American Tabloid - American Tabloid Part 37
Library

American Tabloid Part 37

Littell heard scratching noise--flush on the mike. He visualized the at-the-source cause.

Sid's stretching the tape. He's rubbing those bruises I inflicted down in Texas.

Giancana's voice came in garbled. Littell thought he heard Mad Sal mentioned.

He tried to find Sal this morning. He cruised his collection turf and couldn't locate him.

Montrose: "We know you knew Jules Schiffrin back in the old days. We know you know some of the boys, so it's like you're recommended from the gate."

Kabikoff: "It's like a loop. If you're in the loop you're in the loop."

Cars boomed by. Windowpanes rattled close to the feed-in.

Kabikoff: "Everybody in the loop knows I'm the best smut man in the West. Everybody knows Sid the Yid's got the bestlooking cunt and the boys with the putzes down to their knees."

Giancana: "Did Sal tell you to ask for a Pension Fund loan specific?"

Kabikoff: "Yeah, he did."

Montrose: "Is Sal in some kind of money trouble, Sid?"

Traffic noise covered the signal. Littell timed it at six seconds even.

Montrose: "I know Sal's in the loop, and I know the loop's the loop, but I'm also saying my own little love shack got burglarized in January, and I got rammed for fourteen Gs out of my fucking golf bag."

Giancana: "And in April some friends of ours got clouted for eighty grand they had stashed in a locker. You see, right after these hits Sal started spending new money. Butch and me just put it together, sort of circumstantially."

Littell went lightheaded. His pulse went haywire.

Kabikoff: "No. Sal wouldn't do something like that. No... he wouldn't..."

Montrose: "The loop's the loop and the Fund's the Fund, but the two ain't necessarily the same thing. Jules Schiffrin's with the Fund, but that don't mean he'd roll over for a loan for you, just because you shared spit way back when."

Giancana: "We sort of think somebody's trying to get at Jimmy Hoffa and the Fund through a goddanm fake loan referral. We talked to Sal about it, but he didn't have nothing to say."

Littell hyperventilated. Spots blipped in front of his eyes.

Montrose: "So, did somebody approach you? Like the Feds or the Cook County Sheriff's?"

Thumps hit the mike. It had to be Sid's pulse racing. Fizzing noise overlapped the thumps--Sid's sweat was clogging up the feeder ducts.

The feed sputtered and died. Littell hit his volume switch and got nothing but a static-fuzzed void.

He rolled down the windows and counted off forty-six seconds. Fresh air cleared his head.

He can't rat me. I wore that ski mask both times that we talked He can't rat me. I wore that ski mask both times that we talked.

Kabikoff stumbled out to the sidewalk. Wires dangled from the back of his shirt. He got his car and punched it straight through a red light.

Littell hit the ignition. The car wouldn't start--his bug feed ran down the battery.He knew what he'd find at Sal's house. Four rye-and-beers prepared him to break in and see it.

They tortured Sal in his basement They stripped him and tied him to a ceiling pipe. They hosed him and scorched him with jumper cables.

Sal didn't talk. Giancana didn't know the name Littell. Fat Sid didn't know his name or what he looked like.

They might let Sid go back to Texas. They might or might not kill him somewhere down the line.

They left a cable clamped to Sal's tongue. Voltage burned his face shiny black.

Littell called Fat Sid's hotel. The desk clerk said Mr. Kabikoff was in--he had two visitors just an hour ago.

Littell said, "Don't ring his room." He stopped for two more rye-and-beers and drove over to see for himself.

They left the door unlocked. They left Sid in an overflowing bathtub. They tossed a plugged-in TV set on top of him.

The water was still bubbling. Electric shock had burned Kabikoff bald.

Littell tried to weep. The rye-and-beers left him too anesthetized.

Kemper Boyd always said DON'T LOOK BACK.

33

(New Orleans, 9/20/59)

B Banister supplied files and pedigree notes. Pete narrowed his prospects down to three men.

His hotel room was file-inundated. He was deluged with rap sheets and FBI reports--the far-right South captured on paper.

He got the scoop on Ku Klux Klan klowns and neo-Nazis. He learned about the National States Rights Party. He marveled at the pointy-heads on the FBI payroll--half the Klans in Dixie were Fed-saturated.

Fed snitches were out castrating and lynching. Hoover's only real concern was KKK mail-fraud minutiae.

A fan ruffled loose file papers. Pete stretched out on the bed and blew smoke rings.

Memo to Kemper Boyd: The Agency should bankroll a Blessington KKK Klavem. Dirtpoor crackers surrounded the campsite--spic haters all. Klan hijinks would help keep them diverted.

Pete skimmed rap sheets. His instinct held--his prospects were the least rabid of the bunch.

Said prospects: The Reverend Wilton Tompkins Evans, ex-con radio messiah. Pastor of the "Anti-Communist Crusade of the Air," a weekly short-wave tirade. Spanish-fluent; ex-paratrooper; three convictions for statutory rape. Banister's assessment: "Capable and tough, but perhaps too anti-papist to work with Cubans. He'd be a great training officer and I'm sure he'd relocate, because he can broadcast his radio program from anywhere. Close friend of Chuck Rogers."

Douglas Frank Lockhart, FBI informant/Klansman. Ex-Tank Corps sergeant; ex--Dallas cop; ex--gun runner to rightist dictator Rafael Trujillo. Banister's assessment: "Probably the premier Klan informant in the South and a true Klan zealot in his own right. Tough and brave, but easily led and somewhat volatile. Seems to bear no grudge against Latins, especially if they are strongly anti-Communist."

Henry Davis Hudspeth, the South's #1 purveyor of hate propaganda. Spanish fluent; expert in Hapkido jujitsu. World War II fighter ace, with thirteen Pacific Theater kills. Banister's assessment: "I like Hank, but he can be stubborn and untowardedly vitriolic. He's currently working for me as liaison between my exile camp near Lake Pontchartrain and Dougie Frank Lockhart's nearby Klan Klavern. (I own the property both are situated on.) Hank's a good man, but maybe not suited for second banana status."

All three men were close by. All three had party plans tonight--the Klan was torching a cross out by Guy's camp.

Pete tried to notch a pre-cross-burn nap. He was running on a sleep deficit--his past three weeks were hectic and exhausting.

Boyd glommed some morphine from that CIA-friendly dope ranch. He flew it out to L.A. and gave it to Mr. Hughes.

Mr. Hughes appreciated the gift. Mr. Hughes said, Go back to Miami with my best wishes.

He didn't tell him, I'm an anti-Red crusader now. With 5% of two casinos forever--if Cuba trades Red for Red, White and Blue.

Boyd sold the deal to Trafficante. Marcello, Giancana and Rosselli agreed to it. Boyd figured they'd make at least fifteen million dollars per year per man.

He told Lenny to swamp Hush-Hush Hush-Hush with anti-Castro propaganda. He told him to shitcan the sex jive that Hughes and Hoover drooled for. He told him to make up some skank to keep them happy. with anti-Castro propaganda. He told him to shitcan the sex jive that Hughes and Hoover drooled for. He told him to make up some skank to keep them happy.

L.A. was prison camp. Florida was summer camp.

He flew back to Miami quicksville. Boyd had signed on the Mexican dope farm as the Cadre's chief supplier. Chuck flew the initial fourteen pounds down for cutting and brought it back at six times the weight. Trafficante kicked loose bonuses for all Cadre personnel.

He gave them sawed-offs and magnums. He gave them bulletproof vests and cherry-new dopemobiles.

Fulo chose a '59 Eldo. Chuck picked out a sweet Ford Vicky. Delsol, Obregon, Paez and Gutidrrez were all Chevy men. Spics will be spics--they tacoized their sleds from stem to stern.

He met the men and got to know them.

Gutierrez was solid and quiet. Delsol was calculating and smart. His cousin Obregon seemed borderline dicey--Boyd was starting to think he might run light on balls.

Santo Junior retooled his Miami dope biz. The Cadre took over the nigger trade exclusively.

Boyd decreed free tastes for all local junkies. The Cadre dispensed a shitload of shit totally gratis. Chuck renamed Niggertown Cloud Nine.

They segued from philanthropy to business. They prowled and sold their shit in two-man cars--with shotguns in plain sight A junkie tried to rob Ramon Gutierrez. Teo Paez cut him down with rat-poison-laced buckshot Santo Junior was pleased so far. Santo proffered the #1 Cadre Commandment: You may not sample the merchandise. Pete proffered Commandment #2: If you use Big "H," I will kill you.

Miami was Crime Heaven. Blessington was the Pearly Gates To.

The campsite took up fourteen acres. The installation included two bunkhouses, a weapons shed, an operations hut, a drill field and a landing strip. A dock and speedboat launch site were still in construction.

Cadre recruiters jumped the gun and sent some training prospects down. Local crackers took offense at the spic squatters on their turf. Pete hired some unemployed Klansmen to work on the dock. The move facilitated a temporary peace--Klavernites and exiles were toiling together.

Fourteen squatters were now in residence. More exiles were fleeing Cuba every day. There were more CIA campsites pending--with forty-odd projected by mid-1960.

Castro would survive--just long enough to make Boyd and him rich.The cross burned high and wide. Pete caught the glow from half a mile out.

A dirt road veered off the highway. Signs pointed the way: "Nigger stay out!" "KKK--White Man Unite!"

Bugs popped in through his air vents. Pete swatted them off. He saw a barbed-wire fence and Klansmen at parade rest.

They wore white robes and hoods with purple piping. Dig their kanine kompanions: sheet-swaddled Doberman pinschers.

Pete flashed Banister's gate pass. The pointy-heads checked him out and waved him in.

He parked beside some trucks and went strolling. The cross lit up a segregated pine-forest clearing.

Cubans milled around on one side. Whites boogie-woogied on the other. A row of sign-plastered trailers divided them.

On his left: Klan bake sale, Klan rifle range, vendors hawking Klan regalia. On his right: the Blessington campsite duplicated.

Pete strolled the redneck side. Pointy-hoods bobbed his way-- Hey, man, where's your sheet?

Bugs buzz-bombed the cross. Rifle shots and target pings overlapped. The humidity was close to 100%.

Nazi arrnbands went for $2.99. Jew rabbi voodoo dolls--a steal at 3 for $5.00.

Pete walked by the trailers. He saw a sandwich board propped up against an old Airstream: "WKKK--Rev. Evans AntiCommunist Crusade."

A hi-fi speaker was bolted to the axle. Sound sputtered out-- pure crackpot gibberish.

He looked in the window. He saw twenty-odd cats pissing, shitting and fucking. A tall geek was screaming into a microphone. A cat was clawing some short-wave wires, about to get French-fried to kingdom come.

Pete scratched one prospect and kept walking. All the Caucasoids wore hoods--he couldn't match Hudspeth or Lockhart to their mug shots.

"Bondurant! Down here!"

It was Guy Banister's voice, booming up from below ground level.

A hatch snapped out of the dirt. A periscope thingamajig popped up and wiggled.

Guy had rigged himself a fucking bomb shelter.

Pete dropped down into it. Banister pulled the hatch shut behind him.

The space was twelve-by-twelve square. Playboy Playboy pinups covered the walls. Guy had socked in a shitload of Van Camp's pork & beans and bourbon. pinups covered the walls. Guy had socked in a shitload of Van Camp's pork & beans and bourbon.

Banister retracted the telescope. "You looked lonesome all by yourself with no sheet."

Pete stretched. His head grazed the ceiling.

"It's sweet, Guy."

"I thought you might like it."

"Who's paying for it?"

"Everybody."