Frame 232 (33 page)

“Ah, well, that is a good question.”

“And do you have the answer?”

“It was everyone, Mr. Hammond.”

“Excuse me?”

Clemente surprised him again with a chuckle, so casual and matter-of-fact he might as well have been discussing a pleasant afternoon he’d spent at the beach. “It was your military and your Mafia and your Central Intelligence Agency and my government and others. It was all of them.”

“That’s . . . No, that just can’t be.”

“Of course it can. Do not think of the situation dramatically. Don’t think of it like a myth or a legend. Strip away all of that and look at it like reality. Your president made a lot of enemies, and many of them would have benefited from his death. For example, what did he say about the CIA that time? Something like
 
—”

“‘I want to shred the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter them to the four winds.’”

“That’s right. And the Mafia. All those stories about how they helped him get ahead in politics, rigging elections for him. But then after he became president, his brother Bobby, as attorney general, went after them. How much of that is now fact? And Fidel Castro . . . how many ways did President Kennedy antagonize him?”

Hammond was shaking his head. “Still, there couldn’t have been that many people involved. To keep a secret among just two or three is nearly impossible in the corridors of power. You’re saying
 
—”

“You are not understanding
 
—there
were
no secrets to keep.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

Clemente leaned in to get closer. “What secrets are we talking about? There was no ‘official’ assassination plan, no drawings on blackboards or signed paperwork or midnight meetings. Nothing was recorded. At some point in time, someone suggested killing your president. It was that simple. Other people heard about it, so it became something of a rumor. But rumors like that, even in your United States, come and go every day. A few people
 
—I would be surprised if it was more than four or five
 
—talked about how it would be done. Others may have known about it, but they said nothing. They let it happen. There may have been another twenty or thirty people like this. But only a few would have been needed to organize the operation and keep it quiet until the last minute. Those two other gunmen? They were probably loaned out like I was. Maybe one from your American military, another from your CIA.”

“Then how come neither of them fired? Based on what you’re saying, they both would’ve had their chances before the president even reached Dealey Plaza.”

“The one in the textile building never got a clear shot, and the other
 
—the one in the mercantile
 
—lost his guts. He couldn’t go through with it.” Clemente smiled here. “You know what’s amazing about the gunman in the textile building? He was caught by police shortly after the assassination and then let go. He was just a boy, really. Even younger than me at the time. He played the role perfectly, wearing a black leather jacket and looking like what Americans called a ‘greaser.’ The police thought he was a nobody. They never even took down his name. But check the records; you’ll see. They had him.”

“How do you know all this? How
could
you?”

“Because I was supposed to die,” Clemente said.

“Excuse me?”

“We were all supposed to die, the four of us. And three of us did.”

“I . . . I’m not following. What does that have to do with
 
—?”

“We were told about each other. We knew. The man who came to my hotel room, he told me about the others. Not names, of course, but he showed me their positions on the map and said I had to fire if they did not. I should’ve realized then that he revealed this information because we were all going to be eliminated afterward.”

“Then what about
 
—?” Hammond stopped dead and looked away, his mouth hanging open stupidly. “Jack Ruby,” he said in a whisper. “Oswald was killed by Jack Ruby two days after the assassination.”

Clemente was nodding. “Oswald was killed by Ruby, and Ruby never got the chance to give a full confession. If you remember, he wanted to talk to the Warren Commission, but they weren’t interested. What was never revealed was that
one of the other gunmen was found dead in a hotel room in Montreal with a pistol shot to the head, and the third
 
—the kid
 
—was found hanging in an apartment in Paris. Both deaths occurred less than a week after the assassination. Quite coincidental, don’t you think? They were ruled suicides, but I can assure you they were not.”

Hammond’s head felt like a balloon being inflated beyond its capacity. “So why weren’t
you
killed?”

Clemente tapped the side of his nose. “Because of this, my survivalist’s instinct. A gift from the heavens. It has kept me alive many times. After Oswald was shot, I began to worry that it wasn’t just the work of an enraged patriot. Then I learned of the other two deaths.”

“How?”

“Because I knew people who worked in that level of society. Do you understand? It is like a community. An underground community, yes, but still a community. People know other people, and they talk. I found it unusual that these two experienced gunmen had died in the same week. It became obvious that I would be next. It started to make sense to me
 
—once the president was dead, the people who had done the dirty work would have to go too.”

“So you just took off?”

“Not at first. I was supposed to meet the man who had been in my hotel room a second time, in San Antonio. There I was to be paid
 
—$100,000 for taking part in the shooting, and another $250,000 if I had been the one who made the hit
 
—and given a passport into Mexico. From there I would fly home to Cuba.”

“But none of that happened?”

“No. I escaped Dealey Plaza in the confusion the same way I entered it
 
—through a manhole near the corner of
Houston and Pacific. I took a cab back to my hotel. I waited five days, as instructed, then took another cab to a parking lot in Waxahachie. There was supposed to be a car waiting there for me. And there was. But something was not right. There were no other vehicles around, no other people. I became very suspicious. Instead of going to the car like I had been told, I took a shot at it from a distance
 
—and it went off like a bomb.”

“Explosives?”

“Yes. Rigged to the door handle. A fairly common method of elimination, really.”

“So what did you do?”

“I still had most of the money I’d been given at the beginning of the operation, so I took a bus to another town. Do you know what the name of the town was, Mr. Hammond?”

“What?”

“Trinity. And that was ironic, because in Trinity, sitting in yet another hotel room, I became a different man. I finally got off the road I’d been traveling since Fulgencio Batista came and took my father and mother.”

Hammond shook his head. “I’m sorry; I don’t understand.”

“I know, but this part of our conversation will have to wait until later because we have to get going now.”

“Going?”

“Yes
 
—back to the United States.”

“You want to come back with me?”

“I do. I want to tell what I know. There is more, more than I have said here. I have learned much in the years since. As you say, the American people have a right to know the truth. The whole world should know. It is long past time.”

“You’ll be locked up afterward, possibly even executed.”

“I am aware of this.”

“And you still want to do it?”

“Yes.”

Silence fell between the three of them. The Clementes were watching Hammond intently, waiting for his response. The casual looks on their faces were somehow maddening.

“I’m thrilled at the idea of you coming back, of course, but . . .
why
? What is your reason for
 
—?”

“We will discuss that on the way.” Galeno rose, his chair groaning on the wooden floor. “I think you will be most interested.”

“And how do I know you won’t kill me on the boat and dump my body in the Caribbean?”

Clemente shook his head. “I do not kill anymore. I would not even kill a fly if it landed on this table right now. I kill nothing.”

“If we had wanted you dead,” Olivero added, “I could have taken you down when you left the Café Cantante or when you were walking back from the Cathedral of Santa Catalina. Or, for that matter, while you were sleeping in your room at the Hotel Parque Central.” He held his hands out, palms up, as if to say,
See how easy it would have been?

Galeno, amused by Hammond’s stunned expression, chuckled and said, “Come; we need to begin.”

THE PALATIAL HOME
of retired Mafia boss Bernesco Magliocci sat atop a forested hill on the outskirts of Chicago, surrounded by high walls, a laser security system, and a staff of thick-necked guards who roamed the property with pistols and machine guns. Magliocci sat in his bedroom
 
—the furnishings and decor so gaudy in their faux regality that the space looked like an ill-advised fusion of Egyptian noble and Las Vegas antique
 
—in an upholstered chair with a snack tray in front of him. His large, deep-set eyes were trained on the flat-screen television across the room, his lips pulled back in a skeletal grin. On the screen, a young couple engaged in the kind of amorous activity that was far from appropriate for a noncable channel, even at this late hour.

In spite of his geriatric state, Magliocci still found the images irresistible. He had not participated in such things in quite some time, although not as long ago as most would imagine. Watching it helped him to remember. Some of the women had been his wives, others disposable lovers who had come before, during, and after. Not all had been willing partners, but they had cooperated nonetheless. He held no regrets
about that, for Magliocci was never one to waste energy on regret. Not for the women he had consumed, not for the millions he had accumulated through narcotics, extortion, racketeering, influence, and protection, and not for the dozens of brutal murders in which he had participated either directly or indirectly to further his interests, including the assassination of a young and handsome American president in the fall of 1963. He had no capacity for remorse and no tolerance for those who did. Humanity could be neatly cleaved between the winners and the losers, and he considered himself one of the biggest winners he’d ever known.

The scene came to a close and was replaced by a commercial for toothpaste. Magliocci grunted something profane before calling out to his manservant. A young Italian boy with a long face opened the door and stepped into the room. He was clad in a waiter’s uniform, white on top and black on the bottom, the former replete with a buttoned waistcoat. He kept a respectful distance and awaited orders.

“I need more,” Magliocci said, pointing to the crumb-peppered plate before him. The boy nodded and withdrew, returning moments later with a sterling-silver tray and a towel hanging from his forearm. On the tray was another plate of tea biscuits, along with a full glass of sherry. Magliocci had not gestured toward his empty glass, but had the boy neglected to refill it, he would have berated him for his ignorance.

The boy brought the tray over and switched the old with the new. Magliocci watched him the whole time, a habit he knew the boy found unnerving. Even at the age of eighty-six, Magliocci could still frost a person’s innards with his glare. He derived great pleasure from keeping people on edge. He had decided long ago that this was a common trait among the successful, so he had integrated it into his persona until
it functioned from the subconscious. He could not treat the boy benevolently if he tried.

The run of commercials ended, and the movie returned. The boy left the room; Magliocci took no notice of his exit. His attention was fixated again, waiting for the next racy scene to unfold as he lifted a fresh biscuit from the plate. He became irritated when another round of commercials arrived. This annoyance was further compounded by the fact that a chilly breeze had begun to blow through the open windows. When Magliocci called out this time, the boy did not appear. In a huff, he moved the tray aside and got into his slippers. As he padded across the carpet, he fantasized about the boy’s punishment.

The paired windows that stood open by the burnished bureau were diamond leaded, the glass arranged in a cheerfully haphazard variety of colors. The twinkling city was beautiful beneath the clear and starry sky, though Magliocci took no notice of this. Another gust billowed in as if aware it was about to be terminated and wishing to menace him one last time. Magliocci cursed the boy again and raised his hands to grasp both parts of the window lock at the same time. In doing so, his body formed a large capital Y and fully exposed his torso. For the black-ops team nestled in the hedgerow 160 yards away, this was an unexpected gift.

A tiny flash appeared in the dark, as if someone were trying to signal Magliocci with a penlight. He noticed this and looked in that general direction, but there was no time for anything else. The last sound his mortal ears ever caught was the distinctive thump of a silenced round. The bullet entered his chest just to the left of center, ripped through his heart, continued out his back, and became lodged in the baseboard of his tasseled four-poster bed, where it would be discovered
by investigators the following morning. Magliocci’s final thought was to wonder how “they”
 
—the list was far too long for specifics
 
—had managed to get past his carefully considered defenses. He would never know that his assassins had already taken down the guards and cut the power to the laser system. Magliocci gasped once, then fell back like a tree.

The team packed up their gear rapidly and methodically, then melted into nonexistence.

The boy found his master some fifteen minutes later. When he realized what had happened, a smile began on one side of his face.