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Marina invited her in. I waited until I heard the creak of their footsteps above me, then donned the
earphones connected to the lamp bug. What I heard was a conversation in mixed English and Russian.
Marina corrected Ruth several times, sometimes with laughter. I understood enough to figure out why
Ruth Paine had come. Like Paul Gregory, she wanted Russian lessons. I understood something else
from their frequent laughter and increasingly easy conversation: they liked each other.
I was glad for Marina. If I killed Oswald after his attempt on General Walker, the New Agey Ruth
Paine might take her in. I could hope.
5
Ruth only came twice to Neely Street for her lessons. After that, Marina and June got in the station
wagon and Ruth drove them away. Probably to her home in the posh (at least by Oak Cliff standards)
suburb of Irving. That address wasn’t in Al’s notes—he seemed to care little about Marina’s
relationship with Ruth, probably because he expected to finish Lee long before that rifle ended up in
the Paines’ garage—but I found it in the phone directory: 2515 West Fifth Street.
One overcast March afternoon, about two hours after Marina and Ruth had departed, Lee and
George de Mohrenschildt showed up in de Mohrenschildt’s car. Lee got out carrying a brown paper
sack with a sombrero and PEPINO’S BEST MEXICAN printed on the side. De Mohrenschildt had a
six-pack of Dos Equis. They went up the outside staircase, talking and laughing. I grabbed the
earphones, heart pumping. At first there was nothing, but then one of them turned on the lamp. After
that I might have been in the room with them, an unseen third.
Please don’t conspire to kill Walker, I thought. Please don’t make my job harder than it already is.
“Pardon the mess,” Lee said. “She doesn’t do anything much these days but sleep, watch TV, and
talk about that woman she’s giving lessons to.”
De Mohrenschildt spoke for awhile about some oil leases he was trying to get hold of in Haiti, and
spoke harshly of the repressive Duvalier regime. “At the end of the day, trucks drive through the
marketplace and pick up the dead. Many of them are children who’ve starved to death.”
“Castro and the Front will put an end to that,” Lee said grimly.
“May providence hasten the day.” There was the clink of bottles, probably to toast the idea of
providence hastening the day. “How is work, Comrade? And how is it you’re not there this afternoon?”
He wasn’t there, Lee said, because he wanted to be here. Simple as that. He’d just punched out and
walked away. “What can they do about it? I’m the best damn photoprint technician ole Bobby
Stovall’s got, and he knows it. The foreman, his name is (I couldn’t make it out—Graff? Grafe?) says
‘Quit trying to play labor organizer, Lee.’ You know what I do? I laugh and say ‘Okay, svinoyeb,’ and
walk away. He’s a pig’s dick, and ever’one knows it.”
Still, it was clear Lee liked his job, although he complained about the paternalistic attitude, and
how seniority counted for more than talent. At one point he said, “You know, in Minsk, on a level
playing field, I’d be running the place in a year.”
“I know you would, my son—it’s completely evident.”
Playing him up. Winding him up. I was sure of it. I didn’t like it.
“Did you see the paper this morning?” Lee asked.
“I saw nothing but telegrams and memos this morning. Why do you think I’m here, if not to get
away from my desk?”
“Walker did it,” Lee said. “He joined up with Hargis’s crusade—or maybe it’s Walker’s crusade
and Hargis joined up. I cain’t tell. That fucking Midnight Ride thing, anyway. Those two ninnies are
going to tour the whole South, telling people that the N-double-A-C-P’s a communist front. They’ll