Ask Not

by Max Allan Collins

  He nibbled at some salami. Threatening to kill the President gave him an appetite.

  “Carlos, Bobby would come after you so hard that—”

  “Ha! You don’t know much for a Chicago boy, Nate. Who will da new president be? Lyndon Baines Johnson, dat’s who. And he hate Bobby like poison. He fire that li’l bastard faster den shit.”

  We finished our Scotches. I hoped he didn’t see me shaking. We walked out the back way into the muggy night and Carlos reached a hand up to settle on my shoulder. Why had he told me all that? Jesus, why me? Had he got drunk and let his mouth run to where later he’d sober up and want me dead?

  Standing at the edge of the swamp, where darkness had settled and the moon was touching black unknowable ripples with silver, he said, “Dat Bobby, he still tryin’ to deport my ass, man. And Momo, too. And da shit he give Hoffa, who a good, hardworkin’ man helpin’ hardworkin’ men! Gotta stop, Nate. Gotta damn stop.”

  “This is out of my league, Carlos.”

  His smile was a horrible thing, the kind of smile one of those alligators out there would give you before taking a limb away for lunch.

  “Don’t play humble, man. Ah mean, hell, you part of dat mongoose deal, right?”

  There it was again—mongoose. Only with a capital M, as in Operation Mongoose: the unholy marriage between the CIA and the Mafia. Their joint attempts to assassinate Cuba’s Fidel Castro may have failed, but it had been a marriage nonetheless.

  “I’m just a little tiny cog in that wheel,” I said.

  “Come on, now! You only set up de whole damn deal.”

  Yes, I had officiated at the marriage. Marcello had not been part of the original Miami meeting in ’60, but he and Florida boss Santo Trafficante were thick as, well, thieves. So it was no surprise he was in the know.

  I had been approached by a CIA spook I had history with who asked me to serve as a go-between mutually agreeable to both sides—I had that reputation of being mobbed up, remember.

  Marcello squeezed my shoulder. “Tell me how dat little prick thinks he can get in bed wid us, and then fuck us over. You tell me dat, son.”

  It was something I had never understood myself. Bobby and his brother Jack were both well aware of Operation Mongoose. And yet Bobby had still pursued his dream of being the man who took down the Mafia.

  “You want me to encourage Bobby to back off,” I said, thinking I was finally getting it.

  He didn’t say anything. Just squeezed my shoulder.

  But as he was walking me back toward the bronze Caddy, he said, “We come a long way, Nate, from de back room of de Willswood, ain’t we?”

  So he’d known me all the while.

  He called out to his driver, who was still sitting on the cement stoop, smoking. “Hey, Jack! Take Mr. Heller here on back to de Town and Country, and send a couple boys back. Ah’m gonna camp out here tonight.”

  I said, “I’m stayin’ at the Roosevelt, remember?”

  Marcello gave me the alligator grin again. “Yeah, yeah, ah know. But Jack here is a hell of a barber. He got his own barber chair back at the motel and everything.”

  Jack joined us and Carlos dug some bills out of his pocket and pressed them into his driver’s hand. “You take Nate here on back, and give him a nice close shave. He look like he could use one.”

  The Little Man was waving from the porch as we drove off.

  We hadn’t gone very far when I sat forward from the back and said, “No offense, Jack, but I’m gonna skip the shave. You thank Carlos for me anyway. Just take me to the Roosevelt.”

  Jack nodded. “Sure thing.”

  Since I was carrying a message for Marcello, I figured Jack probably wouldn’t have pulled anything, once he got me in that barber chair. Not unless Uncle Carlos had figured to make me the message.

  And on the ride back, Jack didn’t try anything, just dropped me off with a friendly nod out front of the Roosevelt Hotel on Baronne near the French Quarter, home of big boobs and tight pussy.

  I’m sure Uncle Carlos’s personal barber would have done a nice job for me. I just figured I’d had a close enough shave today already.

  CHAPTER

  3

  September 1964

  The well-dressed queue down Walton Street, laughing, chatting couples and little groups of affluent-looking men, extended half a block. Not unusual outside the Playboy Club at nine P.M., and had this been a Friday or Saturday, not Tuesday, they’d have been standing four abreast. Their goal was the colorful entryway that engulfed the sidewalk, a horizontal box of modern art–inspired yellow, blue, and green panels, and larger off-white ones with the familiar bunny-head-on-black symbol. The cool, slightly breezy evening was pleasant enough to wait out in, and the heady charge of being part of the In Crowd was palpable, as cigarette smoke trailed skyward like lazy, unimpressed ghosts.

  I edged on by—I didn’t have to wait. As they say, I knew Hefner “when.” The A-1 had been on retainer with Playboy since 1955, investigating threats, scams, and lawsuits, and I’d long been part of Hef’s inner circle. So I had a free membership and a permanent reservation anywhere in the club.

  The lobby at once established a subdued atmosphere of low-key lighting, dark paneling, and modern furnishings, like a bachelor pad got out of hand. Circulating, greeting club members and their guests, was a small battalion of Bunnies, as the waitresses in their skimpy, satiny costumes were called.

  Bunny Teddi took my Burberry—no hat: this private eye swore off snap-brims when Jack Kennedy took office—and deposited it at the coat check counter. At the sign-in desk, I requested that Bunny Cheryl not add my name placard to the wall display of key holders in attendance. The name of the man I was meeting was absent, as well.

  It would be.

  From the lobby, abuzz with well-dressed patrons and helpful underdressed Bunnies, walk-ins were shuffled one flight down to the Playmate Bar. This pleasant purgatory, with its endless bar, countless black high-backed stools, and walls of backlit nude pinup photos, was overseen by half a dozen bartenders and as many Bunnies. Some of the latter worked 26 tables, the same dice game that B-girls in Chicago bars had played with suckers since the Fire.

  Those who called ahead were sent one flight up to the Living Room, a dining room with piano bar, legendary for its remarkable buck-and-a-half buffet. For a more secluded atmosphere and dining that wasn’t a buck-fifty, the VIP Room was up another flight. Showrooms featuring the likes of Ella and Sammy took up the top two floors, but my stop was the VIP Room, where After Six apparently had the clothing concession, not counting those skimpy Bunny costumes. My dark-blue Hanover Hall herringbone would just have to do.

  The VIP Room was the only place in the Playboy Club where you could find some privacy—a dimly lit, soundproofed space with flickery candles in orange glasses that made the LeRoy Neiman paintings on the walls seem even more expressionistic. A Negro jazz trio managed never to drown out the tinkle of ice cubes and the laughter-spiked conversation.

  My friend Edward “Shep” Shepherd—if a high-level spook could be considered anybody’s friend—had managed somehow to put an empty booth on his either side, despite the crowd waiting down on Walton Street, not to mention those damned souls suffering the attention of Bunnies in the Playmate Bar.

  Of course, most of those below weren’t VIPs, while Shep certainly looked the part in his navy Brooks Brothers with his silk tie of wide black stripes and narrow red ones. What did CIA security chiefs make a year, anyway? Or was that Top Secret?

  Shep was studying the menu like it was a U-2 photograph of a Soviet missile installation. He reminded me of a middle-aged version of Robert Morse from How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, sporting a similar sly, gap-toothed grin and twinkle in those dark-blue eyes. Those eyes were getting pouchy now, the blond of his hair getting lost in the gray. He was, as usual, drinking a Gibson, the pickled onion gone, always an immediate casualty with Shep.

  Shep had done me a favor, a dozen years back, whe
n I first butted heads with what they were now calling the Company. Two years ago he had done me no favors by enlisting my help in initiating Operation Mongoose, calling upon my patriotism. Whenever somebody tries to appeal to your patriotism, put one hand over your wallet and the other hand over your family jewels.

  “Nate, what a singular pleasure,” he said, a fluid trace of the South in his lilting drawl. He gestured to the empty side of the booth. “I’m so very pleased about this coincidence.”

  I slid in opposite him just as the jazz combo was starting up a swingy “Charade.” The coincidence he mentioned was that I had called him on Sunday hoping to come out to D.C. and see him. But he had said that “coincidentally” he was going to be in Chicago “the Tuesday after Labor Day.” We could get together then, if I pleased.

  I pleased.

  Like most detectives, I have an extremely low opinion of coincidences. I might have felt better about this one if I could have inquired about what non-Heller business brought him to town. But unless he were to offer up the information, a CIA agent like Shep is not someone you ask that kind of question. Nor could I ask him, Am I the reason you are in Chicago?

  His eyes were sleepy as his smile split his face. “How the hell is that boy of yours? Sam? Is he a senior this year? My God, the time flies.”

  “Actually he’s a junior. He spent most of August with me. Put him on a plane home on Sunday. He was back in school today.”

  “Such a fine young man.”

  I didn’t remember Shep ever meeting Sam, but I didn’t mention that.

  “And your son?” I asked. “Your daughter? Still in college?”

  “Bradley has another year, Susan graduated. She’s working at a Manhattan bank. She’s engaged to a fine boy in pre-law. Won’t hurt her to have a little real-world experience before providin’ me with some grandchildren.”

  Bunny Vicki, as part of her real-world experience, took my order for a gimlet. Those damn satiny costumes were just ridiculous, bunny ears, bunny tail; and I knew from several Bunnies I’d dated that even the best endowed of them had to stuff their bras to create that cleavage. The effect of long legs was phony, too, just the high-on-the-hip cut of the skimpy garment. What a crock. Magnificent.

  “Fitting we should talk about our kids,” I said.

  Shep’s eyebrows raised as he sipped his current Gibson. “How is that, Nate?”

  I told him about the hit-and-run incident after the Beatles concert, and that my glimpse of the driver convinced me I’d recognized him. This I did to a backdrop of the jazz combo noodling on “Call Me Irresponsible.”

  Shep, who’d listened intently behind a furrowed-brow expression, asked, “Did you report this?”

  “I’m reporting it to you.”

  “So the police know nothing of it.”

  “No.”

  “What about Martineau, at the Secret Service?”

  “No.”

  “It was one of the Cubans, though.”

  “I’m not absolutely sure. I was busy at the time, getting my ass sideswiped. Pretty damn sure, though.”

  “Which Cuban?”

  “Ramon Rodriguez. According to the ID he had on him last year, anyway. I was in on the interrogation. He and his pal Victor Gonzales said they were Cuban exiles from Florida up to look at investing in real estate here in Chicago. According to them, their landlady must have been crazy, saying they had high-power rifles in their room, with the President’s motorcade route marked on maps and in a newspaper.”

  Shep had stopped sipping his Gibson; he didn’t take things much more seriously than that. His hands were folded before him like a minister listening patiently to a parishioner’s problems.

  “I understand the Secret Service elected not to hold them,” Shep said.

  “And isn’t that odd?”

  “Why, were any rifles found? Or that map and the newspaper?”

  “No. But once the President canceled his trip to Chicago, the two suspects were released. Just flat-out fucking sprung.”

  He fluttered his eyelashes like a modest Southern miss. “I don’t see what that has to do with me, and, uh … my resources.”

  I leaned forward. Spoke very softly. “Shep, don’t shit a shitter. Consider who it is you’re talking to.”

  I didn’t have to say it. The Company and Cuban exile factions had been in league long before the Bay of Pigs fiasco and well after. The exiles, like the Mob, were part of Operation Mongoose and the plot to assassinate Castro.

  As was I, goddamnit.

  “I helped you people out,” I said. My tone was casual, conversational, befitting the setting; but he could hear the edge. “I wish to hell I hadn’t, but I did. Now I am one of the handful outside of your rarefied circles who knows for a certainty that a conspiracy took down the President.”

  “Jesus, Nate,” he whispered.

  Bunny Vicki arrived with my gimlet and another Gibson for Shep. She did the classic Bunny dip as she served them; she was a lovely blonde of maybe twenty-three and for a night with her, you would gladly kick your grandmother’s teeth out. And yet right now I couldn’t have cared less.

  When she was gone, I said, “But I haven’t done anything about it. I didn’t survive all these years in Chicago not knowing when to back off. If Uncle Sam wants the world to think a lone nut pulled off that hit, I can look the other way. Just don’t tell me it’s patriotism.”

  Very quietly he said, “I’m sorry, Nate, but it is patriotism. Suppose this thing were traced back to Castro? You and I both know the Beard had a perfectly good motive for this terrible thing.”

  Yes he did. Hadn’t the Kennedy administration tried repeatedly to kill him?

  “And how,” Shep continued softly, “do you suppose the public would have reacted to their beloved President bein’ killed by a Commie dictator just ninety miles from our shore?”

  I said nothing.

  “President Johnson, he wasn’t about to risk nuclear war, nuclear annihilation. Director Hoover submitted evidence indicating this Oswald character was a pinko nut from way back, and from everything I understand, the Warren Commission will be reaching that same conclusion.”

  Rubber-stamping it was more like it.

  I sipped the gimlet. “Say, isn’t your old boss Allen Dulles on that ‘blue-ribbon’ commission? Who was fired by Jack Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs screwup? Where was he on November 22, 1963?”

  “Careful, Nate.…”

  “I’m trying to be. I did my best to save Jack Kennedy’s life last November, and a hell of a lot of good it did him or me. I’m on to more important matters.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as, are you people trying to kill me, Shep?”

  “No!” He glanced around at the other diners, knowing his voice had jumped up over the jazz and the chatter. Much softer but with equal force, he said, “Hell no.”

  “Why should I believe you?”

  He frowned, and actually looked hurt. “Why ask me, if you’re not prepared to believe me? You think you’ve become a loose end, is that it? Well, I can assure you the Company doesn’t view you that way. We view you as an asset, and a valuable one.”

  “Is this where I say, ‘Gee whiz, thanks’?”

  “No. But I understand your … bitterness. Your boy might well have been killed by that car.”

  “I won’t have my son put in harm’s way, Shep. I will not fucking have it. I can take care of myself, but he’s just a boy. Do I have to tell you? You’re a father. How far would you go if a child of yours was threatened or … worse?”

  He drew in a breath, let it out slowly. “No, you don’t have to tell me. But I would ask you a favor.” He sat forward. “Should another attempt be made, don’t assume the worst about me and the Company. Report it to me. I will try to help.”

  “Is that right?”

  “I will, Nate. I swear to you. What more can I say?”

  “Plenty.”

  He took a quick sip of the Gibson, then his drawl disappeared
into a more rushed, if hushed, cadence. “It’s possible rogue elements were involved in this awful thing. Don’t blame the Company itself, man. Christ, I would like to root those elements out myself.”

  “My God, but I would like to believe you.”

  He sighed. Actually fucking sighed. “The nature of the world, Nate, is that you can’t be sure. The business of spycraft is lying, and I could be lying to you right now.”

  “Your brand of reassurance lands on the soft-sell side, I’d say.”

  “Nate, I’m just asking you not to assume it’s us, if this should happen again. And if it should happen again, let me know. I will try to help. And frankly … and it pains me to say it…”

  “Say it.”

  He shrugged just a little. “If the Company wants you dead, Nate, you’re going to be dead. Hell, if they want me dead, so am I. So you might as well trust me, Nate. There really is no other option.”

  The jazz combo was playing variations on “Once in a Lifetime.”

  “Fine,” I said. “I get that. I’m a big boy. But, Shep?”

  “Yes?”

  “If I see that Cuban again, I’m going to kill him.”

  Another little shrug. “Fair enough.… Shall I wave that little cottontail over and order us dinner? I’m going to have red meat tonight, and screw my doctor and his damn cholesterol.”

  What the hell. I let Uncle Sam buy me a decent meal.

  That, and the words he’d given me, was the best I could hope for out of Shep tonight. For what it was worth, I believed him. He was as close to a decent man as I knew in that foul line of work.

  And, anyway, the CIA wasn’t the only group that might have sent someone to tie off a loose end named Nathan Heller.

  * * *

  Chasen’s on a Saturday night could be tough to get into. But Johnny Rosselli wouldn’t have had any trouble getting a reservation at the venerable West Hollywood eatery.

  Tonight he sat in a curved, tufted-leather-upholstered booth entertaining a beautiful blonde starlet in what was apparently a one-sided conversation. She didn’t have to talk, not in a black low-cut gown like that, with natural cleavage those Bunnies back home might envy.