“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.”