Ruth only came twice to Neely Street for her lessons. After that, Marina and June got in the station wagon and Ruth drove them away. Probably to her home in the posh (at least by Oak Cliff standards) suburb of Irving. That address wasn’t in Al’s notes — he seemed to care little about Marina’s relationship with Ruth, probably because he expected to finish Lee long before that rifle ended up in the Paines’ garage — but I found it in the phone directory: 2515 West Fifth Street.
One overcast March afternoon, about two hours after Marina and Ruth had departed, Lee and George de Mohrenschildt showed up in de Mohrenschildt’s car. Lee got out carrying a brown paper sack with a sombrero and PEPINO’S BEST MEXICAN printed on the side. De Mohrenschildt had a six-pack of Dos Equis. They went up the outside staircase, talking and laughing. I grabbed the earphones, heart pumping. At first there was nothing, but then one of them turned on the lamp. After that I might have been in the room with them, an unseen third.
“Pardon the mess,” Lee said. “She doesn’t do anything much these days but sleep, watch TV, and talk about that woman she’s giving lessons to.”
De Mohrenschildt spoke for awhile about some oil leases he was trying to get hold of in Haiti, and spoke harshly of the repressive Duvalier regime. “At the end of the day, trucks drive through the marketplace and pick up the dead. Many of them are children who’ve starved to death.”
“Castro and the Front will put an end to that,” Lee said grimly.
“May providence hasten the day.” There was the clink of bottles, probably to toast the idea of providence hastening the day. “How is work, Comrade? And how is it you’re not there this afternoon?”
He wasn’t there, Lee said, because he wanted to be here. Simple as that. He’d just punched out and walked away. “What can they do about it? I’m the best damn photoprint technician ole Bobby Stovall’s got, and he knows it. The foreman, his name is
Still, it was clear Lee liked his job, although he complained about the paternalistic attitude, and how seniority counted for more than talent. At one point he said, “You know, in Minsk, on a level playing field, I’d be running the place in a year.”
“I know you would, my son — it’s completely evident.”
Playing him up.
“Did you see the paper this morning?” Lee asked.
“I saw nothing but telegrams and memos this morning. Why do you think I’m here, if not to get away from my desk?”
“Walker did it,” Lee said. “He joined up with Hargis’s crusade — or maybe it’s Walker’s crusade and Hargis joined up. I cain’t tell. That fucking Midnight Ride thing, anyway. Those two ninnies are going to tour the whole South, telling people that the N-double-A-C-P’s a communist front. They’ll set integration and voting rights back twenty years.”
“Sure! And fomenting hate. How long before the massacres start?”
“Or until someone shoots Ralph Abernathy and Dr. King!”
“Of
One of them used the church key on another bottle of Mexican beer, and Lee said, “Someone should stop those two bastards.”
“You’re wrong to call our General Walker a ninny,” de Mohrenschildt said in a lecturely tone. “Hargis, yes, okay. Hargis is a joke. What I hear is that he is — like so many of his ilk — a man of twisted sexual appetites, willing to diddle a little girl’s cunt in the morning and a little boy’s asshole in the afternoon.”
“Man, that’s
“But Walker, ah, there’s a very different kettle of shrimp. He’s high in the John Birch Society—”
“Those Jew-hating fascists!”
“—and I can see a day, not long hence, when he may run it. Once he has the confidence and approval of the other right-wing nut groups, he may even run for office again… but this time not for governor of Texas. I suspect he has his sights aimed higher. The Senate? Perhaps. Even the White House?”
“That could never happen.” But Lee sounded unsure.
“It’s
