11/22/63 Part 75

I motored slowly and carefully, but my knee was still aching badly when I entered the First Corn Bank and presented my safe deposit box key.

My banker came out of his office to meet me, and his name clicked home immediately: Richard Link. His eyes widened with concern when I limped to meet him. "What happened to you, Mr. Amberson?"

"Car accident." Hoping he'd missed or forgotten the squib in the Morning News's Police Beat page. I hadn't seen it myself, but there had been one: Mr. George Amberson of Jodie, beaten and mugged, found unconscious, taken to Parkland Hospital. "I'm mending nicely."

"That's good to hear."

The safe deposit boxes were in the bas.e.m.e.nt. I negotiated the stairs in a series of hops. We used our keys, and Link carried the box into one of the cubicles for me. He set it on a tiny wedge of desk just big enough to hold it, then pointed to the b.u.t.ton on the wall.

"Just ring for Melvin when you've finished. He'll a.s.sist you."

I thanked him, and when he was gone, I pulled the curtain across the cubicle's doorway. We had unlocked the box, but it was still closed. I stared at it, my heart beating hard. John Kennedy's future was inside.

I opened it. On top was a bundle of cash and a litter of stuff from the Neely Street apartment, including my First Corn checkbook. Beneath this was a sheaf of ma.n.u.script bound by two rubber bands. THE MURDER PLACE was typed on the top sheet. No author's name, but it was my work. Below it was a blue notebook: the Word of Al. I held it in my hands, filled with a terrible certainty that when I opened it, all the pages would be blank. The Yellow Card Man would have erased them.

Please, no.

I flipped it open. On the first page, a photograph looked back at me. Narrow, not-quite-handsome face. Lips curved in a smile I knew well-hadn't I seen it with my own eyes? It was the kind of smile that says I know what's going on and you don't, you poor b.o.o.b.

Lee Harvey Oswald. The wretched waif who was going to change the world.

7.

Memories came rushing in as I sat there in the cubicle, gasping for breath.

Ivy and Rosette on Mercedes Street. Last name Templeton, like Al's.

The jump-rope girls: My old man drives a sub-ma-rine.

Silent Mike (Holy Mike) at Satellite Electronics.

George de Mohrenschildt ripping open his shirt like Superman.

Billy James Hargis and General Edwin A. Walker.

Marina Oswald, the a.s.sa.s.sin's beautiful hostage, standing on my doorstep at 214 West Neely: Please excuse, have you seen my hubka?

The Texas School Book Depository.

Sixth floor, southeast window. The one with the best view of Dealey Plaza and Elm Street, where it curved toward the Triple Underpa.s.s.

I began shivering. I clutched my upper arms in my fists with my arms tightly locked over my chest. It made the left one-broken by the felt-wrapped pipe-ache, but I didn't mind. I was glad. It tied me to the world.

When the shakes finally pa.s.sed, I loaded the unfinished book ma.n.u.script, the precious blue notebook, and everything else into my briefcase. I reached for the b.u.t.ton that would summon Melvin, then dummy-checked the very back of the box. There I found two more items. One was the cheap p.a.w.nshop wedding ring I'd purchased to support my cover story at Satellite Electronics. The other was the red baby rattle that had belonged to the Oswalds' little girl ( June, not April). The rattle went into the briefcase, the ring into the watch pocket of my slacks. I would throw it away on my drive home. If and when the time came, Sadie would have a much nicer one.

8.

Knocking on gla.s.s. Then a voice: "-all right? Mister, are you all right?"

I opened my eyes, at first with no idea where I was. I looked to my left and saw a uniformed beat-cop knocking on the driver's side window of my Chevy. Then it came. Halfway back to Eden Fallows, tired and exalted and terrified all at the same time, that I'm going to sleep feeling had drifted into my head. I'd pulled into a handy parking s.p.a.ce immediately. That had been around two o'clock. Now, from the look of the lowering light, it had to be around four.

I cranked my window down and said, "Sorry, Officer. All at once I started to feel very sleepy, and it seemed safer to pull over."

He nodded. "Yup, yup, booze'll do that. How many did you have before you jumped into your car?"

"None. I suffered a head injury a few months ago." I swiveled my neck so he could see the place where the hair hadn't grown back.

He was halfway convinced, but still asked me to exhale in his face. That got him the rest of the way.

"Lemme see your ticket," he said.

I showed him my Texas driver's license.

"Not thinking of motoring all the way back to Jodie, are you?"

"No, Officer, just to North Dallas. I'm staying at a rehabilitation center called Eden Fallows."

I was sweating. I hoped that if he saw it, he'd just put it down to a man who'd been snoozing in a closed car on a warmish November day. I also hoped-fervently-that he wouldn't ask to see what was in the briefcase on the bench seat beside me. In 2011, I could refuse such a request, saying that sleeping in my car wasn't probable cause. h.e.l.l, the parking s.p.a.ce wasn't even metered. In 1963, however, a cop might just start rummaging. He wouldn't find drugs, but he would find loose cash, a ma.n.u.script with the word murder in its t.i.tle, and a notebook full of delusional weirdness about Dallas and JFK. Would I be taken either to the nearest police station for questioning, or back to Parkland for psychiatric evaluation? Did the Waltons take way too long to say goodnight?

He stood there a moment, big and red-faced, a Norman Rockwell cop who belonged on a Sat.u.r.day Evening Post cover. Then he handed back my license. "Okay, Mr. Amberson. Go on back to this Fallows place, and I suggest you park your car for the night when you get there. You're looking peaky, nap or no nap."

"That's exactly what I plan to do."

I could see him in my rearview as I drove away, watching. I felt certain I was going to fall asleep again before I got out of his sight. There'd be no warning this time; I'd just veer off the street and onto the sidewalk, maybe mowing down a pedestrian or three before winding up in the show window of a furniture store.

When I finally parked in front of my little cottage with the ramp leading up to the front door, my head was aching, my eyes were watering, my knee was throbbing . . . but my memories of Oswald remained firm and clear. I slung my briefcase on the kitchen table and called Sadie.

"I tried you when I got home from school, but you weren't there," she said. "I was worried."

"I was next door, playing cribbage with Mr. Kenopensky." These lies were necessary. I had to remember that. And I had to tell them smoothly, because she knew me.

"Well, that's good." Then, without a pause or a change of inflection: "What's his name? What's the man's name?"

Lee Oswald. She almost surprised it out of me, after all.

"I . . . I still don't know."

"You hesitated. I heard you."

I waited for the accusation, gripping the phone hard enough to hurt.

"This time it almost popped into your head, didn't it?"

"There was something," I agreed cautiously.

We talked for fifteen minutes while I looked at the briefcase with Al's notes inside it. She asked me to call her later that evening. I promised I would.

9.

I decided to wait until after The Huntley-Brinkley Report to open the blue notebook again. I didn't think I'd find much of practical value at this point. Al's final notes were sketchy and hurried; he had never expected Mission Oswald to go on so long. Neither had I. Getting to the disaffected little twerp was like traveling on a road littered with fallen branches, and in the end the past might succeed in protecting itself, after all. But I had stopped Dunning. That gave me hope. I had the glimmerings of a plan that might allow me to stop Oswald without going to prison or the electric chair in Huntsville. I had excellent reasons to want to remain free. The best one of all was in Jodie this evening, probably feeding Deke Simmons chicken soup.

I worked my way methodically through my little invalid-friendly apartment, collecting stuff. Other than my old typewriter, I didn't want to leave a trace of George Amberson behind when I left. I hoped that wouldn't be until Wednesday, but if Sadie said that Deke was better and she was planning to come back on Tuesday night, I'd have to speed things up. And where would I hide out until my job was done? A very good question.

A trumpet-blast announced the network news. Chet Huntley appeared. "After spending the weekend in Florida, where he watched the test-firing of a Polaris missile and visited his ailing father, President Kennedy had a busy Monday, making five speeches in nine hours."

A helicopter-Marine One-descended while a waiting crowd cheered. The next shot featured Kennedy approaching the crowd behind a makeshift barrier, brushing at his s.h.a.ggy hair with one hand and his tie with the other. He strode well ahead of the Secret Service contingent, which jogged to keep up. I watched, fascinated, as he actually slipped through a break in the barrier and plunged into the waiting ma.s.s of people, shaking hands left and right. The agents with him looked dismayed as they hurried after.

"This was the scene in Tampa," Huntley continued, "where Kennedy pressed the flesh for almost ten minutes. He worries the men whose job it is to keep him safe, but you can see that the crowd loves it. And so does he, David-for all his alleged aloofness, he enjoys the demands of politics."

Kennedy was moving toward his limo now, still shaking hands and accepting the occasional lady-hug. The car was a top-down convertible, exactly like the one he'd ride in from Love Field to his appointment with Oswald's bullet. Maybe it was the same one. For a moment the blurry black-and-white film caught a familiar face in the crowd. I sat on my sofa and watched as the President of the United States shook the hand of my former Tampa bookie.

I had no way of knowing if Roth was correct about "the syph" or just repeating a rumor, but Eduardo Gutierrez had lost a lot of weight, his hair was thinning, and his eyes looked confused, as if he wasn't sure where he was or even who he was. Like Kennedy's Secret Service contingent, the men flanking him wore bulky suit coats in spite of the Florida heat. It was only a glimpse, and then the footage switched to Kennedy pulling away in the open car that left him so vulnerable, still waving and flashing his grin.

Back to Huntley, his craggy face now wearing a bemused smile. "The day did have its funny side, David. As the president was entering the International Inn ballroom, where the Tampa Chamber of Commerce was waiting to hear him speak . . . well, listen for yourself."

Back to the footage. As Kennedy entered, waving to the standing audience, an elderly gentleman in an Alpine hat and lederhosen struck up "Hail to the Chief " on an accordion bigger than he was. The president did a double take, then lifted both hands in an amiable holy s.h.i.t gesture. For the first time I saw him as I had come to see Oswald-as an actual man. In the double take and the gesture that followed it, I saw something even more beautiful than a sense of humor: an appreciation for life's essential absurdity.

David Brinkley was also smiling. "If Kennedy's reelected, perhaps that gentleman will be invited to play at the Inaugural Ball. Probably 'The Beer Barrel Polka' rather than 'Hail to the Chief.' Meanwhile, in Geneva . . ."

I turned off the TV, returned to the sofa, and opened Al's book. As I flipped to the back, I kept seeing that double take. And the grin. A sense of humor; a sense of the absurd. The man in the sixth-floor window of the Book Depository had neither. Oswald had proved it time and again, and such a man had no business changing history.

10.

I was dismayed to find that five of the last six pages in Al's notebook dealt with Lee's movements in New Orleans and his fruitless efforts to get to Cuba via Mexico. Only the last page focused on the lead-up to the a.s.sa.s.sination, and those final notes were perfunctory. Al had no doubt had that part of the story by heart, and probably figured that if I hadn't gotten Oswald by the third week of November, it was going to be too late.

10/3/63: O back in Texas. He and Marina "sort of" separated. She at Ruth Paine's house, O shows up mostly on weekends. Ruth gets O a job at Book Dep thru a neighbor (Buell Frazier). Ruth calls O "a fine young man."

O living in Dallas during the work-week. Rooming house.

10/17/63: O starts work at Dep. Shifting books, unloading trucks, etc.

10/18/63: O turns 24. Ruth and Marina give him a surprise party. O thanks them. Cries.

10/20/63: 2nd daughter born: Audrey Rachel. Ruth takes Marina to hosp (Parkland) while O works. Rifle stored in Paine garage, wrapped in blanket.

O repeatedly visited by FBI agent James Hosty. Stokes his paranoia.

11/21/63: O comes to Paine house. Begs Marina to reunite. M refuses. Last straw for O.

11/22/63: O leaves all his money on dresser for Marina. Also wedding ring. Goes from Irving to Book Dep with Buell Frazier. Has package wrapped in brown paper. Buell asks about it. "Curtain rods for my new apartment," O tells him. Mann-Carc rifle probably disa.s.sembled. Buell parks in public lot 2 blocks from Book Dep. 3-min walk.

11:50 AM: O constructs sniper's nest on SE corner of 6th floor, using cartons to shield him from workers on other side, who are laying down plywood for new floor. Lunch. No one there but him. Everyone watching for Pres.

11:55 AM: O a.s.sembles & loads Mann-Carc.

12:29 PM: Motorcade arrives Dealey Plaza.

12:30 PM: O shoots 3 times. 3rd shot kills JFK.

The piece of information I most wanted-the location of Oswald's rooming house-wasn't in Al's notes. I restrained an urge to throw the notebook across the room. Instead I got up, put on my coat, and went outside. It was nearly full dark, but a three-quarter moon was rising in the sky. By its light I saw Mr. Kenopensky slumped in his wheelchair. His Motorola was in his lap.

I made my way down the ramp and limped over. "Mr. K? All right?"

For a moment he didn't answer or even move, and I was sure he was dead. Then he looked up and smiled. "Just listenin to my music, son. They play swing at night on KMAT, and it really takes me back. I could lindy and bunny-hop like n.o.body's biz back in the old days, though you'd never know to look at me now. Ain't the moon purty?"

It was bigtime purty. We looked at it awhile without speaking, and I thought about the job I had to do. Maybe I didn't know where Lee was staying tonight, but I knew where his rifle was: Ruth Paine's garage, wrapped in a blanket. Suppose I went there and took it? I might not even have to break in. This was the Land of Ago, where folks in the hinterlands often didn't lock their houses, let alone their garages.

Only what if Al was wrong? He'd been wrong about the stash-point before the Walker attempt, after all. Even if it was there . . .

"What're you thinkin about, son?" Mr. Kenopensky asked. "You got a misery look. Not girl trouble, I hope."

"No." At least not yet. "Do you give advice?"

"Yessir, I do. It's the one thing old coots are good for when they can't swing a rope or ride a line no more."

"Suppose you knew a man was going to do a bad thing. That his heart was absolutely set on it. If you stopped a man like that once-talked him out of it, say-do you think he'd try it again, or does that moment pa.s.s forever?"