American Tabloid - James Ellroy [72]
That’s all for now. I’ll be at the St. Regis in New York if you need me.
Yours,
KB
PS: You were right about Castro’s U.S. trip. He refused to register in a hotel that didn’t admit Negroes, then went up to Harlem and began issuing anti-U.S. statements. His behavior at the U.N. was deplorable. I salute your prescience: the man was “forcing a rejection.”
DOCUMENT INSERT: 5/12/59. Memo: John Stanton to Kemper Boyd.
Kemper,
The Deputy Director has approved the hiring of Pete Bondurant. I have minor qualms, and I want you to send him on a trial run of some sort before we approach him. Use your own discretion.
JS
23
(Chicago, 5/18/59)
Helen buttered a slice of toast. “Susan’s slow burn is getting to me. I don’t think we’ve spoken more than three or four times since she heard about us.”
Mad Sal was due to call. Littell pushed his breakfast aside—he had absolutely no appetite.
“I’ve spoken to her exactly twice. Sometimes I think it’s a pure tradeoff—I gained a girlfriend and lost a daughter.”
“You don’t seem too bothered by the loss.”
“Susan feeds on resentment. She’s like her mother that way.”
“Claire told me Kemper’s having an affair with some rich New York City woman, but she won’t divulge details.”
Laura Hughes was one-half Kennedy. Kemper’s Kennedy incursion was now a two-front campaign.
“Ward, you’re very remote this morning.”
“It’s work. It preoccupies me.”
“I’m not so sure.”
It was almost 9:00—7:00 a.m. Gardena time. Sal was an inveterate early-bird gambler.
Helen waved her napkin at him. “Yoo-hoo, Ward! Are you listening to—?”
“What are you saying? What do you mean, ‘I’m not so sure’?”
“I mean your Red Squad work bores and vexes you. You always describe it with contempt, but for months you’ve been engrossed in it.”
“And?”
“And you’ve been having nightmares and mumbling in Latin in your sleep.”
“And?”
“And you’re starting to hide out from me when we’re in the same room. You’re starting to act like you’re forty-six and I’m twenty-one, and there’s things you can’t tell me, because I just wouldn’t understand.”
Littell took her hands. Helen pulled them away and knocked a napkin holder off the table.
“Kemper tells Claire everything. I would think that you’d try to emulate him that way.”
“Kemper is Claire’s father. I’m not yours.”
Helen stood up and grabbed her purse. “I’ll think about that on my way home.”
“What happened to your 9:30 class?”
“It’s Saturday, Ward. You’re so ‘preoccupied’ that you don’t know what day it is.”
Sal called at 9:35. He sounded agitated.
Littell made nice to calm him down. Sal enjoyed sweet talk.
“How’s the tour going?”
“A junket’s a junket. Gardena’s good ’cause it’s close to L.A., but fuckin’ Jewboy Lenny keeps taking off to dig up shit for Hush-Hush and keeps showing up late for his gigs. You think I should slice him like I did that guy who—”
“Don’t confess over the phone, Sal.”
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.”
“Stop it. You know what I’m interested in, so if you have anything, tell me.”
“Okay, okay. I was in Vegas and heard Heshie Ryskind talking. Hesh said the boys are worried on the Cuban front. He said the Outfit paid the Beard a shitload of money in exchange for his word the fuckin’ casinos could keep operating if he took over the fuckin’ country. But now he’s gone Commie and fuckin’ nationalized the casinos. Hesh said the Beard’s got Santo T. in jail in Havana. The boys don’t like the Beard so much these days. Hesh said the Beard’s like the low man in a Mongolian cluster fuck. You know, sooner or later he’ll get really fucked.”
Littell said, “And?”
“And before I left Chicago I talked on the phone to Jack Ruby. Jack had a case of the shorts, so I lent him a wad to unload this one strip club and buy himself another one, the Carousel or something. Jack’s always good on the payback, ’cause he sharks on the side himself down in Dallas, and—”
“Sal, you’re building up to something. Tell me what it is.”
“Whoa whoa whoa—I thought cops liked that corroboration stuff.”
“Sal—”
“Whoa, listen now. Jack corroborated what Heshie