“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 thetonton macoute,and he’s next in line for the big chair. He likes you, andwelike you—”
De Mohrenschildt began to sound less like an actor and more like a real guy. “When you saywe,do you mean—”
“Wealllike you, de Mohrenschildt, but we’re worried about your association 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 withme? 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, goddammit!”
I gave him two beats, then said, “Do you know what company I work for, de Mohrenschildt? I’ll give you a hint—it’snotStandard Oil.”
There was silence on the line while de Mohrenschildt ran through the bullshit I’d spouted so far. Except itwasn’tbullshit, 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 God’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 associated 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.
