The Iron Will of Shoeshine Cats

by Hesh Kestin

  Quinones must have wished she was wearing a wire. Maybe she was, or Mink. “I take it you didn’t care for the president, Mr. Cats.”

  Shushan shook his head.

  “What were you doing in Dallas, Mr. Cats?”

  “I’d been there after Korea. Knocked around, worked for some people. So I went back for a visit.”

  “Went back for a visit. Was that a general visit, see the sights—what are the sights in Dallas, Mr. Cats?”

  “Damned if I know. Just hung out with friends.”

  “Mr. Cats,” she said. “Is one of those friends a Mr. Jack Ruby?”

  In the silence I could hear ice cubes rattle in a pitcher on the bar fifty feet away. “Mr. Jack Ruby?”

  “Mr. Jack Ruby,” Quinones said.

  Shushan removed a Lucky from his jacket pocket and lit it in one motion with a silver Zippo embossed in gold with the Marine Corps eagle, globe and anchor. “I know Jack.”

  “Did you see him,” Quinones asked. “In Dallas?”

  “I did.”

  “Is Mr. Jack Ruby the reason you went to Dallas?”

  Shushan scratched his ear. “Absolutely.”

  “Absolutely?”

  Shushan stubbed out his Lucky. Normally he smoked them till they turned his fingers brown. “I know this is going to sound... weird. Jack is one fucked-up guy. Excuse my language. I mean, he’s been fucked-up forever, since he was an embryo. Mother was nuts. Crazy violent old man. Grew up in foster homes. Never had a chance. Also, not so bright. I mean, bright enough to work for the FBI, but for normal life he has problems. That’s a joke.” No one laughed. “Unfortunately, as you may have noticed, he has a temper, which is never good. But also a big heart, emotional. I mean, what could be more emotional than knocking off the guy who knocked off the president? So what happened is this. My mother died a couple of weeks back, God bless her. I’m actually just out of the mourning period. I don’t suppose you’re Jewish?”

  “Christian Scientist,” Quinones said.

  Fritzi stopped shoveling mozzarella. “They save on doctor bills,” he said. He was speaking directly to Shushan: be cautious.

  “Methodist,” Mink said. “Why does that matter, sir?”

  “I don’t suppose it does,” Shushan said. “Where were we?”

  Watching him I realized he was now running the conversation, asking the questions, setting the agenda. I still had a lot to learn.

  “The mourning period,” Quinones said.

  “Thanks,” Shushan said. “A rough week, as you can imagine. So what happened? Much to my surprise, who comes to the mourning period, aside from people I know and see all the time, business associates, people from my Jewish society, but one Jack Ruby. I don’t even know how he heard my mom was... deceased. Maybe an associate of an associate. Something like that. Suddenly Jack shows up. He’s wearing boots, you know, cowboy style, with eagles, and a Stetson—that’s a hat...”

  “I know what a Stetson is, Mr. Cats.”

  “Well, it really stood out. I mean, you’re supposed to cover your head, the men, at a Jewish mourning, but that hat, that was... it stood out is how I’d put it. Look, I worked for the man ten, eleven years ago, when I got out of the Marine Corps—”

  “We’re aware you’re an ex-Marine, Mr. Cats,” Mink said.

  “I’m not,” Shushan said. “There’s no such animal as an ex-Marine. Once a Marine, always a Marine.” He smiled. “You’re not.”

  “Army,” Mink said. “101st Airborne.”

  “Not a bad outfit,” Shushan said. “Anyway, Jack comes to the funeral, visits me at my place for the mourning period, stays about two hours, two very long hours. You know how it is with people from the past. Sometimes you’re more important to them than they are to you. I worked for him, Shorty Farber, Ralph Silverstein, Lew Cobb, Big John Albright—they had the main bars on the same strip, two blocks more or less. I got hired by all four of them.”

  “Five names, four bars, sir,” Quinones said.

  “Nice catch. Lew and Big John were partners. Yeah, I worked for five guys, but in four bars.”

  “How did you do that, Mr. Cats?” Quinones asked. “Typically.”

  “Every night I’d stroll from bar to bar, making sure things were quiet. People got drunk. In Texas they like to fight. You had to calm them down. Not real hard work. I probably would have stayed who knows how long, but Jack got into a pissing match with Shorty and Ralph, small-time stuff, arguing about stealing talent from each other—strippers. What they had was strip clubs with pretensions: a magician, a country singer, sometimes a really bad comedian but basically the clients were there for the flesh. The other acts just covered the clubs in the eyes of the law, not legal exactly but the cops never bothered except for free drinks. Jack is one of those small-time guys who actually like cops. And then because the four clubs couldn’t get along, the bar-owners each decided to hire their own security, not share me. So that’s when I came back to New York, which I probably would have anyway. My mom was here, my late mom, bless her, and I have a sister. Hometown stuff. You want to hear this?”

  “Please,” Quinones said.

  Shushan lit another Lucky, this time offering them around. I took one—in 1963 not only was smoking normal in a restaurant but we smoked in the middle of a meal. The FBI declined. “Next thing I know, last week after my mom’s mourning, I get a call from Jack in Dallas.”

  “A call?”

  “A phone call. Aside from his visiting for the mourning, understand this is somebody I haven’t seen since 1953. On the phone it’s like we’re best friends, having coffee every other day. ‘Shushan, it’s Jack. Can you come down?’ I tell him I’m a little busy now, he knows my mother just died, I haven’t even looked at my business for a week, that kind of thing. Between you and me, to avoid further involvement with Jack I would have told him I was having an operation to remove my gentiles. I mean, it’s like some girl you didn’t screw in high school calls and says she needs you to fly a couple thousand miles because she’s dreaming about you. As if it’s bad enough you didn’t have much in common in high school, now you have to get involved with them years later.”

  “But you did.”

  “The man was crying on the phone. I went down, held his hand. I think he was having what they call a breakdown. He was a wreck. His business wasn’t doing too well. There was trouble with one of the strippers he was dating. She walked out on him. Men get to a certain age, things don’t work out, they can get... desperate.”

  “You went to Dallas to spend time, three days in fact, with someone you’d prefer not to know?”

  “Jack Ruby gave me my first job when I got out of the service.”

  “Ten years ago.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And that obligated you—”

  “Sure. I don’t forget when people are nice. Now, you know, they’re all nice. Uniformly. But then, what was I, a punk kid with not even a suit of clothes? Jack Ruby bought me my first suit that wasn’t khaki.”

  “Mr. Cats.”

  “What?”

  “I understand you served with distinction in the United States Marine Corps.”

  “They give you medals for just showing up.”

  “The Navy Cross?”

  “I got lucky.”

  “I don’t believe that, Mr. Cats. It’s clear you were a hero.”

  “A long time ago, so what?”

  “You’re a marksman.”

  “In the Marines. I haven’t shot at a target in years.”

  “At a target?” Quinones asked. She was good.

  “At a target, at a person, at anything.”

  “Mr. Cats, did you have anything to do with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy?”

  Fritzi tapped his wine glass three times with his fork. Everyone in the restaurant looked up. Our waiter started to come over, but must have read the faces at the table. He stopped. “Don’t answer that question, Shushan. It’s an insult to you as a peace-loving person and as
an American. Miss Quinones—”

  “Special Agent Quinones,” she said.

  “Of course. Special Agent Quinones”—he said this so slowly you could have finished the soup of the day (lentil, with olive oil and rosemary) between syllables—“Not only will my client cease answering your questions, but I believe he is owed an apology.”

  “It’s only a question, counselor.”

  “Shushan, button up. You’ve talked enough for one day.”

  Shushan stifled a laugh. “You know why I’m talking, Fritz?”

  “Because you’re not as smart as I think you are?”

  “Tell me, Fritzi, do I sound like I got anything to hide? I don’t, which is a fact. A person with something to hide, he wouldn’t admit to not particularly caring for John F. Kennedy, he wouldn’t volunteer that he knows Jack Ruby, he wouldn’t even mention Cuba. Fritzi, I got nothing to hide. So I can talk freely. It’s still America.” He turned to Quinones. “You want to arrest me on what I said?”

  “No,” she said. “Not today.”

  “Not never,” Shushan said. “If you arrested me for what I said you’d have to arrest a million people, because we got the same story.”

  “A million people don’t know Jack Ruby, Mr. Cats. Not before Sunday.”

  “Yeah, that’s right. Only maybe ten thousand. He owned a bar, for Pete’s sake. He still does. How do you think he got into that basement in a police station when they’re transferring Lee Harvey Oswald? He knew all the cops and they knew him. Do I look like the kind of guy who goes around assassinating presidents? I mean, really?”

  “I don’t know how such a man looks,” Quinones said.

  “According to your people, he looks like Lee Harvey Oswald.”

  “As a marksman, Mr. Cats—”

  “A former marksman.”

  “A former marksman who, when he was rotated out of combat duty in Korea, was an instructor in marksmanship at the United States Marine Corps training facility at Twenty-Nine Palms, California—”

  “For six months, until my tour was up.”

  “As an expert marksman, would you say one man could have fired the bullets that killed President Kennedy, and wounded Governor John Connelly, from that distance and angle?”

  Shushan didn’t pause. “Absolutely not.”

  “Because?”

  “Number one, the Mannlicher Carcano. If that was the gun, it’s a shitty gun. Hey, this is a rifle you can buy mail order for twelve bucks, sometimes less. Number two, reload time. This gun, it’s famous for a really bad action. And in Dallas it all had to happen in seconds. I don’t know about Lee Harvey Oswald, but I was good with a rifle, and I couldn’t do it.”

  “You don’t know about Lee Harvey Oswald?”

  Shushan stubbed out his cigarette and motioned for the waiter. “Espresso all around,” he said. “And the bill.”

  Mink broke in. “Not for us, sir. It’s against regulations to take favors of any kind from a suspect in a criminal investigation.”

  “A suspect?” Fritzi pushed his chair back from the table. The sound of metal scraping against the marble floor with three hundred pounds on it was like an animal in pain. “My client is a suspect in a criminal investigation? This interview is over, o-v-e-r. Over. Shushan, don’t say another word.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m your attorney and I’m telling you not to. Special Agent Quinones, do you intend now or at any time in the future to charge my client with a federal crime?”

  “Not at the moment, counselor.”

  “Good. When you change your mind, do let me know.” He stood. Shushan remained seated. Slowly Fritzi sat back down, glaring at his client.

  “Mr. Cats,” Quinones said. “First of all I want to thank you for your cooperation, and your frankness.”

  “Like I say, I got nothing to hide.”

  “Is there anything else you might wish to tell me?”

  Shushan shrugged, almost petulantly.

  “Especially your views on whether or not Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.”

  “If he acted at all,” Shushan said. “In my opinion it was two guys, minimum. And one of those guys was not Lee Oswald.”

  “I appreciate your candor, Mr. Cats.”

  He smiled.

  The waiter came up, standing at Shushan’s right side. There wasn’t a bill. There never was. Shushan took a crisp hundred out of his pocket and passed it to the waiter, who took it and the hint and disappeared.

  “And I appreciate your homework,” Shushan said. “You know I know Lee Oswald couldn’t hit the Camel billboard from across the street in Times Square.”

  Fritzi just shook his massive head.

  I hadn’t said a word throughout the meal. Now I wanted to say something, but I didn’t know what.

  “Then why as his instructor in the USMC marksmanship course at Twenty-Nine Palms did you pass him with the grade of marksman?”

  I looked at Fritzi. Sweat was pouring off his forehead. Shushan’s was dry, his tan merely giving off an oily sheen of confidence and good health.

  “He was kind of a lost soul.”

  “You passed him even though he couldn’t hit the—”

  “No, of course not. I had a responsibility to the Corps. Technically he passed. Like in high school, he had the equivalent of a sixty-five. Passing, but just. The Corps gives instructors a little leeway in these matters. I could have failed him, made him repeat, and probably he would have failed again. And that would have been it. But he was... I don’t know. A kind of sad sack, a lost soul like I said. I knew he wouldn’t last long in the Marines anyhow. It’s not like he was a lifer. How much damage could he do? Maybe I was wrong. I had just come out of combat. I’d seen the best-trained men fall apart—my own captain was one of them—and I’d seen fuck-ups who stepped up and became heroes. Maybe this kid would do that. He was a real fuck-up too, not even at the level of a Jack Ruby, who could at least run a bar. Badly, but he could. Let me tell you something. I was a good shot, and I couldn’t have carried off what Lee Oswald is supposed to have done, for sure not with that rifle. You know what they call that gun in Italy? The humanitarian. I doubt it could be done with a Marine-issue sniper’s rifle like the M-2b, and that is a good gun.”

  “But you did know Lee Harvey Oswald.”

  “You know that. I was his range instructor a long time ago.”

  “And Jack Ruby.”

  “And I think the Kennedys are full of shit.”

  “Therefore you had a grudge against the President and his family.”

  “Grudge? Let me draw you a picture. When Shushan Cats has a grudge against you, you know it. I didn’t have no grudge. I just think he was a shitty president, just like his brother is a shitty attorney general. Does that mean I’m going to pop them? Listen, the number of people I don’t care for you can count in the thousands. I don’t go shooting them. In case you don’t know it, murder is a crime. Knocking off the president is a federal one. And also it’s a waste. You take out one asshole and another pops up. You could spend your life at it and there’d be no change. You think I’m ever going to get back El Flamboyan? In a word, never. Some things you got to live with.”

  “Mr. Cats, do you have an opinion, a view, a guess even, regarding who was behind the assassination of the president?”

  “Sure.”

  “Mr. Cats, in your opinion who would that be?”

  “Probably somebody who was very pissed off.”

  “It wasn’t you?”

  Shushan rose from the table, I with him, then Fritzi. “Of course not.”

  “Even though you have a record of acting for others in such matters?”

  “When I was doing what I did, when I was just starting out, it was stuff within a certain circle. I don’t do that any more, and if you ask me officially I never did.”

  “But someone did it to President Kennedy.”

  “Rightfully, so far as I’m concerned.”

  “Mr. Cats, are you defending
the assassination of a sitting president?’

  “I’m not defending it,” he said. “It’s a crime, isn’t it? But I’m not crying about it either.”

  “Do you know or suspect a specific party to have been involved in the assassination? Do you know who that was?”

  “Somebody.”

  “Can you give us more?”

  “Let’s see,” Shushan said. “Who would want to put John F. Kennedy out of our misery? Look at the number of people he upset. Screwed the coloreds, screwed the Cubans, and he’s drafting people for a war in a shit-hole called Vietnam that is going to make Korea look like The Ed Sullivan Show. Also he was not so popular with the lunatic fringe on the right either. The John Birch Society, those people, they didn’t like what he said. Or that he’s Catholic. The criminals didn’t like him or his brother for business reasons, and he fucked every woman for miles, so his wife probably wouldn’t mind if someone knocked him off either. Guy like Dwight Eisenhower, head general in World War II, big-time golfer, grandfather type, what’s to hate? You know why Ike was so popular? He didn’t make promises he didn’t keep. People feel let down by idealists who aren’t. Lyndon Johnson, you know he’s a scheming bum from the outset, so you’re cool with that. Kennedy, it’s like you take home the most beautiful girl at the party, and comes a certain moment you find out she has a dick. Man, that’s not just uncomfortable. Somebody got angry.”

  “Somebody,” Quinones said.

  “Somebody,” Shushan said. “But it wasn’t me.” He offered his hand to Quinones, who took it, and to Mink, who didn’t.

  “Don’t feel bad, special agent. Not everybody can be a Marine.”

  Quinones stifled a smile. “If we need you tomorrow, Mr. Cats, where can we find you?”

  “At a funeral,” he said.

  We walked out, Shushan and I and Fritzi, followed by the two FBI agents, and behind them the two earphones who had stood for an hour just inside the entrance to Dolce Far Niente. The smell of basil and clam sauce and fresh espresso must have driven them nuts.