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“I’d like to speak to George, please.”
“I’m afraid he’s at the office, sir.”
I grabbed a pen from my breast pocket. “Can you give me that number?”
“Yes, sir. CHapel 5-6323.”
“Thanks.” I wrote it on the back of my hand.
“May I say who called, if you don’t reach him, sir?”
I hung up. That chill was enveloping me again. I welcomed it. If I’d ever needed cold clarity, it was
now.
I dropped another dime and this time got a secretary who told me I’d reached the Centrex
Corporation. I told her I wanted to speak to Mr. de Mohrenschildt. She, of course, wanted to know
why.
“Tell him it’s about Jean-Claude Duvalier and Lee Oswald. Tell him it’s to his advantage.”
“Your name, sir?”
Puddentane wouldn’t do here. “John Lennon.”
“Please hold, Mr. Lennon, I’ll see if he’s available.”
There was no canned music, which on the whole seemed an improvement. I leaned against the wall
of the hot booth and stared at the sign reading IF YOU SMOKE, PLEASE TURN ON FAN. I didn’t
smoke, but turned the fan on, anyway. It didn’t help much.
There was a click in my ear loud enough to make me wince, and the secretary said, “You’re
connected, Mr. D.”
“Hello?” That jovial booming actor’s voice. “Hello? Mr. Lennon?”
“Hello. Is this line secure?”
“What do you . . . ? Of course it is. Just a minute. Let me shut the door.”
There was a pause, then he was back. “What’s this about?”
“Haiti, my friend. And oil leases.”
“What’s this about Monsieur Duvalier and that guy Oswald?” There was no worry in his voice, just
cheerful curiosity.
“Oh, you know them both much better than that,” I said. “Go ahead and call them Baby Doc and
Lee, why don’t you?”
“I’m awfully busy today, Mr. Lennon. If you don’t tell me what this is about, I’m afraid I’ll have to
—”
“Baby Doc can approve the oil leases in Haiti you’ve been wanting for the last five years. You know
this; he’s his father’s righthand man, he runs the tonton macoute, and he’s next in line for the big chair.
He likes you, and we like you—”
De Mohrenschildt began to sound less like an actor and more like a real guy. “When you say we, do
you mean—”
“We all like you, de Mohrenschildt, but we’re worried about your association with Oswald.”
“Jesus, I hardly know the guy! I haven’t seen him in six or eight months!”
“You saw him on Easter Sunday. You brought his little girl a stuffed rabbit.”
A very long pause. Then: “All right, I guess I did. I forgot about that.”
“Did you forget about someone taking a shot at Edwin Walker?”
“What has that got to do with me? Or my business?” His puzzled outrage was almost impossible to
disbelieve. Key word: almost.
“Come on, now,” I said. “You accused Oswald of doing it.”
“I was joking, goddammit!”
I gave him two beats, then said, “Do you know what company I work for, de Mohrenschildt? I’ll
give you a hint—it’s not Standard Oil.”