by James Ellroy
“Ward …”
“Sure, Mal. I’ll write it up in my next report. I’ll say you quit the Party to take a job with the Nixon campaign.”
Mal dashed some tears back. Mal almost dumped the table trying to hug him.
Littell said, “Get out of here. I don’t like embracing Commies in public.”
The diner faced his apartment building. Littell hogged a window seat and killed time polling bumper stickers.
Two Nixon cars were parked at the curb. He saw a Nixon-Lodge decal on his landlord’s windshield.
Traffic whizzed by. Littell caught glimpses: six Nixons and three Kennedys.
The waitress topped off his coffee. He added two shots from his flask.
Instant straw poll results: Nixon sweeps Chicago!
Sunlight hit the window. Wonderful distortions hit him: his new face and his jagged new hairline.
Helen ran up the steps outside his apartment. She looked harried—no makeup, no overcoat, mismatched skirt and blouse.
She saw his car. She looked across the street and saw him in the window.
She ran over. Notebook paper flew out of her handbag.
Littell walked to the door. Helen shoved it open two-handed.
He tried to grab her. She pulled his gun out of his holster and hit him with it.
She hit him in the chest. She hit him in the arms. She tried to pull the trigger with the safety on. She hit him with flailing girl punches—too fast to stop.
Eyeliner ran down her cheeks. Her handbag capsized and spilled books. She shouted odd words: “grant fund rescinding” and “loyalty oath” and “FBI” and “YOU YOU YOU.”
Heads bobbed their way. Two men at the counter pulled their guns.
Helen stopped hitting him. Helen said, “Goddamnit, this is YOU, I know it is.”
He drove to the office. He boxed in Leahy’s car and ran up to the squadroom.
Leahy’s door was shut. Court Meade saw him and turned away.
Two men walked by in shirtsleeves and shoulder holsters. Littell remembered them: the phone guys rigging lines outside his apartment.
Leahy’s door swung open. A man stuck his head out. Littell remembered him: that guy at the post office yesterday.
The door closed. Voices seeped through it: “Littell,” “the Agee girl.”
He kicked the door off its hinges. He framed the scene à la Mal Chamales.
Four gray-flannel fascists in conference. Four parasitic, exploitative, right-wing—
Littell said, “Remember what I know. Remember how I can hurt the Bureau.”
He bought wire cutters, safety goggles, magnetic shielding strips, a glass cutter, rubber gloves, a .10-gauge shotgun, a hundred rounds of double-aught buckshot, a box of industrial dynamite, three hundred yards of acoustical baffling, a hammer, nails and two large duffel bags.
He stored his car in a service garage.
He rented a ’57 Ford Victoria—with fake Cointelpro ID.
He bought three quarts of scotch—just enough to wean himself dry.
He drove south to Sioux City, Iowa.
He turned in his rental car and caught a train north to Milwaukee.
DOCUMENT INSERT: 10/17/60. Confidential memorandum: John Stanton to Kemper Boyd.
Kemper,
I got a disquieting phone call from Guy Banister, so I thought I’d pass the information along to you. You’re hard to reach these days, so I hope this gets to you within a reasonable length of time.
Guy’s friends with the Miami SAC, who’s tight with the CO of the Miami PD Intelligence Squad. The Squad keeps suspected pro-Castro Cubans under loose surveillance, with routine license plate checks on all the male Latins they are spotted with. Our man Wilfredo Olmos Delsol was seen on two occasions with Gaspar Ramon Blanco, age 37, a known pro-Communist member of the Committee for Cuban Understanding, a Raul Castro-financed propaganda front. This troubles me, chiefly because of PB’s set- to with Delsol’s cousin Tomas Obregon. Have PB check this out, would you? Our compartmentalization procedures preclude my contacting him directly.
All best,
John
52
(Miami, 10/20/60)
The pilot announced a late arrival. Kemper checked his watch—Pete’s allotted time just evaporated.
Pete caught up with him in Omaha this morning. He said, I’ve got something for you—something you’ll want to see.
He promised that the stopover would take no more than twenty minutes. He said, I’ll put you on the next plane back to Jack.
Miami twinkled below. He had crucial work in Omaha—postponed by this six-hour detour.
The race was too close to call. Nixon might have a slight edge—with eighteen days left to go.
He called Laura from the departure lounge. She lit into his Kennedy ties. Claire kept saying that Laura ached for a Nixon victory.
Claire said FBI men questioned her last month. Their sole topic was Ward Littell’s politics.
The agents intimidated her. They cautioned her not to mention the interview to her father.
Claire broke the promise and called him three days ago. He called Ward immediately.
His phone rang and rang. The rings had a distinct wiretap pitch.
He called Court Meade to check on Ward’s whereabouts. Meade said Ward kicked the SAC’s door down and vanished.
Claire called him in Omaha last night. She said the Bureau got Helen’s law school grant revoked.
Mr. Hoover stopped calling him two days ago. It all connected somehow. The campaign had him running too fast to be scared.
Cross winds roughed up their descent. The plane taxied in with a fishtailing whoosh.
Kemper checked his window. He saw Pete standing outside, with the ground crew. The men were palming cash rolls and fawning at the big guy with the money.
Landing stairs locked in. Kemper crowded up to the door.
The co-pilot cranked it open. There’s Pete—with a baggage cart parked on the runway, right below them.
Kemper took the steps three at a time. Pete grabbed him and cupped a yell. “Your plane’s delayed! We’ve got half an hour!”
Kemper jumped on the cart. Pete gunned it. They dodged luggage piles and swung around to a janitor’s hut.
A baggage handler got the door. Pete slipped him twenty dollars.
A linen tablecloth was draped over a workbench. On it: gin, vermouth, a glass and six sheets of paper.
Pete said, “Read through that.”
Kemper skimmed the top page. His hackles jumped immediately.
Howard Hughes lent Dick Nixon’s kid brother $200,000. Check photostats, bookkeeping notes and bank slips proved it. Somebody compiled an itemized list: Nixon-proffered legislation linked to Hughes government contracts.
Kemper mixed a drink. His hands shook. He spilled Beefeater’s all over the workbench.
He looked at Pete. “You haven’t asked for money.”
“If I wanted money, I would have called Jimmy.”
“I’ll tell Jack he’s got a friend in Miami.”
“Tell him to let us invade Cuba, and I’ll call it even.”
The martini was gorgeously dry. The janitor’s hut glowed like the Carlyle.
“Keep an eye on Wilfredo Delsol. It’s anticlimactic now, but I think he might be screwing up.”
Pete said, “Call Bobby. I want to hear you put the little fuck in hock to me.”
DOCUMENT INSERT: 10/23/60. Cleveland Plain Dealer headline:
HUGHES-NIXON LOAN REVELATIONS ROCK CAMPAIGN
DOCUMENT INSERT: 10/24/60. Chicago Tribune subhead:
KENNEDY BLASTS NIXON-HUGHES “COLLUSION”
DOCUMENT INSERT: 10/25/60. Los Angeles Herald-Express headline and subhead:
NIXON DENIES INFLUENCE-PEDDLING ACCUSATIONS
HUGHES LOAN BROUHAHA CUTS VEEP’S LEAD IN POLLS
DOCUMENT INSERT: 10/26/60. New York Journal-American subhead:
NIXON CALLS LOAN FLAP “TEMPEST IN TEAPOT”
DOCUMENT INSERT: 10/28/60. San Francisco Chronicle headline:
NIXON BROTHER CALLS HUGHES LOAN “NON-POLITICAL”
DOCUMENT INSERT: 10/29/60. Kansas City Star subhead:
KENNEDY BLASTS NIXON FOR HUGHES LOAN
DOCUMENT INSERT: 11/3/60: Boston Globe headline:
GALLUP POLL: PREZ’L RACE DEAD HEAT!
53
(Lake Geneva, 11/5/60)
Littell ran through his checklist.
Goggles, earplugs, wire cutters, glass cutter—check. Magnet strips, gloves, shotgun, ammunition—check.
Waterproof-fuse dynamite—check. Acoustical baffling, hammer, nails—check.
Check: You wiped every print-sustaining surface in this motel room.
Check: You left your check-out cash on the dresser.
Check: You avoided all contact with your fellow motel tenants.
He ran through his three-week precaution list.
You changed motels every other day—in zigzag patterns throughout southern Wisconsin.
You wore fake beards and fake mustaches at all times.
You changed rental cars at odd intervals. You took buses between car-rental pickups. You secured said cars at distant sites: Des Moines, Minneapolis and Green Bay.
You rented said cars with fake ID.
You paid cash.
You parked said cars nowhere near the motels you checked into.
You made no motel-room phone calls. You print-wiped every surface before you checked out.
You employed tail-evasion tactics. You limited your liquor intake: six shots a night to insure steady nerves.
You spotted no tails.
You stared at single men, gauged their reactions and discerned nothing cop- or Mob-like. Most men evinced discomfort: you were rough-looking now.
You cased Jules Schiffrin’s estate. You determined that the man had no live-in help or on-site watchmen.
You learned Schiffrin’s routine:
Saturday-night dinner and cards at Badger Glen Country Club. Early-Sunday-morning sojourns at the home of one Glenda Rae Mattson.
Jules Schiffrin was gone from 7:05 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. every Saturday into Sunday. His estate was police patrolled every two hours—cursory perimeter road checks.
You secured safe-placement and alarm diagrams. You queried seventeen services to get them. You impersonated a Milwaukee PD lieutenant and buttressed the impersonations with forged documents and credentials purchased from a forger that you arrested years ago.
All your police impersonations were carried out in disguise.
Two steel-plated safes were installed on the premises. They weighed ninety-five pounds apiece. You had their exact location memorized.
Final checks:
Your new motel room outside Beloit: safely rented.
The newspaper piece on Schiffrin’s art collection: clipped out to leave at the crime scene.
Littell took a deep breath and downed three quick shots. His nerves fluttered and almost leveled out.
He checked his face in the bathroom mirror. One last look for courage—
Low clouds covered the moon. Littell drove to the half-mile-out point.
It was 11:47. He had two hours and thirteen minutes to get clear.
A State Police cruiser passed him eastbound. On time: the standard 11:45 perimeter check.
Littell swung off the pavement. Hard-packed dirt grabbed his tires. He hit his brights and slalomed downhill.
The slope evened out. He brodied his back wheels to obliterate tread marks.
Trees dotted the clearing—his car couldn’t be seen from the road.
He killed the lights and grabbed his duffel bag. He saw house lights due west uphill—a faint directional glow to work off of.
He walked toward it. Leaf clumps obscured his footprints. The glow expanded every few seconds.
He hit the driveway adjoining the carport. Schiffrin’s Eldorado Brougham was gone.
He ran to the library window and crouched low. An inside lamp provided hazy light to work by.
He got out his tools and snipped two wires taped to a storm drain. An exterior arc light sputtered. He saw alarm tape bracketing the window glass—mounted between two thick panes.
He gauged the circumference.
He cut magnet-tape strips to cover it.
He stuck them to the outside glass in a near-perfect outline.
His legs ached. Cold sweat stung some shaving cuts.
He ran a magnet over the tape. He traced a circle inside the outline with his glass cutter.
The glass was THICK—it took two hands and all his weight to notch a groove.
No alarms went off. No lights flashed.
He gouged circles in the glass. No sirens whirred; no general pursuit noise went down.
His arms burned. His blade went sharp to dull. His sweat froze and made him shiver.
The outside pane broke. He tucked his sleeves inside his gloves and bore down harder.
TWENTY-NINE MINUTES ELAPSED.
Elbow pressure snapped the inside pane. Littell kicked the frame glass out to make a crawl space.
He vaulted inside. The fit was tight—glass shards cut him down to the skin.
The library was oak-paneled and furnished with green leather chairs. The side walls featured artwork: one Matisse, one Cézanne, one van Gogh.
Floor lamps gave him light—just enough to do the job by.
He arranged his tools.
He found the safes: wall-panel-recessed two feet apart.
He covered every inch of wall space with triple-thick acoustical baffling. He hammered it down tight—fivepenny nails into high-varnished oak.
He X-marked the sections covering the safes. He put on his goggles and stuffed in his earplugs. He loaded his shotgun and let fly.
One round, two rounds—huge contained explosions. Three rounds, four rounds—padding chunks and hardwood decomposing.
Littell reloaded and fired, reloaded and fired, reloaded and fired.
Wood chips sliced his face. Muzzle smoke had him retching. Visibility was zero: mulch slammed up against his goggles.
Littell reloaded and fired, reloaded and fired, reloaded and fired. Forty-odd rounds took the wall and rear ceiling beams down.
Wood and plaster crashed. Second-story furniture dropped down and shattered. Two safes fell out of the rubble.
Littell kicked through it—Please, God, let me breathe.
He vomited splinters and scotch. He coughed up gunsmoke and black phlegm. He dug through wood heaps and lugged the safes over to his duffel bag.
SEVENTY-TWO MINUTES ELAPSED.
The library was blasted through to the dining room. Forty-odd explosions toppled the artwork.
The Cézanne was intact. The Matisse bore slight frame damage. The van Gogh was pellet-shredded nothingness.
Littell dropped the newspaper clip.
Littell lashed the duffel to his back with curtain strips.
Littell grabbed the paintings and ran out the front door.
Pure air made him go lightheaded. He gulped it in and ran.
He slid on leaves and bounced off trees. His bladder went—nothing ever felt so good. He stumbled, hunched over double—two hundred pounds of steel kept him plummeting downhill.
He fell. His body went rubber—he couldn’t stand up or lift the duffel bag.
He crawled and dragged it the rest of the way. He loaded his car and fishtailed up to the access road, heaving for breath the whole time.
He caught his face in the rearview mirror. The word “heroic” came up short.
He took switchbacks north/northwest. He found his preselected detonation spot: a forest clearing outside Prairie du Chien.
He lit the clearing with three big Coleman lanterns. He burned the paintings and scattered the ashes.
He crimped the butt ends of six sticks of dynamite and slid them up against the safe dial-housings.
He strung fuses a hundred yards out and lit a match.
The safes bl
ew. The doors shot all the way up to the tree line. A breeze scattered scorched piles of currency.
Littell sifted through them. The blast destroyed at least a hundred thousand dollars.
Undamaged:
Three large ledger books wrapped in plastic.
Littell buried the scraps of money and dumped the safe sections in a sewage stream adjoining the clearing. He drove to his new motel and obeyed all speed limits en route.
Three ledgers. Two hundred pages per unit. Cross-column notations on each page, squared off in a standard bookkeeping style.
Huge figures listed left to right.
Littell laid the books out on the bed. His first instinct:
The amounts exceeded all possible compilations of monthly or yearly Pension Fund dues.
The two brown leather ledgers were coded. The number/letter listings in the far left-hand column roughly corresponded in digit length to names.
Thus:
AH795/WZ458YX =
One five-letter first name and one seven-letter last name.
MAYBE.
The black leather ledger was uncoded. It contained similarly large financial tallies—and two- and three-letter listings in the far left-hand column.
The listings might be: lender or lendee initials.
The black book was subdivided into vertical columns. They were real-word designated: “Loan %” and “Transfer #.”
Littell put the black book aside. His second instinct: code breaking would not be easy.
He went back to the brown books.
He followed symbol names and figures and watched money accrue horizontally. Neatly doubled sums told him the Pension Fund repayment rate: a usurious 50%.
He spotted letter repetitions—in four-to-six-letter increments—most likely a simple date code. A for 1, B for 2—something told him it was just that simple.
He matched letters to numbers and EXTRAPOLATED:
Fund loan profiteering went back thirty years. The letters and numbers ascended left to right—straight up to early 1960.
The average amount lent was $1.6 million. With repayment fees: $2.4 million.
The smallest loan was $425,000. The largest was $8.6 million.
Numbers growing left to right. Multiplications and divisions in the far right-hand columns—odd percentage calculations.
