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In Little Rock I bought a ticket on the noon bus to Pittsburgh, with a single stop in Indianapolis. I
had breakfast in the depot diner, near an old fellow who ate with a portable radio in front of him on
the table. It was large and covered with shiny dials. The major story was still the attempted
assassination, of course . . . and Sadie. Sadie was big, big news. She was to be given a state funeral,
followed by interment at Arlington National Cemetery. There was speculation that JFK himself
would deliver the eulogy. In related developments, Miss Dunhill’s fiancé, George Amberson, also of
Jodie, Texas, had been scheduled to appear before the press at 10:00 A.M., but that had been pushed
back to late afternoon—no reason given. Hosty was providing me all the room to run that he possibly
could. Good for me. Him, too, of course. And his precious director.
“The president and his heroic saviors aren’t the only news coming out of Texas this morning,” the
old duffer’s radio said, and I paused with a cup of black coffee suspended halfway between the saucer
and my lips. There was a sour tingle in my mouth that I’d come to recognize. A psychologist might
have termed it presque vu—the sense people sometimes get that something amazing is about to happen
—but my name for it was much more humble: a harmony.
“At the height of a thunderstorm shortly after one A.M., a freak tornado touched down in Fort
Worth, destroying a Montgomery Ward warehouse and a dozen homes. Two people are known dead,
and four are missing.”
That two of the houses were 2703 and 2706 Mercedes Street, I had no doubt; an angry wind had
erased them like a bad equation.