“It’s terrible, what’s happening to this city, Jack. Every hour brings new words of grief abroad and wonderment how this could happen. Already the Europeans are talking this is conspiracy. What do we expect? They have their centuries of daggers in the back, frame-ups and poisons. This is adverse thinking. It builds up a pressure which is bad for the city, bad for us all.”
“When I think of my father coming out of some Polish village.”
“Polish village, exactly.”
“To the carpenters’ union in Chicago.”
“To raise a boy who grows up owning a business, Jack. This is what we want to defend. What is the first thing people say about this tragedy? What does my mother say, eighty-eight years old, in a nursing home? She calls me on the phone. Do I have to tell you what she says? ‘Thank God this Oswald isn’t a Jew.’ ”
“Thank God.”
“Am I right? How many people are saying the exact same thing these last two days? ‘Thank God this Oswald isn’t a Jew.’ ”
“ ‘Whatever he is, at least we know he’s not a Jew.’ ”
“Am I right? These are the things people say.”
“When I think of my father,” Jack Ruby said.
“Of course. This is what I say.”
“Always drinking, drinking. Out of work for years. My mother talked Yiddish to the day she died. She couldn’t write her name in English.”
“This is exactly the situation we find ourselves today. I’m saying there are things that need protection.”
“I’m a great believer in you have to stand up for your natural values.”
“Don’t hide who you are.”
“Don’t hide. Don’t run.”
“This is a subject I talked to Carmine only today. I’ve been talking to Carmine direct. He made reference to he was anxious about Oswald. It makes the whole country look bad, all this talk on a level of conspiracy. I’ll tell you what people want. They want this Oswald to vanish. That’s how you close the book on loose talk. People want him off the map, Jack. He’s a nuisance to behold.”
“It’s a tide of emotion where anything can happen.”
“It’s a wave. You feel it in the streets. It carries everyone along. We’re involved one way or another whether we like it or not. Look at the ad that ran in the paper with a thick black border. Signed with a Jewish name. People notice things like that. They file it away. There’s a lot of extreme feelings that attach themselves to Jews.”
“I personally feel I’ve been dropped in a pool of shit.”
Jack Karlinsky nodded.
“Let me tell you something right straight out. The man who gets Oswald, people will say that’s the bravest man in America. And it’s just a matter of time before somebody clips him. They’re saying reports of mob action any time. The people want a blank space where he’s standing. This act, they’ll build a monument, whoever does it. It’s the shortest road to hero I ever saw.”
“You talk to Carmine.”
“Carmine mentioned your name. From Tony Push. They know about you, Jack, in New Orleans.”
“I did some things in the Cuba days.”
“In other words this Oswald is an aggravation. He knows some little iffy things. He has some names he’s playing around in his mind. Carmine wants to clear the air.”
“I was over at headquarters, dropping in this afternoon. There’s talk they’re moving him to the county jail.”
“I was about to say. It’s a procedure they have to follow in a felony case. This city, it’s screwy, the way certain affairs are handled in the legal arena. Commit a violent crime and there’s a good chance you’ll walk. This is a feature of the local climate. You know as well as I. Murder is easier to get exonerated than breaking and entering, Jack.”
“It’s considered how people behave.”
“Am I right? It’s considered settling things Old West-style. They have it ingrained in the way they think. You get a shvartzer kills another shvartzer in a gunfight, the case won’t even go to trial.”
“Nobody cares enough to try a case like that.”
“This is what I say. I’m saying. Popping a guy like Oswald, this is the same approach. Can you project a heavy sentence to take this guy out?”
“People want to lose him.”
“You’ll see total rejoice. As things now stand, Jack, what are you worth to the city of Dallas? You’re a Chicago guy to them. You’re an operator from the North. Worse, a Jew. You’re a Jew in the heart of the gentile machine. Who are we kidding here? You’re a strip-joint owner. Asses and tits. That’s what you mean to Dallas.”
“Who are we kidding?”
“Who are we kidding here?”
“When I think of my mother.”
“Exactly what I’m saying.”
“My mother went crazy in a big way. I can’t describe the horror. I used to look in her eyes and there was nothing there that you could call a person. She screamed and raged. That was her life. My father hit her. He hit us. She hit us. She thought we were all shtupping each other. Brothers and sisters having constant sex. I never went to school. I fought. I delivered envelopes for Al Capone.”
“I’m saying. This is my point. It builds up a pressure that’s bad for us all.”
There was a short heavy silence.
“ ‘Thank God he’s not a Jew.’ ”
“ ‘Thank God whatever he is, at least he’s not a Jew.’ ”
“Jack, I’m sure you hear the same thing in the street I’ve been hearing for almost two days. The man who kills that communist bastard is saving the city of Dallas from world shame. This is what they’re saying in the streets.”
“What is Carmine saying?”
“Good point. Because here you have an ally. Here you have protection and support. Carmine himself brought up the subject of the loan. I think you’ll be delighted with the terms.”
“And for this?”
“For this you undertake to rid the city.”
“In other words.
“Jack, you’re a floater all your life. This is a chance you put your fist around something solid. You want to end your life selling potato peelers in Piano, Texas? Build something. Make a name.”
“So what you’re saying, Jack.”
“Take him off the calendar.”
“Clip him.”
“Turn him into a crowd,” Karlinsky said sadly.
He unwrapped a cigar but didn’t light it. He looked old and drawn. He sat like a patient in a waiting room, preoccupied and tense, hunched forward on the sofa.
“Carmine is offering that we completely forgive the loan. We make the loan, then we cancel the debt forever. Forty thousand dollars. Deliverable at the first convenience. It’s just a question how soon. We expect very soon. We don’t expect a major delay here.”
“What about my clubs?”
“We look after them in the meantime. I have every confidence you’ll see a rebirth. Think of the people who’ll want to say they paid a visit to the Carousel. Jack Ruby’s club, who took out Oswald.”
“To see what kind of atmosphere.”
“Out-of-towners in total droves. You own a gun, Jack?”
“What do you think?”
“Carmine is getting full cooperation from the boys in Dallas. They have people they render assistance in the police. The police are going to move Oswald out of the building via the basement. It is for some time after ten A.M. There are two ramps to the street.”
“Main Street and Commerce.”
“I’m saying, Jack. The ramps will be heavily guarded. The building entrances closed off. The accordion gate between the two parts of the building will be locked. The power will be off in the elevators except for the jail elevator, which they’ll use to bring Oswald down.”
“I can probably walk right down a ramp.”
“Wait. I’m saying.”
“I’m a known face in the building.”
“Not tomorrow you can’t walk down a ramp. They are letting in reporters with press cards and that’s it. A limited number, mainly picture-taking. This transfer is very delicate. They have extra men coming in. They’re determined it goes off without a hitch.”
“Then how do I get in?”
“I’m saying, Jack. There’s an alley that runs along the east side of the building. You’re inconspicuous here. Halfway down there’s a door to the new part of the building, the municipal annex. This door is always locked except tomorrow we arrange it’s open. There is no guard on the door. You go in the building. Once you’re inside you see elevators and stairs. You take the stairs down. They’re fire stairs. This is how you get in the basement.”
“How do they bring him out?”
“Handcuffed to a detective. Another detective on the other side. What kind of gun do you have?”
“Snub-nose .38. Fits in a pants pocket.”
“You’ll have the heaviest hard-on in America.”
Karlinsky laughed bleakly, a growl down in the throat. Jack sat behind the desk, looking blank. The conversation ended here.
Jack was alone for an hour figuring out how to meet recent wages and bills without the weekend receipts. This kind of petty arithmetic tightened his skull.
He looked in his address book for a number. Then he called Russell Shively, his detective friend, at home. It was after 3:00 A.M. Jack listened to the lonely phone ringing.
“Yes. Who’s this?”
“Hello Russell.”
“Who the hell is this?”
Jack paused.
“They are going to kill that bastard Oswald in the police basement tomorrow during the transfer to the county jail.”
He paused again, then put down the phone.
Lee Harvey Oswald was awake in his cell. It was beginning to occur to him that he’d found his life’s work. After the crime comes the reconstruction. He will have motives to analyze, the whole rich question of truth and guilt. Time to reflect, time to turn this thing in his mind. Here is a crime that clearly yields material for deep interpretation. He will be able to bend the light of that heightened moment, shadows fixed on the lawn, the limousine shimmering and still. Time to grow in self-knowledge, to explore the meaning of what he’s done. He will vary the act a hundred ways, speed it up and slow it down, shift emphasis, find shadings, see his whole life change.
This was the true beginning.
They will, give him writing paper and books. He will fill his cell with books about the case. He will have time to educate himself in criminal law, ballistics, acoustics, photography. Whatever pertains to the case he will examine and consume. People will come to see him, the lawyers first, then psychologists, historians, biographers. His life had a single clear subject now, called Lee Harvey Oswald.
He and Kennedy were partners. The figure of the gunman in the window was inextricable from the victim and his history. This sustained Oswald in his cell. It gave him what he needed to live.
The more time he spent in a cell, the stronger he would get. Everybody knew who he was now. This charged him with strength. There was clearly a better time beginning, a time of deep reading in the case, of self-analysis and reconstruction. He no longer saw confinement as a lifetime curse. He’d found the truth about a room. He could easily live in a cell half this size.
Sunday morning. Jack did the normal shuffling, getting the day going. It took him a certain time to beam in on things. He drank some grapefruit juice and paced the living room. George was on the sofa reading a newspaper and Jack kept going by with that stare of his that reached only a foot into the world.
“Jack, for me to express a facial nature, you know it’s hard with words, but I don’t think you look so good.”
Jack turned on TV. He washed and shaved, using a Wilkinson sword blade for the name appeal and smacking on aftershave so it hurt. He made scrambled eggs and coffee and looked at the first section of the Times Herald, still in his shorts, while he ate. There was an open letter to Caroline Kennedy that was so emotional it choked off his ability to swallow. In his mind he rehashed the tragedy of the President and his lovely family.
The telephone rang. It was Brenda Jean Sensibaugh, Baby LeGrand, calling from her apartment in Fort Worth.
“Jack, the rent is due. There is nothing to eat in the house for me and the kids.”
“I barely pick up the phone.”
“I’m coming to the point so we don’t waste time. Last night was supposed to be pay night.”
“You know damn well why we closed.”
“I’m not stating it was wrong to close. Just tell me how I get from one week to the next without a pay night.”
“You already drew some on your salary.”
“Don’t be hateful or short with me, Jack. I’m asking a small advance so my children will have a meal before the day is over. I am one of your dependables and you know it. I’m only asking what I need to get through the day food-wise and place a little sum in my landlord’s fist to keep him quiet.”
“How much, bitch?”
“Twenty-five dollars. I can’t get all the way to Dallas but if you could telegraph a money order or however they do it, I can go downtown and pick it up.”
Jack realized there was a Western Union only half a block from the Police and Courts Building. Lucky for her. If he hurried he could wire twenty-five dollars to Brenda and then go shoot that bastard Oswald.
He took a Preludin with his coffee dregs and got dressed. Dark suit, gray fedora, Windsor knot in his silk tie. He picked up Sheba and told George he was going to the club. Downstairs he dropped the dog in the front seat and started up the car.
He was running late. If I don’t get there in time, it’s decreed I wasn’t meant to do it. He drove through Dealey Plaza, slightly out of the way, to look at the wreaths again. He talked to Sheba about was she hungry, did she want her Alpo. He parked in a lot across the street from the Western Union office. He opened the trunk, got out the dog food and a can opener and fixed the dog her meal, which he left on the front seat. He took two thousand dollars out of the moneybag and stuffed it in his pockets because this is how a club owner walks into a room. He put the gun in his right hip pocket. His name was stamped in gold inside his hat.