by James Ellroy
Boyd told him not to kill Littell. Boyd co-signed Littell’s Pension Fund hard-on—which meant at least an outside chance at co-opting big money.
Littell loved Bad-Back Jack.
Like Darleen Shoftel. Like Gail Hendee.
Like himself.
Hey, Jack—you fucked my old girlfriend. I don’t care—Kemper Boyd says you’re a white man.
I’m selling dope for you. I’m running cash to a man named Banister—who links YOU to a Jew/papist plot to butt-fuck America.
You’d dig Fort Blessington, Jack. It’s a Mob resort now—the Boys come by to catch the anti-Castro floorshow. Santo Junior bought a motel outside town. He’d put you up for free—if you dump your kid brother in the Everglades.
Sam G. drops by. Carlos Marcello visits. Johnny Rosselli brings Dick Contino and his accordion. Lenny Sands puts on shows—his transvestite Fidel shtick brings the house down.
Dope profits were up. Cadre morale was sky-high. Ramón Gutiérrez kept a tally of speedboat-run scalpees. Heshie Ryskind started up a scalp bonus fund.
Lenny Sands was on smear duty: the Beard as scandal-sheet whipping boy. Mr. Hughes dug the political thrust, but preferred to see Hush-Hush exposit sex skank exclusively.
Pete called Hughes once a week. The fucker ranted nonstop.
The TWA gig was dragging on. Dick Steisel kept Hughes look-alikes on retainer. Hughes believed that niggers caused cancer—and kept urging Ike to reinstate slavery.
Germ-obsessed Mormon nuts kept Big Howard company. They kept his bungalow sanitized: A-bomb-strength bug spray worked wonders. Some doofus named Duane Spurgeon bossed the crew. He stretched lubricated rubbers over every doorknob spooks might have touched.
Hughes was on a new kick: getting weekly blood transfusions. He sucked in pure Mormon blood exclusively—purchased from a blood bank outside Salt Lake City.
Hughes always said, Thanks for the dope. Pete always said, Thank the Agency.
He still got a Hughes paycheck. He still got twenty-three alimony cuts. He got 5% of Tiger Kab and his contract agent pay.
He used to pimp and pull shakedowns. Now he rode shotgun to History.
Jimmy Hoffa stopped by the cabstand every few days. His standard M.O. was to rave at non-English-speaking drivers. Wilfredo Delsol was running the switchboard now—whacking his cousin killed his appetite for strongarm.
Wilfredo understood English. He said Jimmy teed off on Cubans, but couldn’t sustain it. Whoever took the first few “fuckheads” got a reprieve. Hoffa couldn’t scream a sentence that didn’t end “Kennedy.”
Pete saw Jack and Jimmy on TV back-to-back. Kennedy charmed a heckler speechless. Hoffa wore white socks and an egg-spattered necktie.
Hold the tip sheet—I can spot winners and losers. Sometimes he just couldn’t sleep. That big fucking whoooosh was like a hydrogen bomb inside his head.
43
(Greenbrier, 5/8/60)
Flanking cordons jammed up to the rostrum. Pro-Jack and pro-Teamster pickets—hard boys all.
The main drag was blocked off to cars. The pre-rally crowd extended back three blocks: at least six thousand people packed in shoulder-to-shoulder tight.
They jabbered and hummed. Placards bobbed ten feet high.
Jack was set to speak first. Humphrey lost a rigged coin toss and spoke last. Jack regalia outgunned Hubert three to one—the West Virginia campaign in a nutshell.
Teamster goons yelled into bullhorns. Some rednecks hoisted a cartoon banner: Jack with fangs and a papal biretta.
Kemper cupped his ears—the crowd roar was painful. Rocks shredded the banner—he paid some kids to crouch down and let fly.
Jack was due. Bad acoustics and Hoffa invective would drown out his speech.
No great loss—people would still see him. The crowd would disperse when Humphrey showed up—free liquor was being served at select downtown taverns.
It was Kemper Boyd liquor. An old pal hijacked a Schenley’s truck and sold him the contents.
The street was packed. The sidewalks were packed. Peter Lawford was lobbing tie tacks at a gaggle of nuns.
Kemper mingled and watched the rostrum. He saw non-sequitur faces a few yards apart: Lenny Sands and a prototype Mob guy.
The Mob guy flashed Lenny a thumbs-up. Lenny flashed him two thumbs back.
Lenny was off the campaign payroll. Lenny had no official duties here.
The Mob man veered right. Lenny pushed his way left and ducked down an alley lined with trash cans.
Kemper followed him. Stray elbows and knees slowed him down.
High-school kids jostled him across the sidewalk. Lenny was midway down the alley, huddled with two cops.
The crowd noise leveled out. Kemper crouched behind a trash can and eavesdropped.
Lenny fanned a cash roll. A cop plucked bills off of it. His buddy said, “For two hundred extra we can stall the Humphrey bus and bring in some boys to shout him down.”
Lenny said, “Do it. And this is strictly on Mr. G., so don’t mention it to anybody with the campaign.”
The cops grabbed the whole roll and squeezed through an alleyway door. Lenny leaned against the wall and lit a cigarette.
Kemper walked up to him. Hipster Lenny said, “So?”
“So, tell me about it.”
“What’s to tell?”
“Fill in the blanks for me, then.”
“What’s to fill in? We’re both Kennedy guys.”
Lenny could maneuver. Lenny could outfrost any cool cat on earth.
“Giancana put money into Wisconsin, too. Is that right? You couldn’t have performed the way you did on what Bobby gave you.”
Lenny shrugged. “Sam and Hesh Ryskind.”
“Who told them to? You?”
“My advice don’t rate that high. You know that.”
“Spill, Lenny. You’re playing coy, and it’s starting to annoy me.”
Lenny stubbed his cigarette on the wall. “Sinatra was bragging up his influence with Jack. He was saying Jack as President wouldn’t be the same Jack that sat on the McClellan Committee, if you catch my meaning.”
“And Giancana bought the whole package?”
“No. I think you gave Frank a big fucking assist. Everybody’s real impressed with what you’ve been doing on the Cuba front, so they figured if you like Jack he can’t be all bad.”
Kemper smiled. “I don’t want Bobby and Jack to find out about this.”
“Nobody does.”
“Until the debt gets called in?”
“Sam don’t believe in frivolous reminders. And in case you’re thinking of reminding me, I’ll tell you now. I haven’t come up with bubkes on the Pension Fund.”
Kemper heard footscrapes. He saw Teamsters left and Teamsters right—chain swingers crouched at both ends of the alley.
They had their sights on Lenny. Tiny Lenny, Jewish Lenny, Kennedy toady Lenny—
Lenny didn’t see them. Pissy Lenny was entrenched in his cool cat/tough guy act.
Kemper said, “I’ll be in touch.”
Lenny said, “See you in shul.”
Kemper backed through the alleyway door and double-locked it behind him. He heard shouts, chain rattles and thuds—the classic labor-goon two-way press.
Lenny never yelled or screamed. Kemper timed the beating at a minute and six seconds.
44
(Chicago, 5/10/60)
The work was driving Littell schizophrenic. He had to satisfy the Bureau and his conscience.
Chick Leahy hated Mai Chamales. HUAC had linked Mai to sixteen Commie front groups. Leahy’s FBI mentor was former Chicago SAC Guy Banister.
Banister hated Mai. Mai’s Red Squad sheet was eighty pages long.
He liked Mai. They had coffee every so often. Mai spent ’46 to ’48 in Lewisburg—Banister built up a sedition profile and talked the U.S. Attorney into an indictment.
Leahy 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&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 safe-deposit 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.
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.
• • •
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.
45
(Blessington, 5/12/60)
Jimmy Hoffa said, “I know how Jesus must have felt. The fucking pharaohs rose to power on his coattails like the fucking Kennedy brothers are rising on mine.”
Heshie Ryskind said, “Get your history straight. It was Julius Caesar that did Jesus in.”
Santo Junior said, “Joe Kennedy is a man you can reason with. It’s strictly Bobby that’s the bad seed. Joe will explain certain facts of life to Jack if he makes it.”
Johnny Rosselli said, “J. Edgar Hoover hates Bobby. And he knows you can’t fight the Outfit and win. If the kid is elected, cooler heads than that little cocksucker Bobby’s will prevail.”
The Boys were sprawled in deck chairs out on the speedboat dock. Pete kept their drinks fresh and let them run off at the mouth.
Hoffa said, “Fucking Jesus turned fish into bread, and that’s about the only thing I haven’t tried. I’ve spent six hundred grand on the primaries
and bought every fucking cop and alderman and councilman and mayor and fucking grand juror and senator and judge and DA and fucking prosecutorial investigator who’d let me. I’m like Jesus trying to part the Red Fucking Sea and not getting no further than some motel on the beach.”
Ryskind said, “Jimmy, calm down. Go get yourself a nice blow job and relax. I’ve got some reliable local numbers. These are girls who know their trade and would love to satisfy a famous guy like you.”
Rosselli said, “If Jack is elected, Bobby will fade into the woodwork. My bet is he’ll run for governor of Massachusetts, and Raymond Patriarca and the Boston boys will have to worry about him.”
Santo Junior said, “That will never happen. Old Joe and Raymond go too far back. And when push comes to shove, it’s Joe who hands down the law—not Jack or Bobby.”
Hoffa said, “It’s the handing down of grand jury indictments that bothers me. My lawyer said the Sun Valley thing is unlikely to go my way, which means indictments by the end of the year. So don’t make Joe Kennedy sound like Jesus handing God the Ten Commandments on Mount Fucking Vesuvius.”
Ryskind said, “Santo was just making a point.”
Rosselli said, “It’s Mount Ararat, Jimmy. Mount Vesuvius is in fucking Yellowstone Park.”
Hoffa said, “You guys don’t know Jack Kennedy. Fucking Kemper Boyd’s got you convinced he’s a gung-ho anti-Castro guy when he’s really a pinko, Commie-appeasing, nigger-loving fucking homo masquerading as a cunt man.”
Wave spray hit the dock. Cadence counts sounded off fifty yards over—Lockhart was running troops through close-order drill.
Ryskind said, “I could go for a blow job.”
Rosselli said, “What’s the count at, Hesh?”
Ryskind said, “Somewhere in the vicinity of seventeen thousand.”
Santo Junior said, “Don’t shit a shitter. I’d say eight thousand tops. Anything more than that and you’d be too fucking occupied to make money.”
The dock phone rang. Pete tilted his chair back and grabbed the receiver.
“This is Bondurant.”
“I’m glad it’s you, but don’t you soldier types say hello?”
Jack Ruby—un-fucking-mistakable.
