He strolled through the main MPD squadroom last night. He saw three prospective motorcade maps. They were tacked to a corkboard in plain fucking view.
He memorized them. All three routes ran by their gun shop and For Rent signs.
Boyd said he felt awe more than fear.
Pete said, I know what you mean.
He didn’t say, I love this woman. If I die, I came this far and lost her for nothing.
90
(Miami, 9/27/63)
Somebody placed a tape recorder on his coffee table. Somebody placed a sealed envelope beside it.
Littell shut the door and thought it through.
Pete and Kemper know you’re here. Jimmy and Carlos know you always stay at the Fontainebleau. You went down to the coffee shop for breakfast and were gone less than half an hour.
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. Sometimes 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 Outfit 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 tits 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.
91
(Puckett, 9/28/63)
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 hue-and-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.”
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.
They talked long-distance right before he left Miami. Barb said, What is it?—you sound frightened again.
He said, I can’t tell you. When you hear about it, you’ll know.
She said, Will it hurt us?
He said, No.
She said, You’re lying. He couldn’t argue.
She was flying to Texas in a few days. Joey booked them in for an eight-week statewide run.
He’d fly in for weekends. He’d play stage-door Johnny, straight up to November 18.
They hit Miami at noon. Lockhart dosed his hangover with glazed doughnuts and coffee.
They looped through the downtown area. Dougie pointed out For Rent signs.
Pete drove in circles. The house-and-office search had Dougie yawning.
Pete narrowed his choices down to three offices and three houses. Pete said, Dougie, take your pick.
Dougie picked fast. Dougie wanted to log in some sack time. He picked a stucco house off Biscayne.
He picked an office on Biscayne—dead center on all three parade routes.
Both landlords demanded deposits. Dougie peeled bills off his expense roll and paid them three months’ rent in advance.
Pete stayed out of sight. The landlords never saw him.
He watched Dougie lug his gear into the house—this carrot-topped stupe about to be world-famous.
92
(Miami, 9/29/63–10/20/63)
He memorized Hoover’s note. He hid the tape splice. He drove the three routes a dozen times a day for three weeks running.
He didn’t tell Pete and Kemper that there might be another hit planned.
The press reported the President’s fall travel schedule. They emphasized motorcades in New York, Miami and Texas.
Littell sent Bobby a note. It stated his affiliation with James R. Hoffa and asked for ten minutes of his time.
He considered the ramifications for close to a month before acting. His walk to the mailbox felt like his raid on Jules Schiffrin’s house—multiplied a thousand times.
Littell drove down Biscayne Boulevard. He timed every signal light with a stopwatch.
Kemper burglarized the gun shop a week ago. He stole three sight-equipped rifles and two revolvers. He wore gloves with distinctive cracked fingertips—filched from Dougie Frank Lockhart.
Kemper surveilled the gun shop the next day. Detectives canvassed the area and technicians dusted for prints. Dougie’s cracked-finger gloves were now a matter of forensic record.
The gloves were pressed all over surfaces in Dougie’s house and office.
Pete let Dougie fondle the rifles. His fingerprints were pressed to the stocks and barrels.
Kemper stole three cars in South Carolina. He had them repainted and fitted with fake license plates. Two were assigned to the shooters. The third car was for the man assigned to kill Dougie.
Pete brought a fourth man in. Chuck Rogers signed on as their fall-guy impersonator.
Rogers and Lockhart had similar builds and similar features. Dougie’s most distinguishing attribute was bright red hair.
Chuck dyed his hair red. Chuck spewed Kennedy hatred all over Miami.
He shot his mouth off at taverns and pool halls. He raged at a skating rink, a gun range and numerous liquor stores. He was paid to rage nonstop until November 15.
Littell drove by Dougie’s office. Every circuit gave him a brilliant new embellishment.
He should find some rambunctious kids on the motorcade route. He should give them firecrackers and tell them to let fly.
It would wear the Secret Service escort down. It would inure them to gunshot-like noises.
Kemper was working up some Dougie Frank keepsakes. Lockhart’s psychopathology would be summarized in minutiae.
Kemper defaced JFK photographs and carved swastikas on Jack and Jackie dolls. Kemper smeared fecal matter over a dozen Kennedy magazine spreads.
The investigators would find it all in Dougie’s bedroom closet.
Currently in progress: Dougie Frank Lockhart’s political diary.
It was hunt-and-peck typed, with printed ink corrections. The race-mongering text was truly horrific.
The diary was Pete’s idea. Dougie said he bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church—a still-unsolved cause célèbre. Pete wanted to link the Kennedy hit and four dead Negro children.
Dougie told Pete the whole bombing story. Pete typed crucial details into the diary.
They didn’t mention the bombing embellishment to Kemper. Kemper had a quirky affection for coloreds.
Pete kept Dougie sequestered at his house. He fed him takeout pizza, marijuana and liquor. Dougie seemed to enjoy the accommodations.
Pete told Dougie that his Agency gig had been postponed. He fed him a cock-and-bull story about the need to stay out of sight.
Kemper moved his men to Blessington. The FBI was raiding non-CIA campsites—housing his team at Sun Valley was risky.
The men bunked at the Breakers Motel. They test-fired .30.06’s all day every day. Their rifles were identical to the rifles Kemper stole.
The shooters didn’t know about the hit. Kemper would inform them six days before—in time to stage a full-dress Miami rehearsal.
Littell cruised by Dougie’s house. Pete said he always came in through the alley and never let the neighbors see him.
They should plant some narcotics at the house. They should expand Dougie’s pedigree to assassin/church bomber/dope fiend.
Kemper had a drink with the Miami SAC yesterday. They were old Bureau pals—the meeting wouldn’t stand out as anomalous.
The man called the motorcade a “pain in the ass.” He called Kennedy “tough to guard.” He said the Secret Service let crowds get too close to him.
Kemper said, Any threats? Any loonies coming out of the woodwork?
The man said, No.
Their one risky bluff was holding. No one had reported the loudmouthed pseudo Dougie.
Littell drove back to the Fontainebleau. He wondered how long Pete and Kemper would outlive JFK.
93
(Blessington, 10/21/63)
Training officers formed a cordon just inside the front gate. They wore face shields and packed shotguns filled with rock salt.
Refuge seekers slammed the fence. The entry road was jammed with junk cars and dispossessed Cubans.
Kemper watched the scene escalate. John Stanton called and warned him that the raids went from bad to godawful.
The FBI hit fourteen exile camps yesterday. Half the Cubans on the Gulf Coast were out seeking CIA asylum.
The fence teetered. The training men raised their weapons.
There were twenty men inside and sixty men outside. Only weak chain-links and some barbed wire stood between them.
A Cuban climbed the fence and snagged himself on the barbs at the top. A training man blew him down—one salt round de-snagged him and lacerated his chest.
The Cubans picked up rocks and waved lumber planks. The contract men assumed protective postures. A big bilingual roar went up.
Littell was late. Pete was late, too—the migration probably stalled traffic.
Kemper walked down to the boat dock. His men were shooting buoys floating thirty yards offshore.
They wore earplugs to blot out the gate noise. They looked like highline, spit-and-polish mercenaries.
He moved them in just
under the wire. They had free run of the campsite—John Stanton pulled strings for old times’ sake.
Ejected shells hit the dock. Laurent and Flash notched bullseyes. Juan fired wide into some waves.
He told them about the hit last night. The pure audacity thrilled them.
He couldn’t resist it. He wanted to see their faces ignite.
Laurent and Flash lit up happy. Juan lit up disturbed.
Juan’s been acting furtive. Juan’s been AWOL three nights running.
The radio reported another dead woman. She was beaten senseless and strangled with a sash cord. The local cops were baffled.
Victim #1 was found near Sun Valley. Victim #2 was found near Blessington.
The gate noise doubled and tripled. Rock-salt rounds exploded.
Kemper popped in earplugs and watched his men shoot. Juan Canestel watched him.
Flash made a buoy jump. Laurent nailed it on the rebound. Juan slammed three straight misses.
Something was wrong.
The State Police cleared the Cubans out. Black & whites escorted them to the highway.
Kemper drove behind the convoy. The line was fifty cars long. The rock-salt barrage blew out windshields and stripped convertible tops.
It was a short-sighted solution. John Stanton prophesied exile chaos—and hinted at much worse.
Pete and Ward called to say they’d be late. He said, Good—I have to run an errand. They rescheduled their meet for 2:30 at the Breakers.
He’d tell them Stanton’s news. He’d stress that it was strictly speculative.
The car herd crawled—both outbound lanes were jammed up bumper-to-bumper. Two black & whites drove point to keep the Cubans boxed in.
Kemper turned onto a switchback. It was the only shortcut to Blessington proper—dirt roads straight in.
Dust kicked up. A light drizzle turned it to mud spray. The Rapemobile passed him, full-throttle on a blind curve.
Kemper hit his wipers. The spray thinned out translucent. He saw exhaust fumes up ahead—and no Rapemobile.
Juan’s distracted. He didn’t recognize my car.