Читать книгу The Day John Fitzgerald Kennedy Past - Welby Thomas Cox Jr. - Страница 14

He made it to the Camp Street address in ample time, parked a couple of blocks from the office and walked back as though he was going to work. He was casually dressed in slacks and sport shirt, but still did not fit-in.

There was an elderly woman beggar, a seemingly disoriented outcast, a forgotten someone who had slipped through the cracks. Obviously disturbed she wore a heavy winter coat in eighty degree sticky, muggy weather. It had a white fur hood and she was wearing black galoshes and was pulling a grocery cart with all her precious and worldly worth.

It seemed odd to be in this warehouse section, few people here to panhandle, no restaurants or restraints or coffee houses for the easiest touches, the tourist.

Flynt watched her adjust her pace to make certain no one was behind her, moving along in a cautious manner and stopped in front of 544, using her free arm to wave people on as you might do if you had a flat on your car and were attempting to get to the emergency lane...or was it that she simply wanted a better look at them?

Flynt’s sinister wit caused him to enjoy the elderly woman’s paranoid action. Perhaps Guy Banister had hired her as the door-woman into his three story building long overdue for some new siding and paint.

Motels for half-a-buck a night, coffee roast plants, cotton and tobacco warehouses, 544 continued to be labeled the Stevedores and Longshoremen’s Hall. Banister was a smart guy; this location was the perfect site for his operation and the cast of characters who slipped in and out of the shadows with few sightings of a police cruiser.

Flynt crossed the street, ditched his smoke and went into the building handing to old woman a five spot which she fingered while casting Ray Ray a cautious look, and then a smile revealing no teeth.

Banister's office was on the second floor. He was a sixty-something tough guy look of a former cop. Twenty years with the FBI, after which he spent some time as an Assistant to the Police Chief in Baton Rouge but that lasted less than a year after it was clear to all that he was a second story operative. He went to work for Thomas Gillen who had a quasi-insurance and investigative concern and began investigating fraudulent insurance claims...stolen autos, house fires and all manner of phony health claims.

Guy loved working for Gillen who had been the former black-bag man for Governor Huey Long and any one he did not know wasn't worth knowing. He taught Guy a few tricks of the insurance fraud game and gave Guy a wide space to run his own scam connected to his favorite pastime, gun running and munitions.

Bannister waved a bottle of Old Frankfort at Flynt who shot him three fingers indicating the size of the shot. They clicked the stained cups and smiled on recognition of latter day incursion which permitted obscured use of firearms and bonus money for a kill with metals.

"You drink my whiskey, but won't tell me where you're staying and why you are here...just slip into town...wham-bam-thank-you-mam."

"I tried to call Guy but got the strange one, so

I just hung up...just in on a quick turn-around."

"I smell money." he laughed.

"Could be...if it goes down."

"Where you off to?"

"The Training Center in Virginia."

"You lead a fabled life Mick, holding the hand of pampered youth and teaching them to cut the juggler vein." They laughed.

"Some sweep floors, I kiss ass." Mick said.

"Maybe, but if you ask me, the last ass kicking you participating in, where you risked your life because of this piece of shit President. We need some answers for that action. First he does all he can to jack these exiles off with promises of training, weapons, munitions and explosives, in addition to top leadership support and most important...air cover for the landing at Blue Beach. Then he makes the movement pay. Now he gets the fucking FBI raiding our guerrilla bases, seizing all the weapons we paid for...and now the goddamn government is selling them again. Jack Kennedy went to work on his old man Joe's rape and pillage techniques which my old partner Thomas Gillen knew so well. He told me this was the most ruthless, lying, backstabbing, worthless son-of-a-bitch that God ever created."

"Have another hit Guy, and cool down before you have the big one."

"Seriously Mick, it’s like a guy goes to a police auction for stolen goods, buys an oversized bike for his kid to grow into and that night the cops show up, seize the bike and arrest the guy for stolen goods, place his kids in a foster home that is operated by a lesbian and her faggot partner and, his poor wife becomes a whore and begins selling her privates, that’s how fucking crazy this guy is. And, worst of all the congress, federal judges and prosecutors have adopted the same fucked-up mentality."

“We definitely have entered the twilight zone in this country." Flynt said.

"I promise you in fifty-years you will not recognize this country. We will have moved into a Cast-Society where the rich get richer and the blacks will own all the country south and west of Wall Street. That is, all those that are not in prison, by then we will have more prisoners and more prisons than all the other nations of the world combined...at least a quarter of a million inmates costing the taxpayers sixty grand per year.

Most of the citizens arrested for conspiracy and for "what is on their minds...”mark my words this country will make the Russians, the Chinese and Attila-the-Fuckin’-Hun look like baby sitters. This country is on a slippery slope, it doesn't begin to look like what the founders imagined, and the Constitution is nothing more than ass wipe, the federal judges in this country thumb their noses at it.

You see that old woman out front...once she had a husband, kids, lived in a lovely home on a tree-lined street in Mobile. Her husband was a vet of Vietnam. He got sick over-night with the shits and high fever. Didn't puke mind you, the poor bastard spit across the room, a vile yellow vomit...blistering hot poison...died in two days.

It was Agent Orange; the United States had sprayed the foliage with chemicals banned around the world. The government denied responsibility, would not bury this man who had given his life for this country. So the old lady began to drink and turn a few tricks to stay alive... and then some fat-assed black bitch who spoke jive bull shit waddled in and took her kids.

From then on Mick she was treated for DT’s every Monday morning. No coffee in the world strong enough to mitigate this hang-over or obscure the trauma of a broken heart."

"Sure makes you wonder where it all went wrong?"

"I let her hang out, leave the back door to the warehouse for her to sleep and use the toilet. It breaks my heart to go back there; she has two faded photos of her kids on the pallet. She collects enough around here for a little food and a quart of Mogen David. I've offered her a cot and some clean clothes but she starts yelling and accuses me of wanting to rape her.

I hold this administration responsible for the degradation and the pain, while they sip Long Island Tea at Hyannis Port and watch the gulls soar and dive into the Blue-Green Atlantic. Despising this old woman as Jacquelyn whispers in his ear,“the old bitch is nothing more than a couturiere displaying the latest fashion."

It cracks Mick up and he laughs so hard that he vomits into the trash can, dam it, just a waste of good whiskey.

“Guy, you're killing me...but I love it...you should write a book, with no sugar coating, say it like it really is." He took a sip of Kentucky bourbon and a little branch water with a lemon twist to cleanse his mouth, and continued.

"Look Guy, I don't have a lot of time, you know why I'm here?"

"I've tried to tell your people... things are tight down here, the Feds are busting our balls...not just mine but every gun runner across the south."

"Come on Guy I know you have more stash than the Cuban army."

"Mick, you've got to understand, training is my main gig. Right now and through the summer, I've got a bunch of eastern money, and I have to deliver."

"Hey, you know...you're my go to guy...but look, I understand." Flynt said.

"I might be able to help you out because we go so far back, but there will be a premium, and you know I wouldn't do shit for the CIA and there is no credit...they've fucked me for the last time. I need cash up-front, monthly, with a healthy pension. How many men you need?"

"At least fifty and I need a pilot with a light plane, King Aire maybe."

"I got Ferre in the back."

"Come on Guy, you know I can't stand that Fag." "Calm down Mick."

"Not him, I mean it."

"Listen to me Mick. You have to over-look the guy’s kinky ways. That is an act to disguise his pain and the depression because he is dying man, of an incurable cancer. Most of all is the fact that he is the most dependable pilot that you will ever meet and the most capable son-of-a-bitch I have ever seen, and he has the best contacts in aviation. You may not believe this but his cash cow is Onassis. Yeh, that Greek bastard comes down here all the time and Ferre' goes out to his yacht and cooks Cajun meals for Onassis and his guest. Ferre' always comes home with a satchel of dough...you know he has been hurt in Cuba too." Guy said.

"Hell from what I hear Bobby Kennedy has Onassis by the nuts." Flynt said.

"How did that happen?"

"True story, surprised you haven't heard it. Before the Kennedy's took over in Washington, Onassis bought a fleet of tankers, with a contract to bring oil, coffee, rice and smack destined for the major ports. The paperwork had been resolved but the license had not been released. Bobby and Onassis had rapped at some function and Onassis had a snoot full and gave Bobby what for, and Bobby trashed the deal for the license the next day, citing security risk and Onassis associations with known felons.

Onassis went haywire and threatened to get revenge with "Bugs Bunny"...jokingly saying that he was sending the bunny some carrots...does di bunny need something to chew."

Guy laughed at the story.

"And so Onassis takes a big hit and no one can move Bobby off the dime. Cost Onassis millions and he has hated the Kennedy family ever since."

Banister took out a new fifth of Old Frankfort. Flynt had warmed to the taste of the cheap Kentucky product...offering his cup.

"We're taking munitions, weapons and explosives to a sight in the Keys." Banister said.

Flynt knew Banister well enough to know his rage for the government and he had touched the right button. It was more than the confiscations and the raids by the CIA, it was revulsion of the transformation of the elected servants who become addicted to the power and the trappings and soon begin acting like they are royalty. Guy's hatred measured by the status of the office and none more vulnerable for his ire that Kennedy. It took on its own power, it gave him the energy to meet the day, deal with the job loss, and his health from too many stake-outs and then the way the FBI booted him out the door.

Flynt saw the look in his old friends eyes in a nanosecond, the memories flooded his brain and caused him to turn away. Old friends conjuring the same images of loss, sadness, convictions and the loss in Cuba made it hard to talk return for Castro.

"So we need the cash up-front?"

"That is no problem this time Guy...trust me... now what about the shooting in Dallas?"

"The shooting of Walker?"

"My guess it was a racial thing?"

"Now when I fill the order what do I do with it?"

"Just hold it for me."

"Can you tell me who is in this deal?"

"It’s me Guy."

"This is my last dance Mick."

"I want to get a copper credit card issued to you in five days with an initial credit line of One Million Bucks’. Good anywhere."

"Because I have to know there is complete trust between us."

"You do know, you have my word and it’s always been good."

"There is only one thing on the mind of folks like you and I...once we are pushed out, how do we take a seat on the front porch swing?" He asked the hum drum of the guiding light won't cut it for you and me. We're not into fantasy Ray Ray...we are cut and slash guys.

"There isn't much room for fame and fortune.

"In the John Birch Society we have over One Hundred Thousand members...that is a lot of right wing haters. Then here comes General Edwin Walker, going on tour with this Waco Reverend Billy James Hargis. They got their politics all mixed up with the second coming of Christ." Banister said.

"No Guy, they think they are Christ."

"Now you know that we are closer than brothers. I know where you are going. This is the Big Show. You must have a team that is small and efficient and you can't have theory and debate. You have to have the strongest leader who will not waiver, ever. Just boom, it’s over. No more than three men to do the dirty deed."

David Ferrie' walked in, he had on a straw Panama hat and a Hawaiian shirt and loafers with no socks which flapped on his heels.

"What do we have in the storeroom?" Guy asked.

"Some very old Winchesters, a few thirty-ought-six, got M-Ones, a bunch of cheap Baltic Mousers taken by the Russians, we have some M-4's and we have some scopes which will not work on these pieces."

"Where would you park a light plane, like a King Air near the Mexican border?"

"I would take her to Matamoros near Brownsville there is a wonderful field there for the King Aire... but you know that craft requires two pilots...sweet plane though. If you need to go deep into Mexico, you can fly along the dry beds of the lakes. I would avoid any of the populated areas." Ferrie' said.

After Ferrie' had left Banister spoke again, "It’s not just Kennedy himself, it’s what the people see in him. It’s the glowing picture the media keeps shooting to us, 24/7...the first President to have that access and the press has turned him into a rock star. The liberal press is trying to make us believe he is the hero of all ages. Have you ever seen a man in such a blasted hurry to be crowned King? He believes that he can remake this society. He is trying to reengineer who we are and turn us into a kinder and gentler people."

"Do you know what Charisma means to me? It means he holds the secrets. All the dangerous secrets in the world used to be held outside the reach of the government. So that guys like J. Ed Hoover and the nuts in the congress could not use them in an indiscriminate manner. Franklin D. Roosevelt changed all that...he came from the monied folks, so now the government that has the lock on the secrets that matter...not the guns or munitions, I'm talking about the shit that makes us all tic-tack-toe. Now all the danger is in the White House, from the Nuclear weapons to the real skinny...What is Kennedy plotting with Castro? What kind of back door Agreement with the Russians. There is not the slightest doubt in my mind that a movement exists in the executive branch of the government which is devoted to the communist."

"Well in fairness, if we had a Republican we no doubt would be leaning toward a dictator." David Ferre' interjected from the hallway.

Banister and Flynt looked at each other; there was no need to speak what they communicated in a glance, the deeply felt belief that there are events which compel men to act. Call it a historical imperative; call it a whim but what passes in the blink of an eye...passes into the ages.

Good men died along Blue Beach because Kennedy at first delayed the air cover for the men on the beach and then he chose to deny his promise.

The invasion took on a Hitchcock thriller with thousands of gulls smashing into the asses of brave men with their heads in the sand.

After Flynt left Banister, He recorded the conversation, repeating his belief that getting the weapons and men from Banister was the most sensible, less risky and a hell of a lot easier. Because they had previous experience he knew Banister could be trusted and would deliver what he promised, though there would be a premium upon delivery. This would be far cheaper than stealing them from the CIA farm, the covert training site in south-eastern Virginia. Five hundred wooded acres known to the trainees as Camp Pain. Ray Ray Beltray instructed the trainees in hand-to-hand combat and light weapons, most of the men were college grads and where eager for the excitement and to get a leg-up on a job doing undercover work with the CIA. The job was actually a demotion for Ray Ray, the company's way of jerking his chain for refusing to sign a letter of reprimand for his role in the Bay of Pigs.

They were lucky he didn't quit, valuable forces died because Kennedy thwarted what was a piece of cake invasion, holding his options open until it was too late and leaving the men strung out on Blue Beach.

Ray Ray was aboard the company lead-ship which was anchored about twenty miles off Blue Beach where the landing took place. Ray Ray knew from the first messages spliced to the ship from signals from a destroyer's twenty-four inch lights that something terrible had gone wrong.

The mistakes were compounded one-on-the-other. But one of the worst was that the recon photos identified sea weed around Blue Beach when it was actually a Coral Reef. He knew this failure was more complex than one scrubbed mission. Ray Ray had insisted on an honest digest of what had taken place. Put the blame for each failed issue where it belonged.

Ray Ray lost more than the pride of a job well done; he suffered the pain of so many good men lost needlessly on the beach…when he came home there was a note from his wife. 'Have a good life,' he touched the scar, still sensitive, where she had cut him with a bottle from his bottom lip down and under his chin. But she was never real to him. He never thought of her by name...called her babe or love. This is one of the sacrifices made to loved ones who go away...you are made to remain in dark places and the conversation evades you.

A woman came into Ray Ray's room wearing only a deep tan. She said she was Rita. She looked and smelled like the whores at the Do Drop Inn where he got gonorrhea.

"Ferre' said to be nice to you." she smiled.

"What do you think he meant by that, and how would he know what men and women want?"

Louis Wagner's phone call would have ruined the moment for most couples but his wife was a patient and understanding woman. She knew to be maintained in the style to which she had become accustomed meant, she had to endure a few inconveniences. A woman like this is accepting of most inconveniences, as long as she did not have to resort to some artificial stimulus, or sexual deviancy Louie was fine and brought to the act a human quality that nothing or no other could replace for him. A spiritual emotion developed over the years of love so deep that it contained its own orgasmic chemistry.

Louie was in the bedroom preparing for her when he heard her call from the foot of the stairs. "A call from Mick on the safe-line." He treaded softly as if to show her he'd taken the path of self-effacement. They touched lovingly as he moved past and she knew it meant they would make love on the fresh sheets with the window open and the smell of the raw night.

Mick Flynt was calling from a phone booth. Louie could hear the noise from the traffic and could even smell the air from DC. Louie watched his wife start up the steps, her hand leaving the knob of the newel.

"So are we ok?" Mick inquired.

"The phone is secure Mick...and you know." "Yes, I am now summa-non-grata as are you."

"Well I know my role Mick but I think you are ok for the moment." Louie said.

Mick laughed and said, "You might be out Louie but you are not gone." Again they laughed.

Louie do you know a Frenchman by the name of Louie' de Bouvier?

"Yes, somewhere in the webs, I have a vague notion of him, something about the Russians."

"Yeh, and others, does odd jobs for the company, hooked to army intelligence. He has a Cuba to Haiti connection for arms. He is pro-Castro and believes that we have literally attacked a Sovereign Nation and should be tried by NATO. Strangely enough, just typically French and I now sense that he is working the other side of the street against Cuba... In any event my interest in Louie’, is that he has this young friend, a kid he debriefed for the agency. He is a defector who changed his mind and came home from Russia with a Russian wife and baby. For a while things got real tight between he and the Russians until Nikita (the shoe banger) realized that this guy was nothing more than a mooch trying to live off the Mother country Russia.

“What they call the ole whoop-dee-doo.” Louie’ said.

“Yeh, so they send him to Japan at Atausgi, where he gains access to classified documents on the U-2 spy plane. This guy actually delivers stolen copies of the specs to the Russians in return for passage to the United States which the Russians agree to and they send him to Dallas.”

“Ok, I’m beginning to get the picture.” Louie’ said.

“The guy is a loner; he meets this Frenchman who connects him with the local émigrés. One might after a few rounds of drinks, our young friend fired a shot into the night at the head of anti-Castro activist, the now retired Major General Edwin A. Walker, a known racist.”

There was a pause as Louie’ listened to the rush of air and the horns blowing as the cars crossed the Potomac River, and then he said, “Maybe it’s the shooter?”

“Yep, I think we could take a kid like this and Ray Ray would remake him. Get him really tight with the Cuban intelligence…maybe put him at the spot…whatever his heart’s desire, pro-Castro, pro-Russian…we perfect his MO…it’s not every day, or everyone who shoots at the President.”

“Let the Frenchman bring him in.” Mick said.

Louie’had witnessed a flight of a U-2 once and as it taxied to the hanger, the sight of the huge black aircraft gave him a hard-on. This massive black chunk of technology just fell out of the sky and the handlers went to work on the wings tips folded up under a glider frame. The plane was capable of climbing at an angle steeper than forty-five degrees, soaring to eighty – five thousand feet with an armed camera path over a hundred miles wide. Dark lady of espionage, the Soviets called her.

Louie’checked the lights and the oven before the real heat was turned on upstairs. After Louie’ had spread his wings, he was surprised that his wife wasn’t sleeping.

“Who was that on the phone?” She asked.

“Michael Flynt, you know him, met him on that Boca Raton trip.”

“What did he want?”

“He was just nosey tonight.”

“Some nights I just need to be held Louie’, tonight you opened all my pores, my eyes, my heart. All my senses have been flushed and I have this raw energy. I want to talk about anything that has to do with you. Cover me as you did once, but fill me now with sweet words of wisdom…two old buddies in the cold of the night.”

“Sounds kinky!”Louie’ said. “But that is what I like about you; you have a way of getting my blood boiling.”

“Was it sexy stuff? Did you tell him that you were about to fuck my brains away?”

“No my love, much sexier than that… It was about a U-2 spy plane which detected the missiles the Soviets had shipped and were installing in Cuba. President Kennedy viewed the e films which clearly showed the installation.”

“You really get off on this spy game; it’s your porno, isn’t it?”

“It’s all I know love.”

“Tell me!”

“This plane can see up to three hundred miles, what you can see at a hundred feet. The plane sees and hears…the on-board system collects and processes the data. All the secrets around the world from our enemies to our friends.”

“Isn’t it just one of the marvels of nature to cool down on a night like this by the breath of God?”