8
I went home—if I could call Mercedes Street home—and tried to take a nap. I couldn’t get under, so I lay there with my handsbehind my head, listening to the uneasy street noises and speaking with Al Templeton. This was a thing I found myself doing quite often, now that I was on my own. For a dead man, he always had a lot to say.
“I was stupid to come to Fort Worth,” I told him. “If I try to hook up that bug to the tape recorder, someone’s apt to see me. Oswald himself might see me, and that would change everything. He’s already paranoid, you said so in your notes. He knew the KGB and MVD were watching him in Minsk, and he’s going to be afraid that the FBI and the CIA are watching him here. And the FBI actuallywillbe, at least some of the time.”
“Yes, you’ll have to be careful,” Al agreed. “It won’t be easy, but I trust you, buddy. It’s why I called you in the first place.”
“I don’t even want to get near him. Just seeing him in the airport gave me a class-A case of the willies.”
“I know you don’t, but you’ll have to. As someone who spent damn near his whole life cooking meals, I can tell you that no omelet was ever made without breaking eggs. And it would be a mistake to overestimate this guy. He’s no super-criminal. Also, he’s going to be distracted, mostly by his batshit mother. How good is he going to be at anything for awhile except shouting at his wife and knocking her around when he gets too pissed off for shouting to be enough?”
“I think he cares for her, Al. At least a little, and maybe a lot. In spite of the shouting.”
“Yeah, and it’s guys like him who are most likely to fuck up their women. Look at Frank Dunning. You just take care of your business, buddy.”
“And what am I going to get if I do manage to hook up that bug? Tape recordings of arguments? Arguments inRussian?That’llbe a big help.”
“You don’t need to decode the man’s family life. It’s George de Mohrenschildt you need to find out about. You have to make sure de Mohrenschildt isn’t involved in the attempt on General Walker. Once you accomplish that, the window of uncertainty closes. Andlook on the bright side. If Oswald catches you spying on him, his future actions might change in agoodway. He might not try for Kennedy after all.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“No. Actually I don’t.”
“Neither do I. The past is obdurate. It doesn’t want to be changed.”
He said, “Buddy, now you’re cooking…”
“With gas,” I heard myself muttering. “Now I’m cooking with gas.”
I opened my eyes. I had fallen asleep after all. Late light was coming in through the drawn curtains. Somewhere not far away, on Davenport Street in Fort Worth, the Oswald brothers and their wives would be sitting down to dinner—Lee’s first meal back on his old stomping grounds.
Outside my own little bit of Fort Worth, I could hear a skip-rope chant. It sounded very familiar. I got up, went through my dim living room (furnished with two thrift-shop easy chairs but nothing else), and twitched back one of the drapes an inch or so. Those drapes had been my very first installation. I wanted to see; I didn’t want to be seen.
2703 was still deserted, with the FOR RENT sign double-tacked to the railing of the rickety porch, but the lawn wasn’t deserted. There, two girls were twirling a jump rope while a third stutter-stepped in and out. Of course they weren’t the girls I’d seen on Kossuth Street in Derry—these three, dressed in patched and faded jeans instead of crisp new shorts, looked runty and underfed—but the chant was the same, only now with Texas accents.
“Charlie Chaplin went toFrance! Just to watch the ladiesdance! Salute to theCap’un! Salute to theQueen! My old man drives a sub-ma-rine!”
The skip-rope girl caught her foot and went tumbling into the crabgrass that served as 2703’s front lawn. The other girls piled on top of her and all three of them rolled in the dirt. Then they got to their feet and went pelting away.
I watched them go, thinkingI saw them but they didn’t see me. That’s something. That’s a start. But Al, where’s my finish?
De Mohrenschildt was the key to the whole deal, the only thing keeping me from killing Oswald as soon as he moved in across the street. George de Mohrenschildt, a petroleum geologist who speculated in oil leases. A man who lived the playboy lifestyle, mostly thanks to his wife’s money. Like Marina, he was a Russian exile, but unlike her, from a noble family—he was, in fact,Baronde Mohrenschildt. The man who was going to become Lee Oswald’s only friend during the few months of life Oswald had left. The man who was going to suggest to Oswald that the world would be much better off without a certain racist right-wing ex-General. If de Mohrenschildt turned out to be part of Oswald’s attempt to kill Edwin Walker, my situation would be vastly complicated; all the nutty conspiracy theories would then be in play. Al, however, believed all the Russian geologist had done (orwoulddo; as I’ve said, living in the past is confusing) was egg on a man who was already obsessed with fame and mentally unstable.
Al had written in his notes:If Oswald was on his own on the night of April 10th, 1963, chances that there was another gunman involved in the Kennedy assassination seven months later drop to almost zero.
Below this, in capital letters, he had added his final verdict:GOOD ENOUGH TO TAKE THE SON OF A BITCH OUT.
9
Seeing the little girls who hadn’t seen me made me think of that old Jimmy Stewart suspenser,Rear Window.A person could see a lot without ever leaving his own living room. Especially if he had the right tools.
The next day, I went to a sporting goods store and bought a pair of Bausch & Lomb binoculars, reminding myself to be wary of sunflashes on the lenses. Since 2703 was on the east side of Mercedes Street, I thought I’d be safe enough in that regard anytimeafter noon. I poked the glasses through the gap in my drapes, and when I adjusted the focus knob, the crappy living room–kitchen across the way became so bright and detailed that I might’ve been standing in it.
The Leaning Lamp of Pisa was still on the old bureau where the kitchen utensils were stored, waiting for someone to turn it on and activate the bug. But it would do me no good unless it was hooked up to the cunning little Japanese reel-to-reel, which could record up to twelve hours on its slowest speed. I had tried it out, actually speaking into the spare bugged lamp (which made me feel like a character in a Woody Allen comedy), and while the playback was draggy, the words were understandable. All of which meant I was good to go.
If I dared to.
10
