5432852385743

Sorry, buddy, couldn’t wait. Too much pain. You have the key to the diner and you know what to do.
Don’t kid yourself that you can try again, either, because too much can happen. Do it right the first time.
Maybe you’re mad at me for getting you into this. I would be, in your shoes. But don’t back down. Please
don’t do that. Tin box is under the bed. There’s another $500 or so inside that I saved back.
It’s on you, buddy. About 2 hours after Doris finds me in the morning, the landlord will probably
padlock the diner, so it has to be tonight. Save him, okay? Save Kennedy and everything changes.
Please.
Al
You bastard, I thought. You knew I might have second thoughts, and this is how you took care of them,
right?
Sure I’d had second thoughts. But thoughts are not choices. If he’d had the idea I might back out,
he was wrong. Stop Oswald? Sure. But Oswald was strictly secondary at that point, part of a misty
future. A funny way to put it when you were thinking about 1963, but completely accurate. It was the
Dunning family that was on my mind.
Arthur, also known as Tugga: I could still save him. Harry, too.
Kennedy might have changed his mind, Al had said. He’d been speaking of Vietnam.
Even if Kennedy didn’t change his mind and pull out, would Harry be in the exact same place at
the exact same time on February 6, 1968? I didn’t think so.
“Okay,” I said. “Okay.” I bent over Al and kissed his cheek. I could taste the faint saltiness of that
last tear. “Sleep well, buddy.”
10
Back at my place, I inventoried the contents of my Lord Buxton briefcase and fancy-Dan ostrich
wallet. I had Al’s exhaustive notes on Oswald’s movements after he mustered out of the Marines on
September 11, 1959. My ID was still all present and accounted for. My cash situation was better than
I’d expected; with the extra money Al had saved back, added to what I already had, my net worth was
still over five thousand dollars.
There was hamburger in the meat drawer of my refrigerator. I cooked up some of it and put it in
Elmore’s dish. I stroked him as he ate. “If I don’t come back, go next door to the Ritters’,” I said.
“They’ll take care of you.”
Elmore took no notice of this, of course, but I knew he’d do it if I wasn’t there to feed him. Cats are
survivors. I picked up the briefcase, went to the door, and fought off a brief but strong urge to run
into my bedroom and hide under the covers. Would my cat and my house even be here when I came
back, if I succeeded in what I was setting out to do? And if they were, would they still belong to me?
No way of telling. Want to know something funny? Even people capable of living in the past don’t
really know what the future holds.
“Hey, Ozzie,” I said softly. “I’m coming for you, you fuck.”
I closed the door and went out.
11
The diner was weird without Al, because it felt as if Al was still there—his ghost, I mean. The faces