by Joe Corso
Frustrated, Red told them, “Since you insist on not charging me, I want all of you to bring your ladies with you when you come. I’ll have something special for your wives, to repay you for your generosity.”
Frank beamed and flashed his pearly white teeth. “You got a deal, Red. Here’s my private number. Call me when you have a date set up and we’ll be there.”
CHAPTER 32
Fat Charlie and Lefty were positioned across the street from Nixon’s office building. Petey D and Ziggy kept their eye on the Nixon home and Moose kept watch over all of them. This had been their regular routine for the past few months. Moose figured that since there had been no sign of Reynolds for the past few months, it meant that Reynolds had no interest in going after Nixon at home or at work. Moose telephoned Red and discussed the situation with him. He told Red what he thought and Red agreed with him. “I think you’re right; the most logical thing for Reynolds to do is to try to kill Nixon while he gives his speech at Madison Square Garden on July twenty-eighth and not at his home or office. Reynolds must know that we have men stationed near Nixon’s home, or else he would have made an attempt on his life by now. You know, Moose, we never saw another one of Reynolds’ agents again after the confrontation you guys had with them in front of Nixon’s office building.”
To add to Reynolds’ frustration, Nixon messed up his plans to kill him when he canceled the fund raising speech he was scheduled to give in April and instead rescheduled it for the Republican convention on Saturday, July twenty-eighth at Madison Square Garden. Everyone took a breather and relaxed when they discovered that Nixon had rescheduled his speech. Since they were standing down, Tony took back control of the Eagle’s Lair, and Joey Bones and Piss Clam went back to the Starlight Club until the morning of July twenty-eighth.
Time passed slowly, especially for a woman with a lifestyle like Marilyn’s. Although she loved being with Red, she missed Nevada, especially the scenery and outdoor lifestyle the Cal Neva Lodge offered her. She’d been thinking of going there for quite a while now. Especially since Red told her he couldn’t leave until the Nixon speech was given. Marilyn had expected to leave in April when Nixon was scheduled to give his speech. When he canceled his speech, the weeks and months seemed to drag by and she became moody and depressed. She was going stir crazy. Finally, she told Red, “I can’t take hanging around like this any longer. I’m leaving for Cal Neva tomorrow. If you want, you can meet me there.” Marilyn’s mood changed and she suddenly became cold.
Red understood this was the way the woman was. She experienced severe mood swings. “Sure, you can go. I’m not your keeper; it’s just that I’m worried about you and I don’t want you to get hurt. Look, I’ll have Joey Bones go with you when you leave. He’ll act as your bodyguard.” Marilyn started to protest, but Red stopped her. “It’s done, Marilyn. Joey Bones is going with you and that’s final. There’s no further discussion about this. I’ll call my travel agent and pick up two first-class tickets for you and Joey. As soon as Nixon gives his speech and I know he’s safe, I’ll fly out and meet you there. Deal?”
Marilyn lifted her head and smiled that dazzling smile of hers. “Deal,” she said, putting her hand out for him to shake.
Red looked at her hand and laughed. “I don’t want your hand, sweetheart, I want your heart.” He took her hand, which he still held, and pulled her close to him. He kissed her hard on her full, lush lips. She melted into his arms and kissed him back.
When they separated from their embrace, she gave him a mischievous look and said to him, “I think we have a little time for a quick pick-me-upper. Don’t you agree?” She smiled and looked over her shoulder at him as she took him by the hand and led him up the stairs to her room and then closed the door behind them.
Red called the Cal Neva Lodge and asked for Frank Sinatra. “Whom shall I say is calling?” someone asked.
“Tell him Mr. Blue is calling.” Red had told Frank that if he called him, he’d be calling as “Mr. Blue.”
Frank picked up the phone. “Hi, Mr. Blue. What can I do for you?”
“Your lady friend and one of my pals are flying in to LAX tomorrow at eleven a.m. Could you have someone pick them up?”
Frank loved these games. “Sure, Mr. Blue. I’ll have a car waiting for them outside the airport with someone holding a sign with the name ‘Mr. Blue’ on it.”
“Sounds good, Frank. Thanks. I’ll fly out on Sunday, the day after the Republican Convention. See you then.”
Red wasn’t taking any chances of something happening to the boys, so he had them stay overnight at a hotel recommended by Frankie Carbo, which was a stone’s throw from the Garden. Red and his men arrived at the Garden at 7 a.m. that morning. Bubbles the Clown was waiting for them in Carbo’s office. Bubbles applied the make-up, transforming Piss Clam into an old man. When it was completed, Tony led the two men to the Eagle’s Lair and made sure everything was properly set up and ready for tonight’s event. Tony asked Piss Clam a few important questions concerning the equipment he would be using to make sure that he hadn’t forgotten anything. Satisfied that Piss Clam knew what to do, Tony went down to Carbo’s office. He couldn’t help noticing that some of Carbo’s men were disguised, working on the stage and along the aisles. Red tried to put himself into Reynolds’ mind. What would he do? And how would he do it? When? When would be a good time to make his move? It wouldn’t be early because that wouldn’t make any sense. If he had a man come early, his man would have to wait the entire day and during that time, there was always the chance he could be discovered. No, it would happen later. The convention was scheduled to start at 7 p.m. and Nixon was scheduled to speak at 9 p.m. So what would be a good time for a shooter to set up his weapon? Red would have two men doing the job, he thought to himself. One as a spotter and the other as the shooter. Okay, two men, then, but what time? Well, Piss Clam and Shooter would be in position at 7 a.m. because they couldn’t take any chances that the shooters would come early instead of later. It had to be later, though.
Piss Clam and Shooter stayed in the Eagle’s Lair all day long, leaving only for bathroom breaks. One of them always remained in the camera room while the other left to answer nature’s call. Red showed up at 10 a.m. and met Carbo in his office. “I’m going to stay here, if it’s all right with you.”
“Sure, I wouldn’t expect anything less. I knew you’d want to be here for the action, so make yourself at home.”
The day passed slowly and the boys were getting jittery. They jumped at every noise they heard, whether real or imagined. At 6 p.m., two men walked into the Garden dressed as workers carrying large toolboxes. Uniformed security personnel stopped them and asked to see their identification. The men showed the proper identification, but then they were asked to open their toolboxes. They did as they were told and showed that the toolboxes only contained the tools of their trade: hammer, pliers, wrenches, and the odd assortment of tools carried by all workers and nothing more. Satisfied, security told them to close their toolboxes and they allowed the workers in. But instead of reporting to the foreman in charge of the carpenters, they walked silently and unnoticed up the back stairs, carrying the two large toolboxes. They finally reached the top level facing the short flight of stairs that led to the Eagle’s Lair. They put the toolboxes down and opened them. Then they removed the top shelves. The first man reached into his toolbox and slid his hands along the bottom, feeling for the two small openings on either end of the base. Finding them, he slipped his forefingers into the openings and pulled upward. The base of the toolbox lifted out, revealing a secret compartment that held a Springfield M14 Automatic Rifle known universally as the "M1 Garand. One of the men reached into the box, took out the parts to the gun, and placed them neatly, almost reverently, in a neat formation beside the toolbox. When all the parts were out of the box, one of the men began piecing the rifle together. His partner went through the same procedure with his toolbox. He removed the bottom and put it aside. He reached in and took ou
t a 3 − 9x40 Super Scope, which he handed to his partner. Then, he removed a standard tri-pod that had seen much use during the Korean War. The other man picked up the rifle and placed it in a dark corner away from the window. He did the same thing with the tri-pod. Satisfied that they were ready to begin, they walked up to the door and stopped. They looked at one another, making sure they were ready, and removed silenced automatics from belt holsters and knocked on the door.
CHAPTER 33
Piss Clam pulled out his gun. He had one in the tube. His gun was hot and he expected he’d be using it soon. Piss Clam tapped gently on the closet door as a ready signal to Shooter. Shooter heard the knock. He was situated behind the door with his gun out and ready for action. Like Piss Clam, his gun was hot. The adrenaline pumping through their veins caused their hearts to pump like jack hammers in anticipation of what was about to happen. They knew it was fight or flight time and they were ready for a fight.
Early that morning, Tarzan had taken Bubbles, the Barnum and Bailey clown, to the Garden. His job this morning was to make up Piss Clam to look like an old man. He met Piss Clam in Carbo’s office and told him to sit down on Carbo’s desk chair, which he pulled from behind the desk and pushed it to the center of the room so he had more room to work. This was going to take a while . . . Bubbles walked around Piss Clam, studying his facial structure from every angle. He abruptly stopped circling and looked directly at Piss Clam. Satisfied with what he saw, he placed his make-up case on the desk and opened it. It was as if Bubbles was applying paint to a canvas and he took his time carefully applying the make-up layer by layer on Piss Clam’ face. He stopped every so often to check his work. Pleased with how it was coming, he continued working with artistic perfection until the two-hour job was finally finished. When Piss Clam turned around to face the boys, they were looking at an old man. No one could tell that he wasn’t old; that’s how good Bubbles’ job was. All of the circus went to Bubbles for their make-up before performing their specialty acts in one of the circus’ three rings. It was no surprise to anyone that when Bubbles finished, Piss Clam had aged forty years. Bubbles had one more thing to show Piss Clam before he could say that he was finished, and that was how to stand properly. Bubbles showed him how he must stand in order to complete the illusion that he was an old man. “Old men stoop when they stand. Look at me and do the same.” Bubbles stooped his shoulders and walked slowly with a hunched over gait. Piss Clam watched him and when he got up from his chair, he hunched over and stooped the way Bubbles showed him and he walked like an old man would. “When you talk, talk slowly with a rasp. You have to sound old as well as look old, so don’t forget it.”
Piss Clam was in the Eagle’s Lair, working behind the camera and filming the convention, when he heard the knock. He got up from his chair and whispered to Shooter, “Get ready.” And he opened the door. When the old man lifted his head, he was staring down the barrel of two silenced guns. He put his arms up. “Please don’t shoot me. I’m an old man and I don’t have much money, but you can have it,” Piss Clam told them, feigning fright. Piss Clam suddenly pressed his hands to his chest and said, “It’s my heart. The excitement. My pills. I have to get my pills.” The two men lowered their guns, thinking they wouldn’t have to use their guns because if they got lucky, this old man might just die of a heart attack and save them the trouble of killing him. Death by natural causes was better than a bullet that could be traced back to them through ballistics. Piss Clam clutched his heart and dropped to one knee as an excuse to reach under his sweater for the gun resting in the nape of his back. One of the men grabbed him under the arm and shoved him hard against the wall, leaving a clear line of sight for Shooter to plug the two goons. Piss Clam, under the pretext of struggling to get to his knees, pulled his gun out from behind him and both he and Shooter opened up, firing their weapons at these guys at the same time, knocking both men off of their feet. But as one of the men fell, his trigger finger tightened against the trigger and he fired his gun as a reflex after being shot. The bullet hit Piss Clam square in the chest. It felt like he was hit by a freight train. The two would-be assassins were dead when they hit the ground. Piss Clam choked as he lay there holding his chest, trying to stop the blood from flowing copiously on the green carpet by the camera. The gunshots echoed throughout the stadium. Red, Frankie Carbo, and a security team heard the shots from where they were standing and rushed up the stairs and straight to the Eagle’s Lair.
Red burst into the room with Carbo close behind. He found Shooter kneeling over Piss Clam, pressing a towel into the wound, trying hard to stop his bleeding. Red thought to himself. Oh no! Not again. Then he took control. “Quick, is there a phone in here?”
Tony, being slower than the others, had just entered the room. He heard the question and he answered Red. “There’s a phone on the wall over by the closet.”
Red picked up the phone, dialed the operator, and asked her to send an ambulance. “There’s been a shooting at Madison Square Garden up in the camera area. We need a medic here right away. The man is badly wounded and could die.” Red turned to Shooter. “Quickly, take the makeup off of him. Clean him up. We’ll tell the police he was working the camera when these guys broke in. He attempted to prevent them from assassinating Nixon and they tried to kill him.” He bent down, put his arm under Piss Clam’ neck, and picked him up a few inches so he could speak to him. “Piss Clam, can you hear me?” Red got a slow labored nod from Piss Clam. “Good. Now listen carefully. You must remember what I’m telling you. I know it’s difficult, but try your best to remember. You were working the camera when someone knocked on the door. Two men rushed in and started shooting and you don’t remember anything because you were hit right away. You got that?”
“Yes B-b-boss,” came a weak reply.
“Good. Shooter, get out of here now. I’ll finish cleaning Piss Clam’ face.” Red hurriedly cleaned the make-up off Piss Clam’ face while Tony did his best to clean Piss Clam’ wound. He pressed a rag into the wound and placed tape over it, which effectively stopped the bleeding. The main thing was to stop the blood loss and Tony did that. They couldn’t tell if the bullet was still in Piss Clam’ body or if it had passed clean through him. Bubbles came into the room and told Red to move over. He reached into his trouser pocket, took a tube of make-up remover out of his pocket, and took over cleaning the rest of the make-up off Piss Clam’ face. After doing all he could, Red told Carbo, I’m heading to your office. I can’t be seen here when the police arrive. I’m supposed to be dead.” He stopped Carbo on the stairs. “Look Frankie, if it’s possible, I want to be in the ambulance with Piss Clam when it leaves for the hospital. If they won’t let me, I’m going to the hospital one way or another.”
Carbo told him. “Relax. Forget about going in the ambulance. They won’t let you ride with them; they’ll be too busy and you’ll only be in the way. They’ll rush him to St. Vincent’s Hospital, but don’t worry, it’s just down the Avenue. I’ll take you there myself.”
St. Vincent’s Hospital was bustling with activity. It was Saturday night and the emergency room was always crowded on the weekend. This weekend was no different. It was jammed full of people with all sorts of injuries waiting to be seen by a doctor. Red and Frankie Carbo walked into the emergency room and they waited for a few minutes while the receptionist finished with the person in front of them. When she was finished, she looked at the anxious faces on the men staring at her and asked how she could help them. Red asked her if she knew how the man who was just brought in with a gunshot wound was doing. She told him that the doctors had him in surgery and were operating on him. While they waited for someone to give them an update on how Piss Clam was doing, Trenchie and Tarzan walked in.
“Bubbles called and told us what happened. How’s he doing, boss?”
“He’s in surgery. It’ll be a while before we know anything. I’m glad you guys came down here. I don’t want another Jimmy the Hat happening again to me.” Red turned to Carbo. “This is
gonna take a while, Frankie. Why don’t you head back to the Garden? I’m sure you’re needed there.”
“You’re right, but I don’t give a shit about that. Two gunmen come into my arena, looking to kill Richard Nixon and your man stopped them. So I think the guy who prevented Nixon’s assassination deserves a little of my time. I’m staying right here until we find out how he’s doing.” The four men waited two hours before a doctor walked through the doors to give them an update on how the operation went, and how Piss Clam was doing. Red looked at the doctor’s nametag. It read “Dr. Silverstein.” He held his breath, waiting for him to give him the news that Piss Clam passed away. Red was almost afraid to ask if the operation was successful, but the doctor pre-empted him.
“I’ve got some good news for you. We successfully removed the bullet, but the patient lost quite a bit of blood. We replaced the blood he lost with transfusions. We repaired the damage to the shoulder and then we sewed up the wound. The bullet fortunately didn’t hit any major organs or bones in his shoulder. He’s very weak now, but I expect him to recover completely. We have to be careful of an infection, so we’ll keep the wound clean and give him plenty of antibiotics. We’ll keep him here a few days while we monitor his recovery.”
“Can we see him now?”
“Sure! Come with me and I’ll take you to see him, but please, only for a minute. He’s pretty tired right now.” Dr. Silverstein took them down a long corridor where a sign above a set of swinging doors read, “Emergency Recovery Room.” They walked through the doors and followed the doctor as he led them to a private room. They entered the room and the doctor pulled the curtain that surrounded the bed aside. Piss Clam had a drip hanging from a metal rod with fluid in a tube running into a vein in his arm. His skin was pasty white and all the color seemed to have been drained from him. While Piss Clam appeared to be asleep, he either heard them enter, or he sensed them in the room because he opened his eyes and smiled weakly. “Hi, Red. Hi, fellas.”