11/22/63: A Novel

He started to pass over the envelope, then pulled it back and tapped his chin with it. His blue eyes, faded but shrewd, sized me up. “Any interest in rolling this over? Football season is coming up, as is the Series.”

“I don’t know jack about football, and a Dodgers-Yankees Series doesn’t interest me much. Hand it over.”

He did so.

“Pleasure doing business with you,” I said, and walked out. I could feel their eyes following me, and I had that by now very unpleasant sense of deja vu. I couldn’t pinpoint the cause. I got into my car, hoping I would never have to return to that part of Fort Worth again. Or to Greenville Avenue in Dallas. Or place another bet with another bookie named Frati.

Those were my three wishes, and they all came true.

14

My next stop was 214 West Neely Street. I’d phoned the landlord and told him August was my last month. He tried to talk me out of it, telling me good tenants such as myself were hard to find. That was probably true-the police hadn’t come once on my account, and they visited the neighborhood a lot, especially on weekends-but I suspected it had more to do with too many apartments and not enough renters. Dallas was experiencing one of its periodic lows.

I stopped at First Corn on the way and plumped up my checking account with Frati’s two grand. That was fortunate. I realized later-much later-that if I’d had it on me when I got to Neely Street, I surely would have lost it.

My plan was to dummy-check the four rooms for any possessions I might have left behind, paying particular attention to those mystic points of junk-attraction beneath sofa cushions, under the bed, and at the backs of bureau drawers. And of course I’d take my Police Special. I would want it to deal with Lee. I now had every intention of killing him, and as soon after he returned to Dallas as I possibly could. In the meantime, I didn’t want to leave a trace of George Amberson behind.

As I closed in on Neely, that sense of being stuck in time’s echo chamber was very strong. I kept thinking about the two Fratis, one with a wife named Marjorie, one with a daughter named Wanda. Marjorie: Is that a bet in regular talk? Wanda: Is that a bet when it’s at home with its feet up? Marjorie: I’m J. Edgar Hoover, my son. Wanda: I’m Chief Curry of the Dallas Police.

And so what? It was the chiming, that was all. The harmony. A side effect of time-travel.

Nevertheless, an alarm bell began to ring far back in my head, and as I turned onto Neely Street, it moved up to the forebrain. History repeats itself, the past harmonizes, and that was what this feeling was about… but not all it was about. As I turned into the driveway of the house where Lee had laid his half-assed plan to assassinate Edwin Walker, I really listened to that alarm bell. Because now it was close. Now it was shrieking.

Akiva Roth at the fight, but not alone. With him had been a party-doll in Garbo sunglasses and a mink stole. August in Dallas was hardly mink weather, but the auditorium had been air-conditioned, and-as they say in my time-sometimes you just gotta signify.

Take away the dark glasses. Take away the stole. What do you have?

For a moment as I sat there in my car, listening to the cooling engine tick and tock, I still had nothing. Then I realized that if you replaced the mink stole with a Ship N Shore blouse, you had Wanda Frati.

Chaz Frati of Derry had set Bill Turcotte on me. That thought had even crossed my mind… but I had dismissed it. Bad idea.

Who had Frank Frati of Fort Worth set on me? Well, he had to know Akiva Roth of Faith Financial; Roth was his daughter’s boyfriend, after all.

Suddenly I wanted my gun, and I wanted it right away.

I got out of the Chevy and trotted up the porch steps, my keys in my hand. I was fumbling through them when a panel truck roared around the corner from Haines Avenue and scrunched to a stop in front of 214 with the leftside wheels up on the curb.

I looked around. Saw no one. The street was deserted. There’s never a bystander you can scream to for help when you want one. Let alone a cop.

I jammed the right key into the lock and turned it, thinking I’d lock them out-whoever they were-and call the cops on the phone. I was inside and smelling the hot, stale air of the deserted apartment when I remembered that there was no phone.

Big men were running across the lawn. Three of them. One had a short length of pipe that looked to be wrapped in something.

No, actually there were enough guys to play bridge. The fourth was Akiva Roth, and he wasn’t running. He was strolling up the walk with his hands in his pockets and a placid smile on his face.

I slammed the door. I twisted the thumb bolt. I had barely finished when it exploded open. I ran for the bedroom and got about halfway.

15

Two of Roth’s goons dragged me into the kitchen. The third was the one with the pipe. It was wrapped in strips of dark felt. I saw this when he laid it carefully on the table where I had eaten a good many meals. He put on yellow rawhide gloves.