MODENE: This topic is, as of now, exhausted.
On open circuit next day came a message from GLAUCOMA inviting me to use the secure phone.
“Those girls, Harry,” were Harlot’s first words, “do go all over the place, but it proves useful. I’ve had a little research done, and now can assure myself that Mr. Giancana is one hell of a liar. He was never saved by his mother. It was his stepmother who was killed in the car accident, but she was saving Sam’s little stepbrother, Charles. Giancana’s real mother had died years before on a somewhat less heroic note. Infection of the uterus.”
“Yes, he is a liar.” In fact, I could not believe the intimacy of his lies. A man who was ready to break your legs should not have to lie about his mother.
“Moreover,” said Harlot, “Giancana did not go through any shenanigans in Bobby Kennedy’s office. One of my people checked with a former McClellan staff member, and it develops that a gentleman named Joey Gallo was the comedian on that occasion. Sam merely appropriated the story.”
“Yes, a total thief.”
“Now, who is this Tom that little Miss Bluebeard refers to? Have Tom and Harry formed a fratry known as Field?”
“Yessir. It was my way of telling you.”
“You are telling me that you have hooked the mermaid?”
“It happened most recently.”
“Why is there no material resulting from this?”
“Because our lady is not at all forthcoming, sir, and I don’t wish to rouse her suspicions.”
“Well, get started, boy. Giancana may be using her as a courier to Kennedy. Be a good Tom and try to find out if the girl is carrying any messages.”
“I’ll try,” I said.
“Do better than that.”
“I’ll try,” I said. “It’s going to take time and luck.”
“Plus a cold tit,” he said, and hung up.
23
HOW WAS I TO TELL HARLOT ANYTHING ABOUT THE AFFAIR? MODENE HAD never been able to come with a man before. So she told me, and I believed her. Could I not? How she could come! I do not know what amalgam of her alcoholic father and her socially ambitious mother contributed to the whole, but now I knew why women filled me with awe. If certain ladies, Sally Porringer, most notably, could remind you of a sledgehammer assaulting a wall, Modene came from her fingers and her toes, her thighs and her heart, and I was ready to swear that the earth and the ocean combined at such moments in my beautiful, athletic, and fingernail-tortured girl. I would feel her body pass through me, real as my own existence. So I made my peace with her lies. About the time I despaired of ever being able to cozen, elicit, trick, bully, or otherwise stimulate a confession out of Modene, she, perversely, offered me one. It was the first of several to follow, and reminded me of our first meeting.
“Do you remember Walter?” she asked me one day.
“Yes.”
“I feel like telling you about Walter.”
I had enough sense not to say: “I’d rather you tell me about Jack.” Instead, I nodded. We were in bed, and cozy; we could speak of small horrors as though they were on the other side of a window.
“Do you still see Walter?” I asked.
I looked forward to enjoying her reply that she did not, but instead she said, “Yes, I see him sometimes.”
“Now?”
She nodded. She could not speak. I wondered if it was from fear she would burst into laughter at the expression on my face.
“Since I last saw Jack,” she said at last, “since the convention, I have seen Walter again.”
“But why?” I did not make the next remark, and then I had to. “I’m not enough for you?”
“You are.” She only paused for a moment. “Except that there must always be two men in my life,” she said. She seemed pleased with this fact, as if she had invented a fail-safe for any and all emotional disaster.
“Then you have been seeing Walter all the time you’ve been with me?”
“No, just a few times. Just so I could feel there was someone else in my life. It allows me to enjoy you more.”
“I don’t know if I can bear this,” I said.
“Well, I couldn’t see Jack. He did something I didn’t like. Would you be happier if I had been with Jack instead?”
“Yes,” I said, and knew at that instant why jealousy is so perverse an emotion—it enriches our wits—“yes,” I said, “I would rather you had seen Jack.”
“You are lying,” she said.
“No,” I said. “At least I could compare myself to someone worthwhile.”
“Well, maybe we can do something about that,” she said. “Are you inviting me to start up again?”
“You couldn’t. I don’t know why you broke with him, but your pride is hurt. I know that much.”
“Oh, I could never approach him,” she said, “unless I was asked to. Unless there was some kind of external reason.”
“There are no external reasons,” I told her, “in matters such as this.”
“Well, there are. Suppose a good friend asked you for a big favor. Would you oblige?”
“You are being awfully abstract,” I said.
“Suppose this good friend wanted you to pass a message to someone you weren’t talking to anymore.”
“The recipient would still believe you were looking for an excuse to approach.”
“Yes,” she said, “that is true unless he happened to be in touch with the other person in the first place.” She yawned sweetly. “Can we make love?” she asked.
Her confessions, for this night at least, were at an end.
I sent a message to GHOUL—SPECIAL SHUNT next morning. It read:
RAPUNZEL and IOTA maintain some contact through BLUEBEARD. Will try to discover the content of such communications. Foresee implicit obstacles.
FIELD
Harlot’s reply:
If it takes weeks, well, you’ve gotten me used to walking around in the same old clothes.
GLOCKENSPIEL
24
SUNDAY, THE TWENTY-FIFTH OF SEPTEMBER, MY FATHER CAME TO MIAMI on the earliest plane out of Washington, and in considerable anticipation, I accompanied him to a meeting with Robert Maheu at the Fontainebleau. I say anticipation because Maheu had become a legend in the Agency. Given our compartmentalization, that was no routine achievement. An ex-FBI man who now maintained his own detective agency with Howard Hughes for a flagship client, Maheu could lay claim to more than a few professional feats. I had often heard of a monumental job he pulled off in 1954 for Richard Nixon, who was then, in the interests of an American oil group, looking to complete a multi-million-dollar coup at the expense of Aristotle Onassis.
It is possible Maheu was even more renowned among us for the pornographic movie he was reputed to have made on black-and-white film with two assistants, a man and wife from his office serving as actors to represent, respectively, Marshal Tito of Yugoslavia and a large-bosomed blond mistress. Excessively grainy, streaked with light, the movie was filmed by choice under abysmal conditions and a few stills were extracted from the result. No one could later declare to a certainty whether the pornographic lover was or was not Josip Broz Tito when the product was circulated among carefully selected circles in Europe as a means of discrediting the Marshal.
On meeting, Robert Maheu looked to be the most elegant private detective in the nation. He was wearing a pin-striped suit with a vest, his Windsor knot was immaculate, and I would have taken him for a continental banker with a particularly expensive mistress.
“I’ll be going down the hall in a little while to have a chat with our new friends,” Maheu remarked, “and the news I’ve received from them is that Santos Trafficante will be present with Sam and Johnny today.”
“Good Lord,” said Cal, “Trafficante from Tampa?”
“Sam has brought him in. Says we can’t do it without him. Of the three, Santos does maintain the largest resources in Cuba.”
My father nodded. “What are the chances,” he
asked, “of taping your meeting?”
“Mr. Halifax, a few weeks ago, I might have been able to. But now, after several get-togethers, I’ve become one of the boys. I tell you this not as a question of where my loyalties are—they are, of course, with us—but rather as a practical matter. It simply won’t work. Giancana and Roselli are feelers. They test your biceps, they run their hand down your back. In effect, you can’t shake hands without getting frisked.”
“Is an attaché case,” asked Cal, “too obvious?”
“They clam up,” said Maheu, “at the sight of one. I have to go in clean. But, as you know, I’ve trained my memory. I can save the high points for you.”
Perhaps he did. When he returned to my father’s room two hours later, it was to tell us that Giancana was stoked up.
“‘Robert,’ he said to me, ‘I have used a couple of names in my day. Cassro is one of them. Sam Cassro. I used Cassro before I ever heard of Castro.’ Roselli actually whistled. ‘You must be destined for this,’ he said. Giancana answered, ‘I have had the same thought myself. Destiny. Robert,’ he said to me, ‘I hate Castro. I hate that syphilitic, murdering bastard. I am ready to do it, Robert.’
“‘Good,’ I said.
“‘I am ready, except for one practical matter.’ Then he paused,” remarked Maheu, “and gave me a very sly look. ‘Maybe,’ Sam said, ‘the job is not necessary. I have heard it from the inside: The guy with the beard is syphilitic. He will not live six months.’
“Trafficante cut in at this point,” said Maheu. “It was the first time that he spoke, but I will underline my observation that even Giancana listens to him. ‘Castro,’ Trafficante said, ‘has 360-degree vision. With all due respect to Sam, I do not think Fidel Castro is all that ridden with syphilis, since his brain seems to be working very well these days.’
“Giancana was not ready to reply to that. So, he changed the subject. He picked up this Sunday’s Parade, which happened to have an old mug shot of him, and said, ‘Can you believe how fucking ugly they make me look?’ Roselli jumped right on this, of course. ‘A conspiracy,’ he says, ‘to tell the truth.’ Giancana goes, ‘Ha-ha.’ Then he stands up and pokes Roselli in the chest with a finger. ‘The fact of the matter,’ says Sam, ‘is that they got a fellow on these magazines, a worm they keep in one of the closets who comes out and crawls over fifty fucking photographs they got of me, and when he finds the worst, the worm pisses on it. Then these other newspaper creeps come in and sniff his piss—here’s the photograph we want, they say, sniff, sniff, and they print it. Always the worst photograph,’ says Sam.”
“You have total recall,” said Cal.
“Just about,” said Maheu. “I like this side of meeting with the boys. They are funny. Trafficante pops into the conversation to say, ‘Think of the impact you make on people, Sam, when they finally meet a good-looking fellow like you.’”
“This is entertaining, I must admit,” said Cal, “but what was substantive?”
“Very little. These fellows sidle up to a proposition. They keep their business vague.”
“We have a target date for late October. At the latest, early November.”
“Comprehended. The little shipment we discussed has been handed over to them. They assure me they are going ahead. They refuse, however, to divulge specific plans. There was some talk about a young lady who is the girlfriend of a gunrunner named Frank Fiorini who has been active in the Cuban exile movement. Apparently, she had an affair with Castro a year ago, and now this Fiorini is trying to convince her to go back to Havana, pop into Fidel’s bed, and drop a powder into his water glass. As backup, they are relying on a restaurant where Castro eats often, and the headwaiter is sympathetic to us. Nothing, however, has been nailed down to my satisfaction. We have no choice but to depend on people who can be as reliable or unreliable as they choose to be. I will not pretend this is a sound operation.”
“When do I get a look at your buddies?” asked Cal.
Arrangements were made for him to drop into the Boom Boom Room tomorrow near midnight. Richard Nixon and John Fitzgerald Kennedy would have had their first debate by that hour, and Maheu would be eating with Giancana.
“Fine,” said Cal. “I have a host of errands in Miami tomorrow.”
What they were, however, he did not impart to me.
Late on Monday night, so late that it was early Tuesday morning and Modene and I were sleeping in our new king-sized bed, I received a call from my father. “I’m wondering about the hygiene at the Fontainebleau,” he said, “inasmuch as I am calling you from my room.”
“If you haven’t brought your own bug-killer, assume the infection approaches plague levels.”
“Oh, we can cope,” said Cal. But I could sense how drunk he was. “It’s easier than getting up to go to a pay phone.”
“Couldn’t we have breakfast tomorrow?”
“I’m gone with the dawn, old buck.” He coughed his heavy cough. “I’ll pouch you a line.”
It was just as well he did. When I removed the strapping tape, it read:
Son—
I was introduced to His Nibs as a sportsman acquaintance of Bob Maheu’s. “Sportsman, huh,” asked G., “what do you go out looking for?” “Big game,” I told him.
“Like Hemingway,” he said.
“Yes,” I said.
(Have to tell you—we were scorching the air with our mutual adrenaline.)
“Mr. Halifax is an old friend of Ernest Hemingway’s,” said Bob.
Giancana, I must say, took that one up. “I’d like to meet your friend,” he said. “Hemingway and me got things in common. I know the burg where he grew up.”
“Yes,” I said, “Oak Park.”
He stuck out his hand as if now he could trust me. “Oak Park,” he said, “you got it.”
I asked his opinion of the debate. “A richee versus a guy who’s sucking up to the richees. Take your choice, Mr. Halifax.”
Bob said, “Mr. Gold is for Jack Kennedy.”
“On points,” said Giancana, “I score it. More mileage with the richee.”
After I said goodnight to them, I was up for a while in the other end of the hotel, their Poodle Lounge, dreadful name for a place to get drunk in—I expect the ladies’ room is called Tinkle Time. At any rate, Maheu came by for a nightcap and told me Giancana is obsessed with the way Castro spoke for four hours today at the UN, same day—get it!—as our presidential debate. Giancana said to Maheu, and I quote Robert’s masterful Rules of Recall, “How are you going to kill a guy who can talk for four fucking hours? If,” said Giancana, “you stick a shotgun up his ass and pull the trigger, he won’t even fart.”
Son, that had me laughing like a banshee. If you remember, I called you up. For five minutes it must have seemed awfully important to me to get that arcane piece of hoodlum savvy over to you. How drunk, oh Lord, how drunk. The bones won’t take it much longer.
It’s hard to explain, but I rather like this Giancana. He gives me the confidence (on the most casual level of conviction, of course) that he knows as much about his business as I about mine. Let’s hope I’m right. I do wish security didn’t keep me from getting a little closer to him.
Yours,
Cal
In Post Scriptum:
As you’ve gathered by now, I am something of a hands-off executive. I cannot tell you how many times a day I send up blessings to Tracy Barnes and Dick Bissell for catching the brunt of administrative chores at Quarters Eye. Even so, I expend sixty minutes each morning reading cables-in, and another thirty for cables-out, every blessed working morning, and double on Monday. I think it is for this reason that I write letters, and preferably late at night, when my demons and old ghosts argue with me. I tell you this in case you have similar troubles. A good letter organizes the mind. So, if the mood comes on you, give me the rundown which, given our larger preoccupations, neither of us got around to last weekend, concerning your daily Zenith stint now that Howard Hunt is in Mexico. Even more,
give me some idea of what Howard is really up to out there. The verdict at Quarters Eye is that Hunt is too ambitious, and so never sends the bad news until he is absolutely obliged to.
Incidentally, use the pouch. Address it: EYES ONLY, HALIFAX. Bind it with the right tape, needless to say.
Dad
I did not try to gauge whether I had a conflict of loyalties. It was enough that my father wanted some intelligence from me.
25
Sept. 28, 1960
From: Charles to Halifax:
Since Hunt left Miami on August 15, he has been making a thoroughgoing attempt to establish the Frente in Mexico City, but is having trouble. The facts, as I receive them from Howard by cable or phone, may be old news to you. But I will proceed on the assumption that I offer a few new items.
The core of the problem is Win Scott. I know Mr. Scott is one of our most esteemed Station Chiefs, but my guess is Howard was off to a built-in bad start once he brought an operation into Mexico City that was not directly under Scott’s jurisdiction. In addition, the Mexican government—again my assessment comes from Howard—is over-impressed with Castro’s potential to stir up the revolutionary sentiments of the populace, so they are offering small welcome to Cuban exile movements. Howard has lost whole working days getting Frente officials through Mexican customs. Moreover, the Mexican authorities keep harassing the newspaper office of Mambí, the Frente’s weekly sheet here. Mambí has been prey to daily persecutions via fire laws, foreign labor restrictions, trash removal fines—the usual.
In the meantime, Howard, who certainly likes his perks, has had to put up with a rent he terms “wholly excessive” for a small furnished house in Lomas de Chapultepec. The cover story he imparts to old social friends is that he has resigned from the Foreign Service because of disagreements with the leftist drift of our policies in Latin America and is now hard at work on a novel. In the course of picking up these bygone relationships, Howard has also managed to recruit an American businessman with old Agency ties to rent a couple of safe houses for us where Howard can meet with the Frente. Under no circumstances, however, are the Cubans allowed to learn where Don Eduardo lives. The separate lives of Don Eduardo and E. Howard Hunt are not permitted to encounter each other. This generates a considerable amount of daily travel. Howard made certain the safe houses were on the other side of the city.