11/22/63: A Novel

There was no canned music, which on the whole seemed an improvement. I leaned against the wall of the hot booth and stared at the sign reading IF YOU SMOKE, PLEASE TURN ON FAN. I didn’t smoke, but turned the fan on, anyway. It didn’t help much.

There was a click in my ear loud enough to make me wince, and the secretary said, “You’re connected, Mr. D.”

“Hello?” That jovial booming actor’s voice. “Hello? Mr. Lennon?”

“Hello. Is this line secure?”

“What do you…? Of course it is. Just a minute. Let me shut the door.”

There was a pause, then he was back. “What’s this about?”

“Haiti, my friend. And oil leases.”

“What’s this about Monsieur Duvalier and that guy Oswald?” There was no worry in his voice, just cheerful curiosity.

“Oh, you know them both much better than that,” I said. “Go ahead and call them Baby Doc and Lee, why don’t you?”

“I’m awfully busy today, Mr. Lennon. If you don’t tell me what this is about, I’m afraid I’ll have to-”

“Baby Doc can approve the oil leases in Haiti you’ve been wanting for the last five years. You know this; he’s his father’s righthand man, he runs the tonton macoute, and he’s next in line for the big chair. He likes you, and we like you-”

De Mohrenschildt began to sound less like an actor and more like a real guy. “When you say we, do you mean-”

“We all like you, de Mohrenschildt, but we’re worried about your association with Oswald.”

“Jesus, I hardly know the guy! I haven’t seen him in six or eight months!”

“You saw him on Easter Sunday. You brought his little girl a stuffed rabbit.”

A very long pause. Then: “All right, I guess I did. I forgot about that.”

“Did you forget about someone taking a shot at Edwin Walker?”

“What has that got to do with me? Or my business?” His puzzled outrage was almost impossible to disbelieve. Key word: almost.

“Come on, now,” I said. “You accused Oswald of doing it.”

“I was joking, goddammit!”

I gave him two beats, then said, “Do you know what company I work for, de Mohrenschildt? I’ll give you a hint-it’s not Standard Oil.”

There was silence on the line while de Mohrenschildt ran through the bullshit I’d spouted so far. Except it wasn’t bullshit, not entirely. I’d known about the stuffed rabbit, and I’d known about the how-did-you-miss crack he’d made after his wife spotted the rifle. The conclusion was pretty clear. My company was The Company, and the only question in de Mohrenschildt’s mind right now-I hoped-was how much more of his no doubt interesting life we’d bugged.

“This is a misunderstanding, Mr. Lennon.”

“I hope for your sake that it is, because it looks to us like you might have primed him to take the shot. Going on and on about what a racist Walker is, and how he’s going to be the next American Hitler.”

“That’s totally untrue!”

I ignored this. “But it’s not our chief worry. Our chief worry is that you may have accompanied Mr. Oswald on his errand last April tenth.”

“ Ach, mein Gott! That’s insane!”

“If you can prove that-and if you promise to stay away from the unstable Mr. Oswald in the future-”

“He’s in New Orleans, for God’s sake!”

“Shut up,” I said. “We know where he is and what he’s doing. Handing out Fair Play for Cuba leaflets. If he doesn’t stop soon, he’ll wind up in jail.” Indeed he would, and in less than a week. His uncle Dutz-the one associated with Carlos Marcello-would go his bail. “He’ll be back in Dallas soon enough, but you won’t see him. Your little game is over.”

“I tell you I never-”

“Those leases can still be yours, but not unless you can prove you weren’t with Oswald on April tenth. Can you do that?”

“I… let me think.” There was a long pause. “Yes. Yes, I think I can.”

“Then let’s meet.”

“When?”

“Tonight. Nine o’clock. I have people to answer to, and they’d be very unhappy with me if I gave you time to build an alibi.”

“Come to the house. I’ll send Jeanne out to a movie with her girlfriends.”

“I have another place in mind. And you won’t need directions to find it.” I told him what I had in mind.

“Why there?” He sounded honestly puzzled.

“Just come. And if you don’t want the Duvaliers pere and fils very angry at you, my friend, come alone.”

I hung up.

3

I was back at the hospital at six on the dot, and visited with Sadie for half an hour. Her head was clear again, and she claimed her pain wasn’t too bad. At six-thirty I kissed her good cheek and told her I had to go.

“Your business?” she asked. “Your real business?”

“Yes.”

“No one gets hurt unless it’s absolutely necessary. Right?”

I nodded. “And never by mistake.”

“Be careful.”

“Like walking on eggs.”

She tried to smile. It turned into a wince as the freshly flayed left side of her face pulled against itself. Her eyes looked over my shoulder. I turned to see Deke and Ellie in the doorway. They had dressed in their best, Deke in a summer-weight suit, string tie, and town cowboy hat, Ellie in a pink silk dress.

“We can wait, if you want us to,” Ellie said.

“No, come on in. I was just leaving. But don’t stay long, she’s tired.”