But Rodriguez wasn’t so cooperative. While Eben was making his collar, the big bushy-haired bastard scrambled out of the backseat on the other side and came charging at me, like an offensive tackle rushing the line, and despite my having the Browning in hand, he practically ran me down, shoving me aside and against a brick alley wall, jarring me, overwhelming my ancient ass.
Still, I recovered quickly and picked up pursuit.
He dashed out of the alley and across the street, several cars slamming on brakes and swerving to miss him, getting himself sworn at in various languages, and I was right behind him, taking advantage of the path he’d cleared. Where the alley picked back up, he went down it. For a big man, both broad-shouldered and bulky, he was fast, or at least adrenaline was making him so.
We ran down the alley, footsteps echoing, the Elevated tracks visible above, a train rumbling by, its shadow racing across the buildings at left whose backs provided a collective wall. As the chase continued, the El started its roller-coaster dip into the subway, enclosed now by a short cement barrier topped by a wire-mesh fence on either side of the double tracks.
Huffing and puffing like a Big Bad Wolf with no house to blow down, I somehow managed to cut the distance between us. Rodriguez was younger, but also fatter, and his sprint was losing steam into distance running. The tracks were right next to us now, behind their fence, as the El continued its descent.
The nine-mil was still in my right fist—I could have shot the bastard, and maybe I should have and spared myself the aches and pains that the aftermath of all this running would bring, not to mention the burning gut-ache that was already starting. A leg shot might have brought him down, though you can kill a guy with a leg shot—there’s an important artery hiding inside.
But Rodriguez didn’t seem to be armed, and if this was all just some kind of royal FUBAR, and these subjects turned out not to be a paramilitary hit squad, then I’d be shooting down an unarmed Cuban exile, which would make me popular with nobody, myself included.
And if Rodriguez was part of such a hit squad—the two white-boy members of which were currently in the wind, maybe now carting high-powered rifles with scopes in their Falcon trunk—there might be information in that mangy-haired Cuban skull that could save the President’s life.
Now the tracks were actually lower than we were, as the El headed toward the black mouth of the subway tunnel, and Rodriguez glanced at the fence, where a gaping tear yawned—locals having clipped a path to provide a cut-through to the houses beyond—and he slowed enough to clamber through it.
I was right on him, though.
He turned and shoved me, and I damn near lost my balance, knocking back against the fence with a springing effect. I was stumbling on the trash-strewn cinders of the El ditch when he caught my helplessness and decided to start throwing ham-sized fists at me, and I whapped his knuckles with the nine-mil, both hands, making him yelp and reconsider.
Then he tried another shove, and this one put me on my ass. A train was rumbling our way, but it wasn’t on us, not yet, the more pressing problem being that he didn’t seem to know that as he ran pell-mell across those tracks, his next step would be on the third rail.
Didn’t they have fucking electricity in Cuba?
I threw myself at him like a desperate sweetheart and grabbed onto his jacket, and yanked him back right before his sneakered foot touched that deadly rail. I clouted him alongside the skull with the Browning barrel, and that turned him drunken woozy. I dragged him like a stubborn bag of dirty laundry back across the tracks.
When the train came roaring past, he was on his side in the cinders between the fence and the tracks, and as the beast blew by with its familiar metallic scream, I stood pointing the nine-mil down at the wild-haired, wild-eyed Cuban, who was covering his ears, the noise too much for this dainty flower.
I said, “You’re welcome.”
“Fuck you, maricón,” he said.
Might have been fun at that, seeing him do the one-man rhumba on that third rail.
CHAPTER 17
Saturday, November 2, 1963 8:00 A.M.
The Secret Service office was damn near empty, most of the agents already out in the field for the President’s arrival; but Martineau was visible in his window, the blinds up for a change, and Eben Boldt was in there, standing opposite his boss, who was apparently issuing instructions.
Eben and I had brought the two subjects in yesterday afternoon, and Polaroid pictures had been made of them—no prints taken. This was strictly “detention for questioning,” not an arrest. But the pair had already given up their names, or anyway “names”—Victor Gonzales and Ramon Rodriguez. They claimed to be from Miami. Gonzales had a driver’s license backing that up. Rodriguez had various I.D., none of it official—no driver’s license because he said he did not drive. The Bonneville was on loan from a friend in West Town, one Luis Garcia.
Martineau had sent both Eben and me home yesterday around seven P.M. We’d been getting a ribbing for having the radio on during surveillance and blowing our cover. They were giving Eben the worst of it. Of course, that was after I had cheerfully given him the blame. There was nothing overtly racial in the kidding, but I could tell Eben was taking it personally.
Finally I told one of the crew cuts, “On the other hand, we did haul those two Cuban assholes in. Kennedy’s here tomorrow in the A.M., and how are you fellas doing finding those missing white boys?”
The ribbing let up at that point.
This morning I arrived showered and shaved and armed, ready to save the President—Air Force One would touch down at O’Hare in just under two hours—but without much of an idea how the hell I (or for that matter the entire Chicago branch of the Secret Service) might accomplish that.
Eben came quickly out of Martineau’s office, pausing to say, “Marty wants you to stick around in case something comes up.”
I fell in alongside him. “Where is it you’re going without me?”
“Heading out to Soldier Field. I’m to check the area around Kennedy’s seating. There are two sections reserved for him—one on the Air Force side, other on the Army. He’ll switch during halftime.”
“I’d just as soon not be out there. That halftime gun might make me shit myself.”
He actually laughed at that. Well, he chuckled and shook his head.
I followed him to his desk, where he grabbed his raincoat from where he’d dumped it, apparently having arrived just before me.
As he shrugged into the coat, he said, “There’s been a foreign development.”
“Yeah?”
“Coup in South Vietnam that has the President’s attention. Some kind of special communications facility is being rush-constructed under the bleachers, to keep Lancer informed.”
“Maybe he’ll cancel.”
“I wish he would,” Eben said, and went out.
Martineau called from his office doorway: “Heller! Nate! Come talk.”
The sturdy SS chief was behind his mahogany boat of a desk by the time I dropped into the chair opposite him. No shirtsleeves today, strictly a crisp navy-blue suit and red-and-black-striped tie. His cuff links were little golden replicas of that Treasury Department seal on the nearby wall.
“Ebe mentioned there’s a coup in Vietnam,” I said.
“Yes, apparently the Diem brothers just killed themselves.”
“They’ve been assassinated, in other words. Did we do it?”
He just gave me a look. “I had hoped this would give the President an excuse to cancel, but I was just told in no uncertain terms that the trip is on, and on schedule.”
“Swell.”
“I assume Ebe mentioned this communications setup they’re constructing at Soldier Field.”
“Yeah. If you need somebody to sweep up the candy wrappers under the bleachers for ’em, I’m not available.”
He smiled a little at that. He was used to me by now. “I want you to take a crack at Gonzales and Rodriguez. We’ve been in steady interrogation with
those two since you delivered them yesterday afternoon.”
“Learning what?”
“Little and nothing. We’ve got Gonzales in the left booth, Rodriguez in the right, and Motto and Stocks have been in session all night with those sons of bitches. One-on-one, two-on-one, good cop/bad cop, playing one off the other, you name it, they tried it. Goddamn nothing.”
“I could always feed them the goldfish.”
“What?”
“Old Chicago cop expression for the rubber hose you probably don’t have around this refined establishment.” I sat forward. “Glad to give it a shot—they’re tired by now, and I’m fresh as a daisy. Anything we can offer them?”
“They’ve had two meals. There’s water and coffee. They get bathroom breaks. What else?”
“How about money? What’s the petty-cash situation? I doubt they’re small enough fry to be bribed, but it’s always worth a try.”
Martineau shook his head once. “Against policy.”
“The CIA topples governments, and the Secret Service doesn’t pay off informants? This is why Avis never catches up with Hertz.”
“Try something else, Nate. Your charm maybe. Or your wit.”
I told you he was getting used to me.
First I spelled a frazzled Motto, even his crew cut looking wilted—and you can bet he was in his shirt sleeves after that long night. Interview One’s narrow space with its soundproof-tile walls was all but filled by a scarred table decorated festively with cigar-butt-heavy ashtrays, an almost-empty water pitcher, and discarded Styrofoam coffee cups. The wooden chairs were just as scarred, and as comfortable as a cement block.
Gonzales wasn’t so clean-shaven today. He looked up with eyes that were half-lidded, sleepy with contempt. And just plain fucking sleepy.
“Good morning, Victor,” I said, sitting opposite him. “Remember me?”
He nodded.
“Boy, do I feel refreshed. Last night, after I dropped you and your pal off, I had a great meal at Rancho Grande … on North Clark? Then straight home for a nice long hot shower, and right to bed, must have got nine hours. I slept so goddamn long, I feel almost sleepy today. Ever have that happen?”
Nothing.
“So you’re from Miami.”
A nod.
“A businessman.”
A nod.
“The Bonneville was loaned to you by a friend?”
A nod.
“What’s your friend’s name?”
“Luis Garcia. I told the other two.”
“Where does Luis live?”
“I don’t know.”
“How did you get the car from him?”
“He had it waiting at the airport for us.”
“Luis doesn’t seem to have a phone, Victor.”
A shrug.
“Who were those two white fellas you were talking to at the Good Eats restaurant yesterday?”
“I told Agent Motto. I told Agent Stocks.”
“Tell me.”
“They are real estate agents.”
“Do they have names?”
“Johnson and Smith.”
Sergeant Shoppa had been close, at that, with Smith and Jones.
“You’re interested in property?”
“Yes. We hear there are the investment opportunities in Chicago for Cubans.”
“You’re Cuban?”
“Yes.”
“Exiles.”
“Yes.”
“What did you do in Cuba?”
“We were businessmen. The Communists, they took our businesses. We start over in Florida.”
“Your landlady says you had rifles in your flat.”
“She is crazy. A busybody. She does not like the color of our skin.”
“Well, she liked the color of your money. Enough to rent you a room, anyway. The rifles had sniper scopes, she said.”
“These rifles have nothing because they do not exist.”
I had a 5-by-7 of Vallee in my inside suit-coat pocket and I got it out and shoved it across the rough tabletop. “You ever see this guy?”
Did something flicker in those sleepy eyes?
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Gringos, they all look alike to me.”
The conversation in the other interview room went no better. The droopy-mustached Rodriguez was more openly surly, due to our altercation.
“Ramon, what is your opinion of President Kennedy?”
“Better than Nixon. Much more better than Castro. I have no argument with Kennedy.”
“Did I say you did?”
He shrugged.
“You handed off those rifles to the two ‘real estate agents’—that’s why you were standing in back of that Pontiac with the trunk lid up. Did they buy the guns?”
“I have no guns in the trunk.”
“Then why were you back there? What were you looking for? You didn’t have a flat tire.”
“The afternoon was getting colder. I thought I had another jacket in there. I was wrong.”
“You weren’t selling weapons, you were delivering them, right? Are the two white guys the shooters? I would think three shooters is more like it, especially if you’re planning for that warehouse district on Jackson. Triangulation would be the best bet.”
“I don’t know anything about any of what you speak.”
“Are you the third shooter, Ramon, or just the driver? Probably just the driver. Big clumsy guy like you, probably not that good with weapons.”
“Fuck you.”
“Don’t repeat yourself, Ramon. You’re better than that.” I pushed Vallee’s photo across to him. “Is he the third shooter, and you and Victor strictly transport?”
“Fuck you.”
“Probably strictly transport. You wouldn’t want to entrust a couple of hatchet throwers with anything really important.”
His big hands made big fists. The knuckles were scraped where I batted them with the nine-mil yesterday.
“You know, if there are two or three shooters out there, ready to pull this thing off? That leaves you and Victor in custody, ready to take the brunt. You really will fry, Ramon. And it won’t be on the third rail.”
He folded his arms, his scowl made comically sour by the Yosemite Sam mustache.
“Give those white boys up now, and it might go easy on you. Lead us to them, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you walked out of here, later today.”
Nothing.
Outside the booth, I found Martineau heading my way, climbing into a raincoat.
“Anything?” he asked, pausing to talk.
“Just their cover stories. Where are you headed?”
“Out to O’Hare to meet the President’s plane.”
“What’s the score on Vallee?”
“He’s been under twenty-four-hour surveillance by the Chicago PD—two teams on twelve-hour shifts. Shoppa and Gross are back on him this morning.”
“Listen, what about that printing facility where Vallee works?”
“They’re a six-day-a-week operation. All hundred-some employees will be on the job this morning, including Vallee, presumably.”
“You scoped the building out.”
He frowned at me. “Of course we did. Vallee works on the third floor, Nate, with another thirty-some employees. You think he could go over to the window and take a potshot at the President under those conditions?”
“What about the rooftop?”
“My understanding is Shoppa or Gross will secure that. And the eighth floor is strictly warehouse, which is another possibility, and one of them will handle that, too. Once they’ve followed this hero to work, anyway.” He checked his watch. “They’re probably already there now.”
“Are you in contact with Shoppa and Gross?”
“They’ll be on foot, not in their unmarked with the radio handy. Why, are you figuring to blow another surveillance with radio chatter?”
Actually, Martineau himself had blown it, but I didn’t poi
nt that out.
“Marty, when the President goes by, people will rush to the windows—they may go to lower floors to get a better look. Vallee could snag an opportunity to get a shot off. Who was it checked out that site?”
He frowned, mildly irritated. “I went over there myself with two agents. It does provide, especially from upper floors, a good view where the limo makes its slow turn onto West Jackson. But so do another half dozen or more other buildings.”
“Vallee doesn’t work in those other buildings.”
“He’s covered, Heller. The Chicago PD has him. We’re stretched thin. Look. If you want to walk over there and see for yourself, you have my blessing.”
He went out.
Back in my office, frustrated as hell, I just sat at my desk looking for options. The only thing that occurred to me was taking Martineau up on it and hoofing over to IPP Litho-Plate. Only six blocks.…
The phone rang. I pushed the Line Two button and answered it.
“This is Mrs. Peters.”
Vallee’s landlady.
“Hello, Mrs. Peters. You have something for me?”
“Possibly. Possibly it is unimportant. But Mr. Vallee goes out this morning. Half an hour ago.”
“Is that unusual? He does work on Saturdays, right?”
“Usually. They work him very hard at the printing plant. But they are closed today.”
“Our understanding is they’re open.”
“They decide yesterday that they would close. I hear Mr. Vallee on the hall phone talking to someone about it. He said to this person that his work was shutting down because of the … he said ‘goddamn President’ coming to town. His bosses, they say that the crowds and the parking will be bad, so they give the day off.”
This had perked me up. “When Mr. Vallee went out this morning, was he carrying anything?”
“You mean his guns? No. But they will be in his car.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, where else could they be? They are not in his room now. I check there before I call you.”
“You are a rare gem, Mrs. Peters.” Hitler Youth or no Hitler Youth.
She reminded me of her open invitation for me to stop by for tea, and we exchanged good-byes.
Looking like hell, Motto and Stocks were discussing whether or not to transfer the two uncooperative subjects to Federal Building holding cells. I came up and shared what I’d learned about Vallee and his place of business, and asked them to get hold of Martineau ASAP, and tell him.
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