F.C. Schaefer's Blog, page 17

The dirty underside of an America where Kennedy lived.

My book, ALL THE WAY WITH JFK: AN ALTERNATE HISTORY OF 1964 deals with an America where John F. Kennedy survived the events in Dallas on November 22, 1963 and lived to run for re-election the following year. I want to share an excerpt from my story where Marine Colonel Martin Maddox, a military aide to the President, is secretly meeting with a pair of Mafia Kingpins in order to get their cooperation ahead of a planned invasion of Cuba in the spring of ’64 because Castro and his secret police have been have been implicated in the attempt on the President’s life, not to mention giving sanctuary to a trio of Oswald’s accomplices who were in Dallas on November 22nd. The Mafia have assets in Cuba which could be very helpful to the Administration, but there is bad history between these men and the Kennedy brothers and there is a price to be paid if the mobsters are to give the government what it wants.


Excerpt:

And that is how I met Carlos Marcello and Santos Trafficante, the “assets” who were in a position to do the United States government a big favor, and who expected a big favor in return. There were two other men in the room as well, I recognized Frank Ragano’s name as Trafficante’s lawyer, while the other’s name, David Ferrie, was familiar, only later would I remember where I’d first heard it. Bannister, Ragano and Ferrie, remained standing after I was beckoned to a seat, it was clear by their body language who was in charge. They did the talking, while Marcello and Trafficante sat and occasionally nodded as terms and conditions for a deal was laid out, if anything needed to be clarified with the bosses, it was done in hushed whispers.

The bottom line was this: the employees at the Capri hotel in Havana, formerly the property of Marcello, Trafficante and their many associates, and who were still receiving stipends from their former bosses, would lend their valuable assistance to the United States government in an attempt to contact one of the hotel’s present guests, General Alexander Andreyev, commander of all Soviet forces in Cuba. In this way, these mobsters were helping to mitigate the loss of life, both American and Soviet, when, due to recent events, the imminent American invasion occurred. For their patriotic service, the United States government would make sure Marcello, Trafficante and their many associates got back all the property stolen from them by Fidel Castro, property which included not only the Capri, but the Tropicana nightclub, the Havana Hilton, and a sugar plantation near Camagüey, which Marcello insisted be included on the list; all to be returned once the island was liberated from the Communists by the US military. Not only that, but the United States Justice Department and all of its many branches would cease all of its myriad investigations and prosecutions of Mr. Marcello, Mr. Trafficante, their families, friends, business partners and associates immediately upon the freeing of Cuba from the vile Communist tyrant presently oppressing the island.

That was it in a nutshell.

When these terms were agreed to at last, and Marcello and Trafficante had nodded their assent, everyone stood and the two mobsters walked to the middle of the room, where Marcello thrust his hand forward. “You tell that Goddamn Bobby he gonna be able to slip a message to those fuckin’ Russian bastards just fine, just fine,” he said as I pumped his hand. “We got our own private line to de island, we know more than those CIA Boy Scouts. And when all dis is over, and Castro is in hell, we all gonna get together in Havana, have a high old time and drink mojitos. Let the bygones be bygone.” There was the merest of a smile as he spoke, with absolutely no mirth in it.

Then it was Trafficante’s turn to shake my hand. “Bobby will leash his dogs, and all stolen property will be returned,” he said as he leaned in close. “Everyone gets what they want; everyone go home happy. You understand?”

“Yes, sir, I do understand completely.” Mr. Trafficante very much liked being referred to as “Sir" and it was true, I completely understood, but not in the way they thought. This whole Devil’s deal was predicated on an American invasion of Cuba, and Commander Almeida’s coup would make such a possibility a moot point. Marcello and Trafficante would make good on their half of the deal on the eve of the coup, while we would never have come through on our part because all those lucrative properties in Havana would never be ours to hand over. We were coming out of this thing a winner all the way around…or so I thought at the time.

Marcello insisted we have a glass of J.T.S. Brown to celebrate everybody getting what they wanted and he refused to let us leave without dinner at the Town and Country’s restaurant on the house. That is where I found Harlow when my business was done, enjoying a drink. I wanted to leave right away, but he insisted I sit and enjoy Marcello’s hospitality - the man would be insulted if I didn’t. So I sat there and dined among the oblivious tourists and watched the TV above the bar; Walter Cronkite was giving the news and even though the sound was muted, I was able to follow the stories on the latest fruitless negotiations with Castro to extradite the three conspirators; images of President Kennedy and the Beard making speeches suddenly gave way to tape of the Beatles, whose recording sales were breaking all records. As well I knew, my twelve-year old daughter had cried for days when we refused to buy their album for her, but that age is just too young to be exposed to rock and roll so much; but the story on the British invasion made me realize how this thing had taken me far from home.

I am an indie author and my latest novel is ALL THE WAY WITH JFK: AN ALTERNATE HISTORY OF 1964. It is available at the following:
http://amzn.to/2jVkW9m on Amazon
http://bit.ly/2kAoiAH at Smashwords

And the first book of my vampire trilogy, Big Crimson 1: There's a New Vampire in Town, is available for order on Amazon at https://amzn.to/3GsBh2E.

Visit my Goodreads author's page at:
http://bit.ly/2nxmg