Self-composed but with a nervous, embarrassed smile, he’d have seemed childlike if he’d been any smaller. His hair had been trimmed back to subdue the wild, bushy look, and he wore a blue denim prison fatigue top and blue jeans with black canvas shoes. His skin tone was the kind of bronze the white kids on Malibu Beach would kill for.
I had seen Giuseppe Zangara — he preferred being called Joe (“I’m American citizen!”) — in his cell in Miami in 1933. He had been the same size — 115 pounds, five feet five — with the same faint smile. Another little foreigner who had shot his way into history. The déjà vu of it curdled in my stomach like a bad meal.
Abruptly — almost making me jump — the prisoner got to his feet as best he could and bowed, awkwardly clasping his uncuffed hand to the other as if in prayer.
“Sirhan Sirhan,” he said, head lowered.
“Nathan Heller,” I said, and thrust my hand across the small table and he accepted it. He gave it a politician’s pump, three firm shakes that belied his otherwise shy manner.
His small smile seemed poised to break into laughter, though it only did so once — through much of our meeting, it remained the same. It was the bewildered smile of someone who couldn’t quite believe what was happening to him.
He said, “You are working with Mr. Kiser, I understand.”
“I am,” I said, as we both sat. “With Grant Cooper not seeking an appeal, Mr. Kiser has picked up the ball. He’s not an attorney but, as what’s left of your defense team, he’s interviewing possible representation for you.”
“And writing his book,” Sirhan said.
A tinge of amused contempt there.
“And articles,” I said, somewhat defensively. “He’s funding these efforts, after all. May we begin?”
“Might I ask a question first, sir?”
“Of course.”
His head cocked to one side. “You were one of those who tried to stop me, sir, were you not?”
“Yes.”
The smile again. “Then why would you try to help me now?”
I served up half a grin. “I’m being paid to.”
He laughed. “The American way.”
“Yes. But you’d be wise to keep in mind that Robert Kennedy was a friend of mine.”
His face lengthened the smile away. His head gave a quick snap of a bow. “Sir, I share your sorrow.”
“Then let’s start there. What did you think of Robert Kennedy?”
He was a prince, sir, Robert Kennedy — heir apparent to his late brother’s throne. I admired him very much. I loved him, sir. For all the poor people in this country, he was the hope.
And I stand with the poor people of this country, sir. The minorities. I am a poor person myself. I am not rich. Otherwise, sir, would I be in this position?
After the Arab-Israeli war, I had no identity, no hope, no goal, nothing to strive for. I simply... gave up. No more American Dream for me. I was an Arab! A foreigner in this country, sir. An alien. A stranger. A refugee.
That was the setback I suffered, sir. After the Arab-Israeli war, I could see that everybody in America loved a winner... and when the Israelis won, it made a loser out of me. And I did not like that one bit.
When my sister came down with leukemia, I would come home after college classes to take care of her. When she died, I became terribly depressed. I quit school. Worked as a waiter, a cook, gardener, gas station attendant. I hung around the racetracks, gambled a little. One day I saw a note on the bulletin board at Santa Anita offering a position as an exercise boy. I had always dreamed of becoming a jockey. It meant a new start! I was into life, sir, not death — watched horses being born. Such a life-affirming experience.
One foggy Sunday, my horse was flying and I couldn’t make the turn — saddle was loose or something. I never felt the fall. No pain, sir — I was unconscious. Next I knew I was in a hospital bed with a concussion. Stitches under my chin and next to my eye.
My family says I changed. It’s true I felt different. I wasn’t the same.
When did I buy the gun? That would be early last year, sir. This was my first purchase of a gun, but I was familiar with them because of Cadet Corps training in high school. I fired M-16s, 45s, 22s. I could tear a gun apart and put it back together. We used to have competitions. And I could shoot.
When I heard reports of Kennedy’s pledge to send jet bombers to Israel... that was in May, sir, I believe... it made me terribly mad. This man I admired seemed suddenly a villain to me. A killer who wanted to throw bombs on people and destroy them and their country. The very weapons he condemned in Vietnam, he would donate to Israel! It seemed paradoxical to me, sir. I could not believe it.
I could have shot him right then, I was so terribly mad. But only in my mind, not in deed. The notebook? I believe the notebook is mine. I just don’t remember writing those things.
I frankly don’t remember much of that time at all, sir, leading up to the shooting. If the horses had been running that night, I would have been down at the track. But they weren’t and I went downtown to watch a Jewish group’s parade celebrating the one-year anniversary of their victory in the Six-Day War. I’m not sure whether I was just going to watch or heckle or what — I wasn’t going down there to shoot anybody. I know that much, sir. But I had misread the advertisement and found the parade was going to be held the next night.
Yes, sir, I will try to remember as much as I can. But it is like a dream. No, not a nightmare, not till the very end.
I park my car and start wandering around. I notice lights are on in a storefront window and crash a celebration for a Republican candidate running for U.S. Senate. It’s not much of a party, though. Someone suggests a better one going on for another Republican candidate at the Ambassador Hotel across the street. I go over there. That’s where things start to get dreamlike.
I recall a Mexican band, a lot of brightness, a lot of people. I’m getting tired, it’s getting hot, very hot. I want a drink. I see a makeshift bar and a bartender in a white smock. Looks like Abbott in Abbott and Costello, but Latin. We don’t speak, we just nod. I seem to know him. He gives me a Tom Collins in a tall glass. I drink it while I am walking around. It goes down like lemonade. I guzzle it and order another. He makes it and I walk around and after I drink I come back and it’s like a routine between us. Like I’m a regular customer of his. When he sees me coming back, he knows what I want.
I begin to feel even more sleepy. I’m no drinker, I’m small, and it gets to me. Woozy, I go out to my car. I’m surprised I make it there. I feel too drowsy to drive and decide to go back and get some coffee. I’m told I took my .22 Iver Johnson from the glove compartment and moved it into my pocket. But I don’t remember doing that.
Don’t remember walking back to the hotel either, sir, but I must have. I do remember some of what followed. I start searching for coffee. I need coffee bad. I ask about coffee at the bar and an attractive woman sitting there says she knows where the coffee is. She takes me by the hand and leads me behind the stage where Senator Kennedy is speaking.
She is so pretty. I decide to try to pick her up. I’m fascinated by her looks. I’m getting very sexual ideas about this girl and make up my mind I’m going to make it with her tonight. She doesn’t lead me on — it’s my job to woo her. She never says much, but she’s very erotic. I feel consumed by her. She is a seductress with an unspoken availability. Yes, sir, a white dress with black polka dots.