11/22/63: A Novel

The Saf-T-Glas sagged. I reversed the crutch and used the rubber-tipped end to push it inward. One of us would have to sit in the back. If this worked, that was. While in Derry, I’d had a copy made of the Sunliner’s ignition key and taped it to the bottom of the glove compartment, underneath the paperwork. Maybe this guy had done the same. Maybe this particular harmony extended that far. It was a thin chance… but the chance of Sadie finding me on Mercedes Street had been thin enough to read a newspaper through, and that one had panned out. I thumbed the chrome button on this Sunliner’s glove compartment and began to feel around inside.

Harmonize, you son of a bitch. Please harmonize. Give me a little help just this once.

“Jake? Why would you think-”

My fingers happened on something and I brought out a tin Sucrets box. When I opened it I found not one key, but four. I didn’t know what the other three might open, but I had no doubt about the one I wanted. I could have found it in the dark, just by its shape.

Man, I loved that car.

“Bingo,” I said, and almost fell over when she hugged me. “You drive, honey. I’ll sit in back and rest my knee.”

11

I knew better than to try Main Street; it would be blocked off with sawhorses and police cars. “Take Pacific as far as you can. After that, use the side streets. Just keep the crowd-noise on your left and I think you’ll be okay.”

“How much time do we have?”

“Half an hour.” It was actually twenty-five minutes, but I thought half an hour sounded more comforting. Besides, I didn’t want her to try any stunt driving and risk an accident. We still had time-theoretically, at least-but one more wreck and we were finished.

She didn’t try any stunts, but she did drive fearlessly. We came to a downed tree blocking one of the streets (of course we did), and she bumped up over the curb, driving along the sidewalk to get past it. We made it as far as the intersection of North Record Street and Havermill. There we could go no farther, because the last two blocks of Havermill-right up to the point where it intersected Elm-no longer existed. It had become a parking lot. A man holding an orange flag waved us forward.

“Fi’ bucks,” he said. “Just a two-minute walk to Main Street, you folks got plenny a time.” Although he cast a doubtful eye at my crutch when he said it.

“I really am broke,” Sadie said. “I wasn’t lying about that.”

I pulled out my wallet and gave the man a five. “Put it behind the Chrysler,” he said. “Pull up nice and tight.”

Sadie tossed him the keys. “ You pull it up nice and tight. Come on, honey.”

“Hey, not that way!” the car-park guy yelled. “That way’s Elm! You want to go over to Main! That’s the way he’s coming!”

“We know what we’re doing!” Sadie called. I hoped she was right. We made our way through the packed cars, Sadie in the lead. I twisted and flailed with my crutch, trying to avoid jutting outside mirrors and keep up with her. Now I could hear locomotives and clanging freight cars in the trainyard behind the Book Depository.

“Jake, we’re leaving a trail a mile wide.”

“I know. I’ve got a plan.” A gigantic overstatement, but it sounded good.

We came out on Elm, and I pointed at the building across the street two blocks down. “There. That’s where he is.”

She looked at the squat red cube with the peering windows, then turned a dismayed, wide-eyed face to me. I observed-with something like clinical interest-that large white goosebumps had broken out on her neck. “Jake, it’s horrible!”

“I know.”

“But… what’s wrong with it?”

“Everything. Sadie, we have to hurry. We’re nearly out of time.”

12

We crossed Elm on a diagonal, me crutching along at a near run. The biggest portion of the crowd was on Main Street, but more people filled Dealey Plaza and lined Elm in front of the Book Depository. They crowded the curb all the way down to the Triple Underpass. Girls sat on their boyfriends’ shoulders. Children who might soon be screaming in panic happily smeared their faces with ice cream. I saw a man selling Sno-Cones and a woman with a huge bouffant hairdo hawking dollar photos of Jack and Jackie in evening wear.

By the time we reached the shadow of the Depository, I was sweating, my armpit was hollering from the constant pressure of the crutch cradle, and my left knee had been cinched in a fiery belt. I could barely bend it. I looked up and saw Depository employees leaning from some of the windows. I couldn’t see anyone in the one at the southeast corner of the sixth floor, but Lee would be there.

I looked at my watch. Twelve-twenty. We could track the motorcade’s progress by the rising roar on Lower Main Street.

Sadie tried the door, then gave me an anguished glare. “Locked!”