Mercedes Street was mostly silent under an overcast sky. The jump-rope girls weren’t in evidence — they’d be in school, perhaps listening raptly as their teacher told them all about the upcoming presidential visit — but the FOR RENT sign was once more tacked to the rickety porch railing, as I’d expected. There was a phone number. I drove down to the Montgomery Ward warehouse parking lot and called it from the booth near the loading dock. I had no doubt that the man who answered with a laconic “Yowp, this is Merritt” was the same guy who had rented 2703 to Lee and Marina. I could still see his Stetson hat and gaudy stitched boots.
I told him what I wanted, and he laughed in disbelief. “I don’t rent by the week. That’s a fine home there, podna.”
“It’s a dump,” I said. “I’ve been inside. I know.”
“Now wait just a doggone—”
“Nosir,
“Why would you—”
“Because Kennedy’s coming and every hotel in Dallas — Fort Worth is full. I drove a long way to see him, and I don’t intend to camp out in Fair Park or on Dealey Plaza.”
I heard the click and flare of a cigarette lighter as Merritt thought this over.
“Time’s wasting,” I said. “Tick-tock.”
“What’s your name, podna?”
“George Amberson.” I sort of wished I’d moved in without calling at all. I almost had, but a visit from the Fort Worth PD was the last thing I needed. I doubted if the residents of a street where chickens were sometimes blown up to celebrate holidays gave much of a shit about squatters, but better safe than sorry. I was no longer just walking around the house of cards; I was living in it.
“I’ll meet you out front in half an hour, forty-five minutes.”
“I’ll be inside,” I said. “I have a key.”
More silence. Then: “Where’d you get it?”
I had no intention of peaching on Ivy, even if she was still in Mozelle. “From Lee. Lee Oswald. He gave it to me so I could go in and water his plants.”
“That little pissant had
I hung up and drove back to 2703. My temporary landlord, perhaps motivated by curiosity, arrived in his Chrysler only fifteen minutes later. He was wearing his Stetson and fancy boots. I was sitting in the front room, listening to the argumentative ghosts of people who were still living. They had a lot to say.
Merritt wanted to pump me about Oswald — was he really a damn commanist? I said no, he was a good old Louisiana boy who worked at a place that would overlook the president’s motorcade on Friday. I said I hoped that Lee would let me share his vantage point.
“Fuckin Kennedy!” Merritt nearly shouted. “Now
“You have a nice day, now,” I said, opening the door.
He went, but he wasn’t happy about it. This was a fellow who was used to having tenants kowtow and cringe. He turned on the cracked and crumbling concrete walk. “You leave the place as nice as you found it, now, y’hear?”
I looked around at the living room with its moldering rug, cracked plaster, and one brokedown easy chair. “No problem there,” I said.
I sat back down and tried to tune in to the ghosts again: Lee and Marina, Marguerite and de Mohrenschildt. I fell into one of my abrupt sleeps instead. When I woke up, I thought the chanting I heard must be from a fading dream.
It was still there when I opened my eyes. I went to the window and looked out. The jump-rope girls were a little taller and older, but it was them, all right, the Terrible Trio. The one in the middle was spotty, although she looked at least four years too young for adolescent acne. Maybe it was rubella.
“Salute to the Queen,” I muttered, and went into the bathroom to wash my face. The water that belched out of the tap was rusty, but cold enough to wake me the rest of the way up. I had replaced my broken watch with a cheap Timex and saw it was two-thirty. I wasn’t hungry, but I needed to eat something, so I drove down to Mr. Lee’s Bar-B-Q. On the way back, I stopped at a drugstore for another box of headache powders. I also bought a couple of John D. MacDonald paperbacks.
The jump-rope girls were gone. Mercedes Street, ordinarily raucous, was strangely silent.
