The Third Bullet (45 page)

“Of course, I’m scouting. First, will the office be closed? Second, how good is the angle to the street, particularly since we’re guessing the idiot will find some way to miss his first shot at the corner and Mr. Scott will have to pick it up as the limo goes down Elm and that little hill. Third, how big is the staff, in case there are any Republicans who might stay behind because they’re not about to admit a Democrat Irishman has become president. Fourth, what kind of lock’s on the door, and will it be easy to pop if I come back. Fifth— What’s fifth, you tell me. That’s what I need to know.”

“The windows,” said Lon. “We couldn’t tell from the street how they opened. We need an old-fashioned sliding window, up and down. No foldouts, because their hinges don’t let them fall low enough to be out of the line of fire.”

“Very good, sir,” said Jimmy.

“Books,” said Lon. “I’ve got to stabilize the rifle on something other than my lap. A heavy board that slides across and is supported on the arms of the chair would be best, but I can’t ask for that, I know. You’d never get it in. The best thing would be some heavy books to pack onto my lap. I’ll rest my elbows on them. That’s a request, not a demand. If it comes to it, we can secure the chair, and I can make that shot offhand. I still shoot offhand, sitting offhand, and I’m damned good, but the books would be helpful.”

“Books it’ll be, then,” said Jimmy.

“Finally, you said fourth, fifth, and sixth floors?”

“I did.”

“I’m thinking fifth is the preferable by far. I need as little angle downward as possible. Not for the shooting but for my placement in the room. If I’m on the sixth floor, I’ll have to be close to the window and maybe projecting the muzzle of the rifle beyond it in order to get the low angle. Not good, especially as it lets the muzzle of the suppressor out into the air, and the sonic boom won’t be contained in the room.”

“Is that it, Lon?” I asked.

“I can’t think of anything else,” Lon said.

“All right,” said Jimmy, “let me sum up how I see it happening. I find the most suitable of the offices that matches everything or nearly everything. I tell you by telephone which it is. Then I go back to the hotel, and around noon, I slip the rifle in its straps about my neck and cover it with the overcoat. I amble back through the crowds heading to the plaza to see the young president, head down Elm, and casually dip into the Dal-Tex Building. Should get there around twelve ten. No problem, though there is a busy sheriff’s station to the right of the lobby, but it’s a fine public building of commerce, with constant, unmonitored, in-out. I take the elevator to the proper floor. I’m guessing the place is largely deserted. I get to the office, pop the lock, slip inside. Quickly, I break out the rifle parts and assemble the rifle as Mr. Scott has shown me.

“You fellows hit the building at about twelve twenty. By that time most of the crowd has gathered and is awaiting His Highness. Mr. Meachum pulls Mr. Scott’s chair up the three steps and into the lobby, and again takes the elevator to the proper floor. Down the hall to the office. It’s open, and you slip in, time about twelve twenty-five. No need to rush, but we all know what’s got to happen. I’ll have cleared a space near the window and the rifle, loaded and assembled, will be there.”

“By the way,” said Lon, “the cartridge is too long to feed up through the magazine. You’ll have to carefully thread the rim into the bolt, then slide it forward. Only one. No need or time for a second. I’ll show you later.”

“Got that, sir. Then Mr. Meachum pushes Mr. Scott to the shooting position, and I pile and arrange the books in his lap. We hear the roar
of the crowd as the motorcade comes down Main a block over, turns down Houston, then turns again down Elm. Mr. Meachum raises the window—”

“Say,” I said, “maybe it would be better if you opened the window first thing. That way, there’s no chance of somebody across the street being attracted to the moving window and then seeing evidence of the shot. I’m guessing even with the silencer, there’ll be some burst of gas.”

“That’s good,” said Lon. “It won’t be much, and it’ll be so light that I doubt it’ll be observable, but why take the chance?”

“So be it,” said Jimmy. “The second the job is done, down comes the window.”

“Shouldn’t he do that last?” Lon asked. “Anybody who hears a trace of the noise might have oriented to Dal-Tex and could catch the motion.”

“That’s good, sir,” said Jimmy. “Consider it done. Anyhow, I remove rifle and books from Mr. Scott, and Mr. Meachum wheels him out, down the corridor, and I’m guessing out of the building within two minutes, well before the police can have gotten over to seal it or investigate, though I’m sure they’ll be concentrating on our friend in the next building who’s making all the noise. In any event, it’s a man in a wheelchair and his attendant, who’d suspect them of mischief? Off you go, in whichever direction seems feasible, until you’re well clear of the mess. Possibly you stop off for lunch. Then back to the hotel.

“As for me, I break down the rifle, repack it in the whatever-you-want-to-call-it, throw on the coat, replace the books, close that pesky window as mentioned, and slip out, using my toys to lock the door. I’m out of the building a few minutes after you.”

“I thought of one more thing,” said Lon. “It just occurred to me. I don’t think it matters in the hallways, because there’s a lot of traffic, but if you can, the office has to have linoleum or bare wood. See, I’m a heavy guy, and the wheelchair leaves tracks. If they get back tomorrow and someone notices these mysterious wheelchair tracks on the floor, again, questions may be raised, maybe, I don’t know how investigations work, maybe—”

“It’s good,” I said. “The tracks, that’s very good. Jimmy, also try to find an office with thirteen-year-old Glenlivet Gold. Not the Glenlivet Red, but the Gold. I might want a highball during the—”

Everybody laughed, and so for the first time, I felt slightly optimistic.

I didn’t feel like breakfast that morning, but after a
sleepless night, I had to get some air. Around 8 a.m. I left the hotel and took a little walk around downtown. It was dowdy, even shabby, since the miracle of Dallas with its steel and chrome skyline was years off. Absent the glow of the flying red neon horse fifteen or so stories up the Magnolia Oil Company building, it just looked crummy. The sky threatened rain, but the fresh air felt good to my lungs. The temperature would rise a bit, into the high fifties or low sixties, and these trees, at least, had lost most of their leaves, which blew about in the skittish wind. In those days, everyone raked their leaves, then piled them at the curb and burned them, so the odor of burning leaves was ever-present during the autumn; I tasted it as well, enough to give the air texture and remind me of boyhood days before I got myself into the president-killing business. (Remember the coup in Saigon? I’d killed other presidents.)

I stopped at the Walgreens soda fountain, read the
Dallas Morning News
over a cup of coffee, and listened as the Texans all about me gibbered excitedly about the president’s upcoming visit. The main thrust seemed to be whether or not to go to the parade route and see the handsome young man and his beautiful wife. There was also some annoyance at an ad that had appeared in the morning paper, in which someone accused the president of being soft on communism. The Texans in this corner of Dallas found the ad in poor taste, and more than a few of them groused about it.

I kept to myself, engaging no one, even if my tweed sport coat and red tie made me stand out a bit from them. They were so excited, they didn’t notice. I thought I had a white shirt left in my room and decided
to change into it, and to a duller tie. I wished I’d brought a dark Brooks Brothers suit, but I’d not given much thought to wardrobe when I packed for the trip.

I walked back to the hotel, though chance took me by a hatter’s, on Main, a few blocks over. I went inside. I looked around, and a fellow came to wait on me. We had a pleasant chat, and I bought a mild little cowboy hat, gray for fall, with more brim than I was used to and with slightly more dramatic curl. I knew I would feel foolish in it, but the trick to wearing a hat is to pretend that you are not wearing a hat. The idea was to lower my profile and fit into the hat-rich Dallas culture, where a short-brim fedora, as I usually wore, would be far more noticeable than the demure cowpoke’s lid I now capped my head with.

Feeling more camouflaged, I walked back to the hotel and went upstairs and lay down for a bit. There’d been no calls. I was assuming Jimmy had already left and was doing his jobs, and that Lon was resting. I also assumed that our pigeon, Alek, had managed to get out to Mrs. Paine’s, retrieved his bag of “curtain rods,” gotten back to Dallas without spilling them all over the highway, and was on his way to work. I was never a praying type of fellow, and it seemed wrong to invoke celestial support for a deed so foul, but I couldn’t help myself from looking skyward and muttering a little something in case someone was listening on the upper floors.

At 10:45, I showered (again!), changed into my white shirt and dull brown tie, and sat and waited. And waited. And waited. At 11:18, the phone rang.

I picked it up.

It was Jimmy.

“Got it!” he said. “A little high, but everything else is perfect. Office 712, the seventh floor, right turn from the elevator, take the only left, and it’s on the right. Great lines down Elm.”

“Got it,” I said, and headed downstairs, pipe in mouth, horn-rims on, junior-cowpoke headgear firmly mounted. Lon was waiting, and I nodded at him.

“Nice hat,” he said.

It turned out we had little to say to each other beyond that exchange. If I looked as bad as he did, we were in trouble, hat or no hat. Then again, I had the normal Lon to use as baseline, the ruddy, vivid, sometimes outrageous paragon of stoicism and mordant humor, not this pale, solemn corpse. I could feel myself in the same colorless shroud of skin, with the same dryness of breath, the same sense of dread and doom all about, the presentiment of failure, tragedy, utter destruction of self, and all the self-love he had built. Plus, I was wearing a stupid hat! I was so damned heroic, I made myself sick! I pressed on, noble Yale champ that I am.

I had decided to spare myself the agony of pushing Lon to the site, a twelve-or-so block ordeal made more difficult in those unenlightened days by the absence of ramps or rails for the disabled. But getting Lon into the cab was never easy. You had to sort of roll-push him from his chair to the seat and wait until he squirmed and pulled himself upward; then you folded the wheelchair, slid it into the front seat, and went around to the other rear seat. For some reason, he seemed especially heavy that morning; perhaps he was involuntarily resisting me, willing himself into sheer deadweight, above the waist as well as below it.

“Where to, gentlemen?” asked the cabbie when, huffing and puffing, I finally got in.

I gave him the address of a medical building on Poydras, just beyond Main.

“You know, there’ll be traffic there,” he said. “JFK’s in town, he’s coming down Main in a motorcade, and it’ll all be jammed up with viewers.”

Damn! I hadn’t thought of that! Fool, jerk, dolt! Agh! What a ludicrous end to the operation if the assassins got stuck in traffic.

“I realize that,” I said. “That’s why we’re early. Jim’s appointment isn’t until one.”

“One-
thirty
,” said Lon, picking up on the game.

“Off we go, then,” sang the cabbie. “No problem.”

The cab whizzed along, did seem to slow almost to a stop on a main
stem, but the driver cleverly plotted a new course and got us to Poydras well in advance of our time. I never even breathed hard during the trip.

He pulled up outside the building, and I got out to unload the wheelchair and Lon. The driver called, “Need any help, sir? Glad to pitch in.” They are so polite in Texas.

“Thanks, I’m used to it,” I said.

Indeed, Lon somehow willed himself to be lighter. I don’t know how he managed to vanquish the laws of physics, but it seemed he had obliterated a good twenty pounds of matter from the universe, and I fairly tossed him into the chair. Then I paid the driver, $1.75 plus a quarter tip, and turned to wheel Lon up the steps to the North Dallas Medical Arts Building. Damn, the driver seemed to linger, waiting for me to call for help to pull Lon up the steps, but then another fare slipped into the cab, and off they went.

I wheeled Lon the half block down Poydras and turned him left—that is, west, if it matters—and slowly down Elm a block to the Dal-Tex Building. Meanwhile, the threat of rain had cleared itself up; a broad, cloudless Texas sky vaulted overhead, full of brightness. In the opening between Dal-Tex and the County Records Building on our side of the street, I could see the crowd gathered in front of the Book Depository; it seemed like they were three or four deep already, and there were batches of people across the street, on the grass of the plaza. I wonder if it was as merry as it seemed or if that’s my memory playing tricks, filtering through the knowledge of the event that I knew was about to occur.

I suppose that was one America there, gathered gaily in the sunlight. You could hear indistinct crowd noises, a kind of purr or mutter from the breast of the mob, somehow fueled by happiness, glamour, hope, good thoughts of self and president and country. I knew I was about to take all that away and didn’t feel particularly great about it, but I felt—I say this over and over, do you think I’m overcompensating a bit?—I felt that in the long run, when things settled down, even if we never healed our wounds over the young man slain, our collective future would be brighter and fewer boys would come home in boxes or wheelchairs.

“Hugh,” Lon said, “I’ve got a great idea. Let’s not do this. Let’s take a cab to the airport and fly to Tijuana. We’ll spend the next six weeks drinking margaritas and screwing whores, even if I can’t screw anything. How does that sound?”

“You can’t screw whores because of a tragedy called paraplegia, and I can’t screw whores because of a tragedy called marriage,” I said. “Even if we both dream of whores, that’s the end of that.”