Littell hyperventilated. Spots blipped in front of his eyes.
Montrose: “So, did somebody approach you? Like the Feds or the Cook County Sheriff’s?”
Thumps hit the mike. It had to be Sid’s pulse racing. Fizzing noise overlapped the thumps–Sid’s sweat was clogging up the feeder ducts.
The feed sputtered and died. Littell hit his volume switch and got nothing but a static-fuzzed void.
He rolled down the windows and counted off forty-six seconds. Fresh air cleared his head.
He can’t rat me. I wore that ski mask both times that we talked.
Kabikoff stumbled out to the sidewalk. Wires dangled from the back of his shirt. He got his car and punched it straight through a red light.
Littell hit the ignition. The car wouldn’t start–his bug feed ran down the battery.
o o o
He knew what he’d find at Sal’s house. Four rye-and-beers prepared him to break in and see it.
They tortured Sal in his basement They stripped him and tied him to a ceiling pipe. They hosed him and scorched him with jumper cables.
Sal didn’t talk. Giancana didn’t know the name Littell. Fat Sid didn’t know his name or what he looked like.
They might let Sid go back to Texas. They might or might not kill him somewhere down the line.
They left a cable clamped to Sal’s tongue. Voltage burned his face shiny black.
Littell called Fat Sid’s hotel. The desk clerk said Mr. Kabikoff was in–he had two visitors just an hour ago.
Littell said, “Don’t ring his room.” He stopped for two more rye-and-beers and drove over to see for himself.
They left the door unlocked. They left Sid in an overflowing bathtub. They tossed a plugged-in TV set on top of him.
The water was still bubbling. Electric shock had burned Kabikoff bald.
Littell tried to weep. The rye-and-beers left him too anesthetized.
Kemper Boyd always said DON’T LOOK BACK.
33
(New Orleans, 9/20/59)
Banister supplied files and pedigree notes. Pete narrowed his prospects down to three men.
His hotel room was file-inundated. He was deluged with rap sheets and FBI reports–the far-right South captured on paper.
He got the scoop on Ku Klux Klan klowns and neo-Nazis. He learned about the National States Rights Party. He marveled at the pointy-heads on the FBI payroll–half the Klans in Dixie were Fed-saturated.
Fed snitches were out castrating and lynching. Hoover’s only real concern was KKK mail-fraud minutiae.
A fan ruffled loose file papers. Pete stretched out on the bed and blew smoke rings.
Memo to Kemper Boyd:
The Agency should bankroll a Blessington KKK Klavem. Dirtpoor crackers surrounded the campsite–spic haters all. Klan hijinks would help keep them diverted.
Pete skimmed rap sheets. His instinct held–his prospects were the least rabid of the bunch.
Said prospects:
The Reverend Wilton Tompkins Evans, ex-con radio messiah. Pastor of the “Anti-Communist Crusade of the Air,” a weekly short-wave tirade. Spanish-fluent; ex-paratrooper; three convictions for statutory rape. Banister’s assessment: “Capable and tough, but perhaps too anti-papist to work with Cubans. He’d be a great training officer and I’m sure he’d relocate, because he can broadcast his radio program from anywhere. Close friend of Chuck Rogers.”
Douglas Frank Lockhart, FBI informant/Klansman. Ex-Tank Corps sergeant; ex–Dallas cop; ex–gun runner to rightist dictator Rafael Trujillo. Banister’s assessment: “Probably the premier Klan informant in the South and a true Klan zealot in his own right. Tough and brave, but easily led and somewhat volatile. Seems to bear no grudge against Latins, especially if they are strongly anti-Communist.”
Henry Davis Hudspeth, the South’s #1 purveyor of hate propaganda. Spanish fluent; expert in Hapkido jujitsu. World War II fighter ace, with thirteen Pacific Theater kills. Banister’s assessment: “I like Hank, but he can be stubborn and untowardedly vitriolic. He’s currently working for me as liaison between my exile camp near Lake Pontchartrain and Dougie Frank Lockhart’s nearby Klan Klavern. (I own the property both are situated on.) Hank’s a good man, but maybe not suited for second banana status.”
All three men were close by. All three had party plans tonight–the Klan was torching a cross out by Guy’s camp.
Pete tried to notch a pre-cross-burn nap. He was running on a sleep deficit–his past three weeks were hectic and exhausting.