And twitched.
And brushed back tears.
Littell said, “Goddamn you for the pain you caused me.”
97
(Dallas, 11/20/63)
She’ll know. She’ll hear the news and see your face and know you were part of it.
She’ll trace it back to the shakedown. You couldn’t compromise him, so you killed him.
She’ll know it was a Mob hit. She knows how those guys snip dangerous links. She’ll blame you for bringing her so close to something so big.
Pete watched Barb sleep. Their bed smelled like suntan oil and sweat.
He was going to Las Vegas. He was going back to Howard “Dracula” Hughes. Ward Littell was their new middleman.
It was strongarm and dope work. It was a boilerplate commuted sentence: death for life imprisonment.
She’d kicked the sheets off. He noticed some new freckles on her legs.
She’d click with Vegas. He’d boot Joey out of her life and fix her up with a permanent lounge gig.
She’d be with him. She’d be close to his work. She’d build a rep as a stand-up woman who knew how to keep secrets.
Barb curled into her pillows. The veins on her breasts stretched out funny.
He woke her up. She snapped awake bright-eyed, like always.
Pete said, “Will you marry me?”
Barb said, “Sure.”
o o o
A fifty-dollar bribe waived the blood test. A C-note covered the no-birth-certificate problem.
Pete rented a 52 X-long tuxedo. Barb ran by the Kascade KIub and grabbed her one white Twist gown.
They found a preacher in the phone book. Pete scrounged up two witnesses: Jack Ruby and Dick Contino.
Dick said Uncle Hesh needed a pop. And what’s he so excited about? For a dying man, he sure seems keyed up.
Pete ran by the Adolphus Hotel. He shot Heshie full of heroin and slipped him some Hershey bars to nosh on. Heshie thought his tuxedo was the funniest fucking thing he’d ever seen. He laughed so had he almost ripped his tracheal tube out.
Dick bounced for a wedding gift: the Adolphus bridal suite through the weekend. Pete and Barb moved their things in an hour before the ceremony.
Pete’s gun fell out of his suitcase. The bellhop almost shit.
Barb tipped him fifty dollars. The kid genuflected out of the suite. A hotel limo dropped them at the chapel.
The preacher was a juicehead. Ruby brought his yappy dachshunds. Dick banged some wedding numbers on his squeezebox.
They said their vows in a dive off Stemmons Freeway. Barb cried. Pete held her hand so tight that she winced.
The preacher supplied imitation gold rings. Pete’s ring wouldn’t fit on his ring finger. The preacher said he’d order him a jumbo–he got his stuff from a mail-order house in Des Moines.
Pete dropped the too-small ring in his pocket. The Till Death Do Us Part pitch got him weak in the knees.
o o o
They settled in at the hotel. Barb kept up a refrain: Barbara Jane Lindscott Jahelka Bondurant.
Heshie sent them champagne and a giant gift basket. The roomservice kid was atwitter–the President’s riding by here on Friday!
They made love. The bed was flouncy pink and enormous.
Barb fell asleep. Pete left an 8:00 p.m. call–his bride had a gig at 9:00 sharp.
He couldn’t sleep. He didn’t touch the bubbly–booze was starting to feel like a weakness.
The phone rang. He got up and grabbed the parlor extension.
“Yeah?”
“It’s me, Pete.”
“Ward, Jesus. How’d you get this–?”
Littell said, “Banister just called me. He said Juan Canestel’s missing in Dallas. I’m sending Kemper in to meet you, and I want the two of you to find him and do what you have to do to make Friday happen.”
98
(Dallas, 11/20/63)
The plane taxied up to a loading bay. The pilot rode tailwinds all the way from Meridian and made the run in under two hours.
Littell arranged a private charter. He told the pilot to fly ballsto-the-wall. The little two-seater rattled and shook–Kemper couldn’t believe it.
It was 11:48 p.m. They were thirty-six hours short of GO.
Car headlights blinked–Pete’s signal.
Kemper unhooked his seat belt. The pilot throttled down and cranked the door open for him.