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Hughes always said, Thanks for the dope. Pete always said, Thank the Agency.
He still got a Hughes paycheck. He still got twenty-three alimony cuts. He got 5% of Tiger Kab and his contract agent pay.
He used to pimp and pull shakedowns. Now he rode shotgun to History.
Jimmy Hoffa stopped by the cabstand every few days. His standard M.O. was to rave at non-English-speaking drivers. Wilfredo Delsol was ru
Wilfredo understood English. He said Jimmy teed off on Cubans, but couldn’t sustain it. Whoever took the first few “fuckheads” got a reprieve. Hoffa couldn’t scream a sentence that didn’t end “Ke
Pete saw Jack and Jimmy on TV back-to-back. Ke
Hold the tip sheet-I can spot wi
Sometimes he just couldn’t sleep. That big fucking whoooosh was like a hydrogen bomb inside his head.
43
Flanking cordons jammed up to the rostrum. Pro-Jack and proTeamster pickets-hard boys all.
The main drag was blocked off to cars. The pre-rally crowd extended back three blocks: at least six thousand people packed in shoulder-to-shoulder tight.
They jabbered and hummed. Placards bobbed ten feet high.
Jack was set to speak first. Humphrey lost a rigged coin toss and spoke last. Jack regalia outgu
Teamster goons yelled into bullhorns. Some rednecks hoisted a cartoon ba
Kemper cupped his ears-the crowd roar was painful. Rocks shredded the ba
Jack was due. Bad acoustics and Haifa invective would drown out his speech.
No great loss-people would still see him. The crowd would disperse when Humphrey showed up-free liquor was being served at select downtown taverns.
It was Kemper Boyd liquor. An old pal hijacked a Schenley’s truck and sold him the contents.
The street was packed. The sidewalks were packed. Peter Lawford was lobbing tie tacks at a gaggle of nuns.
Kemper mingled and watched the rostrum. He saw non-sequitur faces a few yards apart: Le
The Mob guy flashed Le
Le
The Mob man veered right. Le
Kemper followed him. Stray elbows and knees slowed him down.
High-school kids jostled him across the sidewalk. Le
The crowd noise leveled out. Kemper crouched behind a trash can and eavesdropped.
Le
Le
The cops grabbed the whole roll and squeezed through an alleyway door. Le
Kemper walked up to him. Hipster Le
“So, tell me about it.”
“What’s to tell?”
“Fill in the blanks for me, then.”
“What’s to fill in? We’re both Ke
Le
“Giancana put money into Wisconsin, too. Is that right? You couldn’t have performed the way you did on what Bobby gave you.”
Le
“Who told them to? You?”
“My advice don’t rate that high. You know that.”
“Spill, Le
Le
“And Giancana bought the whole package?”
“No. I think you gave Frank a big fucking assist. Everybody’s real impressed with what you’ve been doing on the Cuba front, so they figured if you like Jack he can’t be all bad.”
Kemper smiled. “I don’t want Bobby and Jack to find out about this.”
“Nobody does.”
“Until the debt gets called in?”
“Sam don’t believe in frivolous reminders. And in case you’re thinking of reminding me, I’ll tell you now. I haven’t come up with bubkes on the Pension Fund.”
Kemper heard footscrapes. He saw Teamsters left and Teamsters right-chain swingers crouched at both ends of the alley.
They had their sights on Le
Le
Kemper said, “I’ll be in touch.”
Le
Kemper backed through the alleyway door and double-locked it behind him. He heard shouts, chain rattles and thuds-the classic labor-goon two-way press.
Le
44
The work was driving Littell schizophrenic. He had to satisfy the Bureau and his conscience.
Chick Leahy hated Mal Chamales. HUAC had linked Mal to sixteen Commie front groups. Leaky’s FBI mentor was former Chicago SAC Guy Banister.
Banister hated Mal. Mal’s Red Squad sheet was eighty pages long.
He liked Mal. They had coffee every so often. Mal spent ‘46 to ‘48 in Lewisburg-Banister built up a sedition profile and talked the U.S. Attorney into an indictment.
Leaky called him this morning. He said, “I want lockstep surveillance on Mal Chamales, Ward. I want you to go to every meeting he goes to and catch him making inflammatory remarks that we can use.”
Littell called Chamales and warned him. Mal said, “I’m addressing an SLP group this afternoon. Let’s just pretend we don’t know each other.” -
Littell mixed a rye and soda. It was 5:40-he had time to work before the national news.
He padded his report with useless details. He omitted Mal’s anti-Bureau tirade. He closed with noncommital remarks.
“The subject’s Socialist Labor Party speech was tepid and filled with nebulous cliches of a decidedly leftist, but non-seditious nature. His comments during the question and answer period were not inflammatory or in any way provocative.”
Mal called Mr. Hoover “a limp-wristed Fascist in jackboots and lavender lederhosen.” An inflammatory statement?-hardly.
Littell turned on the TV. John Ke
The doorbell rang. Littell hit the entry buzzer and got out some money for the A amp;P kid.
Le
Le
Littell stood up. Le
“Ward, you look marvelous! Those frayed slacks from J.C. Pe
Ke
Le