American Tabloid

by James Ellroy

  He could get close. He could shoot. The fair-skinned Anglo-Saxon could be Cuban.

  The Dexedrine hit full-bore. Cold coffee provided a nice booster.

  The date jumped off his Rolex. Happy Birthday—you’re forty-six years old and don’t look it.

  DOCUMENT INSERT: 2/21/62. Partial microphone to mobile listening post transcript. Transcribed by: Fred Turentine. Tape/written copies to: P. Bondurant, W. Littell.

  9:14 p.m., February 19, 1962. L. Sands & B. Jahelka enter house (target & entourage arrived at 8:03). Traffic noise on Pacific Coast Highway accounts for scrambled signal and large continuity gaps. B. Jahelka’s visit clock synchronized & live monitored.

  Initial code:

  BJ—Barb Jahelka. LS—Lenny Sands. PL—Peter Lawford. MU1—Male Unknown #1. MU2—Male Unknown #2. FU 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7: Female Unknowns #1–#7. JFK–John F. Kennedy. RFK—Robert F. Kennedy. (Note: I think MU #1 and #2 are Secret Service agents.)

  9:14–9:22: garbled.

  9:23–9:26: overlapping voices. BJ’s voice comes through, mostly casual greetings. (I think she was being introduced to FU #1–#7. Note high-pitched laughter on tape copies.)

  9:27–9:39: BJ & PL.

  PL (conversation in progress): You stand out in this crowd, Barb.

  BJ: My beauty or my height?

  PL: Both.

  BJ: You’re so full of shit.

  FU3: Hi, Peter.

  PL: Hi, doll.

  FU6: Peter, I just love the President’s hair.

  PL: Give it a tug. He won’t bite you.

  FU3, FU6: laughter.

  BJ: Are they showgirls or hookers?

  PL: The bleached blonde’s a barmaid at the Sip n’ Surf in Malibu. The others work the show line at the Dunes. You see the brunette with the lungs?

  BJ: I see her.

  PL: She plays skin flute in Frank Sinatra’s all-girl band.

  BJ: Very funny.

  PL: Not funny, because Bobby made Jack drop Frank. Frank put in a heliport at his place in Palm Springs so Jack could visit him, but that judgmental little shit Bobby made Jack give him the brush-off, just because he knows a few gangsters. Look at him. Isn’t he a wicked looking little shit?

  BJ: He has buck teeth.

  PL: That never touch women.

  BJ: Are you saying he’s a fag?

  PL: I have it on good authority that he only fucks his wife, doesn’t go down, and only gives it to Ethel for purposes of procreation. Isn’t he a wicked looking little shit?

  FU2: Peter! I just met the President out on the beach!

  PL: That’s nice. Did you suck his cock?

  FU2: You’re a pig.

  PL: Oink! Oink!

  BJ: I think I need a drink.

  PL: I think you need a lobotomy. Really, Barb. I just wanted you to sleep with Prank once.

  BJ: He’s not my type.

  PL: He could have helped you. He would have kicked that wicked little shit Joey out of your life.

  BJ: Joey and I have a history. I’ll cut him loose when the time’s right.

  PL: You cut me loose too soon. Frank was deeply smitten with you, doll. He sensed that you were hiding things, and I have it on good authority that he hired a private eye to find out what those things were.

  BJ: Did he tell you what he found out?

  PL: Mum’s the word, doll. Mum’s the goddamn—

  FU1: Oh God, Peter, I just met President Kennedy!

  PL: That’s nice. Did you suck his cock?

  BJ, FU1, FU7: garbled.

  PL: Oink! Oink! Oink! I’m a Presidential piglet!

  9:40–10:22: garbled. Static quality indicates that Secret Service men installed and were calling out on private phone lines.

  10:23–10:35: garbled. BJ (standing near hi-fi set) talking to: FU1, 3, 7. (She should have been told to avoid noisy appliances & record players.)

  10:36–10:41: BJ in bathroom (indicated by sink & toilet sounds).

  10:42–10:49: garbled.

  10:50–11:04: BJ & RFK.

  BJ (conversation in progress): It’s just a craze, and you have to catch these things before they crest, and then bail out before they fizzle so you won’t look like a loser.

  RFK: Then I guess you could say the Twist is like politics.

  BJ: You could. Opportunism’s certainly the common denominator.

  RFK: It sounds trite, but you don’t talk like an ex-showgirl.

  BJ: Have you met a lot of them?

  RFK: Quite a few, yes.

  BJ: When you were investigating gangsters?

  RFK: No, when my brother introduced me to them.

  BJ: Did they have a common denominator?

  RFK: Yes. Availability.

  BJ: I’d have to agree with that.

  RFK: Are you going out with Lenny Sands?

  BJ: We’re not dating. He just brought me to the party.

  RFK: How did he bill the gathering?

  BJ: He didn’t say, ‘come join the harem,’ if that’s what you mean.

  RFK: Then you noticed the high woman to man ratio.

  BJ: You know I did, Mr. Kennedy.

  RFK: Call me Bob.

  BJ: All right, Bob.

  RFK: I’m just assuming that since you know Peter and Lenny, you know how certain things are.

  BJ: I think I follow you.

  RFK: I know you do. I’m only mentioning it because I’ve known Lenny for a long time, and he seems sad and nervous tonight, and I’ve never seen him that way before. I’d hate to think that Peter put him up to—

  BJ: I don’t like Peter. I had a fling with him several years ago, and I broke it off when I saw that he was really no better than a toady and a pimp. I came to this party because Lenny needed a date and I thought it would be nice to spend a cool winter evening at the beach and maybe meet the Attorney General and President of the United States—

  RFK: Please, I didn’t mean to offend you.

  BJ: You didn’t.

  RFK: When I get hornswoggled into evenings like this, I find myself checking out the anomalies from a security standpoint. When the anomaly is a woman, well, you see what I mean.

  BJ: Given the other women here, it’s good to be an anomaly.

  RFK: I’m bored and two drinks over my limit. I don’t normally get so personal with people I just met.

  BJ: Want to hear a good joke?

  RFK: Sure.

  BJ: What did Pat Nixon say about her husband?

  RFK: I don’t know.

  BJ: Richard was a strange bedfellow long before he entered politics.

  RFK (laughing): Jesus, that’s a riot. I’ll have to tell that to—

  Garbled (airplane flying overhead). Remainder of BJ–RFK conversation lost to static.

  11:05–11:12: Hi-fi noise & car noise indicate that BJ is walking thru house & that people are leaving the party.

  11:13–11:19: BJ talking directly to microphone. (Tell her not to do this. It’s a security risk.)

  BJ: I’m out on this deck overlooking the beach. I’m alone, and I’m whispering so people won’t hear what I’m saying or think I’m crazy. I haven’t met the Big Man yet, but I noticed him notice me and nudge Peter like he was saying, who’s the redhead? It’s freezing out here, but I dug a mink coat out of a closet, and now I’m nice and warm. Lenny’s drunk, but I think he’s trying to have a good time. He’s schmoozing with Dean Martin now. The Big Man is in Peter’s bedroom with two blondes. I saw Bobby a few minutes ago. He was eating out of the fridge like a starving man. The Secret Service men are looking through a stack of Playboy Magazines. You can tell they’re thinking, boy, I’m sure glad stodgy old Dick Nixon didn’t get elected. Somebody’s smoking pot out on the beach, and I’m thinking hard to get’s the way to play this. I’m thinking he’ll find me. I heard Bobby tell one of the Secret Service men that the Big Man didn’t want to leave until 1:00. That gives me some time. Lenny said Peter showed him my infamous Nugget Magazine foldout from November, 1956. He’s about 6′ or 6′1″, so with flats on he�
�ll have a few inches on me. I have to say that Hollywood trash aside, this is one of those moments that young girls write about in their diaries. Also, I declined three invitations to Twist, because I thought it might rip my microphone loose. Did you hear that? The bedroom door behind me just shut, and the two blondes snuck out, giggling. I’m going to shut up now.

  11:20–11:27: silence. (Wave noise indicates that BJ has remained on the beach deck.)

  11:28–11:40: BJ & JFK.

  JFK: Hi.

  BJ: Jesus.

  JFK: Hardly, but thanks anyway.

  BJ: How about, hello, Mr. President?

  JFK: How about, hello, Jack?

  BJ: Hello, Jack.

  JFK: What’s your name?

  BJ: Barb Jahelka.

  JFK: You don’t look like a Jahelka.

  BJ: It’s Lindscott, actually. I work with my ex-husband, so I kept my married name.

  JFK: Is Lindscott Irish?

  BJ: It’s an Anglo-German bastardization.

  JFK: The Irish are all bastards. Bastards, cranks and drunks.

  BJ: Can I quote you?

  JFK: After I’m re-elected. Put it in the portable John F. Kennedy, next to ‘Ask not what your country can do for you.’

  BJ: Can I ask you a question?

  JFK: Sure.

  BJ: Is being President of the United States the biggest fucking blast on earth?

  JFK (sustained laughter): It truly is. Your supporting cast of characters is worth the price of admission alone.

  BJ: For instance?

  JFK: That rube Lyndon Johnson. Charles de Gaulle, who’s had a poker up his ass since the year 1910. That closet fairy J. Edgar Hoover. These crazy Cuban exiles my brother’s been dealing with, 80% of whom are lowlife scum. Harold Macmillan, who defines the word—

  MU2: Excuse me, Mr. President.

  JFK: Yes?

  MU1: You have a call.

  JFK: Tell them I’m busy.

  MU2: It’s Governor Brown.

  JFK: Tell him I’ll call him back.

  MU1: Yes, Sir.

  JFK: So, Barb, did you vote for me?

  BJ: I was on tour, so I didn’t get the chance to vote.

  JFK: You could have cast an absentee ballot.

  BJ: It slipped my mind.

  JFK: What’s more important, the Twist or my career?

  BJ: The Twist.

  JFK (sustained laughter): Excuse my naivete. When you ask a silly question.

  BJ: It was more like ask a candid question, get a candid answer.

  JFK: That’s true. You know, my brother thinks you’re overqualified for this party.

  BJ: He acts like he’s slumming himself.

  JFK: That’s perceptive.

  BJ: Your brother never won a dime at poker.

  JFK: Which is one of his strengths. Now, what happens when this silly dance craze of yours wears itself out?

  BJ: I’ll have saved enough money to set my sister up in a Bob’s Big Boy franchise in Tunnel City, Wisconsin.

  JFK: I carried Wisconsin.

  BJ: I know. My sister voted for you.

  JFK: What about your parents?

  BJ: My father’s dead. My mother hates Catholics, so she voted for Nixon.

  JFK: A split vote isn’t too bad. That’s a lovely mink, by the way.

  BJ: I borrowed it from Peter.

  JFK: Then it’s one of the six thousand furs my father bought my sisters.

  BJ: I read about your father’s stroke. It made me sad.

  JFK: Don’t be. He’s too evil to die. And by the way, do you travel with that revue Peter told me about?

  BJ: Constantly. In fact, I’m leaving for an East Coast swing on the 27th.

  JFK: Would you leave your itinerary with the White House switchboard? I thought we might have dinner if our schedules permit.

  BJ: I’d like that. And I will call.

  JFK: Please. And take the mink with you. You do things for it that my sister never could.

  BJ: I couldn’t.

  JFK: I insist. Really, she won’t miss it.

  BJ: All right, then.

  JFK: I don’t normally raid people’s closets, but I want you to have it.

  BJ: Thank you, Jack.

  JFK: My pleasure. And regretfully, I have to make some phone calls.

  BJ: Until next time, then.

  JFK: Yes. That’s the way to look at it.

  MUl: Mr. President?

  JFK: Hold on, I’m coming.

  11:41–12:03: silence. (Wave noise indicates that BJ has remained on the beach deck.)

  12:03–12:09: garbled voices and hi-fi noise. (Obvious departures throughout.)

  12:10: BJ & LS leave the party. Live tape feed close: 12:11 a.m., February 20, 1962.

  DOCUMENT INSERT: 3/4/62. Carlyle Hotel bedroom microphone transcript. Transcribed by: Fred Turentine. Tape/written copies to: P. Bondurant, W. Littell.

  BJ phoned the listening post to say she was meeting the target for “dinner.” She was instructed to double open & shut the bedroom door to activate the mike. Active feed from 8:09 p.m. on. Initial log: BJ—Barb Jahelka. JFK—John F. Kennedy.

  8:09–8:20: sexual activity. (See tape transcript. High sound quality. Voices discernable.)

  8:21–8:33: conversation.

  JFK: Oh, God.

  BJ: Hmmm.

  JFK: Slide over a little. I want to take some pressure off my back.

  BJ: How’s that?

  JFK: Better.

  BJ: Want a back rub?

  JFK: No. There’s nothing you can do that you haven’t done already.

  BJ: Thanks. And I’m glad you called me.

  JFK: What did I get you out of?

  BJ: Two shows at the Rumpus Room in Passaic, New Jersey.

  JFK: Oh, God.

  BJ: Ask me a question.

  JFK: All right. Where’s that mink coat I gave you?

  BJ: My ex-husband sold it.

  JFK: You let him do that?

  BJ: It’s a game we play.

  JFK: What do you mean?

  BJ: He knows I’m going to leave him soon. I’m in debt to him, so he takes these little advantages whenever he finds them.

  JFK: It’s a large debt, then?

  BJ: Very large.

  JFK: You’ve got my interest. Tell me more.

  BJ: It’s just grief from Tunnel City, Wisconsin, circa 1948.

  JFK: I like Wisconsin.

  BJ: I know. You carried it.

  JFK (laughing): You’re droll. Ask me a question.

  BJ: Who’s the biggest fuckhead in American politics?

  JFK (laughing): That closet queen J. Edgar Hoover, who’ll be retiring on January 1, 1965.

  BJ: I hadn’t heard anything about that.

  JFK: You will.

  BJ: I get it. You have to be re-elected first.

  JFK: You’re learning. Now, tell me more about Tunnel City, Wisconsin, in 1948.

  BJ: Not now.

  JFK: Why?

  BJ: I’m tantalizing you, so we can prolong this thing of ours.

  JFK (laughing): You know men.

  BJ: Yes, I do.

  JFK: Who taught you? Initially, I mean.

  BJ: The entire adolescent male population of Tunnel City, Wisconsin. Don’t look so shocked. The total number of boys was eleven.

  JFK: Go on.

  BJ: No.

  JFK: Why?

  BJ: Two seconds after we made love you looked at your watch. I’m thinking that the way to keep you in bed is to string out my autobiography.

  JFK (laughing): You can contribute to my memoirs. You can say John F. Kennedy wooed women with room service club sandwiches and quickies.

  BJ: It was a great club sandwich.

  JFK (laughing): You’re droll and cruel.

  BJ: Ask me a question.

  JFK: No. You ask me one.

  BJ: Tell me about Bobby.

  JFK: Why?

  BJ: He seemed suspicious of me at Peter’s party.

  JFK: He’s suspicious in ge
neral, because he’s crawling around in the legal gutter with Jimmy Hoffa and the Mafia, and it’s starting to get to him. It’s some sort of occupational policeman’s disease that he’s developed. One day it’s Jimmy Hoffa and land fraud in Florida. The next day it’s deporting Carlos Marcello. Now it’s Hoffa and the Test Fleet taxi case in Tennessee, and don’t ask me what it means, because I’m not a lawyer and I don’t share Bobby’s need to pursue and eradicate.

  BJ: He’s tougher than you, isn’t he?

  JFK: Yes, he is. And as I told a girl several years ago, he’s truly passionate and generous.

  BJ: You’re looking at your watch again.

  JFK: I have to go. I’m due at the U.N.

  BJ: Good luck, then.

  JFK: I won’t need it. The General Assembly is nothing but fuckheads. Let’s do this again, Barb. I had fun.

  BJ: So did I. And thanks for the club sandwich.

  JFK (laughing): There’s more where that came from.

  Single door slam deactivates mike. Transcript close: 8:34 p.m., March 3rd, 1962.

  DOCUMENT INSERT: 4/9/62. Carlyle Hotel bedroom microphone transcript. Transcribed by: Fred Turentine. Tape/written copies to: P. Bondurant, W. Littell.

  BJ phoned the listening post at 4:20 p.m. She said she was meeting the target for “dinner” at 5:30. Active feed from 6:12 p.m. on. Initial log: BJ—Barb Jahelka. JFK—John F. Kennedy.

  6:13–6:25: sexual activity. (See tape transcript. High sound quality. Voices discernable.)

  6:14–6:32: conversation.

  BJ: Oh, God.

  JFK: Last time I said that.

  BJ: This time was better.

  JFK (laughing): I thought so, too. But I thought the club sandwich lacked pizzazz.

  BJ: Ask me a question.

  JFK: What happened in Tunnel City, Wisconsin, in 1948?

  BJ: I’m amazed that you remembered.

  JFK: It’s only been a month or so

  BJ: I know. But it was just a casual comment that I made.

  JFK: It was a provocative one, though.

  BJ: Thanks.

  JFK: Barb.

  BJ: All right. On May 9, I jilted Billy Kreuger. Billy got together with Tom McCandless, Fritzie Schott and Johnny Coates. They decided to teach me a lesson. I was out of town, though. My parents took me to a church fellowship convention in Racine. My sister Margaret stayed at home. She was rebellious, and she hadn’t figured out that church conventions were good places to meet boys.

  JFK: Keep going.

  BJ: To be continued.