RFK: It’s Bob Kennedy, Mr. Hoover. I was hoping I could have a few minutes of your time.
JEH: Certainly.
RFK: There were a few matters of protocol I wanted to discuss.
JEH: Yes.
RFK: Communications, to begin with. I sent you a directive requesting carbons of all summary reports submitted by your Top Hoodlum Program squads. That directive was dated February 17th. It’s now the 2nd of April, and I’ve yet to see a single report.
JEH: These directives take time to Implement.
RFK: Six weeks seems like ample time to me.
JEH: You perceive an undue delay. I do not.
RFK: Will you expedite the implementation of that directive?
JEH: Certainly. Will you refresh my memory as to why you issued It?
RFK: I want to assess every scrap of anti-Mob intelligence the Bureau acquires and share it where needed with the various regional grand juries that I hope to impanel.
JEH: You may be acting injudiciously. Leaking information that could only have originated from THP sources might jeopardize THP informants and electronic survefflance placements.
RFK: All such information will be evaluated from a security standpoint.
JEH: That function should not be trusted to non-FBI personnel.
RFK: I adamantly disagree. You’re going to have to share your information, Mr. Hoover. The simple cultivation of intelligence will not bring Organized Crime to its knees.
JEH: The Top Hoodlum Program mandate does not provide for information-sharing to expedite grand jury indictments.
RFK: Then we’re going to have to revise it.
JEH: I would consider that a rash and heedless act.
RFK: Consider it what you like, and consider it done. Consider the Top Hoodlum Program mandate superseded by my direct order.
JEH: May I remind you of this simple fact: you cannot prosecute the Mafia and win.
RFK: May I remind you that for many years you denied that the Mafia existed. May I remind you that the FBI is but one cog in the overall wheel of the Justice Department. May I remind you that the FBI does not dictate Justice Department policy. May I remind you that the President and I consider 99% of the left-wing groups that the FBI routinely monitors to be harmless if not outright moribund, and laughably inoffensive when compared to Organized Crime.
JEH: May I state that I consider that burst of invective to be ill-concelved and fatuous in its historical perspective?
RFK: You may.
JEH: Was there anything of a similar or less offensive nature that you wish to add?
RFK: Yes. You should know that I intend to Initiate wiretap accountability legislation. I want the Justice Department to be informed of every single instance of wiretapping undertaken by municipal police departments nationwide.
JEH: Many would consider that undue Federal meddling and a flagrant abuse of States’ Rights.
RFK: The concept of States’ Bights has been a smokescreen to obscure everything from de facto segregation to outmoded abortion statutes.
JEH: I disagree.
RFK: Duly noted. And I would like you to duly note that from this day on you are to inform me of every electronic surveillance operation that the FBI engages in.
JEH: Yes.
RFK: Duly noted?
JEH: Yes.
RFK: I want you to personally call the New Orleans SAC and have him assign four agents to arrest Carlos Marcello. I want this done within seventy-two hours. Tell the SAC that I’m having Marcello deported to Guatemala. Tell him that the Border Patrol will be contacting him to iron out details.
JEH: Yes.
RFK: Duly noted?
JEH: Yes.
RFK: Good day, Mr. Hoover.
JEH: Good day.
64
He was too late-by seconds.
Four men grappled Carlos Marcello into a Fed sled. Right outside his house-with Mrs. Carlos on the porch, throwing a fit.
Pete pulled up across the street and watched it happen. His rescue mission clocked in half a minute tardy.
Marcello was dressed in BVDs and beach flip-flops. Marcello looked like this low-rent Il Duce on the rag.
Boyd fucked up.
He said, Bobby wants Carlos deported. He said, You and Chuck get to New Orleans and snatch him first. He said, Don’t call and warn him-just get there.
Boyd said bureaucratic jive would give them time. Boyd mis-fucking calculated.
The Feds took off. Frau Carlos stood on the porch, wringing her hands grieving-wife-style.
Pete tailed the Fed car. Early am. traffic got between them. He eyeballed the Fed’s antenna and rode a purple Lincoln’s back bumper.
Chuck was back at Moisant Airport, gassing up the Piper. The Feds were heading that way
They’d fly Carlos out commercial or dump him on the Border Patrol. He’d be Guatemala-bound-and Guatemala loved the CIA.
The Fed car took surface streets east. Pete saw a bridge up ahead-toll booths and two eastbound lanes across the river.
Both lanes were hemmed in by guardrails. Narrow pedestrian walkways ran flush along the edge of the bridge.
Cars were stacked up in front of the booths-at least twenty per lane.
Pete hopped lanes and swerved in front of the Fed car. He spotted a squeeze space between the left-hand booth and the guardrail.
He accelerated in. A rail housing snapped off his outside mirror.
Horns blared. His left-side hubcaps went spinning. A toll taker looked over and doused an old lady with coffee.
Pete SQUEEZED past the booths and hit the bridge going forty. The Fed sled was stalled, way way back.
o o o
He made it to Moisant fast. His rent-a-car was dinged, chipped and paint-stripped.
He ditched it in an underground lot. He greased a skycap for airport information.
Commercial flights to Guatemala? No, sir, none today. The Border Patrol office? Next to the Trans-Texas counter.
Pete cruised by and loitered behind a newspaper. The office door opened and closed.
Men carried shackles in. Men carried flight logs out. Men stood outside the door and kibitzed.
A guy said, “I heard they popped him in his skivvies.”
A guy said, “The pilot really hates wops.”
A guy said, “They’re flying out at 8:30.”
Pete ran to the private-plane hangar. Chucky was perched on the snout of his Piper, reading a hate mag.
Pete caught his breath. “They’ve got Carlos. We’ve got to get down to Guatemala City ahead of them and see what we can work out.”
Chuck said, “That’s a goddamned foreign country. We’re only supposed to bring the man back to Blessington. We’ve barely got the gas to-”
“Let’s go. We’ll patch some calls in and work something out.”
o o o
Chuck got clearance to take off and land. Pete called Guy Banister and explained the situation.
Guy said he’d call John Stanton and try to rig a plan. He had short-wave gear out at Lake Pontchartrain and could radio in to Chuck’s frequency.
They took off at 8:16. Chuck put on his headphones and cribbed flight calls.
The Border Patrol plane departed late. Their Guatemala City ETA was forty-six minutes behind them.
Chuck flew medium-low and kept his headset on. Pete skimmed hate pamphlets out of sheer boredom.
The titles were a howl. The ultimate: “KKK: Kommunist Krucifixion Krusade!”
He found a skin mag/hate mag combo under his seat. Dig that zaftig blonde with the swastika earrings.
Big Pete wants a woman. Extortion experience preferred, but not mandatory.
Dashboard lights flashed. Chuck bootjacked a plane-to-base message and transcribed it in his log.
The Border Patrol guys are goofing on Carlos. They radio’d their HQ that they’ve got no lavatory on board amp; Carlos refuses to piss in a tin can. (They think he’s got a little one.)