AMERICAN TABLOID by James Ellroy

Littell put his suitcase down. The snaps creaked. His surprise had the damn thing bulging.

“How are you, Mr. Marcello?”

“I’m losing money. Every day Pete and my Agency friends treat me better, so every day I end up pledging more money to the Cause. I figure the nut on this hotel’s running me twenty-five grand a day.”

Pete chalked up a pool cue. Marcello jammed his hands in his pockets.

Kemper warned him: the man does not shake hands.

“I talked to your attorneys in New York a few hours ago. They want to know if you need anything.”

Marcello smiled. “I need to kiss my wife on the cheek and fuck my girlfriend. I need to eat some duck Rochambeau at Galatoire’s, and I cannot accomplish any of that here.”

Bondurant racked up the table. Littell swung his suitcase up and blocked it off lengthwise.

Marcello chuckled. “I’m starting to detect old grief here.”

Pete lit a cigarette. Littell caught the exhale full-on.

“I’ve got a good deal of paperwork for you to review, Mr. Marcello. We’ll need to spend some time together and devise a story that details your immigration history, so that Mr. Wasserman can use it when he files his injunction to get your deportation order rescinded. Some very influential people want to see you repatriated, and I’ll be working with them as well. I realize that all this unexpected travel must be exhausting, so Kemper Boyd and I are going to arrange for Chuck Rogers to fly you back to Louisiana in a few days and hide you out.”

Marcello did a quick little shuffle. The man was deft and fast on his feet.

Pete said, “What happened to your face, Ward?”

Littell opened the suitcase. Pete picked up the 8-ball and cracked it in half barehanded.

Wood chunks snapped and popped. Marcello said, “I’m not sure I like where this is going.”

Littell pulled out the Fund books. A quick prayer tamped down his nerves.

“I’m sure you both know that Jules Schiffrin’s estate in Lake Geneva was burglarized last November. Some paintings were stolen, along with some ledgers rumored to contain Teamster Pension Fund notations. The thief was an informant for a Chicago-based Top Hoodlum Program agent named Court Meade, and he gave the books to Meade when he realized that the paintings were too well-known and recognizable to sell. Meade died of a heart attack in January, and he willed the books to me. He told me he never showed them to anyone else, and in my opinion he was waiting to sell them to somebody in the Giancana organization. There’s a few pages that have been torn out, but aside from that I think they’re intact. I brought them to you because I know how close you are to Mr. Hoffa and the Teamsters.”

Marcello went slack-jawed. Pete snapped a pool cue in half.

He tore out fourteen pages back in Houston. He had all the Kennedy entries safely stashed.

Marcello offered his hand. Littell kissed a big diamond ring papal-style.

66

(Anniston, 4/11/61)

Voting rolls and poll tax reports. Literacy test results and witness statements.

Four corkboad-mounted walls dripping with paper–systematic suppression in typescript black-on-white.

His room was small and drab. The Wigwam Motel was not quite the St. Regis.

Kemper worked up a voting rights obstruction brief. One literacy test and one witness deposition formed his evidentiary basis.

Debmar Herbert Bowen was a male Negro, born 6/14/19 in Anniston, Alabama. He was literate, and a self-described “big reader.”

On 6/15/40, Mr. Bowen tried to register to vote. The registrar said, Boy, can you read and write?

Mr. Bowen proved that he could. The registrar asked exclusionary questions, pertaining to advanced calculus.

Mr. Bowen failed to answer them. Mr. Bowen was denied the right to vote.

He subpoenaed Mr. Bowen’s literacy test. He determined that the Anniston registrar fabricated the resubts.

The man said that Mr. Bowen could not spell “dog” and “cat.” Mr. Bowen did not know that coitus precipitates childbirth.

Kemper clipped pages. The work bored him. The Kennedy civil rights mandate was not bold enough for his taste.

His mandate was gunboat diplomacy.

He grabbed a sandwich at a bunch counter yesterday. In the colored section–for the pure hell of it.

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