by Tim Baker
‘What’s he doing in LA?’
‘Spying. On everyone. Every-fucking-one! Businessmen, teachers, writers, rocket scientists. But most of all movie stars. They’re listening in on everyone. Nobody’s safe. Not even the biggest stars. So someone like Sal . . . ’
‘Sal who?’
‘Sal Mineo. The actor.’ For the first time, the fear in Hidalgo’s eyes was gone, replaced by incredulity as he gazed into Hastings’s unregistering face. ‘Rebel Without a Cause. Plato.’
Hastings shook his head.
Hidalgo’s lips curled in disdain. ‘He’s famous . . . ’
‘So what’s the racket?’
‘Blackmail. How do you think they got Jerome Robbins and Robert Taylor to testify against the Reds? By appealing to their civic duty? Crap! By threatening to expose them—not for being commies, for being gay.’ Hidalgo got up off the floor, still cradling his arm. ‘It’s an easy choice when it’s the only one you’ve got: lose your job and go to jail—or talk a little.’
’What do they want to find out about Mrs. Bannister?’
‘Everything . . . ’
Including him? ‘What have you told them . . . ?’
Hidalgo looked away.
Everything. ‘I don’t care who you spy on—leave Mrs. Bannister, and me, out of it.’
‘Easy for you to say, I—’
Hastings tapped him on the chin. ‘Got it?’
Hidalgo rubbed his jaw, anger in his eyes.
And that was the last thing Hastings saw when he spoke to the private dick outside the bus . . . The anger in Hidalgo’s eyes.
Hastings needed to find this actor, Sal Mineo. He needed to find out what the Feds wanted with Mrs. Bannister. Most of all, Hastings needed to know what they had on him.
He got himself a glass of water and checked the back room. All was quiet. The water had a metallic aftertaste, like the pungent flint of oysters. The stench of the hawthorns outside hadn’t only permeated the air, it had contaminated the water. The aroma was elemental and alarming, with its bitter traces of formaldehyde, almonds and death. The entire street was in bloom, but instead of festive springtime it felt more like All Hallows. Oppressive and rotten. He was getting cabin fever.
He turned on the radio, keeping the volume low, listening to the news. The hysteria had built to overwhelming proportions. Everyone could sense it: the decade not six months old, and already this was the crime that would define the Sixties. An evil old man; a wicked young wife; an innocent child. A lethal cocktail of guilt and retribution, served up to the smug Everyman. The Big Fall before The Big Sleep.
He changed stations.
Miles Davis. Elevator to the Gallows. Hastings sat in the shade in the back of the room and lost himself in the horn. Foolishly, he started dreaming. He and Betty Bannister, walking hand in hand along a boulevard in the Latin Quarter. It was twilight. Hot as hell. They stop under a chestnut tree by the river. The leaves rustle above them; a benediction from the Gods. He leans in to kiss her: his woman, his lover; his lady in Paris . . .
The lady vanishes like the music.
A newsflash. Hastings woke with a start, leaping to his feet. Please stand by, the voice said, they were going live to the Bannister Estate. Captain Schiller’s voice rumbled official confirmation that the boy’s nanny, Greta Simmons, was dead.
Hastings didn’t switch off the radio, he yanked it out of the wall and battered it senseless against the table. He assassinated it.
Even without the details, he knew her death could be traced back to him. This had always been his curse: to be doomed to hurt every single person he had ever tried to help . . .
He froze. There was movement on the street. The room whined with extended silence. A shadow shimmered across the drawn curtains as a car slowed outside . . .
Hastings went to the window and lifted the edge of the curtain before pulling back in shock. That private dick, Alston, had just pulled up in a Chevy Nomad on the other side of the street. Impossible. No one knew about the hideout on Hawthorn Parade.
No one except Mrs. Bannister.
Hastings got his gun, secured the silencer, and went back to the window, again drawing the curtain slowly. Alston was alone. He was crossing the lawn of one of the houses opposite. Hastings remembered what Greta had told him. Half the joints on this block were owned by Roselli. It could be that Alston was after someone else.
He watched Alston as he climbed through the window of the house.
The low buzzing drilled its way through his skull. Balancing him. There was no time to mourn Greta. He had to act now. He unlatched the back door, sunlight slapping him with the promise of pain.
Hastings swung the garage door open. Greta must have known they’d force her to talk in the end. She was protecting someone. Not him. Not Betty Bannister. Certainly not the kid. It had to be Elaine.
Their cover was as good as blown. He and Betty weren’t just running out of places to hide. They were running out of time.
CHAPTER 30
Dallas 2014
Conspiracy was back in fashion.
All it had taken was one whistle-blower from the NSA. That’s when I had come up with my idea of developing a list of expert witnesses—personalities who represented all the major conspiracy theories of the assassinations. Some, like Adam Granston and Tex Jeetton, were among the usual suspects, already well known to JFK conspiracy buffs. Others, like Annette Martinez and Dwayne Wayne, had made their presence felt in recent years, pushing their opinions—and their personalities—via aggressive forum contributions on every site from JFK Lancer and The JFK Assassination Debate to The National Enquirer. Evelyn and Miriam Marshall were local personalities I’d discovered by focusing on small Dallas community sites. But the gemstone jewel in the crown of all the witnesses is Leopold Steiner, former Stanford Law Professor and renowned criminal appellate attorney who had given up both careers to concentrate on the JFK Assassination.
Leopold Steiner lives in a comfortable loft in West Village, Uptown Dallas and welcomes me with a wry smile and warily cocked head. ‘The journalist . . . ?’
No, the trapeze artist. Steiner vigorously shakes my hand, checking behind my back before closing and bolting the door. His head tilts all the way to the other side of the spectrum. ‘Funny . . . ’
I can tell it’s not ‘ha-ha’.
‘You’re not by any chance related to . . . ’
‘Nick Alston? He was my father.’
Steiner gestures to a glass conference table heavy with documents and photos stacked with organisational purity. The only non-business touches are a blue dahlia growing in a hand-painted pot, a tray of kumquats, and two glasses of water with crushed ice and slices of lime—all suggestive of an austere flair for healthy, minimalist living. He nods proudly at the display. ‘The national plant of Mexico . . . ’
‘The kumquat?’
‘The dahlia. I made the pot myself.’
‘Nice . . . ’ I suppose. It’s definitely not bad.
‘It’s something I’ve taken up since moving out here. The adobe tradition . . . ’ He offers the kumquats to me as though they were a platter of chocolates. ‘Help yourself.’
I take a bite of one, zesting the air with the faint perfume of orange. ‘What’s so funny about my father?’
Leopold Steiner raises his eyebrows in unsurprised consideration. He has a likeable face; suntanned and remarkably smooth for a man who must be hitting seventy, with a band of closely-cropped silver hair around the sides and a tousled shock of yellow white on top. ‘I knew Betty Bannister. Back in the old days. It was right after I came out. Believe it or not, I used to be a regular at Studio 54. That’s where we first met. I’ll tell you one thing, sport, she was the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Even more beautiful than Bianca . . . Nice watch.’ He reaches over and takes my wrist, helping himself to a good look. He s
tares up at me. ‘As far as I’m concerned, it’s still the greatest unsolved case in history . . . ’
‘JFK?’
‘The Zodiac killings. Given the amount of forensic evidence available, it’s baffling the case was never solved. Like Elizabeth Short. What does that tell you?’ I pause for a second, actually weighing a reply but he’s already answering for me. ‘Investigative and procedural incompetence is often a sign of conspiracy. A smokescreen for the masses.’ He pops a kumquat, speaking through the happy, golden rind. ‘Higher Powers.’
’Just like the JFK Assassination?’
‘You’ve got it, sport . . . ’
‘Speaking of which, I believe you’ve assembled a list of suspects?’
‘It’s so much more than that . . . ’ He slides a sheaf of papers towards me, our faces reflected on the glass table as we both stare at it. ‘I’ve put together the most comprehensive list of persons of interest ever assembled. People we know were in Dallas, either on the eve or the day of the assassination. I call them the Dallas Fifty.’
He hands me the typewritten document. I glance at the first names: LBJ, Nixon, Bush, then flick through the other pages, catching sight of familiar and not so familiar players and suspects. I’m already having doubts. Just because he’s a brilliant lawyer doesn’t mean he’s right. In fact, the more brilliant you are, the more convinced you become, and that’s precisely when you’re most likely to be wrong. Certainty always leads to blindness. Look at the hundreds of amateur sleuths on Reddit who went after the Boston Bombers, certain of their conclusions. And yet not one of them got it right.
I glance up at Steiner. He taps the top of the first sheet of paper. ‘The first three names. What do they tell you?’
Ever since I was a kid, I hated being put on the spot.
Leopold Steiner sighs at my hesitation. ‘It never fails to amaze me . . . ’
The spacious loft suddenly feels uncomfortably small. ‘What?’
‘The inability of people to see things that are staring them right in the face. All in Dallas that day. All vice presidents who became presidents. Inside the White House from 1952 until 1992 almost without interruption. Thirty-four years at the epicentre of power, just the three of them. And when Nixon is actually forced to resign, who replaces him as President? Gerald Ford, a member of the Warren Commission. Don’t you get it? Dallas shaped the United States for two generations.’ He pops a kumquat fast into his mouth as though it were medication for a cardiac crisis, his shoulders slumping in sadness. ‘How many generations do you suppose it’ll take to change it back . . . ?’
Interesting take. And poetically prescient. After all, the city of Dallas was named after a vice president. ‘So what you’re saying is that the Kennedy Assassination was a coup d’état, launched by a triumvirate of vice presidents?’
Leopold Steiner explodes with a roar of frustration. ‘Nothing is ever that simple. That’s your problem—you seem to think it is. I’ve read your pieces about Kennedy. Your obsession with his affairs. Look beyond the intercourse, sport.’
‘What else was there? His political achievements weren’t all that substantial.’
‘Of course they weren’t—because they shot him. What president could bring about meaningful change in less than three years? Not even FDR. But the intent was there. He was going to drop LBJ, bring the troops back from Vietnam. Break the Mafia. Break the Fed. Break the Military Industrial Complex. End Segregation. End Big Oil’s tax concessions. Fire Hoover. That’s why those sons of bitches nailed him: they actually thought he could do it.’ He taps the list of suspects. ‘Like some of the people here. They thought they were so smart, they could get away with murder.’
They must be really smart, because they did. The doorbell rings.
Steiner glances across the room nervously. The bell rings again. He smiles. ‘The postman always rings twice. I asked him to. In Dallas you can never be too careful . . . ’
On that paranoid note, he grabs a fistful of kumquats and heads to the door, pointing to the papers on the way. ‘That list is for you. There may be some suspects even you haven’t heard of.’
Steiner has numbered each name. I glance at the last page. At the bottom is suspect number 49: Eugene Hale Brading, aka Jim Braden. An associate of Johnny Roselli and Jack Ruby. It says he was detained attempting to leave the Dal-Tex Building immediately after the assassination. I can’t believe what I read next. It says Brading was also detained by LA police the night of the assassination of Bobby Kennedy. If true, it is the first evidence I’ve come across linking one suspect to both crime scenes. I could lead with this revelation in part two of my book, dealing with Bobby’s murder.
I turn the page over. Nothing. ‘I’m missing the last page . . . ’ No answer. The list is audacious not just because of who he includes but who he leaves out. And the biographical notes are thorough. Two of the witnesses I’ve already interviewed are included: Tex Jeetton and Adam Granston. One degree of separation between JFK and myself. The closest I’ve ever been. I search the table for the final page. There is a single last kumquat lying on its tray. He won’t miss it.
I look at my watch. Zodiac time should include the sign for each month. Something Evelyn no doubt would appreciate. I had promised to be at her place before sunset. She said she had a surprise for me. Where the hell is Steiner? I pick up the list and walk down the hallway, stopping at the front door. It’s wide open. No Steiner, no postman.
‘Hello . . . ?’ There’s another apartment opposite. I ring the bell. Footsteps, and the woof of a little dog. A middle-aged woman answers the door, a Silky Terrier darting out, sniffing my heels suspiciously. ‘Is Leopold Steiner there by any chance?’ She points to the open door opposite, then slams her own, almost locking the dog out. I call Steiner’s number. It goes straight to voicemail.
I take the stairs down to the lobby. There’s no sign of a super. There’s no sign of anyone. I send Steiner a message saying I couldn’t wait.
It’s only when I’m leaving that I see them, scattered across the lobby floor. A fistful of bright orange kumquats against the black marble. I pick one up. There are teeth marks around the middle, as though Steiner had just been biting into it when . . .
CHAPTER 31
Los Angeles 1960
Schiller stands over the two men, shaking his head. ‘No wonder they kicked you off the Force.’
Can I help it if they resisted arrest?’ I look down at the pair, their hands handcuffed behind their backs, their faces lacerated, bones shattered, tendons snapped, muscles displaced. ‘The rats had it coming to them.’
‘You think I don’t know that? But I need them to talk. What good are suspects who can’t open their mouths? Hell, from the look of them, they don’t even have any mouths left.’
I prod one of them in the ribs with the toe of my shoe. There is the hint of a groan. ‘Give them a couple of hours . . . They’ll talk.’
Schiller looks around, his voice dropping—an almost impossible feat for a man with forge bellows for lungs. ‘The Old Man wants to see you.’
I figured he would. What will he do when I tell him? That the kid is dead, the money is gone and one of the suspects too.
‘Police Chief Parker too.’
‘Fuck Parker, he’s not my boss.’
Schiller pumps my sternum as though he’s trying to find the off button. ‘He’s worse: he’s judge, jury and fucking executioner. You better show a little respect, or else Parker’s going to learn it to you.’
‘Teach.’
‘You get the drift. Whatever it takes to understand the lines you don’t want to cross.’
‘Thanks for your concern.’
‘Fuck you. Your career’s destroyed, and you’ve got no one to blame but yourself. So shut the fuck up and do your job. This one that got away. You say you know him?’
‘I’d bet my life.’
‘Which ain’t worth much right now. That means he would have recognized you . . . ’
‘It doesn’t always work that way.’ I was trained to retain the atlas trace of cheekbones and hairlines, scars and tics, broken noses and the rainbow glint of gold teeth. To read expressions. Memorize cars. Interpret routine. Understand habitat. Gauge getaway routes. Punish alibis. Lie detect. It was a constant, shifting puzzle of pattern recognition and intuition. It takes time. It’s harder than you’d think. People are lazy; particularly criminals. It’s just too much effort to be perpetually alert. To sleep with your eyes open. There are two and a half million people in this city and I had recognized one of them. Out of the literally tens of thousands of faces that had passed me by, I recalled this one. The sneer. The sunken eyes, tar-pit black. He got as clear a view of me as I had of him, but he didn’t clock me. He saw a victim he could insult with a gesture of his hand and a sidelong sneer. A forgettable encounter. That would be his downfall. He was a water. He gave me too much to work on and didn’t take anything back in return. Sooner or later I would remember. Then I would nail the bastard. And I would correct his arrogant indifference.
An ambulance man stumbles coming down the stairs, nearly falling, the wheels of the trolley he’s guiding clattering out of control for a nerve-splitting instant. ‘Christ, be careful,’ roars Schiller, then crosses himself. ‘What they did to that poor kid . . . ’
‘If there’s a God up there, it happened after the kid was dead.’
‘And if it didn’t?’
‘Then there’s no God up there.’
This case was very dangerous for a man like Schiller. I saw what the discovery of Elaine Bannister did to him; her tear from the grave rattled him as much as Christ’s nail holes shook up Thomas. What did Greta Simmons’s suicide do to his belief system? Such a traumatic event can only ever do one of two things. Strengthen it. Or shatter it.
And now the body of the boy being carried outside was putting him on the brink. Schiller had paid his dues as a member of the Hat Squad. He was an old-school cop: easy choices, hard fists. But even he wasn’t strong enough to endure one onslaught after another. Then again, as we were all going to learn, neither was the nation. Nothing would ever be the same. Not after this.