“Castro and the Front will put an end to that,” Lee said grimly.
“May providence hasten the day.” There was the clink of bottles, probably to toast the idea of providence hastening the day. “How is work, Comrade? And how is it you’re not there this afternoon?”
He wasn’t there, Lee said, because he wanted to be here. Simple as that. He’d just punched out and walked away. “What can they do about it? I’m the best damn photoprint technician ole Bobby Stovall’s got, and he knows it. The foreman, his name is(I couldn’t make it out—Graff? Grafe?)says ‘Quit trying to play labor organizer, Lee.’ You know what I do? I laugh and say ‘Okay,svinoyeb,’ and walk away. He’s a pig’s dick, and ever’one knows it.”
Still, it was clear Lee liked his job, although he complained about the paternalistic attitude, and how seniority counted for more than talent. At one point he said, “You know, in Minsk, on a level playing field, I’d be running the place in a year.”
“I know you would, my son—it’s completely evident.”
Playing him up.Windinghim up. I was sure of it. I didn’t like it.
“Did you see the paper this morning?” Lee asked.
“I saw nothing but telegrams and memos this morning. Why do you think I’m here, if not to get away from my desk?”
“Walker did it,” Lee said. “He joined up with Hargis’s crusade—or maybe it’s Walker’s crusade and Hargis joined up. I cain’t tell. That fucking Midnight Ride thing, anyway. Those two ninnies are going to tour the whole South, telling people that the N-double-A-C-P’s a communist front. They’ll set integration and voting rights back twenty years.”
“Sure! And fomenting hate. How long before the massacres start?”
“Or until someone shoots Ralph Abernathy and Dr. King!”
“OfcourseKing will be shot,” de Mohrenschildt said, almost laughing. I was standing up, my hands pressing the earphones tight to the sides of my head, sweat trickling down my face. This was dangerous ground, indeed—the very edge of conspiracy. “It’s only a matter of time.”
One of them used the church key on another bottle of Mexican beer, and Lee said, “Someone should stop those two bastards.”
“You’re wrong to call our General Walker a ninny,” de Mohrenschildt said in a lecturely tone. “Hargis, yes, okay. Hargis is a joke. What I hear is that he is—like so many of his ilk—a man oftwisted sexual appetites, willing to diddle a little girl’s cunt in the morning and a little boy’s asshole in the afternoon.”
“Man, that’ssick!” Lee’s voice broke like an adolescent’s on the last word. Then he laughed.
“But Walker, ah, there’s a very different kettle of shrimp. He’s high in the John Birch Society—”
“Those Jew-hating fascists!”
“—and I can see a day, not long hence, when he may run it. Once he has the confidence and approval of the other right-wing nut groups, he may even run for office again… but this time not for governor of Texas. I suspect he has his sights aimed higher. The Senate? Perhaps. Even the White House?”
“That could never happen.” But Lee sounded unsure.
“It’sunlikelyto happen,” de Mohrenschildt corrected. “But never underestimate the American bourgeoisie’s capacity to embrace fascism under the name of populism. Or the power of television. Without TV, Kennedy would never have beaten Nixon.”
“Kennedy and his iron fist,” Lee said. His approval of the current president seemed to have gone the way of blue suede shoes. “He won’t never rest as long as Fidel’s shitting in Batista’s commode.”
“And never underestimate the terror white America feels at the idea of a society in which racial equality has become the law of the land.”
“Nigger, nigger, nigger, beaner, beaner, beaner!” Lee burst out, with a rage so great it was nearly anguish. “That’s all I hear at work!”
“I’m sure. When theMorning Newssays ‘the great state of Texas,’ what they mean is ‘thehatestate of Texas.’ And people listen! For a man like Walker—awar herolike Walker—a buffoon like Hargis is nothing but a stepping-stone. The way von Hindenberg was a stepping-stone for Hitler. With the right public relations people to smooth him out, Walker could go far. Do you know what I think? That the man who knocked off General Edwin Racist America Walker would be doing society a favor.”
I dropped heavily into a chair beside the table where the little tape recorder sat, its reels spinning.
“If you really believe—” Lee began, and then there was a loud buzz that made me snatch the headphones off. There were no cries of alarm or outrage from upstairs, no swift movement of feet, so—unless they were very good at covering up on the spur of the moment—I thought I could assume the lamp bug hadn’t been discovered. I put the headphones back on. Nothing. I tried the distance mike, standing on a chair and holding the Tupperware bowl almost against the ceiling. With it I could hear Lee talking and de Mohrenschildt’s occasional replies, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying.
My ear in the Oswald apartment had gone deaf.
The past is obdurate.
After another ten minutes of conversation—maybe about politics, maybe about the annoying nature of wives, maybe about newly hatching plans to kill General Edwin Walker—de Mohrenschildt bounded down the outside stairs and drove away.
Lee’s footfalls crossed above my head—clump, clud, clump.I followed them into my bedroom and trained the distance mike on the place where they stopped. Nothing… nothing… then the faint but unmistakable sound of snoring. When Ruth Paine dropped off Marina and June two hours later, he was still sleeping the sleep of Dos Equis. Marina didn’t wake him. I wouldn’t have woken the bad-tempered little sonofabitch, either.
