"I thought you didn't recognize her," said Remo, opening the door.
"I did not want her to know that," said the Master of Sinanju as he slipped into the rear of the cab.
DURING THE CAB RIDE to the studio, Pepsie Dobbins popped a fresh tape into her cassette deck and said, "I've been dying to do this. Give me a crash course in assassinology."
She clicked on the recorder and held it up to the cab driver's face. The driver in the back of the cab, not the one driving.
"First," he said, "everything you know about this stuff is wrong. Oswald didn't shoot Kennedy, and Sirhan didn't shoot the other Kennedy."
"Were they part of the same conspiracy?"
"That part nobody's figured out yet. But don't let me get ahead of myself here."
"You should give me your name for the record."
"I was wondering when you'd get around to that. For a hotshot reporter, you're kinda sloppy on the details."
"Your name, please," Pepsie requested aridly.
"Aloycius X. Featherstone."
"I hope you have a nickname."
"People call me Buck. On account I like to turn one now and again."
"Keep talking, Buck."
"Like I was saying, nobody you think shot anybody, actually did. It's all cover-ups. Nothing that got out so far is the truth, so help me God. Ray didn't kill King."
"Slow down. Who's Ray and who's King?"
"James Earl Ray and Martin Luther King."
Pepsie frowned. "Why does everybody have three names?"
"That's another good point. Three-name guys are very big in this business. Don't ask me why. But whenever you come across a three-name guy, he's usually the killer or the victim."
"You just said that Oswald didn't kill Kennedy. He's a three-name guy."
"It wasn't Oswald. It was Alek James Hidell. That was his real name. Oswald was what he always said he was-a patsy."
"Is there a beginning we can start at?"
"You should see that movie."
"What movie?"
"What one about Oswald and Kennedy that Hardy Bricker directed, CIA. It lays it all out, except the answers."
"Then what good is it?" Pepsie responded.
"You gotta know the right questions to ask, or the answers you're gonna get won't be worth squat. That was the problem with the Warren Commission Report. Those stiffs asked the wrong questions and they got answers that to this day are no good."
"I should read a copy of the Warren Report, shouldn't I?"
"Maybe we can find one in one of those government bookstores."
"Good idea." Pepsie leaned forward. "Driver, find me a bookstore that carries the Warren Report."
"They don't carry it in bookstores," the driver called over the honking of Washington traffic. "You're better off trying the library."
"How would you know?" Buck asked the cab driver.
The cabbie shrugged and said, "I'm a buff. And that guy is handing you a load of crap, lady. Oswald shot Kennedy, all right. On orders from the mob."
Buck shook his head vehemently. "No. It was a CIA operation all the way."
"The mob. The Chicago mob. It was Carlos Marcello and those guys. They had the means, motive and opportunity. They were after Robert Kennedy, who was busting their balls all over the place. They didn't care about Jack. They figured if Jack was croaked, Lyndon would shitcan Bobby. End of problem. If they whacked Bobby, Jack would be in a position to nail them to the fucking wall. Which I can assure you, they did not want."
"Crap," said Aloycius X. "Buck" Featherstone.
"It worked, didn't it? And Hoffa was in on it, too."
"Who's Hoffa?" asked Pepsie, jerking her recorder from the front seat to the back in an effort to vacuum up every loose theory.
"Some smart-ass Teamster boss," muttered Buck. "They never found his body. It don't mean nothing."
"If you're saying the CIA whacked Jack to keep him from pulling out of Vietnam, you're full of it," the cab driver insisted. "There was no guarantee Lyndon wouldn't have done the same thing once his fat can was in the seat."
"But he didn't. That's proof positive!"
"One sec," interrupted Pepsie. "Who did Lyndon shoot?"
"Himself," grunted Buck. "In the foot. He was the President after Jack. Got hounded out of office."
"Why does that keep happening?" Pepsie asked plaintively. "Why do our Presidents keep getting hounded out of office?"
"The press," both cab drivers said at once.
"When I want editorializing, I'll ask for it," Pepsie snapped. "Now, let's get back to hard theory."
"First we gotta get you that Warren Report," said Buck.
PEPSIE FOUND A SET in the Washington Public Library.
"This is the Warren Report?" she asked, staring at a long shelf of dusty leather-bound volumes.
"That's it."
"It must be very popular. They have so many copies. An entire shelf full."
"That's the full set," said Buck. "All twenty-six volumes."
Pepsie's already unnaturally wide eyes became saucers. "This is all one book?"
"Yep."
"I can't read all this! What do you think I am-a print journalist?"
"I read it all."
"And I have a life to lead, and this is only one story."
"If what we overheard is true, this isn't just a story. It's the story. Maybe the story of the twentieth century. If Oswald or Hidell is still alive and he's trying to take out the President, that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt there was a conspiracy. And we're in the perfect position to blow it wide open. You and I could be the next Woodward and Bernstein."
Pepsie rubbed book dust off her immaculate fingers. "I heard about them. I think my news director plays golf with one of them or something."
"They're the guys who cracked Watergate wide open, which was nothing compared to this."
"Come on. Let's put this to my news director."
WHEN PEPSIE DOBBINS entered the ANC News building, no one said hello.
"Looks like they're giving you the cold shoulder," undertoned Buck.
"They're probably still upset over the assassination attempt. It would unnerve anyone. And a lot of these people actually vote."
The news director of ANC News's Washington bureau accosted Pepsie in the corridor, biting out his words between clenched teeth, saying, "In my office."
"Wait outside," Pepsie told Buck.
In the office Pepsie Dobbins said, "I have evidence of a conspiracy to assassinate the President."
"By Lee Harvey Oswald?" the news director said dryly.
"Well, his name might be Alek James Hidell. We're not sure."
"We?"
"My assassinologist and I."
"My proctologist!"
"Huh?"
"That's a nice way of saying my ass. Now, do you have any reasonable explanation before I consign you to whatever local news organization will have you?"
"You can't fire the reporter who's sitting on the biggest story of the century."
"You have nothing."
"Listen to this tape."
Pepsie produced her cassette recorder and rewound it.
A squeaky voice began speaking when she depressed the Play button.
"Smith has ignored all my entreaties to snuff out the puppet and set him on the Eagle Throne."
Pepsie's recorded voice asked, "You want the President dead?"
"It will bring stability-"
"Who's that speaking?" the ANC news director asked.
"He said his name was Chiun. I met him on the plane. He told me the President's a puppet and America is under the control of a man named Smith."
"A man you met on a plane?" the news director said.
"Yes."
"And a man named Smith controls everything?"
"Yes!"
"And I'm supposed to let you run amok with this story?"
"Look, I know I'm right about this. You can't turn away the next Steinway."
"Who?"
"The guy you play golf with." Pepsie snapped her fingers anxiously. "You know. He broke the old Whitewash story. Floodgate, or whatever they called it."