American Tabloid - American Tabloid Part 59
Library

American Tabloid Part 59

Fulo spotted a non-Cadre non-Cadre transaction outside Lucky Time Liquors. Nestor sprayed the transactors with 12-gauge-propelled rock salt. transaction outside Lucky Time Liquors. Nestor sprayed the transactors with 12-gauge-propelled rock salt.

The transactors dispersed every which way. Rock salt tore through your clothes and made your skin sting like a mother humper.

Kemper watched.

Nestor said, "Send me back to Cuba as a skin diver. I will shoot Fidel with an underwater spear gun."

Street-corner rummies sucked down T-Bird. Glue fiends sniffed rags. Half the front lawns featured dilapidated jalopies.

Kemper watched. Cab calls squawked up the squawk box. Fulo drove from Darktown to Poquito Habana.

Faces went from black to brown. Incidental colors shifted and went more pastel.

Pastel-fronted churches. Pastel-fronted dance clubs and bodegas. Men in bright pastel guayabera shirts.

Fulo drove. Nestor talked. Kemper watched.

They passed parking-lot crap games. They passed soapbox orations. They passed two kids pummeling a pro-Beard pamphleteer.

Kemper watched.

Fulo glided down Flagler and traded cash for prostitute street talk.

One girl said Castro was queer. One girl said Castro had a 12" chorizo. All the girls wanted to know one thing: When's this big invasion gonna happen?

A girl said she picked up a rumor down at Blessington. Ain't that big invasion next week?

One girl said Guantanamo was gonna get A-bombed. One girl said, You're wrong--it's Playa Giron. One girl said flying saucers would soon descend on Havana.

Fulo drove. Nestor polled strolling Cubans up and down Flagler.

They'd all head invasion rumors. They all shared them with gusto.

Kemper shut his eyes and listened. Nouns jumped out of run-on Spanish.

Havana, Playa Giron, Baracoa, Oriente, Playa Giron, Guantanamo, Guantanamo.

Kemper caught the upshot: People were talking People were talking.

On-leave trainees were talking. Agency-front-group men were talking. The talk was innuendo, bullshit, wish fulfillment and truth by default--speculate on enough invasion sites and you'll hit the right one out of sheer luck.

The talk constituted a minor security leak.

Fulo didn't seem worried. Nestor shrugged the talk off. Kemper categorized it as "containable."

They cruised the side streets off Flagler.

Fulo monitored cab calls. Nestor talked up ways to torture Fidel Castro. Kemper looked out his window and savored the view.

Cuban girls blew them kisses. Car radios churned out mambo music. Street loafers gobbled melons soaked in beer.

Fulo clicked off a call. "That was Wilfredo. He said Don Juan knows something about a dope drop, and maybe we should go see him."Don Juan Pimentel had a TB cough. His front room was littered with customized Barbie and Ken dolls.

They stood just inside the door. Don Juan smelled like mentholated chest rub.

Fulo said, "You can talk in front of Mr. Boyd. He is a wonderful friend of our Cause."

Nestor picked up a nude Barbie. The doll wore a Jackie Kennedy wig and Brillo-pad crotch hair.

Don Juan coughed. "It is twenty-five dollars for the story, and fifty dollars for the story and the address."

Nestor dropped the doll and crossed himself. Fulo handed Don Juan two twenties and a ten.

He tucked the cash in his shirt pocket. "The address is 4980 Balustrol. Four men from the Cuban Intelligence Directorate live there. They are terribly afraid that your invasion will succeed and that their supply from the island will be, how you say, removed. They have at the house a very large supply of single shots packaged to sell in order to make quick money to, how you say, bankroll their resistance to your resistance. They have over a pound of heroin ready to be sold in these small amounts where there is to be the, how you say, most profit."

Kemper smiled. "Is the house guarded?"

"I do not know."

"Who would they sell the stuff to?"

"Certainly not to Cubans. I would say to the negritos and the poor whites."

Kemper nudged Fulo. "Is Mr. Pimentel a reliable informant?"

"Yes. I think so."

"Is he strongly anti-Castro?"

"Yes. I think so."

"Would you trust him not to betray us under any circumstances?"

"Well... that is hard to..."

Don Juan spat on the floor. "You are a coward not to ask such questions to my face."

Kemper judo-chopped him. Don Juan clipped a doll rack and went down gagging for breath.

Nestor dropped a pillow on his face. Kemper pulled his .45 and fired through it point-blank.

His silencer ate up the noise. Blood-soaked feathers billowed.

Nestor and Fulo looked shocked. Kemper said, "I'll explain later."

REBELS RESCUE CUBA!

COMMIES PANDER POISON DOPE IN RAPACIOUS REVENGE!

HEROIN HOLOCAUST! PUSHER CASTRO GLOATS!

DESPERATE DICTATOR IN EXILE! DOPE DEATH TOLL MOUNTS!

Kemper printed the headlines on a dispatch sheet. Tiger Kab swirled all around him--the midnight shift was just coming on.

He wrote a cover note.

PB,Have Lenny Sands write up Hush-Hush articles to accompany the enclosed headlines. Tell him to expedite it and to check the Miami papers over the next week or so for background details and call me if necessary. This, of course, pertains to the invasion, and my feeling is that we're very close to a godate. I can't go into my plan in detail yet, but I think it's something you'd appreciate. If Lenny finds my orders confusing, tell him to extrapolate off the headlines in the inimitable Hush-Hush style.

I know you're somewhere in Nicaragua or Guatemala, and I'm hoping this pouch gets to you. And try to think of WJL as a colleague. Peaceful coexistence doesn't always mean appeasement.KB Kemper stamped the envelope: C. ROGERS/NEXT FLIGHT! URGENT. Fulo and Nestor walked by, looking befuddled--he never explained why he killed Don Juan.

Santo Junior had a pet shark named Batista. They drove to Tampa and dumped Don Juan in his pool.

Kemper pulled a phone into the men's room. He rehearsed his pitch three times, complete with pauses and asides.

He called Bobby's secretary. He told her to turn on her tape recorder.

She jumped to it. She bought his perfectly honed urgency.

He lauded. He gushed. He praised exile morale and combat-readiness. The CIA had a brilliant plan. Their pre-invasion security was water-tight.

He raved like a skeptic newly converted. He inserted New Frontier rhetoric. His Tennessee drawl oozed convert righteousness.

The woman said she'd rush the tape to Bobby. Her voice quivered and broke.

Kemper hung up and walked out to the parking lot. Teo Paez swung by and passed him a note.

W. Littell called. Said all is well with CM. CM's N.Y. lawyer says Justice Dept. agents are searching Louisiana for CM. W. Littell says CM should stay at Guat. camp or at least out of country for awhile.

Ward Littell in ascent--truly amazing.

A breeze kicked in. Kemper stretched out on a tiger-striped hood and looked at the sky.

The moon hovered close. Batista had bright white teeth the same color.

Kemper dozed. Chants woke him up. He heard GO GO GO GO GO--that one word and nothing else.

The shouts were ecstatic. The dispatch hut boomed like a giant echo chamber.

The invasion date was set. It coubdn't be anything less than that.

Santo fed Batista steaks and fried chicken. His pool was an Olympic-sized grease spill.

Batista bit Don Juan's head off. Nestor and Fulo turned away.

He didn't. He was starting to enjoy killing more than he should.

67

(Rural Nicaragua, 4/17/61)

P PIGS! PIGS! PIGS! PIGS! PIGS! PIGS! PIGS! PIGS! PIGS!

Six hundred men chanted it. The staging site shook behind that one word.

The men jumped into trucks. The trucks locked in bumper-to-bumper and headed down to the launch dock.

PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS-- Pete watched. John Stanton watched. They jeep-patrolled the site and watched everything click into on-go status.

On-GO at the dock: one insignia-deleted U.S. troop ship. On board: landing craft, mortars, grenades, rifles, machine guns, radio gear, medical gear, mosquito repellent, maps, ammo and six hundred Sheik prophylactics--a Langley shrink foresaw mass rape as a victory by-product.

On-GO: six hundred Benzedrine-blasted Cuban rebels.

On-GO at the air strip: sixteen B-26 bombers, set to hammer Castro's standing air force. Dig their blacked-out U.S. insignia-- this gig was non-imperialisto.

PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS-- The abbreviation fit the destination. John Stanton got the chant going at reveille--that shrink said repetition built up courage.

Pete chased high-octane bennies with coffee. He coubd see it and feel it and smell it-- The planes neutralize Castro air power. The ships go out-- staggered departures from a half-dozen launch sites. A second air strike kills militiamen en masse. Chaos spawns mass desertion.

Freedom fighters hit the beach.

They march. They kill. They defoliate. They link up with on-island dissidents and reclaim Cuba--weakened by dope and propaganda foreplay.

They were waiting for Bad-Back Jack to okay the first air strike. All the orders had to emanate from the Haircut.

PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS-- Pete and Stanton jeep-patrolled the site. They had a short-wave set rigged to the dashboard--site-to-site communication made easy.

They had direct feeds to Guatemala, Tiger Kab and Blessington. They were radio contained at that level--only Langley direct-channeled to the White House.

The order came down: Jack says to send six planes out.

Pete felt his dick go limp. The radio man said Jack wants to move real cautiously.

Six from sixteen was a big fucking reduction.

They kept circuiting the site. Pete chain-smoked. Stanton fretted a Saint Christopher medal.

Boyd pouched a message three days ago--some cryptic Hush-Hush Hush-Hush orders for Lenny Sands. He forwarded the information. Lenny said he'd write the stuff up quick. orders for Lenny Sands. He forwarded the information. Lenny said he'd write the stuff up quick.