The Bookmaker

by Chris Fraser

  “I slipped right behind Bobby, who continued backing up towards me and I quickly put my gun to the back of his head and fired. It was a little left of center, but I knew it was a kill shot. As quick as I shot him, my gun was back in my pocket and I dissolved into the mayhem. I saw Rosey and Rafer and a few other men beating on a now unarmed Sirhan while trying to subdue him; he was fighting back, but would be taken alive. I walked against the flow of people rushing to the scene and bumped into an attractive woman in a polka dot dress who gave me a curiously knowing look and pushed past her. Once I was out of the kitchen and back into the ballroom, I joined the confused crowds and nonchalantly slipped out onto Wilshire, avoiding the ambulances and police cars already arriving in droves; further adding to the madness of the scene and making my escape even easier. Matador met me out front, he’d been trailing me the whole time but lost me in the tight confines of the kitchen.

  “Out of breath but relieved, he asked, ‘You get him?’

  “Yeah, I got him.”

  25

  The grass was still a little dewy wet on the overcast Thursday morning. We brought out a football, a soccer ball, and a baseball with three mitts—two adult, one child. Tucker liked the soccer ball; he liked the way it rolled when he kicked it. Corynne and I would kick the ball back and forth and he would chase it as it rolled between us. He laughed and laughed, once so hard he threw up his milk and we had to take a fifteen minute break. Once the grass dried some, I brought out Wade Boggs to play with us. His actions of late had told me I was neglecting him, so I included him in our fun. He was hesitant at first, probably more from the wet grass than anything else, but soon joined us in chasing the soccer ball around, and when he caught it, he tried to bite and kick at it with his hind legs. Tucker couldn’t say his name, so he just called him “Meow.” He chased him around the grass yelling, “No, Meow, no,” over and over again.

  Corynne glowed with a smile a mother gets when watching her child at play. The smile lit up her face like the shine on a new penny. She was beautiful and she was with me, and I couldn’t help but laugh and smile as well. I really enjoyed having Tucker in my life; he took to calling me “T” and I called him “Little T.” He really was a good kid. His first reaction was always to smile or laugh, and the only time he got upset was when he had to stop doing something he enjoyed, which I could understand, but you can’t play forever.

  The booming voice that carried across the back lawn was Preston‘s. “Don’t let him play with that soccer ball, this ain’t Europe, goddamnit. Give him the football to throw around or at least the baseball; this is America, for krissakes.”

  “Sorry, Papa, he likes the soccer ball, the football doesn’t roll,” Corynne yelled back.

  “Oh well, at least he’s playing sports. Hey, when you’re done, come on in, Delotta’s making sandwiches.”

  “Okay, give us about a half hour,” she said, kicking the ball for Tucker to chase.

  Lunch was tuna on toasted sourdough. Corynne, ever the over-worried mom, had heard about mercury levels on the news and asked Delotta to make Tucker a grilled cheese.

  Between small bites of his sandwich, Preston said, “It’s nice to have a sit-down meal once in a while. Everyone is always out doing their own thing—myself included. We must make an attempt to get together as a family more often, including Dayla and Jay, I don’t think they’ve even had one meal at this table.”

  “We should, Papa, you’re right,” Corynne said, breaking up Tucker’s grilled cheese into bite-sized pieces, making it easier for him to throw.

  Preston was now having his scotch with lunch, and most days he was on his third by noon.

  He took a long, burning drink and then placed his glass down. “I’ve been doing some thinking…I want us to all go on a little trip, all of us here at the table and Matador too, of course. Unfortunately, Jay and Dayla will have to stay behind as I want to take one car, besides, Jay’s got plenty of work to do.”

  This got Corynne’s attention, she liked the idea. “Oh yeah, where do you want to go?”

  “I want to go back to Dallas, see it one last time, a final pilgrimage if you will.”

  Corynne’s excitement for the trip waned, but she was determined to cater to the dying man’s last wishes. “Okay, when would you like to go?”

  “I want to be there on the anniversary.”

  “The anniversary?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I’d like to be there thirty-five years after the fact, on November 22, and I won’t take no for an answer,” he said with a serious smile.

  “Okay, we’ll go, whatever you want, Papa.”

  Preston turned to me. “Trent, this will be an ideal fact-gathering opportunity for the book. I’m doing this for you, too, you know.”

  “I look forward to going. It sounds like fun,” I said.

  As Delotta cleared the plates from the table, Preston said, “Hey, Trent, why don’t we take care of a little business today. We’re almost done; how about you help me to my office and we can get some work done before we catch the night game. Should be a good one—we got your USC boys against Arizona State.”

  I looked at Corynne; we had plans to spend the day together. “Is this okay?”

  “Of course, work comes first,” she said, taking Tucker out of his high chair. “We didn’t have anything special planned today. You boys have fun. I need to get this little guy down for a nap, maybe I’ll join him.” As she was leaving she leaned down to give me a kiss, but caught herself and left with a light squeeze on my shoulder.

  We had decided that although Preston approved of our relationship, it might be best to keep the public displays of affection to a minimum. He could still be a bit old fashioned when it suited him. Although, there wasn’t much he was missing, we were taking it slow, very slow. She played the proper southern belle, while I begrudgingly played the part of a gentleman. We spent almost every free moment we had together. I had much more than her, as she was often busy with Tucker and school. But with the roles we were playing, and with Tucker as an ever-present third wheel, we hadn’t progressed past kissing and some light petting. We each had our own room, and that’s where we slept. It was frustrating at times, but a small price to pay if it meant being with her.

  Preston was getting worse by the day. I more carried him than helped him to his office. When we finally arrived, I was exhausted and unapologetically dropped him on the couch. My hands were on my knees as I tried to pull myself together.

  “You’re a young man…you shouldn’t be panting like that. You need to get in to better shape. Maybe we should get you out into those fields more with Matador and Jay.”

  I fought the urge to remind him that I had just hauled his two hundred pounds of dead weight up the stairs and through the long halls. I just nodded in agreement instead.

  “You ready for the Teddy Kennedy chapter of our story?” he asked.

  I was confused. “Isn’t he still alive?”

  “If you can call that living, then yes, yes he is. My white whale, the one that got away.”

  “I’m ready when you are.”

  He held up his empty glass and rattled the cubes. “Why don’t you freshen an old man up and we can get started.” I grabbed his glass and went to the bar. After such a pleasant morning I wasn’t much in the mood for the doom and gloom his tales of revenge evoked.

  I needed a break from all this death. I handed him his drink and a pre-rolled joint I pulled from the tin. “How about we talk about something else for a while?” I asked.

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “I don’t care, anything.”

  Preston perked up, finding a topic he wanted to delve into. “Okay, let’s talk current affairs.”

  “Sounds good,” I said, anxious for anything other than the Kennedys.

  He took a long sip and settled back into the couch. “So what were your thoughts on the OJ verdict? I know it’s not current, a few years old, but it’s still relevant.”

  “Guilty as h
ell,” I said without hesitation.

  “Well, of course he’s guilty. That’s obvious, but that’s not the issue at hand.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  “Do you think Nicole deserved what happened to her?”

  “Of course not, she was murdered by her husband.”

  “Let me ask you this…do you feel bad when a heroin addict overdoses and dies?”

  “I guess not,” I said hesitantly, now curious where he was going with this.

  “Do you feel bad when a motorcyclist not wearing a helmet crashes and dies from head injuries?”

  “Well yeah, a little I suppose.”

  “What about a bank robber who gets killed while robbing a bank? Do you feel bad for him?”

  “No,” I answered, seeing the obvious pattern.

  “And why don’t you feel bad for all these people I’ve just mentioned?”

  “They died from their own actions, by their own choices. They knew the risks, they took ‘em, and they died because of it.”

  “Exactly!” he cried triumphantly.

  Angered by his logic, I asked, “So you’re saying Nicole deserved to get killed by OJ?”

  He studied my reaction. “I don’t think deserved is the right term, I think she knew the risks.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Nicole should have known that when she married a black man that there are inherent risks that come with that. Now, do you think she’d have been with him if he wasn’t rich and famous?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, doubting my response.

  “Of course she wouldn’t. If he worked at a car wash or shoe store, she wouldn’t have had anything to do with him. She went for the money and the lifestyle, fully aware of the tendencies of abuse the statistics bring.”

  “So when she married a black man she knew she was taking a risk, but she went for it anyway. So her death, like those you mentioned earlier, was caused by her own risk-taking behavior?”

  “That’s what I’m saying and that’s why you shouldn’t feel bad about it,” he said, content that I grasped his point.

  “That sounds pretty fucked up to me. I ain’t buying it, but I guess I see where you’re coming from.”

  “Good, I’m glad.”

  “What you’re alluding to is some pretty racist shit, I thought you were past all the typical southern bullshit,” I said, knowing this would piss him off. I didn’t care.

  “Watch it, son...”

  “What I’m saying is, you have Delotta stay in the house and you’re very good to her, and she thinks the world of you. And hell, you even paid for Darnell’s college tuition.”

  “It don’t mean I want him in the house, especially not with my granddaughter living here! All I’m saying is, it’s in their nature and you can’t trust ‘em.”

  “That’s some backward ass way of thinking,” I said, standing my ground.

  “Well, it looks like we’re gonna have to agree to disagree,” he said, finishing his scotch and the conversation I wished I’d never asked for. I stood up and walked to the window. The clouds weren’t gonna burn off, looked like rain.

  I spoke without turning around. “Maybe I should have stuck to the original subject.”

  “Ah come on, can’t we have an intelligent discussion that don’t involve the Kennedys?”

  Intelligent? Obviously not, I thought, but no point in trying to convince him otherwise, his views are archaic and forty—no, a hundred-and-forty years behind the times; he wouldn’t change his mind.

  “Tell me how you got Teddy,” I said, ending the topic for good. “Let me guess, you were at Chappaquiddick…the troll under the bridge?”

  He had a good laugh. “No, Chappaquiddick was Teddy’s own doing. I wasn’t involved. No, we have to go back five years from that, back to ‘64 and another plane crash.”

  “Really? Go on,” I said, sitting back down and turning on the recorder.

  * * * * *

  “After we got Johnny, we set our sights on the two remaining brothers. Back in ‘62 Bobby was a much harder target with his position as Attorney General—if the mob couldn’t get him, how could we? So we started trailing a young up-start Junior Senator from Massachusetts. Teddy was flying all over the country that summer, seeking reelection after being given his Senatorial seat in ‘62. We had fifteen pounds of Torpex left over from the original batch. The explosives were almost twenty years old, so we took a couple pounds out into the woods, set it on a timer, and it still worked—in fact there is still a large hole out there. Our plan was to get the remaining thirteen pounds onto one of Teddy’s smaller planes.

  “On June 19, Teddy would be in Washington to vote on the Civil Rights Act. It was the Kennedy’s baby and there was no way he’d miss it. We also knew he would have to be in Massachusetts the next day for the state’s Democratic Convention, where he would receive his Senate nomination. Matador and I took a drive up to Washington a couple days before and got a suite at the Hay-Adams Hotel, overlooking the White House.

  “We did a little snooping around Washington National Airport and found that Teddy would fly out the evening of the 19th as soon as he could get away from the Senate vote. Then, I made a mistake. I needed access to the tarmac to get to the plane. The plan was to steal a ground crew uniform. I made my way into the empty ground crew locker room, pulling each locker handle to see if any were unlocked and someone must have seen me, ‘cause two airport security guards confronted me and asked me my business. I told them I was waiting to pick up someone from the airport and I got lost and ended up in the locker room somehow. They didn’t buy it, but I had no stolen items on me, so they had to let me go. But not before getting all my information and taking my picture for airport security. I left, cursing myself; I couldn’t risk going back. Our trip to Washington was wasted.

  “I made it back to our suite and told Matador what had happened. He agreed—I was fucked. They had a fake name and address, but now they knew my face. I couldn’t go back to the airport; it was too risky. Our anonymity was everything.

  “Matador was undeterred. ‘We didn’t come all this way for nothing, did we?’

  “‘It looks that way…we’ll have to try another flight, another airport.’

  “‘Washington National is the one airport he’d be using the most, Bobby too. And they’ll probably send your photo to all the airports as a security measure.’

  “‘You’re right. Shit, I blew it!’ I said, conceding defeat.

  “Then Matador had an idea. ‘Those ground crew uniforms, they’re nothing but green jumpsuits, aren’t they?’

  “‘Yeah, basically.’

  “‘Couldn’t we just go to an army surplus store and find something close?’

  “‘Probably,’ I said, cursing myself again for taking such a risk when another option was available.

  “Then Matador looked at me with fierce determination. ‘I will do it.’

  “‘What, what are you gonna do?’

  “‘I will do it. We’ll scour the city’s surplus and thrift stores and find a passable uniform. I’ll get onto the tarmac with the Torpex, find out which plane they’ll be taking, and sneak it onboard. I can do it.’

  “I looked at him, shaking my head. ‘I can’t let you do this for me. It’s too much to ask.’

  “‘Do this for you? This is our fight and has been since we met. We’re in this together.’

  “‘You’re right. I’m sorry. I just don’t want anything to happen to you.’

  “‘Don’t worry about me. I can handle myself.’

  “‘I know you can.’

  “‘We’re in this together. Sink or swim, Preston. There’s no other way for me.’

  “‘Me neither,’ I said, pushing the Bible out of the way and grabbing the yellow pages from the nightstand drawer to find an army surplus store nearby.

  “The army-green overalls we found at the first army surplus store we went to were pretty big on Matador, but the color was close a
nd the design was similar. We checked out a few more stores, but this was the closest we‘d find. We were gonna give it a shot. Matador walked right onto the tarmac, no questions asked. Other than his uniform being a shade darker than the real ones, he fit right in. It’s amazing what you can get away with if you act like you know what you’re doing. He carried the Torpex in a similarly colored green knapsack, not registering one suspicious stare. He was in. Now he just needed to find out which plane would be Teddy’s. He asked another member of his ground crew which plane it was and he was directed to a small twin-engine Aero Commander 680 waiting patiently for its flight.

  “Matador went to the bathroom, got into the last stall, pulled out the bomb, and wound the timer for two hours. It was 9:30am—the flight was scheduled to leave in an hour, as soon as the passengers arrived. The flight would take about two hours to West Springfield, and the bomb should go off mid-flight. He placed the Torpex back into the knapsack, flushed the toilet, and headed straight for the Aero Commander 680, unguarded and unwatched. He simply lifted the baggage hold and gently placed the bag in the back corner, surely to go undetected and quickly covered by less lethal luggage. Then he nonchalantly slipped off the tarmac and into the airport and then met me in the parking garage. We were gone; now it was the bomb’s turn to do all the work.

  “We hurried back to the suite and turned on the radio and then the TV to CBS news and waited—we like to get our news from Cronkite. After a couple hours of sitting on our hands, we talked ourselves into the fact the Torpex was too old, it wouldn’t do its job. Every conceivable negative scenario was brought to light, scrutinized, became truth, then debunked, and then became inevitable. This vicious cycle continued until we got some news. Finally, at midnight, came a special news break simultaneously on TV and radio.

  “It was Cronkite reporting. ‘It appears another tragedy has befallen the Kennedys. Reports are now coming in of a small plane carrying Senator Kennedy, his aide, Edward Moss, Senator Bayh and his wife, Marvella, and the pilot, Edwin Zimny, en route to the state Democratic convention in West Springfield, has crashed in an orchard three miles from Barnes Memorial Airport in Westfield, Massachusetts. All five people have been taken to Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton. Keep them in your prayers and we’ll keep you updated.’