“I don’t know his name. I only met him in the flesh once, praise Allah.”
“Describe him.”
“Maybe six foot one, maybe forty-six or -seven years of age. Glasses, thin gray hair, and a boozer in my considered opinion, since the one time I met him face-to-face he had whisky on his breath.”
The road dipped. Pete hit the brakes and almost stalled the truck out.
“Tell me how he leeched onto you.”
“Why? Give me one good reason why I should share this abuse with you.”
“I’ll give you a thousand dollars to tell me the story. If I like the story, I’ll give you four more.”
Ruby counted on his fingers–one to five a half dozen times.
Pete tapped a little tune on the wheel. The beat ran 1-2-3-4-5.
Ruby lip-synched numbers: 1-2-3-4-5, 1-2-3-4-5.
Pete held up five fingers. Ruby counted them out loud.
“Five thousand if you like it?”
“That’s right, Jack. And a thousand if I don’t.”
“I am taking a tremendous risk in telling you this.”
“Then don’t.”
Ruby fretted his Jew-star necklace. Pete splayed five fingers out on the dashboard. Ruby kissed the star and took a bigggg breath.
“Last May this farkakte Fed braces me down in Dallas. He makes every conceivable threat on God’s green earth, and I believe him, ‘cause I know he’s this crazy goyishe zealot with nothing to lose. He knows I’ve sharked in Big D and up in Chicago, and he knows I’ve sent people looking for high-end loans to Sam Giancana. That’s what he’s got this colossal hard one for. He wants to trace the money that gets loaned out from the Teamsters’ Pension Fund.”
It was vintage Littell: bold and stupid.
“He gets me to call him at a pay phone in Chicago once a week. He gives me a few dollars when I tell him I’m running on fumes. He gets me to tell him about this movie guy I know, Sid Kabikoff, who’s interested in seeing this loan shark named Sal D’Onofrio, who’s gonna shoot him up to Momo for a Pension Fund loan. What happened after that I don’t know. But I read in the Chicago papers that both Kabikoff and D’Onofrio have been murdered, so-called ‘torture-style,’ and that both cases are unsolved. I’m not no Einstein, but ‘torture’ in Chicago means Sam G. And I also know that Sam don’t know I was involved, or I’d have been visited. And it don’t take an Einstein to figure out the crazy Fed was at the root of all this pain.”
Littell was working outlaw. Littell was Boyd’s best friend. Lenny Sands worked with Littell and D’Onofrio.
Ruby plucked a dog hair off his lap. “Is that five thousand dollars’ worth of story?” – –
The road blurred. Pete damn near plowed a gator.
“Has the Fed called you since Sal D. and Kabikoff died?”
“No, praise Allah. Now what about my five–?”
“You’ll get it. And I’ll pay you three thousand extra if he calls you again and you get back to me on it. And if you end up helping me out with him, I’ll make it another five.”
Ruby went apoplectic. “Why? Why the fuck do you care to the extent of all this money?”
Pete smiled. “Let’s keep this between the two of us, all right?”
“You want secret, I’ll give you secret. I’m a well-known secret type of guy who knows how to keep his mouth shut.”
Pete pulled his magnum and drove with his knees. Ruby smiled–ho, ho-What’s this?
Pete popped the cylinder, dumped five rounds and spun it.
Ruby smiled–ho, ho–Kid, you’re too much.
Pete shot him in the head. The five-to-one odds held: the hammer hit an empty – chamber.
Ruby went Klan-sheet white.
Pete said, “Ask around. See what people say about me.”
o o o
They hit Blessington at dusk. Ruby and Tippit got their strip show ready.
Pete called Midway Airport and impersonated a police officer. A clerk confirmed Ruby’s story: A Ward J. Littell flew to Dallas and back last May 18. –
He hung up and called the Eden Roc Hotel. The switchboard girl said Kemper Boyd was “out for the day.”