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“That’s all right,” I said. “I trust you.”
He started to pass over the envelope, then pulled it back and tapped his chin with it. His blue eyes,
faded but shrewd, sized me up. “Any interest in rolling this over? Football season is coming up, as is
the Series.”
“I don’t know jack about football, and a Dodgers-Yankees Series doesn’t interest me much. Hand it
over.”
He did so.
“Pleasure doing business with you,” I said, and walked out. I could feel their eyes following me,
and I had that by now very unpleasant sense of déjà vu. I couldn’t pinpoint the cause. I got into my
car, hoping I would never have to return to that part of Fort Worth again. Or to Greenville Avenue in
Dallas. Or place another bet with another bookie named Frati.
Those were my three wishes, and they all came true.
14
My next stop was 214 West Neely Street. I’d phoned the landlord and told him August was my last
month. He tried to talk me out of it, telling me good tenants such as myself were hard to find. That
was probably true—the police hadn’t come once on my account, and they visited the neighborhood a
lot, especially on weekends—but I suspected it had more to do with too many apartments and not
enough renters. Dallas was experiencing one of its periodic lows.
I stopped at First Corn on the way and plumped up my checking account with Frati’s two grand.
That was fortunate. I realized later—much later—that if I’d had it on me when I got to Neely Street,
I surely would have lost it.
My plan was to dummy-check the four rooms for any possessions I might have left behind, paying
particular attention to those mystic points of junk-attraction beneath sofa cushions, under the bed,
and at the backs of bureau drawers. And of course I’d take my Police Special. I would want it to deal
with Lee. I now had every intention of killing him, and as soon after he returned to Dallas as I
possibly could. In the meantime, I didn’t want to leave a trace of George Amberson behind.
As I closed in on Neely, that sense of being stuck in time’s echo chamber was very strong. I kept
thinking about the two Fratis, one with a wife named Marjorie, one with a daughter named Wanda.
Marjorie: Is that a bet in regular talk?
Wanda: Is that a bet when it’s at home with its feet up?
Marjorie: I’m J. Edgar Hoover, my son.
Wanda: I’m Chief Curry of the Dallas Police.
And so what? It was the chiming, that was all. The harmony. A side effect of time-travel.
Nevertheless, an alarm bell began to ring far back in my head, and as I turned onto Neely Street, it
moved up to the forebrain. History repeats itself, the past harmonizes, and that was what this feeling
was about . . . but not all it was about. As I turned into the driveway of the house where Lee had laid
his half-assed plan to assassinate Edwin Walker, I really listened to that alarm bell. Because now it
was close. Now it was shrieking.
Akiva Roth at the fight, but not alone. With him had been a party-doll in Garbo sunglasses and a
mink stole. August in Dallas was hardly mink weather, but the auditorium had been air-conditioned,
and—as they say in my time—sometimes you just gotta signify.
Take away the dark glasses. Take away the stole. What do you have?