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“Yes, and Sadie was my chief assistant. I took care of her after her husband cut her; she took care of
me after Roth and his associates beat me up. Things go around that way. They make . . . I don’t know .
. . a kind of harmony.”
“Things happen for a reason,” Hosty said solemnly, and for a moment I felt like launching myself
over the table and pummeling his flushed and fleshy face. Not because he was wrong, though. In my
humble opinion, things do happen for a reason, but do we like the reason? Rarely.
“Near the end of October, Dr. Perry okayed me to drive short distances.” This was a blatant lie, but
they might not check it with Perry for awhile . . . and if they made an investment in me as an
authentic American Hero, they might not check at all. “I went into Dallas on Tuesday of this week to
visit the apartment house on West Neely. Mostly on a whim. I wanted to see if looking at it would
bring back some more of my memories.”
I had indeed gone to West Neely, but to get the gun under the porch.
“Afterward, I decided to get my lunch at Woolworth’s, just like in the old days. And who should I
see at the counter but Lee, having a tuna on rye. I sat down and asked him how it was going, and that
was when he told me the FBI was harassing him and his wife. He said, ‘I’m going to teach those
bastards not to fuck with me, George. If you’re watching TV on Friday afternoon, maybe you’ll see
something.’”
“Holy cow,” Fritz said. “Did you connect that with the president’s visit?”
“Not at first. I never followed Kennedy’s movements all that closely; I’m a Republican.” Two lies
for the price of one. “Besides, Lee went right on to his favorite subject.”
Hosty: “Cuba.”
“Right. Cuba and viva Fidel. He didn’t even ask why I was limping. He was totally wrapped up in
his own stuff, you know? But that was Lee. I bought him a custard pudding—boy, that’s good at
Woolworth’s, and only a quarter—and asked him where he was working. He told me the Book
Depository on Elm Street. Said it with a big smile, as if unloading trucks and shifting boxes around
was the world’s biggest deal.”
I let most of his blather roll off my back, I went on, because my leg was hurting and I was getting
one of my headaches. I drove home to Eden Fallows and took a nap. But when I woke up, the German
guy’s how-did-you-miss crack came back to me. I put on the TV, and they were talking about the
president’s visit. That, I said, was when I started to worry. I hunted through the pile of newspapers in
the living room, found the motorcade route, and saw it went right by the Book Depository.
“I stewed about it all day Wednesday.” They were leaning forward over the table now, hanging on
every word. Hosty was making notes without looking down at his pad. I wondered if he’d be able to
read them later. “I’d say to myself, Maybe he really means it. Then I’d say, Nah, Lee’s all hat and no
cattle. Back and forth like that. Yesterday morning I called Sadie, told her the whole story, and asked
her what she thought. She phoned Deke—Deke Simmons, the man I called her surrogate father—then
called me back. She said I should tell the police.”
Fritz said, “I don’t mean to add to your pain, son, but if you’d done that, your ladyfriend would
still be alive.”
“Wait. You haven’t heard the whole story.” Neither had I, of course; I was making up sizable
chunks of it as I went. “I told her and Deke no cops, because if Lee was innocent, he’d really be
screwed. You have to understand that the guy was barely holding on by the skin of his teeth. Mercedes
Street was a dump and West Neely was only a little better, but that was okay for me—I’m a single
man, and I had my book to work on. Plus a little money in the bank. Lee, though . . . he had a
beautiful wife and two daughters, the second one just newborn, and he could hardly keep a roof over
their heads. He wasn’t a bad guy—”
At this I felt an urge to check my nose and make sure it wasn’t growing.