We chatted. The band was loud but not deafening, and we were toward the rear. Janet asked how the investigation was going, we said fine, Flo thanked her for her help lining up the other Carousel girls, that kind of thing. Janet reported a good house this evening for both shows at the Colony and that Beverly Oliver, back on the bill, got a nice reception.
But we were having to raise our voices somewhat to be heard, and I suggested we go outside and find a quiet place to talk.
The pool — where I was pleased to see no corpse floating — was a circular affair that fed a little waterfall that emptied into a smaller pool, the two levels nestling in an angle of the building adjacent to a natural ravine. The terraced area overlooked a city park; the night was warm with no humidity, the sky a Maxfield Parrish blue with a scattering of stars, as if Mrs. Marcus’s stolen jewels had been cast there carelessly. The muffled sound of Bill Black playing their hit “Smokie” provided background music, and somewhere in the night a dog barked, but not keeping time. We found a trio of white deck-style chairs and had this little patch of Texas heaven to ourselves.
Flo seemed somewhat confused, having no idea why I’d want to talk to Janet about anything, while Janet just seemed pleased by the attention.
“Something occurred to me just the other day,” I said to the exotic dancer, “that should have much sooner.”
“Oh?”
“Mac Wallace’s presence all those evenings at the Colony Club may not have been innocent.”
Janet laughed once. “Nothing is innocent about Mac Wallace.”
“That’s good to keep in mind. When I arrived in Dallas, I was looking at Wallace in terms of suspicious deaths related to the Billie Sol Estes scandal.”
Janet nodded. “Helping suicides along.”
“Right. But as you know, Flo and I have been looking at the assassination, looking hard. And it’s a crime littered with dead witnesses. Many of them have died the same kind of suspicious deaths as those tied to the Billie Sol Estes case.”
Flo, getting it just a beat before Janet, said, “Wallace may be responsible.”
“I doubt there’s one person responsible. I believe it’s a kind of a cleanup crew.” I turned to Janet. “And it’s possible that Wallace was at the Colony Club to watch you.”
Her small sneer was big with self-confidence. “All the men who come to the Colony Club are there to watch me.”
“Not that kind of watch. The keeping tabs kind. He may have been stalking you. Getting your patterns down.”
The smile disappeared. “Am I in danger, Nate?”
“You may be. Wallace isn’t in Dallas right now, but again... others on this cleanup crew may well be. Do you own a gun?”
She nodded. “A little .22. Should I carry it?”
“You should. Don’t leave the club at night alone. Don’t put yourself at risk. What’s your upcoming schedule?”
“Tomorrow night I’m wrapping up the engagement at the Colony. I’m off to New Orleans for two weeks.”
“The Sho-Bar?”
She nodded.
“That’s a Marcello place,” I said, more to myself than them.
“One of them,” Janet said. “Carlos isn’t there a lot, but I know him.”
“Are you friendly?”
“As far as it goes.”
“If you see him, make nice.”
“How nice? Sex nice?”
“That’s up to you and your conscience, but I would suggest you let him know, without saying anything directly, that you can be trusted. That you are discreet.”
Janet’s eyes flashed wide. “Discreet? What about talking to you and Miss Kilgore the other day?”
Flo, picking right up, said, “Your name won’t be used. You’ll be a reliable source close to the Dallas club scene. That’s a very common journalistic practice.”
“Okay,” Janet said. She sighed. Nodded. “Okay... Listen, Nate, suddenly I’m not in the mood for drinking and dancing. Walk me out to my car, would you? I’d feel safer.”
“Sure,” I said. I turned to Flo. “See if you can reclaim our booth, or find a new one.”
Flo nodded and went back inside.
Janet took my hand and walked me around the building, skirting cabanas curved around one side of the pool, and across manicured grounds overlooking the wooded view of the nearby park. The parking lot was filled with luxury vehicles, including her white Caddy convertible, which awaited, its top up. I opened the driver-side door for her and she got behind the wheel.
“You really do care about me, don’t you?” she said, looking up at me, the paleness of her pretty face emphasized by moon- and starlight. Her blue eyes, with their oriental cast, seemed to stroke my face.
“I do,” I admitted.
She reached over and unzipped me and fished out the part of me that was most interested. I glanced around. The parking lot was empty but for a couple on the other side, drunkenly stumbling toward their car. I was still looking in that direction when her mouth slowly, moist and warm, slid down the shaft, about halfway, and then began an increasing tempo, as she went deeper and faster.
I was almost there when she grinned up at me and asked, “Would you like to get in back of the Caddy? Nice and roomy.”
What did she think I was, some high-school kid?
She slipped off the shoulder straps of her fringed go-go dress and tugged the thing to her waist and her small, pert breasts, thrust toward me by her prominent rib cage, met the cool air with a sharpening of their points, which were almost as red as her lipsticked mouth.
“I wouldn’t mind,” I said.
I wasn’t gone long enough to be suspicious — fifteen minutes maybe, and it wasn’t like Flo and I were having a thing. It was strictly a working relationship, although admittedly with a certain intimacy suggestive of what we had once been to each other.
We didn’t dance again and conversation slowed. I’d risked a third gimlet, and she was on maybe her fifth martini, when I suggested we head back to the Statler. The first half of the drive back was silent, until she stopped pouting about whatever she imagined had happened (even if it had) and apparently started thinking about her story again.
She said, “Could somebody have been impersonating Oswald, at some of these sightings?”
She was referring to a handful of stories we’d heard from witnesses, in which the supposed assassin appeared to be purposefully attracting attention prior to the killing.
Albert Bogard, car salesman at Downtown Lincoln-Mercury, said that on November 9, Oswald test-drove a vehicle, Bogard riding along, as was customary. Oswald zoomed around the freeway at seventy MPH in a new Mercury Comet, as if trying to make an impression. Back at the showroom, Oswald — he wrote “Lee Oswald” on the back of a business card of Bogard’s — said he was interested but didn’t have the money right now. But a job coming up soon would make him flush, and he’d be back. (On the other hand, Oswald’s widow, Marina, had told the authorities that her late husband did not know how to drive.)
Wednesday morning, November 20, a heavyset young man and a young woman entered the office of American Aviation Company at Red Bird Air Field, on the Dallas outskirts; waiting in their car, in the passenger seat, was a man in his early twenties. They approached American Aviation’s owner, Wayne January, wanting to rent a small plane for Friday afternoon. They would be flying to southeast Mexico, near Cuba, and asked detailed questions about the available Cessna — how far could it go without refueling, what was its speed, how did it perform in certain wind conditions? It sounded like a recipe more for hijacking than rental, and January refused their business. He watched the irritated couple join the man in the car, January’s suspicions (perhaps purposefully) aroused. He took a good hard look at the sullen young man who hadn’t come in. Later he recognized that man as Lee Harvey Oswald, or someone who closely resembled him.