11/22/63: A Novel

He stood there a moment, big and red-faced, a Norman Rockwell cop who belonged on a Saturday Evening Post cover. Then he handed back my license. “Okay, Mr. Amberson. Go on back to this Fallows place, and I suggest you park your car for the night when you get there. You’re looking peaky, nap or no nap.”

“That’s exactly what I plan to do.”

I could see him in my rearview as I drove away, watching. I felt certain I was going to fall asleep again before I got out of his sight. There’d be no warning this time; I’d just veer off the street and onto the sidewalk, maybe mowing down a pedestrian or three before winding up in the show window of a furniture store.

When I finally parked in front of my little cottage with the ramp leading up to the front door, my head was aching, my eyes were watering, my knee was throbbing. . but my memories of Oswald remained firm and clear. I slung my briefcase on the kitchen table and called Sadie.

“I tried you when I got home from school, but you weren’t there,” she said. “I was worried.”

“I was next door, playing cribbage with Mr. Kenopensky.” These lies were necessary. I had to remember that. And I had to tell them smoothly, because she knew me.

“Well, that’s good.” Then, without a pause or a change of inflection: “What’s his name? What’s the man’s name?”

Lee Oswald. She almost surprised it out of me, after all.

“I. . I still don’t know.”

“You hesitated. I heard you.”

I waited for the accusation, gripping the phone hard enough to hurt.

“This time it almost popped into your head, didn’t it?”

“There was something,” I agreed cautiously.

We talked for fifteen minutes while I looked at the briefcase with Al’s notes inside it. She asked me to call her later that evening. I promised I would.

9

I decided to wait until after The Huntley-Brinkley Report to open the blue notebook again. I didn’t think I’d find much of practical value at this point. Al’s final notes were sketchy and hurried; he had never expected Mission Oswald to go on so long. Neither had I. Getting to the disaffected little twerp was like traveling on a road littered with fallen branches, and in the end the past might succeed in protecting itself, after all. But I had stopped Dunning. That gave me hope. I had the glimmerings of a plan that might allow me to stop Oswald without going to prison or the electric chair in Huntsville. I had excellent reasons to want to remain free. The best one of all was in Jodie this evening, probably feeding Deke Simmons chicken soup.

I worked my way methodically through my little invalid-friendly apartment, collecting stuff. Other than my old typewriter, I didn’t want to leave a trace of George Amberson behind when I left. I hoped that wouldn’t be until Wednesday, but if Sadie said that Deke was better and she was planning to come back on Tuesday night, I’d have to speed things up. And where would I hide out until my job was done? A very good question.

A trumpet-blast announced the network news. Chet Huntley appeared. “After spending the weekend in Florida, where he watched the test-firing of a Polaris missile and visited his ailing father, President Kennedy had a busy Monday, making five speeches in nine hours.”

A helicopter—Marine One—descended while a waiting crowd cheered. The next shot featured Kennedy approaching the crowd behind a makeshift barrier, brushing at his shaggy hair with one hand and his tie with the other. He strode well ahead of the Secret Service contingent, which jogged to keep up. I watched, fascinated, as he actually slipped through a break in the barrier and plunged into the waiting mass of people, shaking hands left and right. The agents with him looked dismayed as they hurried after.

“This was the scene in Tampa,” Huntley continued, “where Kennedy pressed the flesh for almost ten minutes. He worries the men whose job it is to keep him safe, but you can see that the crowd loves it. And so does he, David — for all his alleged aloofness, he enjoys the demands of politics.”

Kennedy was moving toward his limo now, still shaking hands and accepting the occasional lady-hug. The car was a top-down convertible, exactly like the one he’d ride in from Love Field to his appointment with Oswald’s bullet. Maybe it was the same one. For a moment the blurry black-and-white film caught a familiar face in the crowd. I sat on my sofa and watched as the President of the United States shook the hand of my former Tampa bookie.

I had no way of knowing if Roth was correct about “the syph” or just repeating a rumor, but Eduardo Gutierrez had lost a lot of weight, his hair was thinning, and his eyes looked confused, as if he wasn’t sure where he was or even who he was. Like Kennedy’s Secret Service contingent, the men flanking him wore bulky suit coats in spite of the Florida heat. It was only a glimpse, and then the footage switched to Kennedy pulling away in the open car that left him so vulnerable, still waving and flashing his grin.