“I don’t make you do nothing!” he shouted back. They were standing nose-to-nose in the living room. “I don’t make you do nothing, and you do it anyway!”
“Lee, how are you going to support your family? You need a job!”
“Oh, I’ll get a job! Don’t you worry about that, Ma!”
“I don’t know—”
“Oh,
“—but she’s got plenty of friends.” He jerked a thumb at Marina, who flinched. “They aren’t good for much, but they’ll be good for that. You need to get out of here, Ma. Go back home. Let me catch my breath.”
Marguerite darted to the playpen. “Where’d this here come from?”
“The friends I told you about. Half of em’s rich and the rest are trying. They like to talk to Rina.” Lee sneered. “The older ones like to ogle her tits.”
“Go on, Ma. Give us some peace.”
“Does she understand that men who give things always want things in return? Does she, Lee?”
Marguerite smiled. “You’re upset. Of course you are. I’ll come back when you’re feeling more in control of yourself. And I’ll help. I always want to help.”
Then, abruptly, she rushed at Marina and the baby. It was as if she meant to attack them. She covered June’s face with kisses, then strode across the room. At the door, she turned and pointed at the playpen. “Tell her to scrub that down, Lee. People’s cast-offs always have germs. If the baby gets sick, you’ll never be able to afford the doctor.”
“Ma!
“I am just now.” Calm as cookies and milk. She twiddled her fingers in a girlish ta-ta gesture, and off she went.
Marina approached Lee, holding the baby like a shield. They talked. Then they shouted. Family solidarity was gone with the wind; Marguerite had seen to that. Lee took the baby, rocked her in the crook of one arm, then — with absolutely no warning — punched his wife in the face. Marina went down, bleeding from the mouth and nose and crying loudly. Lee looked at her. The baby was also crying. Lee stroked June’s fine hair, kissed her cheek, rocked her some more. Marina came back into view, struggling to her feet. Lee kicked her in the side and down she went again. I could see nothing but the cloud of her hair.
But it was Lee who left her, at least temporarily. I never saw him on Mercedes Street again.
It was their first separation. Lee went to Dallas to look for work. I don’t know where he stayed. According to Al’s notes it was the Y, but that turned out to be wrong. Maybe he found a place in one of the cheap rooming houses downtown. I wasn’t concerned. I knew they’d show up together to rent the apartment above me, and for the time being, I’d had enough of him. It was a treat not to have to listen to his slowed-down voice saying
Thanks to George Bouhe, Marina landed on her feet. Not long after Marguerite’s visit and Lee’s decampment, Bouhe and another man arrived in a Chevy truck and moved her out. When the pickup left 2703 Mercedes, mother and daughter were riding in the bed. The pink suitcase Marina had brought from Russia had been lined with blankets, and June lay fast asleep in this makeshift nest. Marina put a steadying hand on the little girl’s chest as the truck started rolling. The jump-rope girls were watching, and Marina waved to them. They waved back.
I found George de Mohrenschildt’s address in the Dallas White Pages and followed him several times. I was curious about whom he might meet, although if it were a CIA man, a minion of the Lansky Mob, or some other possible conspirator, I doubt I would have known it. All I can say is that he met no one that seemed suspicious to me. He went to work; he went to the Dallas Country Club, where he played tennis or swam with his wife; they went out to a couple of strip clubs. He didn’t bother the dancers, but had a penchant for fondling his wife’s boobs and butt in public. She didn’t seem to mind.
