The next morning he left the apartment early and caught the express train to Boston. A couple of days later, following trips to Cambridge, to the Irving Street home of Professor Arthur Schlesinger, to MIT, to the Boston Public Library, to Kennedy's Boston home on Bowdoin Street, and to the State House on Beacon Hill, Tom telephoned LA3pez Ameijeiras from the Copley Plaza Hotel, where he was staying, and - his voice on the edge of excitement, for Tom was pleased with what his own extensive research had revealed - outlined a draft plan.
Chapter 13
The House on N Street
You'll have to drop whatever you are doing. Everything. And forget about Thanksgiving. There's going to be no holiday for any of us until we've found Tom Jefferson.'
For almost thirty minutes Nimmo had briefed the two men Rosselli had brought to Lansky's safe house on Riviera Drive and, until now, they had listened in silence.
My wife's not going to like that,' objected Licio Montini. She's got the turkey bought and everything. All the trimmings. I tell her I'm not going to be there for dinner she's liable to stuff me and not the fucking bird.' Licio the Elephant was the Jackie Gleason type, big, but light on his toes, with a large handkerchief in his pudgy gold-ringed fingers to wipe the sweat from his heavy, anxious face. He looked to Rosselli for an adjudication on the matter of Thanksgiving dinner, but it was Nimmo who answered him.
Listen, I'm not going to come between any man and his dinner. Least of all a man like you. All I mean is that as soon as you've eaten it, you're back here instead of watching football on TV. Okay?'
Inside his grey pinstripe seersucker suit, Montini nodded with a show of gravitas, as if he wanted everyone to see that he thought this was fair, and said, Okay.'
Paul?'
Paul Ianucci, a second, or even a third cousin of Santos Trafficante's - Nimmo was not quite sure which - and only half the size of Licio Montini, had twice the polish. With his dark curly hair, twinkling brown eyes, and casual virility he looked like a younger Dean Martin, a stellar impression that was enhanced by the lilac Ford Thunderbird that was parked outside.
That's fine with me, sir,' he said in an educated voice that belied his Italian underworld antecedents. As a Catholic I never did see the point of observing a Protestant acknowledgement of divine favour.' He palmed a handsome Tiffany's gold cigarette case from the pocket of his Ivy Jacket of Indian Madras and fetched a cigarette to his perfect smile. I'm as keen to see that nothing happens to Jack Kennedy as the next man. But where the hell do we start?'
Paul? I want you to track down some documentation for this guy. We've got a passport number. It's probably fake but check with the Miami Passport Agency. Try the Office of Vital Statistics, too. That's in Jacksonville. The Division of Driver's Licences, in Tallahassee, and the Department of Defense in Washington. We think Jefferson may have been in the Marine Corps. I want next of kin, a mother. Even the son of God had a mother. I want to know who and where she is.'
I'm on it,' said Paul Ianucci, and sitting down at the boardroom table, he picked up the phone and called the operator.
Licio? I want a list of hitmen, button-guys, shooters, assassins, whatever. Maybe somebody worked with Jefferson. A cross-fire contract, I think they call it. If someone did work with him then maybe he'll know Jefferson's modus operandi. Who he gets his guns from, how he likes to work, that kind of thing.'
Right,' said Montini, and sat down opposite Ianucci. What about me? What would you like me to do?'
It was a mark of how seriously he took the situation that Sam Giancana had flown in from Chicago the previous night. But his take on Nimmo's book of revelations was much more pragmatic. As soon as he had arrived with Rosselli and the two others, Giancana had taken Nimmo to one side to put him in the picture', as he said, with a cross and a fucking halo around your head'.
Here's how it is, Jimmy,' Giancana had told him. The election cost me a bundle. In the Chicago wards I control, Kennedy got eighty per cent of the vote. And it's still costing me now. Which is why Nixon's not going to demand a recount. We're gonna repay the thirty-five grand that walkin' five o clock shadow still owes on the mortgage on his place in Wesley Heights. It all adds up to a pretty substantial investment in one Irish sonofabitch. And I'm not about to see it flicked off by some kook with a grudge and a rifle. Back in Chicago, Jimmy, I said I'd lay twenty-five grand on you to find this fuck. Well I'm doubling that. Fifty grand, Jimmy. That means water into wine, and cripples up on their dogs and running around like it's Christmas morning. You stick to this job like it's Duco, you hear? Find that fucking cetriolo.'
Sam. Depend on it. The guy's next week's Dead Sea Scrolls.'
Now, as Nimmo considered Giancana's request for some kind of investigative task, he found himself unable to see how he could order around the boss of the Chicago outfit like Montini or Ianucci. Giancana saw the idea troubling Nimmo and came to his aid.
Just like I'm one of the soldiers, Jimmy, okay?'
Okay, Sam.' Nimmo shrugged. It's like I said to Johnny. Maybe you could call around the heads of the various crime families. Impress upon them the need to find Tom Jefferson for all their sakes. If the most powerful crime organisation in the world can't get some kind of lead on this guy then my name isn't James Bywater Nimmo.
In the meantime, I'm going to Washington DC, to see if I can't persuade someone to give up Kennedy's schedule. If we know when and where he's going between now and the inauguration, then maybe we can second- guess our shooter.'
Just like that?' sneered Giancana. Who the hell's gonna give you Kennedy's schedule?'
The Secret Service.'
How are you gonna fix that?'
You fixed the American election, Sam. I think I can fix the President's outfield.'
As soon as he was in his room at the Georgetown Marbury, in Washington, Nimmo picked up the telephone, and dialled NA 8-1414. As requested, the White House Signals board relayed the call to Murray Weintraub, in the East Wing of the Executive Mansion. As he waited for the connection, Nimmo stared out of the window of his comfortable but gloomy room, at the hotel courtyard and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal that lay beyond it. Already Georgetown lay on his soul like a dead weight. How could anyone live in a place like this?
Another couple of minutes passed. He twisted the tiny cap off a miniature of Scotch, applied the whistle-sized neck to his mouth, and drained the bottle's contents, as if it had held nothing more potent than antiseptic mouthwash. There was something so ersatz, so baubling about spirit miniatures, like something you might find in an outsized doll's house, that he found it hard to take them seriously as containers of real alcohol, almost as if the effect of the spirits ought to be somehow in proportion to the size of the bottle itself.
When Murray Weintraub finally came on the phone their conversation was brief and to the point. I'm here,' said Nimmo.
Okay. My shift ends at ten. I'll meet you in front of the Marbury at ten twenty.'
The Georgetown Marbury was a small colonial-style hotel of red brick, like most of Georgetown, and Weintraub was outside the M Street doorway on the dot of the appointed time. The two men were old friends. The Secret Service was part of the Treasury Department and, before joining the presidential detail, in 1952, Weintraub had worked in the Secret Service's New York office, which was where he had met Jimmy Nimmo. Together, Weintraub and the former FBI SAC had helped solve a big counterfeiting case involving bank-workers and, it had even been alleged, Albert Einstein. Hoover suspected the physicist of having invented a machine capable of rendering perfect copies of dollar bills, with the aim of undermining the whole edifice of American capitalism. It was just one of many preposterous charges secretly levelled against Einstein that Hoover had wanted to believe were true, but which were never proven.
It was a moist, chilly night. The cobbled, tree-lined streets of Georgetown, covered with November leaves, were treacherous underfoot. Both men wore sensible shoes, warm raincoats, and felt hats.
Often, it is said that dogs and their masters, or any two creatures living in symbiosis, come to resemble each other. It was the same with Murray Weintraub, who looked very much like President Eisenhower - or at least a younger Eisenhower, the Eisenhower who had been appointed Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force back in 1943. Weintraub had more hair, which was fair, the same broad nose, prominent ears, ruddy complexion, and wide, dyspeptic mouth. A fit forty-eight-year-old, he had the older man's erect military bearing too. They headed west, in the general direction of the university.
So how is life in the Secret Service?'
