Hey There (You with the Gun in Your Hand)

Sixty-eight

As soon as Sammy opened his door I handed him the photo and the negative.

“Come on in.”

I entered, closing the door behind me. It was the morning after and Jerry had remained in Vegas. I wanted to get the photo back to Sammy right away.

“Did you … look at it?”

“Once,” I said, “just to make sure it was the right one.”

“We were just … bein’ silly,” he said, looking embarrassed, “and I had one shot left. May … isn’t usually this … free with her body-”

“You don’t have to explain anything to me.”

“Not that she’s a prude,” he went on, “but, man, if this picture had gotten into the papers-you dig?”

“Yeah,” I said, “I do.”

He put his hand out and I shook it, then he pulled me into a big hug.

“Thanks, Eddie. Man, I owe you.”

“You’re welcome.”

He put the photo and negative into his pocket, then asked, “And the other thing? You fix that, too?”

“I hope so,” I said.

I didn’t want to tell him there could have been more prints out there, that there was still the possibility that a photo of a naked May Britt, or a compromised JFK, could still show up in the newspapers or a magazine. It seemed like all the guilty parties were either dead or-as in the case of Caitlin and Tony-in jail, at the moment.

Apparently, the same phone call that had sprung me and Jerry had sealed Caitlin and Tony’s fate. When I had gone to sleep the night before I was almost expecting to be awakened by cops at my door, but the morning dawned with no such intrusion. Hargrove may have still had it in for me, but for the moment I seemed to be in the clear.

“Did you hear about Joe Kennedy?” Sammy asked.

“What about him?”

“He had a stroke,” Sammy said. “Yesterday.”

“Dead?” I asked.

“No, but pretty bad. They think he’ll be in a wheelchair from now on.”

“That’s too bad,” I said. “Guess I was one of the last to see him on his feet. He was … pretty damn impressive.”

“Who did it, Eddie?” he asked. “Who broke into my house and stole the photos?”

I told him.

I spent the night in the room at the Sands, and that’s where Jerry still was, but it was time for me to go home. I needed to talk to Jack Entratter, but I was putting that off for later in the day.

The rug had dried, the bullet hole was still in the door frame, but the bullet was gone. Hargrove had it.

Could he use it to come after me again? Now that Joe Kennedy was incapacitated? Well, it wasn’t as if I hadn’t been looking over my shoulder for him ever since the first time we met. So nothing had really changed.

I was making a pot of coffee when the phone rang. What I needed to do was sit quietly, drain the pot by myself, and finally stop shaking from the confrontation in the warehouse.

“Hello?”

“Eddie?”

“That’s right.”

“It’s Jack.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Jack Kennedy. The President?” he added.

“I know who you are.”

“I’m sorry to call so unexpectedly,” JFK said, “but I wanted to thank you for what you did.”

“I, uh, was under the impression that you didn’t know what was going on.”

“Oh I didn’t,” he said, “until my father had his stroke. Then I was told.”

Yeah, right.

“So … it was you who got me sprung last night?”

“Yes.”

Hargrove didn’t know how right he’d been about my connections going higher.

“Of course, no one knows it was me, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

“Of course.”

“You did your country a great service, Eddie.”

“Um, well, okay.” Now was not the time to tell him I was glad I didn’t vote for him.

There was a moment of silence, and then he asked, “Uh, you didn’t see the photo, did you, Eddie?”

“What photo was that, Mr. President?”