“No water, thanks,” I said, and Flo said the same.
Tonahill hunkered in conference with one of the deputies, the oldest of the quartet. Then he came over and towered over us and said, “They’ve arranged for you to use room 7-M upstairs. It’ll be more comfortable.”
There was something accusatory in Ruby’s pasty face as he said, “That’s where Justice Warren interviewed me.” He said this looking at Tonahill, then he turned to me and repeated it.
I said quietly, “I’m ahead of you, Jack. What do you see as our options?”
Ruby had already thought that over. “There’s a visiting room on this floor, but I don’t trust it any more than 7-M. That holding cell over there...”
He nodded toward a cubbyhole with its barred door swung open.
“... is where I sleep and do my personal business.”
He meant piss and shit.
He was shaking his bullet head. “Not appropriate for Miss Kilgore. Crowded and not what I would term pleasant — though I don’t see how they would bug it.”
I nodded. The only bugs in there would be cockroaches. But Jack was right, it wouldn’t do.
Then I turned to Tonahill, who stood anxiously nearby like a guy waiting for an estimate from a shady auto mechanic. “Joe, see if you can get those deputies to stand down the hall a ways, on the other side of that gate. We’re going to have our little talk with Jack right here.”
Tonahill thought about that for maybe two seconds, nodded, said, “Okey dokey,” and went over and ran it past the deputies. One went off to check with the chief jailor, but we went ahead and set up shop. I moved the little metal table flush against the far wall, and arranged Flo’s chair so that her back would be to the deputies and Tonahill. I sat across from Ruby, who gathered the cards and set them to one side.
Tonahill got the okay, and he and the deputies positioned themselves on the other side of the gate, close enough to keep us in sight, far away enough to provide the privacy we needed.
Flo got the portable tape gizmo out and asked Ruby for permission to record him.
“Please,” he said, nodding, so worked up he blinked once or twice. “Be my guest.”
Then he folded his hands before him as if about to say grace and waited for the interview to begin.
Flo had a little notebook she was checking in, to make sure she hit every subject on her mind, and Ruby blurted, “Not everything pertaining to what’s happened has come to the surface, you know.”
“Is that right?” she said, flipping through pages, still getting ready.
“The world will never know the true facts of what occurred, my motives, unless you can get the story out. I trust you, Miss Kilgore. And Nate and me, like I say, we go way back — like me, he’s had dealings with certain kinds of underworld types without ever selling his soul to them.”
With a serious smile, I asked, “You never had to make that bargain, Jack? Isn’t that what brought you here?”
His customary expression was that of a guy who just had water splashed in his face. “You got a point, Nate. I’m not sayin’ you don’t have a point. These people who have so much to gain and such an ulterior motive for... for putting me in the position I’m in, they’d do just about anything to keep the true facts from coming out to the world at large.”
Flo finally jumped in. “Are these people in very high positions, Jack?”
“Yes.” He unfolded his hands and, not hard, pounded a fist on the metal tabletop, making the deck of cards jump a little. “Yes!.. You know, I tried to tell the truth to the Warren Commission.”
She nodded. “Jack, I do know. I got an advance look at your testimony. But you told Justice Warren the same story you’ve been telling — about committing the crime for the sake of Jackie and Caroline Kennedy, to spare them the hardship of a trial.”
A tiny smile flashed. “Don’t you think I would make a good actor?” Now the high forehead clenched and he leaned in. “That was a story, Miss Kilgore, that my first attorney instructed me to tell. From the start, I wanted to tell the truth, but I couldn’t, not here in Dallas. Not in this jail. I told Justice Warren, if they wanted to get the straight story out of me, they had to take me to Washington, D.C.”
I said, “But they refused.”
He gestured with open hands, eyes popping. “They refused! Why? Why? I said if they would take me back to Washington, that very night, and let me talk to the President, then I could prove I’m not guilty, and maybe something could still be salvaged.”
Sitting forward, I said, “Jack, almost everybody in America was watching on that Sunday morning, and the rest have seen the instant replay — you killed Oswald. You can’t be saying you’re innocent of that.”
“No, no, I’m not talking about that. Nate, you’re a Jew — you know that there is no greater weapon you can use than to create this kind of falsehood about someone of the Jewish faith, especially of such a terrible heinous crime as the killing of President Kennedy.”
Flo glanced at me and I at her, and she said to him, gently, “You feel you are being accused of killing the President?”
He nodded vigorously. “Of being part of a conspiracy to kill our beloved President.”
I said, “Jack, you hated the Kennedys.”
He shrugged. “I hate Bobby. I never had a problem with Jack. But if I am eliminated, there won’t be any way of knowing what really happened. The Warren Commission, they muffed it, Nate, they eff you cee kayed it up, if you’ll pardon the crudity, Miss Kilgore. I want to talk to LBJ, who I think has been told, I am certain has been told, I was part of a plot to assassinate the President.”
“Why would Johnson have been told that?”
“Because... because he’s been told. I know he’s been told. By the people who plan to eliminate me.”
Shaking her head, as if to clear cobwebs, Flo asked, “Who is going to try to eliminate you, Jack?
“They won’t try, Miss Kilgore, they will. Maybe if you get out there with your story, I have a chance, but... you see, I have been used for a purpose, and there will be a tragic occurrence if you don’t take my story to the people and somehow vindicate me, so Jews like me don’t have to suffer because of what I have done.”
I said, “That’s what we’re here for, Jack. To get your story, and get it out there.”
“Good, because I may not be around for you to come and talk to again. You know, I told them I’d do a lie detector test, truth serum, anything. And then I could leave this world satisfied. I just don’t want my people to be blamed for something that is untrue, for something that some wrongly claim has happened.”
“Then your account of the Oswald shooting,” I said, “was fabricated for you?”
“Yes. Yes. Yes.”
“Then why do you keep repeating it?”
“Because the brave Jew killing the President’s murderer is a good story. And because I have family. I don’t want my brothers to die. I don’t want my sister to die. I don’t want my nieces and nephews to die. I do not want to die. But I am doomed just the same. And I am not insane. I was framed to kill Oswald.”
I held up a calming hand and said, “Okay, okay. But let’s back up. You hated Bobby, you said. You say you didn’t hate the President, but Jack, nobody in mob circles loves either Kennedy.”
He didn’t deny it.
I pressed on: “So why are there so many reports that you were devastated by the President’s death? That you were crying and weeping and wailing?”