The Shot

For all that my first inclination was to close the file, instead I decided to keep tabs on her. This was for two reasons, neither of them anything to do with any national security threat that she might have posed. One was that she was gorgeous and I thought, married or not, she might be turned on by me being in the FBI. Faint hope. The second was that I wanted to maintain contact with him. Because by now I had checked him out and was aware of his army past, and how some of what he had done was classified. Over the next few months I got to know him pretty well and found out that he was a highly decorated marksman. He always had plenty of money and, without an obvious source of income other than a private detective agency he ran out of a box number here in Miami, and which didn't seem to have any clients, I began to wonder if he was now working for the CIA.

So then, nineteen fifty-six. The FBI's counter-intelligence programme, COINTELPRO, is initiated and I'm asked to handle it here in Miami. At first it was just harassment and disruption of people who were considered to be subversives. Ruining careers, bankrupting businesses, planting stories, smearing reputations, fucking with people's lives, all routine intelligence stuff. But then, the following year, we got this secret directive from Constitution Avenue to make things a lot rougher, so I began to look around for guys to help me handle that kind of thing.

In early fifty-eight, we decided to take out Ernesto Pereira. He was a communist friend of Jacobo Arbenz, the deposed Guatemalan President, who we suspected of trying to raise money to bring down whatever right-wing spic it was you guys had put in there. Tom Jefferson did the job for us right here in Miami.'

O'Connell nodded, but said nothing about how the CIA had employed Jefferson around the same time, to assassinate Carlos Armas, the army colonel who had taken over from Arbenz. This was Goldman's show.

The following year, he assassinated an Indonesian businessman, a friend of Sukarno's, who was selling narcotics for guns, down in Key West. Since when, he's done a couple other jobs for me, not to mention his having become an excellent source of information. He worked for me down in Mexico City as recently as October, when he took out a Russian by the name of Pavel Zaitsev. Zaitsev worked for the Russian embassy in Washington which, as you know, handles Florida as part of its consular and spying jurisdiction. Zaitsev was in and out of Miami like a fucking pelican. Flying to Cuba a lot. That was okay, we kept an eye on his comings and goings. But when he started meeting up with leftist Chileans from the Popular Action Front in Miami, and in Mexico City, we decided to get rid of him permanently. Tom did that job, too. He's a good man.

That was when I got sick. Not long afterwards I heard that Mary was dead and that Tom had gone away. He often did that, and I presumed he'd be back when he was over it. Until you showed up, that is. Now that the Security Office of the CIA is visiting with me, I'm not so sure. Look Jim, my cards are on the table. I think it's about time you did the same. What's this all about?'

O'Connell shrugged. We think it's possible they were both working for the communists.'

What? Bullshit. I vetted them myself. She never liked me all that much, but if she was a communist I'll eat my hat. And some of those people he killed. They were communists themselves. How do you work that out?'

He was in a Korean POW camp. We think it's possible they turned him while he was there. And we both know that killing other communists has never been a problem for the Russians. Look at Hungary. Recently, there have been a number of betrayals in our local anti-Castro organisation. Cuban agents who got picked up in Havana. It looks very much as though it was Tom Jefferson who betrayed them. Maybe he's G2, maybe he's KGB. We're not sure. That's why we want to find Jefferson and speak with him.'

Well, I guess he is half-Cuban,' admitted Goldman.

Yeah, but which half?'

Goldman puffed in silence. Is that all you have?' he said pointedly.

Isn't it enough?'

Like I said before, Tom was a pretty good informant, too. He told me about this Castro hit you have planned with Rosselli.'

He told you that, did he? Do you think he told anyone else?'

Come on, Jim, you're really not telling me very much. If I am going to help, I'll need a little fuckin' more than we think that it's possible, and maybe.

Okay. The mob has put a guy on Tom Jefferson's tail. A local cop by the name of Jimmy Nimmo.'

The assistant police superintendent?'

You know him?'

Not personally. But I've heard of him. He used to be a fed, didn't he? Just like you.'

Not like me. He was New York SAC for a while. Pretty damn good agent until he got drunk and hit someone. During the war, he ran an operation with Lansky and Luciano, which is how he's connected down here. Probably always was. The mob has pulled out all the stops on the organ to help him find Jefferson. And when he does I don't think he's planning to buy Jefferson lunch. You see, Rosselli and co., they're taking this thing very personally. They wanted to fix the problem before we found out that they had one. Not to mention the fact that your pal disappeared with a hundred grand of their money. So, now we do know about it, we'd like to catch up with Jefferson before this Nimmo guy does. Maybe even use him ourselves. Turn him back.'

Why not just speak to Johnny Rosselli and have him call off his dog?'

There's no point in doing that if he's on Jefferson's scent. By all accounts Jefferson's not so easy to find. Nimmo may actually be the best chance we have of finding him ourselves. Unless you have any bright ideas, Alex. That's really why I'm here.'

Goldman inspected his pipe and went over to the window. Where's Nimmo now?'

That's about the only thing we do know. A month ago he told his office he needed to take some personal leave. Then, about ten days before Christmas, they heard that he had to go to New York. And that if they needed to get in touch with him, he would be staying at the Shelburne Hotel.'

Goldman turned and leaned on the sill. I guess he's on the scent, all right. Tom used to go to New York a lot. He had a safe house somewhere.' Goldman sighed as he tried to remember. I'm not exactly sure where, though. Was it the Upper West Side, or the Upper East Side? My brain's like shit since this fucking cholera. But I reckon it'll come to me. I'll call when I do remember.'

Do you think he still trusts you?'

Why shouldn't he?'

Then we were thinking that maybe you were the one to bring him in.'

For you guys?' Goldman laughed and, returning to his desk, knocked out the pipe in the crystal ashtray. For a moment it hummed like a bell. Hey, I'm only just back on my feet, you know. Until just a few days ago, my throat led straight into my asshole. You want me to go to New York for you, and find Jefferson before Nimmo does?'

If that's where he is.'

I reckon it is. Tom always did like New York.'

ASAP.'

What's the all-fired hurry?'

I'm not sure I understand your question, Alex.'

The mob is pulling out all the stops, you said. Now you guys. So he's got a hundred grand. So he's fucked up your plan to kill Castro. You are telling me everything, aren't you?'

Unless he's planning to kill Santa Claus, that's really it, Alex. If there's any urgency on our part, it's because we don't like Russian spies running around the country, maybe finding out things they shouldn't. I can only imagine Rosselli feels much the same way. He may be a mobster, but he's a patriotic kind of guy.'

What's my deal?'

Your expenses.'

Natch.'

Signed without scrutiny.'

Goldman made a face. For pulling your nuts out of the fire? Goes without saying.'

He was your agent, Alex. I'd have thought you'd be quite glad to avoid any potential embarrassment.'

There might be some heat on me, it's true. But nothing I can't handle. If his cover did include killing commie scumbags, then I'd say I was pretty much in the clear, Jim.'

Okay,' shrugged O'Connell. Name your price.'

Goldman grinned. Now you're talking, Big Jim. You know, this is a pretty weird town. We've got all kinds of Cuban scum, commies, looney tunes, niggers, homo fucking sexuals - this town is lousy with fags, Jim - goddamned radicals, you name it. I'm supposed to fuck them around with not much more than my imagination, and lately that's been getting just a little tired. I need some new ways of provoking some of these mothers. They need to be encouraged a little before you can nail their asses. Their violent, irrational, embarrassing, and crazy ways need a little enhancement, so that the proper action can be taken against them. Anyway, I've been hearing this rumour that some of the mad scientists who work in your TSS Chemical Division have come up with this mind-control drug. I don't know what it's called. MKULTRA is all I know. But I was hoping you could get me some supply. It would sure make a change from anonymous letters and telephone wiretaps.'

That stuff can send you nuts,' objected O'Connell.

Then it sounds like exactly the sort of juice I'm looking for, Big Jim. Something to radicalise the radicals, and agitate the agitators. Just the thing to make 'em do something that'll put them in jail where they belong.

I'll have to clear it with Bissell,' said O'Connell. He's kind of interested in that MKULTRA shit. Anything scientific or technological, he's hot for. Now that your friend Jefferson has let us all down with the plan to hit Castro, Bissell's got all sorts of weird ideas about how to fix the Big Barbudo without risking security. MKULTRA's just one of them.' O'Connell shrugged. Hell, I don't see why not. Matter of fact, that might work out rather well, that is if you are going to New York. One of the places they've been testing the stuff is in a cathouse in Greenwich Village. The hookers give the stuff to their Johns, and our guys film the results through a two-way mirror. I'm told it's turning into quite a home movie.'

Goldman nodded. One more thing. Suppose I do catch up with Tom Jefferson. And suppose I do persuade him to speak to you guys.

What then?'

Our New York station will give you any assistance you need, Alex.'

What about Jimmy Nimmo? Suppose he doesn't care to be pushed out of the picture? Chances are he's on a fat finder's fee from Rosselli. I don't think he'll just calmly walk away from that, do you?'

If he gets in your way, then deal with him. Use your own discretion. Take a management decision.'

He's a cop, Big Jim.'

He's a bent cop. If necessary, New York station will help you to dispose of the situation.'

Goldman nodded and said, New Year in New York, eh? It'll sure beat Christmas Eve on the toilet.'

Chapter 22

On the Trail of the Assassins

As soon as Jim O'Connell, from the Security Division of the CIA, left FBI headquarters in Miami, Alex Goldman went home and called Tom Jefferson in Cambridge. He told Tom about how Giancana and Rosselli had contracted a Miami cop who was ex-FBI to try to find him and kill him, and how the CIA had, it seemed, finally woken up to what Mary Jefferson's purpose had been when she went to bed with Jack Kennedy.

I'm not sure they know exactly how many times he fucked her, but either way, since she's now dead, it means they're kind of anxious to speak to you, Paladin. Because the fact is they still don't know shit. They seem to think that I might be able to help them to find you, before Nimmo does it for the mob, on account of the COINTELPRO work you've done for me in the past, and to bring you in for the CIA. Since Nimmo's currently in New York, I believe, then it's even possible that he may actually be on your trail.'

What trail?' asked Tom. I've been careful. There's no way he could have trailed me here.'

Yeah, well, they must know something. The mob is real good at finding people. I'm flying to New York tonight to try and find out exactly how much he knows. The good news is that the CIA don't seem to mind if Nimmo gets taken out of the way for good. They really don't want any harm to come to you. Now, isn't that comforting? Like I say, I'll try to find out what he knows, if anything, and then kill him.'

If you do that, won't the CIA figure you know where I am after all?'

Not necessarily. I'll probably tell them that I met Nimmo, who told me that you were already dead. That he'd killed you. After all, that's what he's supposed to do. Giancana's kind of pissed at you, taking his money like that, Rosselli, too. Pissed and embarrassed. They don't want anything upsetting their thing with the CIA, because the CIA's going to get them off the hook with the FBI, and McLellan. That's what they believe, anyway. Besides, I'm not actually going to put a gun to Nimmo's head. Nothing so crude. I leave that kind of thing to you, Paladin. No sir, Mister Nimmo is going to have an accident. I'll simply tell O'Connell that I was supposed to meet him somewhere, but that he never showed up. The way I'll pitch it, things will sound like maybe the mob killed him because he was getting greedy. That he wanted a lot of money to keep his mouth shut about Castro, and stuff. They're real paranoid about that, let me tell you.

So Paladin, you just relax and leave everything to your Uncle Alex. Let me do my job. If this guy Nimmo was really on your case, he'd be in Boston, right? Anyway, none of this shit will matter after January nine. You'll be out of the country, spending some of that money you've got saved. People like Giancana, Rosselli, Nimmo, O'Connell, Kennedy, they'll be just a fucking memory to you. You will have earned a well-deserved vacation. Not to mention a lot more money. We both will. So, take it easy and I'll see you on January five. Okay?'

Yeah, okay. And a Happy New Year to you, too.'

Chapter 23

Nocturne

After spending his own Christmas Day alone at the Shelburne, Nimmo's lack of success began to seem oppressive. Giancana kept calling to remind Nimmo of what he already knew, which was that Kennedy's arrival in New York was now just a few days away. A lot of the time he stayed out of the hotel to avoid having to tell Giancana about his lack of progress. He decided it was time to show his hand.

At Lenox Lanes he handed Quinton Hindrew the picture of Tom Jefferson and told him that he was a private investigator working for a smart firm of Miami attorneys, who were looking to pay Jefferson a substantial legacy. But even with a free buck in his greasy pocket, Hindrew just shook his head and swore he'd never seen the guy in the picture before, which was enough to make Nimmo think he was lying. He tried the same thing with Joie Dee, but with a sawbuck that was supposed to be for a lot of other things as well. Joie said that Jefferson's was an interesting face, being completely symmetrical, like a Rorschach ink blot, she said, and that it didn't remind her of anything or anyone, but if she did see anyone who looked like him -how much was that legacy? - then maybe she'd tell Nimmo, and out of gratitude Jefferson would marry her, because she could sure use a rich husband. With the accent on use, she laughed.

New York was a very different city at night. But contrary to the popular prejudice, in most parts of the city it was easier to talk to strangers by night than by day. People had more time. The all-night deli owner would stop cleaning his chill cabinet to discuss Kennedy's cabinet choices. Was Bobby really up to the job of being Attorney-General? The twenty-four-hour baker would put down a tray of fresh-baked bagels and tell you why he thought Penn State beat Oregon so overwhelmingly in the Liberty Bowl: Dick Hoak was, and always would be, a better quarterback than Dave Grosz. Even a cop who, irritably spinning his night-stick like a bandleader's baton, might tell you to move on by day, would walk a block with you by night, to show you the 66th IRT subway stop, or simply shoot the breeze: Broadway is not theatre now, it's movie lines.

Nimmo spoke to them all. He knew he was taking a risk that word of his search might reach the invisible ear of Tom Jefferson, and spook him to run for cover. But Nimmo was desperate now. Giancana was right. There was not much time. Kennedy was flying to New York on 2 January. Nimmo was desperate enough even to contemplate going back to Lenox Lanes and maybe beating some information - any information - out of Quinton Hindrew. Besides, he did not think that Jefferson running for cover could make much of a difference. The man could hardly remain more hidden than he was already.

It was a risk he had to take and, fortunately for Quinton Hindrew, it was a risk that, all of a sudden, seemed to pay off. A cab driver outside the Prelude recognised Jefferson from the picture Nimmo showed him, and said that just before Christmas he had taken him from Reid's Barber's Shop on Lenox to an electronics store on Broadway. In Broadway Radio, near 77th, a Mr Lewis looked at Jefferson's picture and said that a guy very like him had come in the day before Christmas, and bought a radio.

And not just any radio,' Mr Lewis explained. A Hallicrafter. That's probably the best short-wave receiver you can buy. It's got a waveband that goes from fifteen-fifty kc to thirty-four mc. With that kind of width you can eavesdrop on just about anything, or anyone, you want. Mind you, this level of sophistication doesn't come cheap. They retail for almost one seventy-five, but I can do you one for a hundred and sixty bucks.' Seeing Nimmo's incredulity that anyone would pay that kind of money for a radio, Mr Lewis added, For twenty-five cents I can let you have a record that shows you just how good a radio it is, if you want.'

Nimmo took the record and looked at the sleeve of The Amazing World of Short-Wave Listening' narrated by Alex Drier, radio-TV Man on the Go: Hear these authentic recordings of dramatic events. The President's voice from outer space! Actual capture of a desperate criminal! Radio amateur at Little America! Ships at sea! Aircraft in action!' He handed over his quarter. The record sleeve had told him all he needed to know about why anyone would have bought this kind of radio, but the information seemed worth at least twenty-five cents. Nimmo grinned. His luck really seemed to be changing.

He had money to spend, that guy. Cash money.'

Did he say why he was buying it?'

He said it was a Christmas present, to himself, because he knew his wife was getting him socks and handkerchiefs.'

Socks and handkerchiefs sounds okay to me,' confessed Nimmo, who knew he would not be getting anything, except a telephone call, and maybe a card, from his daughter. And probably only because he had sent his grandson a Teddy bear from FAO Schwarz.

Anyway, I said he must have been a good boy this year, if Santa was bringing him something like the Hallicrafter, and he laughed and he said he'd been a very good boy indeed. You ask me, mister, he doesn't need any legacy. He paid cash. New bills, too, from a fold in his back pocket that was as big as a paperback.'

You know what they say,' remarked Nimmo, having thanked the man for his help. To them that have, yea more shall be given.'

Nimmo had something himself now, almost as good as socks and handkerchiefs: the certainty that he was not in New York on some wild goose chase. Tom Jefferson was here. Maybe New York was where he planned to make the hit, after all. It was not much, but having been given this, he was quickly given more. Perhaps it was the good mood this small break had put him in, but that night he ended up in Chez Joie spending even more than was usual. And pleased to see such a display of largesse, Joie Dee was moved to respond in kind.

Let me see that photograph again,' she said. Joie was wearing a dress of compelling interest, consisting of some thoroughly transparent netting and a few sequins, just to make sure you didn't miss the high points of her voluptuous figure. Nimmo handed it over and let her make a show of pretending to remember the face, although it was obvious that she had known the face all along. You know,' she said, now I come to see it again, it seems that perhaps I do recall this guy. About two or three times a year, I think he's a regular here for maybe a week to ten days. Then he's gone again. He told me he was some kind of salesman, but he didn't look the type to be going door to door with brushes in his hand, or pushing memos around a desk. And his name wasn't Jefferson, it was Van Buren. Martin Van Buren.'

Van Buren?' Nimmo frowned. Are you sure?'

I know my American presidents. Hey, the guys who come in here give themselves all kinds of names and claim they're in all sorts of professions. Actors, doctors, movie producers. We get a lot of them. We even get the odd guy who claims he's a private investigator. Anyway, Marty was quiet, polite, well behaved and generous with his money. Just the way I like them. He never said very much. And there was one girl he seemed more fond of than most. Summer McAllum. Summer was a really beautiful girl. He liked to party with her, and only with her. A lot of guys in here used to feel that way about Summer McAllum.'

Used to?'

I had to kick her ass out of here. For one thing and then another. It's just possible that's why Marty hasn't been back here. Which is a shame, because he was a good customer. You know, if I was looking to find him, Summer'd be the one I'd want to speak to.'

Do you know where I can find her?'

Someone told me, someone I consider to be reliable, that she was working in the lower mid-town area. At the Britania Cafe. That's on Eighth Avenue and, I think, Twenty-eighth. She's a belly dancer, if you follow my meaning.'

Oh I do, but what makes that different from what happens here, upstairs?'

I employ waitresses and hostesses, not street-walkers. All I do is pay them to talk a little and wear less. If they want to arrange a party with a customer, that's their own affair, not mine. Their own money, too. People expect more from a girl on Eighth Avenue. Like maybe twenty per cent.'

Nimmo glanced at his watch and saw that it was well past midnight.

Joie said, Most of those places are open until four a.m. Tell her I said hello, and she's welcome back here if she's straightened herself out.'

How do you mean, straight?'

The kind of straight that doesn't have a spoon on the table and a tie around its arm. But not so as you'd notice. Summer looks like the all-American girl, with big rosy cheeks and everything. And I mean everything. Summer has it all. Six feet tall, with red hair, emerald green eyes, porcelain skin, and more impressive curves than the Taj Mahal. Oh yeah, and she always wears long black gloves and smokes with a long cigarette holder. If all this sounds like Ernie Kovacs on Take a Good Look, it's because you'll have to be a little careful with the Q and A down on Eighth. But I guess it's okay to ask around for Summer. Most guys do, weather we've been having.'

For a few blocks on 8th Avenue, Nimmo half expected to see Isabel Bigley, who played the Salvation Army sergeant in Guys and Dolls. It was a neighbourhood that cried out for redemption, but not so as anyone would have heard above all the noise. Most of the guys who were around - a lot were sailors ashore for a few nights and a lot of beers - had dolls in mind, although luck had nothing to do with the kind of ladies they expected to find on 8th. And if any of these girls did trust in God it was only because that was what was printed on a dollar bill. The guide books that dared to mention the girls on 8th at all referred to them as belly dancers.

It was not a bad euphemism for what went on. In more automobile-oriented cities such as Dallas or LA, girls with hearts of gold drove cars and were known, less romantically it is argued, as mechanised girls'. But like almost everyone else in New York City, the 8th Avenue broads walked, or, to be more accurate, sashayed along the street in an ostentatiously sinuous and lithe manner, as in some bogus biblical epic involving seven veils and a severed head. Thus the terpsichorean reference. Many of the establishments they and their clientele patronised - the Ali Baba, Arabian Nights, Egyptian Gardens, Grecian Palace, Istanbul, Port Said - did present some tenuous Middle Eastern connection, but on the whole there were many more belly dancers than there were shish kebabs and baklava.

With no spectacular redheads on show at the Britania, Nimmo asked around and was directed to an ice-cream parlour called Dial-a-Doll on 9th and 29th, where the schtick was a network of telephones connecting all the tables and, therefore, all the guys with all the dolls. Nimmo could tell his luck was changing. A young nymph answering Summer McAllum's description was sitting in the back, wearing a black harem-panelled silk-print dress with cognac-coloured roses, and the trademark long gloves Nimmo figured she probably wore to hide the needle marks on her arms. For all her obvious attractions, Summer looked tired, as if autumn was just around the corner.

Nimmo sat down at an empty table, ordered a coffee and a sundae, and then called Summer on the telephone. A few seconds later she was seated opposite him, smiling a well-polished smile and wielding her cigarette holder with the sophistication of one who might have finished her schooling in Switzerland instead of Hoboken. It was, she breathlessly explained, ten dollars for an hour, or twenty-five dollars for all night, which Nimmo paid, thinking that she was more likely to relax if she assumed she had earned her keep for the evening, and more likely to talk if she was relaxed. Besides, now that he had seen her, he badly wanted to have sex with her.

They jumped in a cab and she told the driver to take them to the village, on the corner of Bleecker and Cornelia. The cab dropped them close to a twenty-four-hour bakery - Zampieri Brothers. The store was closed, but Summer knocked at the side door and, uttering a few words in Italian, received a bag of fresh-baked rolls for ten cents. Breakfast,' she explained, leading him up the steps of a federal brownstone.

Seems like a friendly neighbourhood,' Nimmo small-talked nervously.

It's the Sargasso Sea as far as I'm concerned,' she remarked, opening the front door and leading him through a dim and creaking corridor that belonged in an old tea-clipper. Things may look alive round here, but they're not. It's a biological desert. And me, I'm just another derelict ship, bobbing around, entangled within the mass of floating weeds.'

That's a happy thought,' Said Nimmo, following Summer's oxbow curves along the corridor.

Round here,' she said, with a wry smile, Happy's just the name of some canyon in Oregon.'

It was just a little studio apartment that occupied the parlour floor, with a Murphy bed, an ice-cube of a bathroom, and a kitchenette that was the size and colour of an avocado pear. But it was clean and comfortable, with two eight-foot-high windows that overlooked a garden in the back, a TV, and lots of books. When she took off her gloves, he saw the Band-aids on her arms and, seeing his eyes linger there, she volunteered the information that the cat had scratched her.

You've gotta cat?'

Not so as you'd notice,' she said, peering out of the window, and then pulling the drapes. He comes and he goes, which is pretty much the way it is for all the guys around here.' There was, thought Nimmo, a bitter edge to almost everything she said, but still she kept on smiling as she said it.

Sorry,' said Nimmo.

Don't be,' she said, pulling down the Murphy. It's the laws of physics. Like gravity or the speed of light. Things are the way they are. There's no other way of looking at the world.' She paused. You want something? A drink? Dexamyl, maybe?' Nimmo shook his head. Keep you going? Make sure you get your money's worth?'

He kept shaking his head. I'll risk it.'

Summer shrugged off her dress and hung it carefully on a hanger, in a closet full of clothes. In a second or two she was naked, and standing close enough for him to smooth her cool bottom like the quarters of a very fine horse.

You're beautiful,' he said. There's sure no other way of looking at that.'

What?' she said, taking his hand and cupping her sex with it. You mean this? Why thank you.'

And Summer. That's a beautiful name, too. How'd you come by it?'

The same way as most people. I had parents. But being Summer is sometimes a little tiresome in the winter, you know. Like that Laurel and Hardy film. When they're playing a bass and harmonium combo in the snow? And the tune is The Good Old Summertime.'

Nimmo grinned. Below Zero,' he said, that's a good one. You like Laurel and Hardy?'

Two men sharing a bed? Sure. It's quite the thing round here.'

He pressed his face close to her belly. I couldn't love anyone who didn't like those guys.'

In the circumstances, I'd say that was fortunate, wouldn't you?'

When it was over, not very long after it had started, and she was lying beside him, she said, Did you enjoy that?'

Very much. Thank you.'

Just tell me when you want to go again.'

You must be thinking of some younger guy,' he said. I'm more like a play than a movie. It's just the one performance a night, I'm afraid.'

Not even a matinee?'

Not even a rehearsal.'

Told you, you should have had that Dexamyl.'

But there's one thing you could do,' he said carefully. It would make you another twenty-five.'

Summer jerked her head up from Nimmo's vested chest. Look mister, with me it's straight sex. No whips, no chains, no enemas.'

Relax, it's nothing like that.'

Like what, then?'

Like some information.'

You a cop?'

Hell, no. Private investigator. I'm trying to find a guy.'

If that's all there is to it, then I must be Nora Charles.'

You'd sure make a lousy Asta.'

Twenty-five, huh? Who's the guy?'

Martin Van Buren.'

Marty? I haven't seen him in a while. Is he in trouble?'

No, his parents died in a car crash, and left him some money.'

Jeez, some guys have all the luck.' Summer sat up and lit a cigarette. I'll bet you're on some kind of percentage. Like a recovery fee. So what do you wanna know?'

Everything there is.'

For five bills? Haven't you heard? Everything costs more these days.'

Then that would be everything including an address, for maybe a little more.'

I'm not sure I can write you an envelope with a zip code. But for fifty I could do the next best thing. Take you there. You see, mostly, Marty would come here. I only went to his apartment once.'

When was this?'

Summer shrugged. The summer, sometime. Seems like a long time ago, anyway.'

And where?'

Somewhere on Riverside Drive.'

You're not telling me much, are you? Have you got a cross street, or were you planning to look for footprints?'

But Nimmo was grinning. His chest was tight with excitement, just the way it had been when Summer had taken his finger and put it inside her. This not-so-stupid little street-walker actually seemed to know where Tom Jefferson lived. It was beginning to look as if New Year was going to be a lot better than Christmas.

It was close by the Ninety-sixth Street viaduct. I'm almost sure I'd recognise the building again.' She finished her cigarette and stubbed it out in a little glass ashtray. So? Have we got a deal?'

Okay, deal. Another fifty on top of the twenty-five I already gave you. Half up front. The rest when you show me the building. That's seventy-five dollars in total.'

You do have another fifty, don't you, mister?'

Nimmo gave her another five bills from the fold he was carrying.

Good.' Summer pulled up Nimmo's vest and began to kiss his chest, then his stomach, and, finally, his penis. Looking up for a moment, she said, Would you care to make that an even hundred?'

Tree-lined Riverside Drive is one of the city's loveliest and longest streets. Between 72nd Street and Inwood Hill Park, which borders the Harlem River and separates Manhattan from the Bronx, Riverside Drive runs for almost ten miles along the banks of the Hudson. Much of the dignity and elegance that characterised the drive when first it was built has gone, but it still rivals 5th Avenue as one of the most fashionable addresses in town.

Later that morning, Summer McAllum took Nimmo to a spot a little south of the 96th Street viaduct, to West 93rd where, on a slight crest overlooking Riverside Park, stood the Joan of Arc memorial statue.

She is the reason why I remembered where it was,' explained Summer. Joan of Arc. I've always identified with her. On account of the fact that French was always my favourite subject at school. Also, when I was fifteen, I nearly burned to death in a house fire. I used to come here a lot when I was working at Chez Joie. The pedestal underneath the statue contains fragments from Rheims Cathedral, and the Tower at Rouen. They were places in France that were important to Joan.'

Nimmo tried to affect interest in the rather Gothic-looking statue, and the charismatic life it memorialised. But it was bitterly cold. An icy wind blowing off the Hudson River sharpened his desire to finish his search. Hard as he tried to imagine the horror and injustice of it, an enormous pile of burning faggots heaped around a nineteen-year-old virgin could only feel attractive to his freezing fingers and numb nose.

That's the building, there,' she said, pointing across the drive. Number two hundred. I remember now. The apartment was on the tenth floor, I think. Only I don't recall the number. But it had a good view of the Palisades. And that Spry sign, of course.'

Nimmo took hold of Summer's arm and, walking her across the road, and past the large building that was 200 Riverside Drive, he glanced in at the doorman, wondering if Jefferson was living there as the third President of the United States, or the eighth, or something else again. Zachary Taylor, perhaps. But for the fact that Paul Ianucci had checked his identity with various government departments, he might have wondered if Tom Jefferson was a real name at all. He kept walking them north along Riverside Drive, and then east, on to Broadway. In the Adlo Book and Card shop on the corner of 106th, he bought two large envelopes and two copies of the New Yorker. He stuffed the magazines into the envelopes, sealed them, and then wrote out two addresses, one in the name of Mr T. Jefferson and the other in the name of Mr M. Van Buren. Then they walked back to 200 Riverside Drive, and went inside the building.

It could, he thought, have been his own grandfather standing there, behind the little redoubt that was the doorman's desk, an impression enhanced by the memory that upon his retirement George Nimmo had been a doorman at the long-forgotten Pabst Hotel, on 42nd Street. This was now the New York Times Tower where, in a matter of a few hours, enormous throngs of revellers would gather to welcome in the New Year.

Nimmo took out his glasses and, with pen poised, made a little pantomime of getting ready to complete the addresses on the two manila envelopes.

Pardon me,' he said in an effete, Mittel-European accent of the kind that is heard a lot on the Upper West Side, in places like Eclair, an excellent Viennese pastry shop on West 72nd. But I cannot remember the right apartment numbers. Could you help me, please? Which number is Mister Jefferson?'

Putting down his cigarette, the small, elderly doorman, whose face was smoked back to the skull, frowned. Jefferson? No sir, there's no one of that name here.' For a moment he was distracted by two people exiting the elevator and heading towards the door. He nodded to one of them and smiled.

Strange,' said Nimmo. Well then, what about Mister Van Buren?'

There's no one of that name either, sir. I'm sorry.'

Are you quite sure of that?'

The doorman kept on shaking his head. He said, I've been the doorman here for eleven years, sir. I know everyone in this building.'

How very odd,' exclaimed a perplexed-looking Nimmo, and politely handed the doorman both envelopes. Tom Jefferson? Martin Van Buren? You see, their names are written here.'

Not so odd, sir,' said the doorman. These are addressed to number two hundred and ten Riverside. This is two hundred.'

It is?'

Yes sir.'

How very stupid of me,' sighed Nimmo. I'm very sorry to have wasted your time.'

Outside the door, Nimmo confronted Summer McAllum with Van Buren's non-existence. You wouldn't be trying to take me for a sucker, would you?' he asked.

Summer shook her head. I swear, this is the building. I don't remember there being a doorman. But it was late when we came here, after midnight, so it wasn't like he had to use his name, or anything. There wasn't even a night man. I remember we took a self-service elevator up to the tenth floor. And I do remember the statue. And the place he took me for breakfast, in the morning.'

Breakfast? You didn't mention that before.'

Rosenblum's on Broadway. I got the impression he went there a lot. They seemed to know him. And that's all I know. Honest. Can I have my fifty bucks now? Please. I'm cold. I'm tired. And I want to go home.'

What, and miss out on a nutritious breakfast?'

Rosenblum's Kosher Deli on Broadway, near 100th Street, was large and full of people, most of whom were fat and old, which was why they probably remembered someone as young and beautiful as Summer McAllum.

Nice to see you again,' said the obviously enamoured waiter.

Miss Goldberg,' she said, without missing a beat. This is my boss, Mister Meyer.'

Nice to meet you, Mister Meyer,' said the waiter, hardly taking his eyes off Summer.

I told him about this place,' she said spiritedly. He's one of those Stage or Carnegie people, you know? But I told him what a friendly place this is. And how good the pastrami is.'

Your other friend certainly thinks so,' said the waiter.

Who?'

Who. The guy you were here with last time. How could I forget? What am I saying? The guy who was here with you, that's who. Franklin Pierce.'

Oh, Frankie,' gushed Summer. Of course. Now I remember. It was him who brought me here, wasn't it? Frankie's the guy I was telling you about, Mister Meyer. How is Frankie? I haven't seen him in ages.'

He was in here just before Christmas, on his way down to the library, I think.'

I'm sorry to have missed him. Tell him I said hello.'

After they had ordered breakfast, and when the waiter finally left Summer alone, Nimmo said, You missed your vocation, honey. You should work for the FBI. Better still, the CIA. A quick-thinking broad like you would make a swell honey-trap.'

Ugh,' grimaced Summer. I hate honey.' Nimmo got up from his seat. Don't take it personally. Where are you going?' she asked.

I need to make a quick call,' he said, but in the phone booth in the back of the deli, his fingers raced through the phone book until his nail was underlining an F. Pierce at 200 Riverside Drive, Apartment 1010, New York, New York, Telephone RI 9-3359. It was like his numbers had come up. He took out a matchbook and scribbled down the address and telephone number.

You look happy,' she observed, when he came back.

He sat down and, handing her fifty dollars under the table, said, It's going to be a great New Year.'

Chapter 24

It's a Wonderful Life

Having paid off Summer, Jimmy Nimmo returned to the Shelburne Hotel to take a shower and change his clothes. While he shaved, his mind tried out various permutations of his next course of action. By the time he was in the shower, the possibilities had come down to his entering 200 Riverside Drive after midnight when, according to Summer, the doorman went off duty, and taking the self-service elevator up to the tenth floor, where he would let himself into the apartment of Franklin Pierce and, at gunpoint, have the occupant call Johnny Rosselli on the telephone, before blowing his brains out on the carpet. No one would pay much attention to the sound of a gunshot on New Year's Eve - not even the sensitive folks who lived on Riverside Drive. He even knew where to get hold of Rosselli. The gangster was planning to spend the evening in the Fontainebleu's La Ronde Supper Club, with Sam Levenson, Ben Novack, and Dick Shawn. Nimmo thought it was just possible that with a .38 pressed against his ear, Jefferson might say how and when and where he planned to assassinate Jack Kennedy, although by now Jimmy Nimmo had sufficient respect for the marksman to conclude that he would be doing well if he got through the door to Jefferson's apartment, and shot him dead. With a professional killer such as Tom Jefferson, it was probably best to keep things as simple and straightforward as possible.

And if Jefferson should be out somewhere, celebrating New Year, then so much the better, thought Nimmo: he would wait for him, settle down with a drink, and sap the guy as he came through the door. Then he could tie him up and try a little Q and A. Because whichever way he looked at it, just to know the details of Jefferson's plan would have neatly cauterised the stump of any bleeding doubts that might follow on from Jefferson's amputated life. They were probably the same doubts that might make Giancana forget to be grateful, and maybe inhibit him from paying Nimmo the remainder of his money. Money that was going to buy him a pretty good retirement.

Nimmo came out of the shower and dried himself vigorously. For the first time in a long while Duke Ellington was back in residence inside his head, and there was a big band swing in the way he moved across the room to answer the telephone.

It was the Massachusetts State House in Boston whom Nimmo, posing as a member of the Secret Service Protective Research Section, had telephoned the previous day to enquire about the Board of Overseers that Kennedy was possibly scheduled to visit on 9 January. Kennedy's trip to Boston had seemed almost unimportant beside New York, but he had felt it necessary to explore every possibility. The person with whom he had spoken earlier, a Mrs Hichborn, had adamantly told Nimmo that there was no such thing as a Board of Overseers in the new State House or, for that matter, the Old State House, which was a very different building. There was just the state legislature, formally named the Massachusetts General Court, and the House of Representatives. In her near English accent that reminded Nimmo of Eleanor Roosevelt, Mrs Hichborn explained how she had been racking her brains to solve Agent Nimmo's mystery, and that she had made a special journey into the office on a Saturday morning because she now believed she knew what must have happened.

I've worked here for seventeen years, Agent Nimmo, and sometimes, like Oliver Wendell Holmes, I tend to think of the Boston State House as the hub of the solar system. So I hope you'll excuse me if I wasn't more obviously helpful when you telephoned yesterday. Last night I thought and I thought, and I said to my husband, I simply cannot believe that the Secret Service would make something like this up. There must be a Board of Overseers somewhere in Boston. Well, my husband, Allen, works in the Widener Library at Harvard University, and he said that there's a Board of Overseers at Harvard, of course, which is the senior governing board of the university, and which holds a bimonthly meeting in the faculty room of University Hall. Well, of course Senator Kennedy, who's an old Harvard man, is, like three other Harvard men who were President of the United States, a member of that same Board of Overseers. He has been since nineteen fifty-seven when, Allen tells me, he was elected to the board with the largest vote ever obtained by a candidate, getting over seventy per cent of votes cast by Harvard alumni the world over.

By all accounts, Senator Kennedy takes his administrative obligations very seriously. The next meeting of the Harvard Board of Overseers is ten thirty a.m. on January ninth. If the Senator does come here to the State House - and it's still by no means certain that he will, I might add - it won't be until the late afternoon, possibly around five thirty p.m., when he'll make a speech to the whole two-hundred-and-eighty-member Great and General Court. If he does come, then we'll be very honoured of course, not least because it will be his first formal speech since his election on November eighth.'

When Mrs Hichborn finally stopped talking, and Nimmo had got through thanking her for coming in on a Saturday morning to tell him her news, and apologising for his stupidity in making such an elementary mistake, he got dressed, walked quickly out of the hotel, and more or less ran to the public library, where an assistant helped him to find a reference book on America's universities.

Harvard's Old University Hall, where the Board of Overseers were scheduled to meet, was in Harvard Yard, which comprised two enormous quadrangles of lawns and trees surrounded by various undergraduate dormitories. One look at the photograph of Harvard Yard told Nimmo all he needed to know about where Tom Jefferson was planning to shoot John F. Kennedy. With the front of University Hall overlooked by no fewer than three or four hundred windows, not to mention ten rooftops, and a bell-tower, it would have taken an army of Secret Service agents to have made the Yard safe for the President-elect to walk in. Harvard Yard looked like a sniper's alley, with John F. Kennedy a sitting duck. It was true, there were plenty of tall buildings and windows on Park Avenue, but in New York Kennedy would be out of a building and into a limousine in the blink of a sniper's eye. Not much chance for a shot there. Going back to Harvard University, however, would be like a Roman general accorded a triumph. Surely Kennedy would want to savour the moment. Surely he would want to shake a few hands, maybe even speak to some students. College students were an undisciplined lot even at the best of times. How could the Secret Service ever hope to deal with them? Harvard had to be the place where Jefferson would strike.

Excuse me, Mister Nimmo?'

Nimmo looked up from the book he was examining and into the face of a largish man, with crew-cut grey hair, and wearing a tan polar-style coat, with a wool-faced lining and hood, and a hefty zip that was open to reveal a three-piece grey-green plaid suit.

Who wants to know?'

The man doffed his hat and, grinning, shook his head. I was waiting in the lobby of your hotel, sir. But when you dashed out, well, I'll tell you, you caught me by surprise, sir. I only just managed to see you duck in here, and then I'm afraid I lost you for a while.' The man took out a little wallet that he opened for Nimmo's inspection. My name is Goldman, sir. I'm with the FBI. I was hoping that I might have a quiet word with you, sir.'

This is as quiet as it gets in New York,' said Nimmo.

Goldman glanced around uncomfortably, affecting disinterest in the book about Harvard that Nimmo held open in his hands. Perhaps,' he whispered, this is a little too quiet. There is something about a library that doesn't exactly encourage free and frank conversation. Look, what do you say we go across the street and go find ourselves a cup of coffee?'

Nimmo looked at his watch like a man getting ready to time a race. It was eleven thirty, and he had nowhere special to go. But just about the last thing he needed now that he was so close to finding Tom Jefferson was to end up down at the FBI's offices on 3rd and 69th, answering a lot of awkward questions. So he winced and said, I'm afraid that I have a lunch appointment.

Come on. Please. Look, you used to be in the job. You know how it is. Just a few minutes of your time and then I'll leave you alone.'

All right,' agreed Nimmo, closing the book. Just a few minutes sounded about right. It couldn't very well be anything too awkward if that was all the time Goldman required of him. Following the burly FBI agent out of the reading room, he added, But it would help if I knew what it was about.'

Sure, sure,' said Goldman, zipping up his polar coat against the last cold day of 1960. Let's try Grand Central, shall we?' he suggested, and led the way down and across 42nd Street.

Inside the station they crossed the cavernous main concourse with its zodiac ceiling, and walked away from the three giant windows, towards the first coffee shop they saw. Goldman put a cigarette into his mouth and pointed to an empty table.

Take a seat. I'll get these,' he said.

A minute or two later he brought the coffees, the cigarette still unlit in the corner of his clumsy-looking mouth like a forgotten thermometer. Goldman placed a cup of coffee carefully in front of Nimmo and then, making a collapsing noise as if he had been on his feet for a long while, sat down opposite. He sipped his coffee gratefully.

You're a hard man to keep up with, Nimmo.'

What happened to sir?' asked Nimmo.

Goldman grinned. You're here now, aren't you? We can cut through all that bullshit and get down to business.'

I'm all for that happening,' Nimmo said patiently.

What it's about,' Goldman said, with tantalising cunctation, is a whole lot of things, as a matter of fact.' He was searching his many pockets for a light and, deciding that the best way of moving their conversation forwards would be if Goldman could actually begin smoking, Nimmo handed him his book of matches. Thanks a lot,' said Goldman, and, having puffed himself into action, he handed back the matchbook, adding, with eyes narrowed against the smoke, and perhaps the impression he had of Nimmo, Things must be going all right for you since you left the Bureau, I guess.' He nodded at the matchbook. Liborio. Friends in Riverside Drive. Staying at the Shelburne. New coat. Nice gloves. Yes sir, they must be going all right.'

You don't miss much, do you, Agent Goldman?' said Nimmo, carefully replacing the matchbook - the one on which he had written Tom Jefferson's address when breakfasting in Rosenblum's Deli - in his pocket.

Me?' Goldman grinned good-naturedly. Oh hell, I miss my fair share. In our business everyone misses something sometime, don't they? It's an occupational hazard.'

If you say so. Look, what's this all about?'

Johnny Rosselli is what. We've been trying to get a handle on that guy for a while now.'

What makes you think I can help you?'

You do know him, don't you?'

Nimmo sipped his coffee and found it surprisingly good. Sure I know him. It's hard to be in a position of any civic responsibility in Miami and not run across Johnny Rosselli from time to time.'

How about Rafael Gener? Macho Gener to his friends. Ever come across him?'

Never even heard of him.'

He's a Cuban friend of Rosselli's. Judy Campbell? How about her?'

Heard of her. But I've never met the lady.'

Doesn't matter. It's Rosselli we're really interested in. Did you know he plays golf with Joe Kennedy?'

You know more than me.'

It's always possible. What about women?'

What about them?'

What I mean is, do you think that Rosselli is a fag?'

Nimmo found himself grinning. A fag? No. The few times I've seen him socially, he always seems to have plenty of girls around. There was an actress I believe he was involved with. Ann Corcoran. And before that it's my information that he was married to another movie actress. June Lang.'

Yeah, but that was twenty years ago.' Goldman's nose wrinkled. Besides, it only lasted, what? A year and a half?'

Like I said, you know more than me. I'd like to help you, Agent Goldman, but to be quite frank with you, Johnny Rosselli's sexuality is a closed book to me.' Nimmo sipped some more coffee and smiled. For a moment back there, he had actually been concerned that the Bureau and its THP might be about to pose some awkward questions. But the idea that the feds were investigating Rosselli's sex life was almost hilarious.

Ever go to his apartment in LA?'

There you go again. I didn't even know he had an apartment in LA.'

Twelve fifty-nine Crescent Heights Avenue. Near the Strip.'

Nimmo shook his head.

Would it surprise you to learn that on some weekends, when he's in LA, Rosselli brings boys from a local Catholic orphanage to swim in his pool?'

Nimmo laughed out loud. Yes, as a matter of fact it would. I didn't know he was much of a Catholic.'

That's not what I meant.'

I know what you meant.'

Look Nimmo, Rosselli's a hoodlum, but he's a hard sonofabitch to nail, as a racketeer. So then, in the same way that we nailed Capone, not as a racketeer, but for income tax evasion, we're looking to nail Rosselli's ass for a fruit. I just thought you might be able to shed some light on whether you thought any of these women you've seen him with were beards. You know, girls along for the show, to make him seem more like a real man around his mob pals. Those guys dislike pansies even more than most. I mean, can you think of one of those wiseguys who's been a fucking faggot?'

Nope, can't say that I've ever thought about it much.'

The underworld is a man's world. It's a crooked world. But it sure isn't a queer one.'

Look,' grinned Nimmo. He's Italian. He dresses nice. He wears cologne. He's polite. For a racketeer he's even, you might say, polished. Good manners. I think he's even nice to his mother. Sends her money back in Boston. But none of those things makes you a pansy. I think Rosselli would talk to Bobby Kennedy before he would let you guys charge him with being a lousy pederast.'

Bobby Kennedy? Well, he's queer, too.'

Nimmo laughed out loud. It was as good a laugh as he had had since coming back to New York. Bobby Kennedy a queer. Goldman was funnier than Milton Berle and Jack Benny, and certainly more original.

You think this is funny?'

You're damn right I think it's funny,' said Nimmo. He sipped some more coffee, leaned back in his chair, and put a cigarette in his mouth. Bobby Kennedy, queer.'

It is kind of funny, isn't it?' grinned Goldman. I just made that up, actually.'

By now, Nimmo was thinking Goldman looked a fairly decent sort of guy. His face was as big as it was open, which made it the wrong kind of face to have if you were in the FBI. Hoover did not like grinners. Once, Nimmo had overheard the director telling Richard Hood, then head of the FBI's field office in Los Angeles, to fire an agent because he smiled too much. And now here was one of Hoover's men - Hoover, whose own sexuality was open to question -trying to find out if Johnny Rosselli was queer. It seemed just too funny for words.

Why don't you see if Hoover has any personal knowledge of Rosselli being a pansy?' Nimmo suggested playfully. Or maybe he'll have some expert ideas on how to catch Rosselli with his pants down. Maybe Hoover might even care to volunteer to put his own ass on the line. You know, like a honey-trap.'

Nimmo flicked a match with his thumbnail and watched it fire up like a tiny yellow flower. Everything was looking good to him since he had discovered Tom Jefferson's address, and where and when he was planning to try and kill Kennedy. Even the matches he was scraping into being.

Grinning hugely now, like a Red Indian witch doctor's mask Nimmo had once seen in the Museum of Natural History, Goldman said, Perhaps I will at that, the old faggot.'

That's the idea, Agent Goldman. Goldman. What's that, a Hebe name?'

Something wrong with that?'

Naw. Could be worse. You could be a goddamn faggot. Like Hoover.'

Next Passover, I'll try and remember that.'

Nimmo laughed. You do that.'

You seem like you're in a pretty good mood.'

It's New Year's Eve. Why not? I had the lousiest Christmas on record. But nineteen sixty-one is shaping up very nicely.'

I'm glad to hear it.'

Nimmo finished his coffee and, taking a deep, unhurried drag on his cigarette, watched the smoke curl away from his face. He was in no hurry now that he knew Goldman was after information about Rosselli's sex life.

Smiling wryly, he said, Matter of fact, I got laid last night. Which no doubt explains why I'm feeling so good about myself. Best-looking broad you ever saw. I mean, really beautiful. Her name was Summer. Sounds corny, I know. But all those gals give themselves crackerbarrel names. Her hair. Her hair was fantastic. The colour of that light over there.' He pointed over Goldman's shoulder to the light that was flooding the main station concourse. Good mood? Hell, I'm walking on air this morning.'

I hear that'll do it,' said Goldman, still grinning broadly at Nimmo. Getting laid.' But the FBI agent's intensely green eyes seemed to burn into Nimmo's face, as if he was still curious about something.

You still look like you have an important question to ask, my friend.'

Just one.'

Just the one? Jesus, what's the Bureau coming to? Just the one question. Ask away.'

It's about Tom Jefferson.'

Are you sure you mean him and not Franklin Pierce?' snorted Nimmo. Or Martin Van Buren? Or, Jesus I don't know.' Nimmo pulled a name down from the mote-filled air. He actually tried, physically, to reach for one. Millard Fillmore?' Laughing now, he added, Rutherford Hayes?'

Who else knows where he is living in New York?' Goldman asked levelly.

How do you mean?'

Does the mob know where he is yet?'

Very much to his own surprise, Nimmo found himself saying, No, just me.' And now that he considered the question in more detail, it really did not seem to matter all that much. I only found out myself this morning,' he sighed. He and I are going to celebrate New Year's Eve together.'

A party?'

Yes, you could call it that. Except that it'll be just him and me. No one else is invited. Not even you. Tom and I will see the new year in with a bang. Quite a loud one, I shouldn't wonder. Yes sir, we'll paint the whole room red.' Nimmo frowned. Talking of colours, that's quite a suit you're wearing there, fellow.'

You like it, huh?'

It looks great. What the hell kind of material is that?'

English plaid. Cost me eighty bucks.'

Hell, you could have got a new one for that,' chuckled Nimmo. But no, worth every penny of what you paid, I'd say. It really is incredible. I can see every living fibre.'

How about Harvard? Is that where he's going when he leaves New York?'

Harvard?'

The book you were reading in the library?'

Oh yes. Now I remember. He's on the Board of Overseers. I was in the bath when I suddenly thought, like Archimedes, Eureka! I've found it!'

Everyone in the coffee shop looked around to see who it was that had shouted so loudly.

And I dashed out of the hotel and into the library, and found the right book, and I just knew as sure as eggs is eggs that he was going to Harvard University.'

Must be a clever guy.'

Goldman was standing up now, and putting on the polar coat. He seemed taller than Nimmo remembered. And the polar coat was not tan-coloured but golden, so that it almost seemed as if, like Hercules, Goldman was putting on the skin of lion. Then he was helping Nimmo on to his feet.

Come on,' he said. It's time we were moving.'

Are we going somewhere?'

We're all going somewhere.' For the benefit of the rail passengers in the coffee shop, he looked around and said, Just a little early New Year's Eve celebration, folks. Nothing to worry about.'

Happy New Year,' shouted Nimmo.

Goldman ushered him out on to the station concourse. Are you okay? You seem a little hysterical.'

Hysterical?' Nimmo grinned. I never felt better in my whole life. My God. Will you just look at this place? I never really looked at this building before. It's fantastic.'

Grand Central? It sure is something, isn't it? They really knew how to build something back then.'

And this is the way it really is. This is the way you ought to see it, always. On a day like this. With the sun streaming through the tall windows on to the blonde marble floors.' Nimmo wrestled his arm away from Goldman's grasp. Look at that. It's a giant ladder up to the heavens, that's what it is. If Jacob, the son of Isaac, was here now, why he'd climb up that ladder and speak to the Lord himself. Of course. Look at that. Yes. That must be how it was. That must be how it happened. For Jacob, I mean. A ladder of fiery sunlight. I must have been in this station a thousand times, and I never really looked at it before. It's enough to make you believe.'

In what?'

In God, of course. In everything. Heavens above.'

Nimmo was staring up at the ceiling now, with its illuminated constellations of the zodiac. They looked quite different from when he had come into the station some thirty minutes earlier. If a station was what this place really was. Surely, he thought, a building such as this one, made of gold and filled with lights, must be some kind of secret temple wherein the elect were shown things that not everyone could see. Why else could he see, and not the others who were walking around with nothing more transcendent than a train on their minds? It was inspiring and it was humbling at the same time: that he, of all people, should have been given the privilege of seeing such a wonder.

Nimmo shook his head in awe and whispered, This place is one of the wonders of the world.'

Shucks, this isn't as wonderful as some of the things you can see in New York, my friend. You ain't seen nuthin' yet.

Goldman led Nimmo outside, on to 42nd Street, where immediately the sight of so many yellow cabs and so much human hustle and bustle struck Nimmo as inherently laughable. It all looked like something from a cartoon: exaggerated, overdrawn, polychromatic, ridiculous - ridiculous to the point of almost being terrifying. And for a brief second, Nimmo had an idea of what it would be like to be crazy - as Bugs as Bugs Bunny himself. Confronted with so much unremitting strangeness - so much intense meaning that, he thought, you would have to have been the prophet Elijah or Daniel to have dealt with it all - he found himself on the brink of panic. He could see that there was great beauty and burning significance to be seen almost everywhere he looked, but such was reality's imperative - at once spiritual and material - that he felt he might actually be overwhelmed.

Nimmo grabbed Goldman's arm and let himself be guided gently down 5th Avenue. Things had been looking good, but already it was abundantly clear to him that things could look too good, that there could be too much feeling, and that understanding could overwhelm the human mind as a tidal wave might swamp a tiny boat. Maybe a saint or some kind of Indian holy man might have put all this revelation to profitable use, but Nimmo felt dwarfed by it, as a mail box might feel small beside a skyscraper.

By now, Nimmo had sensed that things were not quite right with him, and he was afraid. What's happening to me?' he repeated. And then, I think I must be losing my mind.'

You look okay,' Goldman observed with cool detachment.

And you look just as you should be. Except that you're more than just yourself. It's like I can see inside you, to what makes you real. Who on earth do you think you are?'

You're right,' answered Goldman. I am different on the inside. Inside, I'm real. But I know who I am. Can you honestly say the same?'

I don't want to know who I am.' Nimmo was shaking his head. Where are we?'

Thirty-fourth Street on Fifth. That's the Empire State Building. At one hundred and two storeys high, it's the tallest building in the world. For my money you can keep the Great Pyramid of Cheops, or the Colossus at Rhodes. You can even keep Grand Central Station. This is it, Jimmy. This is where eternal life begins. Just look up there.'

Nimmo followed the line of Goldman's enormous arm, to the silver edge of his hand, and then the diamond point of his forefinger where it ascended into heaven.

This is the way to the stars,' Goldman explained carefully. Doesn't it shine? Doesn't it give you hope? Doesn't it beckon you to ascend? Look around you, Jimmy. It's time to say goodbye. I'm here to help you do that. I'm here to help you. And do you know why, Jimmy?'

Why do you want to help me?'

Because I'm your guardian angel, that's why. I'm here to help you come to Jesus, Jimmy. You're not losing your mind. Not at all. You're expanding it. You're bursting out of your old body and getting ready for a new one. A heavenly body. You're not like these other people any more. You're changing. It's like the moment when a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. And if you see things differently, it's because there's already a little piece of heaven burning inside you. Can you feel it? It's calling you, like a little beacon. That's what told me that it was time to come and find you. You see, I'm a kind of conductor, Jimmy. I'm here to conduct you safely up to heaven. You can see that now, can't you? And if you ask me what you must do to get there, I'll show you. But you have to want it, Jimmy. You have to want it real bad. And you have to trust me. You have to give yourself up to it. Jesus doesn't want people who are reluctant to come unto him. He only wants those who want him.'

Goldman shook his head and smiled. It was just like talking to Jimmy Stewart, he thought. He had never quite seen himself in the role of George Bailey's guardian angel, Clarence, but on the whole he thought he was turning in a pretty good performance. Of course the intent was very different. The whole point was to persuade Nimmo that his wonderful life was over, and that another even more wonderful life - the life in the hereafter - was about to begin. That seemed feasible. But it was another movie that came to mind as he persuaded Nimmo to go into the Empire State Building with him, and ride the elevator up to the eighty-sixth-floor observatory: King Kong. Not that he considered planting that image in Nimmo's strongly medicined mind, for a moment. Besides, there was no way to get out on the roof of the enclosed 102nd-floor observatory.

There were only a few people around on the eighty-sixth floor and, surrounded by some of the most remarkable views of the city, none of them paid Goldman and Nimmo any attention. Stretching south toward the Financial Center, Manhattan looked like a giant cemetery. The Flatiron Building on 23rd Street, where Broadway and 5th Avenue crossed, seemed no bigger than a throat lozenge. On the north-eastern side, the Chrysler Building appeared close enough to touch. Bryant Park, in front of the New York Public Library, was as green as an emerald. Goldman drew Nimmo over to the deserted western side of the cold and gusty observatory. No one was much interested in a poor view of the Hudson River, the Long Island Rail Yard, and the rooftop of Macy's at Herald Square.

At the coffee shop in Grand Central Station he had poured a water solution containing eighty micrograms of lysergic acid diethylamide into Nimmo's cup, this being precisely double the dose the CIA chemist at the whorehouse on Horatio Street had recommended as a maximum safe dose. The chemist had seemed more like a beatnik and a pimp than a scientist, with longish hair, a rollneck sweater, suede shoes, and corduroy pants, but then he wasn't supposed to look like Bela Lugosi or Boris Karloff.

We're not exactly sure how it works,' the young chemist had explained, handing over the medical samples bag containing the supply of LSD Washington had ordered him to give to Goldman. We think it may deprive the brain of glucose, which might serve to explain why mystics who undertake long fasts are more likely to have hallucinatory experiences. The more LSD you take, the less sugar your head gets, and the more powerful and durable your hallucinations. But whatever the reason for why it works, it is a very powerful drug and needs to be used only very sparingly. A few years back, one of our own physicians, a guy named Frank Olsen, took seventy micrograms of the stuff in a glass of Cointreau - that's almost twice as much as might be considered safe today - and, after eight days of hallucination, threw himself out of a tenth-floor hotel window right here in New York City.'

Really?' Goldman had been impressed. Which hotel?'

The Statler.'

No wonder. The Statler's a lousy hotel. I'd throw myself out of a fucking window if I had to spend eight days there.'

Don't joke about it, man. This stuff is dynamite.'

So it doesn't mix with Cointreau. What else? Does it do what it's supposed to? Control minds?'

It'd make you much more suggestible, in the sense that whoever is there to affect your interpretation of your perceptions, and what you're hallucinating, can make the difference between a good experience and a really bad one. In larger doses, there's a tendency for subjects to become paranoid. That's where LSD becomes really dangerous - not just to the subject, but to the people around the subject. One of the Johns here killed a hooker - stuffed a fucking sheet down her throat - because he thought she was a giant snake trying to swallow him. But, to answer your question more precisely, no, it's not mind control. We had hoped it would turn people into human robots, but it doesn't do that. It fucks you up, is what it does, man. Take enough LSD, it fucks you up for ever.'

Nimmo stared into the unfathomable azure that was the living, breathing sky, into the burning purgatorial fire that was the sun, and saw divine light at its full blaze. Beside heaven, the world seemed a poor thing of grey concrete, precarious to stand on, like a rotten tooth in a whole mouth of dead teeth. And the only way to escape the horrors of hell that lay in the pit far below his enlarged feet - from the fear, and the bewilderment, and the earthbound chaos of the streets -seemed to be to reach out, through the protective fence of heaven, and to embrace it, as Goldman suggested.

I have to go now,' Goldman was saying. Because I have to be out there, on the other side of the fence, to catch you. To bear you up in my hands in case you so much as strike your foot on the stone ledge when you jump. You won't see me. But you'll know I'm there. All you have to do is climb on to the other side of the gates of heaven that you see in front of you now, and then fly to me, like the angel you are about to become. Think of that, Jimmy. Isn't it a wonderful thought? Just think how wonderful it will be to be an angel. Not everyone gets this chance, Jimmy. But you have been chosen.'

Like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly,' Nimmo repeated dumbly.

That's right. Don't let me down, Jimmy. You can do it. You can fly to God, Jimmy. You can fly like a bloody angel.'

Goldman walked away and rode the elevator down to the ground floor. It hardly mattered to him if Jimmy Nimmo threw himself off the Empire State Building, or not. Even if he did manage to come down from the eighty-sixth-floor observatory alive, the chances were that with so much acid affecting his brain, Nimmo would simply get hit by a truck, or walk in front of a train, or drown himself in the park. Frank Olsen's experience after seventy micrograms had lasted eight days. Well, Nimmo had swallowed eighty micrograms. Of course, anything was possible. Nimmo could be the luckiest guy in the world and end up in hospital with nothing more than a broken leg. But by then it would be too late for him to kill anyone on behalf of Johnny Rosselli, or Sam Giancana. Tom Jefferson was safe now. Nothing could interfere with that.

On 5th, Goldman jumped into a cab and told the driver to take him to 200 Riverside Drive. They drove west along 42nd Street. By the time they reached Times Square, Goldman had started humming Auld Lang Syne'.

Chapter 25

Hollis Fifteen

By the twentieth time Chub made love to Edith, he figured that he was getting the hang of it, at last. Not rushing it, but not taking too long about it either, which made her sore. Practice makes perfect, Edith said. The night before New Year's Eve was to be their last together - at least that was what Chub believed - so he told his parents he was going to stay over with an old friend from Choate, and not to expect him back until sometime on Saturday morning.

More or less as soon as Chub got to the apartment Edith gave him a blow job, the first one he had ever had. Just to make sure of his complete attention. Then she told him her great idea. She told him she owned a beautiful skiing lodge in Franconia, New Hampshire, which is about one hundred miles north of Boston. She and her friend Anne, in Boston - the one she had been visiting before she had met Chub on the express - were planning to drive up there on the night of Friday the sixth, and spend the whole weekend skiing. Wouldn't it be nice if Chub could come along? And not just Chub, but his roommate, Torbert, about whom she had heard so much, and whom she was quite sure her friend Anne would like, maybe as much as Edith liked Chub.

Chub wanted to come very much, but also pointed out that he and Torbert had ten days of examinations starting on 16 January. In reply to this, Edith pointed out that Chub's French was much improved, and that she could probably do the same for Torbert. Moreover, she suggested that the two boys could study in the mornings, and then ski with Edith and Anne in the afternoon. All work and no play.

This seemed such a good idea to Chub that he called Torbert immediately and told him about Edith's invitation, and Anne. At first, Torbert was as concerned about his mid-year examinations as Chub had been. But then Edith insisted on speaking to Torbert, and pretty soon she had him eating out of her hand, too, telling him how beautiful Anne was, and how she had just broken up with a guy, and that she had had a lousy Christmas and was just after some fun, but that at the same time she was quite a scholar, having studied Economics at Yale. So Torbert agreed to come, on the understanding that neither he nor Chub told their parents about it.

After all the arrangements were made, Edith and Chub went to bed, where she fellated him once again for good measure.

The next morning they were up early. Over breakfast, Edith said, So when exactly are you returning to Harvard, darling?'

The Winter Reading Period begins on Monday, January second. I'm planning to catch an early-afternoon train back to Boston, so I should be back in Harvard by around seven o'clock that evening.'

You promise to call me when you get there?'

Of course I'll call you. I'll call you every night, if you want.'

I do want.' Edith lit a Newport, and said, I suppose living in Boston means Torbert will be back before you.'

No, actually, he's planning to get back at around nine. He's got some relations from Europe visiting that day.' Chub kissed her hand. Are you sure you're busy tonight, Edith?'

I told you, I have to go to a New Year's Eve party that's being given by a friend of my husband's. I can hardly take you to that, now can I? And if I don't go, my husband, when he calls from England, will want to know where I was. But I tell you what. Let's spend the day together. We'll go shopping downtown and I'll buy you something nice to go back to Harvard with. Something that will remind you of me.'

I'm not about to forget you, Edith,' grinned Chub.

All the same, I should like to buy you something.'

They put on coats and rode the elevator downstairs to the lobby where a strangely accented man was speaking to Gil, the doorman.

Strange,' said the man. Well then, what about Mister Van Buren?'

There's no one of that name either, sir. I'm sorry.'

Are you quite sure of that?'

I've been the doorman here for eleven years, sir. I know everyone in this building.'

How very odd.'

Chub paid no attention to this exchange of dialogue. But Edith was a trained agent and looked carefully at the stranger. For a second or two she even tuned in to what he was saying. Had she arrived in the lobby a second or two earlier, or left a second or two later, she might have heard the man utter the name of Tom Jefferson, and acted differently. Instead, she heard only the name of Van Buren, and, making no obvious connection between the eighth President of the United States and the fourteenth, under whose name Tom lived in the Riverside Drive apartment, she walked on. There were too many weirdos in New York to be suspicious of everyone.

It was only later on that evening, when she came into the living room and found Goldman watching the RCA Seven o'clock News that Edith saw the stranger's face again, and remembered the first and only other time she had seen it before. The reporter described how the man in the photograph, now identified as James Bywater Nimmo, an assistant police superintendent from Miami, and a former FBI Special Agent, had been rushed to St Lukes Roosevelt Hospital in Manhattan after apparently setting himself on fire in Central Park. Several witnesses described how the man had poured gasoline on to himself before lighting a match and applying it to his soaked clothes. Despite the best efforts of doctors to save him, Nimmo had passed away at four o'clock that afternoon.

That's the man,' whispered Edith.

Goldman, who was impressed that somehow Nimmo should have got down from the ESB and travelled as far as Central Park, muttered, Ognennyi Angel,' the. Russian for Fiery Angel, which was one of Goldman's favourite operas, by Prokofiev, and then said, Well, I'll be damned.'

I know him,' Edith now exclaimed. That's the man who was in the lobby this morning. He was trying to deliver mail to someone who doesn't live here. My God, Alex, they said he was from the FBI. You don't suppose they know about us, do you?'

Goldman got up from the sofa and turned the sound down on the TV. He did not want to turn the set off. Perry Mason was starting in a few minutes, which was one of his favourite shows. And later on, there was Richard Boone, in Have Gun, Will Travel, which he also enjoyed. Goldman was not one for celebrating New Year's Eve. It was a time that always filled him with melancholy.

Carefully, he said, No, that's not what they said, Edith. They said he was ex-FBI. Something quite different. And no, I don't suppose they know about us at all.'

But he was here, Alex,' insisted Edith, who was beginning to sound alarmed. I swear it was him.'

Oh, I believe you. I'm quite sure that you saw him here. But it wasn't you he was looking for. I know just what he knew, and believe me, it wasn't much.'

How could you know that?'

Because it was me who killed him. Maybe I didn't actually apply the match, but indirectly, I am responsible.' Goldman glanced at his watch and then briefly explained as much as he thought she now needed to know.

Edith got up and went over to the window, and stared out at the New Jersey shoreline. The few electric lights she could see looked like heavenly writing on the blackened wall of the universe. As if God was trying to tell her something.

Goldman stood up and put his hands on her slim shoulders. Take it easy. If we all do like we're supposed to, then everything will be all right. We can have no doubts about the legitimacy of what we're doing. If you'd been watching the television news earlier, you would have seen that Raul Roa, the Cuban Foreign Minister, has called for an immediate meeting of the UN Security Council. He has come out and said what KGB and G2 have been saying for a long while: that an invasion of Cuba is less than three weeks away. Edith. Listen to me. We are the only ones who can stop this thing from happening. You, me, Tom, and Anne.'

But will it? Stop the invasion? I'm not so sure, Alex.'

Goldman shrugged. To be honest, I have no idea. But orders are orders. Besides, we can't just sit back and do nothing. Already there have been several attempts on Fidel's life. And they're not going to stop. Just because we've been able to arrest a few of the ringleaders in Havana doesn't change anything. They will keep trying.'

Edith nodded. I suppose so.'

Damn right, they will,' frowned Goldman. It makes me so angry. Do you know what the White House press secretary, James Haggerty, said in response to Raul Roa's charges? He said nuts. Nuts. That's what he would say to you now, if he were standing here, and you tried to tell him about the justice of the Cuban revolution. About how people are happier than when it was Batista and the mob who ruled Cuba. He'd say nuts. And Edith, if you tried to tell him how evil the Somoza family were, and how the people of Nicaragua want to be free of these bastards, he'd look you in the eye and say the same thing. Remember what Roosevelt said about Anastasio Somoza? He said, He may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch. Haggerty, Roosevelt, Kennedy, they are all the same, Edith. They look at the people of Central America and say nuts.' Goldman sighed. Nuts? I tell you, this country's full of them.'

On New Year's Day, a nor'easter poured more than two inches of rain on southern New England, causing minor flooding, and belting the northern states with two inches of snow. Not that Tom was bothered much by the weather. He spent the afternoon at the Astor Movie Theater on Boylston Street, watching Spartacus. This followed a New Year's Eve when he had watched The Alamo at the Gary Theater. It seemed that revolution was becoming quite the fashion in Hollywood, even if it was the sword and sandals variety, or John Wayne battling to win freedom for Texans against the tyranny of the Mexican empire. The curious thing, however, was how none of this seemed to have any influence upon the popular American consciousness, vis A vis the popular revolution that had taken place in Cuba.

Tom did not think you could have had a more obvious example of a communist revolution, in all but name, than the story of a slave's revolt. Dalton Trumbo, the screenwriter, had even been one of the Hollywood Ten' blacklisted in the forties on suspicion of being a communist. In Tom's eyes, it seemed very obvious that Spartacus had been nothing less than the Leninist archetype. It was no accident that after the Great War German communists had actually called themselves Spartakists. And there were times during the movie when he would not have been surprised to see Kirk Douglas waving a red flag, and Tony Curtis reading Marx and Engels. It was all very strange, this fear and loathing of communism. People in America seemed to have forgotten that but for the sacrifices of the Soviet Union - ten Red Army soldiers killed for every one of the Allies - the whole of Europe and Asia and maybe even America too would have been dominated by the Axis forces of fascism. Tom accepted that there was a lot wrong with communism, as practised in the Soviet Union. But it did not have to be that way in Cuba. Or, for that matter, in the United States.

Reading the newspapers, Tom had the sense that America was girding its loins to do battle with Cuba. Even the Boston Globe was full of anti-Cuban propaganda. On Monday, 2 January, the front page carried the headline Police State Terror is Stamped on Cuba'. And for the rest of that week the Globe featured a series of articles by Anne Davies entitled Inside Fidel Castro's Cuba', which, in Tom's eyes, was not much more than a catalogue of all that was worst in the country. It did not seem to matter that there were many good things that had come out of the revolution. And many bad things that had existed before. If it was Cuban, it followed that it was also bad.

That same Monday, around lunchtime, he loaded the station wagon with a Blizzard ski-bag and two large green cloth bags of the type that every Harvard student seemed to carry. The weather was better. Fair, but colder, with temperatures struggling to get much above the high twenties. The Cambridge air was damp and filled with the smell of burning Christmas trees.

Tom drove west along Massachusetts Avenue and parked close to the imposing Johnson Gate. Already there were a few parents bent on the same task as Tom: carrying boxes and luggage into dorms for sons returning to Harvard after the Christmas holidays. Respectably attired in a coat and hat, wearing a Yale tie, and with a pipe fixed firmly between his teeth, Tom fancied he looked as much like someone's dad helping his son move back into the dorm as it was possible to look, short of wearing a cardigan, and trying to pass himself off as Spencer Tracy. Even so, this was one of the trickiest aspects of the plan. If he was challenged he would have to talk his way out of a spot, which, without flashing his fake FBI ID, might prove to be awkward. As things turned out, being challenged would almost have been easier than being assisted.

Struggling through the open door of Hollis South, Tom found himself facing a man of about the same age as himself and, but for the Yale tie, similarly dressed, too.

Hi there,' said the man. Can I help you carry any of that?'

It's okay,' said Tom. My son must be somewhere around, so please don't trouble yourself.'

It's no trouble at all.' The man looked about as clean-cut as a dentist from Salt Lake City. Here,' he said, grabbing hold of one of Tom's green bags. You'd better let me take one of these.' Having taken the bag, he now held out his hand. By the way, the name's Wallingford. Buckner Wallingford. My son, Buck junior, is in room one.'

Tom stretched his cold face into a rictus of a grin and took Wallingford's outstretched hand. Farrell,' he said, hoping that the two men had never met. Chub Farrell. My son, Chub, is in room fifteen. I'm afraid that's right at the top. But really, I can manage.'

But Buck Wallingford was already headed up the stairs, complaining good-naturedly about young men, and how much stuff they seemed to bring with them back to the dorm, and how he thought they were probably in for some more snow. At the top of the stairs, Wallingford put the green bag down and nodded at the ski-bag over Tom's shoulder.

Where does your boy ski?'

Franconia,' said Tom. I'd introduce you to him, if I knew where the hell he was. Chub? You there?' They waited in silence for a second, and then Tom shrugged awkwardly.

Probably in someone else's room,' said Wallingford, and started down the stairs. Well, I'd better go and find Buck junior. I imagine he'll want some money.'

Yes, don't they all?'

Nice meeting you, Chub.'

You too, Buck. Thanks a lot for your help. Saved me a heart attack.'

Don't mention it.'

Tom watched with relief as Buckner Wallingford disappeared from view. Seconds later, he was fitting one of his keys into the lock on the door of Hollis Fifteen. The key went in easily enough, but to Tom's momentary horror, it did not turn. Quickly he pulled the key out and dripped some oil on to the blade from a small can he had brought along in his coat pocket, along with a small locksmith's file, for this very possibility. Then he tried again, only this time he pulled the ancient door toward him experimentally, and this time the lock clicked loudly open. In a matter of seconds, he transferred the bags from the floor of the hall into the room, and, closing the door behind him, locked it again.

Tom breathed another sigh of relief. The room was cold. Almost as cold as it was outside Hollis, but Tom was already covered in sweat. He sat down in one of the library chairs to collect himself and to remind himself of the room's topography. Since arriving in Cambridge, Tom had read several books about Harvard and was aware that most of the freshmen dormitories in the Yard were pre-revolutionary. Hollis Hall had been built in 1763, at around the time when most Americans who called themselves Americans were chafing under the Stamp Act, and Tom could not help wondering what people like George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, not to mention his own namesake, would have thought of Cuba's struggle for freedom.

Leaning forward in the chair, Tom unzipped the ski-bag, the length of which had been kept straight by two six-foot pieces of dowel to help disguise the fact that the bag contained not a pair of skis but a .30-calibre Winchester rifle, matt black, and fitted with a Unertl scope. Tom snapped the dowel into smaller lengths and tossed the pieces into the empty ski-bag. Then, wearing gloves, he picked up the rifle and went over to one of the closets. These were large, heavy pieces of mahogany furniture that looked as if they had been in Hollis since the time of Thoreau. At the top of the closet there was a gap of at least two inches between wood and wall, which narrowed to less than half an inch at the level of the skirting board. Tom poked the rifle into the gap, barrel first, and let it slide comfortably into the space.

Pressing his head against the wall, he looked into the crack, but the black rifle was all but invisible.

Next, Tom drew open the string at the neck of one green cloth bag, and slipped away the material to reveal the Hallicrafter short-wave receiver he had purchased in New York. By tuning the radio to whatever frequency the Secret Service might use on their DCN handsets, he and Alex Goldman, who was familiar with presidential detail codes, might easily follow the Senator's progress during his entry and exit from Harvard Yard. But hiding the radio, an object the size of a shoe box, was not so easy. Which was why he had brought the second green cloth bag, containing a hand-drill, a jimmy, a screwdriver, a hacksaw, and a tin of antique floor polish.

During the reconnaissance visit he and Goldman had made to Hollis Fifteen, Tom had noticed that there were some loose boards on the old and uneven floor and, pulling back the rug, he inspected these more closely. It took very little effort to jimmy two of the loose boards up, revealing a space between the joists that was big enough for the radio, the ski-bag, the pieces of dowel, the tools, and, for that matter, the rifle too. It was almost a cause of regret to Tom that he had not thought to inspect the space underneath the floorboards before hiding the rifle behind the closet. Finally, Tom put back the floorboards using screws instead of nails, so as to facilitate their silent replacement and removal. But he was careful not to screw the boards down too tight, in case Chub or Torbert noticed anything different when they walked across the room. Then he covered the screw heads and the edges of the boards with polish, so as to disguise the fact that they had ever been removed. Last of all, he drew back the rug. Only when he was quite sure that everything looked and felt the same did he leave the room, lock the door, and exit Hollis Fifteen.

The next four days passed slowly for Tom. Each day Edith called the Cambridge apartment to report on her own daily conversations with Chub Farrell. Tom figured that if Chub, or Torbert, found out what was hidden behind the closet in Hollis Fifteen, Chub would certainly inform the woman he loved.

He went to the movies again, to see Tunes of Glory, which he liked a lot, and Exodus, which he didn't. He watched a lot of television, too. News mostly, but also junk like Maverick, Mister Ed, Rawhide, and Route 66. Only Eyewitness to History seemed worthwhile. Often, he went out to dinner in Cambridge, usually to the Coach Grille on Harvard Square, which was his favourite. He finished reading To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, and started Advise and Consent, by Allen Drury. But more frequently he read the newspapers and watched the television news. On Monday, 2 January, the start of the Harvard term, President Eisenhower ordered a military alert because of the situation in Laos. But Tom just wondered if that was merely a smokescreen for an invasion of Cuba - an idea that became more persuasive in his mind when, on the afternoon of the following day, Ike announced that he was breaking off diplomatic relations with Cuba.

There is a limit,' Ike declared, ending the sixty-year tie between the countries, to what the US in self-respect can endure. That limit has now been reached.'

Tom was stunned. A Cuban war now seemed imminent. By Thursday, US officials were warning Cuba not only that they intended to keep the naval base at Guantanamo, but also that Fidel Castro would have to be removed from office if Cuba ever hoped to heal the rift in Cuban-American relations - this a response to the diplomatic peace feelers Cuba was apparently extending to President-elect John Kennedy.

That same Thursday evening, Alex Goldman flew in from New York and, after a late dinner, they went straight to bed.

The following morning, just about the first thing he and Tom did was to check the classified section of the Globe, in search of the coded message that would tell them whether or not their mission was finally on, or off. Goldman scanned the pages carefully until he found an advertisement containing the operational G2 code for Jack Kennedy, which was Submarine Shop'. Finally he found what he was looking for: Due to illness sacrifice Submarine Shop within seven days. MI 3-5042.' The Boston telephone number was fake, just to make the ad look slightly less suspicious.

That's it,' said Goldman. We've got the go.'

Tom nodded. I didn't figure it any other way. Not after what happened on Tuesday.'

It sure doesn't look good, does it?' agreed Goldman. Still, the weather's improving. I think those boys are going to have some -very good skiing this weekend.'

They'd better enjoy themselves,' remarked Tom. In a couple of months, those two boys could be drafted into the army, and at war.'

At lunchtime Edith and her friend, Anne, arrived from New York. Anne was younger than Edith, and even more beautiful. She was also a member of G2, the Cuban Intelligence Service. Tom went through their instructions with them, while Goldman listened.

Are the boys ready to go?'

Chub called me last night,' said Edith. To say that they are both looking forward to it would be the understatement of the year.'

When you get to Franconia, call us,' said Tom. We don't plan on entering their room until the early hours of Sunday morning. After that, I'm afraid you won't be able to contact us short of coming into Harvard Yard and staring up at our window.'

They're not telling their parents, so there won't be any messages that might take them away from us,' said Edith. Officially, the plan is that we will be leaving Franconia at around eight o'clock Monday morning. Except that the car won't start.'

How are you planning to disable the car?'

I'll leave the lights on all night. The car is garaged, so I don't expect anyone will notice. But I'll also remove the rotor arm, just in case.'

Either of them know anything about cars?'

Chub can't drive. Torbert has a car. But Chub says he doesn't even know how to change a spark plug.'

Good girl. Whatever you do, it's imperative that they are not back in Cambridge before one o'clock on Monday afternoon. Have you got that?'

Edith nodded.

So make sure you give them both a good time. Anne? Are you comfortable with that? You'll have to sleep with Torbert.'

Yes sir,' said Anne. Edith has told me what has to be done.'

I don't want any arguments, lovers' tiffs and such like. One of these kids gets on a bus back to Boston, and we're in deep shit. I want all your feminine charms brought into play. And if necessary, slip them a mickey.'

Edith nodded again.

When you get back to Cambridge,' said Tom, you can rest a while and then Alex'll drive all three of you to Logan. You'll all fly down to Miami and then go your separate ways from there.'

Be my pleasure,' said Goldman.

What about you?' asked Edith.

I'll get the train back to New York, and then on to Mexico City. It's best we don't travel together. Good luck to you both.'

And to you,' said the two women.

Tom escorted them out to their car, and kissed Edith goodbye. It was not much of a parting, but then it had not been much of a relationship. Just an arrangement occasionally involving sex. In that respect it was probably no different to a lot of marriages.

If you get a chance,' said Edith, come and see me in Nicaragua.'

I'd like that,' said Tom.

And Tom? Please be careful.'

You too, Edith.'

Lucky boys,' said Goldman, after Edith and Anne had driven away to collect the boys from Hollis. I kind of wish I was going along myself.'

Me too,' admitted Tom. I like skiing.'

It was seven o'clock when the telephone rang in the Cambridge apartment, around the same time that Kennedy was boarding the Caroline in Palm Beach, to fly up to Washington. It was Edith, to say that they had all arrived safely in Franconia.

Any problems?' asked Goldman. How's Torbert getting along with Anne?'

No problems at all. I don't think I ever saw a boy fall in love so quickly.'

That's how it is when you're eighteen,' chuckled Goldman. You fall in love just as fast as you can drink a Coke, or blow up bubblegum. Don't last a hell of a lot more than that, either. You call me if there are any teenage dilemma situations you need advice on. Otherwise I'll speak to you the same time tomorrow night. Oh, and enjoy the skiing.'

I will if I get half a chance. I think Chub has other activities in mind.'

Saturday morning came and it was warmer, with the temperatures in the low fifties - more like a spring day than mid-winter. The snow in Cambridge began to melt, and by the end of the morning you could see the grass again. It was, observed Tom, perfect weather for a presidential walkabout.

Let's hope it's like this on Monday,' agreed Goldman.

The Boston Globe published the details of Jack Kennedy's visit to Boston. Tom and Goldman studied the article closely in case there was anything they had overlooked. The Globe reported that Secret Service agents had inspected the State House for security purposes the previous night: Every step Kennedy will take, from the time he enters the State House until he leaves, has been carefully charted by the Secret Service agents.' But, almost as if Harvard was considered a safer place than Beacon Hill, the paper reported only a modest level of security precautions being taken on campus: His safety will be left to the Secret Service. But university police have already begun planning for the protection of students who, among other restrictions, will not be allowed to stand on the statue of John Harvard outside the entrance to University Hall.'

For the protection of students?' Alex Goldman was scornful. What the hell are they thinking about? Do they really think that stopping a few kids from climbing on a lousy statue is going to stop Kennedy from getting shot? Jesus, those guys must be crazy. I would have thought he would be safer in the State House than anywhere else. I mean, the guy is going to walk around in the open air, for Christ's sake.'

Meanwhile, neither man failed to notice, in the same edition, a report from Havana describing how Cuban troops, anti-tank guns, and four-barrelled Czech anti-aircraft guns were being deployed all along the capital's seafront, on MaleASSon Drive.

What do you think of that?' Goldman asked Tom.

I think that Monday can't come quick enough.'

During Saturday afternoon Tom and Goldman took their cameras and, posing as tourists, took a stroll around Harvard Yard, keeping a careful eye on Massachusetts Hall where, a late edition of the paper reported, federal agents would meet with the Cambridge police chief and the head of the Harvard University police to co-ordinate the security measures for this part of the President-elect's visit -Kennedy's first to his home city since winning the presidency back in November. But of uniformed police or anyone who looked like a Secret Service agent, there was no sign.

I'm glad they're not protecting me,' said Tom. Dumb bastards.'

Neither man ate much that day. Since they planned to spend almost thirty-six hours holed up in Hollis Fifteen without the facility of a lavatory, they wanted to empty their stomachs as much as possible. For most of the evening they watched television, aware of Jack Kennedy coming nearer to them now, flying from Washington to New York aboard his private plane. In less than twenty-four hours the same plane would land at Logan airport, in Boston, and a motorcade would drive the President-elect to his Beacon Hill apartment at 122 Bowdoin Street.

At around one a.m. the two men dressed in suits and ties and put on warm coats. Then they collected a couple of small bags and went out into the cold night air. A gentle southwest wind tossed a small flurry of snow in their faces as they began the three-quarter-mile walk along Harvard Street and Massachusetts Avenue. The streets were quite deserted, almost surreally so. As if everyone in Cambridge had gone to some underground A-bomb shelter. Goldman remarked upon it.

Maybe they'll go there soon enough,' said Tom. I was reading in the paper how the state of Massachusetts is building a shelter, at a cost of two million dollars. Not that you would ever get me in one of those mausoleums. When the bomb goes off I want to be in the fresh air, for as long as fresh air lasts. As near to the centre of the blast as possible. It'd be quicker that way. Like a single shot through the head.'

On Massachusetts Avenue they passed by the Widener main gate that led to the back of the eponymous library. The gate was closed now, but it would be through the Widener that Kennedy's car would enter the campus on Monday morning. Goldman and Tom passed through the smaller gate, near Boylston Hall, that, like the Johnson Gate, was nearly always open. Entering the east quad of Harvard Yard, they paused in front of the rear entrance of University Hall, where Jack Kennedy would be greeted by the president of the Harvard Board of Overseers. Then they passed into the western quad, with Weld - the freshman dormitory where Kennedy himself had roomed in his first year at Harvard - on their left. They walked quickly across the quad in the direction of Hollis and, still seeing no one about, unlocked the door to Hollis South and went inside.

For several breathless seconds they waited, hearts thumping, in the darkness. All was quiet. The only curfew in a freshman dormitory was one on noise after one a.m. After a minute, they started up the stairs, but almost as soon as they arrived on the second-floor landing they heard a door above them open, and someone, smoking a cigarette, came out to use the bathroom. Tom and Alex Goldman stayed motionless on the creaking staircase as the young man, humming Floyd Cramer's hit Last Date', began a loud pee that echoed up and down the staircase. After a good minute and a half, they heard the sound of the toilet flushing and the student returning to his room. Goldman began to climb again, and Tom, with his heart in his mouth, followed. A short while later, having negotiated the stiff doorlock, the two men were inside Hollis Fifteen.

So far, so good,' whispered Tom, locking the door carefully behind him.

Goldman slipped off his shoes, padded across to Chub's bed, and then sat down. As stakeouts go, I guess this is not so bad.'

Tom lay down on Torbert's bed and closed his eyes.

What are you doing?' whispered Goldman.

I'm going to get some sleep, that's what I'm doing. The gear can wait until morning.'

What happened to the usual insomnia?'

I reckon I'll sleep all right tonight. Don't ask me why.'

You're a cool one, Paladin, I'll say that for you.'

Nope, just a tired one.'

On Sunday, it turned a lot colder, but they did not light a fire. They watched TV with the sound turned low, and urinated into empty beer bottles, planning to empty these out of a window after it got dark.

There were few words between them now and they moved around the room without shoes, lest anyone hear them and think Chub, or Torbert, were at home. Once, there was a knock at the door, but after a moment or two they heard a voice shout from down the hall, They're away skiing this weekend, with a couple of broads,' which drew the response, Lucky bastards.'

In the early part of Sunday afternoon, Tom retrieved his rifle from behind the closet and, out of habit, cleaned it carefully, wearing gloves so as not to leave any prints. The Winchester was as cold a gun as it was possible to find outside of a forgotten foxhole in North Korea, and Tom wanted it to stay that way. Even the serial number had been filed off.

They kept the lower shutters closed, just in case a resident of Hollis South should glance up from the Yard and see someone moving around. But mostly they lay on their beds and waited for the time to pass. Throughout the day, each felt a lump growing inside his stomach that was as much tension as it was hunger. Only Tom was used to this kind of waiting. Patience was an essential quality in a sniper. One time, in the South Pacific, he had stalked a Japanese sniper for a full four days, before finally killing him. But even he had never felt a palpable tension like this. It was almost unbearable.

By six o'clock it was dark, and Goldman opened the shutters to admit whatever light was in the Yard outside. The moon was in its last quarter so there was not much to be had, just the dull sodium glow of a few streetlights in the east quad, and some windows in Massachusetts Hall, opposite. Sometimes they would drink coffee from a thermos flask, or eat a little chocolate, but by nine o'clock the coffee was cold and the chocolate was nearly all gone.

At ten o'clock Goldman put on some headphones, plugged them into the Hallicrafter short-wave radio, and began to hunt for the Secret Service wavelength. Meanwhile, Tom changed channels on the black and white TV in search of a news bulletin. If Jack Kennedy was on time, his plane would be coming in to land at Logan. Finding nothing on TV, Tom tried to picture the scene in his mind's eye. Massachusetts' top political figures there to greet the young Senator: Governor John Volpe, Lieutenant Governor Edward McLaughlin junior, Mayor Collins, the Commissioner of Public Safety Henry Goguen, Sheriff Howard Fitzpatrick, and the Democratic State Chairman John Lynch. Maybe, if they could stand the freezing cold, there would be some well-wishers. Boston Irish, too thick to feel the cold. And more fool them, thought Tom, shivering inside his coat. It was not a night for a snowman to be standing around outside.

At ten thirty Goldman said, He's landed. Kennedy's plane just touched down at Logan. He's here, Tom. The President-elect's in Boston.'

Chapter 26

The Shot

At precisely eight o'clock on the morning of Monday, 9 January 1961, Jack Kennedy's portly Negro butler, George Thomas, knocked softly on the bedroom door of suite thirty-six, 122 Bowdoin Street. He had served Kennedy for fourteen years, ever since Arthur Krock, an old friend of Joe's, had sent him over' to take care of Congressman Kennedy, as he then was.

It's okay, George, I'm awake.'

George turned to face John McNally, and Ken O'Donnell, who were two of Kennedy's special presidential aides. Behind them stood a tall bald man, holding a breakfast tray. George nodded, and all four entered the Senator's bedroom.

O'Donnell, another Boston Irishman, said, You remember Joe Murphy, Senator, the building supervisor? Mrs Murphy usually prepares your breakfast.'

Kennedy sat up groggily as George pulled the drapes. The crowd in the street buzzed a little as it saw movement in the window. Sure, Joe,' said Kennedy. How are ya? Come on in? How's Mrs Murphy?'

Not so good, sir.'

I'm sorry to hear that, Joe.'

I'm afraid she couldn't do your breakfast, this morning. So I did it myself. Two four-minute eggs, toast and coffee, just like you always have.'

That's really kind of you, George. And I appreciate it very much.'

Murphy laid the tray carefully on the bed. It's my pleasure, sir. And may I say on behalf of everyone in the building how proud we all are of you, sir. And how pleased to have you back in Boston.'

It's good to be back, Joe. It's been too long.'

Well, I'll be on my way now, sir. Enjoy your breakfast.'

As Murphy went out of the bedroom, George looked down into the street. Kennedy's apartment was on the third floor, immediately above a barber's shop. The Senator had kept the apartment for about the same length of time he had retained George.

Cold day outside, Senator,' said George. But there's quite a crowd out there already. Must be almost five hundred people.'

Kennedy sipped his coffee, and grimaced. Don't I know it. They kept me awake for most of the damn night. And I'd forgotten how soft this bed is. My back aches like the devil's blue balls. Thank Christ we're back at the Carlyle tonight and I can get some fucking sleep.'

O'Donnell, who had a little bit of a headache after several drinks with six Secret Service agents at the Old Brattle Tavern the night before, read the headline in that morning's Globe, and then handed his boss the newspaper. President-elect Comes Back Home for a Day. Shivering Crowd Cheers Kennedy.'

Shivering is right,' said McNally. It's freezing out there this morning. Real Boston weather.'

Kennedy glanced over the front page and picked out another story. With a wry smile, he said, President-elect urged to tell public about Soviet danger.' Now he laughed. What the hell do they think I've been doing, for Christ's sake? Whistling Dixie? Jesus.' He tossed aside the newspaper, ate one of the eggs, some toast, and then drained his coffee cup with little evident pleasure. I hope Mrs Murphy's going to get better,' he said, and got out of bed wearing just his undershorts. I wouldn't like too many breakfasts like that one.'

While Kennedy showered and shaved, George opened a black, brassbound navy foot locker and removed the light-blue shirt his employer would be wearing. Beside it he placed a dark two-button blue suit - as opposed to the three buttons most American males favoured -, a navy-blue woollen tie, black socks, and black lace-up shoes.

How did it go with the judge last night?' asked O'Donnell.

Frank Morrissey? I thought he'd never fucking leave. Boy, can that guy drink. About tonight's speech, Kenny. How does this sound? For those to whom much is given, much is required. It doesn't sound too much as if it's out of Poor Richard's Almanac, does it?'

What happened to the city on a hill?' asked O'Donnell. I liked that.' Among the staff O'Donnell's word was law. If he didn't like something, even Kennedy was inclined to think twice about it.

Still in there, but that's John Winthrop, not me. I thought I'd try to work it in somewhere. For those to whom much is given, much is required,' Kennedy repeated, performing now. And when at some future date the high court of history sits in judgement on each one of us - recording whether in our brief span of service we fulfilled our responsibilities to the state - and all that jazz. What do you think?'

McNally nodded. Sounds good, sir.'

Thank God, I only have to speak for fifteen minutes. I think I'm getting a cold.'

When Kennedy had finished dressing, he sat down to discuss his day's timetable with O'Donnell, McNally, and Dave Powers - another presidential aide, who was also Boston Irish. There were some who thought Powers and O'Donnell looked not unalike, the two ugly mick sisters to Jack's Cinderella.

The cars come at ten,' explained O'Donnell. There are four. You'll be in the third. We'll get to Harvard at around ten thirty. I've spoken with Devereaux Josephs, president of the Board of Overseers, and he doesn't think that part of the meeting will last longer than about an hour and a quarter.'

Is he an academic? I've forgotten.'

No sir, he's an insurance executive, I believe.'

A Harvard man who sells insurance,' mused Kennedy. I could use some myself after that flight last night. Did you see the wingtips when we landed? They were covered in ice.'

At around noon, you'll leave University Hall and walk across Harvard Yard to have lunch at the new Loeb Drama Center.'

Place looks like a goddamned aquarium,' complained Kennedy. And I hate drama almost as much as I hate baseball.'

At about two o'clock the cars will take us to Arthur Schlesinger's home on Irving Street. By the way, all these times are contingent on how much traffic you generate. At approximately three o'clock, we'll go to MIT.'

This is to hear the report from my task force on taxation, right?'

That's correct, sir. After which, you have a meeting with the president of MIT, Doctor Julius Stratton, at four forty-five. Five twenty-five we get back to Beacon Hill and the State House, where you'll be met under the archway by Ed McLaughlin. From there, we'll proceed to the governor's office where Volpe and an assortment of representatives and senators will greet you.'

Kennedy sighed wearily. That's it?' He grinned.

Yes sir. Incidentally, according to the Globe you'll be the first President or President-elect to address the Massachusetts Legislature since Taft, in nineteen twelve.'

Taft?' Kennedy looked displeased. Worst president of the century.'

Yes sir,' grinned O'Donnell. Seven o'clock, we fly back to New York.'

And not a moment too soon, by the sound of it. We'll need some fun after a day like today, eh Dave?'

Yes sir. You've got your work cut out today. Just like being back on the campaign trail.'

We survived that, didn't we? We'll survive this, I guess.'

At nine fifty the Secret Service rang up from the vestibule to say that the cars from Boston Ford were outside.

George Thomas looked at his boss and asked him if he'd like a topcoat and a hat. The crowd's the only warm thing out there this morning,' he said. And don't forget you'll be walking some, too.'

George,' said Kennedy. When have you ever seen me wearing a hat? Besides, who needs a coat when you have the Secret Service to keep the chill off?'

In the tiny elevator on the way down to the only slightly larger vestibule, Kennedy said to O'Donnell, Remind me once again, Kenny. That old bat who's my neighbour. The one who shook my hand last night. I've been trying to remember her name.'

O'Donnell flicked through some pages that were attached to his clipboard. Mary Jenkins,' he said, at last. She's a schoolteacher.'

And the guy who cooked my breakfast again?'

Joe Murphy.'

Both Murphy and Mary Jenkins were in the vestibule, waiting to see him off, as Kennedy had known they would be, along with Police Commissioner Leo Sullivan, his secretary Charlie Hoare, the Middlesex County Sheriff Howard Fitzpatrick, and a phalanx of Secret Service agents. Kennedy shook a few hands and, flanked by agents, walked out of the front door to greet the cheering crowd. He waved and smiled, before being hustled into the waiting car.

Jesus Christ,' he said, as the door closed. George was right. It's fucking cold today. I think I've been too long in Palm Beach, Dave. That's what it is. I'm not properly acclimatised.'

The four-car motorcade headed down Joy Street along Cambridge Street to Storrow Drive - a route that was heavily guarded by Boston MDC and, after they crossed Longfellow Bridge, by Cambridge police too. At Harvard, the motorcade entered the campus through the Widener main gate on Massachusetts Avenue, and travelled through the Yard's east quadrangle, which was already full of students eager to get a look at the university's most famous alumnus.

This is almost embarrassing,' Kennedy said with a chuckle. I was not a very good student at Harvard. Swimming was my best subject.'

As Kennedy got out of the car, an enormous cheer went up, and to his momentary alarm a man caught him by the elbow and then shook him by the hand, saying he was an Irishman, and that his name was Patrick Shea, and that he was a retired Cambridge policeman. And this,' he said proudly, is my daughter, sir.'

Delighted to meet you,' grinned Kennedy, and mounted the steps to the rear of University Hall to greet the Harvard president, Nathan Pusey, and Devereaux Josephs. Meanwhile, the sizeable crowd had started to chant, Speech! Speech! We want a speech!'

Kennedy turned and raised his hands for quiet. Then he said, I am here to go over your grades with Doctor Pusey, and I'll protect your interests.' But his words were whipped away in the bitterly cold wind and only those who were standing nearest the steps caught his words, and laughed. Still smiling, Kennedy turned his back on the crowd, shook hands with Pusey and Josephs, waved again, and then went into University Hall.

In Hollis Fifteen, Tom Jefferson and Alex Goldman heard the cheers through the open window and saw the crowds of students streaming out of the west quad, and pressing around the corner of University Hall, where Kennedy was making his entrance. There were hundreds, perhaps even as many as a thousand students, and their numbers were growing all the time. As soon as Kennedy was inside University Hall, they began to congregate in the west quad in front of the building. They were not just from Harvard. There were quite a few Radcliffe girls, easily identified by their striking red and yellow sweaters, and many others who carried Welcome Jack signs from Boston University and MIT. Next to University Hall, at Weld, the rather Gothic-looking hall where the President-elect had once roomed, a banner was hung from a third-floor window. It read: Jack - Weld is a Depressed Area'.

What have they got to be depressed about?' demanded Tom. Poor little rich kids.'

Shit, I'd be depressed myself if I had to room in there,' declared Goldman. Place looks more like a penitentiary than a freshman dormitory.'

This isn't exactly the Plaza in here,' remarked Tom.

With the window wide open now, the room was freezing, and Goldman blew on his hands in a vain attempt to keep them warm. Unlike Tom, he had not thought to wear gloves. Since he was not handling the actual rifle, there had seemed little need for them, but he was regretting it now. Swathed in a blanket off Chub's bed, he sat beside the short-wave radio listening in to the Secret Service signals traffic. There were two presidential wavelengths: Baker Channel, emanating from a signals control car in the motorcade, which kept Kennedy in touch with Washington; and Charlie Channel, the radio link between the presidential car and the Secret Service agents who were inside University Hall. It was with the Charlie frequency that Goldman concerned himself.

Tom rolled off the desk he had placed by the window, on which he had been lying in the prone firing position, but without the rifle, and sat down on the floor beside Alex Goldman. Collecting the rifle off the floor, and nervously inspecting the blue sky through the telescopic sights, he said, So, are we gonna do this?'

Sure we're going to do it,' said Goldman.

I just wanted to hear you say it. Because now that we're here. Well, you know.' Tom shrugged.

I know what you're driving at, Paladin.'

I figured you would.'

And you're crazy. Orders are orders. You know that.'

Tom worked the rifle bolt and sighted a pigeon high in the branches of an elm tree. He pulled the trigger on an empty chamber and nodded. Whatever you say, Alex. I'm just the guy who pulls the trigger, you know?'

That's not what you sound like.'

Tom shrugged innocently. Now that we're here. That's all I said.'

You want to know what your trouble is, Tom?'

What's that?'

You think too much.' Goldman shook his head.

Tom worked the bolt and fired the empty chamber again. Even unloaded, it still added a slight smell of gun oil and cordite to the room's cold fresh air, as if an invisible bullet had been fired.

And stop playing with that fucking rifle. You make me nervous.'

Take it easy,' said Tom, and lit a cigarette. With the window wide open he was no longer worried that any other students on the top floor of Hollis South would smell his tobacco. Besides, all was silent down the hall. Everyone was now out in the Yard.

Take it easy?' Goldman repeated scornfully. Maybe you didn't see all those fucking cops down there?'

I saw them. Not so many as I thought. Not so many as they need, if you ask me. I know crowds. I study them. I work with them. I use them. Crowds are my cover. When you've done as many jobs as me, you get to know what a crowd will do when they see someone famous, or hear a shot. And I'm telling you, there aren't nearly enough cops for all the kids there are out there. Must be getting on for two thousand. So forget about them. When the time comes they'll have their work cut out just looking out for Kennedy's ass to pay any attention to us.'

Goldman grinned. Okay. You're right.'

Sure I'm right. You just keep your ear on that Charlie Channel,' said Tom. As soon as he comes out of that front door, I want to be ready for him. Okay?'

Don't you worry about me,' insisted Goldman. He listened carefully to the voices in his ear for a moment, and then said, I wonder what's going on in that room, right now.'

It's a closed meeting. Proceedings are in secret. No press.'

I know, I was just wondering what they would be talking about.'

If you ask me, they're pissed at him, that's what's going on. He's been stealing Harvard's best brains to fill his lousy cabinet. Dave Bell, McGeorge Bundy, and Archibald Cox. They'll probably have to resign from the university.'

I thought these guys could take a year off. A sabbatical?'

Uh-uh. Kennedy's asked them all to stay on for four years. Harvard only grants its faculty members a one-year leave of absence. I've been reading about it. I'm telling you, Alex. They'll be chewing his balls.'

The January meeting of the Harvard Board of Overseers was held in the faculty room on the second floor of University Hall. There were thirty overseers in all, with five men elected each year to serve a six-year term. John Kennedy, a member of the Harvard class of 1940, was the youngest member of a board that included alumni from all walks of life - everyone from a mountaineer to a bishop. On a raised dais, six inches above the main body of the overseers, which included Kennedy, at a massive round table cut from a huge slab of Philippine nara wood, and scrutinised by the portraits of previous Harvard alumni such as Charles Eliot and Henry Longfellow, five ex officio members of the board sat facing the rest. These five included Nathan Pusey, Paul Cabot, David Bailey, James Reynolds, and Devereaux Josephs who, as president of the board, brought the meeting to order with a simple, Shall we begin?'

The Harvard University president, Nathan Pusey, then rose to deliver his annual report on the condition of the university. Pusey told the board that the time had come in the nation's history when government and universities should work more closely together.

We must take thought together how the relationship is to be made as fruitful as possible, and be careful at every stage of the way to provide adequate safeguards for autonomous interests which rightfully exist within the relationship, and must be maintained.'

In his prepared text, Pusey made only one reference to the President-elect when he referred to the constant turnover in Harvard's officers of instruction. This natural process,' he said, has perhaps recently had a bit more assistance from Washington than we might selfishly like.'

Jack Kennedy grinned sheepishly as, for a brief moment, everyone looked at him. Not that he felt in any way embarrassed about any of his cabinet appointments. The country needed men of the calibre of Bundy, Bell, and Cox more than Harvard. Damn it all, he needed them himself. What better way was there to look like a great President of the United States than by having great men - the best brains there were - working for you?

Pusey, who Kennedy thought looked like the building supervisor at Bowdoin Street, except with more hair, spoke for almost half an hour, after which there were votes taken on appointments, honorary degrees, and the policy decisions of the seven-man Harvard Corporation. Kennedy enjoyed his membership of the board. But at the same time he was glad to have been excused two earlier committee reports from the departments of military science and astronomy. And he was also glad to be leaving the meeting before a report from the chemistry department. Chemistry bored him even more than astronomy. Even routine meetings of the board could sometimes last all day, and if there was one thing Jack Kennedy hated, it was a meeting that went on too long. When he was finally in the White House he was going to try and make sure that no meeting ever lasted longer than an hour. Life was just too short to listen to a lot of hot air.

Surreptitiously, he glanced at his wristwatch and saw that it was nearing midday. Only a little while longer, he told himself, and wondered just how many students there were now in the west quad of Harvard Yard. It sure sounded like a lot of people out there. He hoped everything would be okay.

Even at the best of times Jack Kennedy did not like crowds. Most of all he hated to be pawed, like that jerk from the Cambridge police, with his daughter. Privacy and personal space were very important to him. He could smile and shake hands and make a few jokes, but that was it. Ever since Lyndon's experience in Dallas, when people had spat on him and Lady Bird, he had been wary of large groups of people, preferring to ride in a car instead of walking about. And students. There was no telling what any of them were capable of. His time as a young freshman at Weld now seemed like a lifetime away, but he could still recall that, as a member of the Spee Club and Hasty Pudding, he had displayed some fairly wild behaviour of his own.

At last the meeting was over, and Kennedy caught the eye of John McNally, and then his Secret Service agents. The Ivy League was what he jokingly called them because they were most of them anything but that. Tough sons of bitches was what they were. Sometimes they were a little too cautious of his safety. Like the way they had tried to stop that poor sonofabitch Joe Murphy from coming inside the flat to cook his fucking breakfast. How much of a threat could you pose to the future President of the United States with two hard-boiled eggs?

He stood up from his chair, went on to automatic handshake, and allowed two agents to gently steer him towards the faculty room door. Glancing around, smiling, always smiling, he caught sight of the portrait of Longfellow, and for no reason he could think of, except that he had considered stealing something from The Psalm of Life for his speech to the State Legislature, he found himself remembering one particular verse: Lives of great men all remind us / We can make our lives sublime, / And, departing, leave behind us / Footprints on the sands of time.' He liked that verse a lot.

They were going down the stairs now. Pusey was saying something about training more Harvard men for policy-making responsibility, and he himself was replying that it had certainly done him no harm. Then the front door of University Hall opened and Kennedy stepped outside into the icy blast. Momentarily dazzled by the midday sun above the rooftops of Hollis and Stoughton, and the enthusiastic roar of the crowd now assembled, he blinked furiously and moved uncertainly down the steps.

Using the window shutter as cover, Tom Jefferson lay stretched out on the desk of Hollis Fifteen and, with the barrel of his rifle supported by one of Chub Farrell's pillows, took aim at the figure emerging from the front door of University Hall. In the space of a few seconds he pressed the butt of the rifle firmly against his shoulder and, tensing the muscles in his upper arm, curled his forefinger lightly on the trigger.

The scope picture was clear, with Kennedy's handsome, smiling, tanned face almost filling the eyepiece. Tom made a deeper inhalation and exhalation, the way he always did, and saw the reticle moving slightly on the bridge of Kennedy's nose. Taking the slack out of the trigger now. Pulling back just to the edge of release. Keeping his whole body absolutely still. The cross-hairs exactly on target. Holding his inhalation as, straight and clean, he pulled the trigger, all the time trying to ignore the curious whirring noise that tickled the air in the room, like the sound of a large mechanical cricket.

The firing pin of the Winchester rifle clicked harmlessly. Tom was only momentarily surprised not to feel the usual recoil that presaged his victim's death. Calmly, he worked the bolt again for a second shot, and said, One of us had better be loaded. I'd hate to be wasting my time here.'

I'll tell you when to stop,' said Alex Goldman. He held the Bolex Rex sixteen-mill cine camera steady on Tom's body for a second longer as once again the marksman squeezed his trigger on an empty rifle.

Whatever you say, Mister De Mille,' murmured Tom, working the bolt again. Just try not to get me in close-up. You're not on my best side, there.'

Goldman thumbed the switch to work the Bolex's powerful zoom, smoothly catapulting his camera view across Tom's head, the barrel of the rifle, and the heads of almost three thousand students as, yelling, shouting, and pushing, they broke through the police line and shoved their enthusiastic way to the future President.

Beautiful,' murmured Goldman. What a great shot. This is real cinema.'

He had an excellent shot of the bemused look on the young Senator's face. And the look of real alarm on the faces of the Secret Service agents who were trying to elbow a path through the crowd for Kennedy. Such was the scene of near pandemonium that Goldman could see through his viewfinder that it was almost as if Tom had fired a real shot into Kennedy's head.

The rifle clicked harmlessly a third time.

That's three times, plumb centre of his forehead,' reported Tom. If this rifle was loaded, Jack Kennedy would now be as dead as swing, for sure. Pity it isn't.'

Goldman zoomed back off Kennedy and through the window of Hollis Fifteen, coming around Tom's side to take account of Kennedy's progress through the Yard. He stopped filming, and turned the clockwork mechanism of the Bolex quickly. Fully wound, it allowed a shot of between twenty and thirty seconds' duration.

Move your head out of the way of the scope a second,' he directed. Tom did as he was told, and let Goldman take a shot of the view through the Unertl scope. Okay, now work the bolt.' Tom worked the bolt. Goldman shot a close-up of the trigger as Tom squeezed it again. You'd have done it too, wouldn't you?' he chuckled. You really would have shot him, wouldn't you? Crazy sonofabitch.'

Well, you know what they say. In for a penny. 'Sides, he fucked my wife, didn't he? If that's not a good reason to kill a man, I don't know what is. How long do I have to keep doing this? I'm beginning to feel stupid.

Who's directing this picture? Me or you? One more shot, okay?' Goldman wound the camera again.

Tom worked the rifle bolt a fourth time, and aimed at the tip of Kennedy's ear for a second, then at the knot of his blue woollen tie. He doesn't know how lucky he is,' said Tom, squeezing the trigger again. Yes, Mister Kennedy, today you were one lucky sonofabitch.'

Okay, that's enough,' said Goldman. I think I must have two or three minutes' worth of film by now.'

Tom placed the rifle on the floor, and rolled off the desk, letting out an exhausted groan. Jesus,' he exclaimed. I think that's actually worse than doing it for real. I feel kind of vulnerable doing this job without ammunition. Naked almost.'

Not having any bullets is our only guarantee that we won't get the chair if we're caught,' said Goldman, leaning across the desk now to get a last shot of the back of Jack Kennedy's head, as the Secret Service escorted him through a side entrance of Massachusetts Hall opposite, to escape the students in a dramatic change of plan. Look at that mess,' he said contemptuously. Another Secret Service foul-up.'

Tom was already replacing the rifle behind the closet, and, once again, he checked that it could not be seen.

First time I got paid not to blow someone's head off,' he remarked.

You're forgetting Castro,' said Goldman. You took Giancana's money to do that job. Anyway, I think you should be proud of yourself.'

How do you make that out? This might be bad for my reputation.'

If this plan works, we could stop a war.' Goldman finished shooting and put the big Bolex back in its leather carrying case. Come on, let's tidy up as quickly as possible and get out of here while there's still a crowd outside.'

He lifted up the floorboards to put away the radio, while Tom dragged the desk away from the window, and replaced the books and papers that had been lying on it. Goldman screwed down the floorboards and replaced the rug. Then they made the beds they had slept on. Finally the two men stood in the doorway and inspected Hollis Fifteen.

The shutters,' said Goldman, and went to close them. Outside, the student body was grouped in front of Massachusetts, chanting, We want Jack. We want Jack.'

Looks the same as it did when we came in,' pronounced Tom. Spartan.'

I think so, too,' said Goldman, and opened the door.

Outside, in Harvard Yard, chaos still reigned. While the students chanted over and over again for Kennedy to come out and make a speech, Secret Service agents were driving three cars up on the grass in front of Massachusetts Hall, and across the cement walk to the front door.

Goldman took out the Bolex once again, wound it up, checked his exposure and speed, and pushed his way through the crowd to try and get a final shot of Kennedy's exit. Tom followed, yelling, What are you doing? Come on, let's get the hell out of here.'

Now, two vehicles took flanking positions on either side of Kennedy's limousine, which was parked immediately beside the door to the hall. A triple line of police began to surround the cars.

What am I doing?' said Alex, finding a good shot of the crowd and the cars and the police in his viewfinder. I'm making a movie, for Christ's sake. To do that well, you have to build your movie around a storyline. You've gotta maintain interest in your picture by mixing long and short scenes. To get that Lubitsch touch, you gotta lead people up to your central idea. You gotta use a whole variety of shots to build suspense. To bring along your audience.'

There was a huge cheer and Goldman zoomed in on the front door as Kennedy and his agents dashed from the building, and into the waiting cars. That's my boy,' grinned Goldman. He held the shot and then followed with the zoom as, a moment or two later, all four cars drove out of Johnson Gate, on to Massachusetts Avenue. Finally, the Kennedy party was on its way to the Loeb Drama Center on Brattle Street. Goldman glanced at his watch. It was one o'clock.

Yes sir,' he said. Everything you shoot has got to be tied into your plot. The trouble with most home movies is that people forget to tell a story. But nothing's more important than that. Story is everything.'

When they were safely back in the Center Street apartment, Tom made them both some hot coffee and sandwiches and, while Alex developed the cine film, he watched The Guiding Light on TV. For a while he even closed his eyes and dozed a little. He was exhausted. The dummy assassination had been every bit as tiring as the real thing. More so. The sense of anti-climax was almost too much to bear. But it wasn't over yet. Not by a long way.

An hour or so later, at around two thirty, Alex emerged from the darkroom holding a small spool of developed film in his hand.

Here it is,' he announced triumphantly. Today's rushes.'

Tom got to his feet and, holding it up to the light, inspected some of the forty or fifty feet of sixteen-millimetre film Alex had shot on the Bolex Rex, and for which they had risked so much.

When can we view it?' he asked.

But Goldman was already unrolling a forty-inch screen.

No time like the present,' he said. Of course, you understand this little film classic is unedited. The lab'll need to make a copy before they slice this up.'

Tom turned the TV off. Goldman threaded the film on to a Bell and Howell projector, pulled the drapes, and then sat down on the sofa to watch. The two viewed the short film through several times with Goldman continuing to comment favourably on his own camerawork.

I reckon it's come out real fine,' he declared. Like I was Alfred fucking Hitchcock. Nicely lit, and nicely framed. Even though I say so myself. Damn good camera, that Bolex. I just wish we'd had sound.'

We agreed,' said Tom. The Fairchild was too complicated.'

Colour's good, though. You and Kennedy make quite a pair,' said Goldman. I always knew he was photogenic, but you look good, too. Maybe you should have been a movie actor, Tom. You've got presence, I'll say that much for you.'

A rifle can do that for you. It lends you a certain something.' Tom lit a cigarette. And what about you? Looks like you've missed your vocation, too. Maybe when you get back to Miami you can try your hand shooting skin-flicks.'

I might just do that.' Goldman glanced at his luminous wristwatch. Speaking of skin-flicks, where the hell are those two girls? I thought they'd be back here by now. We've got a plane to catch.'

They'll be here,' said Tom. Relax, will you? There's plenty of time yet.'

Okay. Do you want to look at it again?'

You look, Alex. I'm going to take a leak.'

Tom went towards the lavatory, and then halfway along the corridor ducked into Alex's bedroom where he quickly searched the other man's coat pockets and briefcase. Instead of the three air tickets to Miami, he found only one air ticket, in Alex Goldman's name. And a Walther automatic with a silencer. Wherever Goldman was planning to take Edith and Anne, it certainly wasn't Miami. Tom thought it looked very much as if Goldman was planning to shoot them both in the car, most likely in the parking lot at Logan.

Tom came back into the lounge and stood at the back of the room, in the shadows, watching the flickering film.

If you'd actually done it,' said Alex. If you'd actually gone ahead and shot him, this would be the most famous piece of film in the world, I guess.'

I guess it would at that,' agreed Tom.

I wonder if we could have got away with it?'

Sure we could. All those students? We'd have been gone with the wind.' Tom paused. When will you take it to Tampa?'

I told Ameijeiras I'd hand him the film the day after tomorrow.'

Alex?' Tom spoke carefully. You will look after those girls, won't you? Make sure they're all right when they get to Miami.'

Yeah, sure. I'll take care of them.'

Tom paused.

That's what I was afraid of,' he muttered.

Hmm?'

Well, I guess I'll be taking the film to Tampa myself, Alex.'

What's that you say, Paladin?'

The film ended and Alex turned to look at Tom in the white light of the Bell and Howell projector. He found himself staring into the silenced barrel of his own automatic.

Jesus Christ, Tom,' Alex said with a smile. What is this?'

Tom said nothing. What was there to say? Was it revenge? Or was it something else? A necessary precaution. Perhaps, in the final analysis, it was a little bit of both.

For Christ's sake, Tom. What's the idea?'

Have gun, will travel,' said Tom, and fired twice in quick succession. The first bullet caught Goldman in the throat, just below the Adam's apple, and, as the impact twisted his body around on the sofa, the second shot struck him in the back, high between the shoulder blades. For a moment Alex Goldman looked too surprised to move. His mouth stayed open on the word he had been about to utter, and then, slowly, he slid silently on to the floor and stayed still.

Tom leaned over the body and pressed his fingers close to Goldman's bloody neck, searching for a pulse. And finding a faint throb, he stood up and fired a third shot into the back of Goldman's head at point-blank range.

That made one for Mary, one for Edith, and one for Anne. Tom sighed and tossed the gun on to the blood-spattered sofa.

Sorry Alex. But you know, I think I'd better drive those two girls to the airport myself. Just in case. I like Edith. Fond of her, even. I wouldn't want anything bad to happen to her. Not like what happened to Mary.'

Chapter 27

The Cuba Memorandum

Five days later, Raul Roa, the Cuban Foreign Minister, sent a small package to the President-elect of the United States, at the White House, in Washington. The package contained a short memorandum personally written by Roa, and a number of what the memorandum described as evidentiary exhibits'. As a matter of routine the Secret Service removed the package for examination, and all its contents, including the memorandum, were subsequently destroyed. A second identical package, sent to the new Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, met the same fate at the hands of the same, acutely embarrassed, people. A third identical package was sent to Allen Dulles, at the Central Intelligence Agency, and was routinely intercepted by the Security Division. The package eventually found its way on to the desk of Colonel Sheffield Edwards who, upon reviewing its contents, immediately dispatched a number of agents, included Jim O'Connell, to Harvard University.

O'Connell reported back to Washington on the evening of 19 January. As soon as Edwards had heard his subordinate's report, he telephoned Richard Bissell at his home in Cleveland Park, near the Washington Cathedral, and was told that Mr and Mrs Bissell were attending the Pre-Inauguration Gala - a variety show at the city's Armory, hosted by Frank Sinatra. Edwards called the Armory and waited for several minutes while one of Bissell's aides tried to find him, during which time he managed to hear almost all of Ethel Merman singing Give Him the Oo-La-La', which was as near to any kind of Washington gala, or Georgetown party, that Edwards had ever been to. But at last Bissell came to the phone and, hearing Edwards out, called a meeting in his office at eight o'clock the following morning.

Eight inches of snow fell in Washington overnight, which made driving all but impossible. At seven o'clock on the morning of 20 January 1961, as Edwards slowly negotiated the treacherous road between his home and Bissell's L Street office, three thousand servicemen were already hard at work with snow ploughs and bulldozers, shovelling tons of snow into seven hundred army trucks in an effort to get the capital city moving. The sky was blue and the sun was shining, but it was unusually cold, even for Washington, with the temperature ten degrees below freezing. This was still not cold enough to deter the thousands of people all along the Mall, from the White House to the Lincoln Memorial, who had come to see John F. Kennedy become the thirty-fifth President of the United States. Many of them had spent the night sleeping out. And so determined were they to see something of the inauguration that some of them had even lit fires. Driving through the snow, past these fires, and the crowd of vagrant-like people huddled around them in blankets, Washington looked almost primitive, as if a sudden nuclear strike had reduced the country to the level of the Stone Age. It all helped to make Edwards feel awkward and unsettled, as if everything around him was coming badly unstuck.

It was seven thirty a.m. when Edwards arrived in Bissell's office. O'Connell was already there, as was Bissell's secretary, Doris Mirage, and together they had set up the cine projector and a rollaway screen. Gradually, the others arrived - Barnes and Bross, bleary from the night before, then Flannery, and finally Bissell himself, who showed no ill effects from having remained at the gala until Kennedy had left, at three a.m.

Straight away, Edwards took charge of the meeting. He explained the circumstances of the package's receipt and that Allen Dulles had not yet been informed of its contents. He also added that it was his information that the Secret Service had intercepted two similar packages which, according to his source on the State Department security detail, had both been destroyed. Edwards then proceeded to read the Cuba Memorandum.

Since January nineteen fifty-nine, and the defeat of the Batista dictatorship, the democratic peoples of Cuba have suffered the most vile, criminal, and unjust campaign to overthrow their popular republic. In the two years of the Cuban republic's existence, the United States government and its security agencies have countenanced, plotted, encouraged, and executed several attempts on the life of the Prime Minister of Cuba, Doctor Fidel PiA+-o Santos Castro. The Cuban people are not a savage people, or a criminal people, but the most feeling people in the world, and wish only to live in peace with our neighbours, the United States of America. Doctor Castro himself believes that nothing and no one can derail the revolution, and that his death could only strengthen the resolve of all Cubans to live as they, and not the US government, would wish. Nevertheless, Doctor Castro is beloved of the Cuban people who tell you now, in the name of peace, liberty, and international law, that all attempts to assassinate the Maximum Leader must cease forthwith, otherwise President John F. Kennedy will himself be assassinated. Indeed, he would already be dead now but for the goodwill of the Prime Minister and the most noble people of Cuba, as the accompanying evidentiary exhibits will confirm. Should the current campaign of homicidal aggression against our Prime Minister and the government of this island be continued, it is certain that no such goodwill will be forthcoming again. In short, President John F. Kennedy will not be so fortunate a second time. Watch the film, and mark well how close he came to death, and then consider carefully how close he might come once again. This memorandum is not a threat, but rather, in the proper sense of the word, it contains something to be borne in mind, and remembered well. President Kennedy's health and happiness, which is our most earnest desire, is in your hands. Yours sincerely, Raul Roa, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Cuba.'

Edwards put down the Cuba Memorandum, as the document henceforth was known, and nodded to O'Connell, who got to his feet and pulled the drapes against the strong reflected sunlight. When the room was darker, Edwards switched on the Wollensak projector, and the meeting sat back to view Alex Goldman's film in silence.

When it was finished, there was a long pause before Bissell said, Can we see it again, please, Jim?'

O'Connell pulled back the drapes, wound the film back and, while he re-spooled the sixteen-millimetre film, Edwards continued speaking.

The film was accompanied by this - a thirty-calibre bullet, fitted with an accelerator which snipers use to help slugs achieve a much higher velocity. There was also a copy of the Boston Globe describing Kennedy's January ninth visit to Harvard University, which is where the film was shot. Since receiving it, we have been able to identify the marksman's vantage point within Harvard, as Hollis Hall. Agent O'Connell visited Hollis Hall yesterday and, during a search of room fifteen, recovered a thirty-calibre Winchester rifle that was hidden behind a closet, and was, we believe, the rifle used in the film. The two students occupying the room were not in Harvard on the weekend prior to Kennedy's visit. Nor were they in Harvard on the morning of Kennedy's walkabout. They have been questioned, and their alibis check out. Although some of the facts affecting them remain to be resolved, we are satisfied that they were not involved in the plot to kill, or rather not to kill, President Kennedy.

It's our best guess that the man in the film is most probably Tom Jefferson. Alex Goldman, the FBI agent we dispatched to try and bring Jefferson in for us, was found dead in a Cambridge apartment just a few days ago. Most likely he was murdered by Jefferson. The connection seems to speak for itself. However, the identity of the cameraman remains a mystery to us. Ready, Jim?'

O'Connell nodded, and pulled the drapes once more. He switched on the projector.

This time, as he watched the film, Bissell said, Could the film be a fake, Sheff? Films like this can be faked, I believe.'

I had the same thought myself, sir. And I had the film examined by an expert from TSS who informs me that although the film has been edited, there are no anomalous characteristics that would lead him to believe that the film was a fake. There are no tracking errors, no inconsistency in ground shadows, no magnification aanomalies, nothing. The film is completely genuine, sir.'

In which case,' sighed Bissell, the Cubans could very easily have done it. Killed the President.'

Filming it and doing it are two very different things,' objected Tracy Barnes. There's the small matter of nerve to be considered.'

I don't think those two men lacked nerve,' said Bissell. They could easily have been shot and killed if the Secret Service had been doing its job properly.'

Since it so obviously wasn't doing its job,' said Flannery, it becomes easy to see why they've suppressed the film and the accompanying memo. You're quite sure the President hasn't seen this, Sheff?'

Quite sure.'

The film finished a second time. O'Connell pulled the drapes again, and then returned to his seat. He could recall the look of astonishment on the faces of Chub Farrell and Torbert Winthrop when he found the rifle in their room at Hollis Hall, and smiled. They had been terrified. Still were, probably. They had a lot of explaining that remained ahead of them.

Interesting,' muttered Bissell, and glanced at his watch. In less than four hours John F. Kennedy will be inaugurated as President of the United States. But it is quite clear to me that it could just as easily have been Lyndon Johnson we were inaugurating as President, this morning.'

Now there's a thought,' said someone. LBJ in the White House. Be like having John Wayne in charge of policy.'

Better than Kennedy,' said someone else.

You might as well know,' said Bissell. Last night President Kennedy more or less told me that I would succeed Allen Dulles as DD/I.'

Congratulations, sir,' said Barnes and Bross.

Under the circumstances, I think it's a little early for that. Quite obviously I feel a loyalty to the man. But at the same time I now have this agency to think of. So the question is, what do I do with this information? Am I to treat this as In-House Communications, and keep it secret to this agency? Or should I bring it to the attention of the President and his security advisers? What do we think?'

If we tell the President,' opined Barnes, then it might very well impact upon JMARC. Right now, Kennedy's four-square behind plans to invade Cuba and get rid of Castro. But there's no telling what might be the result of a full disclosure. After all, he's only human. If it was me that rifle had been pointed at, I might very well turn around and say, Okay, live and let live. Communist or not, Castro could have killed me and didn't. It would hardly be the action of a gentleman to reply in any way other than to call off the AMTHUG programme. I think he might very well cancel the whole deal, sir. The invasion, everything. And where would that leave us in DD/P? A Directorate of Plans without a plan is not much of a directorate.'

I am of the same opinion,' said Bissell. Besides, if the Secret Service have already suppressed this information because it shows them with egg on their faces, then it's hardly our responsibility, I'd have thought. Frankly, it was their call, not ours. And they've made it. If we said anything now, it would upset the whole damned apple-cart.'

But surely we can't just ignore this,' said Bross. What about the President's security? If we go ahead with the Cuban invasion plans, and another assassination attempt on Castro's life, then they may well turn out to be as good as their word. And try and kill him again. What then?'

No, we can't just ignore it,' said Bissell. Nor are we going to. I'll speak to Gerald Behn at the White House. See if he can't ginger up his Secret Service detail. Discourage the President from any more walks around Harvard Yard, that kind of thing. Make sure he only rides in the presidential limo from now on. If I know Gerald, he will have done something like it already. But perhaps my mentioning it will encourage him to go the extra mile. Maybe some new blood in the Secret Service is what is needed. New procedures. Some of those guys are as old as I am. But I don't think there's any undue cause for alarm, John. As Tracy has said, doing it for real is a very different proposition to making a movie about it. But I must say, looking at the film, and the way this whole thing has been handled, it gives me a new respect for the Cuban Intelligence Service. This was a very skilful operation. Just goes to show what can be done with a little guts and know-how, eh, Sheff?'

Yes sir. It just goes to show what can be done.'

Just what could be done was a matter of equal interest to Sam Giancana when, less than three months after Kennedy's inauguration, Johnny Rosselli met with the Chicago gangster to tell him what he had been able to glean about the hit on Kennedy that never was, from conversations he had had in Washington and Las Vegas with O'Connell and Maheu.

It seems like Jefferson actually had Kennedy in his telescopic sights,' said Rosselli. Apparently, on the film, he actually pulls the trigger, three or four times, before the camera zooms right in on Kennedy's head. Almost like it's a bullet. I'm told that it's a very nice bit of camera work.'

That's one movie I'd like to see,' admitted Giancana. Jefferson had balls. I always said so. If he was here now, I'd probably shake him by the hand. Too bad he didn't do it for real, huh?'

It's true. Things are different now,' admitted Rosselli.

They were seated in a cabana by the pool, at the Fontainebleu Hotel, in Miami. Giancana had been in town to see Phyllis McGuire and her sisters perform at the four-thousand-seater Cavalcade Theater, on 3 April. But plans to fly to New Orleans the next day, for a sit down with local mob boss Carlos Marcello, had been abandoned following Marcello's arrest and subsequent deportation to Guatemala. Giancana was still profoundly shocked by what had happened to the other gangster.

That fucking Kennedy,' seethed Giancana. Instead of slacking off on us, like he was supposed to, Bobby's been beefing up the whole Justice Department and its organised crime section. There are four times as many attorneys working in that department now, compared with last year. And this guy Bobby's got running the show. Silberling. I hear he's gotta list of top hoodlums. So-called. Carlos Marcello was at the top of it.'

Rosselli shook his head. Marcello will beat this. You mark my words. It was an illegal deportation. For the Justice Department to organise something like this is a scandal.' He sipped his Smirnoff on the rocks. His lawyers will fight it in the courts and win. Same way you beat the rap last time.'

Yeah, but who'll be next for the out-patient treatment? Me? I was born in Chicago. But you, Johnny Sacco. They find out about that fraudulent birth entry and where you were actually born, they might try and deport your ass back to Italy.'

Believe me, Sam, it's been on my mind a lot these past few days.'

I don't know, I really don't. I thought we had a deal with that mick fucker. And now look. What does Frank say about it?'

Oh, Frank is very embarrassed. He thinks you're mad at him.'

He must have a guilty conscience. One minute he tells me this, the next minute he tells me that. He's talked to Bobby, then he's talked to Jack. I don't know what to believe.'

To be honest, Momo, I'm not sure Frank knows himself. But that's people in show business, for you. They're full of shit. Say one thing, do another. Deluded. Most of them live in a fantasy world. Look at Marilyn. They think they walk on water. Frank still thinks he can be a fucking ambassador. But he's the only one who thinks so. Those Ivy League types would never let him do something like that. They'll go to his Pre-Inauguration Gala, and then piss all over it when they get home. That's those people all over. They fuck you like a whore and then they walk. Those people are full of promises that they never deliver.'

What about you?' said Giancana. Look at you. All that work for the CIA, and now the feds are trying to fuck you, Johnny. And all because of that Dan Rowan wiretap.'

Rosselli had been tipped off that the FBI were about to re-open a years-dormant probe into the status of his citizenship.

Where's the fucking justice in that?' demanded Giancana.

I love America, Sam. It's been good to me. I was just trying to put something back in, you know?'

We should have gone for Nixon's deal.'

We've always been Democrats, you know that, Momo.'

Yeah, but Nixon is straight. You can trust Nixon. When Nixon makes a deal he sticks to it. Our kind of deal. Next time we should back Nixon.'

Maybe Jefferson should have shot Kennedy after all. Then wouldn't be in this spot.'

I'll buy that. They're still going ahead with this dumb invasion?'

Very much so. I hear April seventeenth. Somewhere on the south coast. The Bay of Pigs.'

And, in spite of everything that's gone down with Carlos, they're still expecting us to kill Castro for them? Just like before? Like nothing happened?'

We're not supposed to know, but the whole fucking invasion rests on it. This doctor I know, Tony Varona, is gonna poison him.'

Giancana paused and lit a cigarette.

Not any more,' he said. That's what I wanted to talk to you about. I want you to tell this croaker to lay off.'

How's that?'

I just decided. Not any more. It ends here, Johnny. You understand me? All this shit with Castro. We're out.'

Rosselli knew better than to argue with Sam Giancana.

Whatever you say, Sam.'

Listen to me, Johnny. Why should we help them? When they won't help us?'

Reluctantly, I'm forced to agree with you, Sam. You're probably right.'

You're damn right I am.' Giancana laughed harshly. Just make sure you tell that doctor. All bets are off. Fuck the CIA. And fuck Jack Kennedy.'

Okay, Sam. I'll tell him. If that's what you want.'

Giancana laughed. It's what I want all right. I decided last night. After what happened to Carlos. Boy, are they in for a big surprise, when the hit on Castro doesn't happen.'

Frankly, it'll be the biggest surprise of his playboy presidency. Probably fuck him for good. Just let him try and get elected again after he screws this up.' Rosselli smiled, coming round to the idea. You know? I'm beginning to like this new angle a lot, Sam.'

Don't you tell them. I don't want to spoil the surprise. You keep stringing them along, Johnny. That's what you're good at.'

Sure, sure. Whatever you say, Sam. Not that the invasion stood much of a fucking chance anyway. They're only sending a force of about fifteen hundred men.'

Is that all? Jesus. Those crazy mick fuckers. What do they think they can do with a force that small?'

They're Cubans mostly. There's not a marine among them. Kennedy figures Castro's assassination and the landing will provoke a widespread revolt among the Cuban population at large.'

What about air support?'

Contingent on Castro's assassination. No body, no bombs.'

Too bad for those guys on the ground. Sounds like it'll be mass murder.'

What the hell? They're pimps and dealers. Full of shit and machismo. Most of them only know how to fight with a switchblade.'

Good. That should help to make Kennedy very unpopular with the Cuban community.'

Oh, his name will be crap, Momo. Take my word for it. He'll probably never dare set foot in Florida again.'

Even so, those Kennedys must feel they're pretty well tucked up in the White House.'

How do you mean?'

I mean them ordering another Castro assassination. They're not bothered by this Cuban Memorandum?'

Momo. They don't know about it. Didn't I say? The Secret Service didn't tell him. On account of the fact it made them look like a bunch of fucking pricks. Nor have the CIA. Because they figure it's none of their business. And because they didn't want Kennedy to pull the plug on this Bay of Pigs shit.'

Giancana laughed. You're kidding me.'

Not at all.'

Then maybe there is some justice after all.'

How's that?'

Think about it. Who the fuck can they trust? Not the CIA. Not the Secret Service. Who? Hoover?' Giancana shook his head. Forget about it. There's no one. Not even their old man. Bootlegger Joe. No one trusts that bastard.'

You make a point.'

So did Tom Jefferson. He made a point, too. A very good point. The guy got close. Close enough, and walked away. Your F-word, Johnny.'

Feasibility.'

Right. He made it look like it was feasible. It just goes to show what can be done. If you need to do it, I mean. It just goes to show what's possible.'

Rosselli grinned. Momo, this is the United States of America. Anything is possible here. Anything at all. Besides. There's always next time.'

The End