11/22/63: A Novel

Hosty leaned forward, eyes as wide as they could get in that fleshy face. “What?”

“You heard me. So I checked the paper, and guess what? Someone took a shot at some retired general four or five days before. Big right-winger. Just the kind of guy Lee hated.”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing. I knew he had a pistol — he showed it to me one day — but the paper said the guy who shot at Walker used a rifle. Besides, most of my attention was taken up by my girlfriend by then. You asked why she had a knife in her purse. The answer is simple — she was scared. She was also attacked, only not by Mr. Roth. It was her ex-husband. He disfigured her pretty badly.”

“We saw the scar,” Hosty said, “and we’re sorry for your loss, Amberson.”

“Thank you.” You don’t look sorry enough, I thought. “The knife she was carrying was the same one her ex — John Clayton was his name — used on her. She carried it everywhere.” I thought of her saying, Just in case. I thought of her saying, This is an in-case if there ever was one.

I put my hands over my face for a minute. They waited. I dropped them into my lap and went on in a toneless Joe Friday voice. Just the facts, ma’am.

“I kept the place on West Neely, but I spent most of the summer in Jodie, taking care of Sadie. I’d pretty much given up on the book idea, was thinking about reapplying at Denholm Consolidated. Then I ran into Akiva Roth and his goons. Wound up in the hospital myself. When they let me out, I went to a rehab center called Eden Fallows.”

“I know it,” Fritz said. “Kind of an assisted living thing.”

“Yes, and Sadie was my chief assistant. I took care of her after her husband cut her; she took care of me after Roth and his associates beat me up. Things go around that way. They make. . I don’t know. . a kind of harmony.”

“Things happen for a reason,” Hosty said solemnly, and for a moment I felt like launching myself over the table and pummeling his flushed and fleshy face. Not because he was wrong, though. In my humble opinion, things do happen for a reason, but do we like the reason? Rarely.

“Near the end of October, Dr. Perry okayed me to drive short distances.” This was a blatant lie, but they might not check it with Perry for awhile. . and if they made an investment in me as an authentic American Hero, they might not check at all. “I went into Dallas on Tuesday of this week to visit the apartment house on West Neely. Mostly on a whim. I wanted to see if looking at it would bring back some more of my memories.”

I had indeed gone to West Neely, but to get the gun under the porch.

“Afterward, I decided to get my lunch at Woolworth’s, just like in the old days. And who should I see at the counter but Lee, having a tuna on rye. I sat down and asked him how it was going, and that was when he told me the FBI was harassing him and his wife. He said, ‘I’m going to teach those bastards not to fuck with me, George. If you’re watching TV on Friday afternoon, maybe you’ll see something.’”

“Holy cow,” Fritz said. “Did you connect that with the president’s visit?”

“Not at first. I never followed Kennedy’s movements all that closely; I’m a Republican.” Two lies for the price of one. “Besides, Lee went right on to his favorite subject.”

Hosty: “Cuba.”

“Right. Cuba and viva Fidel. He didn’t even ask why I was limping. He was totally wrapped up in his own stuff, you know? But that was Lee. I bought him a custard pudding — boy, that’s good at Woolworth’s, and only a quarter — and asked him where he was working. He told me the Book Depository on Elm Street. Said it with a big smile, as if unloading trucks and shifting boxes around was the world’s biggest deal.”

I let most of his blather roll off my back, I went on, because my leg was hurting and I was getting one of my headaches. I drove home to Eden Fallows and took a nap. But when I woke up, the German guy’s how-did-you-miss crack came back to me. I put on the TV, and they were talking about the president’s visit. That, I said, was when I started to worry. I hunted through the pile of newspapers in the living room, found the motorcade route, and saw it went right by the Book Depository.

“I stewed about it all day Wednesday.” They were leaning forward over the table now, hanging on every word. Hosty was making notes without looking down at his pad. I wondered if he’d be able to read them later. “I’d say to myself, Maybe he really means it. Then I’d say, Nah, Lee’s all hat and no cattle. Back and forth like that. Yesterday morning I called Sadie, told her the whole story, and asked her what she thought. She phoned Deke — Deke Simmons, the man I called her surrogate father — then called me back. She said I should tell the police.”

Fritz said, “I don’t mean to add to your pain, son, but if you’d done that, your ladyfriend would still be alive.”