Pete Bondurant, W.M., 6’5”, 230, DOB 7/16/20, Montreal, Canada.
No criminal convictions. Licensed private investigator/former Los Angeles County deputy sheriff.
Big Pete: shakedown man and Howard Hughes’ pet goon. He and Ward Littell arrested him once-he beat a Sheriff’s inmate to death. Littell’s comment: “Perhaps the most fearsome and competent rogue cop of our era.”
Kemper poured a fresh drink and let his mind drift. The impersonation took shape: heroic aristocrats form a common bond.
He liked women, and cheated on his wife throughout their marriage. Jack Kennedy liked women-and held his marriage vows expedient and whimsical. Bobby liked his wife and kept her pregnant-insider talk tagged him faithful.
Yale for him; Harvard for the Kennedys. Filthy-rich Irish Catholics; filthy-rich Tennessee Anglicans gone bankrupt. Their family was large and photogenic; his family was broke and dead. Someday he might tell Jack and Bobby how his father shot himself and took a month to die.
Southerners and Boston Irish: both afflicted with incongruous accents. He’d resurrect the drawl it took so long to lose.
Kemper prowled his clothes closet. Impersonation details clicked in.
The charcoal worsted for the interview. A holstered.38 to impress tough guy Bobby. No Yale cuff links-Bobby might possess a proletarian streak.
His closet was twelve feet deep. The back wall was offset by framed photographs.
His ex-wife, Katherine-the best-looking woman who ever breathed. They debuted at the Nashville Cotillion-a society scribe called them “southern grace personified.” He married her for sex and her father’s money. She divorced him when the Boyd fortune evaporated and Hoover addressed his law school class and personally invited him to join the FBI.
Katherine, in November 1940:
“You watch out for that prissy little fussbudget, do you hear me, Kemper? I think he has carnal designs on you.”
She didn’t know that Mr. Hoover only fucked power.
In matching frames: his daughter, Claire, Susan Littell and Helen Agee-three FBI daughters hell-bent on law careers.
The girls were best friends split up by studies at Tulane and Notre Dame. Helen was disfigured-he kept the pictures in his closet to quash pitying comments.
Tom Agee was sitting in his car-working a routine stakeout for some bank heisters outside a whorehouse. His wife had just left him-Tom couldn’t find a sitter for nine-year-old Helen. She was sleeping in the backseat when the heisters came up shooting.
Tom was killed. Helen was muzzle-burned and left for dead. Help arrived-six hours later. Flash particles had scorched Helen’s cheeks and scarred her for life.
Kemper laid out his interview clothes. He got some lies straight and called Sally Lefferts.
The phone rang twice. “Uh, hello?”-Sally’s little boy picked up.
“Son, get your mother. Tell her it’s a friend from the office.”
“Uh… yessir.”
Sally came on the line. “Who’s this from the U.S. Senate clerical pool bothering this poor overworked aide?”
“It’s me. Kemper.”
“Kemper, what are you doing calling me with my husband in the backyard right now as we speak!”
“Ssssh. I’m calling you for a job referral.”
“What are you saying? Are you saying Mr. Hoover got wise to your evil ways with women and showed you the gate?”
“I retired, Sally. I utilized a dangerous-duty dispensation clause and retired three years early.”
“Well, my heavens, Kemper Cathcart Boyd!”
“Are you still seeing Jack Kennedy, Sally?”
“Occasionally, dear heart, since you gave me the gate. Is this about trading little black books and evil tales out of school, or-?”
“I’m thinking of applying for a job with the McClellan Committee.”
Sally whooped. “Well, I think you should! I think I should put a note on Robert Kennedy’s desk recommending you, and you should send me a dozen long-stemmed Southern Beauty roses for the effort!”
“You’re the southern beauty, Sally.”
“I was too much woman for De Ridder, Louisiana, and that is a fact!”
Kemper hung up with kisses. Sally would spread the word: ex-FBI car thief now seeking work.
He’d tell Bobby how he crashed the Corvette theft ring. He wouldn’t mention the Vettes he stripped for parts.
o o o
He moved the next day. He walked right in to the Senate Office Building and suite 101.
The receptionist heard him out and tapped her intercom. “Mr. Kennedy, there’s a man here who wants to apply for an investigator’s position. He has FBI retirement credentials.”
The office spread out unpartitioned behind her-all cabinet rows, cubicles and conference rooms. Men worked elbow-to-elbow tight-the place hummed.
The woman smiled. “Mr. Kennedy will see you. Take this first little aisle straight back.”
Kemper walked into the hum. The office had a scavenged look: mismatched desks and filing bins, and corkboards top-heavy with paper.
“Mr. Boyd?”
Robert Kennedy stepped out of his cubicle. It was the standard size, the standard desk and two chairs.
He offered the standard too-hard handshake-totally predictable.
Kemper sat down. Kennedy pointed to his holster bulge. “I didn’t know that retired FBI men were allowed to carry guns.”
“I’ve incurred enemies through the years. My retirement won’t stop them from hating me.”
“Senate investigators don’t wear sidearms.”
“If you hire me, I’ll put mine in a drawer.”
Kennedy smiled and leaned against his desk. “You’re from the South?”
“Nashville, Tennessee.”
“Sally Lefferts said you were with the FBI for what, fifteen years?”
“Seventeen.”
“Why did you retire early?”
“I worked auto-theft infiltration assignments for the past nine years, and it had gotten to the point where I was too well known to car thieves to go undercover convincingly. The Bureau bylaws contain an early-retirement clause for agents who have engaged in prolonged stints of hazardous duty, and I utilized it.”
“‘Utilized’? Did those assignments debilitate you in some way?”
“I applied for a position with the Top Hoodlum Program first. Mr. Hoover rejected my application personally, although he knew full well that I had desired organized crime work for some time. No, I wasn’t debilitated. I was frustrated.”
Kennedy brushed hair from his forehead. “So you quit.”
“Is that an accusation?”
“No, it’s an observation. And frankly, I’m surprised. The FBI is a tight-knit organization that inspires great loyalty, and agents do not tend to retire out of pique.”
Kemper raised his voice-just barely. “A great many agents realize that organized crime, not domestic Communism, poses the greatest threat to America. The Apalachin revelations forced Mr. Hoover to form the Top Hoodlum Program, which of course he did with some reluctance. The program is accruing anti-Mob intelligence, but not seeking hard evidence to build toward Federal prosecution, but at least that’s something, and I wanted to be part of it.”
Kennedy smiled. “I understand your frustration, and I agree with your critique of Mr. Hoover’s priorities. But I’m still surpnsed that you quit.”
Kemper smiled. “Before I ‘quit,’ I snuck a look at Mr. Hoover’s private file on the McClellan Committee. I’m up-to-date on the Committee’s work, up to and including Sun Valley and your missing witness Anton Gretzler. I ‘quit’ because Mr. Hoover has the Bureau neurotically focused on harmless leftists, while the McClellan Committee is going after the real bad guys. I ‘quit’ because given my choice of monomaniacs, I’d rather work for you.”
Kennedy grinned. “Our mandate ends in five months. You’ll be out of work.”
“I have an FBI pension, and you’ll have forwarded so much evidence to municipal grand juries that they’ll be begging your investigators to work for them ad hoc.”