Max Collins - Target Lancer

“I think I better pass, old buddy,” I said.

“I am trying to appeal to your sense of patriotism, Nate.”

I gave him half a grin. “First of all, whenever somebody talks about patriotism, I put one hand over my wallet. Second, I vaguely remember already serving in the Pacific.”

“You’re the perfect person for this job, Nate.”

“The perfect patsy, if anything goes wrong. Caught in the middle between two armed camps who hate each other’s guts? And I got a son, Shep, remember? In junior high? He may want to go to college, too, someday, like your precious progeny. He can’t do that if I’m dead. Or, for that matter, if he’s dead.”

“I thought these people stayed away from family.”

“As a generality. I’m more attuned to specifics.”

Shep let out a weight-of-the-world sigh-also a cloud of Havana smoke. He leaned across the table.

“Nate, all you have to do is play emissary. Once. Test the waters for us. One of ours will take the second meet. Tell them there’s $150,000 in it for them, if they take the Beard out.”

“Really? You think that kind of money impresses the likes of Giancana or Rosselli? Giancana spills that kind of cash when he’s taking a crap with his pants down around his ankles.”

Shep frowned at me. Motioned me to keep my voice down. I guess I was getting a little worked up. Did I mention that the adjacent booth had stayed empty? With the restaurant otherwise filled, and probably an hour wait?

“Of course,” he said, in a throwaway tone, “there’d be fifty thousand in it for you, plus expenses.” He shrugged grandly, drew on the cigar again. “You could use it to put Sam through college.”

He didn’t mean Giancana. This “Sam” was my thirteen-year-old son.

I didn’t say anything. The gap-toothed smile was back-Shep knew money was my weak spot.

And I had to admit (to myself, if not Shep) that there was a stroke of genius in this: who would believe that the CIA would ever be in league with the Mob?

Plus, the Mob had plenty of reason to want Castro dead. He had taken their money and guns for years, when he was a revolutionary, then when he was president, chased them out of their casinos and seized their funds. Organized crime had long depended on their twin sin cities-Vegas and Havana-for their major cash cows. With the Beard gone, maybe the boys could reclaim their Caribbean citadel of sin.…

Then something else occurred to me and I frowned. “Wait a minute. I get it. I know what this is about.”

This seemed to genuinely confuse Shep. “You do?”

“It’s the ol’ October surprise. Tricky Dick and Jack Kennedy are neck and neck in the polls about now, and if the Eisenhower administration gets credit for bagging Castro, then Nixon wins the White House.”

He was waving the hand with the cigar, making smoke trails. “No, no, Nate, that’s not it.… I told you, the government doesn’t want credit for this kind of operation.”

“Oh, but if it’s timed right-if Castro is done in, in the waning days of the election, Nixon can get just the boost he needs before Ike’s administration gets around to denying having anything to do with something as nasty as political assassination.”

Shep abandoned that fine Havana to an ashtray. His gaze was unblinking but not unkind. “You’re wrong. This can’t happen fast enough to help Nixon. It really can’t. This will take weeks, maybe months of negotiation and planning.”

I was shaking my head. My arms were folded.

“Nate … I know you and the Kennedy boys are tight .”

I kept shaking my head. “Not Jack. I don’t know Jack that well. But I worked for Bobby on-”

“The rackets committee, I know. And I also know that the Outfit doesn’t hold that against you. Which means you likely played both ends against the middle, and that’s why you’re on the grassy side of the ground, at the moment.”

At the moment.

“But know this ,” he went on, some edge in his voice, the Southern drawl damn near gone. “The Company doesn’t work for any political party. We work for America’s interests. This plan has the blessing of both Nixon and Dulles, yes … but also Jack and Bobby.”

“What?”

He nodded. “We brought them in on this. The potential next president and his chief adviser. And they approve . They are not fans of Fidel, Nate. You can check with Bobby yourself, and see.”

I did.

And three days later I was again discussing murder over a linen tablecloth. This time at the Brown Derby in LA.

With Johnny Rosselli.

They called him the Silver Fox, a study in flashing teeth, manicured nails, and gleaming Italian loafers, looking more like a movie producer than a mob guy with his perfectly cut silver-gray hair and blue-gray eyes against a deep tan. His gray hound’s-tooth jacket, like the one Paul Drake wore on Perry Mason , went swell with the gray silk tie, a matching silk handkerchief in the breast pocket.

He made a piker out of me in my pencil-striped brown lightweight tropical worsted. But plenty of starlet-age girls batted their eyes at me, too, so maybe I was holding up in my declining years, or looked like a producer myself.

That made sense in the bustling hat-shaped restaurant, with its framed caricatures of stars-our booth was overseen by James Cagney and Joan Crawford, both veterans of crime movies. And all around us, in the yellow glow of derby-shaded lamps, film folks were talking about ideas for movies, but none wilder than our plot.

We disposed of our respective orders-I had corned-beef hash, Rosselli the Cobb salad, both signature Derby fare-as well as any small talk.

I waited till coffee to lay it out for him. I started by saying “high government officials” wanted his help, and that anything said today would be strictly between us.

He started laughing about halfway through my little opening speech.

“Me?” He had a cigarette in a holder perched between heavily jeweled fingers. “You want Johnny Rosselli to get in bed with the feds? Would this be the same feds who are following me wherever I go? Checking with my tailor, my shirtmaker, seein’ if I pay in cash?”

“This isn’t the IRS, John. It’s … the Company. You know, the Agency.”

That stopped him, but only momentarily. He shrugged, like a bad impressionist doing Ed Sullivan. “Spooks. Yeah, okay. But that’s foreign, ain’t it? They’re strictly overseas, those guys.”

“They’re supposed to be. And anyway, this is overseas, John. Well … ninety miles overseas.”

His smile froze, then disappeared. Suddenly he looked his age, which was around mine (every year of which I felt, by the way), as he put the pieces together.

He squinted, trying to bring me into focus. Over his shoulder, the cartoon Cagney was giving me the you-dirty-rat look. “They want my help doing…?”

“Just what you think, John. Getting rid of Castro.”

His jaw dropped. Actually, it was kind of fun, or anyway amusing, to see a mob guy look flabbergasted like that. A guy who had hung around with top gangsters and who had killed people as casually as you might slap a mosquito, responding to me with the expression of an eight-year-old viewing Mount Rushmore.

I said, “Can you see where this would be of mutual benefit to certain parties that might otherwise seem at odds?”

He placed the cigarette-in-holder in an ashtray. Then he sipped his coffee as delicately as if taking Communion. His hand was shaking-just a little, but shaking.

“Nate … you are serious.”

“Very goddamn.”

He began drumming his fingers on the table, making tiny thumps against the cloth. “How would we go about this?”