by James Ellroy
He looked soiled and haggard. The ungroomed Kemper Boyd—a true first.
Pete slipped a .38 snub-nose out of his waistband. “It’s compartmentalized, Kemper. It’s got nothing to do with our other gigs.”
“I don’t care.”
“You will when you play that tape.”
They had a long row of booths to themselves. If it went bad, he could kill him and duck out the back door.
“You crossed the line, Pete. You knew the line was there, and you crossed it.”
Pete shrugged. “We didn’t hurt Jack, and Bobby’s too smart to bring in the law. We can walk out of here and get back to business.”
“And trust each other?”
“I don’t see why not. Jack’s the only thing that ever got between us.”
“Do you honestly think it’s that simple?”
“I think you can make it that way.”
Boyd unlatched the suitcase. Pete laid the machine on the table and hit Play.
His tape splice rolled. Pete turned the volume up to cover the jukebox.
Jack Kennedy said, “Kemper Boyd’s probably the closest thing, but he makes me a tad uncomfortable.”
Barb Jahelka said, “Who’s Kemper Boyd?”
Jack: “He’s a Justice Department lawyer.”
Jack: “His one great regret is that he’s not a Kennedy.”
Jack: “He just went to Yale Law School, latched onto me, and—”
Boyd was shaking. Boyd was ungroomed working on unhinged.
Jack: “He threw over the woman he was engaged to to curry favor with me.”
Jack: “He’s living out some unsavory fantasy—”
Boyd hit the tape rig barefisted. The spools bent and cracked and shattered.
Pete let him beat his hands bloody.
84
(Meridian, 5/13/62)
The plane fishtailed in and skidded to a halt. Kemper braced himself against the seat in front of him.
His head throbbed. His hands throbbed. He hadn’t slept in thirty-odd hours.
The co-pilot cut the engines and cranked the passenger door open. Sunshine and steamy air blasted in.
Kemper deplaned and walked to his car. His finger wraps seeped blood.
Pete talked him out of reprisals. Pete said Ward Littell built the shakedown from the ground up.
He drove to the motel. The road blurred behind thirty-odd hours of liquor and Dexedrine.
The lot was full. He double-parked beside Flash Elorde’s Chevy.
The sun hit twice as hot as it should. Claire kept saying, “Dad, please.”
He walked to his room. The door jerked open just as he touched it.
A man pulled him inside. A man kicked his legs out. A man threw him prone and cuffed him facedown on the floor.
A man said, “We found narcotics here.”
A man said, “And illegal weapons.”
A man said, “Lenny Sands killed himself in New York City last night. He rented a cheap hotel room, slashed his wrists and wrote ‘I am a homosexual’ in blood on the wall above the bed. The sink and toilet were filled with burned-up tape fragments obviously taken off a bug installed in the Kennedy family’s suite at the Carlyle Hotel.”
Kemper thrashed. A man stepped on his face and held him still.
A man said, “Sands was spotted burglarizing the suite earlier in the day. The NYPD located a listening-post setup a few doors down. It was print-wiped and cleaned out, and obviously rented under a phony name, but the people running it left a large quantity of blank tape behind.”
A man said, “You ran the shakedown.”
A man said, “We’ve got your Cubans and that French guy Guéry. They won’t talk, but they’re going down on weapons charges anyway.”
A man said, “Enough.”
The Man: Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.
A man pulled him into a chair. A man uncuffed him and recuffed him to the post at the foot of the bed. The room was packed with Bobby’s pet Feds—six or seven men in cheap summer suits.
The men walked out and shut the door behind them. Bobby sat on the edge of the bed.
“Goddamn you, Kemper. Goddamn you for what you tried to do to my brother.”
Kemper coughed. His vision shimmied. He saw two beds and two Bobbys.
“I didn’t do anything. I tried to break up the operation.”
“I don’t believe you. I don’t believe that your outburst at Laura’s apartment was anything but an admission of your guilt.”
Kemper flinched. The cuffs gouged his wrists and drew blood.
“Believe what you like, you chaste little piece of dogshit. And tell your brother that nobody ever loved him more and got back less.”
Bobby moved closer. “Your daughter Claire informed on you. She told me that you’ve been a CIA contract agent for over three years. She said the Agency specifically instructed you to disseminate anti-Castro propaganda to my brother. She said that Lenny Sands told her you were instrumental in suborning organized crime figures into participating in covert CIA activities. I’ve taken all this into consideration and concluded that some initial suspicions of mine were correct. I think Mr. Hoover sent you over to spy on my family, and I’m going to confront him on it the day my brother forces him to resign.”
Kemper made fists. Dislocated bones splintered. Bobby got up inside spitting distance.
“I’m going to sever every Mafia-CIA tie. I’m going to prohibit organized crime participation in the Cuban project. I’m going to expel you from the Justice Department and the CIA, I’m going to have you disbarred as a lawyer, and I’m going to prosecute you and your Franco-Cuban friends on weapons possession and narcotics possession charges.”
Kemper wet his lips and spoke with a mouthful of spittle.
“If you fuck with my men or try to prosecute me, I’ll go public. I’ll spill everything I know about your filthy family. I’ll smear the Kennedy name with enough verifiable filth to put a taint on it forever.”
Bobby slapped him.
Kemper spat in his face.
DOCUMENT INSERT: 5/14/62. Verbatim FBI telephone call transcript: “TAPED AT THE DIRECTOR’S REQUEST” /“DIRECTOR’S EYES ONLY.” Speaking: Director J. Edgar Hoover, Ward J. Littell.
WJL: Good morning, Sir.
JEH: Good morning. And you needn’t ask me if I’ve heard, because I daresay I know more of the story than you do.
WJL: Yes, Sir.
JEH: I hope Kemper has money saved. Disbarment can prove costly, and I doubt that a man of his tastes could live comfortably on an FBI pension.
WJL: I’m certain that Little Brother won’t file criminal charges on him.
JEH: Of course he won’t.
WJL: Kemper took the fall.
JEH: I will not comment on the attendant irony.
WJL: Yes, Sir.
JEH: Have you spoken to him?
WJL: No, Sir.
JEH: I’d be curious to know what he’s doing. The notion of Kemper C. Boyd without police agency sanction is quite startling.
WJL: I think Mr. Marcello will find him work.
JEH: Oh? As a Mafia back scratcher?
WJL: As a Cuban provocateur, Sir. Mr. Marcello has remained committed to the Cause.
JEH: Then he’s a fool. Fidel Castro is here to stay. My sources tell me that the Dark King will most likely seek to normalize relations with him.
WJL: The Dark King is an appeaser, Sir.
JEH: Don’t try to butter me up. You may have undergone an apostasy regarding the brothers, but your political beliefs are still suspect.
WJL: Be that as it may, Sir, I’m still not giving up. I’m going to think of something else. I haven’t given up on the King.
JEH: Bully for you. But please be advised that I do not wish to be informed of your plans.
WJL: Yes, Sir.
JEH: Has Miss Jahelka resumed her normal life?
WJL: She’s going to, Sir. At the moment she’s on a Mexican vacation with a French-Canadian fri
end of ours.
JEH: I hope they don’t procreate. They would produce morally deficient offspring.
WJL: Yes, Sir.
JEH: Good day, Mr. Littell.
WJL: Good day, Sir.
DOCUMENT INSERTS: Consecutively dated FBI wiretap out-takes. Marked: “TOP SECRET/CONFIDENTIAL/DIRECTOR’S EYES ONLY” and “NO DISCLOSURE TO OUTSIDE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT PERSONNEL.”
Chicago, 6/10/62. BL4-8869 (Celano’s Tailor Shop) to AX8-9600 (home of John Rosselli) (THP File #902.5, Chicago Office). Speaking: John Rosselli, Sam “Mo,” “Momo,” “Mooney” Giancana (File #480.2). Conversation nine minutes in progress.
SG: So fucking Bobby found out on his own.
JR: Which frankly, did not surprise me.
SG: We were helping him out, Johnny. Sure, it was mostly cosmetic. But the basic fucking truth of the whole thing was that we were helping him and his brother out.
JR: We were good to them, Mo. We were nice. And they kept fucking us and fucking us and fucking us.
SG: Some sort of fucking shakedown pre-pre-pre—what’s that word that means set up?
JR: Precipitated, Mo. That’s the word you want.
SG: Right. Some cocksucking shakedown precipitated Bobby finding out. The word is Jimmy and Frenchman Pete were in on it. Somebody got careless, and Jewboy Lenny killed himself.
JR: You can’t fault Jimmy and Pete for trying to fuck the Kennedys.
SG: No, you can’t.
JR: And it turned out Lenny was a faggot. Can you believe that?
SG: Who would have believed it?
JR: He was Jewish, Mo. The Jewish race has a higher percentage of homos than regular white people.
SG: That’s true. Heshie Ryskind’s no queer, though. He’s had like sixty thousand blow jobs.
JR. Heshie’s sick, Mo. He’s real sick.
SG: I wish the Kennedys caught his fucking disease. The Kennedys and Sinatra.
JR: Sinatra sold us a bill of goods. He said he had influence with the brothers.
SG: He’s useless. The Haircut kicked his guinea ass off the White House guest list. Asking Frank to plead our case with the brothers is useless.
Non-applicable conversation follows.
Cleveland, 8/4/62. BR1-8771 (Sal’s River Lounge) to BR4-0811 (Bartolo’s Ristorante pay phone). Speaking: John Michael D’Allesio (THP File #180.4, Cleveland Office), Daniel “Donkey Dan” Versace (File #206.9, Chicago Office). Conversation sixteen minutes in progress.
DV: Rumors are just rumors. You got to consider the source and take it from there.
JMD: Danny, you like rumors?
DV: You know I do. You know I love a good rumor as much as the next guy, and I don’t particularly care if it’s true or not.
JMD: Danny, I got a hot rumor.
DV: So tell. Don’t be a fucking cock tease.
JMD: The rumor is J. Edgar Hoover and Bobby Kennedy hate each other.
DV: That’s your rumor?
JMD: There’s more.
DV: I hope so. The Hoover-Bobby feud is stale bread.
JMD: The rumor is Bobby’s racket squad guys are turning snitches. The rumor is Bobby won’t let Hoover near his fucking prospects. Furthermore, I heard the fucking McClellan Committee’s gearing up to go into session again. They’re getting ready to fucking keester the Outfit again. Bobby’s working on turning this major informant. When the committee sessions start, this guy’s supposed to come on as the starring fucking attraction.
DV: I heard better rumors, Johnny.
JMD: Fuck you.
DV: I prefer sex-type rumors. Haven’t you heard any good sex-type shit?
JMD: Fuck you.
Non-applicable conversation follows.
New Orleans, 10/10/62. KL4-0909 (Habana Bar pay phone) to CR8-8107 (Town & Country Motel pay phone). Note: Carlos Marcello (no THP file extant) owns the Town & Country. Speaking: Leon NMI Broussard (THP File #88.6, New Orleans Office) and unidentified (assumed Cuban) man. Conversation twenty-one minutes in progress.
LB: So you shouldn’t give up hope. All is not lost, my friend.
UM: It feels as if it is.
LB: That is simply not true. I know for a fact that Uncle Carlos is still very much a believer.
UM: He is alone, then. A few years ago many of his compatriots were just as generous as he has remained. It is troubling to see powerful friends abandoning the Cause.
LB: Like John F-for-fuckhead Kennedy.
UM: Yes. His betrayal is the worst example. He continues to prohibit a second invasion.
LB: So the fuckhead doesn’t care. I’ll tell you this, though, my friend. Uncle Carlos does.
UM: I hope you are right.
LB: I know I am. I have it on very good authority that Uncle Carlos is financing an operation that could blow the whole Cuban thing to bits.
UM: I hope you are right.
LB: He’s bankrolling some men who want to hit Castro. Three Cuban guys and an ex-French paratrooper. The leader’s an ex-FBI/CIA man. Uncle Carlos said he’d die himself just to make the hit.
UM: I hope this is true. You see, the Cause has become scattered. There are hundreds of exile groups now. Some are CIA-financed and some are not. I hate to say it, but many of the groups are filled with crackpots and undesirables. I think direct action is needed, and with so many factions working at cross-purposes, this will be hard to accomplish.
LB: The first thing somebody should accomplish is cutting the Kennedy brothers’ balls off. The Outfit was very fucking generous to the Cause until Bobby Kennedy went nuts and cut off all our fucking ties.
UM: It is hard to be optimistic these days. It is hard not to feel impotent.
Non-applicable conversation follows.
Tampa, 10/16/62. 0L4-9777 (home of Robert “Fat Bob” Paolucci) (THP file #19.3, Miami Office) to GL1-8041 (home of Thomas Richard Scavone) (File #80.0, Miami Office). Speaking:
Paolucci and Scavone. Conversation thirty-eight minutes in progress.
RP: I know you know most of the story.
TS: Well, you know how it is. You pick up bits and pieces here and there. What I know specific is that Mo and Santo ain’t talked to their Castro contacts since the heist.
RP: It was some heist. Something like fifteen fucking deaths. Santo said the heist guys probably ran the boat out to sea and blew it up. Two hundred pounds, Tommy. Can you estimate the fucking re-sale value?
TS: Off the graph, Bobby. Off the fucking graph.
RP: And it’s still out there.
TS: I was just thinking that.
RP: Two hundred pounds. And somebody’s got it.
TS: I heard Santo won’t give up.
RP: This is true. Pete the Frenchman clipped that Delsol guy, but he was just the tip of the iceberg. I heard Santo has got Pete out there looking around, you know, sort of informal. They both figure some crazy spic exiles were behind the heist, and Pete the Frog’s out there looking for them.
TS: I’ve met some of them exiles.
RP: So have I. They’re all fucking crazy.
TS: You know what I hate about them?
RP: What?
TS: That they think they’re as white as Italians.
Non-applicable conversation follows.
New Orleans, 10/19/62. BR8-3408 (home of Leon NMI Broussard) (THP File #88.6, New Orleans Office) to Suite 1411 at the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas, Texas. (Hotel records indicate the suite was rented by Herschel Meyer Ryskind) (File #887.8, Dallas Office). Conversation three minutes in progress.
LB: You always had a thing for hotel suites, Hesh. A hotel suite and a blow job was always your idea of heaven.
HR: Don’t say heaven, Leon. You’re giving me a pain in the prostate.
LB: I get it. You’re sick, so you don’t want to think about the thereafter.
HR: It’s the hereafter, Leon. And you’re right. And I called you to schmooze because you’ve always got your nose in other people’s troubles, and I figured you could dish some gossip on some of the boys with wors
e trouble than me and cheer me up.
LB: I’ll try, Hesh. And Carlos says hi, by the way.
HR: Let’s start with him. What kind of trouble has that crazy dago hump gotten himself into now?
LB: I gotta say nothing recent. And I also gotta say the deportation thing is hanging over his head and making him crazy.
HR: Thank God he’s got that lawyer.
LB: Yeah, Littell. The guy’s working for Jimmy Hoffa, too. Uncle Carlos says he hates the Kennedys so much that he’d probably work for free.
HR: I heard he’s a red tape kind of guy. He just delays and delays and delays.
LB: You’re absolutely right. Uncle Carlos said his INS case probably won’t go to trial until late next year. Littell’s got these Justice Department lawyers fucking exhausted.
HR: Carlos is optimistic, then?
LB: Absolutely. So’s Jimmy, from what I’ve heard. The trouble with Jimmy’s troubles is that he’s got eighty-six-fucking-thousand grand juries chasing him. My feeling is that sooner or later, somebody gets a conviction. I don’t care how good a lawyer this Littell guy is.
HR: This makes me happy. Jimmy Hoffa’s a guy with troubles approximating my own. Can you imagine going to Leavenworth and getting shtupped in the ass by some shvartze?
LB: That is not a pleasant prospect.
HR: Neither is cancer, you goyisher shitheel.
LB: We’re pulling for you, Hesh. You’re in our prayers.
HR: Puck your prayers. And give me some gossip. You know that’s why I called.
LB: Well.
HR: Well, what? Leon, you owe me money. You know I’m gonna die before I collect. Give an old dying man the comfort of some satisfying gossip.
LB: Well, I heard rumors.
HR: Such as?
LB: Such as that lawyer Littell’s working for Howard Hughes. Hughes is supposed to want to buy all these Las Vegas hotels, and I heard—off the record, Hesh, really—that Sam G’s dying to work some kind of an angle on the deal.
HR: Which Littell don’t know about?
LB: That is correct.
HR: I love this fucking life of ours. It is never fucking boring.
LB: You are absolutely correct. Think of the tidbits you pick up in this loop of ours.
HR: I don’t want to die, Leon. All this shit is too good to give up.
