by Jim Bishop
A few people sat at tables, sipping coffee, chewing on Danish pastry, but most of the orders tonight came by phone. Phil’s Delicatessen at 3531 Oaklawn was patronized by those who enjoyed a thick meaty sandwich on Jewish rye bread. The tables were peopled, but business was not overwhelming. The counterman glanced at a table where five young people sat idling the time away. They had a Dallas News and Robert Sindelar read parts of the big story aloud. He was a student at Southern Methodist University, and he and his friends, having no other place to go, had spent two hours dissecting the crime. Dennis Martin had an opinion; so did Rita Silberman, Bill Nikolis, and Marguerite Riegler. The repeated phrase—even after the dishes had been removed—was “. . . but here in Dallas!”
A stout, middle-aged man walked in, but they did not notice him. Frickstad did, because he had filled orders for Jack Ruby for two years. The nightclub owner appeared to be in a hurry. He walked over to the table where the five young people were in conversation and yanked the newspaper from Sindelar’s hand. “Excuse me,” the stranger said. “May I borrow the paper?” Young Mr. Sindelar was thinking of something to say when he saw the stranger riffle through the pages, study something, and set the News back on the table.
The five stopped talking. The man shoved a gray fedora back off his forehead and walked into a phone booth. A coin clinked and he sat with the door open, dialing. He asked someone a question, then said: “I’m at Phil’s Delicatessen. If you need me, I’ll be here a few minutes.” He came out and turned to the counter. Johnny Frickstad said hello and asked if Mr. Ruby didn’t think the assassination was a terrible thing. The nightclub owner was giving the counterman part of his attention. Yes, he said. It was terrible. Terrible.
Then he strode back into the phone booth and dialed RI 8—9711. The city hall operator came on and Ruby said: “Homicide and Robbery.” The phone was picked up by Detective Richard Sims. “This is Jack Ruby,” the voice said. “I know you guys are working late. I have some sandwiches for you.” Sims said: “Thanks, Jack. We have been eating in relays, but we’re wrapping it up now.” “Oh.” “Yeah, Jack. We won’t need any sandwiches now.” “All right,” Ruby said and hung up.
The entrepreneur bounced out of the booth and said to Frickstad: “Give me eight corned beef sandwiches with mustard. Give me eight black cherries cold and two celery tonics. Also I want three cups of butter, a half loaf of Jewish rye, and some extra pickles.” The counterman went to work. Pickles and potato salad were supplied free with each sandwich. Jack Ruby watched a moment as Frickstad began to slice the corned beef, the slices curling away from the electric knife onto a piece of paper. “I’m taking this to the disc jockeys at KLIF,” Ruby said. “They’re working late.” The counterman kept working. “I still don’t know how I’ll get in; they lock the station up. But I’ll get in with the sandwiches.”
He went back to the phone and dialed someone and said: “If you want me, I’ll be at KLIF. If anything should come up . . .” There was a pretension toward busyness, an important man with important connections. Mr. Ruby returned to the students’ table and asked if he might see the paper again. Mutely it was given to him. The pages were flipped, and the stranger murmured: “I own the Carousel and Vegas clubs. I want to see if the ads appear as I ordered them.” The students sat around the big table, looking up at the man. “My clubs,” he said, “are the only two closed on account of the assassination.”
He found the page, turned the paper inside out, and displayed the one-column advertisements enclosed with black borders, which said:
Closed
tonight and Sunday
CAROUSEL
Closed
Vegas Club
The customers took a look. “Nobody else closed,” Ruby said. The tone was modestly triumphant. It might have meant more to Mr. Ruby than “class”; he had personally checked the competitive strip joints which were open. He had outmaneuvered his competitors. Ruby’s mood was warm and friendly. He returned the newspaper for the second time and said: “Maybe I’ll give you people free passes to my club.” This generosity covered a small cover charge payable at the door. Bill Nikolis asked if the assassination would affect Dallas. “It will affect the convention business,” the businessman said. “No doubt about it.” Bill Nikolis said that he knew a girl who had entertained at the Vegas.
Ruby didn’t ask for a name. He put on a paternal smile and said: “I don’t think you people are old enough to go to my clubs.” There were no free passes. He swept away from the table, adjusting his black-rimmed glasses and pulling the felt hat down. His finger beckoned to the counterman. Frickstad had the order in two big bags. “That will be $9.50 plus tax,” he said. Ruby dug in a pocket and pulled out a roll of bills. He paid and took his change.
The counterman followed the customer out into the parking lot. A cringing dog sat on the front seat. The bags were placed in the trunk. Frickstad waited a moment, and Mr. Ruby took a card from his pocket and scribbled something. “Here,” he said. “This card will admit you free to either of my clubs.”
The White House rested, gathering strength for the trial to come. In the kitchen, a few waiters and chefs smoked and talked. The mounds of sandwiches had been prepared, and slightly damp napkins made them appear glacial. Someone had to stop the sandwich-making. The smell of rich Navy-style coffee permeated the kitchen. In the chief usher’s office, between floors, a Negro with a neatly trimmed white mustache dozed on folded arms. The State Dining Room was dark. So was the Blue Room and the Red Room. On the second floor, the Yellow Oval Room was alight; it was assumed that the family would meet there.
On the walk around the White House, uniformed patrolmen made their rounds. The big fountain on the South Lawn still tossed colored prisms of water toward the sky. Secret Service men stood in the shadows. A man came out of the diplomatic reception room with a box. A carpool number was called hollowly on the loudspeaker and an automobile drew up and the man with the box got in. John F. Kennedy’s clothing was en route to Bethesda.
The rheostat was turned down in the President’s office, and the light was faint, almost dim, from the little pitching green which Dwight D. Eisenhower had left. On the second floor, Maude Shaw slept in the little room between the children’s quarters. Near the elevator, a Secret Service man sat at a desk with a shaded lamp. The late papers had been stacked against the President’s bedroom door. In the sitting room, the smiling, confident faces of the Kennedys gleamed from silver frames. On the left, the door to Mrs. Kennedy’s bedroom was shut, but then so too were the doors on the other side which led to the intimate Kennedy dining room and the service kitchen.
The center of action remained where it had been—Ralph Dungan’s office. There, in a blaze of light, the men chipped the details from the ugly rock of a funeral. There were responsibilities to being part of the Clan Kennedy: intense illogical loyalty; the swift flight of youth which owes nothing to its predecessors; a world of instant “Yes” or “No”; a private planet of “Us” versus “Them.” There was a premium on intelligence, of knowing that all hands were “on the ball.”
The clan never shone to better advantage. Within a few hours, a vast and nebulous situation was being resolved. Orders were shouted; suggestions were negated; the elder statesmen limped through the door to speak, to sit, to leave. The polished head of Adlai Stevenson came in, the pouched eyes defeated for the last time. The younger men swept around Sargent Shriver’s desk with speed. Some said: “Hello, ambassador.” Others said: ”Hello, governor.” John K. Galbraith, tall and stooped, came in to finger the faces with his poetic eyes and leave.
The minority leader of the United States Senate, Everett Dirksen, walked into the office shaking his leonine head and, intoning like a church organ, said: “I still can’t believe it has happened. I am stunned, shaken.” There was no response. “Thank God there are those like you who are carrying the burden at this terrible time. Is there anything at all I can do to help?”
Nothing. He could leave. Stevenson wor
ked his way toward the front of the couch and stood. He left. Dirksen left. In the outer office, four young women typed and retyped the decisions of the Clan Kennedy. The precise hours and days were resplit to accommodate every homage due a President. To remain on the list of those invited to the funeral became a matter of surviving a sifter. Some who were on the list were wiped off. Names were shouted and decisions made. Dungan read the list once more; if he heard the word “Yes,” the name remained. If someone yelled “No” and gave a reason, or if Shriver said “No” and gave none, a line was drawn through it.
“Barney Ross?” This was a comrade from the President’s PT 109 days. “Yes.” “How about Billy Graham?” “Billy considers himself a close friend of the President.” Dungan said: “No.” Shriver remained silent. The well-nourished, jaded figure of John Bailey, chairman of the National Democratic Committee, a Connecticut politician, suggested names. They were old-line wheelhorses who had helped elect John F. Kennedy.
Each name in turn was shot down by the word “No.” At last, Sargent Shriver’s patience became lacerated. “John,” he said, staring at Bailey, “we are not trying to return political favors here tonight. We are trying to ask only those people who we know were personal friends of the President.” It was done in simple, cutting words. Ordinarily, no one would address a national chairman in any manner except the deferential. Without brutish practical politics, no dreamer can be elected. Without election, the noblest aspirations of the candidate lie in a dark part of a desk drawer. Bailey had helped elect Kennedy, but Bailey was one of “them.” Listening to the words, David Pearson, a journalist from Florida, thought of Bailey: “A magical facility for saying wrong things at right times.”
The names are barked without favor or sentiment and they fly circuitously around the office waiting for one of “us” to shoot it down. Each name must be prepared to submit to this screening and rescreening. Eight justices of the United States Supreme Court—all “them” are to receive a blanket invitation to arrive in a body; one, Byron White, a former football player (an “us”), will receive a personal invitation.
The car was on Stemmons westbound, and there was relief in the back seat. Wesley Frazier had answered all the questions of the police as honestly as he could, and he and Linnie Mae were homeward bound to Irving. The detectives sat in the front, and they were tired. Rose and Stovall had been working since 8 A.M., and it was becoming difficult to concentrate. The Reverend Campble knew that Frazier and Mrs. Randall had done their duty as good citizens, telling what they knew about Oswald, adding nothing.
The young man was happy to be free. He realized that just being friendly with a man like Oswald could lead to trouble. For a young man who had specialized in minding his own business, it was a frightening experience to be taken to headquarters, to be asked about curtain rods which might turn out to be a rifle, to be regarded as a buddy of Oswald’s when the facts pointed to the neighborly Linnie Mae helping Oswald to get a job at the Texas School Book Depository. Wesley Frazier had added free rides on the weekend.
The car was approaching the Irving Boulevard exit when headquarters called. Detective G. F. Rose picked up the microphone and acknowledged call letters. Headquarters asked that the car turn around at once and bring Wesley Frazier and his sister back to Dallas. The driver slowed and made a U turn. No one asked why. Frazier and Linnie Mae couldn’t think of any questions which the police might have forgotten to ask them. There was always a vague danger that Lee Oswald might have implicated Frazier in some way, but no one wanted to dwell on that. Wesley couldn’t see how anyone could implicate him in anything, but Oswald was such a strange person—even more frightening now—that no one discounted the notion that he might try to drag his benefactor down with him.
Rose said he was sorry. It was an order; he didn’t think it would amount to much. The car seemed to get back into the basement of City Hall much faster than it got out. The witnesses were taken up to the bedlam of the third floor, and detectives helped to pry a path for them. The two people sat with their Baptist minister. He, too, was trying to dissipate the gloom by reminding them that they had nothing to fear.
A detective came in, looked at Wesley Frazier, and said: “You got any objections to a polygraph test?” Another policeman explained that it was nothing; you sit in a chair with a blood pressure cuff on and they ask some questions. If you’re telling the truth, the blood pressure remains pretty steady; if you’re lying, it goes up. Frazier looked at his sister. He said he had nothing to hide.
“Good,” Rose said. “It won’t take long.” They led the boy up the stairs to the Identification Bureau. Captain Dowdy said that the man who conducts the polygraph tests was at home. They might have to wait. He phoned Detective R. D. Lewis. The policeman was willing to come in, but it would take an hour to get back to headquarters. Dowdy told him to come in. A policeman was placed with Wesley Frazier. “Son,” a cop said, “I think you’re going to have to wait an hour. You might as well relax.” “What’s this test like?” Wesley Frazier said. Nothing to it, he was told. You just relax and tell the truth. He thought he already had told the truth. He couldn’t imagine anything further he could tell the police, but it was obvious that whoever wanted him back here wouldn’t want a truth test unless he was suspected of not telling it.
On the third floor, Frazier’s friend was submitting to the last of the special interviews. Word had come to the Dallas office of the FBI that, so far, a biography and a physical description of Lee Harvey Oswald had been omitted. Washington would like to have this material. A twenty-three-year veteran, Manning C. Clements, asked Agent James Bookhout about the matter. Bookhout had been around all day, and he couldn’t recall anyone asking for the vital statistics of Oswald’s life or drawing up a physical description.
Clements, who lived in Dallas, asked Captain Fritz if he had any objection. The answer was no. Manning Clements introduced himself to Lee Harvey Oswald, and the prisoner had no objection. The interrogation about personal detail started, and it was obvious to anyone peeking through the glass partitions that the prisoner had outlasted the police. He was still calm, in control, and they were worn. At times, he seemed cordial. He was willing to assist Mr. Clements to draw up a family portrait with vital statistics and street addresses, cities and schools and jobs all tossed in.
The questioning went on for a half hour, when the prisoner was taken out to the restroom. When he left with two detectives, Manning Clements looked over the desk of Captain Fritz and saw a wallet. He flipped it open. It belonged to the prisoner. Mr. Clements removed the cards, one by one, and copied the information. By the time Oswald returned, the wallet was back on the desk. The prisoner had lost his desire to cooperate. He became peevish and argumentative. The FBI men remained polite, but the interview was over.
Down the street a few hundred yards, Robert Oswald emerged from the coffee shop of the Statler Hilton Hotel. He walked through the bright lobby, vaguely seeing the small group of guests clustered in front of a television set. There was a newsstand which featured black headlines. Some newspapers carried black-bordered photos of the President and, nearby, a photo of Lee with a bruise under his eye and his mouth wide open. There were souvenir shops, too. Perhaps a hundred years from now, some such shop might feature a miniature rifle with the words “Souvenir of Dallas.”
Robert didn’t feel that he was Abel to Lee’s Cain. The thought had not occurred to him because it wasn’t in his nature to equate matters that way. He decided to remain in Dallas tonight. There was a sickening feeling in his belly that his brother was in deep trouble, deep trouble. An older and protective brother can afford to address justice in a demanding tone when he is certain that a mistake has been made, but Robert had left Fort Worth this afternoon whimpering and afraid.
Nothing that had happened since ameliorated that sensation. In that glassy room, Lee’s sauntering, carefree attitude worried him. His brother was enjoying his predicament. Lee could have asked for help when they spoke. He had not. Even t
he civility was cool, as though Lee felt that he was in a different sphere from the rest of the family and might be pleased if he drew no further attention from them.
Robert Oswald strode to the desk. He asked for a single room. The clerk swung the register around. The pen was ready. A man with no baggage, a man who will be asked to pay for a room in advance, such a man can afford, for a moment, to seek respite in signing “John Smith” on the register or “James Jones.” Robert Oswald decided not to retreat. He signed Robert Oswald, placed his home address underneath, and took his room key. He didn’t even bother to examine the expression on the clerk’s face when the man looked at the signature and said: “Good night, Mr. Oswald.”
One question remained: the wound in the back of the neck. It could not be resolved now. Humes knew this, and he was in no hurry. The hour was late and he was half-persuaded that a bullet, reported found on a stretcher in Dallas, could be the one which had inflicted this wound and, that when manual respiration of the chest had been instituted, the pellet had fallen out. It was a possibility. Neither Humes nor Boswell nor Finck could be sure tonight what had happened.
They had used a lot of time making certain of their findings. They had studied that body with great and minute care. The X-rays were more than would normally be taken; the color photographs; the black and white photographs; each doctor had placed a finger into that small hole at the base of the neck; resistance was felt between the first and second knuckle. The FBI men, Sibert and O’Neill, had been ordered to draw up a summary of their observations and, even though they had no medical qualifications, they could not wait for word from Parkland Hospital.
