11/22/63 Part 67

She froze with the cigarette in front of her and smoke trickling from between her lips. "How'dja know?" She saw my expression and laughed. "Actually, it's Wanda, sport. I hope you bet better than you guess names."

Heading back to my car, I hoped the same thing.

CHAPTER 25.

1.

I stayed with Sadie on the morning of August fifth until they put her on a gurney and rolled her down to the operating room. There Dr. Ellerton was waiting for her, along with enough other docs to field a basketball team. Her eyes were shiny with preop dope.

"Wish me luck."

I bent and kissed her. "All the luck in the world."

It was three hours before she was wheeled back to her room-same room, same picture on the wall, same horrible squatting commode-fast asleep and snoring, the left side of her face covered in a fresh bandage. Rhonda McGinley, the nurse with the fullback shoulders, let me stay with her until she came around a little, which was a big infraction of the rules. Visiting hours are more stringent in the Land of Ago. Unless the head nurse has taken a shine to you, that is.

"How are you?" I asked, taking Sadie's hand.

"Sore. And sleepy."

"Go back to sleep then, honey."

"Maybe next time . . ." Her words trailed off in a furry hzzzzz sound. Her eyes closed, but she forced them open with an effort. ". . . will be better. In your place."

Then she was gone, and I had something to think about.

When I went back to the nurses' station, Rhonda told me that Dr. Ellerton was waiting for me downstairs in the cafeteria.

"We'll keep her tonight and probably tomorrow, too," he said. "The last thing we want is for any sort of infection to develop." (I thought of this later, of course-one of those things that's funny, but not very.) "How did it go?"

"As well as can be expected, but the damage Clayton inflicted was very serious. Pending her recovery, I'm going to schedule her second go-round for November or December." He lit a cigarette, chuffed out smoke, and said: "This is a h.e.l.luva surgical team, and we're going to do everything we can . . . but there are limits."

"Yes. I know." I was pretty sure I knew something else, as well: there were going to be no more surgeries. Here, at least. The next time Sadie went under the knife, it wouldn't be a knife at all. It would be a laser.

In my place.

2.

Small economies always come back and bite you in the a.s.s. I'd had the phone taken out of my Neely Street apartment in order to save eight or ten dollars a month, and now I wanted it. But there was a U-Tote-M four blocks away with a phone booth next to the c.o.ke cooler. I had de Mohrenschildt's number on a sc.r.a.p of paper. I dropped a dime and dialed.

"De Mohrenschildt residence, how may I help you?" Not Jeanne's voice. A maid, probably-where did the de Mohrenschildt bucks come from?

"I'd like to speak to George, please."

"I'm afraid he's at the office, sir."

I grabbed a pen from my breast pocket. "Can you give me that number?"

"Yes, sir. CHapel 5-6323."

"Thanks." I wrote it on the back of my hand.

"May I say who called, if you don't reach him, sir?"

I hung up. That chill was enveloping me again. I welcomed it. If I'd ever needed cold clarity, it was now.

I dropped another dime and this time got a secretary who told me I'd reached the Centrex Corporation. I told her I wanted to speak to Mr. de Mohrenschildt. She, of course, wanted to know why.

"Tell him it's about Jean-Claude Duvalier and Lee Oswald. Tell him it's to his advantage."

"Your name, sir?"

Puddentane wouldn't do here. "John Lennon."

"Please hold, Mr. Lennon, I'll see if he's available."

There was no canned music, which on the whole seemed an improvement. I leaned against the wall of the hot booth and stared at the sign reading IF YOU SMOKE, PLEASE TURN ON FAN. I didn't smoke, but turned the fan on, anyway. It didn't help much.

There was a click in my ear loud enough to make me wince, and the secretary said, "You're connected, Mr. D."

"h.e.l.lo?" That jovial booming actor's voice. "h.e.l.lo? Mr. Lennon?"

"h.e.l.lo. Is this line secure?"

"What do you . . . ? Of course it is. Just a minute. Let me shut the door."

There was a pause, then he was back. "What's this about?"

"Haiti, my friend. And oil leases."

"What's this about Monsieur Duvalier and that guy Oswald?" There was no worry in his voice, just cheerful curiosity.

"Oh, you know them both much better than that," I said. "Go ahead and call them Baby Doc and Lee, why don't you?"

"I'm awfully busy today, Mr. Lennon. If you don't tell me what this is about, I'm afraid I'll have to-"

"Baby Doc can approve the oil leases in Haiti you've been wanting for the last five years. You know this; he's his father's righthand man, he runs the tonton macoute, and he's next in line for the big chair. He likes you, and we like you-"

De Mohrenschildt began to sound less like an actor and more like a real guy. "When you say we, do you mean-"

"We all like you, de Mohrenschildt, but we're worried about your a.s.sociation with Oswald."

"Jesus, I hardly know the guy! I haven't seen him in six or eight months!"

"You saw him on Easter Sunday. You brought his little girl a stuffed rabbit."

A very long pause. Then: "All right, I guess I did. I forgot about that."

"Did you forget about someone taking a shot at Edwin Walker?"

"What has that got to do with me? Or my business?" His puzzled outrage was almost impossible to disbelieve. Key word: almost.

"Come on, now," I said. "You accused Oswald of doing it."

"I was joking, G.o.ddammit!"

I gave him two beats, then said, "Do you know what company I work for, de Mohrenschildt? I'll give you a hint-it's not Standard Oil."

There was silence on the line while de Mohrenschildt ran through the bulls.h.i.t I'd spouted so far. Except it wasn't bulls.h.i.t, not entirely. I'd known about the stuffed rabbit, and I'd known about the how-did-you-miss crack he'd made after his wife spotted the rifle. The conclusion was pretty clear. My company was The Company, and the only question in de Mohrenschildt's mind right now-I hoped-was how much more of his no doubt interesting life we'd bugged.

"This is a misunderstanding, Mr. Lennon."

"I hope for your sake that it is, because it looks to us like you might have primed him to take the shot. Going on and on about what a racist Walker is, and how he's going to be the next American Hitler."

"That's totally untrue!"

I ignored this. "But it's not our chief worry. Our chief worry is that you may have accompanied Mr. Oswald on his errand last April tenth."

"Ach, mein Gott! That's insane!"

"If you can prove that-and if you promise to stay away from the unstable Mr. Oswald in the future-"

"He's in New Orleans, for G.o.d's sake!"

"Shut up," I said. "We know where he is and what he's doing. Handing out Fair Play for Cuba leaflets. If he doesn't stop soon, he'll wind up in jail." Indeed he would, and in less than a week. His uncle Dutz-the one a.s.sociated with Carlos Marcello-would go his bail. "He'll be back in Dallas soon enough, but you won't see him. Your little game is over."

"I tell you I never-"

"Those leases can still be yours, but not unless you can prove you weren't with Oswald on April tenth. Can you do that?"

"I . . . let me think." There was a long pause. "Yes. Yes, I think I can."

"Then let's meet."

"When?"

"Tonight. Nine o'clock. I have people to answer to, and they'd be very unhappy with me if I gave you time to build an alibi."

"Come to the house. I'll send Jeanne out to a movie with her girlfriends."

"I have another place in mind. And you won't need directions to find it." I told him what I had in mind.

"Why there?" He sounded honestly puzzled.

"Just come. And if you don't want the Duvaliers pere and fils very angry at you, my friend, come alone."

I hung up.

3.

I was back at the hospital at six on the dot, and visited with Sadie for half an hour. Her head was clear again, and she claimed her pain wasn't too bad. At six-thirty I kissed her good cheek and told her I had to go.

"Your business?" she asked. "Your real business?"

"Yes."

"No one gets hurt unless it's absolutely necessary. Right?"

I nodded. "And never by mistake."

"Be careful."

"Like walking on eggs."

She tried to smile. It turned into a wince as the freshly flayed left side of her face pulled against itself. Her eyes looked over my shoulder. I turned to see Deke and Ellie in the doorway. They had dressed in their best, Deke in a summer-weight suit, string tie, and town cowboy hat, Ellie in a pink silk dress.

"We can wait, if you want us to," Ellie said.

"No, come on in. I was just leaving. But don't stay long, she's tired."

I kissed Sadie twice-dry lips and moist forehead. Then I drove back to West Neely Street, where I spread out the items I'd bought at the costume and novelty shop. I worked slowly and carefully in front of the bathroom mirror, referring often to the directions and wishing Sadie were here to help me.