy, there’s a man here who wants to apply for an investigator’s position. He has FBI retirement credentials.”
The office spread out unpartitioned behind her—all cabinet rows, cubicles and conference rooms. Men worked elbow-to-elbow tight—the place hummed.
The woman smiled. “Mr. Kennedy will see you. Take this first little aisle straight back.”
Kemper walked into the hum. The office had a scavenged look: mismatched desks and filing bins, and corkboards top-heavy with paper.
“Mr. Boyd?”
Robert Kennedy stepped out of his cubicle. It was the standard size, the standard desk and two chairs.
He offered the standard t
oo-hard handshake—totally predictable.
Kemper sat down. Kennedy pointed to his holster bulge. “I didn’t know that retired FBI men were allowed to carry guns.”
“I’ve incurred enemies through the years. My retirement won’t stop them from hating me.”
“Senate investigators don’t wear sidearms.”
“If you hire me, I’ll put mine in a drawer.”
Kennedy smiled and leaned against his desk. “You’re from the South?”
“Nashville, Tennessee.”
“Sally Lefferts said you were with the FBI for what, fifteen years?”
“Seventeen.”
“Why did you retire early?”
“I worked auto-theft infiltration assignments for the past nine years, and it had gotten to the point where I was too well known to car thieves to go undercover convincingly. The Bureau bylaws contain an early-retirement clause for agents who have engaged in prolonged stints of hazardous duty, and I utilized it.”
“ ‘Utilized’? Did those assignments debilitate you in some way?”
“I applied for a position with the Top Hoodlum Program first. Mr. Hoover rejected my application personally, although he knew full well that I had desired organized crime work for some time. No, I wasn’t debilitated. I was frustrated.”
Kennedy brushed hair from his forehead. “So you quit.”
“Is that an accusation?”
“No, it’s an observation. And frankly, I’m surprised. The FBI is a tight-knit organization that inspires great loyalty, and agents do not tend to retire out of pique.”
Kemper raised his voice—just barely. “A great many agents realize that organized crime, not domestic Communism, poses the greatest threat to America. The Apalachin revelations forced Mr. Hoover to form the Top Hoodlum Program, which of course he did with some reluctance. The program is accruing antimob intelligence, but not seeking hard evidence to build toward Federal prosecution, but at least that’s something, and I wanted to be part of it.”
Kennedy smiled. “I understand your frustration, and I agree with your critique of Mr. Hoover’s priorities. But I’m still surprised that you quit.”
