Ask Not

Chapter 11

You could see the pretty girl she once had been inside the puffy visage, before droopiness touched the big brown eyes that had witnessed too much. She had a pale indoor look rare in Texas but common to B-girls, her hair dishwater blonde with hints of gold, rising in a permanent wave over a heart-shaped face around which more blonde hair cascaded to the shoulders of a yellow blouse whose cheerfulness was offset by a frayed collar. All her features were nice, though the nose may have been missing some cartilage — men had knocked this female around; she carried abuse on her slightly hunched shoulders like the heavy load it was.

She may never have been a headliner, but even now she had a nice figure, making it easy to buy her as a credible act on a strip club bill, drenched in the forgiveness of red and blue stage lighting. Easier still to imagine her working the dingy mini-trailer-park bordellos behind bars and gas stations along scrubby strips of highway, and providing a lonely man a shabby fantasy that led to temporary relief.

I’d have been surprised if she were past thirty, even if she did look near forty. Her slightly hooded eyes and her languid manner confirmed drug addict, but she wasn’t high at the moment, sitting across from Flo Kilgore and me.

The tape recorder was fine with our guest. She chain-smoked Parliaments as we talked. Maybe she thought filter-tip cigarettes were healthier. Well, she was right in a sense — they were healthier than shooting heroin, which is what Rose Cheramie (“That’s my stage name, I like it better than Melba Marcades”) had been on, last year, on the evening of November 20.

“I don’t mind talking,” she said in a husky, even ravaged, alto, “and I’m not afraid, hell, I talked to all sorts of cops about this and nobody seems to give a shit. So what’s the harm?”

“We appreciate your willingness to be interviewed,” Flo said, but the stripper didn’t need much interviewing. She launched right in, in a Texas drawl that managed to sound lazy and rapid-fire at once.

“I’m not as young as I used to be, and I never was no frisky firecracker like Jada. So stripping is just one way to make money for me. Sometimes, when gigs’re slow, I turn a trick or two. Guess I trick more than strip these days, and also, not often, when things get tough, y’know, I run dope sometimes. This particular time I was doing it for Jack Ruby, before he got himself famous. Years ago, I used to strip at his old club, the Pink Door. It’s closed now.”

Sitting forward, Flo asked, “You ran illegal drugs for Jack Ruby?”

Rose laughed; it was like sandpaper rubbing against itself. “That makes it sound like he was the boss. He was no big shot. Just another goddamn go-between. They got layers, these bent-nose boys, like a cake. Anyway, Pinky — that was his nickname back in the Pink Door days, I never did call him Sparky like some do — he does what he’s told, like any small fish. The run I was making was from Miami to Houston, but we was stopping off in Dallas. To pick up the money...” She raised her black, mostly painted-on eyebrows. “... among other things, to say the least.”

I asked, “You had the dope with you, Rose?”

She shook her head, exhaling smoke. “No, we’re picking up the stuff, and I was only along so a girl could make the trade, money for smack. It’s less... conspicuous. I mean, the guys with me, these two were hard-core badasses and looked it. I figured them for Italians at first, but turned out they was Cuban. Shouldn’ta surprised me. Y’know, you can’t shake a stick in Miami without hitting one of them Cuban spics.”

“So I hear,” I said, watching her light up a fresh Parliament off a book of matches labeled GAEITY CLUB.

Waving out the flame, she said, “The plan was, pick up the money to pay for the stuff in Dallas, then go to Houston and check in to the Rice Hotel, meet up in a bar with this sailor comin’ into Galveston, give sailor boy the cash for the ten kilos, and then hightail it back to Dallas and trade the dope for my kid.”

I frowned at her and Flo was wincing in confusion.

“Trade for your kid, Rose?” I asked. “What do you mean?”

She shrugged. “I was kinda bein’ forced into this thing. They was blackmailing me to do it. One of ’em was holding on to my baby boy for, you know, collateral. On the plus side, I was gettin’ eight grand.”

Gently, Flo said, “Rose, it’s the assassination we’re investigating. You do understand that?”

“You mean, what does running dope have to do with shit?” Nobody smiled at the unintentional pun. “Thing is, these Cuban pricks got to talkin’ loose in front of me. It was a long trip and we got friendly, had a couple three-ways at motels. Felt like a vacation to me, though they was making sure we was making good enough time to get to Dallas when they was expected. These guys, they seemed... really keyed up, ya ask me. They was laughin’ way too much.”

I asked, “Drunk?”

“Not that drunk. And not hopped up, neither. They just kept makin’ these weird, in-jokey comments — ‘Things to do,’ one of ’em says, like he’s reading off a list. ‘Go to Dallas. Pick up money. Kill the President. Go to Houston. Pick up dope.’”

Flo and I exchanged glances.

Rose blew out smoke. “When I was in the backseat, sleeping — they thought — they got really loose-lip about it. ‘We’re gonna kill that lying son of a bitch.’ ‘That bastard is gonna pay.’ And do you know who they was talkin’ about? John Kennedy is who! This was... the Wednesday night before it happened.”

I asked, “What did you think about that, Rose?”

“I thought it was fucked up. I thought maybe I should bug out, maybe find a cop or something and try to stop it. They had a fucking rifle with a scope in the trunk, you know. So when we stopped for an overnight, after the three-way and they got drunk and fell asleep, I kinda... well, I didn’t call the cops. See, everybody thought I was clean, I was straight, but really I was still using. I thought a taste might help make this Kennedy thing go away. I had two cardboard boxes of my crap in the trunk, next to that rifle? Clothes of mine and baby clothes and also down in there, hidden away, was my works.”

“Works?” Flo asked.

“Needle and so on,” I said quietly.

Flo mouthed, “Oh,” and nodded.

“So the next morning,” Rose went on, “they saw my works in the john and the geniuses figure out I wasn’t clean and had junk along, and yelled at me and slapped me around and I just kind of took it. I figured they needed me, so they’d get over it. I was the contact for the sailor, you know? We keep driving, and driving, and then we stop in this little shit bump, Eunice — we’re in Louisiana now — and it’s like maybe five thou pop, but they like to party in that little town, and we stopped at the Silver Slipper Lounge, a bar that Ruby had a piece of. Maybe the Cubans were contacting somebody, maybe they were just thirsty, I dunno. I knew the place a little, I tricked there before, they had little trailers out back. Manny was a nice man, Manny Manuel I mean, the manager?”

“Rose,” I said, “can we stay on the subject please?”

She gave me a flirtatious look. “I am on the subject, Handsome. I’m all over the subject.” Then her expression grew serious. She flicked ash into a tray.

“See, I’d been thinking about what they was saying about the President, just kind of getting in a real funk about it. I tried to make myself think they was kidding or something, but they were for real, man. They were part of... part of something bigger than they were, and it excited their asses. This sounds crazy, but it’s almost like they were doing the dope run so that if they got picked up, that would be what it was for.”

As opposed to killing the President.

“So we’re drinking and talking, and I say something like, ‘What do you wanna kill John Kennedy for? What did he ever do to you? He’s got a wife and kids, you know.’ And one of them Cubans says, ‘The Bay of Pigs is what,’ but the other one is already swinging on me. Right there in the damn nightclub. He cold-cocks me and I’m off the chair and on the floor, and when I wake up, Manny is pushing the Cubans through the door and outside, tellin’ ’em he doesn’t run that kind of joint. Manny helps me up and I thank him and I go back outside and they’re waiting, they grab me and they toss me in the backseat and one Cuban crawls in back after me and the other gets behind the wheel and peels out. They’re going maybe fifty and we’re out of town now with nobody around when the Cuban with me in the backseat opens his door and I get kicked out and go rolling. The car screeches to a stop, and then I see them both get out, and one opens the trunk. I try to get to my feet ’cause I think they’re going for that rifle, but they was just after my boxes of stuff, and they tossed them on the roadside and just took off.”

This must have been what Janet meant when she told me Rose said the “shooters who got Kennedy” had tried to kill the woman.

Flo said, “How badly were you hurt?”

She shrugged, spoke through exhaled smoke. “Not serious, bumps and bruises and scrapes, but back at the club, somebody saw those guys grab me and told Manny, and he got concerned, bless him, and drove out looking for me. He found me, all bloody and hitchhiking, and took me to the hospital there in Eunice, to the emergency room. They cleaned me up but said they couldn’t admit me because all I had was bruises and scrapes, and then I told them I was having drug withdrawal and could they help me, and they called the cops. A nice officer I met before... ’cause I worked at the Slipper from time to time and the cops knew all the girls there... anyway, this nice trooper named Fruge — it’s an easy name to remember, ’cause of the dance?”

She did a sad little pumping of both fisted arms, indicating the Frug.

“Trooper Fruge,” she went on, “took me to the little Eunice jail. I said I had something important to tell him but he said I could tell him in the morning, because he had to go to the policeman’s ball that night.”

“You’re kidding,” I said.

“No, unless maybe he was, but I wasn’t really on top of things, because I was coming down and I was coming down fast... I hadn’t fixed since last night... and they put me in a jail cell and I got awful hot and took off all my clothes and I was really climbing the walls. I don’t mean that as an expression. I was climbing them, trying to, anyway. So they called Fruge, at the dance I guess, do you think maybe he was doing the Frug? Ha. And anyway, he came back with a doctor, the coroner I think, who gave me a sedative and that helped. The next morning Trooper Fruge drove me over to this nuthouse in Jackson, not ’cause I was nuts or anything but they did drug withdrawal there, and on the way I told him about killing Kennedy.”

Flo said, “This was Thursday, the twenty-first.”

“Yeah, I guess it would’ve been. So I told Trooper Fruge, I said, ‘These fucking Cubans are crazy, they’re going to Dallas to kill Kennedy when he comes to town.’ I told him everything, just like I done to you — the drugs, my baby, everything. I wanted help getting my kid back, y’know? Also, I didn’t want to see Kennedy killed. Fruge had this other trooper come and hear my story and I told it again. But that was it. The two troopers just went away, and I told the doctors about Kennedy, and the nurses, and everybody just kind of nodded, ’cause they had committed me for drug withdrawal and thought I was delirious or some shit.”

I asked, “No one else came to talk to you?”

“Not till after the assassination. Jesus, I mean, I was in the hospital rec room, watching TV on Friday, and I see this news thing with people lining the streets in Dallas, and I start screaming, like a crazy person, which there was no shortage of in there, ‘Somebody’s gotta do something! They’re gonna kill the President!’ Nobody paid any attention to me. Then the cars came on the screen, the, uh, what’s it, motorcade, rolling by, and I yell to the nurses and other patients, ‘Watch, you assholes! It’s gonna happen! It’s gonna happen!’ You couldn’t see it on-screen, but there was these pops, and then this commotion, and I said, ‘See! See! I am not nuts!’”

“And then Fruge came back?”

“Not till Monday. Not till after Pinky had shot his girlfriend.”

“Pinky?” I said. “You mean Ruby?”

Flo asked, “What do you mean, ‘girlfriend’?”

“Oh, Pinky and that Oswald character,” Rose said, “they was shacked up off and on for years. I saw those queer sons of bitches sitting together at the Pink Door and later the Carousel, plenty of times.”

I asked, “You told this to Fruge?”

“Yeah, him and a bunch of other troopers. I played to smaller audiences in my time. Fruge said he was going to report what I said to the Dallas cops and the FBI, too, but neither of those ever questioned me. I run into Fruge a couple months later, and he said he called the FBI but they wasn’t interested in the Cubans ’cause they already had their man.”

Meaning (the late) Oswald.

“And,” Rose continued, “Fruge said he called some cop named Fritz on the Dallas PD, and told him the story, too, and this Fritz guy said he wasn’t interested, neither.”

“That would be Captain Will Fritz,” Flo said, with a glance in my direction. “He was in charge of the assassination investigation.”

“Well, whoever or whatever he was,” Rose said pleasantly, smiling as she lit up another Parliament, “he didn’t bother talking to me. Sometimes it pays to be an unreliable junkie... oh, but I’m straight now. Don’t get the wrong idea.”

“We won’t, Rose,” I said.

She shrugged, sighing smoke. “That’s all I know about the Kennedy thing. If there’s nothin’ else, I could use the bread we agreed on... Bus trip from Waco ain’t free, you know.”

This was directed at Flo, who had arranged to pay Rose two hundred for her expenses. This wasn’t strictly journalistically kosher, but I thought Flo got off cheap, even if the Waco bus trip had cost maybe fifteen bucks.

“One other thing,” I said to Rose, who was about to slide out of the booth. “You used to go out with a guy named Mac Wallace, right?”

“Yeah. Few times. Maybe... two years ago. When I was dancing at the Carousel. I cut that shit off fast.”

“What kind of guy was he?”

“Well, he’s a big good-looking guy, but kind of a creep. Very smart, but broody, like Brando. I’ll tell you one thing, he’s a bully when he’s drunk. Likes to knock a girl around. Likes to kind of... well, rape you, when it isn’t even necessary. Who needs that crap? Why? What does he have to do with the Kennedy assassination?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Probably unrelated.”

Probably.

“I’m a regular here at the Colony Club,” the fresh-looking young blonde said, then raised a cautionary finger. “Not a stripper. I’m a singer. Strictly a singer.”

“Really, Bev?” Janet said with a smile. Aka Jada had, at our final guest’s invitation, joined us in the booth for the interview, sitting next to the petite brown-eyed blonde, whose pixie-cut ratted platinum hairdo emphasized her vague resemblance to Connie Stevens. She was wearing a red-and-green plaid bandana-ish blouse, gray shorts, and minimal makeup. Almost pretty, definitely cute.

“Well,” Beverly Oliver said to her friend, giggling (she seemed barely out of her teens), “I guess you caught me, honey. I used to come up on the bus from Garland, it’s about a forty-minute ride, and enter the amateur night at the Theater Club — Abe’s brother Barney runs that. And then later here, at the Colony. But I only went down to a bikini.”

“You’d have made a mint stripping, doll,” Janet said, making her red ponytail swing with a shake of her head, grinning at her little protégée.

“Nope. I’m a singer, Sunday, Monday, and always. And an old-fashioned one. You didn’t see me here last week, Mr. Heller, ’cause I sometimes do a week at the Embers in Houston.”

I said, “Bill Peck and His Peckers back you up here?”

“No! Joe Garcia’s little orchestra. Don’t look for any Beatles or Herman’s Hermits from this girl — maybe some Pet Clark. But I’m a Joni James, Kay Starr kinda thrush. You want to hear ‘Blues in the Night’ or ‘Bill Bailey,’ you’ve come to the right chile.”

In any case, she was a natural performer, and the tape recorder didn’t faze her — she liked talking in front of it.

“‘Bill Bailey,’ huh?” I said. “Billy Daniels or Bobby Darin style?”

“Okay, you caught me, too, Mr. Heller. I’m enough of a teenager to like Bobby better. I’m only eighteen.”

Flo, surprised, asked, “How old were you when you stripped at those amateur nights?”

“Fourteen,” she said with a shrug. “Fifteen.”

I said, “Janet gave me the impression you worked at the Carousel.”

“Well, yes and no,” Bev said. “I never sang there and certainly didn’t strip, though Jack had amateur nights himself, just trying to compete.”

“Jack Ruby,” Flo said.

“Yes, we were friends. He was never really my boss. I worked for him, but in a limited way. Like, I hosted some of his after-hours parties — I’d mix drinks, sit around and visit, that kind of thing.”

Janet said, “Jack said Bev had more class than his regular waitresses, and any dancers at those parties were busy rubbing against the guests, if you know what I mean.”

Bev said, “I spent a lot of time in the Carousel. Jack liked me. Liked to be seen with me. I thought he had a crush on me or something, but he never made a play. I took a couple trips with him where I sat by the pool in a bikini, and it was more like he was showing me off than really had any interest.”

I asked, “And you didn’t have any interest him in?”

“Heck no! I mean he was nice, but not nice-looking, everybody knows that by now. But a big heart, good to his girls, always loaning them money. He would bring down-and-outers in and give them food and so on. That side of him, nobody knows.”

The side everybody knew was the kill-Lee-Harvey-Oswald-in-the-basement-of-the-Dallas-police-station one.

Janet prompted, “Tell them about Oswald.”

“Well, honey, you were there,” she said to her pal. For the first time a topic seemed to give her pause. “You go ahead and tell them.”

Janet, seeming like the mother to this little girl, ordered her: “No. I already talked to these nice people. It’s your turn.”

Bev shrugged and her well-sprayed pile of platinum hair bounced like the single object it was. “There wasn’t much to it. I saw Oswald in the Carousel only twice. The first time, he and Jack were really friendly. Janet was sitting with them, and Jack called me over, and he said, ‘Beverly, this is my friend Lee Oswald. He’s with the CIA.’ I said hello, but I guess it was clear I wasn’t impressed. This friend of Jack’s was just sitting there kind of sullen, not friendly at all. Kind of giving Jack a dirty look. Jack said, ‘Do you know what the CIA is?’ And I said no, and almost added, ‘And I don’t care.’ And Jack says, ‘He’s a spy like James Bond.’ I think Jack was a little tipsy, but he always liked to boast, so maybe not.”

I said, “What was the other time?”

“Well, that was strange. Oswald was in the audience and he started heckling the comic, Wally Weston, who I think was doing some kind of political skit. Oswald yelled out that Wally was a filthy Commie, and Wally — he was a World War Two veteran — boy, was he PO’ed! He jumped into the audience and smacked Oswald in the puss. Then Jack came over and dragged his ‘friend’ out and tossed him down the stairs. Which was something he did a lot to unruly types. Amazing he didn’t kill anybody.”

Well, he did actually, but not by throwing Oswald down the stairs.

Flo asked, “Were there ever prominent people in the club. Politicians? How about policemen?”

“Oh, yeah,” the little blonde said, nodding. “Policemen particularly. They were sort of touted to come into the club with free coffee and Cokes and pizza and so on. They provided free security — Jack never had to hire more than one bouncer. There were politicians, too, and some very rich people. Oilmen. Surprising when you think about it, because really, the Carousel was rather sleazy.”

Janet said, “That’s why I was one of the few headline performers Ruby ever managed to book into that shithole. Agents said his club didn’t meet the high standards that dancers like me expect.”

Bev said, “But Jack was always trying. He wanted to bring Candy Barr back, for instance, when she got out of prison.”

Janet smirked. “That tells you something, Nate — Candy Barr is Ruby’s idea of class.”

“Jack’s always been a guy in search of class,” Bev said reflectively. “He thinks that things bring you class and that the people you know give you class. He’s never figured out that class isn’t something you can buy.”

I asked, “Did you ever see Cubans in the club?”

“Funny you should say that,” Bev said, with an odd expression, as if I’d just guessed her weight. 105. “My boyfriend, Larry, got into a conversation about Cuba once with this weird guy named Ferrie.” She thought for a while. “His first was David, I think. I probably only remember it because... this is terrible, but he was a fairy. He liked boys, I mean.”

“Okay,” I said. “But ‘David Ferrie’ isn’t a Cuban name.”

“No, no, but I’m getting to that. Well, Larry and this Ferrie character start talking about Cuba, how dangerously close to America that Communism is all of a sudden, and how we ought to take it over again, and start the gambling back up, and that somebody ought to do something about Castro.”

“All right,” I said, interested.

“Larry and Ferrie... ha. I’m a poet and don’t know it.” She gave me a little-girl grin, then got serious again. “Larry and Ferrie were agreeing about this subject. But Ferrie starts getting agitated, raving and ranting and all.”

She shook her head and the platinum hair damn near moved.

“That Ferrie was strange,” she said, and shivered. Might have been the air-conditioning but I didn’t think so. “By strange, I don’t mean dumb or stupid, no — he was very, very intelligent but... an odd duck.”

Janet said, “Ferrie was in the Carousel a bunch of times. He’s from New Orleans. You see him sometimes over there in the Sho-Bar. A first-class oddball.”

Flo asked, “In appearance or behavior?”

“Both,” the two women said, and then Bev giggled and so did Janet, the younger girl turning the hardened stripper into a momentary teenager.

Bev said, “He’s a good-sized guy, around six feet, maybe a hundred ninety pounds. He had some kind of disease where he lost all of his hair. So he wears this crazy reddish fright wig and he paints on black eyebrows.”

“Like a stripper,” Janet said, pointing to her own similarly painted-on eyebrows. I felt sure they looked better on her. “He’s got this kind of anteater look.”

“Anyway,” Bev said, “getting back to Larry and the Cuba conversation. Out of the blue, maybe kidding, maybe not, Ferrie says to Larry, ‘How would you like fifty grand to go to Cuba and kill that bastard?’ Excuse my language, but that’s what he said, or anyway Larry said that’s what he said. So Larry says no thanks and just gets up and drifts away.”

I asked, “Was this Ferrie guy drunk?”

“No,” Bev said. “He’s just a nut. There was an after-hours party I was working, the week of the assassination. The Monday night before. There were some Cubans there, and Ferrie, too.”

“How about Oswald?” I asked.

“No. But Ferrie got into a shouting match with one of the Cubans, and took out a gun and was waving it around! Jack went over and wrestled it away from Ferrie and called him an SOB, said someday somebody would shove that little gun up where the sun don’t shine. Funny thing, though — Jack didn’t toss Ferrie out, like he did with most people making a ruckus. Things quieted down, then I went over to Jack and said, ‘I don’t like this at all, I’m sorry, but I’m out of here. Things are getting too hot for this little blonde.’ Jack said he understood and I left.”

Janet said, looking from me to Flo, “There’s another reason I asked Bev to talk to you. Something that doesn’t have to do with the Carousel Club. She was there.”

I said, “Where?”

“At Dealey Plaza. She saw the assassination, Nate. Right there on Elm Street. Ringside seat.”

Bev was nodding, and Flo’s eyes were so wide, I thought they’d fall out of their sockets.

“Tell us, please,” I said.

“It happened right in front of me,” Bev said quietly. Her eyes were looking into the memory. “I had a brand-new movie camera that my boyfriend gave me — Larry worked for Eastman Kodak — and I wanted to make sure I could get some really good pictures of the President. I’d been to a party the night before and took a cab over there that morning. My car was already in the parking garage next door, here.”

She gestured with a thumb.

“Anyway, I start walking up Commerce, looking down the side streets to see if I could get a place close to the curb. It was just absolutely packed. There’s no way to even get up close enough to see him, let alone take film of him. I keep walking and walking, oh at least ten blocks to Dealey Plaza, across from what they’re calling the Grassy Knoll now.”

She shifted in the booth, sighed, and Janet gave her a supportive little nod. The girl was trembling but her voice was strong, clear.

“I got lucky and found this area where almost nobody was standing — by a father and his little boy — and I thought, ‘This is gonna be a great place to get pictures!’ And I start filming as soon as the motorcade turns onto Elm Street.”

Flo asked, “When you heard the first shot, did you react? Did the camera shake?”

“No, I never even knew that Mr. Kennedy had been shot until the... the fatal shot. That was definitely a different sound. There was a bang, bang, bang and then a buh-boom. The bang, bang, bang sounded like those little firecrackers people throw on the sidewalk. Then I saw the whole back of his head come off, and the blood flying everywhere.” She swallowed. “I guess I went into a state of shock, then. Everybody else is on the ground, and I’m still standing there, frozen, with my camera in my hand, like a doofus.”

I asked, “Did you think the shots had come from the book depository?”

“No,” she said firmly. “But there was smoke drifting over the picket fence. At the time, frankly, it never occurred to me it was gun smoke. I figured there was a car in that lot that started up. But people went running up the hill. You mentioned the book depository, and even people from there, they were running down to that Grassy Knoll.”

The girl paused, as if shock was settling in yet again.

Flo asked, “What did you do next?”

“I... I walked across the street to the little slope, where everybody was gathering. I saw some people who kind of looked official, taking people and talking to them. I thought, ‘They’re gonna want to talk to me in a minute,’ and I hung around a while, but nobody approached me. I made eye contact with a Dallas cop I knew from the Carousel. I could tell he recognized me and figured, if they needed me, he’d know where to find me. So I left, without anybody questioning me, and went to my car. I didn’t hear that the President had died until I got out on North Central Expressway.”

Janet said, “Tell them about the two men who came to see you at the club the next day.”

“Actually,” Bev said, “it wasn’t the next day. I didn’t go to work Friday night — I don’t think the Colony was even open, but I didn’t go. I didn’t come here to work Saturday night, either, and of course I didn’t go to work Sunday night, after what Jack did to Oswald.”

She sipped at a glass of water we’d provided.

Then she picked up: “Monday night, I got here at my normal time, a quarter till eight, and there were two men waiting at the landing halfway up the stairs. I wasn’t concerned because a lot of times people going to the Colony would wait there for the rest of their party to catch up. As I got to the landing, the taller of the two men stepped forward. He showed me FBI identification. Said, ‘Young lady, we understand you were taking pictures when the President was killed.’ I said, ‘Yes sir, I was.’ Said, ‘Have you had the film developed yet?’ I said, ‘No sir, I haven’t.’ Said, ‘Where’s the film?’ I said, ‘Still in my camera.’ Said, ‘Where is your camera?’ I said, ‘In my makeup kit, right here in my hand.’ It was a train case, and I held it up. He said, ‘Well, we want to take that film and develop it and look at it for evidence, and we’ll get it back to you in a few days.’ That was November 25, of last year, and that’s the last I heard of it.”

Employees of the Colony Club were drifting in — waitresses, bartenders, musicians, a few dancers. The clink of glasses accompanied the lights coming down, transforming the dreary-looking club into the kind of classy venue that Jack Ruby would so dearly love to run.

“That’s an incredible story,” Flo said.

“Really,” Bev said, with a shrug, “it’s simple — I was down there that day standing between twenty and thirty feet from the President when he was shot. I was taking a movie that three days later was confiscated by a man who identified himself as an FBI agent. All there is to it.”

I said, “And you’ve never told anyone before?”

“No,” Bev said. “Mr. Heller, Janet said I could trust you. That you are a good man. And of course I know Miss Kilgore from TV.”

“You could’ve cashed in on the free publicity,” I said.

She gave me a look wiser than her years. “Mr. Heller, if they can kill the President of the United States, they could kill a two-bit songbird like me and it wouldn’t even make the back page of the newspaper.”