American Tabloid - James Ellroy [206]
TS: Off the graph, Bobby. Off the fucking graph.
RP: And it’s still out there.
TS: I was just thinking that.
RP: Two hundred pounds. And somebody’s got it.
TS: I heard Santo won’t give up.
RP: This is true. Pete the Frenchman clipped that Delsol guy, but he was just the tip of the iceberg. I heard Santo has got Pete out there looking around, you know, sort of informal. They both figure some crazy spic exiles were behind the heist, and Pete the Frog’s out there looking for them.
TS: I’ve met some of them exiles.
RP: So have I. They’re all fucking crazy.
TS: You know what I hate about them?
RP: What?
TS: That they think they’re as white as Italians.
Non-applicable conversation follows.
New Orleans, 10/19/62. BR8-3408 (home of Leon NMI Broussard) (THP File #88.6, New Orleans Office) to Suite 1411 at the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas, Texas. (Hotel records indicate the suite was rented by Herschel Meyer Ryskind) (File #887.8, Dallas Office). Conversation three minutes in progress.
LB: You always had a thing for hotel suites, Hesh. A hotel suite and a blow job was always your idea of heaven.
HR: Don’t say heaven, Leon. You’re giving me a pain in the prostate.
LB: I get it. You’re sick, so you don’t want to think about the thereafter.
HR: It’s the hereafter, Leon. And you’re right. And I called you to schmooze because you’ve always got your nose in other people’s troubles, and I figured you could dish some gossip on some of the boys with worse trouble than me and cheer me up.
LB: I’ll try, Hesh. And Carlos says hi, by the way.
HR: Let’s start with him. What kind of trouble has that crazy dago hump gotten himself into now?
LB: I gotta say nothing recent. And I also gotta say the deportation thing is hanging over his head and making him crazy.
HR: Thank God he’s got that lawyer.
LB: Yeah, Littell. The guy’s working for Jimmy Hoffa, too. Uncle Carlos says he hates the Kennedys so much that he’d probably work for free.
HR: I heard he’s a red tape kind of guy. He just delays and delays and delays.
LB: You’re absolutely right. Uncle Carlos said his INS case probably won’t go to trial until late next year. Littell’s got these Justice Department lawyers fucking exhausted.
HR: Carlos is optimistic, then?
LB: Absolutely. So’s Jimmy, from what I’ve heard. The trouble with Jimmy’s troubles is that he’s got eighty-six-fucking-thousand grand juries chasing him. My feeling is that sooner or later, somebody gets a conviction. I don’t care how good a lawyer this Littell guy is.
HR: This makes me happy. Jimmy Hoffa’s a guy with troubles approximating my own. Can you imagine going to Leavenworth and getting shtupped in the ass by some shvartze?
LB: That is not a pleasant prospect.
HR: Neither is cancer, you goyisher shitheel.
LB: We’re pulling for you, Hesh. You’re in our prayers.
HR: Puck your prayers. And give me some gossip. You know that’s why I called.
LB: Well.
HR: Well, what? Leon, you owe me money. You know I’m gonna die before I collect. Give an old dying man the comfort of some satisfying gossip.
LB: Well, I heard rumors.
HR: Such as?
LB: Such as that lawyer Littell’s working for Howard Hughes. Hughes is supposed to want to buy all these Las Vegas hotels, and I heard—off the record, Hesh, really—that Sam G’s dying to work some kind of an angle on the deal.
HR: Which Littell don’t know about?
LB: That is correct.
HR: I love this fucking life of ours. It is never fucking boring.
LB: You are absolutely correct. Think of the tidbits you pick up in this loop of ours.
HR: I don’t want to die, Leon. All this shit is too good to give up.
Non-applicable conversation follows.
Chicago, 11/19/62. BL4-8869 (Celano’s Tailor Shop) to AX8-9600 (home of John Rosselli) (THP Pile #902.5, Chicago Office). Speaking: John Rosselli, Sam “Mo,” “Momo,” “Mooney” Giancana (File #480.2). Conversation two minutes in progress.
JR: Sinatra’s worthless.
SG: He’s less than worthless.
JR: The Kennedys