“So, Mr. Parker. It’s been several years since a journalist
has taken any interest in what I’ve had to say. And even then
they didn’t really take much interest in what I had to say.”
“Wait,” I said, “back up. What do you mean ‘the last time’?”
“Back when I was trying to get something done about that
infernal and misplaced Bonney grave, and they dismissed
me like some… loon. It’s not quite so easy to secure federal
funding when you threaten to reveal national history as
nothing more than bunk.”
“I must have missed something,” I said. “What exactly
happened?”
Largo sat back, as a pair of cats circled his legs. He steepled
his fingers and smiled. Despite the superficial idiosyncrasies
of this man, I could sense tremendous intelligence. He looked
like a man who still held himself with great honor and respect,
but had turned his back on the very institution he sought to
help.
“Ten years ago,” Largo said, “I attempted to dig up the
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grave of William H. Bonney, also known as Billy the Kid. For
years I fought to do this, and fought to have the story covered
in the press. I wanted to inform the public of the travesty and
secrets that had been kept hidden for over a century. But
when you threaten the very sanctity of a legend—a legend that
goes right to the heart of an entire culture—you’re not going
to make many friends.”
I looked around, wondered if Tabby and Yorba Linda had
replaced all those friends he’d lost.
“Who tried to stop you?”
“The name Bill Richardson ring a bell?”
“As in governor of New Mexico Bill Richardson?”
“As in presidential candidate Bill Richardson. You think
he’d have a snowball’s chance in Albuquerque without the
support of his fellow Southerners? You think anyone below
the Mason-Dixon line would be happy to have one of their
biggest legends—not to mention juiciest cash cows—proven
bogus?”
“I don’t imagine that would make a whole lot of people
down there happy. But why did you want to exhume the body
of Billy the Kid? What would that have proved?”
Largo wet his upper lip with his tongue, slicked it back and
forth, bristling the gray hairs. He looked at me as if debating
whether to speak. “How much do you know about William H.
Bonney? And by that I mean the methods in which he died.”
“I know he was shot in the back by Pat Garrett, and that
Garrett was a former riding mate of Bonney’s. He was not a
member of the Regulators.”
“No, Garrett was not a Regulator,” Largo said. “Garrett
was a saloon keeper and small-time cattle rustler. To call him
a former ‘mate’ of Bonney’s is patently false, another story
cooked up to give the legend bigger tits.”
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“I also know Garrett became a minor celebrity after
killing the Kid, and published a book about the chase and
capture,” I said.
At this moment Largo let out a deep belly laugh. The cats
circling his legs scattered. “A minor celebrity, you say? Certainly nowhere near as much of a celebrity as this Athena
Paradis, or David Loverne. Actually Patrick Garrett was one
of this country’s very first victims of celebrity overexposure,
as both his tawdry book and sketchy methods in which he dispatched Mr. Bonney left him disgraced and broke.”
“What do you mean, sketchy?” I asked.
“By sketchy, I mean that only a fool would believe that
Patrick Floyd Garrett killed William H. Bonney on July 14,
1881. The real Billy the Kid lived for many years after his
alleged death in Fort Sumner.”
“Brushy Bill Roberts,” I said.
Largo nodded. “The town of Fort Sumner would shrivel up
and die without the legend of Billy the Kid to wet its whistle.
As would most of the Southwest, considering how much of its
prosperity is built upon the house of cards that is the legend of
its outlaws. Billy the Kid is perhaps the single most important
card in that house. Pull it out, and the entire edifice crumbles.”
“And you tried to pull it out.”
“Yes, and you can imagine the good folks of New Mexico
did not take kindly to having their stock in trade jeopardized.
Yes, I did try. And rightfully so. But those god damn yellow
bureaucrats in Washington and down South stopped me.
Cowards are more afraid of the truth than they are of facing
the fact that they’ve been lying for over a hundred and twentyfive years.”
“You want to dig up the body of Billy the Kid,” I said, “and
do what with it?”
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“Take a sample of the DNA contained in the so-called grave
of Billy the Kid and compare it to DNA obtained from his birth
mother, Catherine Antrim, who is buried in Silver City.”
“And if you’re able to prove that the DNA from that grave
site doesn’t match Catherine Antrim…”
“Then we’ll know for sure that Billy the Kid was never
buried in Fort Sumner, and Brushy Bill wasn’t the charlatan
folks would like to have you believe.”
“So why didn’t you go through with it?” I asked.
“Oh Lord, where to begin,” Largo said, kicking away a cat
who’d begun scratching at the couch. “First off, Billy
Bonney’s alleged grave site has been robbed so many times
that nobody knows for sure just who’s buried under that tombstone. Plus the man who bought Catherine Antrim’s cemetery
plot in Silver City claims he moved the headstone years ago
and isn’t a hundred-percent sure just where Antrim’s body is
actually buried. He said he’d die and come back as Christ
himself before we marched in there and accidentally dug up
somebody’s poor dead grandmother.
“It didn’t matter, though,” Vance continued. “The fact is if
the government wanted to conduct the tests, they would have
bent over backward to do so. When it comes to proving a live
man’s guilt or innocence, there’s no limit to what our government will do. But when it comes to proving the life and death
of one of the biggest legends in human history, and in the
process possibly destroying one of the most enduring American
myths of all time, well, they’d rather discredit an honest old
man, call him a loon, get his tenure revoked and make him live
out his days miles from where he might crack their wall of lies.
“The truth is Pat Garrett did not kill Billy the Kid. William
H. Bonney died under the assumed name of Oliver P. Roberts,
in Hamilton, Texas.”
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“What makes you so sure?”
“Let me give you an example of the idiocy—or just plain
ignorance—of those wishing to protect the legacy. As I was
trying to have the bodies exhumed, both the mayor of Fort
Sumner and the governor of Texas claimed that Brushy Bill
and William H. Bonney could not be one a
nd the same person,
for the following reason. When Ollie Roberts died, it was a
well-known fact that he was right-handed. The most famous
photo of Billy the Kid depicts him holding his beloved Winchester 1873 model in his right hand, with his single action
Colt revolver in a holster by his left hip. By this photo you
would deduce that Bonney was, in fact, left-handed.”
“So they claimed that Bonney was left-handed but Brushy
Bill was right-handed.”
“That was their claim.” Largo stood up and pulled a book
off his shelf. He flipped to a page on which there were two
photographs. Both depicted the famous photo of Billy the
Kid, standing slightly awkwardly, holding his Winchester
rifle, a mischievous grin on his face.
“If you look at this picture, the Colt is by his left hip.”
“Okay,” I said.
“But what the blue bloods in their marble castles failed to
realize is that this photograph is actually a ferrotype. In other
words, a mirror image of the actual subject.”
“So in real life, Billy the Kid had the Colt by his right hip.
Meaning he was right-handed.”
“Just like our friend Brushy Bill.”
“Would you be willing to go on record?” I asked.
Largo seemed taken aback. Another cat jumped onto his
lap. He was too distracted to scratch it, so it simply nuzzled
against his chest and closed its eyes.
“On record? You mean like in the newspaper? Would I be
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willing? Boy, I’ve been waiting for years for somebody to
ask me that.”
“Is that a yes?”
“Let me put it this way. If I’m not on the record enough,
I’m coming down to that paper of yours and shoving a cat up
your keester.”
“That’s fair,” I said, pulling the tape recorder from my
bag. “Now let’s get started. Tell me everything you know
about Brushy Bill Roberts, why you believe he was Billy the
Kid, and leave nothing out.”
36
When I arrived at the Gazette, the newsroom was abuzz in
a way I’d never seen it before in my brief tenure at the paper.
The stringers seemed a little louder, the phone calls a little
more urgent. A palpable electricity ran through the place.
The whole organization seemed galvanized, charged, like a
black cloud had been dragged away to let the sun back in.
It wasn’t a minute after I stepped off the elevator when
Wallace came jogging up to me. His hair was slightly askew
and his right ear was red as though he’d been pressing a
phone to it the whole morning.
“Henry, glad you’re here,” he said, catching his breath.
“Come with me. And don’t say a word unless I tell you to.”
I opened my mouth to ask what was happening, but Wallace
held up a finger and said, “Not one word.”
I followed Wallace, quickly realizing that he wasn’t
leading me toward his office or my desk, but to the conference room at the end of the floor. The Kemper Room. In over
a year working at the paper I’d never set foot in it.
I desperately wanted to ask Wallace what was so important that he’d grant me access to such hallowed ground, but
on the off chance he’d change his mind I stayed quiet.
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The room was named after Peter Kemper, the Gazette’ s
editor-in-chief from 1978 to 1984, but was more commonly
known among the Gazette staff as the War Room. Every
morning the editors from each department would gather in the
War Room to go over the next day’s stories. Each section
editor would fight, scratch and claw for page one space, better
coverage for their department. Each day every editor left the
room either thrilled or disappointed. Then they would return
the next day to keep up their good run, or dig their way out
of the hole. Had they been shafted the day before they’d use
pity points. If they’d been granted better placement, they’d
claim sales were up due to them.
The War Room was where other bureaus such as Washington and Los Angeles would call in to battle for their share of
the table scraps, often frustrated with their perceived lack of
respect from the New York home office.
Jack would fill me in on War Room gossip from time to
time. He took a little too much pleasure in recalling the
greatest stories ever, like the time Metro editor Jacquelyn
Mills had a story negged and threw a glass of pomegranate
juice in the editor-in-chief’s face. The time Wallace himself
told an editor that his stories showed as much life as Jimmy
Hoffa, and smelled worse. Between New York and outside
bureaus there was a natural conflict; reporters in Washington
felt the ebb and flow of the political arena was the spark of
the journalistic world, while the reporters in New York felt
they were the center of the information universe. Los Angelenos felt their coverage of red-carpet shenanigans trumped
all, that popular culture and celebrity scandal whet readers’
appetites. They didn’t win the battles very often.
As the War Room came into sight, I counted a dozen or so
editors already seated, cups of coffee and bottles of water in
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various stages of being sipped or ignored. Far as I could tell,
I would be the youngest person in the room by a good ten years.
When Wallace threw open the door, a dozen pairs of eyes
focused on me. Not to mention the speakerphone in the
middle of the conference table whose red “on” light meant
another half dozen were listening in. And the guy in the corner
with a pen and pad who was presumably there to take
minutes. I coughed into my hand. Smiled meekly. The editors
in attendance didn’t seem to care much about meek smiles.
Wallace stated, “Henry, you know everyone here.” I didn’t,
but remembered Wallace’s “shut the hell up” rule. “Folks, this
is Henry Parker. As you know Henry’s been the lead on the
Paradis murder story and the subsequent victims of this killer
as well. He was attacked in his home yesterday, but as you
can see he’s alive and well.”
“And glad to be here,” I added. Wallace nodded his
approval.
“Terrific scoops so far,” said a man I believed to be the Arts
editor. He had a neatly trimmed beard and thin glasses, a polite
ink stain at the bottom of his shirt pocket. I’d only met him once,
at the holiday party last year, the details of which ended up
being reported on every gossip website between here and
Mumbai. It’s well known that the arts editors always offered
exclusive scoops to gossip rags in exchange for the rags making
the Gazette seem like a hip place to work. If the definition of
hip was Jack warbling Kenny Rogers while Wallace played
acoustic guitar, both men having consumed their body weight
in JD, then yes, I suppose you could call the Gazette a hip place
to work.
I took an empty seat, trying hard not to meet any of the
stare
s directed my way. I noticed several people staring at my
bandaged hand, which I self-consciously tucked underneath
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the table. Wallace sat down at the head, and finally the eyes
left me for more succulent meat.
“As I’m sure you’re aware of this morning,” Wallace said,
“the reaction to Henry’s story about the link between this
killer and Billy the Kid has been off the charts. Based on our
website traffic, it is the Gazette’ s most e-mailed article since
we expanded our web capabilities three years ago. We’ve
received dozens of phone calls, many supportive, many not
so much, not to mention queries from at least three film scouts
inquiring about film rights to the story. Needless to say we’ve
struck a nerve with this article, and considering the demand
I’d like each section to consider reporting on the phenomenon from a different societal perspective.”
After a quick tug at his goatee, the arts editor piped in. “We
can do an overview of the most famous movies, music, television shows and books to explore the legend of Billy the Kid.
An IMBD search came back with at least two dozen films
where the Kid was either a main or substantial supporting
character. And you’d be surprised how often his name is
dropped in contemporary music and literature.”
Deborah Gotkowski, the business editor, said, “I have a call
in to the tourism bureau at Fort Sumner. I’d like to know how
much revenue they take in on a yearly basis from their various
museums and tourist attractions, then analyze that data and
compare it to the ten cities who receive the largest percentage of their revenue from one specific tourist attraction.”
Jonas Levinson, the science editor, said, “We can do a
comprehensive look at the DNA techniques Professor Vance
was attempting to use, and determine whether they could
actually tie Catherine Antrim to the alleged remains. That
would have to have been some groundbreaking stuff.”
I heard a loud grunt from the corner. It came from a large
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man wearing a rumpled sports jacket and a white shirt with
a moon-shaped mustard stain. Frank Rourke was the
Gazette’ s sports editor, a man I’d never met, though I did
enjoy his recent articles about steroid abuse in baseball.
Unlike most city sportswriters, Frank wrote from a fan’s perspective rather than writing as if he was the moral axis of the
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