Darleen: “I still think that PT boat thing was pretty swell.”
Jack: “You know, you’re a good listener, Arlene.”
Fred looked ready to DROOL. His fucking eyes were dollar-sign dilated.
Pete made fists. “This is mine. You just sit tight and do what I tell you to.”
Freddy cringed. Pete smiled–his hands put the fear out every time.
o o o
A Tiger Kab met his plane. The driver talked Cuban politics nonstop: El grande Castro advancing! El puto Batista in retreat!
Pancho dropped him off at the cabstand. Jimmy had the dispatch shack commandeered–goons were packing up life jackets and Tommy guns.
Hoffa shooed them out. Pete said, “Jimmy, how are you?”
Hoffa picked up a nail-studded baseball bat. “I’m all right. You like this? Sometimes the sharks get up close to the boat and you can give them a few whacks.”
Pete opened up his tape rig and plugged it into a floor outlet. The tiger-stripe wallpaper made his head swim.
“It’s cute, but I brought something better.”
“You said you smelled money. That’s gotta mean my money for your trouble.”
“There’s a story behind it.”
“I don’t like stories, unless I’m the hero. And you know I’m a busy–”
Pete put a hand on his arm. “An FBI man braced me. He said he had an ‘in’ on the McClellan Committee. He said he made me for the Gretzler job, and he said Mr. Hoover didn’t care. You know Hoover, Jimmy. He’s always left you and the Outfit alone.”
Hoffa pulled his arm loose. “So? You think they’ve got evidence? Is that what that tape’s all about?”
“No. I think the Fed’s spying on Bobby Kennedy and the Committee for Hoover, or something like that, and I think Hoover’s on our side. I tailed the guy and his partner up to a fuck pad in Hollywood. They bugged and wired it, and my guy Freddy Turentine hooked up a piggyback. Now, listen.”
Hoffa tapped his foot like he was bored. Hoffa brushed tigerstriped lint off his shirt.
Pete tapped Play. Tape hissed. Sex groans and mattress squeaks escalated.
Pete timed the fuck. Senator John F. Kennedy: 2.4-minute man.
Darleen Shoftel faked a climax. There, that Boston bray: “My goddamn back gave out.”
Darleen said, “It was goooood. Short and sweet’s the best.”
Jimmy twirled his baseball bat. Goose bumps bristled up his arms.
Pete pushed buttons and cut to the good stuff. Two-Minute Jack rhapsodized:
“…a Teamster man who’d become disgusted with Hoffa this dumb brave Polack, Roland something from Chicago.”
Hoffa popped goose bumps. Hoffa choked up a grip on his bat.
“This Roland something has working-class panache…. Bobby’s got his teeth in Hoffa. When Bobby bites down he doesn’t let go.”
Hoffa popped double goose bumps. Hoffa went bug-eyed like a fright-wig nigger.
Pete stood back.
Hoffa let fly–watch that nail-topped Louisville Slugger GO–
Chairs got smashed to kindling. Desks got knocked legless. Walls got spike-gouged down to the baseboard.
Pete stood way back. A glowing plastic Jesus doorstop got shattered into eight million pieces.
Paper stacks flew. Wood chips ricocheted. Drivers watched from the sidewalk–Jimmy roundhoused the window and glassblasted them.
James Riddle Hoffa: heaving and voodoo-eyed stuporous.
His bat snagged on a doorjamb. Jimmy stared at it–say what?
Pete grabbed him in a bear hug. Jimmy’s eyes rolled back, catatonic-style.
Hoffa flailed and squirmed. Pete squeezed him close to breathless and baby-talked him.
“I can keep Freddy on the piggyback for two hundred a day. Sooner or later we might get something you can fuck the Kennedys with. I’ve got some political dirt files, too. They might do us some good someday.”
Hoffa focused in half-lucid. His voice came out laughing-gas squeaky.
“What… do… you… want?”
“Mr. Hughes is going nuts. I was thinking I’d get next to you and cover my bets.”
Hoffa squirmed free. Pete almost choked on his smell: sweat and bargain-basement cologne.
His color receded. He caught his breath. His voice went down a few octaves.
“I’ll give you 5% of this cabstand. You keep the piggyback going in L.A. and show up here once in a while to keep these Cubans in line. Don’t try to Jew me up to 10%, or I’ll say ‘fuck you’ and send you back to L.A. on the bus.”