by Ted Allbeury
It seemed that the population of the United States was now 189,242,000. And 70,000,000 of them were employed. The statistical population centre of the USA was now located four miles due east of Salem, Illinois, fifty-seven miles further west than it had been in the 1950s. The greatest westward movement since the 1880s. The median age of the population was 29.5 years. The Labour unions had lost about half a million members and an internal CIA evaluator had put in a query as to whether this figure heralded the twilight of the labour movement.
As Boyd turned over the first page his telephone rang. It was the car showroom. His new car had been delivered that morning. It had been checked and registered and was waiting for him to collect.
A CIA pool car dropped him at the garage and the car was there on the forecourt already being admired by two boys and a girl. It was the first Stingray of the garage’s quota, the first of the new cars called “fastbacks,” and it was a bright, vulgar scarlet with white-wall tyres. The salesman was smiling as he came out of the showroom.
When Boyd had seen the demonstration model he had needed very little persuasion to place his order. He had said that he wasn’t all that interested in cars. But the salesman had heard that story too many times to believe it. He knew that they actually believed it when they said it. But it wasn’t true all the same.
The salesman said, “She’s all yours, Mr. Boyd. All the documents are in the glove compartment and the keys are in the ignition control.” He smiled. “Why don’t you get in behind the wheel and I’ll go over it again for you.”
Boyd nodded and tried not to look too elated as he slid behind the wheel. He absorbed very little of the salesman’s efficient run-down of the car’s controls. The salesman turned to look at him smiling, “The stereo radio and the electrical antenna are with the compliments of our management. We much appreciate your business.”
The saleman’s hand went to the radio switch and pressed one of the FM station buttons. They were playing a Beatles record—“I Wanna Hold Your Hand.” The music suddenly stopped and as the young man’s hand reached forward to adjust the set a breathless voice said, “We have just received a news flash from UPI which states that President Kennedy has been shot in the head in downtown Dallas. We are doing our best to check on the … excuse me a moment … we have just received news direct from Dallas that the President has been taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital suffering from bullet wounds in the head. His medical condition has been described by a doctor at the hospital as ‘grave’ … our normal programming is being suspended and we shall bring you news from Dallas as and when it comes in … we expect no further information for at least an hour … meantime we are taking you over to our reporter in Dallas to describe what happened earlier today …”
Boyd had leaned forward without thinking, to switch off the radio. He didn’t know why he switched off but he knew he needed time to absorb that stunning, incredible newscast. It was utterly impossible. Beyond belief. But he knew it was just a plain, cold fact.
He turned to the young man in the passenger seat who was shaking his head slowly, tears brimming at the edges of his eyes. “What rat-fink could do a thing like that?”
“I’ll have to get back to Langley I’m afraid. Let’s hope it’s not serious.”
“Mister, it’s serious. You can tell from their voices. He’s dead or dying, you can bet your last dollar on that.”
And as he turned into the employees’ parking lot at Langley the news came over that John F. Kennedy was dead. For twenty minutes he sat alone in the car. It was the end of something. He wasn’t sure what. An era maybe. But Kennedy’s short presidency couldn’t be described as an era. It wasn’t long enough for that. But it was the end of an American dream, he knew that. Kennedy hadn’t been able to get his legislation through Congress but that almost didn’t matter. He represented the American dream. Handsome, articulate, well-meaning, modern, manly. Whatever the desirable adjectives were he was heroic, and from that moment on millions of Americans would know that there never was going to be an American dream again.
And Boyd knew in that moment that there was no longer a chance that he would take up Langley’s offer. Flattering it might be, but he knew that he could never fit into a society where such things could happen. The deed didn’t represent the people, it merely proved that it could happen. And it was frightening to know that somewhere that night there were people who would rejoice that it had.
7
The TV cameraman cursed loudly as his assistant hurriedly raised the tripod yet again. It was now fully extended but heads were still blocking the view. Finally, in desperation, he swung the camera off the tripod and balanced it on the reporter’s shoulder.
The basement of the Dallas Police Station was a shambles as the pressmen waited for the prisoner to be brought in. A dozen microphones recorded every word that was said, and apart from the bad lighting the image of the central figure was clear enough. As he zoomed in on Oswald’s face he heard him saying “… I positively know nothing about this situation here. I would like to have legal representation.”
One of the journalists asked a question that the microphones didn’t pick up but they all heard Oswald’s reply.
“Well, I was questioned by a judge. However, I protested at that time that I was not allowed legal representation during that very short and sweet hearing. I really don’t know what this situation is about. Nobody has told me anything, except that I’m accused of murdering a policeman. I know nothing more than that. I do request someone to come forward to give me legal assistance.”
“Did you kill the President?” a voice shouted.
“No, I have not been charged with that. In fact, nobody has said that to me yet. The first thing I heard about it was when the newspaper reporters in the hall asked me that question.”
Half an hour later as the cameraman sat with his reporter in the café the reporter said, “What did you think of him?”
“Who?”
“Oswald, for Christ’s sake.”
“I didn’t notice him.”
The reporter shrugged. “You had your camera on him all the time.”
“I know, but I’m too busy checking the focus to look at them. Anyway, what did you think?”
“He wasn’t scared at all. He didn’t look scared, and he didn’t sound scared. Just sounded like it was all a mistake. Nothing to do with him. But more than that.”
“How?”
“I don’t really know. Like he was performing in a play. Like he’d done it all before.”
“So?”
“For God’s sake. If I’d been accused of assassinating the President I’d have been shit-scared and hollering my innocence. Not just saying it. Coolly and calmly.”
“He’s probably a psycho.”
The reporter shook his head slowly. Not in disagreement but in doubt.
As the police officers hurried Oswald through the doors at Dallas Police Headquarters a group of reporters followed them, throwing questions at the prisoner, and Oswald, for the first time sounding angry, shouted, “I’m just a patsy,” before he was hustled down the stairs to the basement.
With a stetson-hatted police officer on either side of him holding an arm as they walked forward he was a perfect target, and after the shot rang out the explosion still echoed around the concrete walls as he fell to the ground.
Ten minutes later with the microphones thrust towards him the police spokesman said, “The suspect’s name is Jack …” he hesitated and looked at the man to his right “… Rubinstein, I believe, … he goes by the name of Jack … Ruby.”
It was a local Dallas TV team who interviewed Jack Ruby in an empty court-room after one of the many hearings. After the interview they were sure that it would be used on all the networks’ newscasts. Sitting with his lawyer on the front row bench, Ruby looked as if he were at the end of his tether, his voice was harsh and his delivery slow, but the words were clear enough.
“The only thing I can say is … everything pertain
ing to what’s happened has never come to the surface. The world will never know the true facts of what occurred … my motive, in other words … I am the only person in the background to know the truth pertaining to everything relating to my circumstances.”
“Do you think the truth will ever come out, Mr. Ruby?”
Ruby shook his head. “No … because unfortunately these people … who have so much to gain and have such an ulterior motive to put me in the position I’m in … will never let the true facts come above board to the world.”
For some unexplained reason the interview was never broadcast.
On the day in June 1964 when Chief Justice Warren, Gerald Ford and two aides sat in Ruby’s cell in Dallas the heat was oppressive and Ruby’s ramblings went on and on, never getting to any point. Trying to say something, but always eventually dodging the issue. His words were so incoherent that neither Warren nor Ford even grasped that he was trying to say something vital. What he said seemed meaningless. But the two men remained polite and attentive as Ruby talked on.
“… it may not be too late, whatever happens, if our President, Lyndon Johnson, knew the truth from me. But if I am eliminated there won’t be any way of knowing … but he has been told, I am certain, that I was part of a plot to assassinate the President … I know your hands are tied … you are helpless.”
Earl Warren didn’t realize that the statement could have two different and entirely opposite meanings. A confession that Ruby was, in fact, part of a plot which he was sure the President knew about because it was official. Or a disclaimer of false rumours that were meant to discredit him.
Warren nodded and said, “Mr. Ruby, I think I can say this to you, that if he has been told any such thing, there is no indication that he believes it.”
Earl Warren’s aide saw Ruby’s astonished and almost angry reaction to what he felt was Warren’s brushing aside of his confession, but even the alert aide only partly realized the significance of what was being said. After a few more exchanges between Warren and Ruby that only emphasized their total misunderstanding of each other’s statements the aide asked a question.
“You’ve talked about you being eliminated, Mr. Ruby. Who do you think is going to eliminate you?”
Ruby looked at him, still confused by his interviewers’ apparent indifference to what he was trying to say or hint at.
“I have been used for a purpose … and there will be a certain tragic occurrence happening if you don’t take my testimony and somehow vindicate me so that my people don’t suffer because of what I have done …”
Boyd had taken his leave: a week in Paris and the rest of the time in London. He went with odd friends to the theatre and had a couple of days in Edinburgh with his brother but it all seemed drab and boring. He started to reconsider the offer from the CIA.
It was on the Monday of his third week that it all changed. Her name was Katie Malleson and he met her in the gallery in Conduit Street. It was her first one-man exhibition and they thought he was from one of the Sunday papers. He was introduced to her by one of the PR ladies and that was that. He took her to dinner that night but it took four more dates before he had the courage to tell her that not only was he not a journalist but that he had only gone into the gallery to get out of the rain. But she was amused and genuinely not offended.
He didn’t know what attracted him so compulsively. She was very pretty, but all his girl-friends had been pretty. He came to the conclusion that the main attraction was that he didn’t have to put on an act. It was as if they had known each other for years. She asked no questions about his job or his life before she met him. None of it seemed to matter. She told him very little about her life either but she did drive him down to see her parents in Sussex. It was an easy, relaxed visit. Nobody appeared to be looking him over and he asked her to marry him as they ate their dinner at a country pub on the way back to London.
For a moment she went on eating and then she looked up at his face, smiling, “You don’t have to marry me to get me into bed, James. We can do that tonight and no strings attached.” She laughed and put down her fork. “You’re blushing. The first time I’ve ever made a man blush.” But she reached over and put her hand on his and the brown eyes were serious. “I won’t ask you if you’ve thought about it. I know you’ll have thought a lot before you spoke. I’d thought about it too, days ago.”
“What did you decide?”
“I decided to say yes provided you accept that my painting means a lot to me. It’s not just a hobby. I earn my living by painting. I make a reasonable amount of money and I care about my exhibitions and all that jazz. I always thought that if I married anyone it would have to be another painter. Nobody else would understand the moods, the ups and downs. But I think I was wrong. You don’t know a damn thing about art but you do encourage me. You’ve only got two more weeks of leave but you sit there quietly in my studio while I paint, reading or just watching, and I feel nice and safe. Like I was on my own but with a nice warm fire burning away in the grate.” She laughed. “So, my fire in the grate, yes I’m flattered that you asked me, and I’d be very happy to marry you.”
Cartwright, Boyd’s section head, used SIS’s leverage to get the Special Licence and they were married at Chelsea Registrar’s Office with a cleaning lady and the taxi driver as witnesses.
They drove down to Chichester and stayed at The Ship for the last week of his leave, spending all their time in the pretty villages that dotted the creeks. And on the last day they bought the second-hand Seamaster from a broker in Bosham village.
She bought him a pair of silver-backed military hairbrushes as a going away present and for the first time in his adult life he realized that he had never before had a present. Birthdays and Christmases had gone by unnoticed and unrecorded. And for the first time he felt lonely as he waved to her and she blew him a kiss from the wrong side of the plate glass windows at Heathrow. He sighed as he turned away trying not to look back. But he did look back, and, smiling, she blew him another kiss. And that was nice, but too much, and he hurried off to the loading gate.
The apartment had that special emphasis that places have when people are never coming back. The silence that comes when their human occupiers have deserted their living space.
As the man in the denim shirt and slacks stood with the police detective looking at the shambles in the living room, he tried to visualize what had gone on in the last minutes of her conscious life.
It was only two days since he had sat in this room in the early evening and she had been so excited. Dorothy Kilgallan was a freelance journalist with a syndicated column, and because he was a rival as well as a friend she had refused to tell him what she had learned.
She had just come back from interviewing Jack Ruby in his cell, the only journalist who had been allowed to do so. She had paced up and down this room, a glass in her hand, trying to control her excitement. When he had pressed her to tell him more she had stood quite still, then had turned slowly to look at him as she said, “What Ruby told me this afternoon is going to blow the JFK case sky high.”
At the time he had thought that her gestures were over-dramatic for so experienced a journalist, but he realized that if those were her reactions, then whatever she had learned from Ruby must be really explosive. She had years of investigative reporting behind her and that bred a cynicism that was prone neither to exaggeration nor naivety. But now, with her apartment still a shambles, she was dead. Dead from a massive overdose of sleeping pills laced with alcohol. And the missing pages from her notebook added to the mystery. It was a standard reporter’s notebook with a spiral binding. One hundred and thirty pages where there should have been one hundred and fifty. The transcripts of her interview had been removed. Her death was registered as suicide.
The police surgeon peeled the thin, transparent plastic gloves from his hands, and closed his eyes against the stench of preserving fluid and putrefying flesh as he pulled the mask from his nose and face. He turned to the poli
ce lieutenant beside him and said, “Let’s go into the office.”
In the small office of the laboratory the surgeon poured them each a coffee from the Cona and pointed to the bowl of sugar and the jug of cream. “Help yourself, Lieutenant.” He stood slowly stirring his coffee with a plastic spatula.
“I’d say he’s been in the water from between seven and ten days. The body is too decomposed to give you a detailed report but I can give you enough to establish the manner of death. Firstly, he wasn’t drowned, although he did die from asphyxia. There’s no trace of sea-water in his stomach or lungs. The asphyxia came from a wire or thin nylon cord round his throat. He was garrotted. And he was stabbed twice. Once, just below the sternum and then in the mouth.”
The police lieutenant said quietly, “I guess that tells me enough. The wound in the mouth and the garrotting are both typically Mafia.”
“The other thing I can give you is that there is some evidence that the stabbing and garrotting were virtually simultaneous and that means that there was more than one man involved. At least two, and maybe three.”
“There’s no doubt about his identity?”
“No way. The dentist’s records were well kept.”
“OK. Thanks doc, when can I have it in writing?”
“Is it urgent?”
“Not really. I’m not going to waste much time tracking down the killers. If they want to kill themselves off so much the better.”
The body of John Roselli, one of the three Mafia men at the first CIA-Mafia meeting in the Fontainebleau at Miami, had been fished up in a partially submerged oildrum in Miami’s Dumbfounding Bay. Apart from the stab wounds and the garrotting, his legs had been sawn off at the thighs and stuffed into the oildrum with his body and several yards of heavy metal chain.
He had left his house in Florida to play golf and his empty car was found at Miami airport.
The word had gone back to the mob, despite tight security, that Roselli, after years of harassment by government agencies, was beginning to succumb to the relentless pressures. He could be nearing the point where he might consider cooperating with the authorities in exchange for a quiet life. The CIA and the Mafia both believed that silence was golden.