James Ellroy - American tabloid

She’ll know it was a Mob hit. She knows how those guys snip dangerous links. She’ll blame you for bringing her so close to something so big.

Pete watched Barb sleep. Their bed smelled like suntan oil and sweat.

He was going to Las Vegas. He was going back to Howard “Dracula” Hughes. Ward Littell was their new middleman.

It was strongarm and dope work. It was a boilerplate commuted sentence: death for life imprisonment.

She’d kicked the sheets off. He noticed some new freckles on her legs.

She’d click with Vegas. He’d boot Joey out of her life and fix her up with a permanent lounge gig.

She’d be with him. She’d be close to his work. She’d build a rep as a stand-up woman who knew how to keep secrets.

Barb curled into her pillows. The veins on her breasts stretched out funny.

He woke her up. She snapped awake bright-eyed, like always.

Pete said, “Will you marry me?”

Barb said, “Sure.”

o o o

A fifty-dollar bribe waived the blood test. A C-note covered the no-birth-certificate problem.

Pete rented a 52 X-long tuxedo. Barb ran by the Kascade KIub and grabbed her one white Twist gown.

They found a preacher in the phone book. Pete scrounged up two witnesses: Jack Ruby and Dick Contino.

Dick said Uncle Hesh needed a pop. And what’s he so excited about? For a dying man, he sure seems keyed up.

Pete ran by the Adolphus Hotel. He shot Heshie full of heroin and slipped him some Hershey bars to nosh on. Heshie thought his tuxedo was the funniest fucking thing he’d ever seen. He laughed so had he almost ripped his tracheal tube out.

Dick bounced for a wedding gift: the Adolphus bridal suite through the weekend. Pete and Barb moved their things in an hour before the ceremony.

Pete’s gun fell out of his suitcase. The bellhop almost shit.

Barb tipped him fifty dollars. The kid genuflected out of the suite. A hotel limo dropped them at the chapel.

The preacher was a juicehead. Ruby brought his yappy dachshunds. Dick banged some wedding numbers on his squeezebox.

They said their vows in a dive off Stemmons Freeway. Barb cried. Pete held her hand so tight that she winced.

The preacher supplied imitation gold rings. Pete’s ring wouldn’t fit on his ring finger. The preacher said he’d order him a jumbo-he got his stuff from a mail-order house in Des Moines.

Pete dropped the too-small ring in his pocket. The Till Death Do Us Part pitch got him weak in the knees.

o o o

They settled in at the hotel. Barb kept up a refrain: Barbara Jane Lindscott Jahelka Bondurant.

Heshie sent them champagne and a giant gift basket. The roomservice kid was atwitter-the President’s riding by here on Friday!

They made love. The bed was flouncy pink and enormous.

Barb fell asleep. Pete left an 8:00 p.m. call-his bride had a gig at 9:00 sharp.

He couldn’t sleep. He didn’t touch the bubbly-booze was starting to feel like a weakness.

The phone rang. He got up and grabbed the parlor extension.

“Yeah?”

“It’s me, Pete.”

“Ward, Jesus. How’d you get this-?”

Littell said, “Banister just called me. He said Juan Canestel’s missing in Dallas. I’m sending Kemper in to meet you, and I want the two of you to find him and do what you have to do to make Friday happen.”

The plane taxied up to a loading bay. The pilot rode tailwinds all the way from Meridian and made the run in under two hours.

Littell arranged a private charter. He told the pilot to fly ballsto-the-wall. The little two-seater rattled and shook-Kemper couldn’t believe it.

It was 11:48 p.m. They were thirty-six hours short of GO.

Car headlights blinked-Pete’s signal.

Kemper unhooked his seat belt. The pilot throttled down and cranked the door open for him.

Kemper jumped out. Propeller backspin almost knocked him flat.

The car pulled up. Kemper got in. Pete punched it across a string of small-craft runways.

A jet whooshed overhead. Love Field looked otherworldly.

Pete said, “What did Ward tell you?”

“That Juan’s loose. And that Guy’s afraid that Carlos and the others will think he fucked up.”

“That’s what he told me. And I told him that I didn’t like the risks involved, unless somebody tells Carlos that we helped him out and saved Banister from blowing the whole fucking hit.”

Kemper cracked the window. His goddamn ears kept popping.

“What did Ward say to that?”

“He said he’ll tell Carlos after the hit. if we find Canestel and save the fucking day.”

A 2-way radio sputtered. Pete turned it down.

“This is J. D. Tippit’s off-duty car. Him and Rogers are out looking, and if they get a spot on Juan, we go in. Tippit can’t leave his patrol sector, and Chuck can’t do anything that could fuck him out of showing up for the hit.”

They dodged baggage carts. Kemper leaned out the window and popped three Dexedrine thy.

“Where’s Banister?”

“He’s flying in from New Orleans later. He thinks Juan’s solid, and if something happens and they lose him, he’ll move Rogers into his slot, and go out with him and the pro shooter.”

They knew Juan was volatile. They didn’t have him tagged as a possible sex killer. The job was fucked up and full of holes and reeked of amateur-night on-the-job training.

“Where are we going?”

“Jack Ruby’s place. Rogers said Juan likes to dig on the whores there. You work inside-Ruby doesn’t know you.”

Kemper laughed. “Ward told Carlos not to trust psychopaths with bright red sports cars.”

Pete said, “You did.”

“I’ve had some revelations since then.”

“Are you saying there’s something I should know about Juan?”

“I’m saying I quit hating Jack. And I don’t really care whether they kill him or not.”

o o o

The Carousel Club was midweek listless.

A stripper was peeling on the runway. Two plainclothes cops and a hooker clique sat at ringside tables.

Kemper sat near a rear exit. He unscrewed the bulb on his table lamp-shadows covered him from the waist up.

He could see the front and back doors. He could see the runway and stage tables. The shadows made him close to invisible.

Pete was out back with the car. He didn’t want Jack Ruby to see him.

The stripper stripped to Andrй Kostelanetz. The hi-fi played off-speed. Ruby sat with the cops and spiked their drinks with his flask.

Kemper sipped scotch. It jump-started the Dexedrine. He got cozy with a new revelation: You’ve got a chance to toy with the hit.

A dog ran across the runway. The stripper shooed it off. Juan Canestel walked in the front door.

He was alone. He was wearing an Ike jacket and blue jeans.

He went straight for the whores’ table. A hostess sat him down.

He’d enlarged his prosthetic bulge. Check that shiv in his left hip pocket.

A sash cord was bunched into his waistband.

Juan bought drinks all around. Ruby schmoozed him up. The stripper tossed a few hips his way.

The cops checked him out. They looked mean and full of hate for non-Anglos.

Juan always carries a gun. They might shake him on general principles.

They might book him on a weapons charge. They might rubberhose him.

He might betray Banister. The Secret Service might cancel the motorcade.

Juan loved to drink. He might show up for the hit hung over. He might jerk the trigger and miss Jack by a country mile.

Juan loved to talk. He might arouse suspicion between now and noon on Friday.

The sash cord leaked out his front waistband.

Juan is a sex killer. Juan kills with his surrogate balls.