"Yes."
"You know, I have a hard time believing that."
Smith made no reply, so the President said, "It's kinda ironic that the Chief Executive who sanctioned covert assassination as an instrument of domestic order and foreign policy got assassinated himself."
Smith remained quiet, making the President of the United States feel as if he had been talking nonsense and not something close to his heart.
"How do I compare with him?" he asked at last.
"Mr. President, I knew that President well."
"Yes?"
"You are not that President."
And in the bright darkness of the White House theater, the President sank unhappily into his seat.
Chapter 19
Pepsie Dobbins was working the phone in her Georgetown town house, with her free forefinger jammed into her free ear.
Across the room Aloycius X. Featherstone was droning into a tape recorder. In between calls, Pepsie unplugged her eardrum and tried to follow along.
". . . after the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba went blooey, Kennedy was quoted as saying he was gonna smash the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds. Unquote. He fired the director of the Agency, which was Allen Dulles, along with a certain General Cabell. The thing to remember here is that while Dulles may have been the chief conspirator, Cabell's brother was key man. Why? It's very simple. Cabell's brother just happened to be mayor of Dallas in those days. Here, the plot, as they say, begins to thicken ...."
A voice said hello in Pepsie's telephone ear, and she said, "George? This is Pepsie. What do you hear?"
"That you've been canned, for starters."
"No, I mean about the attempt on the President's life."
I don't know anything about that, but there was a big commotion going on the White House lawn not an hour ago."
"What kind of commotion?"
"A Secret Service beef. They took a guy out on a stretcher covered by a sheet."
"Someone died?"
"Not when you consider where they sent him. St. Elizabeth's."
"Isn't that the mental hospital the Secret Service is always sending people who make threats against the President?"
"Exactly. They don't send dead or wounded to St. Elizabeth's, only psych cases."
"Maybe a Secret Service agent flipped out."
"They're showing footage on CNN if you want to check it out."
"Thanks, George."
Pepsi hung up and grabbed her TV remote. CNN came on.
While she waited for the top-of-the-hour Headline News, Pepsie listened to Buck Featherstone.
"Mayor Cabell ordered the Dallas PD to botch the investigation, and tipped them where to find Oswald. The shitbird Marine Oswald, not the CIA Oswald who wasn't really Oswald. But Hidell-"
Featherstone looked up and saw Pepsie watching a silent TV
"You with me so far?" he asked.
"Is the tape still running?"
"'Yep."
"Then I don't need to be with you."
"Shouldn't you be taking notes or something?"
Pepsie shook her short shag. "Tonight when I go to sleep, I'm going to play your tapes and absorb it all in my sleep. That's how I learn foreign languages."
"What languages do you know?"
"English mostly. Never mind. Keep talking."
Buck shrugged. "Hidell, as I see it, was the CIA triggerman on the hit team. Who were the others? No one knows. Maybe they were CIA, maybe mob, maybe Cubans. Maybe one of them was the real Oswald. Anyways, it was Mayor Cabell who sicced the Dallas police on Oswald to throw suspicion off Hidell. It's a well-documented fact that-"
When Headline News came on, Pepsie turned up the sound so loud Buck stopped talking and watchers, too. She hit the Record button on her VCR remote as a precaution.
"In the still-unexplained aftermath of the attempt to assassinate the President of the United States this morning in Boston, the White House has ordered the White House press corps off the executive mansion grounds, and staff have been furloughed early. Despite official denials, rumors have abounded all day that the President was gravely wounded-a story compounded by a still-unexplained commotion involving the Secret Service when Marine One landed at two o'clock this afternoon.
"Within the hour the President put in an unexpected appearance on the North Lawn. Cameras caught the Chief Executive as he was apparently attempting to coax an unidentified individual out of the fountain."
Murky footage rolled showing the President at the fountain. Without warning, a man in jungle fatigues jumped out and toppled the President. The rest of it was an indistinct blur in the darkness of the White House lawn.
"The President was reportedly unhurt in the attack, and his assailant was removed to an undisclosed location," the news reader continued. "At this hour there is no word on his condition. This incident has fed further fuel to a firestorm of rumors of a conspiracy to assassinate the President-rumors the White House explicitly denies.
"In Hollywood, a spokesman for film director Hardy Bricker claimed today that the attack of the President strikingly evokes Dallas and called for emergency legislation authorizing the release of still-classified..."
"Turn that up. I want to hear this," Buck said.
The phone rang, and Pepsie muted the TV instead.
"Yes?" she said into the phone.
"Pepsie Dobbins?" asked a muffled female voice.
"Yes?"
"I can't identify myself, but if you want a story that will get you back into the good graces of ANC, you should go over to St. Elizabeth's and ask to see Gila Gingold. "
The line went dead.
"Who was that?" Buck wanted to know.
"I'm not sure, but it sounded like the First Lady. She sometimes leaks stuff to me."
"What did she say?"
"She said it was Gila Gingold who's at St. Elizabeth's."
"That doesn't seem plausible," said Buck.
"You should talk," snorted Pepsie. "Get your coat and camera. We're looking into this."
"Can't it wait? I want to hear what Hardy Bricker says. He's my hero."
"Get a new hero."
CONGRESSMAN GILA GINGOLD sat at his desk in the Capitol Building trying to decide whether to paint the kronosaur gray green or green gray when the telephone rang. Kronosaurs were giant prehistoric crocodiles, and no one knew what color they were supposed to be.
He was alone in his office, his staff having gone home. Congressman Gingold would have gone home, too, but his wife was there. She took a dim view of his fascination with dinosaurs. Wouldn't see Jurassic Park once, never mind six times, which was the number of times Gila Gingold had sat through the film, not counting video viewings. With a film that great, video viewings didn't count.
Gila was trying to get the bottle of gray-green enamel open as the ringing continued incessently. Deciding it might be his wife, the congressman from Georgia set aside the bottle and plastic-model kronosaur he'd assembled in his off-hours and lifted the desk receiver.
"Yes?" he said guardedly, because you never knew.
"Fred Flowers, BCN News. I'm calling to confirm a story that's sweeping the city."
"What story?"
"That Gila Gingold is under observation at St. Elizabeth's after an incident on the White House lawn."
"It's a crock!" Gila Gingold roared, coming to his feet. "And it's 'Gila' with a hard G. Not 'Hila.' A Hila is a Spanish lizard. I'm Gila."
"You're Gila Gingold?"
"It's Gila. Hard G, damnit!"
"Would you mind commenting on your alleged biting of the Presidential ankle?"
"That never happened, you stegosaur!" Gingold roared.
"Then why have you been committed to St. Elizabeth's? Allegedly?"
"Idiot!" snapped Gila Gingold, slamming down the phone and grabbing his overcoat. He was so mad he knocked the plastic kronosaur to the floor without noticing. When he slammed the office door after him, the array of plastic tyrannosaurs, allosaurs and velociraptors shook on their shelves.