JEH: You've read the witness logs, observed the interviews and have been through the inevitable glut of lunatic phone tips. Is that correct?

WJL: Yes, Sir. The phone tips were especially fanciful and vindictive. John Kennedy had engendered a good deal of resentment in Dallas.

JEH: Yes, and entirely justified. Continuing with the witnesses. Have you conducted any interviews yourself?

WJL: No, Sir.

JEH: You've turned up no witnesses with especially provocative stories?

WJL: No, Sir. What we have is an alternative consensus pertaining to the number of shots and their trajectories. It's a confusing text, Sir. I don't think it will stand up to the official version.

JEH: How would you rate the investigation to date?

WJL: As incompetent.

JEH: And how would you define it?

WJL: As chaotic.

JEH: How would you assess the efforts to protect Mr. Oswald?

WJL: As shoddy.

JEH: Does that disturb you?

WJL: No.

JEH: The Attorney General has requested periodic updates. What do you suggest that I tell him?

WJL: That a fatuous young psychopath killed his brother, and that he acted alone.

JEH: The Dark Prince is no cretin. He must suspect the factions that most insiders would.

WJL: Yes, Sir. And I'm sure he feels complicitous.

JEH: I hear an unseemly tug of compassion in your voice, Mr. Littell. I will not comment on your protractedly complex relationship with Robert F. Kennedy.

WJL: Yes, Sir.

JEH: I cannot help but think of your blowhard client, James Riddle Hoffa. The Prince is his bete noire.

WJL: Yes, Sir.

JEH: I'm sure Mr. lloffa would like to know what the Prince really thinks of this gaudy homicide.

WJL: I would like to know myself, Sir.

JEH: I cannot help but think of your brutish client, Carlos Marcello. I suspect that he would enjoy access to Bobby's troubled thoughts.

WJL: Yes, Sir.

JEH: It would be nice to have a source close to the Prince.

WJL: I'll see what I can do.

JEH: Mr. lloffa gloats in an unseemly manner. He told the New York Times, quote, Bobby Kennedy is just another lawyer now, unquote. It's a felicitous sentiment, but I think there are those in the Italian aggregation who would appreciate more discretion on Mr. Hoffa's part.

WJL: I'll advise him to shut his mouth, Sir.

JEH: On a related topic. Did you know that the Bureau has a file on Jefferson Davis Tippit?

WJL: No, Sir.

JEH: The man belonged to the Ku Klux Klan, National States' Rights Party, National Renaissance Party and a dubious new splinter group called the Thunderbolt Legion. He was a close associate of a Dallas PD officer named Maynard Delbert Moore, a man of similar ideological beliefs and a reportedly puerile demeanor.

WJL: Did you get your information from a DPD source, Sir?

JEH: No. I have a correspondent in Nevada. He's a conservative pamphleteer and mail-order solicitor with very deep and diverse connections on the right flank.

WJL: A Mormon, Sir?

JEH: Yes. All the Nevadan fuhrer manques are Mormons, and this man is arguably the most gifted.

WJL: He sounds interesting, Sir.

JEH: You're leading me, Mr. Littell. I know full well that Howard Hughes wets his pants for Mormons and has two greedy eyes on Las Vegas. I'll always share a discreet amount of information with you, if you broach the request in a manner that does not insult my intelligence.

WJL: I'm sorry, Sir. You understood my design, and the man does sound interesting.

JEH: He's quite useful and diversified. For example, he runs a hate-tract press covertly. He's planted a number of his subscribers as informants in Klan groups that the Bureau has targeted for mail-fraud indictments. He helps eliminate his hate-mail competition in that manner.

WJL: And he knew the late Officer Tippit.

JEH: Knew or knew of. Judged or did not judge as ideologically unsound and outre. I'm always amusingly surprised by who knows who in which overall contexts. For example, the Dallas SAC told me that a former Bureau man named Guy Williams Banister is in town this weekend. Another agent told me, independently, that he's seen your friend Pierre Bondurant. Imaginative people might point to this confluence and try to link men like that to your mutual chum Carlos Marcello and his hatred of the Royal Family, but I am not disposed to such flights of fancy.

WJL: Yes, Sir.

JEH: Your tone tells me that you wish to ask a favor. For Mr. Hughes, perhaps?

WJL: Yes, Sir. I'd like to see the main Bureau file on the Las Vegas hotel-casino owners, along with the files on the Nevada Gaming Commission, Gaming Control Board, and the Clark County Liquor Board.

JEH: The answer is yes. Quid pro quo?

WJL: Certainly, Sir.

JEH: I would like to forestall potential talk on Mr. Tippit. If the Dallas Office has a separate file on him, I would like it to disappear before my less trusted colleagues get an urge to take the information public.

WJL: I'll take care of it tonight, Sir.

JEH: Do you think the single-gunman consensus will hold?

WJL: I'll do everything I can to insure it.

JEH: Good day, Mr. Littell.

WJL: Good day, Sir.

7.

(Dallas, 11/23/63).

Glut. Waste. Bullshit.

The hotel copped pleas. The hotel blamed Lee Oswald.

The joint bulged--capacity-plus--newsmen shared rooms. They hogged the phone lines. They sapped the hot water. They swamped the room-service crew.

The hotel copped pleas. The hotel blamed Lee Oswald.

Our guests mourn. Our guests weep. Our guests watch TV. They stay in. They call home. They hash out The Show.

Wayne paced his suite. Wayne nursed an earache--that muzzle boom stuck.

Room service called. They said we're sorry--we're running late. Maynard Moore didn't call. Durfee escaped. Moore let it ride.

Moore didn't issue warrants. Moore didn't issue holds. Moore wrote up the crap-game snafu. One guy lost a kneecap. One guy lost two pints of blood. One guy lost a toe.

Mr. Bowers lost a thumb. Wayne nursed the picture--all-nite reruns.

He tossed all night. He watched TV. He made phone calls. He called the Border Patrol. He issued crossing holds. Four units grabbed look-alikes and called him.

Wendell Durfee had knife scars--too fucking bad--the look-alikes had none.

He called Lynette. He called Wayne Senior. Lynette mourned JFK. Lynette said trite shit. Wayne Senior cracked jokes.

Jack's last word was "pussy." Jack groped a nurse and a nun.

Janice came on. Janice extolled Jack's style. Janice mourned Jack's hair. Wayne laughed. Wayne Senior was bald. Janice Tedrow--touche!

Room service called. They said we're sorry. We know your supper's late.

Wayne watched TV. Wayne goosed the sound. Wayne caught a press gig.

Newsmen lobbed questions. One cop went wild. Oswald was a "lethal loner!" Wayne saw Jack Ruby. He carried his dog. He passed out dick pens and French ticklers.

The cop calmed down. He said we'll move Oswald tomorrow--late morning looks good.

The phone rang. Wayne killed the sound.

He picked up. "Who's this?"

"It's Buddy Fritsch, and it took me all day to get a call in to you."

"Sorry, Lieutenant. Things are a bit crazy here."

"So I gathered. I also gathered that you had a run-in with Wendell Durfee, and you let him get away."

Wayne made fists. "Who told you?"

"The Border Patrol. They were checking on your fugitive warrant."

"Do you want to hear my version?"

"I don't want to hear excuses. I don't want to know why you're enjoying your luxury hotel suite when you should be out shaking the trees."

Wayne kicked a footrest. It hit the TV.

"Do you know how big the border is? Do you know how many crossing posts there are?"

Fritsch coughed. "I know you're sitting on your keester waiting for callbacks that won't come if that nigger went to ground in Dallas, and for all I know you're living it up with that six thousand dollars the casino boys gave you, without doing the job that they paid you for."

Wayne kicked a rug. "I didn't ask for that money."

"No, you sure didn't. And you didn't refuse it, either, 'cause you're the type of boy who likes to have things both ways, so don't--"

"Lieutenant--"

"Don't interrupt me until you outrank me, and let me tell you this now. You can go either way in the Department. There's boys who say Wayne Junior's a white man, and there's boys who say he's a weak sister. Now, if you take care of this, you'll shut the mouths on those latter boys and make everyone real proud of you."

His eyes teared up. "Lieutenant . . ."

"That's better. That's the Wayne Junior I like to hear."

Wayne wiped his eyes. "He's down at the border. All my instincts tell me that."

Fritsch laughed. "I think your instincts are telling you lots of things, so I'll tell you this. That file I gave you was Sheriff's, so you see if DPD has a file. That nigger's got to know some other niggers in Dallas, or my name isn't Byron B. Fritsch."

Wayne grabbed his holster. His blocked ear popped.

"I'll give it my best."

"No. You find him and kill him."