He called the Agency's Miami Ops number. John Stanton picked up immediately.
"Yes?"
"It's Kemper Boyd. I'm calling to accept your offer."
"I'm very pleased to hear that I'll be in touch, Mr. Boyd. We'll have lots to discuss."
"Good night, then."
"Good night."
Kemper walked back to the drawing room. He left the terrace curtains open--skyscrapers across the park threw light on Laura.
He watched her sleep.
21
(Chicago, 1/22/59)
L Lenny's spare fuck-pad key unlocked the door. Littell hacked the jamb down to the bolt to fake a forensically valid burglar entry.
He broke the blade off his pen knife. The B&E shakes had him hacking too hard.
His trial break-in taught him the floor plan. He knew where everything was.
Littell shut the door and went straight for the golf bag. The $14,000 was still tucked inside the ball pocket.
He put his gloves on. He allotted seven minutes for cosmetic thievery.
He unplugged the hi-fl.
He emptied drawers and ransacked the medicine cabinet.
He dumped a TV a toaster and the golf bag by the door.
It looked like a classic junkie-pad boost Butch Montrose would never suspect anything else.
Kemper Boyd always said PROTECT YOUR INFORMANTS.
He pocketed the money. He carried the swag to his car, drove it to the lake and dumped it in a garbage-strewn tide pool.Littell got home late. Helen was asleep on his side of the bed.
Her side was cold. Sleep wouldn't come--he kept replaying the break-in for errors.
He drifted off around dawn. He dreamed he was choking on a dildo.He woke up late. Helen left him a note.
School bodes. What time did you get home? For a (dismayingly) liberal FBI man you certainly are a zealous Communist chaser. What do Communists do at midnight?Love, love, love, H Littell forced down coffee and toast. He wrote his note on plain bond paper.
Mr. D'Onofrio,Sam Giancana has issued a contract on you. You will be killed unless you repay the $12,000 you owe him. I have a way for you to avoid this. Meet me this afternoon at 4:00. The Kollege KIub, 1281 58th, Hyde Park.
Littell put the note in an envelope and added five hundred dollars. Lenny said the junket tour had concluded--Sal should be back at home.
Kemper Boyd always said SEDUCE YOUR INFORMANTS WITH MONEY.
Littell called the Speedy-King Messenger Service. The dispatcher said he'd send a courier right over.Mad Sal was prompt Littell pushed his rye and beer aside.
They had the whole row of tables to themselves. The college kids at the bar wouldn't be able to hear them.
Sal sat down across from him. His flab rolls jiggled and hiked his shirt up over his belly button.
He said, "So?"
Littell pulled his gun and held it in his lap. The table covered him.
"So what did you do with that five hundred?"
Sal picked his nose. "I got down on the Blackhawks versus the Canadiens. Ten o'clock tonight that five hundred is a thousand."
"You owe Giancana eleven thousand more than that."
"So who the fuck told you?"
"A reliable source."
"You mean some Fed snitch cocksucker. You're a Fed, right? You're too candy-ass looking to be anything else, and if you was CPD or the Cook County Sheriff's, I'd've bought you off by now, and I'd be fucking your wife and cornholing your snotnose little boy while you was off at work."
"You owe Giancana twelve thousand dollars that you don't have. He's going to kill you."
"Tell me something I don't know."
"You killed a colored boy named Maurice Theodore Wilkins."
"That accusation is stale bread. It is fucking rebop you got out of some file."
"I just turned an eyeball witness."
Sal dug into his ears with a paper clip. "That is horse pucky. Feds don't investigate nigger homicides, and a little birdie told me that that kid was killed by an unknown assailant in the basement of the church rectory he stole from. The birdie said the assailant waited for the priests to go to a ball game, and then he cut the nigger boy up with a chainsaw after he made the nigger boy blow him. The birdie said there was lots of blood, and the assailant took care of the stink with altar wine."
Kemper Boyd always said NEVER SHOW FEAR OR DISGUST.
Littell laid a thousand dollars on the table. "I'm prepared to pay off your debt. In two or three installments, so Giancana won't suspect anything."
Sal grabbed the money. "So I take it, so I don't take it. For all I know, Mo might decide to whack me 'cause he's jealous of my good looks."
Littell cocked his gun. "Put the money down."
Sal did it. "So?"
"So are you interested?"
"So if I'm not?"
"So Giancana clips you. So I put out the word that you killed Tony Iannone. You've heard the rumors--Tony got whacked outside a homo joint. Sal, you're an open book. Jesus, 'blow' and 'cornhole.' I think you developed a few habits in Joliet."
Sal ogled the cash. Sal smelled like tobacco sweat and Aqua Velva lotion.
"You're a loan shark, Sal. What I'm asking for won't be too far out of line."
"S-s-so?"
"So I want to get at the Teamsters' Pension Fund. I want you to help me push somebody up the ladder. I'll find a man with a pedigree looking for a loan, and you help me set him up with Sam and the Fund. It's that simple. And I'm not asking you to snitch anybody."
Sal ogled the money.
Sal popped sweat.
Littell dropped three thousand dollars on the pile.
Sal said, "Okay."
Littell said, "Take it to Giancana. Don't gamble with it."
Sal gave him the bah-fungoo sign. "Stow the lecture. And remember I fucked your mother, which makes me your daddy."
Littell stood up and roundhoused his revolver. Mad Sal caught the barrel square in the teeth.
Kemper Boyd always said COW YOUR INFORMANTS.
Sal coughed up blood and gold fillings. Some kids at the bar watched the whole thing, bug-eyed.
Littell stared them down.
22
(Miami, 2/4/59)
T The boat was late.
U.S. Customs agents crowded the dock. The U.S. Health Service had a tent pitched in the parking lot behind it.
The refugees would be X-rayed and blood-tested. The contagious ones would be shipped to a state hospital outside Pensacola.
Stanton checked his passenger manifest. "One of our on-island contacts leaked us a list. All the deportees are male."
Waves hit the pilings. Guy Banister flicked a cigarette butt at them.
"Which implies that they're criminals. Castro's getting rid of plain old 'undesirables' under the 'politically undesirable' blanket."
Debriefing huts flanked the dock. U.S. Border Patrol marksmen crouched behind them. They had first-hint-of-trouble/shoot-to-kill orders.
Kemper stood above the front pilings. Waves smashed up and sprayed his trouser legs.
His specific job was to interview Teofilio Paez, the ex-security boss for the United Fruit Company. A CIA briefing pouch defined UF: "America's largest, most long-established and profitable inCuba corporation and the largest on-island employer of unskilled and semi-skilled Cuban National workers. A long-standing bastion of Cuban anti-Communism. Cuban National security aides, working for the company, have long been effective in recruiting antiCommunist youth eager to infiltrate left-wing worker's groups and Cuban educational institutions."
Banister and Stanton watched the skyline. Kemper stepped into a breeze and let it ruffle his hair.
He had ten days in as a contract agent--two briefings at Langley and this. He had ten days in with Laura Hughes--the La Guardia shuttle made trysting easy.
Laura felt legitimate. Laura went crazy when he touched her. Laura said brilliant things and played Chopin con brio con brio.
Laura was a Kennedy. Laura spun Kennedy tales with great verve.
He hid those stories from Mr. Hoover.
It felt like near-loyalty. It felt near-poignant--and Hoovercompromised.
He needed Mr. Hoover. He continued to feed him phone reports, but limited them to McClellan Committee intelligence.
He rented a suite at the St. Regis Hotel, not far from Laura's apartment The monthly rate was brutal.
Manhattan got in your blood. His three paychecks totaled fiftynine thousand a year--nowhere near enough to sustain the life he wanted.
Bobby kept him busy with boring Committee paperwork. Jack had dropped hints that the family might have post-Committee work for him. His most likely position would be campaign security boss.
Jack enjoyed having him around. Bobby continued to vaguely distrust him.
Bobby wasn't up for grabs--and Ward Littell knew it.