“I’m not asking you to go easy on them, JF. Just to …” He made a see-saw gesture with his well-manicured hand. “… how shall I say it. Keep a balance. A perspective.”
The Senator smiled as he put his glass down on the table beside him.
“You could have fooled me, Ray. I’d have said you were doing a pitch, asking for the committee to lay off your pal Hoffa.”
“No way, old friend. The law has to take its course and all that jazz. But people are beginning to see it as a personal dogfight. The Kennedy brothers versus the Teamsters.”
Kennedy smiled. “And people would be right. It is.”
“But why, for God’s sake? We need their support. The party needs their votes.”
“How many votes has Hoffa got?” Kennedy raised his eyebrows.
“Who knows. But we all know we need them.”
“James Hoffa has one vote, and as far as my campaign is concerned he can shove it.”
The other man opened his mouth to speak but the Senator held up his hand to silence him.
“The Senate subcommittee has been set up to investigate union corruption, and that’s exactly what it’s doing.” He wagged a monitory finger. “And that’s what it’s going to go on doing. They don’t command their members’ votes. Their members may be too scared to do anything but apparently accept what they’re told to do. But in the ballot booth they do what they choose.
“You know as well as I do that the mob are running the Teamsters, not Hoffa. And they’re running the other big unions too. You’ve got union funds, huge amounts, being transferred into private bank accounts, gangsters acting as union officials. Murder. Torture, for anyone who complains or resists. What more do you want?”
“But none of this can be proved, JF. None of it.”
Kennedy smiled. “Don’t rely on that, Ray. And tell your friends not to rely on it. We’ve got a lot of people working on it. Good people. Incorruptible.”
“But why make it all so personal?”
“It’s very personal for their victims.”
“I don’t understand.”
The Senator winced and moved his back to make it more upright in the armchair.
“Well, for instance, there was the union organizer from LA who went to San Diego to organize juke-box operators. He was told he would be killed if he didn’t stay out of San Diego. He went back again the next month. He was clubbed unconscious, and when he came to he was soaked in blood and had terrible stomach pains. He tried to drive himself back to Los Angeles but the pains were so bad he stopped at a hospital. He had an emergency operation and the surgeon removed a cucumber from his backside. A large cucumber. Sounds jokey if it isn’t you. When he got home he got an anonymous call saying that next time it would be a watermelon.”
“You mentioned murder, Senator.”
“I’ll give you just one. There was a little guy named Rubinstein. Lived in Chicago and was a runner for Al Capone. In 1939 Rubinstein was involved in the murder of a local union boss in Chicago; Rubinstein was the local union secretary. It was that murder that let the Mafia into the Teamsters.”
“You know, Jack, if you go on too far you could bring down very powerful figures in the party. You must know who I mean.”
“One of my senior investigators told me the details, Ray. I’ve given the appropriate instructions.”
“I’m glad to hear that. Very glad.”
“Yes. I told my man to go back and build up the best case they can against those men.” He paused for a moment. “We have a rigid rule around the subcommittee, Ray. If they’re crooks, we don’t wound ’em, we kill ’em.”
The man looked uncomfortable. Leaning forward as if he were going to speak, he hesitated and drew back. The Senator watched him, half-knowing what the man was going to say on behalf of the hoodlums who owned him.
“Say your piece, Ray. It makes no difference to me. But you’ll be able to tell them that you delivered the message.”
“Who told you about the message, Jack?”
“Nobody. But I know how those bastards work. Give me the good news and then we can call it a day.”
“They’ve declared war on you, Jack. You and Bobby. If you stand for President they’ll be against you all the way. They mean trouble. Real trouble.”
Kennedy nodded. “Is that it?”
“Yes.”
“Let yourself out, Ray. Turn right for the elevator.”
The band was playing a Latin-American version of “America, America” and the two men standing in the wings were watching the chorus line on the stage. The girls were all hand-picked for their good looks, their long legs and full bosoms. Their scanty costumes of silver sequins only emphasized what they were supposed to hide. The Tropicana Club in Havana was reckoned to be the biggest nightclub in the world.
The bald-headed, tubby man said, “Who’s the chick second from this end, Santos?”
“God knows. It’ll be Rosa, Maria or Anita. They’re all called that. Why? Do you want her?”
“She’s a real doll, pal. A real doll.”
“Do you want her, Jack, or don’t you? Just say for Christ’s sake.”
“I guess the answer’s yes.”
Santos Trafficante walked across to the stage-manager and spoke to him before coming back to his guest.
“She doesn’t finish until one o’clock. Her name’s Maria. She’ll come to your room at the hotel about two.”
“You’re a lucky man, Santos, with all these pretty girls.”
Trafficante said irritably, “What they’ve got’s no different to what the broads in Miami or New York have got, my friend. My job here’s money not screwing.” He paused, “You got any idea how much I’m sending back to the States every month?”
“I heard
