by Lou Berney
“Oh, no,” she heard Mr. Hotchkiss say. “I don’t believe it.”
The president had been shot. Charlotte could understand why people were shocked and upset. They feared an uncertain future. They worried that their lives would never be the same.
And maybe their lives wouldn’t be the same. But Charlotte knew that her life would remain undisturbed, her future—and the future of her daughters—certain. A bullet fired hundreds of miles away didn’t change that.
She dipped her brush and stroked rosy pink life into the Moore baby’s black-and-white cheek. Her favorite movie, as a child, had been The Wizard of Oz, her favorite moment when Dorothy opened the door of her black-and-white farmhouse and stepped into a strange and wonderful land.
Lucky Dorothy. Charlotte dipped her brush again and not for the first time imagined a tornado dropping from the sky and blowing her far away, into a world full of color.
3
Sunlight slid over Guidry, and the dream he’d been having jerked and blurred like film jumping off the sprockets of a movie projector. Five seconds later he couldn’t remember much about the dream. A bridge. A house in the middle of the bridge, where no house should be. Guidry had been standing at a window of the house, or maybe he was on a balcony, peering down at the water and trying to spot a ripple.
He flopped out of bed, his head as huge and tender as a rotten pumpkin. Aspirin. Two glasses of water. He was prepared, now, to pull on his pants and negotiate the hallway. Art Pepper. That was Guidry’s favorite cure for a hangover. He slid Smack Up from the cardboard sleeve and placed it on the turntable. “How Can You Lose” was his favorite tune on the album. He felt better already.
It was two o’clock in the afternoon, or what residents of the French Quarter called the crack of dawn. Guidry made a pot of scalding-hot coffee and filled two mugs, topping off his with a healthy shot of Macallan. Scotch was his other favorite cure for a hangover. He took a swallow and listened to Pepper’s saxophone weaving in and out of the melody like a dog dodging traffic.
The redhead was still knocked out, the sheet on her side of the bed kicked away and one arm flung over her head. But wait a second. She was a brunette now, no longer a redhead. Fuller lips, no freckles. How had that happened? He remained perplexed—was he still dreaming?—until he remembered that today was Friday, not Thursday, and the redhead had been the night before last.
Too bad. He could’ve dined out on that story for weeks, how he was so good in the sack that he’d banged the freckles right off a girl.
Jane? Jennifer? Guidry had forgotten the brunette’s name. She worked for TWA. Or maybe that had been the redhead before her. Julia?
“Rise and shine, sunshine,” he said.
She turned to him with a sleepy smile, her lipstick flaking off. “What time is it?”
He handed her a mug. “Time for you to beat it.”
In the shower he lathered up and planned his day. Seraphine first, find out what she had for him. After that he’d get started on the deal that Sam Saia’s boy had brought him at the Carousel the other night. Was Saia’s boy steady? Everything Guidry had heard about him said so, but better to ask around and make sure before he committed himself.
What else? Pop into the bar across from the courthouse to buy a few rounds and soak up the scuttlebutt. Dinner with Al LaBruzzo, God help us all. LaBruzzo had his heart set on buying a go-go joint. Guidry would have to handle him delicately—he was Sam’s brother, and Sam was Carlos’s driver. By the end of dinner, Guidry would have to convince Al to convince himself that no, no, he didn’t want Guidry’s money after all, would refuse even if Guidry got down on his knees and begged him to take it.
Guidry shaved, trimmed his nails, browsed the closet. He picked a brown windowpane suit with slim notched lapels and a Continental cut. Cream-colored shirt, green tie. Green tie? No. Thanksgiving was less than a week away, and he wanted to get into the spirit of the season. He swapped the green tie for one the deep, dusty orange of an autumn sunset.
When he stepped into the living room, he saw that the brunette was still there. She was curled up on the sofa—not even dressed yet, ye gods—watching the television.
He went over to the window and found her skirt and her blouse on the floor where they’d fallen the night before, her bra hanging on the bar cart. He tossed the clothes at her.
“One Mississippi,” he said. “Two Mississippi. I’ll give you till five.”
“He’s gone.” She didn’t even look at Guidry. “I can’t believe it.”
Guidry realized that she was crying. “Who?”
“They shot him,” she said.
“Shot who?”
He looked over at the TV. On the screen a newscaster sat behind a desk, taking a deep drag off his cigarette. He looked limp and dazed, as if someone had just dumped a bucket of cold water on him.
“The motorcade had just passed the Texas School Book Depository in downtown Dallas,” the newscaster said. “Senator Ralph Yarborough told our reporter that he was riding three cars behind the president’s car when he heard the three distinct rifle shots.”
The president of what? That was Guidry’s first thought. The president of some oil company? Of some jungle republic that no one had ever heard of? He didn’t understand why the brunette was so broken up about it.
And then it clicked. He lowered himself next to her and watched the newscaster read from a sheet of paper. A sniper had fired from the sixth floor of a building in Dealey Plaza. Kennedy, riding in the backseat of a Lincoln Continental convertible, had been hit. They’d taken him to Parkland Hospital. A priest had administered last rites. At 1:30 p.m., an hour and a half ago, the doctors had pronounced the president dead.
The sniper, the newscaster said, was in custody. Some mope who worked at the School Book Depository.
“I can’t believe it,” the brunette said. “I can’t believe he’s gone.”
For a second, Guidry didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. The brunette reached for his hand and squeezed. She thought he couldn’t believe it either, that a bullet had blown the top off Jack Kennedy’s head.
“Get dressed.” Guidry stood, pulled her to her feet. “Get dressed and get out.”
She just stared at him, so he wrestled her arm into the sleeve of the blouse. Forget the bra. He would have tossed her naked out the front door if he weren’t worried she’d make a scene or go bawling to the cops.
Her other arm now, dead and rubbery. She’d begun to sob. He told himself to cool it, cool it. Guidry had a reputation around town: the man who never rattled, no matter how hard you shook him. So don’t start now, brother.
“Sunshine.” He stroked her cheek with the back of his hand. “I’m sorry. I can’t believe it either. I can’t believe he’s gone.”
“I know,” she said. “I know.”
She didn’t know anything. The newscaster on TV was explaining that Dealey Plaza in Dallas was between Houston, Elm, and Commerce Streets. Guidry knew where the fuck it was. He’d been there a week ago, dropping a sky-blue ’59 Cadillac Eldorado in a parking garage two blocks away on Commerce.
Seraphine didn’t usually ask him to do that sort of work. It was below his current exalted station, as it were. But since Guidry was already in town, to wine and dine and soothe the nerves of a jittery deputy chief who Carlos needed to keep on the pad … why not? Sure, I don’t mind, all for one and one for all.
Oh, by the way, mon cher, I have a small errand for you when you’re in Dallas… .
Oh, shit, oh, shit. A getaway switch car was standard procedure for a lot of Carlos’s high-profile hits. After the gunman finished the job, he would beeline it to the car stashed nearby and hit the road in a clean set of wheels.
When Guidry parked the sky-blue Eldorado two blocks from Dealey Plaza, he’d assumed a dark future for some unlucky soul—a lay-off bookie whose numbers didn’t tally or the jittery deputy chief if Guidry’s soothing didn’t work.
But the president of the United States …
<
br /> “Go home,” he told the brunette. “All right? Freshen up, and then let’s … What do you want to do? Neither of us, we shouldn’t be alone right now.”
“No,” she agreed. “I want to … I don’t know. We could just …”
“Go home and freshen up, and then we’ll have a nice lunch,” he said. “All right? What’s your address? I’ll pick you up in an hour. After lunch we’ll find a church and light a candle for his soul.”
Guidry nodding at her until she nodded back. Helping her step into her skirt, looking around for her shoes.
Maybe it was just a coincidence, he told himself, that he’d stashed a getaway car two blocks from Dealey Plaza. Maybe it was just a coincidence that Carlos despised the Kennedy brothers more than any other two human beings on earth. Jack and Bobby had dragged Carlos in front of the Senate and pissed on his leg in front of the whole country. A couple of years after that, they’d tried to deport him to Guatemala.
Maybe Carlos had forgiven and forgotten. Sure. And maybe some mope who lugged boxes of books around a warehouse for a living could make a rifle shot like that—six floors up, a moving target, a breeze, trees in the way.
Guidry eased the brunette onto the elevator, off the elevator, through the lobby of his building, into the back of a cab. He had to snap his fingers at the hack, who was bent over his radio listening to the news and hadn’t even noticed them.
“Go home and freshen up.” Guidry gave the brunette a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll pick you up in an hour.”
In the Quarter, grown men stood on the sidewalk and wept. Women wandered down the street as if they’d been struck blind. A Lucky Dog vendor shared his radio with a shoeshine boy. When in the history of civilization had that happened before? They shall beat their swords into plowshares. The leopard will lie down with the goat.
Guidry had fifteen minutes to spare, so he ducked into Gaspar’s. He’d never been inside during the day. With the house lights on, it was a gloomy joint. You could see the stains on the floor, the stains on the ceiling, the velvet stage curtain patched with electrical tape.
A group was huddled by the bar, people like Guidry who’d been drawn inside by the blue throb of the TV. A newscaster—a different one than before, just as dazed—read a statement from Johnson. President Johnson now.
“I know that the world shares the sorrow that Mrs. Kennedy and her family bear,” Johnson said. “I will do my best. That is all I can do. I ask for your help—and God’s.”
The bartender poured shots of whiskey, on the house. The lady next to Guidry, a proper little Garden District widow, ancient as time and frail as a snowflake, picked up a drink and knocked it back.
On TV they cut to the Dallas police station. Cops in suits and white cowboy hats, reporters, gawkers, everybody pushing and shoving. There was the mope, in the middle of it all, getting bounced around. A little guy, rat-faced, one of his eyes swollen shut. Lee Harvey Oswald, the announcer said his name was. He looked groggy and bewildered, like a kid who’d been dragged out of bed in the dead of night and hoped that all this might be just a nightmare.
A reporter shouted a question that Guidry couldn’t make out as the cops shoved Oswald into a room. Another reporter moved into the frame, speaking to the camera.
“He says he has nothing against anybody,” the reporter said, “and has not committed any act of violence.”
The Garden District widow downed a second shot of whiskey. She looked furious enough to spit. “How could this happen?” she kept muttering to herself. “How could this happen?”
Guidry couldn’t say for sure, but he had an educated opinion. A professional sharpshooter, an independent contractor brought in by Carlos. Positioned on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, or on the floor below to put a frame on Oswald, or maybe set up on the other side of the plaza, an elevated spot away from the crowds. After the real sniper made his shot, he wrapped up his rifle and strolled down Commerce Street to the sky-blue Eldorado waiting for him.
Guidry left Gaspar’s and headed to Jackson Square. A priest comforted his flock on the steps of the cathedral. A time to plant, a time to pluck up what has been planted. The usual jive.
Guidry was walking too fast. Cool it, brother.
If the cops hooked Carlos’s sharpshooter and connected him to the Eldorado, they’d be able to connect the Eldorado to Guidry. Guidry had picked up the car from a supermarket parking lot in the colored part of Dallas. Door left unlocked for him, keys under the visor. Guidry’s prints weren’t on the car—he wasn’t stupid, he’d worn his driving gloves—but someone might remember him. A sky-blue Cadillac Eldorado, a white man in the colored part of town. Someone would remember him.
Because this wasn’t just another ho-hum murder, some shoe-leather wiseguy popped in a back alley, the detectives and the prosecutor already snug in Carlos’s pocket. This was the president of the United States. Bobby Kennedy and the FBI wouldn’t stop until they’d turned over every goddamn rock.
A sticky drizzle blew away, and the sun poked through the clouds. Seraphine stood next to the statue of Old Hickory. The horse rearing, Andrew Jackson tipping his hat. The shadow from the statue split Seraphine in half. She smiled at Guidry, one eye bright and liquid and playful, the other a dark green stone.
He wanted to grab her and shove her up against the base of the statue and demand to know why she’d stuck him right in the middle of this, the crime of the century. Instead, wisely, he smiled back. With Seraphine you had to proceed with caution, or else you didn’t proceed for long.
“Hello, little boy,” she said. “The forest is dark and the wolves howl. Hold my hand and I’ll help you find your way home.”
“I’ll take my chances with the wolves, thanks,” Guidry said.
She pouted. Is that what you think of me? And then she laughed. Of course it was what he thought of her. Guidry would be a fool if he didn’t.
“I adore autumn,” she said. “Don’t you? The air so crisp. The scent of melancholy. Autumn tells us the truth about the world.”
You wouldn’t call Seraphine pretty. Regal. With a high, broad forehead and a dramatic arch to her nose, dark hair marcelled and parted on the side. Skin just a shade darker than Guidry’s own. Anywhere but New Orleans, she might have passed for white.
She dressed as primly as a schoolteacher. Today she wore a mohair sweater set and a slim-fitting skirt, pristine white gloves. Her own private joke, maybe. She always seemed to be smiling at one.
“Cut the bullshit,” Guidry said. With the right smile, he could say things like that to her. To Carlos, even.
She smiled and smoked. One of the skeletal carriage horses on Decatur Street whinnied, shrill and disconsolate, almost a scream. A sound you wanted to forget the minute you heard it.
“So you’ve seen the news about the president,” she said.
“Imagine my alarm,” he said.
“Don’t worry, mon cher. Come, I’ll buy you a drink.”
“Just one?”
“Come.”
They walked over to Chartres. The Napoleon House didn’t open for another hour. The bartender let them in, poured their drinks, disappeared.
“Goddamn it, Seraphine,” Guidry said.
“I understand your concern,” she said.
“I hope you’re planning to visit me in prison.”
“Don’t worry.”
“Say it again and maybe I’ll start to believe you.”
She flicked the ash from her cigarette with a languid sweep of a gloved hand.
“My father used to work here,” she said. “Did you know? Mopping the floors, cleaning the toilets. When I was a little girl, he brought me with him occasionally. Do you see those?”
The walls of the Napoleon House hadn’t been replastered in a century, and every one of the antique oil portraits hung just a little bit crooked. Mean, haughty faces, glaring down from the shadows.
“When I was a little girl,” she said, “I was convinced that the people in the
paintings were watching me. Waiting until I blinked so that they could pounce.”
“Maybe they were,” Guidry said. “Maybe they worked for J. Edgar Hoover.”
“I’ll say it once more, because we’re such old friends. Don’t worry. The authorities have their man, don’t they?”
“It’s just the cops in Dallas, and they only think they have their man.”
Guidry knew that the FBI would never buy Oswald, not for a minute. C’mon. They’d start digging, and he’d start gabbing. No. Check that. The feds were already digging, and Oswald was already gabbing.
“He won’t be a problem,” Seraphine said.
Oswald. That little rat face, vaguely familiar. Guidry thought he might have seen him around town at some point. “So you can tell the future now?” he said.
“His.”
“Where’s the Eldorado?” Guidry said. Seraphine could reassure him till she was blue in the face, but he wouldn’t be safe from the feds until that car disappeared forever. The Eldorado was the one piece of physical evidence that linked him to the assassination.
“On its way to Houston,” she said, “as we speak.”
“If your fella with the eagle eye gets pulled over by the cops …”
“He won’t.” Her smile a bit less serene this time. The Eldorado was also the one piece of physical evidence that linked Carlos to the assassination.
“And once the car’s in Houston?” Guidry said.
“Someone trustworthy will send it to the bottom of the sea.”
Guidry reached over the bar for the bottle of scotch. He felt better, a little. “Is that true?” he said. “About your father working here?”
She shrugged. The shrug meant, Yes, of course. Or it meant, No, don’t be absurd.
“Who’s dumping the car in Houston?” Guidry said. “Your fella who’s driving it down?”
“No. He’s needed elsewhere.”
“So who, then?” Guidry, from his elevated perch in the organization, just a branch or two below Seraphine, knew most of Carlos’s guys. Some were more reliable than others. “Whoever dumps it, you better be damn sure you can count on him.”
