American Tabloid - James Ellroy [118]
Kemper said, “I’ll be in touch.”
Lenny said, “See you in shul.”
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.
Lenny never yelled or screamed. Kemper timed the beating at a minute and six seconds.
44
(Chicago, 5/10/60)
The work was driving Littell schizophrenic. He had to satisfy the Bureau and his conscience.
Chick Leahy hated Mai Chamales. HUAC had linked Mai to sixteen Commie front groups. Leahy’s FBI mentor was former Chicago SAC Guy Banister.
Banister hated Mai. Mai’s Red Squad sheet was eighty pages long.
He liked Mai. They had coffee every so often. Mai spent ’46 to ’48 in Lewisburg—Banister built up a sedition profile and talked the U.S. Attorney into an indictment.
Leahy 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 Kennedy filled the screen—he just won the West Virginia primary.
The doorbell rang. Littell hit the entry buzzer and got out some money for the A&P kid.
Lenny Sands walked in. His face was scabbed, bruised and sutured. A bandaged splint held his nose in place.
Lenny swayed. Lenny smirked. Lenny twirled his fingers at the TV— “Hello, Jack, you gorgeous slice of Irish roast lamb!”
Littell stood up. Lenny weaved into a bookcase and stiff-armed himself steady.
“Ward, you look marvelous! Those frayed slacks from J.C. Penney’s and that cheap white shirt are so YOU!”
Kennedy was addressing civil rights. Littell hit the off switch in mid-discourse.
Lenny waved goodbye. “Ta, Jack, my brother-in-law in the best of all possible worlds if I liked girls and you had the profile in courage to acknowledge my dear friend Laura that that gorgeously cruel Mr. Boyd drove out of my life.”
Littell moved toward him. “Lenny …”
“Don’t you fucking come any closer or try to touch me or try to assuage your pathetic guilt or in any way mess with my gorgeous Percodan high or I won’t spill my lead on the Teamster Pension Fund books that I’ve had all along, you sad excuse for a policeman.”
Littell stiff-armed a chair. His fingers ripped through the fabric. He started weaving on his feet just like Lenny.
The bookcase shimmied. Lenny was weaving on his heels—doped up and punch-drunk.
“Jules Schiffrin keeps the books someplace in Lake Geneva. He’s got an estate there, and he’s got the books in safes or in safe-deposit boxes at some banks around there. I know because I played a gig there and I heard Jules and Johnny Rosselli talking. Don’t ask for details because I don’t have any and concentrating makes my head hurt.”
His arm slid. The chair slid behind it. Littell stumbled up against the TV console.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you’re a tiny smidgen better than Mr. Beast and Mr. Boyd and in my opinion Mr. Boyd only wants the information for its profit potential, and besides I took a beating for doing some work for Mr. Sam—”
“Lenny—”
“—and Mr. Sam said he’d make a powerful man crawl for it, but I said please don’t do that—”
“Lenny—”
“—and Jules Schiffrin was with him, and they were talking about somebody called ‘Irish Joe’ back in the ’20s, and how they made these movie