11/22/63: A Novel

“George, listen to your daddy. The Case-Tiger fight isn’t a sporting event, it’s a trial balloon for this new closed-circuit TV thing. There might be a few good fights on the undercard, but the main bout’s a joke. Tiger’ll have instructions to carry the poor old fella for seven or eight, then put him to sleep. Unless…”

He leaned forward. His chair made an unlovely scronk sound from somewhere underneath. “Unless you know something.” He leaned back again and pursed his lips. “But how could you? You live in Jodie, for Chrissake. But if you did, you’d let a pal in on it, wouldn’t you?”

“I don’t know anything,” I said, lying straight to his face (and happy to do so). “It’s just a feeling, but the last time I had one this strong, I bet on the Pirates to beat the Yankees in the World Series, and I made a bundle.”

“Very nice, but you know the old saying-even a stopped clock gets it right twice a day.”

“Can you help me or not, Freddy?”

He gave me a comforting smile that said the fool and his money would all too soon be parted. “There’s a guy in Dallas who’d be happy to take that kind of action. Name’s Akiva Roth. Operates out of Faith Financial on Greenville Ave. Took over the biz from his father five or six years ago.” He lowered his voice. “Word is, he’s mobbed up.” He lowered his voice still further. “Carlos Marcello.”

That was exactly what I was afraid of, because that had also been the word on Eduardo Gutierrez. I thought again of the Lincoln with the Florida plates parked across from Faith Financial.

“I’m not sure I’d want to be seen going into a place like that. I might want to teach again, and at least two members of the schoolboard are already cheesed off at me.”

“You could try Frank Frati, over in Fort Worth. He runs a pawnshop.” Scronk went the chair as he leaned forward to get a better look at my face. “What’d I say? Or did you inhale a bug?”

“Uh-uh. It’s just that I knew a Frati once. Who also ran a pawnshop and took bets.”

“Probably they both came from the same savings-and-loan clan in Romania. Anyway, he might fade five Cs-especially a sucker bet like you’re talking about. But you won’t get the odds you deserve. Of course you wouldn’t get em from Roth, either, but you’d get better than you would from Frank Frati.”

“But with Frank I wouldn’t get the Mob connection. Right?”

“I guess not, but who really knows? Bookies, even the part-time ones, ain’t known for their high-class business associations.”

“Probably I should take your advice and hold onto my money.”

Quinlan looked horrified. “No, no, no, don’t do that. Bet it on the Bears to win the NFC. That way you make a bundle. I practically guarantee it.”

14

On July twenty-second, I told Sadie I had to run some errands in Dallas and said I’d ask Deke to check in on her. She said there was no need, that she’d be fine. She was regaining her old self. Little by slowly, yes, but she was regaining it.

She asked no questions about the nature of my errands.

My initial stop was at First Corn, where I opened my safe deposit box and triple-checked Al’s notes to make sure I really remembered what I thought I had. And yes, Tom Case was going to be the upset winner, knocking out Dick Tiger in the fifth. Al must have found the fight on the internet, because he had been gone from Dallas-and the sensational sixties-long before then.

“Can I help you with anything else today, Mr. Amberson?” my banker asked as he escorted me to the door.

Well, you could say a little prayer that my old buddy Al Templeton didn’t swallow a bunch of internet bullshit.

“Maybe so. Do you know where I could find a costume shop? I’m supposed to be the magician at my nephew’s birthday party.”

Mr. Link’s secretary, after a quick glance through the Yellow Pages, directed me to an address on Young Street. There I was able to buy what I needed. I stored it at the apartment on West Neely-as long as I was paying rent on the place, it ought to be good for something. I left my revolver, too, putting it on a high shelf in the closet. The bug, which I had removed from the upstairs lamp, went into the glove compartment of my car, along with the cunning little Japanese tape recorder. I would dispose of them somewhere in the scrubland on my return to Jodie. They were of no more use to me. The apartment upstairs hadn’t been re-rented, and the house was spookily silent.

Before I left Neely Street, I walked around the fenced-in side yard, where, just three months before, Marina had taken photographs of Lee holding his rifle. There was nothing to see but beaten earth and a few hardy weeds. Then, as I turned to go, I did see something: a flash of red under the outside stairs. It was a baby’s rattle. I took it and put it in the glove compartment of my Chevy along with the bug, but unlike the bug, I held onto it. I don’t know why.

15