by James Ellroy
The Federal courthouse did a brisk business. Six divisions and full arraignment docketing—all unaccompanied lowlifes qualified as potential clients.
Littell passed out cards. A man flicked a cigarette butt at him.
Kemper Boyd walked up. Beautiful Kemper—so fit and groomed that he sparkled.
“Can I buy you a drink?”
“I don’t drink like I used to.”
“Lunch then?”
“Sure.”
• • •
The Hay-Adams dining room faced the White House. Kemper kept glancing out the window.
“… And my work entails taking depositions and filing them in Federal District Court. We’re trying to insure that Negroes previously barred from voting aren’t excluded on the basis of illegally levied poll taxes or constrained by literacy tests that the local registrars want them to fail.”
Littell smiled. “And I’m sure the Kennedys will rig binding legal clauses to insure that every Negro in Alabama registers as a Democrat. You have to consider things like that in the early stages of building a dynasty.”
Kemper laughed. “The President’s civil rights policy isn’t that cynically conceived.”
“Is your application of it?”
“Hardly. I’ve always considered suppression ill-advised and futile.”
“And you like the people?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Your southern accent’s back in force.”
“It disarms the people I deal with. They appreciate it that a southern white man’s on their side. You’re grinning, Ward. What is it?”
Littell sipped coffee. “It occurred to me that Alabama is rather close to Florida.”
“You were always quick.”
“Does the attorney general know that you’re moonlighting?”
“No. But I do have a certain sanction on my Florida visits.”
“Let me guess. Mr. Hoover’s supplying you with cover, and as much as he professes to hate him, Bobby would never do anything to upset Mr. Hoover.”
Kemper waved a waiter off. “Your hatred’s showing, Ward.”
“I don’t hate Mr. Hoover. You can’t hate someone who runs so true to form.”
“But Bobby—”
Littell whispered. “You know what I risked for him. And you know what I got back. And what I can’t abide is that the Kennedys pretend to be better than that.”
Kemper said, “You’ve got the books.” He shot his cuffs and displayed a solid gold Rolex.
Littell pointed to the White House. “Yes, I do. And they’re booby-trapped a dozen different ways. I filed instruction contingency briefs with a dozen different lawyers when I was drunk, and even I can’t remember them all.”
Kemper folded his hands. “With depositions on my Kennedy incursion to go to the Justice Department in the event of your death or prolonged disappearance?”
“No. With depositions on your incursion and depositions on astronomically lucrative Joseph P. Kennedy Mob-linked financial malfeasance to go to municipal PD gangster squads nationwide, and every Republican member of the House and the Senate.”
Kemper said, “Bravo.”
Littell said, “Thank you.”
A waiter placed a phone on their table. Kemper placed a folder next to it.
“Are you broke, Ward?”
“Almost.”
“You haven’t expressed a word of rancor regarding my recent behavior.”
“It wouldn’t do any good.”
“How do you currently feel about organized crime?”
“My current feelings are relatively charitable.”
Kemper tapped the folder. “That’s a pilfered INS file. And you’re the best deportation-writ lawyer on God’s green earth.”
Littell’s shirt cuffs were soiled and frayed. Kemper wore solid gold cufflinks.
“Ten thousand dollars to start, Ward. I’m certain I can get it for you.”
“For doing what? For releasing the books to you?”
“Forget the books. All I ask is that you don’t release them to anyone else.”
“Kemper, what are you talk—?”
“Your client will be Carlos Marcello. And it’s Bobby Kennedy who wants to deport him.”
The phone rang. Littell dropped his coffee cup.
Kemper said, “That’s Carlos. Be obsequious, Ward. He’ll expect a certain amount of fawning.”
DOCUMENT INSERT: 4/2/61. Verbatim FBI telephone call transcript: “TRANSCRIBED AT THE DIRECTOR’S REQUEST”/ “DIRECTOR’S EYES ONLY.” Speaking: Director J. Edgar Hoover, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.
RFK: It’s Bob Kennedy, Mr. Hoover. I was hoping I could have a few minutes of your time.
JEH: Certainly.
RFK: There were a few matters of protocol I wanted to discuss.
JEH: Yes.
RFK: Communications, to begin with. I sent you a directive requesting carbons of all summary reports submitted by your Top Hoodlum Program squads. That directive was dated February 17th. It’s now the 2nd of April, and I’ve yet to see a single report.
JEH: These directives take time to implement.
RFK: Six weeks seems like ample time to me.
JEH: You perceive an undue delay. I do not.
RFK: Will you expedite the implementation of that directive?
JEH: Certainly. Will you refresh my memory as to why you issued it?
RFK: I want to assess every scrap of anti-Mob intelligence the Bureau acquires and share it where needed with the various regional grand juries that I hope to impanel.
JEH: You may be acting injudiciously. Leaking information that could only have originated from THP sources might jeopardize THP informants and electronic surveillance placements.
RFK: All such information will be evaluated from a security standpoint.
JEH: That function should not be trusted to non-FBI personnel.
RFK: I adamantly disagree. You’re going to have to share your information, Mr. Hoover. The simple cultivation of intelligence will not bring Organized Crime tb its knees.
JEH: The Top Hoodlum Program mandate does not provide for information-sharing to expedite grand jury indictments.
RFK: Then we’re going to have to revise it.
JEH: I would consider that a rash and heedless act.
RFK: Consider it what you like, and consider it done. Consider the Top Hoodlum Program mandate superseded by my direct order.
JEH: May I remind you of this simple fact: you cannot prosecute the Mafia and win.
RFK: May I remind you that for many years you denied that the Mafia existed. May I remind you that the FBI is but one cog in the overall wheel of the Justice Department. May I remind you that the FBI does not dictate Justice Department policy. May I remind you that the President and I consider 99% of the left-wing groups that the FBI routinely monitors to be harmless if not outright moribund, and laughably inoffensive when compared to Organized Crime.
JEH: May I state that I consider that burst of invective to be ill-conceived and fatuous in its historical perspective?
RFK: You may.
JEH: Was there anything of a similar or less offensive nature that you wish to add?
RFK: Yes. You should know that I intend to initiate wiretap accountability legislation. I want the Justice Department to be informed of every single instance of wiretapping undertaken by municipal police departments nationwide.
JEH: Many would consider that undue Federal meddling and a flagrant abuse of States’ Rights.
RFK: The concept of States’ Rights has been a smokescreen to obscure everything from de facto segregation to outmoded abortion statutes.
JEH: I disagree.
RFK: Duly noted. And I would like you to duly note that from this day on you are to inform me of every electronic surveillance operation that the FBI engages in.
JEH: Yes.
RFK: Duly noted?
JEH: Yes.
RFK: I want you to personally call the New Orleans SAC and have hi
m assign four agents to arrest Carlos Marcello. I want this done within seventy-two hours. Tell the SAC that I’m having Marcello deported to Guatemala. Tell him that the Border Patrol will be contacting him to iron out details.
JEH: Yes.
RFK: Duly noted?
JEH: Yes.
RFK: Good day, Mr. Hoover.
JEH: Good day.
64
(New Orleans, 4/4/61)
He was too late—by seconds.
Four men grappled Carlos Marcello into a Fed sled. Right outside his house—with Mrs. Carlos on the porch, throwing a fit.
Pete pulled up across the street and watched it happen. His rescue mission clocked in half a minute tardy.
Marcello was dressed in BVDs and beach flip-flops. Marcello looked like this low-rent Il Duce on the rag.
Boyd fucked up.
He said, Bobby wants Carlos deported. He said, You and Chuck get to New Orleans and snatch him first. He said, Don’t call and warn him—just get there.
Boyd said bureaucratic jive would give them time. Boyd mis-fucking calculated.
The Feds took off. Frau Carlos stood on the porch, wringing her hands grieving-wife-style.
Pete tailed the Fed car. Early a.m. traffic got between them. He eye-balled the Fed’s antenna and rode a purple Lincoln’s back bumper.
Chuck was back at Moisant Airport, gassing up the Piper. The Feds were heading that way.
They’d fly Carlos out commercial or dump him on the Border Patrol. He’d be Guatemala-bound—and Guatemala loved the CIA.
The Fed car took surface streets east. Pete saw a bridge up ahead—toll booths and two eastbound lanes across the river.
Both lanes were hemmed in by guardrails. Narrow pedestrian walkways ran flush along the edge of the bridge.
Cars were stacked up in front of the booths—at least twenty per lane.
Pete hopped lanes and swerved in front of the Fed car. He spotted a squeeze space between the left-hand booth and the guardrail.
He accelerated in. A rail housing snapped off his outside mirror.
Horns blared. His left-side hubcaps went spinning. A toll taker looked over and doused an old lady with coffee.
Pete SQUEEZED past the booths and hit the bridge going forty. The Fed sled was stalled, way way back.
He made it to Moisant fast. His rent-a-car was dinged, chipped and paint-stripped.
He ditched it in an underground lot. He greased a skycap for airport information.
Commercial flights to Guatemala? No, sir, none today. The Border Patrol office? Next to the Trans-Texas counter.
Pete cruised by and loitered behind a newspaper. The office door opened and closed.
Men carried shackles in. Men carried flight logs out. Men stood outside the door and kibitzed.
A guy said, “I heard they popped him in his skivvies.”
A guy said, “The pilot really hates wops.”
A guy said, “They’re flying out at 8:30.”
Pete ran to the private-plane hangar. Chucky was perched on the snout of his Piper, reading a hate mag.
Pete caught his breath. “They’ve got Carlos. We’ve got to get down to Guatemala City ahead of them and see what we can work out.”
Chuck said, “That’s a goddamned foreign country. We’re only supposed to bring the man back to Blessington. We’ve barely got the gas to—”
“Let’s go. We’ll patch some calls in and work something out.”
Chuck got clearance to take off and land. Pete called Guy Banister and explained the situation.
Guy said he’d call John Stanton and try to rig a plan. He had short wave gear out at Lake Pontchartrain and could radio in to Chuck’s frequency.
They took off at 8:16. Chuck put on his headphones and cribbed flight calls.
The Border Patrol plane departed late. Their Guatemala City ETA was forty-six minutes behind them.
Chuck flew medium-low and kept his headset on. Pete skimmed hate pamphlets out of sheer boredom.
The titles were a howl. The ultimate: “KKK: Kommunist Krucifixion Krusade!”
He found a skin mag/hate mag combo under his seat. Dig that zaftig blonde with the swastika earrings.
Big Pete wants a woman. Extortion experience preferred, but not mandatory.
Dashboard lights flashed. Chuck bootjacked a plane-to-base message and transcribed it in his log.
The Border Patrol guys are goofing on Carlos. They radio’d their HQ that they’ve got no lavatory on board & Carlos refuses to piss in a tin can. (They think he’s got a little one.)
Pete laughed. Pete pissed in a cup and doused the Gulf from 6,000 feet.
Time dragged. Stomach flutters came and went. Pete chased a Dramamine with warm beer.
Lights flashed. Chuck rogered a Pontchartrain patch-in and transcribed the message.
Guy got through to JS. JS pulled strings & got thru to Guat. contacts. We’re cleared to land with no passport check & if we can get ahold of CM its set up to register him at G.C. Hilton under name Jose Garcia. JS says KB says to have CM call lawyer in Washington D.C. at OL6-4809 tonight.
Pete pocketed the message. The Dramamine kicked in to his system: good night, sweet prince.
Leg cramps woke him up. Jungle terrain and a big black runway hovered.
Chuck eased the plane down and cut the engines. Some spics rolled out a literal red carpet.
It was a bit frayed, but nice.
The beaners looked like right-wing toady types. The Agency saved Guatemala’s ass once—some staged coup expunged a shitload of Reds.
Pete hopped out and stamped his legs awake. Chuck and the spics talked rapid-fire Spanish.
They were back in Guatemala—too fucking soon.
The talk escalated. Pete felt his ears pop-pop-pop. They had forty-six minutes to rig something.
Pete walked over to the Customs shack. He got this little Technicolor brain blip: Carlos Marcello needs to urinate.
The bathroom adjoined the passport counter. Pete checked it out.
It ran about 8 feet by 8 feet square. A flimsy screen covered the back window. The view featured more runways and a line of rattletrap bi-planes.
Carlos was stocky. Chuck was rail thin. He was all-around-huge himself.
Chuck walked in and unzipped by the urinal. “We got a big foul-up. I don’t know if it’s good news or bad.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying the Border Patrol’s set to land in seventeen minutes. They’ve got to refuel here and fly to another airport sixty miles away. That’s where Customs is set to pick up Carlos. That ETA I got is for the other goddamned air—”
“How much money have we got in the plane?”
“Sixteen thousand. Santo said to drop it off with Banister.”
Pete shook his head. “We grease the Customs guys with it. We fucking inundate them, so they’ll take the risk. All we need is a car and a driver outside that window, and you to push Carlos through.”
Chuck said, “I get it.”
Pete said, “If he doesn’t have to piss, we’re fucked.”
The spics dug the plan. Chuck greased them at the rate of two grand per man. They said they’d keep the Border Patrol guys busy while Carlos Marcello took the world’s longest whiz.
Pete loosened the window screen. Chuck stashed the Piper two hangars over.
The spics supplied a ’49 Merc getaway car. The spics supplied a driver—a musclebound fag named Luis.
Pete backed the Merc up to the window. Chuck crouched on the toilet seat with last week’s Hush-Hush.
The Border Patrol plane landed. A crew hustled out refueling pumps. Pete crouched behind the Customs shack and watched.
The spies zipped out the red carpet. A little geek brushed it off with a whisk broom.
Two Border Patrol clowns deplaned. The pilot said, “Let him go. Where’s he gonna run to?”
Carlos tumbled out of the plane. Carlos ran to the shack, knock-kneed in tight BVDs.
L
uis idled the engine. Pete heard the bathroom door slam.
Carlos yelled, “ROGERS, WHAT THE FUCK—?”
The window screen popped out. Carlos Marcello squeezed through—and snagged himself bare-assed in the process.
The run to the Hilton took an hour. Marcello blasted Bobby Kennedy nonstop.
In English. In straight Italian. In Sicilian dialect. In New Orleans Cajun French patois—not bad for a wop.
Luis detoured by a men’s shop. Chuck took down Marcello’s sizes and bought him some threads.
Carlos dressed in the car. Little window-squeeze abrasions bloodied up his shirt.
The hotel manager met them at the freight entrance. They freight-lifted up to the penthouse on the QT.
The manager unlocked the door. One glance said Stanton delivered.
The pad featured three bedrooms, three bathrooms and a rec room lined with slot machines. The living room was Kemper Boyd fantasy size.
The bar was fully stocked. A guinea cold-cut buffet was laid out. The envelope by the cheese tray contained twenty grand and a note.
Pete & Chuck,
I’m betting you were able to get ahold of Mr. Marcello. Take good care of him. He’s a valuable friend to the Cause.
JS
Marcello grabbed the money. The manager genuflected. Pete showed him the door and slipped him a C-note.
Marcello snarfed salami and breadsticks. Chuck built a tall Bloody Mary.
Pete paced off the suite. Forty-two yards lengthwise—whoa!
Chuck curled up with a hate mag. Marcello said, “I really had to piss. When you hold a piss that long it pisses you off.”
Pete snagged a beer and some crackers. “Stanton’s got you a lawyer in D.C. You’re supposed to call him.”
“I’ve talked to him already. I’ve got the best Jew lawyers money can buy, and now I’ve got him.”
“You should call him now and get it over with.”
“You call him. And stay on the line in case I need you to translate. Lawyers talk this language I don’t always get the first time around.”
Pete grabbed the coffee table extension. The hotel operator placed his call.
Marcello picked up the bar phone. The long-distance rings came through faint.
