James Ellroy - American tabloid

Pete smiled. “This place is defunct. And I’m on CIA contract status.”

The short Fed unhooked his handcuffs. “We’re not unsympathetic. We don’t like Communists any more than you do.”

The tall man sighed. “This wasn’t Mr. Hoover’s idea. Let’s just say he had to go along. It’s a standard, across-the-board order, and I don’t think you’ll be in custody that long.”

Pete stuck his hands out. The cuffs wouldn’t fit around his wrists.

The rest of the browsers vanished. A kid boosted a TV set and hightailed it.

Pete said, “I’ll go peacefully.”

o o o

The booking tank was triple-capacity packed. Pete shared floor space with a hundred pissed-off Cubans.

They were crammed into a thirty-by-thirty-foot stinkhole. No chairs, no benches-just four cement walls and a wraparound piss gutter.

The Cubans jabbered in English and Spanish. Dig the bilingual gist: Jack the Haircut sicced the Feds on the Cause.

Six campsites were raided yesterday. Weapons were seized. Cuban gunmen were arrested en masse.

It was some sort of first salvo. Jack was out to ram all non-CIA-sanctioned exiles.

He was CIA. He got popped anyway. The Feds jerry-rigged a plan and went off half-cocked.

Pete leaned against the wall and shut his eyes. Barb twisted by.

Every time with her was good. Every time was different. Every place was different-two people always moving hooking up in odd locations.

Bobby never harassed her. Barb figured a fix was in. She said she didn’t miss Two-Minute Jack.

She gave her sister her shakedown fee. Margaret Lynn Lindscott now owned a Bob’s Big Boy franchise.

They met in Seattle, Pittsburgh and Tampa. They met in L.A., Frisco and Portland.

He ran guns. She fronted a cheap dance show. He chased nonexistent dope thief/killers.

She said the Twist was burning out. He said his Cuban hard-on was, too.

She said, Your fear gets to me. He said, I’ll try to tamp it down. She said, Don’t-it makes you less frightening.

He said he did something very stupid. He said he didn’t know why he did it.

She said, You wanted to force yourself out of the Life.

He couldn’t argue.

Barb had a busy autumn pending. She had long club stints in Des Moines and Sioux City and a big Texas run through Thanksgiving.

She added lunch shows to her performance slate. The Twist was phasing out-Joey wanted to wring it dry.

He met Margaret in Milwaukee. She was meek and scared of just about everything.

He offered to kill the cop rape-o. Barb said no.

He said, Why? Barb said, You don’t really want to.

He couldn’t argue.

He had Barb. Boyd had hatred: Jack K. and the Beard as one fucked-up, pervasive thing. Littell had powerful friends.

Like Hoover. Like Hughes. Like Hoffa and Marcello.

Ward hated Jack on a par with Kemper. Bobby fucked them both-but they bypassed him to hate Big Brother.

Littell was Dracula’s new Field MarshaL The Count wanted him to buy up Las Vegas and render it germ-free.

You could read Littell’s eyes.

I have friends. I have plans. I have the Fund books memorized.

The holding tank smelled. The holding tank boomed with John F Kennedy hatred.

A guard cranked the door and pulled men out for phone calls. He yelled, “Acosta, Aguilar, Arredondo-”

Pete got ready. A dime would get him Littell in D.C.

Littell could rig a Federal release writ. Littell could hip Kemper to the campsite raids.

The guard yelled, “Bondurant!”

Pete walked up. The guard steered him down the tier to a phone bank.

Guy Banister was waiting there. He was holding a pen and a false-arrest waiver.

The guard walked back to the tank. Pete signed his name in triplicate.

“I’m free to go?”

Banister looked gleefuL “That’s right. The SAC didn’t know you were Agency, so I informed him.”

“Who told you where I was?”

“I was out at Sun Valley. Kemper gave me a note for you, so I went by the stand to deliver it. Some kids were stealing hubcaps. They told me the big gringo got arrested.”

Pete rubbed his eyes. A four-aspirin headache started pounding.

Banister pulled out an envelope. “I didn’t open it. And Kemper sure seemed anxious for me to make the transmittal.”

Pete grabbed it. “I’m glad you’re ex-Bureau, Guy. I might’ve had to stay here awhile.”

“Don’t fret, big fella. I have a hunch all this Kennedy bullshit is just about to end.”

o o o

Pete caught a cab back to the stand. Vandals had stripped the tiger cars down to spare parts.

He read the note. Boyd cut straight to the point.

Nйstor’s here. I got a tip that he was seen begging gun money in Coral Gables. My source says he’s holed up at 46th and Collins. (The pink garage apartment on the southwest corner.)

The note meant KILL HIM. Don’t let Santo get to him first.

o o o

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 Nйstor talk you out of it.

The pink garage apartment was right there, as stated. The ‘58 Chevy at the curb looked like a Nйstor-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 Nйstor, lashed to a chair. There’s two fat henchmen types holding Ithaca pumps.

There’s Santo Trafficante with an icepick.

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.”