“You’re thinking Lenny’s this big Hollywood insider. You’re thinking he might know some women we could use as bait.”
“Right. And if he doesn’t come through, at least we’re here in Los Angeles.”
“Which is the best place on earth to find shakedown-type women.”
Littell sipped coffee. “Right. And Lenny was my informant once.’ I’ve got a hold on him, and if he doesn’t cooperate, I’ll squeeze him with it.”
Pete cracked some knuckles. “He’s a homo. He shanked this made guy in an alley behind some fruit bar.”
“Lenny told you that?”
“Don’t look so hurt. People have this tendency to tell me things they don’t want to.”
Littell dumped his cup in the sink. Hoffa paced outside the door.
Pete said, “Lenny knows Kemper. And I think he’s tight with that Hughes woman that Kemper had a thing with.”
“Lenny’s safe. If worse comes to worse, we can squeeze him with the Tony Iannone job.”
Pete rubbed his neck. “Who else knows we’re planning this?”
“Nobody. Why?”
“I was wondering if it was common knowledge all over the Outfit.”
Littell shook his head. “You, me and Jimmy. That’s the loop.”
Pete said, “Let’s keep it that way. Lenny’s tight with Sam G., and Sam’s been known to go apeshit when people get rough with him.”
Littell leaned against the stove. “Agreed. And I won’t tell Carlos, and you won’t tell Trafficante and those other Outfit guys you and Kemper deal with. Let’s keep this contained.”
“Agreed. A few of those guys hung me and Kemper out to dry on something a couple of weeks ago, so I’m not prone to tell them much of anything.”
Littell shrugged. “They’ll find out in the end, and they’ll be pleased with the results we get. Bobby’s been riding them, too, and I think we can safely say that Giancana will find whatever we had to do to Lenny justified.”
Pete said, “I like Lenny.”
Littell said, “So do I, but business is business.”
Pete traced dollar signs on the stove. “What kind of money are we talking about?”
Littell said, “Twenty-five thousand a month, with your expenses and Freddy Turentine’s fee worked in. I know you’ll need to travel for your CIA job, and that’s fine with both Jimmy and me. I’ve done wire jobs for the Bureau myself, and I think that between you, me and Turentine, we’ll be able to cover all our bases.”
Hoffa banged on the door. “Why don’t you guys come out here and talk to me? This tкte-a-tкte shit is wearing me thin!”
Pete steered Littell back to the laundry room. “It sounds good. We find a woman, wire a few pads and luck Jack Kennedy where it hurts.”
Littell pulled his arm free. “We need to check Lenny’s Hush-Hush reports. We might get a lead on a woman that way.”
“I’ll do it. I might be able to get a look at the reports Howard Hughes keeps at his office.”
“Do it today. I’ll be staying at the Ambassador until we get things set up.”
The door shook-Jimmy had his tits in a twist.
Littell said, “I want to bring Mr. Hoover in on this.”
“Are you insane?”
Littell smiled, kiss-my-ass condescending. “He hates the Kennedys like you and I do. I want to re-establish contact, leak a few tapes to him and have him in my corner as a wedge to help out Jimmy and Carlos.”
Not so insane-
“You know he’s a voyeur, Pete. Do you know what he’d give to have the President of the United States fucking on tape?”
Hoffa barged into the kitchen. His shirt was dotted with doughnut sprinides-every color of the rainbow.
Pete winked. “I’m starting not to hate you so much, Ward.”
o o o
Hughes’ business office was marked RESTRICTED ACCESS now. Mormon goons flanked the door and checked IDs with some weird scanner gizmo.
Pete dawdled by the parking lot gate. The guard chewed his ear off.
“Us non-Mormons call this place Castle Dracula. Mr. Hughes we call the Count, and we call Duane Spurgeon-he’s the head Mormon-Frankenstein, ‘cause he’s dying of cancer and looks like he’s dead already. I remember when this building wasn’t full of religious crackpots, and Mr. Hughes came in in person, and he didn’t have this big germ phobia and these crazy plans to buy up Las Vegas, and he didn’t get blood transfusions like Bela Lugosi-”
“Larry-”
“-and he actually talked to people, you know? Now the only people he talks to besides the Mormons are Mr. J. Edgar Hoover himself and Lenny the Hush-Hush guy. You know why I’m talking so much? Because I work the gate all day and pick up scuttlebutt, and the only non-Mormon people I see are the Filipino janitor and this Jap switchboard girl. Mr. Hughes can still wheel and deal, though, I got to say that. I heard he’s pushed the TWA divestment price way up, so when he gets the gelt he can funnel it straight into some account he’s holding, like some kind of zillion-dollar ‘buy up Vegas’ fund…”
Larry ran out of breath. Pete whipped out a hundred-dollar bill.
“They keep Lenny’s stringer reports in the file room, right?”
“Right.”
“There’s nine more of these if you get me in there.”
Larry shook his head. “That’s impossible, Pete. We got virtually an all-Mormon staff here. Some of the guys are Mormon and ex-FBI, and Mr. J. Edgar Hoover himself helped pick them.”
Pete said, “Lenny’s in L.A. lull-time now, right?”
“Right. He gave up his place in Chicago. I heard he’s writing Hush-Hush as some kind of restricted mimeo sheet.”
Pete forked over the hundred. “Look up his address for me.”
Larry checked his Rolodex and plucked a card. “It’s 831 North Kilkea, which isn’t that far from here.”
A hospital van pulled up. Pete said, “What’s that?”
Larry whispered. “Fresh blood for the Count. Certified Mormon-pure.”
o o o
The new gig felt good, but strictly second-string. The main gig should be WHACK FIDEL.
Santo and Company quashed it. They acted bored, like the Cause meant jackshit.
WHY?
He cut his shooters loose. Kemper took his boys back to Mississippi.
Laurent Guery went with them. Kemper tapped his own stock fund for Ops cash. Kemper was acting weirdly persistent lately.
Pete turned on to Kilkea. 831 was your standard West Hollywood four-flat.
The standard two-story Spanish-style building. The standard two units per floor. The standard beveled glass doors that your standard B amp;E guys drooled for.
There was no garage at the back-the tenants had to park at the curb. Lenny’s Packard was nowhere in sight.
Pete parked and walked up to the porch. All four doors showed slack at the door-doorjamb juncture.
The street was dead. The porch was dead quiet. The mail slot for the left downstairs unit read “L. Sands.”
Pete snapped the lock with his pocketknife. An inside light hit him straight off.
Lenny planned to stay out after dark. He could prowl the pad for four solid hours.
Pete locked himself in. The crib spread out off a hallway- maybe five rooms total.
He checked the kitchen, the dinette and the bedroom. The pad was nice and quiet-Lenny eschewed pets and stay-at-home bun boys.
An office connected to the bedroom. It was cubbyhole size-a desk and a row of file cabinets ate up all the floor space.
Pete checked the top drawer. It was one fat mess-Lenny jammed it full of overstuffed folders.
The folders contained 100% U.S. prime-cut skank.
Published Hush-Hush skank and unpublished skank tips. Skank logged in since early ‘59-the all-time Skank Hit Parade.
Boozer skank, hophead skunk, homo skank. Lezbo skank, nympho skunk, miscegenation skank. Political skank, incest skunk, child molester skank. The one skank problem: the female skankees were too skankily well known.