11/22/63: A Novel

“What we want is for you to go back to the nowhere you came from. The scandal-press will gin up the usual nasty speculations and conspiracy theories, but we can guarantee you that you’ll come out of this looking pretty good. If you even care about such things, that is. Marina Oswald will support your story right down the line.”

“You’ve already spoken to her, I take it.”

“You take it right. She knows she’ll be deported if she doesn’t play ball. The gentlemen of the press haven’t had a very good look at you; the photos that show up in tomorrow’s papers are going to be little more than blurs.”

I knew he was right. I had been exposed to the cameras only on that one quick walk down the hall to Chief Curry’s office, and Fritz and Hosty, both big men, had had me under the arms, blocking the best photo sightlines. Also, I’d had my head down because the lights were so bright. There were plenty of pictures of me in Jodie — even a portrait shot in the yearbook from the year I’d taught there full-time — but in this era before JPEGs or even faxes, it would be Tuesday or Wednesday of next week before they could be found and published.

“Here’s a story for you,” Hosty said. “You like stories, don’t you? Things like this ‘Open Window’?”

“I’m an English teacher. I love stories.”

“This fellow, George Amberson, is so stunned with grief over the loss of his girlfriend—”

“Fiancée.”

“Fiancée, right, even better. He’s so grief-stricken that he ditches the whole works and simply disappears. Wants nothing to do with publicity, free champagne, medals from the president, or ticker-tape parades. He just wants to get away and mourn his loss in privacy. That’s the kind of story Americans like. They see it on TV all the time. Instead of ‘The Open Window,’ it’s called ‘The Modest Hero.’ And there’s this FBI agent who’s willing to back up every word, and even read a statement that you left behind. How does that sound?”

It sounded like manna from heaven, but I held onto my poker face. “You must be awfully sure I can disappear.”

“We are.”

“And you really mean it when you tell me I won’t be disappearing to the bottom of the Trinity River, as per the director’s orders?”

“Nothing like that.” He smiled. It was meant to be reassuring, but it made me think of an old line from my teenage years: Don’t worry, you won’t get pregnant, I had the mumps when I was fourteen.

“Because I might have left a little insurance, Agent Hosty.”

One eyelid twitched. It was the only sign the idea distressed him. “We think you can disappear because we believe. . let’s just say you could call on assistance, once you were clear of Dallas.”

“No press conference?”

“That’s the last thing we want.”

He opened his briefcase again. From it he took a yellow legal pad. He passed it over to me, along with a pen from his breast pocket. “Write me a letter, Amberson. It’ll be Fritz and me who’ll find it tomorrow morning when we come to pick you up, but you can head it ‘To Whom It May Concern.’ Make it good. Make it genius. You can do that, can’t you?”

“Sure,” I said. “Romance at short notice is my specialty.”

He grinned without humor and picked up the champagne bottle. “Maybe I’ll try a little of this while you’re romancing. None for you, after all. You’re going to have a busy night. Miles to go before you sleep, and all that.”

10

I wrote carefully, but it didn’t take long. In a case like this (not that there had ever in the whole history of the world been a case exactly like this), I thought shorter was better. I kept Hosty’s Modest Hero idea foremost in my mind. I was very glad that I’d had a chance to sleep for a few hours. Such rest as I’d managed had been shot through with baleful dreams, but my head was relatively clear.

By the time I finished, Hosty was on his third glass of bubbly. He had taken a number of items from his briefcase and placed them on the coffee table. I handed him the pad and he began reading over what I’d written. Outside the thunder rumbled again, and lightning briefly lit the night sky, but I thought the storm was still distant.

While he read, I examined the stuff on the coffee table. There was my Timex, the one item that for some reason hadn’t been returned with the rest of my personal effects when we left the cop-shop. There was a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles. I picked them up and tried them on. The lenses were plain glass. There was a key with a hollow barrel instead of notches. An envelope containing what looked like about a thousand bucks in used twenties and fifties. A hairnet. And a white uniform in two pieces — pants and tunic. The cotton cloth looked as thin as Hosty had claimed my story to be.

“This letter’s good,” Hosty said, putting the pad down. “You come across kind of sad, like Richard Kimball on The Fugitive. You watch that one?”

I’d seen the movie version with Tommy Lee Jones, but this hardly seemed the time to bring it up. “No.”