“You’re not confused now, are you?”
Roger sneered at his companion. “I still am, but that’s not the point. It’s personal now. That bastard Booth killed me!”
Wells turned then and Roger looked to see what had drawn the man’s attention. A bellhop, his bulk forced into an uncomfortably tight blue uniform, complete with triple rows of bright shiny buttons down his chest and a pill box cap on his head, was signaling from the door. Wells nodded back and the bellhop returned inside.
“That’s my man, Groves,” said the detective. “Booth is in his room and alone. I have three men posted on his floor. Whatever happens, you’ll be alone in there. Are you going to take him with the shockspan?”
Roger nodded. “I can use that through the door if I have to. I’m sure as hell not going to duel with him with pistols or knives.”
“Very wise.” He nodded his head toward the gas lighted doors of the National. “It’s time. Ask the desk for your key. Your room is right across the hallway from Booth’s. Your key will fit Booth’s lock, as well.”
“My key? What name?”
“Your name.” The detective raised his eyebrows and thrust his hands into his coat pockets. “Well, it was your name. I’m sorry. Ask for Richard Dreyfuss’s key.”
His throat dry, his makeup as John Wilkes Booth complete, Roger left his room and stood outside Booth’s door and lifted his left hand. His right hand held the grip of his shockspan, the weapon set on kill. He took a breath, let it escape, and gave the door a quick double rap with his knuckles.
“Yes?” boomed the actor’s voice from the other side of the door.
“Fresh pillow, sir.”
“It’s about time. I can’t imagine what possessed the maid to take the bed’s pillow in the first place.” The door opened and Booth stood there, his suspenders hanging from his waist, his thick dark eyebrows raised. “Well?”
Roger raised the shockspan and Booth twisted and sprang to one side as Roger pulled the trigger, catching only the lower left quadrant of his target. The actor was dragging his dead leg as he reached for his coat hanging from the back of a chair. Roger fired twice more and watched as John Wilkes Booth fell to the floor like a load of wet wash.
Feeling faint, Roger closed the door behind him, went to the edge of the bed, and sat down, for some reason thinking about the movie, Jaws and Martha’s Vineyard, wishing he were there and back then. Killing Booth, he realized, hadn’t exorcised his personal demon. It was Ryan who needed to be killed. He was the one who had started this ball rolling.
Roger looked around the room, a chill running through his body. At any point over the next twenty-three hours Ryan could strike. He already knew one place where he would have to make a try: in front of the theater where he had killed Booth before. How many more tries had Ryan managed before Dalik Ophon managed to cut him off from the timewave? One? Five? A hundred and five? There was also the small matter of his own attempt to kill himself at the rear of the theater.
There was a bottle of brandy on the room’s dresser. Roger eyed it as he tried to make a decision between the brandy or setting his shockspan on mild stun and shooting himself in the head. Either way, it was a quick way to escape the noise in his head and get some sleep.
There was a knock at the door followed by Wells’s familiar voice calling, “Maid service.”
Roger stood, went to the door, and opened it. Behind the detective were two of his minions. They walked past Roger, picked up John Wilkes Booth’s body, and hurried out the door. “We’ll be keeping an eye on you all night, Rich — Roger,” said Jason Wells. “Get some sleep.” He held out a feather pillow and left as Roger took it.
After closing the door, Roger threw the pillow on the bed and, fully clothed, dropped onto the bed and closed his eyes, strains of Simon and Garfunkle singing the hey Mrs. Robinson song threading into his dreams.
9:29 PM, 14 April 1865
Roger shivered in the cool night air as he turned the horse onto F Street and rode toward the opening to the alley. Every nerve was strung to its limit. He had kept all of Booth’s appointments that day. It had been necessary to do so to keep the bait alive for Ryan. The plan had been to keep everything as close to the known facts as possible. Who knew what consequences might accrue if someone’s life took on a different spin because Booth didn’t get his haircut at 8:30, or was there in his room when his drunken friend, Michael O’Laughlin, called, or was himself sober at the wrong moment.
At eleven he had walked to Ford’s to pick up his mail and met there with Henry Clay Ford and the stage carpenter, James Gifford. There was where Booth was supposed to have learned that President Lincoln would be attending the performance that night with General Grant.
Later, he was there on E Street when James Ford, his buggy loaded with bunting to decorate Lincoln’s box, stopped to have a chat. From there he had gone to Howard’s Stable on Seventh, paid his bill, and arranged to have his one-eyed roan delivered to the small stable behind Ford’s Theater. Then he went across the Mall to Pumphrey’s Stable and ordered that a horse be saddled and waiting for him at four o’clock. As Booth was known to have said, Roger repeated, “I’ll be back,” and, as difficult as it was, he said it without an Austrian accent.
Back at the National he dressed, putting on his boots, spurs, his black suit and hat. He stuck the familiar long sheathed knife into his belt at his left side, and into his pockets he placed a compass, his timepiece, a gimlet, and a small brass derringer.
After dressing, he went to Herndon House, met with Lewis Paine, and discussed the plans. Paine, if he could gather enough wit, was to make his way to Secretary of State Seward’s house and dispatch the sick old man. After picking up his horse at four, Roger rode up Sixth Street to the Avenue and rode Pennsylvania to E Street, where he tied the animal to a hitching post at Grover’s Theater, went to Deery’s tavern upstairs, and pretended to swill brandy. Then he went down to the manager’s office, which was empty, and took a facsimile of Booth’s letter to the National Intelligencer, glanced over it, and sealed it. Then, still looking over his shoulder for Peter Ryan, he had gone to Ford’s.
At Ford’s Theater he had talked with an actor named Maddox, and then rode off in the direction of Pennsylvania Avenue. On Fourteenth Street he met John Matthews, another actor who Booth had once tried to enlist in one of his conspiracies against the President. Matthews had refused. Roger shook the man’s hand, as prescribed, and left him with the letter to deliver to the Intelligencer before noon the next day.
There was the chance passing of General Grant’s carriage on Fifteenth Street, and the subsequent conversation with a soldier confirming that it was Grant and that the general was on his way to New Jersey. A little later he met with George Atzerodt and discussed with the drunken buffoon his plans to kill Vice-president Johnson. Atzerodt whined, cried, and generally made Roger Alfred wonder if there had been anyone in the conspiracy that wasn’t on the sauce.
In the Alley at Ford’s he invited Ned Spangler, James Maddox, and Jacob Ritterspaugh to Taltavul’s for a drink, left them there with a bottle, and returned to the empty theater to prepare Lincoln’s box for the assassination. It was in the silence of the theater, after he had carved out the plaster for the doorjamb, and while he was making the hole in the door with the gimlet, that he thought he heard a noise. It turned out to be nothing but a cat, but it had taken Roger a full five minutes before he could complete the observation hole and get out of there and go back to the National for a rest.