hill where the men in black were keeping watch-“but if they’re FBI, they may have already planted their own bugs. For J. Edgar’s collection.”
Bobby said nothing.
“There are tapes of your brother fucking Marilyn,” I said softly, almost whispering, pointing toward the house where they’d done that, “that are probably already in the hands of Giancana and Hoffa. Bedsprings and moans and groans and love talk from two of the most famous, easily recognizable voices in America. It’ll make a better party record than Shelley Berman or Lenny Bruce.”
His forehead was knit in thought, eyes sparking. “These are illegal wiretaps.”
“Yeah, there’s a threat that’ll shake them in their shoes. What’s that, a misdemeanor? This is Giancana. This is Hoffa. You know what that means, Bob. You know what this is really about.”
Hands in his pockets, back to the sun, he nodded gravely.
“I told you,” I said grimly, “and I told your brother, that when you deal with people as crooked as the Chicago boys, you have to play it straight. They gave you West Virginia. They gave you Illinois. And what have you given them?”
He was shaking his head, solemn as a gravestone. “There were no promises, Nate. They knew who they were dealing with.”
“So did you, Bob! And I don’t even want to mention Operation fucking Mongoose, because I wish I’d never heard of it.”
He swallowed thickly. “That’s good, because I don’t want you mentioning it, either.”
Operation Mongoose: the top secret CIA plan to use the mob to assassinate Fidel Castro. A civilian like me shouldn’t know about it. And I wouldn’t have, if I hadn’t made the first contact with Giancana for them.
“You are in bed with these fuckers, Bob. You have been since 1960. And how many organized crime convictions did you rack up last year?”
Bobby flicked a smile-defiant. Proud. “Around a hundred.”
“And this year?”
“We’ll do better.”
It wasn’t just Jack who was arrogant. The only reason Bobby was attorney general was that Old Joe insisted, and the reason Joe insisted was that he knew there would formal actions claiming Jack stole the election, and no matter who bitched about Bobby being underqualified, and no matter how many hollered nepotism, Robert F. Kennedy would need to be in a position to shut those actions down.
Which he had.
I moved very close to him. “It’s not a good sign that Hoffa and Giancana are together in this. Jimmy was very pissed indeed when Giancana raided Teamster coffers to help put your brother in office. For months and months, Jimmy didn’t like Giancana very much for that, being a Nixon man and all. But now they’re together again… isn’t it grand? Ain’t it touching? And guess what? They have a new hobby they share-hating you.”
“Feeling’s mutual.”
“Yeah, play it tough, Bob. Jesus! This wholesale wiretapping, they’ve probably already gathered enough concrete evidence about Jack and Marilyn to blackmail you into oblivion. And if the mob and the Teamsters aren’t enough, there’s the FBI. Maybe that’s why you’re unconcerned-you’re used to being blackmailed already, thanks to Mr. Hoover.”
He gave me a smile that was supposed to calm me down. “Come on, Nate. Take it easy. What are you so angry about?”
“What aren’t I angry about? You put me in bed with these guys, too. If Hoffa ever figures out I was on your team back in the old days, and not his, I’m fucking dead. And if Giancana gets irritated because the Kennedys have double-crossed his guinea ass? He may just look around for the middleman who helped set him up, and guess what? I’m fucking dead again.”
He spread his hands as if the ocean at his back were his. “Nate. Don’t be ridiculous. You’ll be fine. We’ll be fine. I have the entire Justice Department behind me.”
“It’ll be behind you, all right. Your brother will be a one-term president, and you will be a private citizen, an out-of-work mouthpiece who’d better hope the Republicans have enough of their own dirty laundry so that you and Jack can ride into the sunset.”
If his face had been any longer, it would be melting. “You know I respect you, Nate. There aren’t many people I would let talk to me this way.”
“There aren’t many people who know where this many bodies are buried. I respect you, too, Bob. Just don’t dump dandruff on me and tell me it’s Christmas.”
He put a hand on my shoulder-a fairly uncommon gesture, coming from him. “Nate-I’ll do right by you.”
Our shadows were longer and darker, and magic hour was dwindling.
“Do right by Marilyn, Bob. She’s a good kid.” I pawed the air. “Screw that, she’s a woman, an intelligent, talented woman, but like all of us carnival people, she’s damaged. Just don’t you damage her any further.”
He moved even closer and, at his most intimate, said, “Everything’ll work out fine. You have to trust me on that.”
“I know I do,” I said. “What other choice do I have?”
“Nate,” he said, and he tilted his head and gave me that shy puppy-dog smile. When he held out his hand, you know I had to shake it.
Then I headed up the slope of the beach, toward my car, but stopping where I’d left my shoes and socks. I was sitting on the sand, putting them on, and Bobby was waving as he headed back to Lawfords.
Never did get a dinner invite.
CHAPTER 7
Marilyn Monroe’s chief malady, insomnia, has never afflicted me. I’m one of those lucky asleep-when-my- head-hits-the-pillow types. But last night, I had tossed and turned, and been up and down, pacing about inside and out of my Beverly Hills Hotel bungalow. This must have been what life was like for people with a real conscience.
The only conscience I normally relied on was an ancient nine-millimeter Browning automatic, which I kept well-oiled and in good repair. It had a special resonance for me-the gun my radical leftist father killed himself with on the occasion of my making it onto the graft-happy Chicago PD back in the late ’20s. I rarely carried it anymore, and didn’t even have a shoulder holster along. Right now the nine-millimeter was serving as a decorative touch on the nightstand next to the little radio alarm clock and two empty Coke bottles. The caffeine in that soda pop had been an accomplice in my sleepless night.
Conflict of interest didn’t begin to cover my situation. Marilyn was my client, and while I hadn’t betrayed the specific job I was doing for her-tapping her own phones-I had passed along to Bobby (and to a lesser degree Lawford) certain incidental information I’d obtained.
Specifically, that I had learned from Hollywood’s favorite electronic eavesdropper, Roger Pryor, that everybody and his duck were already bugging Marilyn’s little Fifth Helena hacienda. But I hadn’t shared that information with my client. On the other hand, she hadn’t told me she was planning to be First Lady.
Marilyn had attracted the attention of my friend Bobby Kennedy’s worst enemies, including Sam Giancana and Jimmy Hoffa. Over the years, I had gone to considerable lengths to make Giancana think I was, if not a friend, at least not an adversary, just as Hoffa remained unaware I’d secretly been in Bobby’s employ.
Added to that were the contacts I’d arranged between the Kennedy and Giancana camps to help get Jack elected. Plus, of course, facilitating deals with various devils in an effort to remove the one mutual enemy of the Kennedys and the mob-the prime minister of Cuba, a certain Fidel Castro.
My involvement in the Castro affair had been limited, if pivotal. The idea was that mobsters-not just Giancana of Chicago but Santos Trafficante of Miami and Carlos Marcello of Louisiana-still had people on the ground in Cuba, despite having had their casinos and drug-running operations shut down by the new (and very Communist) regime. So getting close enough to Castro to permanently remove him from office shouldn’t have been tough.
Only it hadn’t happened yet, despite some farcical attempts including poisoned food, lethal fountain pens, and
