Libra (46 page)

Coincidence. He learned in the bayous, from Raymo, that Castro’s guerrilla name was Alex, derived from his middle name, Alejandro. Lee used to be known as Alek.

Coincidence. Banister was trying to find him, not knowing what city or state or country he was in, and he walked in the door at 544 and asked for an undercover job.

Coincidence. He ordered the revolver and the carbine six weeks apart. They arrived the same day.

Coincidence. Lee was always reading two or three books, like Kennedy. Did military service in the Pacific, like Kennedy. Poor handwriting, terrible speller, like Kennedy. Wives pregnant at the same time. Brothers named Robert.

 

 

His nosebleeds started again the second night he was home. There was blood on the pillowcase. Marina told him he’d been shaking in his sleep.

They knew all about him, even where to get cartridges for his rifle. Plus the Feebees were reading his mail. Plus Marina was almost eight months pregnant, complaining about the way they lived, sarcastic about his principles as a fighter for progress. He missed two meetings with Bateman. He didn’t care about the money. They could keep their money. They didn’t own or control him. He lost weight. He could feel the difference in his clothes and see it in his face in the mirror. He took a careful stance on the screened porch and aimed the rifle at a man crossing the street, holding right where the head and neck join, saying the word windage to himself. He decided to study Spanish again.

He got his tourist card from the Mexican consulate. He got his documents and clippings in order. It was all for little Cuba, so the Cubans could see who he was.

He could get his visa and have them stamp it with a future date. He could go back to Dallas and shoot the fascist Walker. Then return to Mexico City, knowing his visa was already set, a solid fact, guaranteed travel to Havana. They would welcome him there as a hero.

He’d studied Spanish once before, or twice before. It would come easy this time.

Ferrie called his rifle the Man-Licker.

 

 

He fastened the playpen and stroller to the top of Ruth Paine’s station wagon, a green Chevy, a ’55, with rust spots and soft tires. He jammed suitcases and boxes inside, everything they owned. It was Ruth Paine’s now. He sneaked the rifle in, disassembled in an old blanket wrapped tight with kitchen string. He tied a granny knot.

He told Ruth Paine he might go to Houston to look for work, or maybe Philadelphia.

Marina’s eyes were wet with worry and love. He ran his fingertips along her high white neck. He fought off the tears. He thought his face might crumple like a child’s, washed in sorrow.

That night he streaked through a heavy rain with bag after bag of leftover junk, pushing old newspapers into a neighbor’s garbage can, letting pop bottles crash. Was anyone watching? Did a sleepless old lady keep track of these midnight sprints? He went back to the house at a shambling trot and was out again a moment later, quick-walking down the driveway with more junk pressed to his chest, the boy who spoke to no one on the street.

The next evening he stood on the porch waiting for the bus to pull up at the stop directly across Magazine. When it did, he hurried across the street carrying two canvas bags and owing fifteen days’ rent.

At the Trailways terminal he headed for the window to buy a ticket to Houston, which was the first stage of the journey to Mexico City. David Ferrie was standing by the window. He wore a rumpled plaid sport jacket with a newspaper sticking out of one pocket. He looked like a horseplayer with two days to live.

“Where to, Mexico? To pick up a visa for little Cuba?”

“That’s right,” Lee said.

“Without a word to Cap’n Dave? I don’t like this, Leon.”

“You won’t tell me what it is they want me to do. I have to make my plans best I can.”

“They knew you were going. They’ve been watching extra close. I am personally put out about this. Cuba now, Leon? We haven’t done our work yet.”

“I’m planning I might come back.”

“You’ll come back all right. You know why? They don’t give visas to Americans so easy. Plus you want to come back. You want to finish our work.”

“What do they want me to do?”

“We both know the answer to that by now.”

“You know. I don’t.”

“You’ve known almost all along. I think you knew before I did. You came to the swamps to shoot your Man-Licker. You know what side we’re on. You know we’re not about to choose a target suited to your tastes. But you wanted to come. I think you picked it out of the air. I honestly believe you beat me to it.”

A Negro in hip boots wandered through the terminal selling yo-yos that lit up in the dark.

Ferrie talked Lee into having a meal together. Raymo would drive him to Houston tomorrow if that’s what he wanted. Save the bus fare. Enjoy the comfort of the family car.

They ate scrambled eggs in Ferrie’s apartment. There were explosives stored under the kitchen table. Ferrie kept his jacket on, wagged the fork as he spoke.

“I’ve seen the Fair Play material you keep at 544,” he said. “I’ve noticed something you haven’t noticed. Librans never notice references to themselves. The official symbol of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee is a man’s hand holding aloft a pair of scales. Two weighing pans hanging from a rigid beam. Everywhere you go. It’s all around you. Which way will Leon tilt?”

“I don’t know what they want me to do.”

“Of course you know.”

“Tell me where it happens.”

“Miami.”

“That means nothing to me.”

“You’ve known for weeks.”

“What happens in Miami?”

Ferrie took a while to finish chewing his food.

“Think of two parallel lines,” he said. “One is the life of Lee H. Oswald. One is the conspiracy to kill the President. What bridges the space between them? What makes a connection inevitable? There is a third line. It comes out of dreams, visions, intuitions, prayers, out of the deepest levels of the self. It’s not generated by cause and effect like the other two lines. It’s a line that cuts across causality, cuts across time. It has no history that we can recognize or understand. But it forces a connection. It puts a man on the path of his destiny.”

Lee woke up on the sofa some time after midnight. He was wide awake almost at once. The TV was on a bookshelf, picture flipping, no sound. He heard Ferrie gargling in the bathroom. The smell of hashish stuck to everything, to Lee’s hair and clothes, the fabric on the sofa.

He watched Ferrie walk into the room naked. His eyebrows and toupee were gone. He was sad and pasty, decolored, moving out of the background glow into the stutter light of TV. He resembled someone in the land of
nudo,
a shaved nude in a booth in Tokyo, a nude monk you pay to photograph, some endless variation on the factual nude, a satire for tourists. He looked unclear, half erased. Could he tell Lee’s eyes were open?

He stood a moment among the books and pole lamps as if he’d forgotten something. What could he forget, naked? Lee shifted around so that his back was to the room. He shifted like someone asleep, just rolling over. He closed his eyes. He groaned like someone deep in sleep.

Ferrie sat on the edge of the sofa, reaching around to put a hand on Lee’s belly over the shirt, a hand on Hidell, leaning closer now, his breath sharp with mouthwash.

“People have to be nice to each other.”

He moved his hand around. Wandering hands, Lee thought. An old term, an old thing they said in junior high, what a girl said about a boy. He’s got wandering hands.

“People be nice,” whispered Cap’n Dave.

He seemed to be easing his body lengthwise onto the sofa, arranging himself behind Lee, the hand circling a central area, moving slowly over Lee’s pants. Lee wouldn’t let him undo the belt. They actually grappled for a moment. They fought over the belt buckle without changing positions on the sofa. Lee kept his eyes closed. They hand-fought and slapped at each other. Ferrie was strong. He was using one hand, gripping Lee’s wrist hard. It’s called an Indian bum when you put your hands around someone’s wrist and twist in opposite directions. Another old term, a thing from grade school maybe.

“People be nice, be nice, be nice.”

He seemed to be pressing with his body now. The hand sort of quieting down. Lee put his legs tight together. His eyes were still closed. He felt the rough fabric of the sofa on his face. Ferrie was breathing all over him, covering his head and neck with heavy breath.

Hide the L in Lee.

No one will see.

Then he felt it on his pants, seeping in. He tried not to take it personally. They separated themselves and Ferrie got a towel for him and then put on a robe. This was achieved mostly in the dark.

“When you get back to Dallas, there are some places you ought to know about.”

“I’m going to Mexico City.”

“But when you get back. There’s a place called Gene’s Music Bar. You ought to drop in some night. Or the Century Room, which I hear just opened.”

“What for?”

“Meet people.”

“What kind of people?”

“People you- want to meet. I don’t know Dallas bars myself. I’m passing on the word. Stay away from the Holiday. That’s rough trade. Not for you, Leon.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Of course you do. Gene’s Music Bar is number one on your list. You definitely want to catch the action. Tell me what it’s like.”

Out came the hashish.

David Ferrie said, “Hashish. Interesting, interesting word. Arabic. It’s the source of the word assassin.”

 

 

Jack Ruby liked his juice fresh-squeezed in the morning. He bought eight grapefruits at a clip, grabbing them out of the bin with a steely look, like this is the only thing that can save me. There were grapefruits wedged in every part of the fridge. He liked to slap the surface of a good grapefruit. Dependable. He liked to heft the thing in his hand. The whole business of juice was allied in his mind with swimming laps in a pool or working out with weights. He was a physical-culture nut when he had time.

When he stepped out of the kitchen, that’s when the bachelor chaos began to flow. The place resembled a lost-and-found. To Jack it was okay. He hated and feared a hotel look. All he had to do was recall the time ten years ago when he became depressed over business failures, when money problems were climbing up his back and pressing on his skull. It got so bad he took a room in a cheap walk-up hotel and isolated himself for eight weeks with the shades drawn, eating only enough to stay alive. He was a nothing person. He had no desire to live. It was the one time in his life he was guilty of despair, which is the deepest misery of the spirit, the hardest to overcome.

Maybe this is why Jack had a roommate. To avoid the scariness of being alone. Or was it just his habit of taking in strays, people of untremendous means? George Senator was fifty, a postcard salesman, divorced through the mail, with an eighth-grade education. He’d been in and out of jobs for years, a short-order cook, a novelty man, a salesman of women’s apparel whose territory had been reduced from the entire state of Texas to the jackrabbit wastes. He helped out at the club and cooked Jack a meal now and then, although he didn’t broil things right and could never learn the organics of another person, the little niceties of diet that mean so much.

Coming out of the kitchen with the juice glass in his hand, Jack barely glanced at George, who sat bloated on the sofa in a beat-up robe, coughing into his cupped hands.

“I’m expecting a huge phone call. Stay away from the phone. Like into next week I’m referring.”

“Who do I ever call?” George said.

“I don’t know. The weather.”

“I don’t follow the weather. I don’t go anywheres near it.”

Jack barely heard. He had the ability to share an apartment with a roommate and just barge and rush around as if the guy wasn’t there. His mind raced too fast for a guy like shapeless George to catch a ride. He didn’t even know what the spare room looked like since George moved in. Maybe he painted it orange. Not that he didn’t like having George around. It’s a matter of once you’re used to a human presence, growing up like I did with seven brothers and sisters plus two dead in infancy, you feel there’s something missing in a household.

Living alone is a pressure situation. The roommates agreed on that.

Jack took a Preludin with his grapefruit juice. He walked around the living room, trying to say in his mind what he was thinking. Six weeks and no word. They were letting him dance in midair. He went into the kitchen and made more juice. He needed a scalp treatment. He was falling behind in every area of personal care.

“Who is the call?” George said.

“A guy from New Orleans I used to know.”

“This is the money.”

“He told me he’d be in Dallas today. Okay. I’m waiting.”

“What about the other guy?” George said.

“Karlinsky? The man is purist-minded from the start. I expected no action and that’s what I got.”

“So you said, what, let me contact New Orleans.”

“I went right through Karlinsky. I went ten feet over his head.”

“This other guy leaves an opening?”

“We wait and see.”

“What, you asked him straight out you needed a loan?”

“He already knew my situation. He knew from last June when we bumped into each other in the street. I was in New Orleans looking at Randi Ryder for the club.”

“I never been,” George said.

“It’s a city where the money’s not so tight and clean.”

He put on his jacket and hat, got his moneybag and revolver, picked up Sheba from her chair and went down to the car. He dropped the dog on the front seat, opened the trunk and tossed the moneybag in. He drove to Commerce Street and bought a couple of newspapers at a corner stand. Back at the car he spotted his dirty laundry in the rear seat, where he’d left it six, seven, eight days ago, tied together with a pajama leg. He looked around for a glass of water. Nervous in the service. Then he drove half a block in reverse to the Carousel, checking the spelling of the girls’ names on the marquee. Some tourists from Topeka were looking at the glossies on the wall out front. Jack introduced himself, shook hands, gave them his card, got the dog from the front seat and went on up the narrow stairway.