Several employees and patrons of the Sports Drome Rifle Range reported seeing Oswald behaving (in the words of one) in a “loud and obnoxious” manner. In early October, Malcolm Price helped Oswald adjust the scope on an Italian Mauser rifle. On November 17, Garland Slack said Oswald was next to him on the range, and Oswald suddenly began shooting at Slack’s target instead of his own, in a rapid-fire fashion. When Slack objected, Oswald gave him “a dirty look I’ll never forget.”
On the morning of November 21, a hitchhiker carrying a brown-paper-wrapped package (about four by four and a half, containing “curtain rods”) was picked up by refrigeration repair man Ralph Yates. Conversationally, he asked if Yates had ever been to the Carousel Club, and later wondered aloud if the President on his upcoming visit could be assassinated by a sniper in a high window. The passenger got off at the corner of Elm and Houston. Yates discussed the disturbing incident with a co-worker before the assassination, after which he took his tale to the FBI.
“It’s possible someone was trying to incriminate Oswald,” I said, “before the fact.”
“With a double? That’s crazy.”
“LBJ has a double, if Madeleine Brown is to be believed. Worked for Mussolini and Hitler, didn’t it?”
“Nate, that’s spy stuff. How would a nobody like Lee Harvey Oswald get caught up in something like that?”
“Who knows?” I said. “It’s a conspiracy involving some high-level people. Anything is possible, I guess.”
I couldn’t tell her what Bobby Kennedy had confirmed: that Oswald was an asset of both the FBI and CIA, and that the latter agency was eminently capable of such a deception.
“Maybe,” she said thoughtfully, very coherent for a woman who’d downed five martinis, “it explains how Deputy Craig could see Oswald getting picked up in a station wagon when other witnesses put him on a bus and then a taxi.”
“And maybe,” I said, wishing I could say more, “it explains how an assassin resembling Oswald could be at a window on the sixth floor of the book depository when the real Lee H. was sitting in the lunchroom, sipping a Coke.”
“Did you have sex with her?”
“Huh?”
“That vulgar stripper! Don’t deny it. I can smell her on you.”
“Don’t be silly,” I said.
Guess I should have washed up before joining her back at the club.
I dropped Flo at the front of the Statler without a word, expecting her to have gone up to her room by the time I got back from the parking lot across the street, but she was waiting just inside.
“You walked her to her car,” she said. Her big blue eyes were wide in a porcelain face as emotionless as a bisque baby’s. “You were worried about her. Can’t you at least show me to my room?”
“Sure.”
We got on the elevator and she stepped away from me, putting some distance between us. We were alone in the car.
We’d passed a few floors when she said, “Take me to your room... not for sex! I told you there’s a man in my life. I don’t want you and I don’t need you, understand? But... please?”
Wasn’t this the goddamnedest argument I’d ever had?
“Sure,” I said.
She came over and grabbed on to my arm with both of hers and pressed herself close. “I’m afraid. All this talk of... I’m afraid. You were afraid for her, weren’t you? Don’t you think that, that... cleanup crew of yours might want to do me harm?”
“Could,” I admitted.
So we went to my room. She sat on the twin bed currently in its couch formation, with cushions propped against the wall. I turned on a table lamp, giving us not much more light than Club 3525.
“What do you have to drink?” she asked. She was sitting with her legs tucked up under her, heels kicked off, her polka-dot dress hiked, plenty of nice leg showing. But at my age, if she was here for sex, she’d better be prepared to wait a while.
I sat next to her and plucked the silly bow from her hair and tossed it somewhere. “Water from the faucet is what I have to drink.”
“Very funny.”
“There’s a pop machine and ice down the hall. Glad to make the trip.”
“Call room service. Get some gin and tonic.”
“I don’t like gin.”
“I don’t care what you like. Order something for yourself, too. Herald Tribune will pay for it.”
“You’ve had enough to drink.”
“That’s your opinion. You work for me.”
“Not right now. I’m off the clock.”
She hit my chest with a little fist. “Gin and tonic. Right now!.. Please?” She looked like she was going to cry. “I’m scared. You scared me tonight.”
I didn’t think so. I didn’t think this little dame would scare unless maybe a goddamn bear was chasing her.
I asked, “What’s this really about?”
Her chin crinkled. “My guy... my guy hasn’t returned even one of my calls all week.”
She wasn’t talking about her husband.
“Sorry,” I said.
“And then you... you haven’t even had the decency of throwing me a pass. And tonight, you take that little slut out to her car, and what did you do? Fuck her in the backseat?”
She was a girl reporter, all right.
I said, “Don’t be ridiculous. Janet was just scared, like you are.”
“I said I could smell her on you! You think I would let you stick it in me after you stuck it in her? Christ knows what diseases she’s carrying. Maybe she’ll get pregnant! Think you’ll live long enough to go to Junior’s graduation?”
I took her by her spindly arms. “First, there already is a Nathan Heller, Jr. Second, it could be a girl. Third, no it couldn’t, because I used a Trojan. I was in the Boy Scouts, you know.”
Really I wasn’t, but my words were like a splash of cold water in her face, and then she started to laugh and hugged me.
“Nathan Heller,” she said, giggling, but it didn’t sound happy exactly. “You are a scamp.”
“Is that what I am?”
She pushed me away. “Now get me my gin and tonic.”
“Okay,” I said, and went over to the phone, but as I was reaching for it, it rang.
“Heller speaking,” I said.
“Nate, it’s Clint Peoples,” the receiver said, as if that voice needed any identifying. “I’m goddamn sorry to call you so late like this, but I thought you should know.”
“Know what, Clint?”
“The Cheramie girl is dead.”
I grabbed a nearby chair and sat. “Christ.”
“An auto-pedestrian accident near Big Sandy.”
“What’s Big Sandy?”
“A town in Texas, man, what do you think? Apparently Rose was just lyin’ in the roadway with her suitcases scattered around and a driver came along and tried to swerve and miss her. He didn’t. He struck her, just part of her, but... her skull was crushed.”
“Jesus.”
“That’s all I know. I mean, this thing just happened. Came in over the wire. I will make calls tomorrow and have more for you later. Sorry to be the bearer.”
“Thanks, Clint.”
We both hung up.
Then I called down for the gin and tonic.
She stayed with me that night. She was afraid, as well she should be, and she drank herself to sleep. We did not have sex, if your prurient interest must be satisfied. She stayed in her dress, I was down to my underwear, my nine millimeter naked on the nightstand. We talked very little, before she drifted off, although the sense that we had caused that poor woman’s death was there in the room with us, hogging the space.