For a longer time than he realized, till the match burned his fingertips. He sucked air through his teeth, shook the match dead, picked up his wallet. Charlie removed what cash he had left, spread it on the bed.
Two hundred and seven goddam dollars. I get through paying Vern for the repairs we agreed on, I’m gonna be lucky if I get back to Reno with twenty-eight fucking cents...
Charlie retrieved the sheets of tiny prints from the wastebasket, along with the translucent gray envelopes containing the strips of negatives. He sat down on the edge of the bed – and, being of the glass-half-full persuasion, an idea began to percolate.
Hey, there’s Life Magazine forgodsake – and Look, and whaddyacallit Newsweek and Time. These pictures – they’ve gotta be worth something to them, right? Let them go to the law with ‘em. I keep my name out of it, and see some cash. Like Stan says, whatsamatter with that...?
As tended to happen with Charlie, his flash of self-congratulation was clipped by an involuntary attack of self-preserving logic:
Hey, schmucko, what’s the matter is – this isn’t some back-alley mob-hit. We’re talking about killing the President of the United States. The second these pictures get into anybody else’s hands, the law and whoever else was behind Dallas, they’re gonna bust every ball in sight till they find where they came from – till they find me.
Charlie killed his cigarette, sagged, elbows on his knees, head down.
Shit.
And then an outrageous, half-formed idea crept into Charlie’s head. Farfetched-whacky. He asked himself what he had to lose. His life, obviously. But they could only kill him once, and besides, at this point it was only a notion – not a commitment. He’d test it later. He eyeballed the contact-sheets on the bed beside him. A few moments, then he gathered them up and, with the loupe, began to re-examine the little edge-numbered frames. Only this time it wasn’t the Oswald look-alike that interested him. Nor the other two men with rifles. No, this time it was the dark haired business-type that had Charlie’s attention.
Briefcase, necktie. Expensive-looking suit. Maybe silk. In several shots he could be seen handing something to the blue-collars – something white –- folded letters, maybe? Or envelopes? It was hard to tell, the images being so small. Then, in successive frames, one recipient and then the next appeared to be either reading the papers, or, if they were envelopes, exploring the contents.
Now –- if I knew who Silk-Suit was...
Juanita Sue Timson held up a glamour shot of Jacqueline Kennedy, this one on a page from The Ladies Home Journal which, like the other forty or fifty, she had carefully preserved in glassine folders. “One more. Like this. Then I’ve gotta git home and pack.”
Ernest Wickley looked at the clock. “That’s going to require major re-lighting, love.” With a squeeze of the little rubber bulb on his lens-brush he blew a dust-speck off the Hasselblad’s viewfinder.
“Ohh-h, but it’s practically my favorite...”
“All right...” He sighed, stepped out from behind his tripod, glanced in the direction of the darkroom. “...But we’re cutting it close.”
“I don’t care. I’m countin’ on it. You will have ‘em ready for me, won’tcha?”
He nodded. “Excuse me, I’ll just be a minute.” Ernest crossed to the darkroom door, rapped on it. No answer. He tried the knob. Locked. He slapped at the door with his flat palm. And shouted: “Mr. Nelson, your hour is up.”
Charlie had pulled up at the first payphone he encountered in Albuquerque. His misgivings about Vern Orwell’s abilities notwithstanding, the Chevvie was running remarkably well. Nearly as hard to take as the $109 repair bill had been Vern’s need to make Charlie a Better Person by teaching him respect for his automobile. Less than a minute into the man’s sermon, Charlie further offended him by testily demanding, finally grabbing, the car keys, which Vern was holding hostage to ensure Charlie’s attention.
Charlie tried to keep his growing sense of anticipation under control as he maneuvered into the parking space a few doors from The Wickley Portrait Studio, a storefront affair on North 12th Street. As he reached for the envelope containing the contact sheets and negatives, an image from his boyhood popped into his mind. Several weeks before Christmas, ten year-old Charlie discovered, hidden beneath his parents’ bed, the new Erector Set he had been thirsting for – the full-bells-and-whistles model that even included an electric motor for running the working elevator or bascule bridge that could be built from the various nuts, screws, girders and gears contained in the bright red-enameled steel box – which even had a carrying handle. Knowing it was there, just out of his reach, made the wait for Christmas morning memorably excruciating. Like now. Like it had been since last night. The difference was, anticipation of what he’d find in the red box hadn’t been scary.
On the phone, Mr. Wickley had required some convincing that Charlie actually knew his way around photo printing and enlarging. That settled, Wickley – between frequent asides to a woman Charlie could hear chattering nonstop in the background – gave him excessively meticulous directions to his shop, along with the warning that he could only spare his darkroom for a short time.
Juanita Sue Timson spotted Charlie entering the establishment. “Okay, mister, stop right there. I wantcha to tell me the truth, is this more like her...?” With her right hand she pushed up the mass of coifed, heavily sprayed hair at the back of her neck. “...Or this?” She released it, looked at Charlie expectantly.
“Her.”
“Jackie, silly. Ernest says it’s better up.” She confidently appraised her image in a hand-mirror.
Charlie quickly guessed that the woman being posed by the rather dramatic white-haired man behind the camera was the one he’d overheard on the phone. Her black bouffant was done in a style somewhat resembling Jackie Kennedy’s. Beyond the hair, it was obvious that neither the most dramatic imagination-leap nor the loss of 35 pounds would cause anyone to confuse her with the nation’s until-yesterday First Lady. Which was certainly not the way Juanita Sue Timson saw herself.
Better to stay on Ernest Wickley’s good side. “Up, definitely.”
Which was good thinking. Ernest threw him a wink of gratitude. At least Charlie hoped that’s all it was.
Juanita Sue went to work. Her nearly impenetrable country dialect, compounded by the bunch of hairpins she placed in her mouth, made her words nearly impossible for Charlie to decode. “Not that I feel good about cashin’ in on that poor woman’s tragic misfortune, but with me practically her twin, an’ right there on their doorsteps, an’ your wonderful pitchers, an’ I mean after what’s happened those folks’re gonna be makin’ one movie ‘bout her an’ TV show after another, an’ well I mean who else’re they gonna git?”
Ernest didn’t miss a beat. “I truly cannot think of another soul, Juanita Sue, but you need to prepare yourself. I’ve spent some time in L.A., so I know. Those people – they can be wildly unpredictable. And incredibly untrustworthy...” He stole a knowing, collusive look at Charlie, then: “...Youknow – New York-types.” He cranked the film forward, brushed aside several lank white hairs, turned to Charlie. “And you must be Mr. Nelson.”
Before Charlie could answer, Juanita Sue assured Wickley that, given the position of Jupiter’s moons, the possibility of her failing in Hollywood was at best remote.
While she selected her next costume from the dozen she’d brought to the studio, Wickley wordily introduced Charlie to the darkroom, overexplaining his enlarger, pointing out the various bottles of photographic chemicals, paper and the like. Which was redundant; the place was excessively orderly, everything carefully labeled and aligned. Before returning to his client, Wickley collected the ten dollars they had agreed upon.
In the dim red glow of the safety-light, Charlie barely heard Wickley banging on the door. He was transfixed by the 8x10 print he’d just removed from the bath. A number of others were clipped to the drying-wire.
Charlie muttered: “Ogod ojesusgod...”
“Five minutes.”
“Now, Mr. Nelson. I don’t have five minutes. If I don’t get my film into the developer, Miss Timson will miss her plane.”
“Bus.” Charlie heard Juanita Sue correcting him.
“Mr. Nelson?”
“Okayokayokay.”
Holy shit, if that’s the guy...
Now Charlie was frightened.
Wired, Charlie was anxious to get on with it before he had too many second thoughts. Both librarians were facing away from him, engrossed by the small TV. He placed the phone directory and back issues of Life and Newsweek on the counter, headed for the door, the manila envelope containing his photo blowups in hand.
“Sir?”
Charlie’s eyes went to his jacket-front, expecting to see that the pages he’d torn out and stuffed into his inside pocket were visible. They were not. He paused, turned.
“Yes?
The younger librarian, a smiley woman with several pencils in her pinned-up hair, had unglued herself from the TV. She indicated the phone book.
“I’ll bet you’re from New Orleans.”
Charlie grunted noncommittally. The television was carrying the endless coverage from Washington and Dallas, including Lyndon Johnson describing the late President, whose body lay in state in the East Room, as “a man of wisdom, strength and peace,” and proclaiming Monday as a National Day of Mourning. The possibility that Johnson might have been a party to the assassination had occurred to Charlie almost immediately. Already, despite the official line, it seemed that most people simply assumed it was a conspiracy, refusing to believe that it was the work of one man. Or even two or three men. And after a half-hour in the reading room of the Albuquerque Public Library, Charlie Callan knew they were right.
“I know this is kind of a reach, but -- you wouldn’t happen to know my cousin, Biddy LaMountain?”
Something about the name triggered Charlie’s waggishness, which had been notably dormant during the past thirty-six hours. “You’ve gotta be kidding. Tall---?”
The librarian nodded eagerly. “Mmhmm-mmhmm.”
“With – with a really full moustache?”
Her smile disappeared. “Biddy’s a woman.”
“I thought you said ‘Billy.’”
Charlie sat very still. Staring at a tiny spot where the enamel had chipped off of the “J” and “K” on the telephone dial. Consciously trying to breathe evenly, slowly. He had placed several dollars in nickels, dimes and quarters on the small shelf below the phone. He knew he was on the cusp of something that would abruptly change his life, or, if any of the players involved ever figured out who he was, quickly and violently end it.
He looked out through the door of the phone booth, one of several lined up along a wall of the hotel lobby several blocks from the library. Traveling salesmen in the overstuffed chairs, taking it easy, reading the newspaper, a pair of middle-aged couples. Subdued, except for a mother trying to calm her small, rambunctious son. But something more. And finally it struck him. It wasn’t just a quiet Saturday afternoon. The world had slowed down. For the first time, Charlie was truly aware of the pall cast on almost everyone by the killing yesterday in Dallas. And yet the realist in him, the cynic, did not want to believe it would make a lasting difference. Kennedy, despite the hype and star-quality, was, after all, only a man.
Charlie opened the manila envelope, removed a couple of the 8x10 enlargements he’d made in Wickley’s darkroom. He reached into his jacket, pulled out the folded papers, flattened them on his thigh. On top were the pages he’d ripped from last August, September and October’s issues of Newsweek and Life. Below them, several more from early ‘50’s editions. And the New Orleans phone book pages. He ran his finger down one of the columns on a white page, dialed the operator, gave her the number, fed the requested coins. While it rang he inspected his blowups of Silk-Suit at the rifle range. He had meticulously cropped most of the prints to eliminate Marjorie and Joe Bob. He compared his photos to a pair he’d torn out of Life Magazine – a mob-figure testifying before Bobby Kennedy and various congressmen at the Organized Crime Hearings a couple of months earlier. The captions described him as Santo DiMartini. New Orleans.
Yeah. Gotta be the same guy. The hair. Profile.
The older magazine shots were from the Kefauver Hearings of the early fifties that starred Frank Costello. In the background of one, the foreground of another, was the same man, DiMartini. Eleven years younger. A caption described him as an underboss for Vito Genovese.
Not one of the Mafia’s mental giants, Genovese subsequently made the mistake of trying to dethrone Costello and some others. He was now in prison, having been set up by his intended victims.
Probably with some help from his loyal underboss, whose payoff is New Orleans? Nice.
“Times Picayune. How may I help you?”
Charlie introduced himself as Clyde Nelson, Feature Editor of the Lubbock, Texas, Avalanche-Journal, asked for the City Editor, examined another of the news photos. A dark, pretty young woman, Nicole DiMartini, 20. On last September 17th she had been arrested in Birmingham, Alabama, while protesting the church-bombing two days earlier that killed four young Negro girls. Described by Newsweek as the “rebellious debutante-daughter of reputed New Orleans crime kingpin Santo DiMartini,” her coming-out party had been the talk of that city. She had been involved in other racial protests and integration rallies, was a senior at Bennington College.
“City. Pierson Selkirk speaking. What can I do for you, Mr. Nelson...?”
“Hi. Listen, suppose I wanted to get in touch with Santo DiMartini, how would I do that?
“Hell, it was me, I wouldn’t even try. But if they made me, I guess I’d put on a bulletproof vest and drive out River Road. Little village called Beautour – and a big set of iron gates with two ‘H’s – for Humble House, which is sorta ironic, given who lives there. Big old plantation once upon a time. But I wouldn’t expect him to talk to me. Or for that matter, even let me on the property.”
“Phones unlisted, right?”
“Mm. And tapped, likely. We’re talking a profile lower than a swamp adder’s ass.”
Selkirk confirmed what Charlie had learned from his research about DiMartini, the extent of his powerbase, Gulf-Coast waterfronts, gambling, other stuff. And his “troublesome” daughter. Then Selkirk asked what interest the Avalanche-Journal had in DiMartini.
Charlie was ready. “Rumors he’s buying up some land around here.”
“Interesting. Well, good luck. You could try writing to him, I guess, or sending a telegram. But I wouldn’t count on getting a response.”
Charlie thanked him, was about to disconnect when Selkirk came back at him. “So – how d’you fellows in Texas feel about the JFK thing?”
Charlie wasn’t sure how he should respond. “Well, we’re in shock pretty much like everyone else, I guess.”
“No, I mean this Oswald character, you figure he did it all by himself?”
Funny you should ask, buddy. Now go away.
“Far as I know, yeah.”
A few more words and Charlie was off the phone. He had circled the largest, most imposing display ads on the yellow pages he’d torn out of the New Orleans directory. One for Le Roi Caterers, the other for De Lys Floral Designs. He placed a call to the caterer and, adopting his best approximation of a flamboyantly gay southerner, introduced himself as Bruce, an employee of De Lys, “Down Bourbon Street? And well Ah am so embarrassed, but Ah’m makin’ up this huge arrangement we promised to Mr. DiMartini over at Humble House? And Ah’m runnin’ dreadfully late and – well Ah jus’ plain ol’ cannot find their phone number anywhere in the store – Ah mean Ah’m sure it’s starin’ me right in the face...”
Alongside his earlier notation on the border of the yellow page, about Humble House and Beautour, Charlie wrote down the number given him by the caterer. “Darlin,’ Ah jus’ cannot possibly thank you enough...”
Ch
arlie reread what he’d written. It was his fourth pass. This one was okay. Brief. To the point. Nothing that said he was a PI.
What name? Not Clyde Nelson, not Bruce anything.
He glanced out the window of the Post Office. A panel truck was driving past. Hemple Supplies.
Hemple. Not bad.
Charlie was about to write the name, stopped. Some poor local schmuck named Hemple was liable to get himself killed. He tapped his pen, glanced at his wristwatch. The place was going to close in four minutes.
Benrus. Yeah.
Charlie signed the note “B. Russell,” dropped it into the manila envelope with the five 8x10 blowups he’d selected, sealed it.
Well - here goes – what? Either the smartest move I’ve ever made – or the stupidest. For sure, the chanciest.
He crossed to the counter, handed it to the clerk.
NINETEEN
Present Time
Wednesday
It was one of the rare times in Packard’s life that he wished he had a gun. Without moving his head, he checked his rear-view mirrors again. The Lincoln was about a hundred yards back, intermittently visible behind a van and an econobox. The Taurus wasn’t in sight, but he’d spotted it earlier, some distance beyond the Lincoln, assumed it was still there. He glanced over at Kate. She was as tense as he was.
The ten minutes over beers at Haney’s required no vamping, their conversation nonstop. Kate insisted she had no idea who the older woman was, had never seen her before. Nor could she imagine how the woman knew her name. Then, looking out the window at the shadowy figures in the Lincoln and, at the far end of the parking area, the one in the blue Taurus, Packard took out his phone, started punching in a number, announced he was calling Chief Litton, to have her pick up Kate. He would go alone to rendezvous with the woman.
Kate placed her hand over his. “Uh-uh. I’m coming with you. End of discussion.”
Which was not unexpected. He calculated his chances of winning the argument, then pocketed the phone. He had already cautioned her that while this could well bring them closer to the truth about her grandfather, even if she suffered no physical harm, she might not like the outcome.
The Sixteenth Man Page 17