She did a sad little pumping of both fisted arms, indicating the Frug.
“Trooper Fruge,” she went on, “took me to the little Eunice jail. I said I had something important to tell him but he said I could tell him in the morning, because he had to go to the policeman’s ball that night.”
“You’re kidding,” I said.
“No, unless maybe he was, but I wasn’t really on top of things, because I was coming down and I was coming down fast … I hadn’t fixed since last night … and they put me in a jail cell and I got awful hot and took off all my clothes and I was really climbing the walls. I don’t mean that as an expression. I was climbing them, trying to, anyway. So they called Fruge, at the dance I guess, do you think maybe he was doing the Frug? Ha. And anyway, he came back with a doctor, the coroner I think, who gave me a sedative and that helped. The next morning Trooper Fruge drove me over to this nuthouse in Jackson, not ’cause I was nuts or anything but they did drug withdrawal there, and on the way I told him about killing Kennedy.”
Flo said, “This was Thursday, the twenty-first.”
“Yeah, I guess it would’ve been. So I told Trooper Fruge, I said, ‘These fucking Cubans are crazy, they’re going to Dallas to kill Kennedy when he comes to town.’ I told him everything, just like I done to you—the drugs, my baby, everything. I wanted help getting my kid back, y’know? Also, I didn’t want to see Kennedy killed. Fruge had this other trooper come and hear my story and I told it again. But that was it. The two troopers just went away, and I told the doctors about Kennedy, and the nurses, and everybody just kind of nodded, ’cause they had committed me for drug withdrawal and thought I was delirious or some shit.”
I asked, “No one else came to talk to you?”
“Not till after the assassination. Jesus, I mean, I was in the hospital rec room, watching TV on Friday, and I see this news thing with people lining the streets in Dallas, and I start screaming, like a crazy person, which there was no shortage of in there, ‘Somebody’s gotta do something! They’re gonna kill the President!’ Nobody paid any attention to me. Then the cars came on the screen, the, uh, what’s it, motorcade, rolling by, and I yell to the nurses and other patients, ‘Watch, you assholes! It’s gonna happen! It’s gonna happen!’ You couldn’t see it on-screen, but there was these pops, and then this commotion, and I said, ‘See! See! I am not nuts!’”
“And then Fruge came back?”
“Not till Monday. Not till after Pinky had shot his girlfriend.”
“Pinky?” I said. “You mean Ruby?”
Flo asked, “What do you mean, ‘girlfriend’?”
“Oh, Pinky and that Oswald character,” Rose said, “they was shacked up off and on for years. I saw those queer sons of bitches sitting together at the Pink Door and later the Carousel, plenty of times.”
I asked, “You told this to Fruge?”
“Yeah, him and a bunch of other troopers. I played to smaller audiences in my time. Fruge said he was going to report what I said to the Dallas cops and the FBI, too, but neither of those ever questioned me. I run into Fruge a couple months later, and he said he called the FBI but they wasn’t interested in the Cubans ’cause they already had their man.”
Meaning (the late) Oswald.
“And,” Rose continued, “Fruge said he called some cop named Fritz on the Dallas PD, and told him the story, too, and this Fritz guy said he wasn’t interested, neither.”
“That would be Captain Will Fritz,” Flo said, with a glance in my direction. “He was in charge of the assassination investigation.”
“Well, whoever or whatever he was,” Rose said pleasantly, smiling as she lit up another Parliament, “he didn’t bother talking to me. Sometimes it pays to be an unreliable junkie … oh, but I’m straight now. Don’t get the wrong idea.”
“We won’t, Rose,” I said.
She shrugged, sighing smoke. “That’s all I know about the Kennedy thing. If there’s nothin’ else, I could use the bread we agreed on.… Bus trip from Waco ain’t free, you know.”
This was directed at Flo, who had arranged to pay Rose two hundred for her expenses. This wasn’t strictly journalistically kosher, but I thought Flo got off cheap, even if the Waco bus trip had cost maybe fifteen bucks.
“One other thing,” I said to Rose, who was about to slide out of the booth. “You used to go out with a guy named Mac Wallace, right?”
“Yeah. Few times. Maybe … two years ago. When I was dancing at the Carousel. I cut that shit off fast.”
“What kind of guy was he?”
“Well, he’s a big good-looking guy, but kind of a creep. Very smart, but broody, like Brando. I’ll tell you one thing, he’s a bully when he’s drunk. Likes to knock a girl around. Likes to kind of … well, rape you, when it isn’t even necessary. Who needs that crap? Why? What does he have to do with the Kennedy assassination?”
“Nothing,” I said. “Probably unrelated.”
Probably.
* * *
“I’m a regular here at the Colony Club,” the fresh-looking young blonde said, then raised a cautionary finger. “Not a stripper. I’m a singer. Strictly a singer.”
“Really, Bev?” Janet said with a smile. Aka Jada had, at our final guest’s invitation, joined us in the booth for the interview, sitting next to the petite brown-eyed blonde, whose pixie-cut ratted platinum hairdo emphasized her vague resemblance to Connie Stevens. She was wearing a red-and-green plaid bandana-ish blouse, gray shorts, and minimal makeup. Almost pretty, definitely cute.
“Well,” Beverly Oliver said to her friend, giggling (she seemed barely out of her teens), “I guess you caught me, honey. I used to come up on the bus from Garland, it’s about a forty-minute ride, and enter the amateur night at the Theater Club—Abe’s brother Barney runs that. And then later here, at the Colony. But I only went down to a bikini.”
“You’d have made a mint stripping, doll,” Janet said, making her red ponytail swing with a shake of her head, grinning at her little protégée.
“Nope. I’m a singer, Sunday, Monday, and always. And an old-fashioned one. You didn’t see me here last week, Mr. Heller, ’cause I sometimes do a week at the Embers in Houston.”
I said, “Bill Peck and His Peckers back you up here?”
“No! Joe Garcia’s little orchestra. Don’t look for any Beatles or Herman’s Hermits from this girl—maybe some Pet Clark. But I’m a Joni James, Kay Starr kinda thrush. You want to hear ‘Blues in the Night’ or ‘Bill Bailey,’ you’ve come to the right chile.”
In any case, she was a natural performer, and the tape recorder didn’t faze her—she liked talking in front of it.
“‘Bill Bailey,’ huh?” I said. “Billy Daniels or Bobby Darin style?”
“Okay, you caught me, too, Mr. Heller. I’m enough of a teenager to like Bobby better. I’m only eighteen.”
Flo, surprised, asked, “How old were you when you stripped at those amateur nights?”
“Fourteen,” she said with a shrug. “Fifteen.”
I said, “Janet gave me the impression you worked at the Carousel.”
“Well, yes and no,” Bev said. “I never sang there and certainly didn’t strip, though Jack had amateur nights himself, just trying to compete.”
“Jack Ruby,” Flo said.
“Yes, we were friends. He was never really my boss. I worked for him, but in a limited way. Like, I hosted some of his after-hours parties—I’d mix drinks, sit around and visit, that kind of thing.”
Janet said, “Jack said Bev had more class than his regular waitresses, and any dancers at those parties were busy rubbing against the guests, if you know what I mean.”
Bev said, “I spent a lot of time in the Carousel. Jack liked me. Liked to be seen with me. I thought he had a crush on me or something, but he never made a play. I took a couple trips with him where I sat by the pool in a bikini, and it was more like he was showing me off than really had any interest.”
I asked, “And you didn’t have
any interest him in?”
“Heck no! I mean he was nice, but not nice-looking, everybody knows that by now. But a big heart, good to his girls, always loaning them money. He would bring down-and-outers in and give them food and so on. That side of him, nobody knows.”
The side everybody knew was the kill-Lee-Harvey-Oswald-in-the-basement-of-the-Dallas-police-station one.
Janet prompted, “Tell them about Oswald.”
“Well, honey, you were there,” she said to her pal. For the first time a topic seemed to give her pause. “You go ahead and tell them.”
Janet, seeming like the mother to this little girl, ordered her: “No. I already talked to these nice people. It’s your turn.”
Bev shrugged and her well-sprayed pile of platinum hair bounced like the single object it was. “There wasn’t much to it. I saw Oswald in the Carousel only twice. The first time, he and Jack were really friendly. Janet was sitting with them, and Jack called me over, and he said, ‘Beverly, this is my friend Lee Oswald. He’s with the CIA.’ I said hello, but I guess it was clear I wasn’t impressed. This friend of Jack’s was just sitting there kind of sullen, not friendly at all. Kind of giving Jack a dirty look. Jack said, ‘Do you know what the CIA is?’ And I said no, and almost added, ‘And I don’t care.’ And Jack says, ‘He’s a spy like James Bond.’ I think Jack was a little tipsy, but he always liked to boast, so maybe not.”
I said, “What was the other time?”
“Well, that was strange. Oswald was in the audience and he started heckling the comic, Wally Weston, who I think was doing some kind of political skit. Oswald yelled out that Wally was a filthy Commie, and Wally—he was a World War Two veteran—boy, was he PO’ed! He jumped into the audience and smacked Oswald in the puss. Then Jack came over and dragged his ‘friend’ out and tossed him down the stairs. Which was something he did a lot to unruly types. Amazing he didn’t kill anybody.”
Well, he did actually, but not by throwing Oswald down the stairs.
Flo asked, “Were there ever prominent people in the club. Politicians? How about policemen?”
“Oh, yeah,” the little blonde said, nodding. “Policemen particularly. They were sort of touted to come into the club with free coffee and Cokes and pizza and so on. They provided free security—Jack never had to hire more than one bouncer. There were politicians, too, and some very rich people. Oilmen. Surprising when you think about it, because really, the Carousel was rather sleazy.”
Janet said, “That’s why I was one of the few headline performers Ruby ever managed to book into that shithole. Agents said his club didn’t meet the high standards that dancers like me expect.”
Bev said, “But Jack was always trying. He wanted to bring Candy Barr back, for instance, when she got out of prison.”
Janet smirked. “That tells you something, Nate—Candy Barr is Ruby’s idea of class.”
“Jack’s always been a guy in search of class,” Bev said reflectively. “He thinks that things bring you class and that the people you know give you class. He’s never figured out that class isn’t something you can buy.”
I asked, “Did you ever see Cubans in the club?”
“Funny you should say that,” Bev said, with an odd expression, as if I’d just guessed her weight. 105. “My boyfriend, Larry, got into a conversation about Cuba once with this weird guy named Ferrie.” She thought for a while. “His first was David, I think. I probably only remember it because … this is terrible, but he was a fairy. He liked boys, I mean.”
“Okay,” I said. “But ‘David Ferrie’ isn’t a Cuban name.”
“No, no, but I’m getting to that. Well, Larry and this Ferrie character start talking about Cuba, how dangerously close to America that Communism is all of a sudden, and how we ought to take it over again, and start the gambling back up, and that somebody ought to do something about Castro.”
“All right,” I said, interested.
“Larry and Ferrie … ha. I’m a poet and don’t know it.” She gave me a little-girl grin, then got serious again. “Larry and Ferrie were agreeing about this subject. But Ferrie starts getting agitated, raving and ranting and all.”
She shook her head and the platinum hair damn near moved.
“That Ferrie was strange,” she said, and shivered. Might have been the air-conditioning but I didn’t think so. “By strange, I don’t mean dumb or stupid, no—he was very, very intelligent but … an odd duck.”
Janet said, “Ferrie was in the Carousel a bunch of times. He’s from New Orleans. You see him sometimes over there in the Sho-Bar. A first-class oddball.”
Flo asked, “In appearance or behavior?”
“Both,” the two women said, and then Bev giggled and so did Janet, the younger girl turning the hardened stripper into a momentary teenager.
Bev said, “He’s a good-sized guy, around six feet, maybe a hundred ninety pounds. He had some kind of disease where he lost all of his hair. So he wears this crazy reddish fright wig and he paints on black eyebrows.”
“Like a stripper,” Janet said, pointing to her own similarly painted-on eyebrows. I felt sure they looked better on her. “He’s got this kind of anteater look.”
“Anyway,” Bev said, “getting back to Larry and the Cuba conversation. Out of the blue, maybe kidding, maybe not, Ferrie says to Larry, ‘How would you like fifty grand to go to Cuba and kill that bastard?’ Excuse my language, but that’s what he said, or anyway Larry said that’s what he said. So Larry says no thanks and just gets up and drifts away.”
I asked, “Was this Ferrie guy drunk?”
“No,” Bev said. “He’s just a nut. There was an after-hours party I was working, the week of the assassination. The Monday night before. There were some Cubans there, and Ferrie, too.”
“How about Oswald?” I asked.
“No. But Ferrie got into a shouting match with one of the Cubans, and took out a gun and was waving it around! Jack went over and wrestled it away from Ferrie and called him an SOB, said someday somebody would shove that little gun up where the sun don’t shine. Funny thing, though—Jack didn’t toss Ferrie out, like he did with most people making a ruckus. Things quieted down, then I went over to Jack and said, ‘I don’t like this at all, I’m sorry, but I’m out of here. Things are getting too hot for this little blonde.’ Jack said he understood and I left.”
Janet said, looking from me to Flo, “There’s another reason I asked Bev to talk to you. Something that doesn’t have to do with the Carousel Club. She was there.”
I said, “Where?”
“At Dealey Plaza. She saw the assassination, Nate. Right there on Elm Street. Ringside seat.”
Bev was nodding, and Flo’s eyes were so wide, I thought they’d fall out of their sockets.
“Tell us, please,” I said.
“It happened right in front of me,” Bev said quietly. Her eyes were looking into the memory. “I had a brand-new movie camera that my boyfriend gave me—Larry worked for Eastman Kodak—and I wanted to make sure I could get some really good pictures of the President. I’d been to a party the night before and took a cab over there that morning. My car was already in the parking garage next door, here.”
She gestured with a thumb.
“Anyway, I start walking up Commerce, looking down the side streets to see if I could get a place close to the curb. It was just absolutely packed. There’s no way to even get up close enough to see him, let alone take film of him. I keep walking and walking, oh at least ten blocks to Dealey Plaza, across from what they’re calling the Grassy Knoll now.”
She shifted in the booth, sighed, and Janet gave her a supportive little nod. The girl was trembling but her voice was strong, clear.
“I got lucky and found this area where almost nobody was standing—by a father and his little boy—and I thought, ‘This is gonna be a great place to get pictures!’ And I start filming as soon as the motorcade turns onto Elm Street.”
Flo asked, “When you heard the first shot, di
d you react? Did the camera shake?”
“No, I never even knew that Mr. Kennedy had been shot until the … the fatal shot. That was definitely a different sound. There was a bang, bang, bang and then a buh-boom. The bang, bang, bang sounded like those little firecrackers people throw on the sidewalk. Then I saw the whole back of his head come off, and the blood flying everywhere.” She swallowed. “I guess I went into a state of shock, then. Everybody else is on the ground, and I’m still standing there, frozen, with my camera in my hand, like a doofus.”
I asked, “Did you think the shots had come from the book depository?”
“No,” she said firmly. “But there was smoke drifting over the picket fence. At the time, frankly, it never occurred to me it was gun smoke. I figured there was a car in that lot that started up. But people went running up the hill. You mentioned the book depository, and even people from there, they were running down to that Grassy Knoll.”
The girl paused, as if shock was settling in yet again.
Flo asked, “What did you do next?”
“I … I walked across the street to the little slope, where everybody was gathering. I saw some people who kind of looked official, taking people and talking to them. I thought, ‘They’re gonna want to talk to me in a minute,’ and I hung around a while, but nobody approached me. I made eye contact with a Dallas cop I knew from the Carousel. I could tell he recognized me and figured, if they needed me, he’d know where to find me. So I left, without anybody questioning me, and went to my car. I didn’t hear that the President had died until I got out on North Central Expressway.”
Janet said, “Tell them about the two men who came to see you at the club the next day.”
“Actually,” Bev said, “it wasn’t the next day. I didn’t go to work Friday night—I don’t think the Colony was even open, but I didn’t go. I didn’t come here to work Saturday night, either, and of course I didn’t go to work Sunday night, after what Jack did to Oswald.”
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