I hadn’t been able to attend, busy managing the scenes of two shootings. Of mine. Still, it must have been a short meeting.
“What did I miss, Marty?”
“Well, you’re aware we’ve been operating on a non-documentary basis-strictly oral reports. On Monday, every agent involved in this investigation of potential motorcade assassins will spend time with Charlotte dictating oral reports.”
Charlotte was the top secretary around here.
“From these typed reports,” he said, “I will write an overview that will remain top secret-with our COS designation-which I will send by special courier to Chief Rowley.”
“COS?”
“Central Office Secret. You can see how this benefits your situation.”
I did. I had just killed two suspects and would not have to answer any detailed questions, no hearings, no shooting board, no nothing.
“And the two Cubans?”
Martineau shrugged. “They’ll be released shortly.”
“What the hell?”
“Nate, we don’t have an iota of evidence on them. Checks we’ve run bring up no outstanding warrants, and only back up their cover story. The sole indication that they’re dangerous comes from the FBI, who don’t want any part of this. What else can we do?”
“I saw them with those white pricks!”
“What white pricks?”
He had a point.
“And Vallee?”
“We’ll be turning him over to the Chicago police this afternoon.”
“On what charge?”
“The one Shoppa and Gross hauled him in on-concealed weapons. He was making an illegal left-hand turn; they pulled him over, and saw a hunting knife on the rider’s seat. When his trunk was searched, cartons of ammunition, an M-1 and a.22 revolver were found.”
“Who’s interrogating him?”
“Nobody. What about, at this point? We yanked him off the street to keep a lid on him while the President was in town. And the President isn’t coming. Anyway, Vallee’s just another nut. The team of four were the main attraction.”
“Mind if I have a chat with Vallee?”
“Be my guest.”
I got up and was halfway out when Martineau said, “We do appreciate everything you’ve done. That was a dangerous situation this morning, at that printer’s. I think you handled it well.”
“I appreciate that, Marty.”
“I can’t imagine how chilling it must have been, looking through that sniper scope and seeing another rifle aiming back at you.” He seemed to actually shiver. “That you had the presence of mind to just … take him out, before he could do the same to you? Well, it’s something not just anybody could do.”
I nodded at him. That wasn’t close to what really happened, but what could I say? On the other hand, the way I really handled it wasn’t something just anybody could do, either.
Shoppa and Gross were standing outside Interview One. The two Pickpocket Detail cops were in street clothes, per good surveillance technique, stocky Shoppa in a who-shot-the-couch blue-and-white-speckled sport coat over a white open-neck shirt, horsey Gross in a baggy brown suit and a yellow shirt with no tie. They looked happy but beat, having logged plenty of hours babysitting Vallee. Shoppa was smoking a cigar, Gross a cigarette.
“So you nailed him on a left-hand turn, huh?” I said with a grin. “Nothing like good, solid police work.”
“Some of the best goddamn arrests,” Shoppa said, mildly defensive, “grow out of traffic violations.”
“How’d it go down, exactly?”
Gross said, “We’d been tailing Vallee since around eight. We figured he was headed in to work, but then he was just, I don’t know, driving. We didn’t know what the hell he was up to. I’ll be seeing the ass end of that piece of shit white Ford in my sleep.”
Shoppa shrugged. “He was turning west onto Wilson from Damen, heading toward the expressway. Figured he was finally going to that printing plant.”
“They were closed today,” I said.
“Yeah,” Shoppa said, and exhaled cheap cigar smoke. “We didn’t hear about that till we hauled his ass in.”
“When was that?”
Shoppa shrugged. “Must’ve been ten after nine.” He looked at his partner. “Nine-fifteen?”
Gross shrugged, nodded. “He didn’t have any firearms on his person, but his trunk was a friggin’ arsenal. Seven hundred fifty rounds for that rifle of his.” He grinned and looked even more like a horse. “Think we’ll get a thank-you note from JFK?”
“Maybe not,” I said.
“Fuck it,” Shoppa said, and blew a smoke ring. “I was a Nixon man anyway.”
I gestured toward the interview room. “Martineau said I could take a crack at him.”
Shoppa farted with his lips. “Move in with him and pick out furniture, for all I care. I don’t wanna waste my time with that screwball.”
When I went in, the sight of Vallee gave me a little start-seated military straight on his side of the scarred table, wearing a white T-shirt with a blue and black plaid shirt over it, damn near identical to the ensemble worn by that blond assassin I’d shot right in the Ray-Bans. Identical, too, was the military-style butch haircut, and the hair color and general Nordic cast of the features.
Vallee was smaller than the late blond, whose face had been narrower; but the resemblance did shake me some.
Settling in opposite him, I said, “Good morning, Tommy. Remember me?”
He frowned, and the big blue eyes under the slightly Neanderthal shelf of forehead narrowed but didn’t blink. “We spoke at the Eat Rite. Were you undercover?”
“Guess you could say that. I was checking you out on a tip from a cop who heard you making threatening remarks about the President.”
A tiny sneer on the pinched little mouth accompanied a grunt of a laugh. “I’ve never made a secret of how I feel about Kennedy. We’ll be in serious trouble unless Goldwater is elected, you know. But I never really threatened him.”
“Sure you did.”
“Negative. That was all just figures of speech. Hyper boly.” He meant “hyperbole.”
“Okay.” I had photos of the Cubans and the two white snipers in my inside jacket pocket. I got them out and pushed them across to Vallee. “Know any of these fellas?”
“Negative.”
“Not either one of these white fellas? In the service, maybe?”
“No, sir.”
I tapped the photos of Gonzales and Rodriguez. “These other two are Cuban. And you trained Cuban exiles near Levittown, right? Maybe you met them there. Look again. Maybe you met just one of ’em.”
He looked. He did look. Shook his head. “Negative.”
“Where was it you served in Korea, Tom?”
“Mostly I was stationed in Japan.”
“Whereabouts in Japan?”
“Camp Otsu.”
That meant nothing to me.
I asked, “What did you do there?”
“That’s classified, sir.”
“Weren’t you just a private? With no special skills? Why would what you did in Japan be classified?”
“Well … Camp Otsu was a U-2 base, sir. Back in those days, that was top secret stuff.”
Goose bumps danced on my neck. Ruby’s friend Lee had bragged to me about service at a U-2 base in Japan.
I said, “U-2-wasn’t that program the CIA’s baby?”
“Affirmative.”
“Tommy … were you working for the CIA over there?”
“I’m sorry, but I was told that was classified.”
“Well, since you got out of the Marines … have you worked with the CIA?”
“That’s classified, too.” His eyebrows scrunched. “Were you really a Marine?”
“I was.”
“And your name really is Heller?”
“It is.”
“So not everything was lies when we talked.”
“Not at all.”
“Are you wi
th the Company, too, Mr. Heller? Are you debriefing me?”
Christ. I didn’t like where this was heading. For example, if he’d been training Cuban exiles on Long Island, that likely made him some small part, at least, of Operation Mongoose.
“You could call it that, Tommy. Were you on your way to work when those Chicago cops stopped you today?”
“Negative. We were closed today.”
“Were you heading there, anyway? To IPP? Or maybe to some other building on West Jackson?”
“Negative.”
“Okay. What were you doing with all that ammunition and those guns in your trunk?”
“Could I see your ID?”
I showed him the Justice Department credentials. He frowned as he examined them-they weren’t Central Intelligence Agency, but they were official, all right. And not Secret Service.
He sat and mulled that for a good thirty seconds. Then he swallowed. He’d decided what he wanted to say.
“I wasn’t planning to shoot the President. I think somebody thinks I was. Because I work on West Jackson. And the motorcade would go right by, and getting off a shot wouldn’t be hard. But that was never my intention. I think … I think I’m being framed for this.”
“Really.”
He nodded. “I got a call from someone I trust. I don’t want to say more. I can’t say more. But it was an opportunity for me to make some money this morning.”
I was ahead of him. “When the cops stopped you, you were on your way somewhere to sell guns and ammunition. You had a buyer.”
He nodded. “The deal was to go down at a parking lot in the Loop. I was supposed to wait there. An unspecified time. As long as it took. But I never made it-around nine-fifteen, those cops pulled me over.” The big eyes grew wider. “Is he all right?”
“Is who all right?”
He seemed very earnest. Like he might cry. “The President. Did someone shoot him?”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because I think somebody knew about how I felt toward him. Somebody with special knowledge about me and my background and my beliefs. But I’m a good American and a former Marine and wouldn’t do that. I speak my dissatisfied mind under the Freedom of Speech. But I didn’t do it, Mr. Heller. I was framed.”
I raised a calming palm. “Nobody did anything, Tommy. The President canceled his trip.”
He blinked. Sat back. “Nobody told me.”
I rose. “You relax. I don’t think you’ll get anything out of this arrest except maybe a fine. Maybe an overnight stay in lockup. Okay?”
“Really?”
“Really.”
I went out and found Shoppa and Gross sitting at a vacant desk they’d commandeered, having coffee. Shoppa was lighting his latest noxious cigar.
I said, “Did you fellas know the President’s trip had been canceled when you pulled Vallee over?”
They looked blankly at me, and then the same way at each other, and then Shoppa shrugged and waved out his match and said, “Yeah, it came over the radio right around nine.”
Official word hadn’t gone out till around 9:15. Those cops in squad cars with bullhorns had been at maybe 9:20 or 9:25. But law enforcement involved in motorcade security would have been told first. At nine.
I asked perhaps too casually, “Why did you wait till after the trip had been canceled to pull Vallee off the street?”
Shoppa’s expression darkened. “We didn’t pull him over till he made that wrong turn! We couldn’t nab him for no fuckin’ reason, Heller!”
Like that had ever stopped the Chicago police.
Shoppa’s cigar jutted from a corner of his mouth. “What the hell are you implying?”
“Nothing. Just that you were asked to pull Vallee off the street because he’s a danger to the President, and it’s interesting you didn’t get around to that till the President wasn’t in danger anymore.”
Shoppa and Gross just laughed and waved me off, like I was a gnat too tiny to warrant swatting. Then, as if I had vanished in a cloud of pixie dust, they returned to their coffee and conversation, and one of the Secret Service crew cuts tapped me on the shoulder.
“Chief Cain of the SIU is in your office, Nate.” He pointed, as if I might have forgotten the way. “Waiting to talk to you.”
“Thanks.”
I wanted to talk to him, too.
CHAPTER 20
I shut myself in my office with Dick Cain, who was already settled in the visitor’s chair, his feet up on my desk, drinking a bottle of Coke he had wangled from somewhere. The reddish-brown-haired detective was in an olive Ivy League suit and his socks were dark green with black brogans.
“Make yourself at home, why don’t you?” I said, sitting across from him.
He removed his feet, grinned at me, set the Coke on a scrap of paper, then settled back in the chair. His green-eyed gaze behind the black-rimmed Buddy Holly glasses would have been reassuring had it not been for that milky left eye.
“Everything is copasetic,” he said, and gestured with two open palms. “You never shot anybody. Those two white kids never existed. You want the details?”
“Hell no.” I leaned back. “But I would like to know what the fuck is really going on.”
Dick just grinned at me. “What do you mean, what the fuck is really going on?”
“Like-what’s this about you being a Company guy?”
He shrugged. “I’m not a Company guy. You mean CIA? That’s bullshit.”
“Utter bullshit? Complete bullshit? Or just plain bullshit?”
He smirked and batted the air dismissively. “I did some electronic jobs for them when I had my office down in Mexico-during that little hiatus between my Chicago PD time and this sheriff’s office gig. So what? Lots of Chicago cops have done business with those spooks. Taken training, traded favors.”
“Cops like Shoppa and Gross out there?”
“Yeah. Sure. What of it?”
I was shaking my head. “I don’t know, Dick. I don’t know. But some things are starting to make sense to me. A kind of a theory is forming.”
He reached for the Coke, swigged it. “This oughta be good.”
“That kid Thomas Arthur Vallee, sitting in Interview One right now? What if he was supposed to be the patsy today? Put in position to take the fall for the real shooters-the ones that disappeared? Remember them?”
He snorted a laugh. “My understanding is that kid is a screwball. A fag screwball at that.”
“Right. And he’d have been the fag screwball ex-Marine who popped the President, all on his own. Crazy collage in his apartment, lots of big talk about killing JFK, ties to the John Birch Society, perfect.”
“Nate. Really. Stop. You’re embarrassing yourself.”
“Why, is it an accident Vallee and the real printing-plant shooter wore the same fucking shirt today? Is it just a coincidence that the two Chicago cops assigned to bring in the nut who threatened Kennedy waited till the President’s trip got canceled before doing it? I’m supposed to believe your handpicked dicks didn’t intend to follow Vallee to that parking lot, where he was heading to a nonexistent gun sale?”
“And do what?”
“What do you think? Wait for word that JFK had been shot, after which they would bring the schmuck in to fit some early suspect description. Or maybe just force or stage a shoot-out. Didn’t you leave the force ’cause they thought you’d staged a shoot-out, Dick?”
Cain’s expression darkened and he sat forward and clunked the now-empty Coke bottle hard on my desk. “Are you serious about this?”
“I always get serious after I kill a couple of nameless assholes. I’m sensitive that way. Were those soldier boys Company, too, Dick? How about the Cubans? Are they assets? Like Vallee is an asset, only smarter, and up a level or two?”
“You really don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Has the CIA finally had it up to here with those skirt-chasing Kennedy boys? Or is this just rogue elements, still sulki
ng over the Bay of Pigs? Gung ho to get rid of JFK, and set up some schmuck like the Vallee kid to take the fall?”
Now he laughed, or pretended to. He got out his pack of Dunhills-moving carefully, I noted-and lit one up. Sucked smoke in. Let it out.
“Quite a yarn, Nate. Why don’t you go next door and try peddling it to Martineau? Wait … I know! It’s because it’s a pile of unbelievable crap. Why are you telling me all this? You think I’m part of it, this James Bond coup you concocted? I didn’t know you smoked the same cigarettes as your musician pals.”
“I have no idea who the mastermind is,” I admitted. “Hoffa? Marcello? Giancana? Maybe Trafficante, or maybe take one from column A, two from column B. Probably not Johnny Rosselli. Certainly not you. You were a kind of point man, weren’t you?”
He seemed about to rise. “If you’re gonna keep this up, I’ve got better things to do.…”
“You know me, and you know me well. When I turned up as a bodyguard for Tom Ellison, at that money drop, that meant Ellison wasn’t following orders. In fact, he’d pulled in Nate Heller of all people, a guy already connected to some of the players and a snoop to boot. You figured it wise to do something about it. About Ellison, anyway, who was the kind of civilian who could prove to be a problem. Me, an insider with my own dirty laundry, different story. You stayed close to me, showing up at the hotel crime scene, to see if I could be handled, or at least sent off in the wrong direction.”
“I was there, Nate, because the victim had your card in his damn billfold.”
“No he didn’t. I never gave Ellison my card.”
He was leaning far forward now, a vein throbbing in his forehead. “You think I killed Tom Ellison?”
“Well, Mad Sam probably killed Tom. Ice pick. Right height, too. I’d almost pay to see Sam in a bellboy outfit, though, if that’s how he swung it. No, you ordered the hit, or Rosselli, or you two came to the mutual conclusion that Ellison was a loose end. What made him important enough a loose end to tie off, I still can’t figure. But in a plot to kill the President-”
“You really think I orchestrated a plot to kill the president?”
“You’re part of it. But it failed, didn’t it? It fucking failed.”
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