JFK: You’re thinking like a Kennedy now.
BJ: How so?
JFK: I’m going to let Bobby be the one to give Hoover the sack.
BJ: Stop looking at your watch.
JFK: You should hide it from me next time.
BJ: I will.
JFK: I have to go. Hand me my trousers, will you?
BJ: They’re wrinkled.
JFK: It’s your fault.
Single door slam deactivates mike. Transcript close: 5:42 p.m., April 24, 1962.
DOCUMENT INSERTS: 4/25/62, 4/26/62, 5/1/62. Top Hoodlum Program wiretap outtakes: Los Angeles, Chicago and Newark venues. Marked: CONFIDENTIAL/TOP SECRET/DIRECTOR’S EYES ONLY.
Los Angeles, 4/25/62. Placement: Rick-Rack Restaurant pay phone. Number dialed: MA2-469 1. (Pay phone at Mike Lyman’s Restaurant.) Caller: Steven “Steve the Skeev” De Santis. (See THP File #814.5, Los Angeles Office.) Person called: unknown male (“Billy”). Six minutes and four seconds of non-applicable conversation precedes the following.
SDS: And Frank shot his big fucking mouth off and Mo believed him. Jack’s my boy, blah, blah. Jewboy Lenny told me he stuffed half the fucking ballot boxes in Cook County.
UM: You say Frank like youknow the man personal.
SDS: I do, you fuck. I met him backstage at the Dunes Hotel once.
UM: Sinatra’s a hump. He walks Outfit and talks Outfit, but he’s really just a stupe from Hoboken, New Jersey.
SDS: He’s a stupe who should pay, Bffly.
UM: He should. Every time that rat prick Bobby comes down on the Outfit, Frankie should take a shot to the nuts. He should pay double for what that cunt Bobby’s doing to Jimmy and the Teamsters, and triple for that stroll through Guatemala Uncle Carlos had to take.
SDS: The Kennedys should pay.
UM: In the best of all worlds they would.
SDS: They got no sense of fucking gratitude.
UM: They got no sense, period. I mean, Joe Kennedy and Raymond Patriarca go way back.
SDS: No sense.
UM: No fucking sense.
Non-applicable conversation follows.
Chicago, 4/26/62. Placement: North Side Elks Club pay phone. Number dialed: BL4-0808 (pay phone at Saparito’s Trattoria Restaurant). Caller: Dewey “The Duck” Di Pasquale. (See THP file #709.9, Chicago Office.) Person called: Pietro “Pete Sap” Saparito. Four minutes and twenty-nine seconds of non-applicable conversation precedes the following.
DDP: What’s worse than the clap and the syph is the Kennedys. They are trying to grind the Outfit into duck shit. Bobby’s got these racket squads set up all over the country. These are cocksuckers who can’t be bought for love or money.
PS: Jack Kennedy ate at my restaurant once. I should have poisoned the cocksucker.
DDP: Quack, quack. You should have.
PS: Don’t start that duck routine with me, you hump.
DDP: You should invite Jack and Bobby and his racket squad guys to your place and poison them all.
PS: I should. Hey, you know my waitress, Deeleen?
DDP: Sure. I heard she plays skin clarinet with the best.
PS: She does. And she banged Jack Kennedy. She said he had this little piccolo dick.
DDP: The Irish ain’t hung for shit. It’s a well-known fact.
PS: Italian men have the biggest.
DDP: And the best.
PS: I heard Mo’s hung like a mule.
DDP: Who told you?
PS: Mo himself.
Non-applicable conversation follows.
Newark, 5/1/62. Placement: Lou’s Lucky Lounge pay phone. Number dialed: MU6-9441 (pay phone at Reuben’s Delicatessen, New York City). Caller: Herschel “Heshie” Ryskind (See THP file #887.8, Dallas Office). Person called: Morris Milton Weinshank (See THP file #400.5, New York City Office). Three minutes and one second of non-applicable conversation precedes the following.
MMW: We’re all sorry you’re sick, Hesh. We’re all pulling for you and praying for you.
HR: I want to live long enough to see Sam G. kick Sinatra’s skinny bantamweight tuchus from here to Palermo. Sinatra and some CIA shitheel convinced Sam and Santo that Jack the K. was kosher. Use your noggin and think, Morris. Think about Ike and Harry Truman and FDR. Did they give us grief like this?
MMW: They did not.
HR: I know it’s Bobby and not Jack that’s the instigator. But Jack knows the rules. Jack knows you can’t sic your rabid dogs on people who did you favors.
MMW: Sam thought Frank had pull with the brothers. He thought he could get Jack to call Bobby off.
HR: Frank was dreaming. The, only pull Frank’s got is with his putz. All Frank and that CIA guy Boyd want to do is suck the big Kennedy cock.
MMW: Jack and Bobby got nice hair.
HR: Which somebody should part with a forty-five caliber dum-dum.
MMW: Such hair. I should have such hair.
HR: You want hair? Buy a fucking wig.
Non-applicable conversation follows.
DOCUMENT INSERT: 5/1/62. Personal note: Howard Hughes to J. Edgar Hoover.
Dear Edgar,
Duane Spurgeon, my chief aide and legal advisor, is terminally ill. I need a replacement to go on retainer immediately. Of course, I would prefer a morally-sound lawyer with an FBI background. Could you recommend a man?
All best,
Howard
78
Their bench faced the Lincoln Memorial. Nannies and small chilthen scampered by.
Hoover said, “The woman is quite good.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
“She lures King Jack into provocative traps.”
Littell smiled. “Yes, Sir. She does.”
“King Jack has mentioned my forced retirement twice. Did you tell the woman to prod him in that direction?”
“Yes, Sir. I did.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to increase your stake in the operation.”
Hoover straightened the crease in his trousers. “I see. And I cannot fault your logic.”
Littell said, “We want to convince the man to make his brother tone down his assault on my clients and their friends, and if they think you have copies of the tapes, it will go a long way toward convincing them to retain you.”
Hoover nodded. “I cannot fault your logic.”
“I would rather not go public with the tapes, Sir. I would rather see this resolved behind the scenes.”
Hoover patted his briefcase. “Is that why you asked me to return my copies temporarily?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“You don’t trust me to keep them in cold storage?”
Littell smiled. “I want you to possess absolute deniability should Robert Kennedy bring in outside agency investigators. I want all the tapes kept in a single location, so that they can be destroyed if necessary.”
Hoover smiled. “And so that, if worse comes to worse, Pete Bondurant and Fred Turentine can be portrayed as the sole perpetrators of the plot?”
Littell said, “Yes, Sir.”
Hoover shooed a perching bird away. “Who’s financing this? Is it Mr. Hoffa or Mr. Marcello?”
“I’d rather not say, Sir.”
“I see. And I cannot fault your desire for secrecy.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
“Suppose public exposure becomes necessary?”
“Then I would go forward in late October, right before the congressional elections.”
“Yes. That would be the optimum time.”
“Yes, Sir. But as I said, I would rather not-”
“You needn’t repeat yourself. I’m not senile.”
The sun broke out of a cloud bank. Littell broke a slight sweat.
“Yes, Sir.”
“You hate them, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do.”
“You’re not alone. The THP has private taps and bugs installed in fourteen critical organized crime locales. We’ve been picking up a good deal of Kennedy resentment. I haven’t informed the Brothers, and I’m not going to.”