removal of Castro himself. Bombings just piss everyone off. Even the people who hate the communists.' Rosselli lit a cigarette, ignoring his own potato. There was nothing simple about his own tastes. So, where do we go from here?'
You're not going to like it.'
I'm shockproof. My middle name is Rolex.'
If I told you Congress was gonna repeal the Sex Act, you couldn't like it less.'
With my sex life, I'm still not worried.'
Nimmo pushed his plate away and sat back to light a Lucky Strike. Wearing the cigarette like a small tusk, he spread a sheet of crumpled paper on the table. Exhibit one, in the people versus Tom Jefferson.'
Rosselli collected up the paper and read it quickly. W.H./P.B./ H.H./B.M/G.D./S.M./M.V./H.P./N.Y./J.C. Initials. Friends of Jefferson's, maybe.' He shrugged. Maybe not. Too many friends for one lone wolf. But I'm still not losing any sleep about this.'
That's what I thought. That they were initials of people Jefferson knew. You'll see that some of them are underlined, and some of them have a question mark against them. Anyway, I know what they mean now. The answer's been staring me in the face every day I read a newspaper.'
So who are they?'
Not who. What. In order, we have White House, Palm Beach, Hickory Hill, Boston Massachusetts, Georgetown Delaware, Santa Monica, McLean Virginia, Hyannis Port, New York, and Johnson City.'
Okay, I'll buy that. But so what?'
Jack Kennedy is so what. He's the common factor.'
Santa Monica?'
His brother-in-law, Peter Lawford's house.'
And McLean Virginia?'
Bobby.'
Johnson City?'
Lyndon Johnson.'
So let me get this straight. Are you saying we'll find Tom Jefferson in one of these places?'
I believe it's only the ones he's underlined, namely Palm Beach, Boston, Georgetown, Hyannis Port, and New York.'
Well, that certainly narrows it down a lot,' grimaced Rosselli.
Exhibit two, in the people versus Tom Jefferson.' Nimmo unfolded his newspaper to reveal the copy of Time magazine he had taken from Jefferson's home. Jack Kennedy's handsome, tanned face stared off the cover. Even back in 1957 the United States Senator from Massachusetts had looked eminently presidential.
Kennedy's hot copy,' shrugged Rosselli. Always was. So what am I looking at?'
The doodle in the centre of Kennedy's forehead is a Chinese ideogram,' Nimmo explained. It's sei, which means the number four. A very unlucky number because it means something else, too. Sei is also the Chinese word for death. Mary Jefferson was half-Chinese, but I think it was Tom Jefferson who wrote this. I found it with some of his things, not hers.'
Oh, wait a minute,' Rosselli objected. What are you saying, Jimmy?'
Listen to me, Johnny. I'm not some dumb Okie on Play Your Hunch. This is me, Jimmy Nimmo. The nearest damn thing to Daniel Boone there is. Make no mistake about it, these are fucking tracks. I don't need to see this guy's private journals to know what he's planning to do. He's a hitman, and a damn good one. Paid to kill Castro by the mob acting in conjunction with the government. Then he finds his wife has been nailed by the President-elect of that government and, what's worse, that she's been recorded on tape so everyone can share in the experience. His wife is murdered and he disappears, leaving one contract on Castro hanging in the air. Now you add all that to exhibits one and two, and you've got John Wilkes Booth in Ford's fucking Theater.'
That was a long time ago. Presidents are a lot better protected these days.'
You're forgetting McKinley. Shot in Buffalo, September sixth, nineteen oh one, by Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist. And when Tony Cermak got shot here in Miami? When was that? Thirty-three? The guy who did it. Zangara. He could just as easily have shot and killed Roosevelt who was sitting right alongside Cermak. Besides, Kennedy isn't President yet. So long as he's not living in the White House, he's an easier target for any nut with a gun. Right now, he's a Secret Service nightmare, all over the place, putting his cabinet together, basking in the glow of his mandate. It's his honeymoon with the American people. Why should he believe anyone would hate him enough to kill him? He hasn't done anything yet. Not even something wrong. Except maybe fuck the wife of a top contract killer.'
You don't shoot the President of the United States just because he happened to fuck your wife.'
Johnny, I'll tell you something. Of all the reasons I ever heard for why one guy shoots another, they don't come any better than that. Just because one man is the President doesn't make him any less of a man. A simple motive like he fucked my wife? That you can trust. You don't have to look for anything more complicated than that. Not in this case. Oh, I dare say Jefferson might arm himself with all kinds of extra reasons. Kennedy's soft on communism. He likes niggers too much. He's going to sell us out in East Asia. But the bottom line is still the same. I'm convinced of it.'
Rosselli ran a worried hand through his silver hair. I'm still not convinced, Jimmy. Your evidence, it's all very circumstantial.'
Nimmo shrugged. Attendant facts, small details, the state of a man's affairs, conclusions which might be inferred from the logical surroundings of a man's actions and character - these are the things that put a man in the electric chair. More often than not, the DA doesn't have a star witness, or a murder weapon. If real hard evidence wasn't so difficult to obtain, do you think cops would work so hard to beat confessions out of people? Circumstantial evidence is the bedrock of our system of justice. Without that you'd be throwing people in ponds to see if they sink, or pricking them with needles in search of the devil's mark.'
Nimmo finished one cigarette and started another. He had made a decision to give up the pipe. So long as he had this case to handle he was going to require a serious amount of nicotine.
You don't have to be convinced, Johnny. You just have to be worried. A lot worried. It's just like Mooney said to me. About finding Jefferson before your friends in the CIA find out that the guy's gone AWOL. All I'm saying is that it's that, times a hundred. Look, suppose I'm right. Suppose Jefferson is hunting Kennedy. Suppose he does manage to shoot and kill him. And then suppose he gets caught. What happens then is that the shit really hits the fan for you guys. Because the newspapers will be looking for some reasons why. Presidents don't get killed because the President fucked someone's wife. You said so yourself. There'll be talk of conspiracy, of John Birch, of Minutemen, of communists, and of the Mafia. The FBI will start an investigation into why Jefferson killed Kennedy. And before you can say McLellan, they'll find a trail that leads straight to Sam Giancana, Moe Dalitz, Lansky, Frank Costello, Trafficante, and you my friend. Your CIA friends will disappear into the ether leaving you to take the rap. The feds'll say the plot to kill Castro was just a smoke screen. All along the intention was to hit Kennedy. That's how it will be, Johnny. Think about it. How shockproof are you feeling now?'
When you put it like that, I guess.' He shook his head. Sam's gonna go mooney when I tell him. What are we gonna do?'
It's my guess that sometime between now and inauguration day, January twentieth, Jefferson will make his move, most likely at one of these underlined locations. After that, we can maybe relax a little if we haven't caught up with him. Until then we've got a manhunt on our hands. With all the law enforcement agencies working together we would still have a job on our hands to track this guy down.'
There's no way we can involve law enforcement, Jimmy.'
I know, I know. All I can suggest is that I'm going to need all the available resources of organised crime to try to bring about the same result. The whole fucking outfit.'
The mob looking after the President? It's a weird idea.'
You gotta better one? I'm going to need some kind of an office, with several phone lines, and the active co- operation of all the bosses in the United States. New York, Boston, Florida, Vegas, LA, New Orleans.'
There's a safe house in Coral Gables, on Riviera Drive. It belongs to Lansky. We can use that.'
I'll need a couple of mob gofers to help me out on a permanent basis. Not Frank. There's something about him I don't trust. Someone sharp. And someone else who's tough.'
There's a cousin of Trafficante's. A lawyer. Recently graduated from somewhere. Paul Ianucci. He's been taking a year off, playing tennis, and fucking girls before going to work for his uncle. He's a smart kid.' Rosselli
