The Bone Tree (35 page)

I suddenly recall several images I once saw of Marcello, way back when I was investigating Ray Presley. The mobster known as “the Little Man” was short, but as thick and tough as a cypress stump. His face looked quick to anger, and several photographers had captured his chilling glare during the 1960s and ’70s.

“When Fidel Castro liberated Cuba in 1959,” Stone continues, “Carlos lost untold millions, just like Trafficante, Giancana, Lansky, and the other bosses. Hoping to take those casinos back, they helped fund training camps for the Cuban exiles prepping to retake the country in the Bay of Pigs invasion. That’s probably where Carlos first came into contact with Frank and Snake Knox, who worked as combat instructors at Carlos’s training camp near Morgan City.”

“
Ping,
” Kaiser says softly, imitating a submarine’s sonar.

“Despite the failed invasion,” Stone goes on, “Carlos was nearing the height of his power. By the midsixties his cash inflow would reach two billion dollars per annum. That’s more than
twelve
billion in today’s money.”

“Jesus.”

“Carlos owned trucking lines, shrimp fleets, untold amounts of real estate—much of it held by third parties who served as blind trustees for him. Interestingly, a lot of those were poor black families who felt complete loyalty to the old tomato salesman from Jefferson Parish.”

“He was a folk hero to those people,” says Kaiser. “Like Pablo Escobar to the Colombian poor. A benevolent dictator.”

I nod. “They do like their dictators in Louisiana.”

Stone raises a forefinger and points at me. “That’s something a lot of people miss. After Louis the Fourteenth and Napoleon, Louisiana never really assimilated into America, not fully. The law here is
still
based on the Napoleonic Code. They seceded from the Union in 1861, and in the 1930s they got Huey Long. After Huey was assassinated, they got Carlos Marcello. Carlos had learned the patronage system under the Kingfish, and he perpetuated it with cash in one hand and a gun in the other. He spread the wealth to every official in the state, from the governor and senators down to the lowest justice of the peace, and nobody—but nobody—bucked him.”

“And yet,” Kaiser interjects, “despite all that power, in 1963 Carlos found himself under mortal threat from the attorney general of the United States.”

Stone nods grimly. “As attorney general, Robert Kennedy initiated the most aggressive battle against organized crime in U.S. history. He attacked several mob bosses, but none with more personal animus than Marcello.”

Kaiser takes the baton from his mentor. “In 1959, Carlos was called before the McClellan Committee. Senator John Kennedy was a committee member, but Bobby was its chief counsel. You should see the film. Bobby barks and growls like a pit bull, and Carlos treats him with utter contempt. Carlos pled the Fifth a hundred and fifty-two times and smirked throughout the hearing. He claimed he was nothing but a tomato salesman, and on paper he was—through his Pelican Fruit Company.” Kaiser laughs dryly. “Salary, fifteen hundred bucks per month.”

“Carlos lived to regret that performance,” says Stone. “As soon as JFK made Bobby attorney general, Bobby set out to destroy Marcello. He attacked the don on two legal fronts. The first was an IRS case for back taxes. If fraud could be proved, that would land Carlos in federal
prison. But the more dangerous prosecution involved Carlos’s immigration status. Unlike his brothers, Carlos had never bothered to become a citizen, which kept him out of the army and making millions during World War Two. But in the end that cost him dearly. To gain some legal status, he’d bribed the government of Guatemala—the source of his fruit and marijuana imports—to issue an official birth certificate. But that lie also made Carlos vulnerable.”

“I know about Bobby Kennedy illegally deporting Carlos to Central America in ’61,” I tell them. “As a prosecutor, I read quite a bit about his anti-Mafia tactics.”

Stone looks grateful that he can skip the details. “As soon as Carlos got back from that little excursion, Bobby indicted him for falsifying his birth certificate, and
United States versus Carlos Marcello
was set in motion. Between 1961 and 1963, Carlos did all he could to put off the day of reckoning, while Bobby and the INS steadily ratcheted up the pressure. Marcello’s Washington lawyer was Jack Wasserman, former chief counsel of the INS. He was the best immigration lawyer in the country, but there was only so much he could do. Carlos
had
bribed the Guatemalans, and Bobby’s team could prove it.”

“If Marcello played that immigration case by the rules,” Kaiser says, “he was guaranteed to lose. And the result wouldn’t be simple deportation. If he was forced out of the country, he would lose his empire. That’s why he had another lawyer on his payroll—a New Orleans lawyer. One who played by New Orleans rules, by which I mean no rules at all.”

“We’re getting ahead of ourselves,” says Stone, holding up a hand. “What matters is that Bobby had Carlos dead to rights. Carlos knew that if he was deported, the remaining Marcello brothers could never hold his empire together. So long as Bobby Kennedy headed the Justice Department, it was only a matter of time before Carlos’s stranglehold on the South was broken and his multibillion-dollar kingdom was carved up by his fellow dons. For Carlos Marcello, deportation was the equivalent of death.”

“I get it. So that’s the basis of your theory? Marcello had the president killed to sabotage RFK’s prosecution?”

“Yes,” Stone says simply.

“Tell him the dog story,” says Kaiser. “It always makes me think of Brando playing Vito Corleone.”

Stone waves his hand almost angrily. “It can’t be verified. I don’t want Penn thinking about Hollywood bullshit. This is history.”

Kaiser looks suitably chastised, and this brings me some satisfaction.

“Try to imagine the rage Carlos must have felt at this state of affairs,” Stone says. “Unlike mainstream America, he’d never bought into the myth of Camelot. He knew this country was corrupt to the marrow. He’d bought and sold politicians in Washington, put senators at the head of major committees. He knew that Joe Kennedy had made his fortune as a bootlegger. To Carlos, JFK was a bootlegger’s son, no more, and Bobby was a self-righteous hypocrite.”

Stone gives me a piercing stare. “Many scholars dismiss the idea of mob assassination because in some crime families it was forbidden to murder any state official, even a prosecutor. They figure that since mobsters balked at killing judges or even cops, killing a president was totally beyond the pale.”

“The exception to that rule,” says Kaiser, “was betrayal in a criminal enterprise. And
that’s
what this conversation is really about. The actual relationship between Carlos Marcello and John Kennedy.”

“Did they
have
a relationship?”

“Of course they did,” Stone replies. “It was carried on at a distance, but it was as valid as any other, and it had very clear rules—though John Kennedy doesn’t seem to have understood that. The crux of it was Cuba. As I said, the Kennedys had used the CIA and the Mafia to try to murder Fidel Castro, and Carlos was part of that.”

“And Castro was a head of state,” says Kaiser.

Stone nods. “That Kennedy-CIA effort legitimized the assassination of a head of state as a tactic in Carlos’s eyes. It lowered his threshold of action to almost zero.”

“But John Kennedy was a president,” I remind them. “Not a gangster.”

“Carlos saw himself as a head of state,” Stone says. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. In his own mind, he was the equal of John Kennedy.”

“I think that’s a stretch, Dwight.”

“Do you remember Joe Valachi?”

“Sure. The first ‘made man’ to testify about the workings of the Mafia.”

“One month before the Kennedy assassination, Valachi was asked on the stand about Carlos Marcello. He said only that he’d once planned to visit New Orleans during Mardi Gras, and as a formality he’d mentioned his plans to Vito Genovese. Genovese told Valachi not to go. The Mafia boss of New York told a made man that nobody was allowed to travel in Marcello’s territory without Carlos’s express permission—not even Genovese himself. ‘It was an absolute rule,’ Valachi said.” Stone holds up a shaking finger. “Carlos Marcello was the only don in America who could make men without approval from the national Commission. He was
sui generis,
Penn. And nobody crossed him.”

“Except Bobby Kennedy,” I say softly.

Stone nods. “JFK’s ingratitude after Giancana’s election help was serious, but that’s politics. His failure of nerve at the Bay of Pigs lost the mob a lot of money, but that was business. But
Robert
Kennedy’s single-minded quest to permanently deport Carlos was a matter of survival. By pushing that trial to its limit, Bobby Kennedy signed his brother’s death warrant.”

For the first time since entering this room, I feel a chill racing over my shoulders.

“Christ, what I’d give for a shot of scotch,” Stone says. “Of course it would kill me, but that might not be a bad way to go.” The old FBI agent looks like he’s about to laugh, but instead he clenches his jaw in pain.

A strange silence has fallen on us. Though I fight the urge, I glance at my watch again. Three-quarters of an hour has already slipped by. “Guys, we’re still a long way from Dealey Plaza, and I haven’t heard one thing about my father.”

Stone holds up his right hand. “You’re about to. But do you accept the premise that Marcello had sufficient motive to kill John Kennedy?”

I shift on my chair, a little reluctant to say anything that might upset my old friend. “I can see why he would hate the Kennedys. I’m not sure that takes us to the assassination of a president as a means of stopping his little brother.”

“Tell him the dog story,” Kaiser says again.

“I know the fucking dog story!” I snap. “Carlos was supposedly ranting about Bobby Kennedy once, and some goombah said he ought to kill him. Carlos said, ‘If a dog is biting you, you don’t cut off its tail. You cut off the head. Then he don’t bite you no more.’”

“Who told you that story?” Kaiser asks.

“Half the prosecutors in Texas know it! Jesus. Just like the one where Marcello supposedly said in Sicilian, ‘Will someone take this stone from my shoe?’ The problem is, I heard he didn’t know any Sicilian.”

“He knew it,” Stone says with authority. “He was raised by Sicilian parents. He just didn’t speak it.”

“Whatever. Look, I didn’t come here to listen to a radio version of the History Channel. If you guys have any evidence of contact between my father and Marcello, it’s time to tell me about it.”

Stone takes a deep, labored breath, then turns and looks at Kaiser. “He’s right.”

“We haven’t even started on Oswald and Ferrie,” Kaiser objects.

“
Oswald?
” I cry, getting to my feet. “Are you kidding? I don’t care about that little rat.”

When Stone looks to Kaiser again, as though for permission, I finally lose my patience. “Goddamn it, guys. That call I took earlier? Before I came in here? That was Sheriff Dennis. Claude Devereux had just told him the Double Eagles will be in his office at seven
A.M.
tomorrow for voluntary questioning.”

Both men stare at me as though I’ve just announced the Second Coming.

“Bullshit,” says Kaiser. “I don’t believe that.”

“They’re coming. Devereux claims they’ve got nothing to hide.”

Kaiser is angrily shaking his head. “Nothing to fear, more like. They wouldn’t be coming if they had anything to worry about. Something’s wrong, Penn. Forrest has put in the fix somehow. You and Dennis are walking into a trap.”

“What kind of trap?”

“I don’t know. But I know Forrest Knox.”

“John’s right,” says Stone. “This is trouble. The Knoxes have more to hide than you can possibly imagine.”

After staring at both men in stony silence for a few seconds, I sit back on the edge of my chair. “Tell me what you know about my father and Marcello. Then I’ll decide how to handle tomorrow’s meeting. Otherwise I walk out now. I’m sorry, Dwight, more than you know. But that’s the way it is.”

Kaiser starts to argue, but Stone raises his hand to silence him. Then
he lifts the top page of his legal pad, picks up a white sheet of paper, and passes it to me. It appears to be a photocopy of a small rectangular business form. The image quality is poor, but at the top of the rectangle a logo reads “TBC.” That means nothing to me, but at the bottom I see a cursive signature I instantly recognize.

Thomas J. Cage, M.D.

“What’s this?” I ask, my face tingling with heat.

“An excuse form,” Stone informs me, almost sadly. “From the Triton Battery Corporation in Natchez, Mississippi.”

“Notice the dates?” asks Kaiser.

Despite my father’s scrawled handwriting, I can just make them out:
Nov. 18–22, 1963
. Below this line are the words
Chronic Hepatitis
.

“What does this mean?” I ask.

“It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?” says Kaiser.

“John,” Stone says sharply. “We don’t know what it means, Penn. What we do know is that your father signed a medical excuse for Frank Knox to be absent from work at the Triton Battery plant from the Monday prior to John Kennedy’s assassination through the Friday he was killed in Dealey Plaza.”

“A full week,” says Kaiser. “Plenty of time to reconnoiter Dealey Plaza and settle on the Dal-Tex Building as his sniper’s nest. You see? Frank Knox wasn’t the primary shooter. Oswald was already set up to use the School Book Depository, and Frank was his backup.”

“No, I don’t see. Not at all.”

“Slow down, John,” says Stone. “Penn, we obviously need to know whether your father had any idea what Knox was actually doing on those dates.”

My ears roar as I shake my head in denial. “Can you prove Frank Knox was in Dealey Plaza on that day?”

“No.”

My head snaps up. “Can you prove he was even in Dallas?”

Stone slowly shakes his head. “We can’t even prove Frank Knox was in Texas. Not yet, anyway. Of course we just got on this track. All we know for sure is that he wasn’t at work, and he almost certainly wasn’t at home.”