DV: I heard better rumors, Johnny.

JMD: Fuck you.

DV: I prefer sex-type rumors. Haven’t you heard any good sex-type shit?

JMD: Fuck you.

Non-applicable conversation follows.

New Orleans, 10/10/62. KL4-0909 (Habana Bar pay phone) to CR8-8107 (Town amp; Country Motel pay phone). Note: Carlos Marcello (no THP file extant) owns the Town amp; Country. Speaking: Leon NMI Broussard (THP File #88.6, New Orleans Office) and unidentified (assumed Cuban) man. Conversation twenty-one minutes in progress.

LB: So you shouldn’t give up hope. All is not lost, my friend.

UM: It feels as if it is.

LB: That is simply not true. I know for a fact that Uncle Carlos is still very much a believer.

UM: He is alone, then. A few years ago many of his compatriots were just as generous as be has remained. It is troubling to see powerful friends abandoning the Cause.

LB: Like John F-for-fuckhead Kennedy.

UM: Yes. His betrayal is the worst example. He continues to prohibit a second invasion.

LB: So the fuckhead doesn’t care. I’ll tell you this, though, my friend. Uncle Carlos does.

UM: I hope you are right.

LB: I know I am. I have it on very good authority that Uncle Carlos is financing an operation that could blow the whole Cuban thing to bits.

UM: I hope you are right.

LB: He’s bankrolling some men who want to hit Castro. Three Cuban guys and an ex-French paratrooper. The leader’s an ex-FBI/CIA man. Uncle Carlos said he’d die himself just to make the hit.

UM: I hope this is true. You see, the Cause has become scattered. There are hundreds of exile groups now. Some are CIA-financed and some are not. I hate to say it, but many of the groups are fined with crackpots and undesirables. I think direct action is needed, and with so many factions working at cross-purposes, this will be hard to accomplish.

LB: The first thing somebody should accomplish is cutting the Kennedy brothers’ balls off. The Outfit was very fucking generous to the Cause until Bobby Kennedy went nuts and cut off all our fucking ties.

UM: It is hard to be optimistic these days. It is hard not to feel impotent.

Non-applicable conversation follows.

Tampa, 10/16/62. OL4-9777 (home of Robert “Fat Bob” Paolucci) (THP file #19.3, Miami Office) to GL1-8041 (home of Thomas Richard Scavone) (File #80.0, Miami Office). Speaking: Paolucci and Scavone. Conversation thirty-eight minutes in progress.

RP: I know you know most of the story.

TS: Well, you know how it is. You pick up bits and pieces here and there. What I know specific is that Mo and Santo ain’t talked to their Castro contacts since the heist.

RP: It was some heist. Something like fifteen fucking deaths. Santo said the heist guys probably ran the boat out to sea and blew it up. Two hundred pounds, Tommy. Can you estimate the fucking re-sale value?

TS: Off the graph, Bobby. Off the fucking graph.

RP: And it’s still out there.

TS: I was just thinking that.

RP: Two hundred pounds. And somebody’s got it.

TS: I heard Santo won’t give up.

RP: This is true. Pete the Frenchman clipped that Delsol guy, but he was just the tip of the iceberg. I heard Santo has got Pete out there looking around, you know, sort of informal. They both figure some crazy spic exiles were behind the heist, and Pete the Frog’s out there looking for them.

TS: I’ve met some of them exiles.

RP: So have I. They’re all fucking crazy.

TS: You know what I hate about them?

RP: What?

TS: That they think they’re as white as Italians.

Non-applicable conversation follows.

New Orleans, 10/19/62. BR8-3408 (home of Leon NMI Broussard) (THP File #88.6, New Orleans Office) to Suite 1411 at the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas, Texas. (Hotel records indicate the suite was rented by Herschel Meyer Ryskind) (File #887.8, Dallas Office). Conversation three minutes in progress.

LB: You always had a thing for hotel suites, Hesh. A hotel suite and a blow job was always your idea of heaven.

HR: Don’t say heaven, Leon. You’re giving me a pain in the prostate.

LB: I get it. You’re sick, so you don’t want to think about the thereafter.

HR: It’s the hereafter, Leon. And you’re right. And I called you to schmooze because you’ve always got your nose in other people’s troubles, and I figured you could dish some gossip on some of the boys with worse trouble than me and cheer me up.

LB: I’ll try, Hesh. And Carlos says hi, by the way.

HR: Let’s start with him. What kind of trouble has that crazy dago hump gotten himself into now?

LB: I gotta say nothing recent. And I also gotta say the deportation thing is hanging over his head and making him crazy.

HR: Thank God he’s got that lawyer.

LB: Yeah, Littell. The guy’s working for Jimmy Hoffa, too. Uncle Carlos says he hates the Kennedys so much that he’d probably work for free.

HR: I heard he’s a red tape kind of guy. He just delays and delays and delays.

LB: You’re absolutely right. Uncle Carlos said his INS case probably won’t go to trial until late next year. Littell’s got these Justice Department lawyers tucking exhausted.

HR: Carlos is optimistic, then?

LB: Absolutely. So’s Jimmy, from what I’ve heard. The trouble with Jimmy’s troubles is that he’s got eighty-six-fucking-thousand grand juries chasing him. My feeling is that sooner or later, somebody gets a conviction. I don’t care how good a lawyer this Littell guy is.

HR: This makes me happy. Jimmy Hoffa’s a guy with troubles approximating my own. Can you imagine going to Leavenworth and getting shtupped in the ass by some shvartze?

LB: That is not a pleasant prospect.

HR: Neither is cancer, you goyisher shitheel.

LB: We’re pulling for you, Hesh. You’re in our prayers.

HR: Fuck your prayers. And give me some gossip. You know that’s why I called.

LB: Well.

HR: Well, what? Leon, you owe me money You know I’m gonna die before I collect. Give an old dying man the comfort of some satisfying gossip.

LB: Well, I heard rumors.

HR: Such as?

LB: Such as that lawyer Littell’s working for Howard Hughes. Hughes is supposed to want to buy all these Las Vegas hotels, and I heard-off the record, Hesh, really-that Sam G’s dying to work some kind of an angle on the deal.

HR: Which Littell don’t know about?

LB: That is correct.

HR: I love this fucking life of ours. It is never tucking boring.

LB: You are absolutely correct. Think of the tidbits you pick up in this loop of ours.

HR: I don’t want to die, Leon. All this shit is too good to give up.

Non-applicable conversation follows.

Chicago, 11/19/62. BL4-8869 (Celano’s Tailor Shop) to AX8-9600 (home of John Rosselli) (THP File #902.5, Chicago Office). Speaking: John Rosselli, Sam “Mo,” “Momo,” “Mooney” Giancana (File #480.2). Conversation two minutes in progress.

JR: Sinatra’s worthless.

SG: He’s less than worthless.

JR: The Kennedys won’t even take his phone calls.

SG: Nobody hates those Irish cocksuckers more than I do.

JR: Unless it’s Carlos and his lawyer. It’s like Carlos knows that sooner or later he’ll get deported again. It’s like he sees himself back in El Salvador picking cactus thorns out of his ass.

SG: Carlos has his problems, I’ve got mine. Bobby’s racket squad guys are crawling up my ass like the regular Feds never did. I would like to take a ball peen hammer and cave Bobby’s tucking head in.

JR: And his brother’s.

SG: Especially his brother’s. That man is nothing but a traitor masquerading as a hero. He’s nothing but a Commie-appeaser in wolf’s clothing.