“Perhaps he’s trying reverse psychology,” Nita said, frowning. She looked young and cute in her gold-red-black print tunic top. The Cher-style eye makeup was over and now the big brown eyes were helped only by some minor mascara and a little light green eye shadow. Her dark hair was back in a ponytail.
“You mean,” I said, “if my new best friend Gene Cesar killed Bob Kennedy, he figures to sound innocent by being open about his contempt for the victim. Interesting.”
She gave me half a smirk. “You make it sound silly but there might be something to it.”
“Another possibility,” I said, forking a black olive, “is the guy’s a dope.”
“If he’s a dope, who would trust him with an important assignment like this?”
I chewed the olive and swallowed. “Excellent point.”
I had already filled her in on a phone conversation I’d had at the office with forensics guy Will Harris, reacting to Gene Cesar saying he’d got powder in his eyes due to Sirhan’s gunfire. Will said this was impossible at the three-foot range Cesar claimed; however, the powder could have been blowback... from Gene’s own gun barrel.
I’d also asked Will to check on the sale of Cesar’s .22 to his Lockheed pal who moved to Arkansas. Maybe we could buy it back and do some testing. He was on it.
“My buddy Gene,” I said to Nita, “was just behind and to the right of Bob when the shots were fired. If he’s telling the truth about where he was, relative to Bob, then either the shooter had to be between him and Bob, or Gene did it himself.”
She frowned in thought. “Could he just be remembering it wrong? You said his various statements — particularly about the shooting itself and the immediate aftermath — are inconsistent.”
“They are. The LAPD materials include four distinct versions — not wildly different, but... different. Sometimes Gene gets knocked down, other times he doesn’t. Sometimes the maître d’ bumps into him, other times he doesn’t know who it is, just ‘somebody.’ But we can be sure about his positioning — there’s strong evidence he was standing very damn close behind Bob.”
“What evidence?”
I gestured with a breadstick. “Cesar was wearing a clip-on tie. Photos of him earlier that night confirm as much. And remember that terribly sad photo of Bob on his back and the busboy comforting him? Cesar’s clip-on tie is on the cement near Bob’s outstretched right hand.”
Her hand came up to her mouth. “As if... as if... in a moment of struggle...”
“Bob yanked the tie off his assailant’s neck.”
She pushed her share of the salad aside; put her chin in a hand and an elbow on the tabletop. “You think Cesar was some kind of... hit man?”
I flipped a hand. “Could be part of a radical right-wing group. A second shooter assigned to make sure Bob bought it if Sirhan failed. Or Gene could have taken advantage of the moment to put one into a public figure he despised.”
She made a face. “None of that sounds right.”
“No. It doesn’t.”
Her perfect eyebrows went up. “Could it have been an accident? Cesar draws his gun in response to Sirhan’s shooting and it goes off and kills the very person he’s trying to defend?”
“What, three times? Actually, four, ’cause one went through Bob’s clothing without hitting him.”
She pursed her lips. “Okay. Not a good theory.”
“Not a good theory. But what is?”
We shared a pizza (Miceli’s Special, “Everything But the Oven”). Somehow we managed to come up with both an appetite and some conversation unrelated to the tragedy that brought us together. She’d had another round of auditions today and was up for a role on The Brady Bunch. And she had a callback on Mannix.
Over the last of the wine, I said, “We’re obviously getting somewhere.”
“You mean in our relationship?”
I smiled a little. “Sure. But what I mean is, whatever was really going on in that Pantry is starting to show itself. So far I’ve just been sniffing around the edges of this thing. But I have enough now to put the entire weight of the A-1 behind a full-on investigation, and talk to my pal Wes Grapp at the FBI, assuming the Bureau isn’t a part of a government cover-up. And then of course there’s Pearson, who’ll be up for funding it, considering just how big this is.”
“That sounds like good news,” she said.
“Doesn’t it?”
We toasted.
Back at the bungalow a call was waiting for me — Jack Anderson. Didn’t matter what time I got in, I was to get back to him. Pleased with what I had to tell him, I dialed direct from the bedroom phone. Nita, already in her nightie, was pillow-propped up next to me as she read Airport.
“Jack,” I said after he answered. “Good to hear from you. I wanted to report in, anyway.”
“Afraid that’s no longer necessary.”
“Oh?”
A long silence. A sigh.
He said, “I take it you haven’t heard the news.”
“What news?”
“Drew... Drew had a heart attack this morning.”
“Oh hell.”
“Died on his way to the hospital.”
The world without Drew Pearson in it was suddenly a smaller place.
“Damn... I’m sorry.”
Weary sadness oozed across the wire like a gas leak. “We’ll talk later, Nate, but that’ll have to be the end of this current assignment. I’m going to be picking up the reins on the column and working to just keep the boat afloat... if you’ll forgive the mixed metaphor.”
My hand was tight on the receiver. “Jack, I’m getting somewhere on this thing. Are you sure...?”
“For now, at least, yes. Timing isn’t right, and even if it was, I don’t know if I have access to the funding. You need to face it, Nate. The RFK inquiry is kaput.”
Part Three
The Go-Go Dancer with the Zebra Rug
April 1969
Twelve
The following morning at the A-1 office in the Bradbury Building, I rounded up Fred Rubinski and got my other two partners on a conference call — Lou Sapperstein in Chicago and Bob Hasty in Manhattan.
“So,” I said, rocking back in my desk chair, “we don’t have a client.”
From the speaker phone, Lou said, “How much do we have invested in this?”
Lou had been my boss back in Chicago on the Pickpocket Detail in the early ’30s. He was past retirement age and understandably skeptical about throwing good money (or time) after bad.
“I’ve only been on it for a few days,” I said. “We can walk away clean.”
Bob Hasty, half a decade younger than me, said from our office at the Empire State, “Who you trying to kid, Nate? You have a lot more invested than a few days. We all know Bobby Kennedy was your friend.”
Hasty had worked Homicide in D.C., which is where I knew him from, when he was with Bradford Investigations, with whom the A-1 was affiliated. I’d hired him away to run the New York office.
In the client chair, a third of a cigar stuffed in his face, Fred asked, “What’s the upside here? If we decide to pursue this thing just to be good goddamn citizens or something?”
“Better publicity,” I said, “than helping Errol Flynn beat that statutory rape rap.”
Fred grunted. “Old news.”
Lou said, “I wouldn’t care to see you dead, Nate.”
“Nor would I,” I admitted.
“But,” the speaker phone went on, “if there’s more to this than just some lone-nut Arab taking out a pro-Israel politician, you’ll be wading into dangerous, murky waters.”