The Cold Six Thousand - James Ellroy [240]
DOCUMENT INSERT: 3/2/68. Boston Globe headline and subhead:
U.S. CASUALTY RATE MOUNTS IN VIETNAM
KING BLASTS “FUTILE” CONFLICT
DOCUMENT INSERT: 3/11/68. Tampa Tribune headline and subhead:
WILL HE OR WON’T HE?
RFK ISN’T SAYING
DOCUMENT INSERT: 3/13/68. Bug-extract transcript. Marked: “Confidential”/“Stage-1 Covert”/“Eyes Only”: Director, SA D. C. Holly.
Location: Office/Mike Lyman’s Restaurant/Los Angeles/listening-post-accessed. Speaking: Charles “Chuck the Vice” Aiuppa & Bernard “Nardy” Scavone, organized-crime associates. (Conversation 6.8 minutes in progress.)
CA: It’s what you call a coalition. Bobby’s the president, but he needs the head ape to mobilize all the little apes and put him in power.
BS: Do the arithmetic, Chuck. They don’t have the votes.
CA: Then you add the Jews, the college kids, the comsymps and the welfare creeps. It gets to be a very tight race with those forces in play.
BS: Bobby scares me. That I will readily admit.
CA: Bobby needs the head ape to create the unrest. Then he comes in and promises all the fucked-up people the moon.
BS: Bobby would fuck us, Chuck. He’d fuck us like he fucked us when he was AG and Jack was the prez.
CA: Bobby’s only happy when he’s got some made guy’s dick in the vice.
BS: Watch it, Chuck. You say “vice,” you give me these urges.
CA: Control yourself. There’ll be more. Uncle Carlos has always got work.
BS: I’d like to put the head ape and Bobby in the vice. One squeeze and arrivederci.
(Non-applicable conversation follows.)
DOCUMENT INSERT: 3/14/68. Bug-extract transcript. Marked: “Confidential”/“Stage-1 Covert”/“Eyes Only”: Director, SA D. C. Holly.
Location: Card room/Grapevine Tavern/St. Louis/listening-post-accessed. Speaking: Norbert Donald Kling & Rowland Mark DeJohn, paroled felons (Armed Robbery/Bunco/GTA) & presumed organized-crime associates. (Conversation 0.9 minutes in progress.)
NDK: This is rich. I grab the pay phone this morning and who do I get?
RMDJ: Jill St. John?
NDK: No.
RMDJ: What’s her name? That cooze with the go-go boots.
NDK: No.
RMDJ: Norb, shit—
NDK: It’s Jimmy Ray. He starts talking shit and says he joined a French cult in L.A. He dives muff and gets sucked off all day, and he needs money to support all his slaves, and did I know if there was a time limit on the bounty, ’cause he’s got his hands full with his slaves right now and he don’t know when he can get free.
RMDJ: That is hilarious. Jimmy’s got his hands full, all right.
NDK: One hand, at least. At Jeff City he’d geez meth and jack off for two days at a pop. He’d read these fucking pussy books and orbit. He said the fucking pictures were talking to him.
RMDJ: Jimmy’s got delusions of grandeur.
NDK: Yeah, but he hates niggers.
(Non-applicable conversation follows.)
DOCUMENT INSERT: 3/15/68. Bug-extract transcript. Marked: “Confidential”/“Stage-1 Covert”/“Eyes Only”: Director, SA D. C. Holly.
Location: Suite 301/El Encanto Hotel/Santa Barbara/listening-post-accessed. Speaking: Senator Robert F. Kennedy, Paul Horvitz (senate staff mbr.), Unidentified Male #1. (Conversation 3.9 minutes in progress.)
RFK: … simple and matter-of-fact. That’s the way my brother announced. (Pause/3.4 seconds.) Paul, you time the statement. Read it aloud, but don’t try to imitate me.
(Laughter/2.4 seconds.)
PH: About the position paper. Do we publish—
UM #1: You want the abbreviated version, right? The long form’s too dense, and the press guys will have to cut too much.
RFK: Condense it and let me read the final draft. And be damn sure there’s nothing in there about organized crime.
PH: Sir, I think that’s a mistake. It undercuts your credentials as Attorney General.
UM #1: Bob, shit. You know you’ll go after those guys ag—
RFK: I intend to, but I don’t intend to broadcast it.
UM #1: Shit, Bob. Good foes make for good campaigns. The war and Johnson are one thing, but—
PH: The Mob’s dead as a campaign issue, but—
RFK: I’ll do what I do, when I do it, but I’m not going to broadcast my intentions. Think “social justice,” “end the war” and “unite the