I told him what I wanted, and he laughed in disbelief. “I don’t rent by the week. That’s a fine home there, podna.”

“It’s a dump,” I said. “I’ve been inside. I know.”

“Now wait just a doggone—”

“Nosir, you wait. I’ll give you fifty bucks to squat in that hole through the weekend. That’s almost a full month’s rent, and you can put your sign back in the window come Monday.”

“Why would you—”

“Because Kennedy’s coming and every hotel in Dallas–Fort Worth is full. I drove a long way to see him, and I don’t intend to camp out in Fair Park or on Dealey Plaza.” I heard the click and flare of a cigarette lighter as Merritt thought this over.

“Time’s wasting,” I said. “Tick-tock.”

“What’s your name, podna?”

“George Amberson.” I sort of wished I’d moved in without calling at all. I almost had, but a visit from the Fort Worth PD was the last thing I needed. I doubted if the residents of a street where chickens were sometimes blown up to celebrate holidays gave much of a shit about squatters, but better safe than sorry. I was no longer just walking around the house of cards; I was living in it.

“I’ll meet you out front in half an hour, forty-five minutes.”

“I’ll be inside,” I said. “I have a key.”

More silence. Then: “Where’d you get it?”

I had no intention of peaching on Ivy, even if she was still in Mozelle. “From Lee. Lee Oswald. He gave it to me so I could go in and water his plants.”

“That little pissant had plants?”

I hung up and drove back to 2703. My temporary landlord, perhaps motivated by curiosity, arrived in his Chrysler only fifteen minutes later. He was wearing his Stetson and fancy boots. I was sitting in the front room, listening to the argumentative ghosts of people who were still living. They had a lot to say.

Merritt wanted to pump me about Oswald—was he really a damn commanist? I said no, he was a good old Louisiana boy who worked at a place that would overlook the president’s motorcade on Friday. I said I hoped that Lee would let me share his vantage point.

“Fuckin Kennedy!” Merritt nearly shouted. “Now he’s a commanist for sure. Somebody ought to shoot that sumbitch til he cain’t wiggle.”

“You have a nice day, now,” I said, opening the door.

He went, but he wasn’t happy about it. This was a fellow who was used to having tenants kowtow and cringe. He turned on the cracked and crumbling concrete walk. “You leave the place as nice as you found it, now, y’hear?”

I looked around at the living room with its moldering rug, cracked plaster, and one brokedown easy chair. “No problem there,” I said.

I sat back down and tried to tune in to the ghosts again: Lee and Marina, Marguerite and de Mohrenschildt. I fell into one of my abrupt sleeps instead. When I woke up, I thought the chanting I heard must be from a fading dream.

“Charlie Chaplin went to FRANCE! Just to see the ladies DANCE!” It was still there when I opened my eyes. I went to the window and looked out. The jump-rope girls were a little taller and older, but it was them, all right, the Terrible Trio. The one in the middle was spotty, although she looked at least four years too young for adolescent acne. Maybe it was rubella.

“Salute to the Cap’n!”

“Salute to the Queen,” I muttered, and went into the bathroom to wash my face. The water that belched out of the tap was rusty, but cold enough to wake me the rest of the way up. I had replaced my broken watch with a cheap Timex and saw it was two-thirty. I wasn’t hungry, but I needed to eat something, so I drove down to Mr. Lee’s Bar-B-Q. On the way back, I stopped at a drugstore for another box of headache powders. I also bought a couple of John D. MacDonald paperbacks.

The jump-rope girls were gone. Mercedes Street, ordinarily raucous, was strangely silent.

Like a play before the curtain goes up on the last act, I thought. I went in to eat my meal, but although the ribs were tangy and tender, I ended up throwing most of them away.

18

I tried to sleep in the main bedroom, but in there the ghosts of Lee and Marina were too lively. Shortly before midnight, I relocated to the smaller bedroom. Rosette Templeton’s Crayola girls were still on the walls, and I somehow found their identical jumpers (Forest Green must have been Rosette’s favorite crayon) and big black shoes comforting. I thought those girls would make Sadie smile, especially the one wearing the Miss America crown.

“I love you, honey,” I said, and fell asleep.

19

11/21/63 (Thursday)

I didn’t want breakfast any more than I’d wanted dinner the night before, but by 11:00 A.M.

I needed coffee desperately. A gallon or so seemed about right. I grabbed one of my new paperbacks

— Slam the Big Door, it was called—and drove to the Happy Egg on Braddock Highway. The TV

behind the counter was on, and I watched a news story about Kennedy’s impending arrival in San Antonio, where he was to be greeted by Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson. Also to join the party: Governor John Connally and his wife, Nellie.

Over footage of Kennedy and his wife walking across the tarmac of Andrews Air Force base in Washington, heading for the blue-and-white presidential plane, a correspondent who sounded like she might soon pee in her underwear talked about Jackie’s new “soft” hairdo, set off by a “jaunty black beret,” and the smooth lines of her “belted two-piece shirt-dress, by her favorite designer, Oleg Cassini.” Cassini might indeed be her favorite designer, but I knew Mrs. Kennedy had another outfit packed away on the plane. The designer of that one was Coco Chanel. It was pink wool, accessorized by a black collar. And of course there was a pink pillbox hat to top it off. The suit would go well with the roses she’d be handed at Love Field, not so well with the blood which would splatter the skirt and her stockings and shoes.

20

I went back to Mercedes Street and read my paperbacks. I waited for the obdurate past to swat me like a troublesome fly—for the roof to fall in or a sinkhole to open and drop 2703 deep into the ground. I cleaned my .38, loaded it, then unloaded it and cleaned it again. I almost hoped I would disappear into one of my sudden sleeps—it would at least pass the time—but that didn’t happen. The minutes dragged by, turning reluctantly into a stack of hours, each one bringing Kennedy that much closer to the intersection of Houston and Elm.

No sudden sleeps today, I thought. That will happen tomorrow. When the critical moment comes, I’ll just drop into unconsciousness. The next time I open my eyes, the deed will have been done and the past will have protected itself.

It could happen. I knew it could. If it did, I’d have a decision to make: find Sadie and marry her, or go back and start all over again. Thinking about it, I found there was really no decision to be made. I didn’t have the strength to go back and start over. One way or another, this was it. The trapper’s last shot.