“Jimmy, you know damn well I’m not on their regular payroll anymore.”
His features clenched. “Well, get back on. Just temporary. I got a job for you.”
It was cold enough in there that I was already shaking. Or maybe it wasn’t the cold. “What kind of job?”
“This kind,” Hoffa said, and dug in his pants pocket and came back with a roll of bills. He thumbed off hundreds like a banker, then thrust a stack toward me. “That should be two grand. Like the old days.”
The “old days” had not been that long ago, not that I had any desire to reminisce.
I raised my hands, palms out. “No offense, Jim, but I got responsibilities in Chicago.”
“Don’t we all?” He did the Jimmy Cagney hitch of his shoulders that had become a habit with him. He handed the stack of cash and I took it. “But this’ll just be a week or two of your time. I got something specific in mind.”
I got my wallet out, slid the twenty C notes inside, my hand quivering a little.
That slit of a grin flashed again. “Cold already, kid?”
He often called me “kid,” even though we were about the same age.
I shrugged. “How could I be? It’s August.”
He put a hand on my shoulder. Even though I towered over him a good seven inches, he could look up at me and still intimidate.
“You was in that room today. You saw what Booby was up to — trying to smear me with all that mob shit. Bringin’ in guys like Barney, God bless him, to make him look bad and me in the bargain. That whiny little bastard is trying to link me to every gangster in the goddamn country, and drive me out of the Teamster presidency, besmirchin’ me by the company they say I keep!”
“You do keep that kind of company, Jim.”
He glared up at me. “I deal with captains of fuckin’ industry every day but that don’t mean I run Montgomery Ward! I gotta sit down with all kinds of people.”
I gestured around at the fruits and vegetables, my breath pluming. “But not always in public. Plus there’s no chairs in here.”
He grunted a laugh. That was the one good thing about our relationship — he didn’t expect me to be a yes man.
“You heard the Kennedy kid in that caucus room, poking around in the St. Louis shit pile,” he said. “Bringin’ up Joe Costello. Even that bent cop Shoulders. Makes me wonder.”
“Makes you wonder what, Jim?”
His eyes disappeared in pouches gone tight. “How deep is he digging? What does he know?”
“Could he know something?”
The eyes reappeared, and wide. “Nothing to know! But if the rank and file start thinkin’ we had anything to do with that Greenlease ransom dough... well, it could turn the members against me. Think of it! That dirty little prick Kennedy stoopin’ so low as to splash some poor dead kid’s blood on me, me! Who has nothing but love for innocent kids. I got a boy of my own! And a girl.”
I knew there was no saying no to him.
“What do you want me to do, Jim?”
“Look into it! Go to St. Louis if that’s what it takes. I’ll cover your expenses, no questions asked. You know that. See what shit Kennedy’s got — not that there’s anything to get.”
I cocked my head. “You might not like where it leads, Jim. Three hundred grand is a lot of money, and there are a lot of crooks in St. Louis.”
“Tell me about it.” He patted himself with crossed arms. “Jesus, it’s cold in here. But you go first. I’ll wait a minute and go out the back. Oh! One other thing.”
“Yeah?”
“How’s Sam doin’?”
That was one thing Jimmy Hoffa never failed to do.
He always asked about your kids.
The next morning I caught Bob Kennedy in his cubbyhole in the New Senate Office Building basement. Sitting behind his desk in a short-sleeve white shirt with his tie loosened slightly, he seemed composed and in utter control; but his cluttered desk told another story.
“Hoffa suggested you go to St. Louis?” Bob said, amused though his eyes were alert. He’d been slumped there when I entered, but my report of the cooler conversation with his nemesis had him sitting up straight now.
“He did,” I said. “At least, he presented it as a possibility. He probably mostly wanted me to pump you for what you’re up to.”
Bob tossed a pencil on his desk. “Well, uh, that’s ridiculous, it’s comical, because he knows exactly what we’re up to.”
So did I. The Rackets Committee was on the same path they’d taken to send Hoffa’s predecessor Dave Beck to prison on income tax fraud, an approach that dated back to the days of Al Capone and my late friend Eliot Ness. They were looking into savings accounts, business holdings, real estate, and insurance policies, as well as travel receipts and phone records. This should lead to a credible estimate of Hoffa’s net worth — wealth that wages, investments and inheritances couldn’t explain.
On the other hand, that wouldn’t be easy, and Kennedy damn well knew it — not with Hoffa’s fleet of world-class lawyers and accountants... not to mention all those members of Congress and journalists in his off-the-rack pocket. Like the one he took that choke-a-horse wad of cash out of.
The best, perhaps the only, way to topple Hoffa was the approach Bob had been taking in the hearings — linking America’s favorite union boss to organized crime. After all, that’s what got the Teamsters tossed out of the AFL–CIO — Hoffa’s much deserved reputation for being in bed with mob types. And, as Jimmy himself had admitted, if Kennedy linked him to enough corruption and brutality, the union president could well lose the love and support of his membership.
“This Lippman, the Retail Clerks guy,” I said. “You bringing him in to testify? Hoffa dared you to. Why not take him up on it? You want to show Hoffa’s members what he’s capable of? Well, threatening another union leader to his fucking face with killing him ought to do it.”
Bob’s sigh seemed more than a man his size could muster. “I spoke to Lippman on the phone after the session yesterday. He won’t go public. His retail clerks depend on the Teamsters to pitch in on boycotts and picket lines and such.”
“Where does that leave you?”
The boyish face looked past me blankly, then blossomed into a smile and his eyes traveled to mine. “Do the job for Hoffa. You took his money, didn’t you?”
Part of my original agreement with Bob last year was that I would not turn over Hoffa’s payments to the committee for a bribery case to be made against the union leader. My position was that if it ever came out, no client would ever trust me again. Bob had thought I was just trying to find a way to keep the money. I told him that to show how little I cared about money, I would not accept the four hundred dollars a month the committee was offering.
His response had made me wonder what kind of language they were teaching these blue-blood kids these days. But I kept Hoffa’s money, and the federal government held onto theirs. A fair arrangement, I thought.
I said, “Bob — what do you know that I don’t? Has Drew Pearson been feeding you tidbits from that article he’s writing?”
“What article?” His smile was mocking. “Did you have a good time in L.A.?”
“Yeah, I saw Zorro, Annette and a taxicab driver who’s scared out of his mind. Answer my question — how much do you have?”
He lifted a shoulder and set it back down. “Not much. We interviewed Barney Baker’s ex-wife, who told us that he had something to do with the missing Greenlease ransom money. That, she claims, is all she knows.”
“A bitter ex-wife?”
“What other kind is there?”