Ask Not
Page 31
No one from the House Committee approached me to testify, by the way, and I didn’t come forward. Most of what I’d discovered was secondhand or old news by that point, and certain things I could not reveal, as there’s no statute of limitations on murder. That’s the reason this particular memoir could not be published until after my death.
On a less somber note, my son Sam did take over the family business. His flirtation with rock ’n’ roll ended after he got kicked out of Gary Lewis and the Playboys when Jerry’s kid signed a national recording contract. Like Jerry’s kid, Sam wound up in Vietnam, much to my dismay, which is one of the reasons LBJ should be burning in Hell, and I don’t mean Bourbon Street. Sam survived the experience, but like his old man, war left its mark.
In August 1966, in San Francisco’s Candlestick Park, the Beatles gave their last live performance. The Colony Club closed its doors in April 1972. The Chicago Playboy Club, once the world’s most popular nightspot, shut its doors in the summer of 1986. The Sho-Bar is still open for business in New Orleans (although in a different location).
In 1998, a Texas-based assassination research group presented evidence that a fingerprint, unidentified since its discovery in 1963, had at last been positively ID’d. The unknown print came from one of the boxes making up the so-called “sniper’s nest” on the Texas School Book Depository’s sixth floor. A certified fingerprint examiner, unaware of the context, made a fourteen-point match with a print from a long-suspected participant in the assassination—a print made when that suspect had been booked on a murder charge in 1951.
I can’t tell you whether or not Lee Harvey Oswald ever knelt at that window in the book depository sniper’s nest.
But Mac Wallace did.
I OWE THEM ONE
Despite its extensive basis in history, this is a work of fiction, and liberties have been taken with the facts, though as few as possible—and any blame for historical inaccuracies is my own, mitigated by the limitations of conflicting source material.
Ask Not is the third novel in the Nathan Heller JFK Trilogy, preceded by Bye Bye, Baby (2011) and Target Lancer (2012).
Most of the characters in this novel are real and appear under their true names, although all depictions herein must be viewed as fictionalized. Available research on the various individuals ranges from voluminous to scant. Whenever possible, actual interviews with the subjects have been used as the basis of dialogue scenes, although creative liberties have been taken.
Nathan Heller is, of course, a fictional character, as are the people he works with at the A-1 Detective Agency. In some cases, I have chosen not to use real names as an indication that either a surfeit of research is available on some minor historical figure, or that significant fictionalization has occurred. Joseph Plett, for example, has a real-life counterpart about whom little research was available beyond the details of his death and his association with Billie Sol Estes.
Flo Kilgore was introduced in Bye Bye, Baby as a composite of journalists Dorothy Kilgallen, Peter Hyams, James Bacon, and Florabel Muir, reflecting their respective roles in the investigation that followed Marilyn Monroe’s death. Here Kilgallen is the sole historical counterpart for Kilgore, although the fictional character does not entirely parallel the real person (Kilgallen, for example, was a Catholic and married only once).
Kilgore’s husband, Frank Felton, has a counterpart in Kilgallen’s husband; and her assistant, Mark Revell, similarly has a real-life counterpart, although both characters should be viewed as fictional. Heller’s theory regarding Flo’s death has a basis in views expressed in Lee Israel’s biography Kilgallen (1979) and the article “Who Killed Dorothy Kilgallen?” by Sara Jordan (Midwest Today, 2007), both of which also provided general Kilgallen background.
As far back as the first Nathan Heller novel, True Detective (1983), I have intended that my detective would one day delve into the Kennedy assassination. Long before I began writing professionally, I had a strong interest in the case, and vividly remember seeing on television Lee Harvey Oswald hustled around the station by Dallas police. My reaction as a teenager was that when Oswald said he was a patsy, he wasn’t lying. I also saw Oswald shot by Jack Ruby when it aired live.
Generally I come to Heller novels with an open mind, following the research wherever it might lead; but I admit that where JFK’s murder is concerned, I long ago formed my basic opinions about the case, based upon voluminous reading. Nonetheless, I was prepared to change my mind.
That did not happen. Prior to the writing of Target Lancer, my longtime research associate, George Hagenauer, and I devoured scores of books on the assassination, and in the year preceding the writing of Ask Not went through several more shelves of research works. The idea of doing a novel exploring the dead witnesses in the murder’s wake sent me down several false trails—this book was extensively re-plotted perhaps seven times in the weeks leading up to the start, and several more during the writing itself.
As with Target Lancer, my original game plan here—to begin with the probable murder of Lt. Cmdr. William Pitzer as the case injecting Heller back into the Kennedy assassination (see Without Smoking Gun, 2004, Kent Heiner)—was reluctantly discarded with the discovery of the Chicago aspect of the Billie Sol Estes “cleanup” suicides. Out of the fog enveloping the JFK tragedy emerged Malcolm “Mac” Wallace, and the final path for Ask Not revealed itself.
The greatest liberty I have taken here is time compression, particularly as it applies to Wallace, Kilgallen, and Cheramie. The latter two did not die until 1965, and Wallace’s death—although fairly accurately portrayed here as a puzzling if satisfying mix of vehicular accident and carbon monoxide suicide—did not occur until 1971. For the sake of effective storytelling, I allowed Nate Heller to deal with Wallace in the compressed time frame presented here.
References for Wallace included Blood, Money and Power (2003), Barr McClellan; LBJ: The Mastermind of the JFK Assassination (2011), Phillip F. Nelson; The Men on the Sixth Floor (2010), Glen Sample and Mark Collom; and the seminal if controversial A Texan Looks at Lyndon (1964), J. Evetts Haley. Wallace is also a topic in Madeleine Duncan Brown’s autobiography, Texas in the Morning (1997)—a decidedly weird book combining soft-core romance-novel sex with shocking political revelations. The Henry Marshall case and much more is dealt with in Captain Clint Peoples, Texas Ranger (1980) by James M. Day.
I make no pretense that this is a definitive work on the assassination—however based in fact, Ask Not is historical fiction on the one hand and, I hope, an entertaining, thought-provoking private eye thriller on the other. For the most part, I have limited Heller to gathering information uncovered by researchers during the era depicted, although this has not been a hard-and-fast rule. Nonetheless, there were countless moments when I omitted material because I did not feel Heller could logically obtain it in 1964.
As much as possible, I like to present Nate Heller in a role occupied by a real person (or persons) in history. For example, his participation in the formation of Operation Mongoose is based upon the real role played by private detective Robert Maheu, as detailed in his memoir, Next to Hughes (Robert Maheu and Richard Hack, 1992). After stepping down as attorney general, Robert Kennedy indeed hired trusted investigators from his rackets committee days to quietly look into the assassination. Heller’s initial visit to Carlos Marcello at the Town and Country Motel and Churchill Farms is based on real-life private eye Edward Becker’s encounter with the Louisiana godfather, as described in Mafia Kingfish (1989) by John H. Davis and The Grim Reapers (1969) by Ed Reid. Davis is also a general source for the Marcello material in this novel.
My portrait of Jack Ruby was in particular influenced by The Ruby Cover-Up (1978) by Seth Kantor, the reporter who saw Ruby at Parkland Hospital shortly after the assassination. Also of help were Jack Ruby (1967, 1968) by Garry Wills and Ovid Demaris; Jack Ruby’s Girls (1970) by Diana Hunter and Alice Anderson; and Moment of Madness: The People Vs. Jack Ruby (1968) by Elmer Gertz. Nightmare in Dal
las (1994), Beverly Oliver’s autobiography (written with Coke Buchanan), provided insights into both Ruby and Oliver herself. The book, while well-written, rather absurdly alternates between scenes of President and Mrs. Kennedy in the White House and nightclub singer Oliver at the Colony Club.
Helpful in shaping the portrait of Bobby Kennedy were Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years (2007), David Talbot; Robert Kennedy: His Life (2000), Evan Thomas; and RFK: A Candid Biography of Robert Kennedy (1998), C. David Heymann.
Jim Garrison research included his own A Heritage of Stone (1970) and On the Trail of the Assassins (1988), as well as A Farewell to Justice (2007) by Joan Mellen. The last, despite a somewhat disjointed presentation, is a treasure trove of information on Garrison and his investigation.
Perhaps the best recent Kennedy assassination book, JFK and the Unspeakable (2008) by James W. Douglass, was enormously helpful here. Also, I am particularly indebted to JFK: The Dead Witnesses (1995) by Craig Roberts and John Armstrong.
The UK ITV series The Men Who Killed Kennedy (aired on the History Channel in the United States) explores many of the theories associated with the assassination, and I viewed all nine episodes, including “The Guilty Men,” which deals with LBJ and Mac Wallace and was pulled by the History Channel after an outcry from Johnson’s widow and surviving associates and defenders.
Numerous other Kennedy assassination books proved helpful, including Betrayal in Dallas (2011), Mark North; Conspiracy (1989 edition), Anthony Summers; The Final Chapter on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy (2010), Craig I. Zirbel; Head Shot: The Science Behind the JFK Assassination (2010), G. Paul Chambers; The JFK Assassination Debates: Lone Gunman Versus Conspiracy (2006), Michael L. Kurtz; Killing the Truth (1993), Harrison Edward Livingstone; Last Word: My Indictment of the CIA in the Murder of JFK (2011), Mark Lane; Legacy of Secrecy (2009), Lamar Waldron with Thom Hartmann; Murder from Within: Lyndon Johnson’s Plot Against President Kennedy (2011), Fred T. Newcomb and Perry Adams; No More Silence: An Oral History of the Assassination of President Kennedy (1998), Larry A. Sneed; Rush to Judgment (1966), Mark Lane; To Kill a President (2008), M. Wesley Swearingen; Ultimate Sacrifice (2005, 2006), Lamar Waldron with Thom Hartmann; Who Shot JFK: A Guide to the Major Conspiracy Theories (1993), Bob Callahan, illustrated by Mark Zingarelli; and Who’s Who in the JFK Assassination (1993), Michael Benson. Please do not assume that my inclusion of a title here indicates wholesale endorsement of theories therein, just as their authors are not responsible for my interpretation of evidence I’ve fitted together from many sources.
Works consulted that specifically explore the organized crime aspect of the assassination include Contract on America: The Mafia Murder of President John F. Kennedy (1988), David E. Scheim; The Plot to Kill the President (1981, 1992), G. Robert Blakey and Richard N. Billings; and The Kennedy Contract: The Mafia Plot to Assassinate the President (1993), John H. Davis. Another key mob reference was All-American Mafioso: The Johnny Rosselli Story (1991) by Charles Rappleye and Ed Becker.
An indispensable tool—courtesy of George Hagenauer—was Dallas Public and Private (1964), Warren Leslie. The WPA Guides for Texas (1969 edition), Dallas (1942), Louisiana (1959 edition), and New Orleans (1938) were also extremely helpful, as was Historic Dallas Hotels (2010), Sam Childers. Fifty Years of the Playboy Bunny (2010), Hugh Hefner, John Dant, and Josh Robertson, provided much of the Chicago Playboy Club reference, as did vintage issues of Playboy, which were also plumbed for advertising and fashion information. Vintage issues of the exotic dancer–dominated 1950’s men’s magazine Cabaret played a big role in my re-creation of the world of strip clubs in both Dallas and New Orleans.
Similarly useful was the film Naughty Dallas (1964), unearthed for DVD and download by Something Weird Video. The work of notorious low-budget Dallas filmmaker Larry Buchanan—an ad agency co-worker of Madeleine Brown’s—Naughty Dallas features footage of a strip show headlining Jada, with exterior footage of the Carousel Club and interiors at the Colony Club.
General Chicago information and color was supplied by the following books: Chicago Confidential (1950), Jack Lait and Lee Mortimer; Complete Guide to Chicago (1954), Andrew Hepburn; and The WPA Guide to Illinois (1939).
The Internet has become an indispensable research tool, and it’s difficult for me to believe that I wrote the Heller novels prior to the JFK Trilogy without its benefit. Small facts were checked dozens of times during a writing session—for example, the spelling of once common and now obscure products, the names of TV shows and popular music of the era, and the point at which slang terms entered general usage.
The following Web sites were helpful in the writing of Ask Not (names, not Web addresses, are given, since what might become of the Web addresses over time is unknown): 3525 Turtle Creek; The Beatles Bible; Billie Sol Estes: A Texas Legend; Bustout Burlesque; Con Artist Hall of Infamy; Dallas County Pioneer Association; JFK Assassination Debate—The Education Forum; French Quarter.com; The Harvard Crimson; History with Bill Zeman; The Kilgallen Files; MFF (the Mary Ferrell Foundation); MediaNOLA; Midwest Today; The Nostalgic Glass; Spartacus Educational; Texas Tiki; Travelgoat; and Unvisited Dallas. Also, Roger Craig and Madeleine Brown interviews were found on YouTube. Wikipedia was frequently helpful, but used as a starting point for research and never the end game.
The following articles, found on the Internet, were utilized: “Beverly Oliver (‘The Babushka Lady’) Interview” by Gary James; “Dealey Plaza Revisited” by Helen Thompson; “Disappearing Witnesses” by Penn Jones, Jr.; “Jack Ruby: Dallas’ Original J.R.” by Josh Alan Friedman; “The Most Exciting Building in America” by Jim Key; “Rambling Rose” by Chris Mills; “When They Kill a President” by Roger Craig (unfinished autobiographical book); and “Yellow Roses” by Dave Reitzes.
My thanks to Gary Mack, curator of the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, for answering several research questions.
Billie Sol Estes, still living at this writing, offers an autobiography on his Web site. I paid forty dollars for this volume, directly to Estes, and never received it, my queries about its whereabouts going unanswered. Getting scammed by Billie Sol Estes seemed a fitting thing to experience during the writing of this novel, giving me far more satisfaction than actually receiving the book.
On the other hand, I ordered Bond of Secrecy (2008), E. Howard Hunt’s biography, from its author, his son St. John Hunt, and soon received a signed manuscript-style copy. In a deathbed confession, the infamous spy fingers LBJ as a central figure in the Kennedy assassination. The book has been announced for more traditional publication, but at this writing is on hold.
My friend and longtime research associate, George Hagenauer, made many trips to Iowa for brainstorming sessions and research planning as we wrestled with handling this sprawling, often surrealistic subject. Thank you, George.
Thanks also to my friend and agent, Dominick Abel, who made sure this book happened; and my editor, James Frenkel, who gave Heller and me the chance to finally take on the JFK case.
As usual, the greatest thanks go to Barbara Collins—my wife, best friend, and valued writing collaborator—who was working on her draft of our next “Barbara Allan”–bylined novel while I was writing this one. Despite being caught up in her own book, she endured my constant opinion-seeking and need for a sounding board, and always had sharp suggestions to help me stop my head from spinning with research and find a steerable path.
On a number of occasions over the years, I have said in interviews and elsewhere that the Heller saga would conclude with the Kennedy assassination. For those who consider that bad news, I can reveal that Heller is contemplating a memoir about Robert Kennedy (dealing with both rackets committee days and RFK’s assassination) as well as one on the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. It’s even possible that Heller will one day discuss a certain minor burglary at the Watergate Hotel.
BOOKS BY MAX ALLAN COLLINS
The Memoirs of Nathan Heller
Ask
Not*
Target Lancer*
Triple Play (novellas)
Chicago Lightning (short stories)
Bye Bye, Baby*
Chicago Confidential
Angel in Black
Majic Man
Flying Blind
Damned in Paradise
Blood and Thunder
Carnal Hours
Stolen Away
Neon Mirage
The Million-Dollar Wound
True Crime
True Detective
The Road to Perdition Saga
Return to Perdition (graphic novel)
Road to Paradise
Road to Purgatory
Road to Perdition 2: On the Road (graphic novel)
Road to Perdition (graphic novel)
With Mickey Spillane
Complex 90
Lady, Go Die!
Kiss Her Goodbye
The Big Bang
The Goliath Bone
The Consummata
With Barbara Collins (as Barbara Allan)
Antiques Chop
Antiques Disposal
Antiques Knock-off
Antiques Bizarre
Antiques Flee Market
Antiques Maul
Antiques Roadkill
Quarry Novels
The Wrong Quarry
Quarry’s Ex
Quarry in the Middle
The First Quarry
The Last Quarry
Quarry’s Vote (aka Primary Target)
Quarry’s Cut (aka The Slasher)
Quarry’s Deal (aka The Dealer)
Quarry’s List (aka The Broker’s Wife)