Max Collins - Target Lancer

I said nothing.

He tried again. He touched my arm, a remarkable gesture coming from a guy about as demonstrative as a bust of Napoleon.

“Nate, I need your help. I understand your wish not to be involved with us, in any way, anymore. But you are in a unique position to help us out in a very tough situation.”

“Is it an opening in the Peace Corps? I always wanted to dig wells and teach in developing nations. Plus I hear it’s a good way to meet chicks.”

An aircraft was taking off-big enough to make the framed pictures nervous.

“You’re not going to make this easy, are you, Nate?”

I sipped the Coke. God it was awful. Too much syrup. Ice floating like glass chips, flat as Audrey Hepburn.

I asked, “What did you do about the German streusel?”

The slightest twinkle in those bloodshot blue eyes. “What do you think we did?”

“Deported her and paid her off.”

Another small smile. “Actually, ah, I understand she has come into money. I do know she was escorted overseas by LaVern Duffy.”

Another investigator from rackets committee days.

Bob was saying, “I think he, ah, got along quite well with Miss Rometsch.”

“For that gig, I might have made an exception.”

I twitched a smile at him, and he knew he had me.

With a relieved sigh, a business-like Bobby pushed the coffee away. I had already done that with the Coke.

“I trust Mr. Boldt has briefed you, at least in broad strokes. Very reliable man, Mr. Boldt. Jack misses having him on the White House detail.”

I frowned. “Is that what this is about? This planned attack on Jack next Saturday? Why don’t you just cancel the fucking trip?”

I already knew at least one answer: if every time a death threat came in before a public appearance by the President, the leader of the free world would never stick his head out of the Oval Office.

But, as Eben had indicated, most of those threats came from lunatics with a handgun and a grudge-not a trained assassination squad.

The latter might have been Bobby’s answer, but it wasn’t.

Instead, he said, “My brother is probably the most loved man in America. And possibly the most hated.”

“No,” I said, “ you’re the most hated. But he’s probably second.”

That got a real smile out of him. His sense of humor was wry and dark, so I wasn’t surprised by that toothy display.

“This month, we’ve lined up several high-profile trips for Jack-motorcades preceding political events … not just this Chicago one, but to Florida and Texas.”

“The South ?” I looked at him sideways. “That’s where they really hate you Kennedy boys. Remember what they used to say back in WW Two-is this trip really necessary?”

Though Bobby actually had a precarious relationship with Negro leaders-especially Martin Luther King-he was viewed in the Deep South as the “nigger-loving” attorney general who had forced Governor George Wallace to get out of that schoolhouse doorway and let the colored kids in.

“Florida and Texas are the only two Southern states we are likely to carry,” Bobby was saying. “And we need them. Much as he may sicken us, Lyndon being on the ticket again gives us a decent shot at Texas.”

“Isn’t Lyndon enough to swing it?”

“I wish he were. But the party down there is at war with itself-Governor Connally might as well be a Republican, and Senator Yarborough’s a liberal maverick. Jack has to go down there and spread the charm around.” He shook his head, smiled ruefully. “Shitty way to make a living, isn’t it?”

“Well, at least there’s plenty of retired Democrats living in Florida.”

“Can’t even take that for granted. Retirees are by nature conservative.” His eyebrows went up. “And, of course, we really need Illinois, and all those lovely electoral votes. Canceling is not an option, Nate.”

I sat forward. “It should be. Bob, your Secret Service contingent in the Loop numbers an underwhelming dozen or so. That would be a joke if it wasn’t so sad.”

His hands were folded on the table now, on top of the manila folder, almost prayerfully. “We have support from the Chicago PD and sheriff’s department, but your point is valid. We’ll be bringing in agents from Secret Service offices all over the country, on Saturday. But in the meantime, I would like to bolster the local bunch with some, ah, outside help.”

“What outside help are you thinking of?”

“You.”

I am fairly fast with my mouth, and my brain is usually only a second or two behind it. But I had nothing to say.

“I want you there, Nate, on the inside of this thing. First of all, you know this town better than, ah, any of these local agents. Only a handful of them grew up in Chicago. Mr. Boldt’s from St. Louis, I believe. That’s reason enough.”

I was starting to get it. Something was crawling up my spine on its way to my neck, where it would lay goose bumps.

“But that isn’t the reason,” I said.

“No.” He pushed the manila folder toward me. Turned out it wasn’t a place mat.

I opened it and shook out four 5-by-7-inch photos, blurry, grainy color surveillance-type photos, taken on the street at various indistinct locations.

Two were of Latin types, a trimly bearded guy maybe in his late twenties, the other a mustached old pro who was probably mid-thirties. Both were in sport shirts, the older man in sunglasses. Nothing distinctive about them, really-they could have been hacienda owners or members of a mariachi band, but somehow I didn’t think they were either.

The other photos were of pasty-looking white guys, both wearing crew cuts, both in their mid-twenties, both in sunglasses, one blond chewing a toothpick, the other black-haired with a cigarette frozen near his lips as the hidden camera snapped him. They had lean faces but what showed of their upper torsos appeared trimly muscular. One was in a T-shirt, the other in a blue plaid shirt.

“The white guys are either military or ex,” I said. “What’s the story on the Cubans?”

Bobby almost blinked. “Did I say they were Cubans?”

“No, but I don’t think I’d be sitting here if they weren’t. Two of these shooters are Cuban exiles who might have ties, vague or not so vague, back to Operation Mongoose. Which is why you want me sitting in on this.”

He just stared momentarily, then nodded.

“What the hell is going on, Bob?”

“We don’t know.” He tapped the bearded guy’s photo. “That’s Gonzales.” He tapped the older, mustached guy’s photo. “That’s Rodriguez.”

“No first names?”

“Not yet.”

“No background?”

“Nothing specific. FBI intel indicates the Cubans are dissidents.”

“Exiles, yeah. And the soldiers?”

“No names at all. FBI believes they are right-wing paramilitary fanatics. Southern boys.”

“Racist white trash I believe is the term. If the intel is coming from the FBI, why aren’t the fabled G-men who took down Dillinger on top of this thing?”

Bobby shrugged, gestured with an open hand. “Mr. Hoover says this is clearly a Secret Service matter. After all, it’s not a federal crime to attempt the murder of a President-not even a federal crime to succeed.”

“Just another run-of-the-mill murder,” I said dryly, over the muffled roar of yet another takeoff.

“It’s the Secret Service’s job to protect the President, and Mr. Hoover says it would be ‘inappropriate, even illegal’ for the FBI to participate in this investigation.”

As the attorney general, Bobby was Hoover’s boss, and he should have been able to tell him what to do in this, or any, instance. But that fat old fucker had too much on the Kennedy brothers in his legendary (but real) secret files to make that possible, or anyway advisable. As much as Jack and Bobby hated J. Edgar, they had to keep hiring him back on as head Bureau mucky-muck. Why didn’t they hire me to get a photo of that old queen getting buggered or blown?