11/22/63: A Novel

They took me down the hall to Chief Curry’s office. Fritz had me under one arm and Hosty had the other. With them supporting sixty or seventy pounds of my weight between them, I hardly limped at all. There were reporters, TV cameras, and huge lights that must have raised the temperature to a hundred degrees. These people — one step above paparazzi — had no place in a police station in the wake of an assassination attempt, but I wasn’t surprised. Along another timeline, they had crowded in after Oswald’s arrest and no one had kicked them out. As far as I knew, no one had even suggested it.

Hosty and Fritz bulled their way through the scrum, stone-faced. Questions were hurled at them and at me. Hosty shouted: “Mr. Amberson will have a statement after he has been fully debriefed by the authorities!”

“When?” someone shouted.

“Tomorrow, the day after, maybe next week!”

There were groans. They made Hosty smile.

“Maybe next month. Right now he’s got President Kennedy waiting on the line, so y’all fall back!”

They fell back, chattering like magpies.

The only cooling device in Chief Curry’s office was a fan on a bookshelf, but the moving air felt blessed after the interrogation room and the media microwave in the hall. A big black telephone handset lay on the blotter. Beside it was a file with LEE H. OSWALD printed on the tab. It was thin.

I picked up the phone. “Hello?”

The nasal New England voice that responded sent a chill up my back. This was a man who would have now been lying on a morgue slab, if not for Sadie and me. “Mister Amberson? Jack Kennedy here. I. . ah. . understand that my wife and I owe you. . ah. . our lives. I also understand that you lost someone very dear to you.” Dear came out deah, the way I’d grown up hearing it.

“Her name was Sadie Dunhill, Mr. President. Oswald shot her.”

“I’m so sorry for your. . ah. . loss, Mr. Amberson. May I call you. . ah. . George?”

“If you like.” Thinking: I’m not having this conversation. It’s a dream.

“Her country will give her a great outpouring of thanks. . and you a great outpouring of condolence, I’m sure. Let me. . ah. . be the first to offer both.”

“Thank you, Mr. President.” My throat was closing and I could hardly speak above a whisper. I saw her eyes, so bright as she lay dying in my arms. Jake, how we danced. Do presidents care about things like that? Do they even know about them? Maybe the best ones do. Maybe it’s why they serve.

“There’s. . ah. . someone else who wants to thank you, George. My wife’s not here right now, but she. . ah. . plans to call you tonight.”

“Mr. President, I’m not sure where I’ll be tonight.”

“She’ll find you. She’s very. . ah. . determined when she wants to thank someone. Now tell me, George, how are you?”

I told him I was all right, which I was not. He promised to see me at the White House very shortly, and I thanked him, but I didn’t think any White House visit was going to happen. All during that dreamlike conversation while the fan blew on my sweaty face and the pebbled glass upper panel of Chief Curry’s door glowed with the supernatural light of the TV lights outside, two words beat in my brain.

I’m safe. I’m safe. I’m safe.

The President of the United States had called from Austin to thank me for saving his life, and I was safe. I could do what I needed to do.

8

Five minutes after concluding my surreal conversation with John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Hosty and Fritz were hustling me down the back stairs and into the garage where Oswald would have been shot by Jack Ruby. Then it had been crowded in anticipation of the assassin’s transfer to the county jail. Now it was so empty our footsteps echoed. My minders drove me to the Adolphus Hotel, and I felt no surprise when I found myself in the same room I’d occupied when I first came to Dallas. Everything that goes around comes around, they say, and although I’ve never been able to figure out who the mysteriously wise sages known as “they” might be, they’re certainly right when it comes to time-travel.

Fritz told me the cops posted in the corridor and below, in the lobby, were strictly for my own protection, and to keep the press away. (Uh-huh.) Then he shook my hand. Agent Hosty also shook my hand, and when he did, I felt a folded square of paper pass from his palm to mine. “Get some rest,” he said. “You’ve earned it.”

When they were gone, I unfolded the tiny square. It was a page from his notebook. He had written three sentences, probably while I was on the phone with Jack Kennedy.

Your phone is tapped. I will see you at 9 P.M. Burn this & flush the ashes.