by James Ellroy
The note meant KILL HIM. Don’t let Santo get to him first.
He took bourbon and aspirin for his headache.
He took his magnum and his silencer for the job.
He took some pro-Castro leaflets to plant near the body.
He drove to 46th and Collins. He took this weird revelation with him: You might let Néstor talk you out of it.
The pink garage apartment was right there, as stated. The ’58 Chevy at the curb looked like a Néstor-style ride.
Pete parked.
Pete got butterflies.
Go ahead, do it—you’ve killed at least three hundred men.
He walked up and knocked on the door.
Nobody answered.
He knocked again. He listened for footsteps and whispers.
He couldn’t hear a thing. He picked the lock with his penknife and walked in.
Shotgun slides went KA-CHOOK. Some unseen party hit a light switch.
There’s Néstor, lashed to a chair. There’s two fat henchmen types holding Ithaca pumps.
There’s Santo Trafficante with an icepick.
86
(New Orleans, 9/15/63)
Littell opened his briefcase. Stacks of money fell out.
Marcello said, “How much?” Littell said, “A quarter of a million dollars.”
“Where’d you get it?”
“From a client.”
Carlos cleared some desk space. His office was top-heavy with Italianate knickknacks.
“You’re saying this is for me?”
“I’m saying it’s for you to match.”
“What else are you saying?”
Littell dumped the money on the desk. “I’m saying that as an attorney, I can only do so much. With John Kennedy in power, Bobby will get you all sooner or later. I’m also saying that eliminating Bobby would be futile, because Jack would instinctively know who did it and take his vengeance accordingly.”
The money smelled. Hughes dredged up old bills.
“But Lyndon Johnson don’t like Bobby. He’d put the skids to him just to teach the fucking kid a lesson.”
“That’s right. Johnson hates Bobby as much as Mr. Hoover does. And like Mr. Hoover, he bears you and our other friends no ill will.”
Marcello laughed. “LBJ borrowed some money from the Teamsters once. He is well known as a reasonable guy.”
“So is Mr. Hoover. And Mr. Hoover is also very upset about Bobby’s plans to put Joe Valachi on TV. He’s very much afraid that Valachi’s revelations will severely damage his prestige and virtually destroy everything that you and our other friends have built.”
Carlos built a little cash skyscraper. Bank stacks rose off his desk blotter.
Littell knocked them over. “I think Mr. Hoover wants it to happen. I think he feels it coming.”
“We’ve all been thinking about it. You can’t get a roomful of the boys together without somebody bringing it up.”
“It can be made to happen. And it can be made to look like we weren’t involved.”
“So you’re saying …”
“I’m saying it’s so big and audacious that we’ll most likely never be suspected. I’m saying that even if we are, the powers that be will realize that it can never be conclusively proven. I’m saying that a consensus of denial will build off of it. I’m saying that people will want to remember the man as something he wasn’t. I’m saying that we’ll present them with an explanation, and the powers that be will prefer it to the truth, even though they know better.”
Marcello said, “Do it. Make it happen.”
87
(Sun Valley, 9/18/63)
The squad shared turf with gators and sand fleas. Kemper called the place “Hoffa’s Paradise Lost.”
Flash set up targets. Laurent bench-pressed cinderblock siding. Juan Canestel was AWOL—with 8:00 a.m. rifle practice pending.
Nobody heard him drive off. Juan was prone to odd wanderings lately.
Kemper watched Laurent Guéry work out. The man could bench three hundred pounds without breaking a sweat.
Dust swirled up the main road. Teamster Boulevard was now a pistol range.
Flash played his transistor radio. Bad news crackled out.
There were no arrests in the Birmingham church bombing case. The revamped McClellan Committee was set to go to televised sessions.
A woman was found sash-cord strangled outside Lake Weir. The police reported no leads and appealed to the public for assistance.
Juan was one hour AWOL. Pete was missing for three days.
He got the phone tip on Néstor four days ago. The tipster was a freelance exile gunman. He gave Guy Banister a note to relay to Pete.
Guy called and said he delivered it. He said he found Pete at the Federal detention jail. He dropped hints that more FBI raids were coming.
A storm browned out their phone setup two days ago. Pete couldn’t call Sun Valley.
Kemper drove to a pay phone off the Interstate last night. He called Pete’s apartment six times and got no answer.
Néstor Chasco’s death never made the news. Pete would have dumped the body in a newsworthy locale.
Pete would put a pro-Castro spin on the murder. Pete would make sure Trafficante got the word.
His morning Dexedrine surge hit. It took ten pills to kick-start the day—he’d built up a large tolerance.
Juan and Pete were missing. Juan was hanging out with Guy Banister lately—little Lake Weir drinking excursions every other day or so.
The Pete thing felt wrong. The Juan thing felt mildly hinky.
His amphetamine surge said, Do something.
Juan drove a candy-apple-red T-Bird. Flash called it the Rapemobile.
Kemper cruised Lake Weir. The town was small and laid out in a grid pattern—the Rapemobile would be easy to spot.
He checked side streets and the bars near the highway. He checked Karl’s Kustom Kar Shop and every parking lot on the main drag.
He didn’t spot Juan. He didn’t spot Juan’s customized T-Bird.
Juan could wait. The Pete thing was more pressing.
Kemper drove to Miami. The pills started to hit counterproductive—he kept yawning and fading out at the wheel.
He stopped at 46th and Collins. That pink garage apartment was right where the tipster said it would be.
A traffic cop walked over. Kemper noticed a No Parking sign on the corner.
He rolled down his window. The cop jammed a smelly rag in his face.
It felt like chemical warfare inside him.
The smell fought his wake-up pills. The smell might be chloroform or embalming fluid. The smell meant he might be dead.
His pulse said, NO—you’re alive.
His lips burned. His nose burned. He tasted chloroformed blood.
He tried to spit. His lips wouldn’t part. He gagged the blood out through his nose.
He stretched his mouth. Something tugged at his cheeks. It felt like tape coming loose.
He sucked in air. He tried to move his arms and legs.
He tried to stand up. Heavy ballast held him down.
He wiggled. Chair legs scraped wood flooring. He thrashed his arms and got rope burns.
Kemper opened his eyes.
A man laughed. A hand held up Polaroid snapshots glued to cardboard.
He saw Teo Paez, gutted and quartered. He saw Fulo Machado, shivved through the eyes. He saw Ramón Gutiérrez, powder-scorched from big-bore shots to the head.
The photos disappeared. The hand swiveled his neck. Kemper caught a slow 180 view.
He saw a shabby room and two fat men in a doorway. He saw Néstor Chasco—nailed to the far wall with icepicks through his palms and ankles.
Kemper shut his eyes. A hand slapped him. A big heavy ring cut his lips.
Kemper opened his eyes. Hands slid his chair around 360.
They had Pete chained down. They had him double-cuffed and shackled to a chair. They had the chair bolted directly into the floor.
<
br /> A rag hit his face. Kemper sucked the fumes in voluntarily.
He heard stories filtered through a long echo chamber. He picked out three storytelling voices.
Néstor got close to Castro twice. You got to hand it to him.
A kid that tough—what a shame to put his lights out.
Néstor said he bought off some Castro aide. The aide said Castro was considering a Kennedy hit. The aide said, What’s with this Kennedy? First he invades us, then he pulls back—he’s like a cunt who can’t make up her mind.
Fidel’s the cunt. The aide told Chasco he’d never work with the Outfit again. He thinks Santo screwed him on the heroin deal. He didn’t know it was Néstor and our boys here.
Bondurant pissed his pants. Look, you can see the stain.
Santo and Mo were not gentle. And I got to say Néstor went out brave.
I’m bored with this. I got to say this waiting around is stretching me thin.
I got to say they’ll be back soon. I got to say they’ll want to put some hurt on these two.
Kemper felt his bladder go. He took a deep breath and forced himself unconscious.
• • •
He dreamed he was moving. He dreamed somebody cleaned him up and changed his clothes. He dreamed he heard fierce Pete Bondurant sobbing.
He dreamed he could breathe. He dreamed he could talk. He kept cursing Jack and Claire for disowning him.
He woke up on a bed. He recognized his old Fontainebleau suite or an exact replica of it.
He was wearing clean clothes. Somebody pulled off his soiled boxer shorts.
He felt rope burns on his wrists. He felt tape fragments stuck to his face.
He heard voices one room over—Pete and Ward Littell.
He tried to stand up. His legs wouldn’t function. He sat on the bed and coughed his lungs out.
Littell walked in. He looked commanding—that gabardine suit gave him some bulk.
Kemper said, “There’s a price.”
Littell nodded. “That’s right. It’s something I worked out with Carlos and Sam.”
“Ward—”
“Santo agreed, too. And you and Pete get to keep what you stole.”
Kemper stood up. Ward held him steady.
“What do we have to do?”
Littell said, “Kill John Kennedy.”
88
(Miami, 9/23/63)
1933 to 1963. Thirty years and parallel situations.
Miami, ’33. Giuseppe Zangara tries to shoot President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt. He misses—and kills Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak.
Miami, ’63. A Kennedy motorcade is scheduled for November 18.
Littell slow-cruised Biscayne Boulevard. Every inch of ground told him something.
Carlos told him the Zangara story last week.
“Giuseppe was a fucking nut. Some Chicago boys paid him to pop Cermak and take the bounce. He had a fucking death wish, and he got his fucking wish fulfilled. Frank Nitti took care of his family after he got executed.”
He met with Carlos, Sam and Santo. He bartered for Pete and Kemper. They discussed the fall-guy issue at length.
Carlos wanted a leftist. He thought a left-wing assassin would galvanize anti-Castro feeling. Trafficante and Giancana overruled him.
They matched Howard Hughes’ contribution. They added one stipulation: we want a right-wing patsy.
They still wanted to suck up to Fidel. They wanted to replenish Raúl Castro’s dope stash and effect a late-breaking rapprochement. They wanted to say, We financed the hit—now, will you please give us back our casinos?
Their take was too convoluted. Their take was politically naive.
His take was minimalistically downscaled.
The hit can be accomplished. The planners and shooters can walk. Bobby’s Mob crusade can be nullified.
Any results beyond that are unforeseeable, and will most likely resolve themselves in a powerfully ambiguous fashion.
Littell drove through downtown Miami. He noted potential motorcade routes—wide streets with high visibility.
He saw tall buildings and rear parking lots. He saw Office for Rent signs.
He saw blighted residential blocks. He saw House for Rent signs and a gun shop.
He could see the motorcade pass. He could see the man’s head explode.
They met at the Fontainebleau. Pete ran a wall-to-wall bug sweep before they said one word.
Kemper mixed drinks. They sat around a table by the wet bar.
Littell laid the plan out.
“We bring the fall guy to Miami some time between now and the first of October. We get him to rent a cheap house on the outskirts of downtown, close to the announced or assumed-to-be-announced motorcade route—and an office directly on the route—once that route is determined. I cruised every major airport-to-downtown artery this morning. My educated guess is that we’ll have plenty of houses and offices to choose from.”
Pete and Kemper stayed quiet. They still looked close to shell-shocked.
“One of us sticks close to the fall guy between the time we bring him here and the morning of the motorcade. There’s a gun shop near his office and his house, and one of you burglarizes it and steals several rifles and pistols. Hate literature and other bits of incriminating paraphernalia are planted at the house, and our man handles them to insure latent fingerprints.”
Pete said, “Get to the hit.” Littell framed the moment: three men at a table and hear-a-pin-drop silence.
He said, “It’s the day of the motorcade. We’re holding our man hostage at the office on the parade route. There’s a rifle from the gun-shop burglary with him, and his fingerprints are all over the stock and barrel housing. Kennedy’s car passes. Our two legitimate shooters fire from separate roof perches in the rear and kill him. The man holding our patsy hostage fires at Kennedy’s car and misses, drops the rifle and shoots the patsy with a stolen revolver. He flees and drops the revolver down a sewer grate. The police find the guns and compare them to the manifest from the burglary. They’ll chalk up the evidence and figure they’ve got a conspiracy that tenuously succeeded and unraveled at the last second. They’ll investigate the dead man and try to build a conspiracy case against his known associates.”
Pete lit a cigarette and coughed. “You said ‘flee’ like you think getting out’s a cinch.”
Littell spoke slowly. “There are perpendicular side streets off every major thoroughfare that I’ve designated motorcade-likely. They’re all freeway-accessible inside two minutes. Our legitimate shooters will be firing from behind. They’ll fire two shots total—which will sound at first like car backfires or firecrackers. The Secret Service contingent won’t know exactly where the shots came from. They’ll still be reacting when multiple shots—from our fake shooter and the man guarding him—ring out. They’ll storm that building and find a dead man. They’ll be distracted, and they’ll blow a minute or so. All our men will have time to get to their cars and drive off.”
Kemper said, “It’s beautiful.”
Pete rubbed his eyes. “I don’t like the right-wing-nut part. It’s like we came this far and didn’t play an angle that could help out the Cause.”
Littell slapped the table. “No. Trafficante and Giancana want a right-winger. They think they can build a truce with Castro, and if that’s what they want, we’ll have to go along with it. And remember, they did spare your lives.”
Kemper freshened his drink. His eyes were still bloodshot from chloroform exposure.
“I want my men to shoot. They’ve got the hate and they’re expert marksmen.”
Pete said, “Agreed.”
Littell nodded. “We’ll pay them $25,000 each, use the rest of the money for expenses and split the difference three ways.”
Kemper smiled. “My men are pretty far to the right. We should downplay the fact that we’re setting up a fellow right-winger.”
Pete mixed a cocktail: two aspirin and Wild Turkey. “We need to get a handle on the par
ade route.”
Littell said, “That’s your job. You’ve got the best Miami PD contacts.”
“I’ll get on it. And if I find out anything solid, I’ll start mapping out the hard logistics.”
Kemper coughed. “The key thing is the patsy. Once we get beyond that, we’re home free.”
Littell shook his head. “No. The key thing is to thwart a full-scale FBI investigation.”
Pete and Kemper looked puzzled. They weren’t thinking up to his level.
Littell spoke very slowly. “I think Mr. Hoover knows it’s coming. He’s got private bugs installed in god-knows-how-many Mob meeting places, and he told me he’s been picking up a huge amount of Kennedy hatred. He hasn’t informed the Secret Service, or they wouldn’t be planning motorcades through to the end of the fall.”
Kemper nodded. “Hoover wants it to happen. It happens, he’s glad it happened, and he still gets assigned to investigate it. What we need is an ‘in’ to get him to obfuscate or short-shrift the investigation.”
Pete nodded. “We need an FBI-linked fall guy.”
Kemper said, “Dougie Frank Lockhart.”
89
(Miami, 9/27/63)
He liked to spend time alone with it. Boyd said he was doing the same thing.
Pete laid out bourbon and aspirin. He turned on the window unit and cooled off the living room just right. He leveled off his headache and ran some fresh odds.
The odds they could kill Jack the Haircut. The odds that Santo would kill him and Kemper, deal or no deal.
All the odds hit inconclusive. His living room took on a rather shitty medicinal glow.
Littell loved Dougie Frank’s pedigree. The fuck was ultra-right and FBI-filthy.
Littell said, “He’s perfect. If Mr. Hoover is forced to investigate, he’ll put a blanket on Lockhart and his known associates immediately. If he doesn’t, he’ll risk exposure of all the Bureau’s racist policies.”
Lockhart was holed up in Puckett, Mississippi. Littell said, Go there and recruit him.
