“The motorcade had just passed the Texas School Book Depository in downtown Dallas,” the newscaster said. “Senator Ralph Yarborough told our reporter that he was riding three cars behind the president’s car when he heard the three distinct rifle shots.”
The president of what? That was Guidry’s first thought. The president of some oil company? Of some jungle republic that no one had ever heard of? He didn’t understand why the brunette was so broken up about it.
And then it clicked. He lowered himself next to her and watched the newscaster read from a sheet of paper. A sniper had fired from the sixth floor of a building in Dealey Plaza. Kennedy, riding in the backseat of a Lincoln Continental convertible, had been hit. They’d taken him to Parkland Hospital. A priest had administered last rites. At 1:30 P.M., an hour and a half ago, the doctors had pronounced the president dead.
The sniper, the newscaster said, was in custody. Some mope who worked at the School Book Depository.
“I can’t believe it,” the brunette said. “I can’t believe he’s gone.”
For a second, Guidry didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. The brunette reached for his hand and squeezed. She thought he couldn’t believe it either, that a bullet had blown the top off Jack Kennedy’s head.
“Get dressed.” Guidry stood, pulled her to her feet. “Get dressed and get out.”
She just stared at him, so he wrestled her arm into the sleeve of the blouse. Forget the bra. He would have tossed her naked out the front door if he weren’t worried she’d make a scene or go bawling to the cops.
Her other arm now, dead and rubbery. She’d begun to sob. He told himself to cool it, cool it. Guidry had a reputation around town: the man who never rattled, no matter how hard you shook him. So don’t start now, brother.
“Sunshine.” He stroked her cheek with the back of his hand. “I’m sorry. I can’t believe it either. I can’t believe he’s gone.”
“I know,” she said. “I know.”
She didn’t know anything. The newscaster on TV was explaining that Dealey Plaza in Dallas was between Houston, Elm, and Commerce Streets. Guidry knew where the fuck it was. He’d been there a week ago, dropping a sky-blue ’59 Cadillac Eldorado in a parking garage two blocks away on Commerce.
Seraphine didn’t usually ask him to do that sort of work. It was below his current exalted station, as it were. But since Guidry was already in town, to wine and dine and soothe the nerves of a jittery deputy chief who Carlos needed to keep on the pad … why not? Sure, I don’t mind, all for one and one for all.
Oh, by the way, mon cher, I have a small errand for you when you’re in Dallas …
Oh, shit, oh, shit. A getaway switch car was standard procedure for a lot of Carlos’s high-profile hits. After the gunman finished the job, he would beeline it to the car stashed nearby and hit the road in a clean set of wheels.
When Guidry parked the sky-blue Eldorado two blocks from Dealey Plaza, he’d assumed a dark future for some unlucky soul—a lay-off bookie whose numbers didn’t tally or the jittery deputy chief if Guidry’s soothing didn’t work.
But the president of the United States …
“Go home,” he told the brunette. “All right? Freshen up, and then let’s … What do you want to do? Neither of us, we shouldn’t be alone right now.”
“No,” she agreed. “I want to … I don’t know. We could just …”
“Go home and freshen up, and then we’ll have a nice lunch,” he said. “All right? What’s your address? I’ll pick you up in an hour. After lunch we’ll find a church and light a candle for his soul.”
Guidry nodding at her until she nodded back. Helping her step into her skirt, looking around for her shoes.
Maybe it was just a coincidence, he told himself, that he’d stashed a getaway car two blocks from Dealey Plaza. Maybe it was just a coincidence that Carlos despised the Kennedy brothers more than any other two human beings on earth. Jack and Bobby had dragged Carlos in front of the Senate and pissed on his leg in front of the whole country. A couple of years after that, they’d tried to deport him to Guatemala.
Maybe Carlos had forgiven and forgotten. Sure. And maybe some mope who lugged boxes of books around a warehouse for a living could make a rifle shot like that—six floors up, a moving target, a breeze, trees in the way.
Guidry eased the brunette onto the elevator, off the elevator, through the lobby of his building, into the back of a cab. He had to snap his fingers at the hack, who was bent over his radio listening to the news and hadn’t even noticed them.
“Go home and freshen up.” Guidry gave the brunette a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll pick you up in an hour.”
In the Quarter, grown men stood on the sidewalk and wept. Women wandered down the street as if they’d been struck blind. A Lucky Dog vendor shared his radio with a shoeshine boy. When in the history of civilization had that happened before? They shall beat their swords into plowshares. The leopard will lie down with the goat.
Guidry had fifteen minutes to spare, so he ducked into Gaspar’s. He’d never been inside during the day. With the house lights on, it was a gloomy joint. You could see the stains on the floor, the stains on the ceiling, the velvet stage curtain patched with electrical tape.
A group was huddled by the bar, people like Guidry who’d been drawn inside by the blue throb of the TV. A newscaster—a different one than before, just as dazed—read a statement from Johnson. President Johnson now.
“I know that the world shares the sorrow that Mrs. Kennedy and her family bear,” Johnson said. “I will do my best. That is all I can do. I ask for your help—and God’s.”
The bartender poured shots of whiskey, on the house. The lady next to Guidry, a proper little Garden District widow, ancient as time and frail as a snowflake, picked up a drink and knocked it back.
On TV they cut to the Dallas police station. Cops in suits and white cowboy hats, reporters, gawkers, everybody pushing and shoving. There was the mope, in the middle of it all, getting bounced around. A little guy, rat-faced, one of his eyes swollen shut. Lee Harvey Oswald, the announcer said his name was. He looked groggy and bewildered, like a kid who’d been dragged out of bed in the dead of night and hoped that all this might be just a nightmare.
A reporter shouted a question that Guidry couldn’t make out as the cops shoved Oswald into a room. Another reporter moved into the frame, speaking to the camera.
“He says he has nothing against anybody,” the reporter said, “and has not committed any act of violence.”
The Garden District widow downed a second shot of whiskey. She looked furious enough to spit. “How could this happen?” she kept muttering to herself. “How could this happen?”
Guidry couldn’t say for sure, but he had an educated opinion. A professional sharpshooter, an independent contractor brought in by Carlos. Positioned on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, or on the floor below to put a frame on Oswald, or maybe set up on the other side of the plaza, an elevated spot away from the crowds. After the real sniper made his shot, he wrapped up his rifle and strolled down Commerce Street to the sky-blue Eldorado waiting for him.
Guidry left Gaspar’s and headed to Jackson Square. A priest comforted his flock on the steps of the cathedral. A time to plant, a time to pluck up what has been planted. The usual jive.
Guidry was walking too fast. Cool it, brother.
If the cops hooked Carlos’s sharpshooter and connected him to the Eldorado, they’d be able to connect the Eldorado to Guidry. Guidry had picked up the car from a supermarket parking lot in the colored part of Dallas. Door left unlocked for him, keys under the visor. Guidry’s prints weren’t on the car—he wasn’t stupid, he’d worn his driving