“He didn’t kill Roosevelt. The history books say Giuseppe Zangara missed and accidentally hit Mayor Cermak, who was shaking hands with the President Elect at the time. Zangara was a Sicilian who thought he was dying of cancer, by the way, and they say his family lived well after Giuseppe went quickly to the chair. There was a second shooter at Miami, ready to back him up. Pretty standard procedure for certain types of assassinations. Bottom line, Mayor Cermak was killed just a few weeks after two of his crooked cops were sent to shoot Al Capone’s successor, Frank Nitti. They’d pulled in another cop for back-up without telling him the score. That was me. That was what initiated me going private. I had to go to the hospital where Frank Nitti lay fighting for his life and convince him I wasn’t in on it. Did I mention Cermak had hired me as a bodyguard?”
Halfway through that she had clutched my hand.
I looked at the stars. “What do they call that feeling — déjà vu, right? Well, all day long I’ve been feeling it, and I think I felt it that night in the Pantry, too, wrestling with that little bushy-haired prick, but I didn’t let it in. But Nita... I’ve been here before. And the Cermak kill went down in front of a crowd of people, a packed amphitheater, and everybody saw it and nobody saw it, not really. So I have come full circle, baby, and I don’t like it. It’s like I’ve spent all these years learning everything and nothing.”
She got up and came over and sat in my lap and put her arms around me and buried her face in my neck. I could feel the tears.
Muffled, she said, “Is that all true?”
“Yes. It’s true. You are a child.”
She stayed on my lap with her arms around me, but she pulled away to look at me with the big brown eyes in the lovely makeup-free face. “How far are you going to take this?”
“Us? Or this?”
“Both.”
“Far as I can get away with.”
“It’s cute when you call me ‘Baby.’”
“Is it?”
“Very Bogart.”
“Him you’ve heard of.”
“Tell me something.”
“I’ll try.”
“Can a sixty-something man get it up twice in one night?”
I lifted her off my lap.
“Let’s go in and see,” I said.
Ten
The Riviera Country Club, a verdant ribbon between Pacific Palisades and the Pacific Ocean, had been around since the late ’20s, a haven from L.A. traffic and a sanctuary of solitude interrupted only by the crack of metal or hardwood golf heads connecting with balatá-coated balls. That and, of course, the cries, moans and obscene outbursts of frustrated members and guests. Arnold Palmer called the Riviera “one of the great tests of golf.” I called golf itself a colossal pain in the ass.
I disliked the so-called sport with the intensity of those who loved the game, but playing it, and playing it well enough not to be an embarrassment, was a requirement of doing business in certain circles. So was losing more holes than you won.
The main clubhouse, a rambling array of light-tan, red-roofed Mission-style structures, offered the expected balcony view of the driving range, chipping area, putting green, and practice bunker. The bar afforded a tucked-away, high-ceilinged, predominantly male refuge of mahogany paneling, piped-in Rat Pack music, and two-tone green-striped upholstered easy chairs in little private groupings, matching chairs at tables and on higher legs at the bar. You could get shit-faced here in style.
I’d ascertained their 8:30 A.M. tee time by way of a call to Grant Cooper’s law office, pretending to be a colleague. But I had no desire to chase Sirhan Sirhan’s attorney and his prosperous peers around the golf course, dodging balls and navigating white-bark trees. Eighteen holes, plus dropping off their clubs and freshening up in the locker room, should put them at this posh version of the traditional nineteenth hole before lunch.
From the balcony beyond the bar, I’d seen their pair of golf carts storm the citadel, and twenty minutes or so later they trooped in, four men in their early sixties wearing pricey casual clothes intended for men half their age (though few could have afforded them) — lightweight sports jackets with large-collar button-down shirts, stripes or solids or in Cooper’s case brown-and-orange plaid. Their flared slacks, tastefully gray or tan, offset the offenses. I was in a light-blue-and-white-striped sport coat, navy tie, and white slacks, so I was only marginally less guilty.
I had commandeered an easy chair by a fireplace — neither I nor it were lit, even if I was deep into my second vodka gimlet. As the foursome collected cocktails at the bar, I caught Grant Cooper’s eye. Took him a second or two to make me, but then I smiled — applying medium wattage — and waved him over. He reflexively returned the smile and excused himself with his peers, an uplifted hand conveying he’d only be a short while.
The prominent attorney was tall and slender with a deeply grooved oblong face, eyes glittering dark behind heavy black-framed glasses, his steel-gray hair swept back above a high forehead. He set a martini down on the coffee table between us.
“Mr. Heller,” he said in a baritone with an edge, as I stood and we shook hands across that low-riding table. “I believe we’ve never met outside the courtroom.”
“That’s correct.” I gestured to an easy chair positioned opposite. “Would you sit for a moment? I have a few things I’d like to go over with you.”
Cooper shrugged, affable if wary. “Nothing unpleasant, I trust. I already took a beating on the back nine.”
He sat. Folded his arms and got comfy, resting an ankle on a knee. White leather loafers — Pierre Cardin, I’d wager — and orange silk socks. “Don’t recall seeing you here before. Are you a member?”
“No, my L.A. partner, Fred Rubinski, is. I’m in Chicago more often than not.”
“The A-1 Detective Agency, isn’t it?”
I nodded. “I wanted to ask you a few questions about the Sirhan case.” I briefly explained I was doing background research for Drew Pearson.
“Pearson has a reputation,” he said through a slice of a smile, “as something of a muckraker, Mr. Heller. Bit of a scandalmonger.”
“Make it ‘Nate.’”
“And ‘Grant.’” He produced a pipe from one sport coat pocket and a tobacco pouch and matches from the other. “Is that why he’s digging into the RFK assassination? To pay tribute now that Bobby Kennedy has acquired sainthood status?”
I pretended to be mildly amused by that. “Exactly. And you’re in a position to share an insider’s look at the case.”
A thick black eyebrow arched. “More so than the late Senator’s personal bodyguard?”
“That’s not something I’d care to advertise.”
“But you were there that night, which is more than I could say.”
“I was in the Pantry,” I admitted, “but like most people present, I don’t really know what I saw. It was like the stateroom scene in A Night at the Opera but with guns.”
A smile flickered. “Well, one gun, anyway.”
I put on a thoughtful face, not at all adversarial. Sat forward, hands loose in my lap. “Actually, that’s something I’ve been wondering. Could there have been a second gun, do you think?”
He waved that off as he waved out his match, his pipe lighted. “Nonsense. Conspiratorial bunk.”
“But couldn’t you at least have raised the possibility in court?”
A curt head shake. “Going down that path would’ve killed us out of the gate.”
Of course, they’d been “killed” anyway.
Staying reasonable, I said, “I’ve spoken to Medical Examiner Noguchi. He says there were powder burns on, and behind, Bob’s right ear. That and the other gunshot wounds indicate the shooter stood right behind him. And we both know Sirhan was in front of him, several yards away.”