Max Collins - Ask Not

We sat at the long, polished-wood conference table, in two of ten executive-style black-leather chairs around it. My put-upon host was at the head of the table, which was only fitting. And for this one night, at least, I sat at his right hand.

“What da fuck happen t’night, Nate?” he asked. “Don’t spare de damn details.”

“It started at the Sho-Bar,” I said. “I met with your man David Ferrie there.”

I gave him the same routine I had Ferrie — that I’d been helping Flo Kilgore, just to keep an eye on what she was up to, but discovered witnesses were dying and had no desire to be the next target of a post-assassination cleanup crew.

“Dat homo ain’t my ‘man,’” Marcello said, meaning Ferrie, “but he sho nuff has his uses. Smart fella for a fourteen-karat queer — he’s workin’ on a cancer cure, can ya dig dat? Apartment’s fulla lab rats, can ya picture dat?”

This struck me as an evasive response. He was talking about one thing while thinking about something else. I didn’t want to give him time to scheme.

Pressing, I said, “Those three tonight, Uncle Carlos, who took me for a spin. We both know they were at Dealey Plaza.”

“Lot of folks at de Plaza dat day.”

“You weren’t. You were in New Orleans, in court, beating the case Bobby Kennedy had against you.”

“True dat. And David Ferrie, he sittin’ next to me.”

“Well, Wallace and the Cuban and ‘Oswald,’ they were in Dealey Plaza all right, each on a hit team, maybe the same one. Must have been at least three such teams, each with shooter, backup, wheelman.”

Marcello just shrugged.

I said, “I’m assuming this team took it upon themselves to start disposing of witnesses. To protect their own asses.”

“Dat make sense, sho nuff.”

“This Warren Commission is a whitewash job, but it still doesn’t hurt, discouraging citizens from sharing what they know. And you don’t get more discouraged than dead.”

“Dat’s true.”

“But with journalists like Flo Kilgore and Mark Lane and dozens of others digging into the case, Uncle Carlos, this thing is not going away. Killing the President of the United States is not just another contract kill.”

“Nobody said dat it was.”

“And this one had way too many players. Something this ambitious, it’s hard to contain.”

“You ain’t wrong.”

“I choose to believe that you didn’t send those men to kill me tonight, Uncle Carlos. Or, for that matter, to kill Rose Cheramie or Hank Killam or Guy Banister or any of the others.”

“Banister, he die of a heart attack. Dem others I never hear of.”

“Fine. Maybe you didn’t hear about that Rodriguez character, either, trying to run me down a few weeks ago. And almost killing my kid in the bargain? I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.”

His upper lip curled back over feral teeth. “Ya know, Nate, I like you. I like you just fine. You got brains and nerve and I like dat. But you know what I don’t like? Is fuckin’ threats.”

“We’re just having a friendly drink in the wee hours,” I said. “I figure it took about nine people, positioned around Dealey Plaza in high buildings and at that fence on that grassy slope, to help you and your powerful pals take that stone out of your shoe. Three of them died tonight, and some of the rest may already be dead. Frankly, I think maybe it would be helpful to you, to have all nine dead.”

“Dere’s a case could be made.”

“At least one, I figure, is European. Hot-shot sniper from Corsica, and with your overseas connections, he was probably one of your contributions. Trafficante kicked in the Cubans, Giancana pitched in on Nicoletti, and maybe John Rosselli, who I figure for an organizational role. The spooks surely provided some top talent, not to mention fake Secret Service IDs and other goodies.”

“Seem like you figure a lot, Heller.”

“I really don’t know all the details. All the players. I don’t want to know. I just want to go back to Chicago and forget about it. And particularly forget I ever heard the words Operation Mongoose. ”

The eyebrows hiked over the glasses, their inverted V’s flattening out again. “Den... dis thing is over for you, Nate, t’night? Dat right?”

“It’s over if you let it be over. I don’t know if you sent out that cleanup crew, Uncle Carlos. I really don’t. But I respectfully ask that you approach all your high-powered friends, who backed those high-powered rifles, and let them know that I am on the sidelines now. That, yes, I took offense when that Cuban tried to run me and my son down, and so I took the bastard out. And Mac Wallace, well him I encountered on another matter — he killed a client’s husband — so I took him out, too.”

“Pretty active ol’ boy, dis Nate Heller.”

“Maybe so. But it ends there. Ends here. Okay?”

That big puffy oval face had a friendly expression that I didn’t like at all. “Not sure I know what kinda of powerful folks you mean, Nate... but, far as it goes, why sure. I spread de word. Glad to do it.”

“I’m not fucking around, Uncle Carlos. You send the message to everybody from H. L. Hunt to your assorted spook buddies to Trafficante and Mooney and these various demented Cubans all the way up to the Oval Office. Anybody comes near me or my son, and this whole goddamn thing will unravel like a cheap sweater.”

“My, my, Nate. Such colorful talk. Like one of dem private eyes on TV or in de paperbacks. Kind dat never gets killed.”

“No, I can be killed. Anybody can be killed, Carlos. If history has taught us anything at all, that’s it.”

I reached under my arm and withdrew the nine millimeter and set it on the shiny wood next to my glass of rum.

“Why, for example, right now I am sitting in a room with Carlos Marcello. I talked my way in, and I could shoot my way out — you only have that barber of yours downstairs at the moment. And you would be dead. Anybody can be dead, Carlos. Ask Jack Kennedy.”

His expression was blank, but it was taking him a lot of effort to keep it that way. For instance, he did not allow his eyes to drift anywhere near the gun by my hand.

“I know better than to get tough with a man like you, Uncle Carlos. I know not to threaten. Threats are such empty things. So here’s a promise.”

He frowned.

Time for the big lie.

I said, “The tape that Flo Kilgore made of Jack Ruby spilling every detail about Dallas has been duplicated a dozen times. Right now, it’s in a dozen safety-deposit boxes all around the country. If anything happens to me, copies of that tape will go to Bobby Kennedy and the current attorney general and The New York Times and... well, you get the idea.”

His eyes were wide and bulging, though his whole face frowned around them and veins were throbbing in his forehead again. “Dat’s bullshit, man. Dere ain’t no such tape.”

Almost gently, I said, “There is. I might also mention that I have better than a hundred employees, coast to coast, most of whom are ex-cops, hard-asses who like their boss very much. Who would not respond well if he and/or his family were targeted again, and they will know, all of them, who to turn to for redress of their grievance.”

He slammed a fist on the table and the glasses of Scotch and rum jumped, and so did the nine millimeter.

And so did I.

“Who da fuck you think you talkin’ to, you Yankee sum of a bitch?”

“Not the cops or the FBI,” I said easily, meeting his gaze. “And I could have gone to them tonight, and told them I’d been kidnapped, and that I fought back in self-defense against my captors.”

“Dat don’t fly! You kill Wallace t’night.”