James Ellroy - American tabloid

Littell opened the envelope and pulled out a sheet of paper. Mr. Hoover’s block printing explained the surreptitious entry.

Jules Schiffrin died concurrent with your fall 1960 absence from duty. His estate house was ransacked and certain ledger books were stolen.

Joseph Valachi did extensive Pension Fund forwarding work. He is currently being questioned by a trusted colleague of mine. Robert Kennedy does not know that this interrogation is progressing.

The accompanying tape contains information that Mr. Valachi will refuse to reveal to Mr. Kennedy, the McClellan Committee, and indeed to anyone else. I trust Mr. Valachi to maintain his silence. He has been made aware that the quality and duration of his Federal relocation is predicated on it.

Please destroy this note. Please listen to the tape and keep it in a safe place. I realize that the tape has limitless strategic potential. It should be revealed to Robert Kennedy only as an adjunct to measures of great boldness.

Littell plugged in the machine and prepped the enclosed tape. His hands were butter-the spool kept slipping off the spindle.

He tapped the Play button. The tape splice sputtered and hissed.

Go over it again, Joe. Like I told you before, slow and easy.

Okay, slow and easy then. Slow and easy for the sixteenth goddamn-

Joe, come on.

Okay. Slow and easy for the stupes in the peanut gallery. Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. was the charter bankroller of the Teamsters’ Central States Pension Fund, which loans out money to all kinds of bad people and a few good people at very high interest rates. I did a lot of the forwarding work. Somethnes I delivered cash to people’s safe-deposit boxes.

You mean they gave you clearance to enter their boxes?

Right. And I used to visit Joe Kennedy’s bank regularly. It’s the main Security-First National in Boston. It’s account 811512404. It’s like ninety or a hundred safe-deposit boxes filled with cash. Raymond Patriarca thinks there’s close to a hundred million dollars in there, and Raymond should know, ‘cause him and Irish Joe go back a ways. I got to say the notion of Bob Kennedy as a racket buster makes me laugh. I guess the apple does fall pretty far from the tree, ‘cause Joe Kennedy money has financed one whole hell of a lot of Ouffit deals. I got to say also that old Joe’s the only Kennedy that knows about that money. You don’t tell people, I got a hundred million in cash put away that my sons the President and Attorney General don’t know about. And now Joe’s had this stroke, so maybe he’s not thinking too clear. You would sort of like to see that money put to use and not just sit there, which it might if old Joe kicks off or goes senile and forgets about it. I should also mention that every big guy in the Outfit knows how dirty Joe is, but they can’t shake Bobby down with the knowledge without putting their own fits in the wringer.

The tape ran out. Littell tapped the Stop button and sat perfectly still.

He thought it through. He assumed Hoover’s perspective and spoke his thoughts out loud in the first person.

I’m close to Howard Hughes. I set Ward Littell up with him. Littell asked Hughes for money to help assure my FBI directorship.

Jack Kennedy plans to fire me. I’ve got private taps installed in Mob venues. I’ve picked up a great deal of Kennedy hatred.

Littell switched back to his own perspective.

Hoover possessed insufficient data. Said data would not lead him to extrapolate a specific hit.

I told Pete and Kemper, Mr. Hoover knows it’s coming. I meant it in the metaphorical sense.

The tape and note implied specificity. Hoover called the tape “an adjunct to measures of great boldness.”

He was saying, I KNOW.

The tape was a device to humble Bobby. The tape was a device to insure Bobby’s silence. The tape should be revealed to Bobby before Jack’s death.

Jack’s death would explicate the purpose of the humbling. Bobby would thus not seek to establish proof of an assassination conspiracy. Bobby would know that to do so would forever besmirch the Kennedy name.

Bobby would assume that the man who delivered the humbling had foreknowledge of his brother’s death. Bobby would be powerless to act upon his assumption.

Littell reassumed Hoover’s perspective.

Bobby Kennedy broke Littell’s heart. Kennedy hatred binds us. Littell will not resist the urge to maim Bobby. Littell will want Bobby to know that he helped plan his brother’s murder.

It was complex and vindictive and psychologically dense Hoover thinking. A single logical thread was missing.

You haven’t broken cover. Your financiers presumably haven’t.

Kemper and Pete haven’t. Kemper hasn’t broached the plan to his shooters yet.

Hoover senses that you’re pushing toward a hit. The tape’s your “adjunct”- if you get there first .

There’s a second plot in the works. Mr. Hoover has specific knowledge of it.

Littell sat perfectly still. Little hotel sounds escalated.

He couldn’t lock the conclusion in. He couldn’t rate it as much more than a hunch.

Mr. Hoover knew him-as no one else ever had or ever would. He felt an ugly wave of love for the man.

The geek wore a monogrammed Klan sheet. Pete fed him bonded bourbon and lies.

“This gig is you, Dougie. It’s got ‘you’ written all over it.”

Lockhart burped. “I knew you didn’t drive out here at 1:00 a.m. just to share that bottle with me.”

The shack smelled like a cat box. Dougie reeked of Wildroot Cream Oil. Pete stood in the doorway-the better to dodge the stink.

“It’s three hundred a week. It’s an official Agency job, so you won’t have to worry about those Fed raids.”

Lockhart rocked back in his La-Z-Boy recliner. “Those raids have been pretty indiscriminate. I heard quite a few Agency boys got themselves tangled up in them.”

Pete cracked his thumbs. “We need you to ride herd on some Klansmen. The Agency wants to build a string of launch sites in South Florida, and we need a white man to get things going.”

Lockhart picked his nose. “Sounds like Blessington all over again. Sounds also like it might be another big fuckin’ buildup to another big fuckin’ letdown, like a certain invasion we both remember.”

Pete took a hit off the bottle. “You can’t make history all the time, Dougie. Sometimes the best you can do is make money.”

Dougie tapped his chest. “I made history recently.”

“Is that right?”

“That’s right. It was me that bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. That Communist-inspired hueand-cry that’s going up right now? Well, I got to say I’m the one that inspired it.”

The shack was lined with tinfoil. Dig that Martin Luther Coon poster taped to the back wall.

“I’ll make it four hundred a week and expenses, through to mid-November. You get your own house and office in Miami. If you leave with me now, I’ll throw in a bonus.”

Lockhart said, “I’m in.”

Pete said, “Clean yourself up. You look like a nigger.”

o o o

The ride back went slow. Thunderstorms turned the highway into one long snail trail.

Dougie Frank snored through the deluge. Pete caught newscasts and a Twist show on the radio.

A commentator talked up Joe Valachi’s song-and-dance. Valachi dubbed the Mob “La Cosa Nostra.”

Valachi was a big TV hit. A newsman called his ratings “boffo.” Valachi was snitching East Coast hoodlums up the ying-yang.

A reporter talked to Heshie Ryskind-holed up in some Phoenix cancer ward. Hesh called La Cosa Nostra “a goyishe fantasy.”

The Twist program came in scratchy. Barb sang along in Pete’s head and out-warbled Chubby Checker.