Kemper checked the Hoffa “Known Associates” list. One name sizzled:

Pete Bondurant, W.M., 6’5”, 230, DOB 7/16/20, Montreal, Canada.

No criminal convictions. Licensed private investigator/former Los Angeles County deputy sheriff.

Big Pete: shakedown man and Howard Hughes’ pet goon. He and Ward Littell arrested him once-he beat a Sheriff’s inmate to death. Littell’s comment: “Perhaps the most fearsome and competent rogue cop of our era.”

Kemper poured a fresh drink and let his mind drift. The impersonation took shape: heroic aristocrats form a common bond.

He liked women, and cheated on his wife throughout their marriage. Jack Kennedy liked women-and held his marriage vows expedient and whimsical. Bobby liked his wife and kept her pregnant-insider talk tagged him faithful.

Yale for him; Harvard for the Kennedys. Filthy-rich Irish Catholics; filthy-rich Tennessee Anglicans gone bankrupt. Their family was large and photogenic; his family was broke and dead. Someday he might tell Jack and Bobby how his father shot himself and took a month to die.

Southerners and Boston Irish: both afflicted with incongruous accents. He’d resurrect the drawl it took so long to lose.

Kemper prowled his clothes closet. Impersonation details clicked in.

The charcoal worsted for the interview. A holstered.38 to impress tough guy Bobby. No Yale cuff links-Bobby might possess a proletarian streak.

His closet was twelve feet deep. The back wall was offset by framed photographs.

His ex-wife, Katherine-the best-looking woman who ever breathed. They debuted at the Nashville Cotillion-a society scribe called them “southern grace personified.” He married her for sex and her father’s money. She divorced him when the Boyd fortune evaporated and Hoover addressed his law school class and personally invited him to join the FBI.