Kemper unholstered his piece. He honed in on a sign marked Yellow Cabs Only.
He braced his arm on the railing and fired. Two shots sheared the sign off the signpost. The silencer went thwack-Pete was a good ordnance supplier.
Laura whooped. Cabbies gestured up, spooked and bewildered.
Kemper said, “I like your hair.”
Laura untied it. The wind made it dance.
o o o
They talked.
He told her how the Boyd fortune evaporated. She told him how she flunked out of Juilliard and flopped as a socialite.
She called herself a musical dilettante. He called himself an ambitious cop. She recorded Chopin on a vanity label. He sent Christmas cards to car thieves he arrested.
He said he loved Jack but couldn’t stand Bobby. She called Bobby deep Beethoven and Jack Mozart most glib. She called Lenny Sands her one true friend and didn’t mention his betrayal. He said his daughter, Claire, shared all his secrets.
Devil’s Advocate snapped on automatically. He knew exactly what to say and what to omit.
He called Mr. Hoover a vindictive old queen. He portrayed himself as a liberal pragmatist hitched to the Kennedy star.
She revived the orphanhood theme. He described the threedaughter combine.
Susan Littell was judgmental and shrill. Helen Agee was courageous and impetuous. His Claire was too close to know just yet.
He told her about his friendship with Ward. He said he wanted a younger brother for keeps-and the Bureau gave him one. He said Ward worshiped Bobby. She said Bobby sensed that Uncle Joe was evil and chased gangsters to compensate for his patrimony.
He hinted at his own lost brother. He said the loss made him push Ward in odd ways.
They talked themselves exhausted. Laura called “21” and had dinner sent up. The chateaubriand and wine made her drowsy.
They left it unspoken.
Not tonight-next time.
o o o
Laura fell asleep. Kemper walked through the apartment.
Two circuits taught him the layout. Laura told him the maid needed a map. The dining room could feed a small army.
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
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 amp;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.
o o o
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.
o o o
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.
o o o
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.