American Tabloid - James Ellroy [155]
Havana, Playa Girón, Baracoa, Oriente, Playa Girón, Guantánamo, Guantánamo.
Kemper caught the upshot:
People were talking.
On-leave trainees were talking. Agency-front-group men were talking. The talk was innuendo, bullshit, wish fulfillment and truth by default—speculate on enough invasion sites and you’ll hit the right one out of sheer luck.
The talk constituted a minor security leak.
Fulo didn’t seem worried. Néstor shrugged the talk off. Kemper categorized it as “containable.”
They cruised the side streets off Flagler.
Fulo monitored cab calls. Néstor talked up ways to torture Fidel Castro. Kemper looked out his window and savored the view.
Cuban girls blew them kisses. Car radios churned out mambo music. Street loafers gobbled melons soaked in beer.
Fulo clicked off a call. “That was Wilfredo. He said Don Juan knows something about a dope drop, and maybe we should go see him.”
Don Juan Pimentel had a TB cough. His front room was littered with customized Barbie and Ken dolls.
They stood just inside the door. Don Juan smelled like mentholated chest rub.
Fulo said, “You can talk in front of Mr. Boyd. He is a wonderful friend of our Cause.”
Néstor picked up a nude Barbie. The doll wore a Jackie Kennedy wig and Brillo-pad crotch hair.
Don Juan coughed. “It is twenty-five dollars for the story, and fifty dollars for the story and the address.”
Néstor dropped the doll and crossed himself. Fulo handed Don Juan two twenties and a ten.
He tucked the cash in his shirt pocket. “The address is 4980 Baiustrol. Four men from the Cuban Intelligence Directorate live there. They are terribly afraid that your invasion will succeed and that their supply from the island will be, how you say, removed. They have at the house a very large supply of single shots packaged to sell in order to make quick money to, how you say, bankroll their resistance to your resistance. They have over a pound of heroin ready to be sold in these small amounts where there is to be the, how you say, most profit.”
Kemper smiled. “Is the house guarded?”
“I do not know.”
“Who would they sell the stuff to?”
“Certainly not to Cubans. I would say to the negritos and the poor whites.”
Kemper nudged Fulo. “Is Mr. Pimentel a reliable informant?”
“Yes. I think so.”
“Is he strongly anti-Castro?”
“Yes. I think so.”
“Would you trust him not to betray us under any circumstances?”
“Well … that is hard to …”
Don Juan spat on the floor. “You are a coward not to ask such questions to my face.”
Kemper judo-chopped him. Don Juan clipped a doll rack and went down gagging for breath.
Néstor dropped a pillow on his face. Kemper pulled his .45 and fired through it point-blank.
His silencer ate up the noise. Blood-soaked feathers billowed.
Néstor and Fulo looked shocked. Kemper said, “I’ll explain later.”
REBELS RESCUE CUBA! COMMIES PANDER POISON DOPE IN RAPACIOUS REVENGE!
HEROIN HOLOCAUST! PUSHER CASTRO GLOATS! DESPERATE DICTATOR IN EXILE! DOPE DEATH TOLL MOUNTS!
Kemper printed the headlines on a dispatch sheet. Tiger Kab swirled all around him—the midnight shift was just coming on.
He wrote a cover note.
PB,
Have Lenny Sands write up Hush-Hush articles to accompany the enclosed headlines. Tell him to expedite it and to check the Miami papers over the next week or so for background details and call me if necessary. This, of course, pertains to the invasion, and my feeling is that we’re very close to a go-date. I can’t go into my plan in detail yet, but I think it’s something you’d appreciate. If Lenny finds my orders confusing, tell him to extrapolate off the headlines in the inimitable Hush-Hush style.
I know you’re somewhere in Nicaragua or Guatemala, and I’m hoping this pouch gets to you. And try to think of WJL as a colleague. Peaceful co-existence doesn’t always mean appeasement.
KB
Kemper stamped the envelope: C. ROGERS/NEXT FLIGHT/URGENT. Fulo and Néstor walked by, looking befuddled—he never explained why he killed Don Juan.
Santo Junior had a pet shark named Batista. They drove to Tampa