“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 sick!” Lee’s voice broke like an adolescent’s on the last word. Then he laughed.
“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 unlikely to happen,” de Mohrenschildt corrected. “But never underestimate the American bourgeoisie’s capacity to embrace fascism under the name of populism. Or the power of television. Without TV, Kennedy would never have beaten Nixon.”
“Kennedy and his iron fist,” Lee said. His approval of the current president seemed to have gone the way of blue suede shoes. “He won’t never rest as long as Fidel’s shitting in Batista’s commode.”
“And never underestimate the terror white America feels at the idea of a society in which racial equality has become the law of the land.”
“Nigger, nigger, nigger, beaner, beaner, beaner!” Lee burst out, with a rage so great it was nearly anguish. “That’s all I hear at work!”
“I’m sure. When the Morning News says ‘the great state of Texas,’ what they mean is ‘the hate state of Texas.’ And people listen! For a man like Walker-a war hero like Walker-a buffoon like Hargis is nothing but a stepping-stone. The way von Hindenberg was a stepping-stone for Hitler. With the right public relations people to smooth him out, Walker could go far. Do you know what I think? That the man who knocked off General Edwin Racist America Walker would be doing society a favor.”
I dropped heavily into a chair beside the table where the little tape recorder sat, its reels spinning.
“If you really believe-” Lee began, and then there was a loud buzz that made me snatch the headphones off. There were no cries of alarm or outrage from upstairs, no swift movement of feet, so-unless they were very good at covering up on the spur of the moment-I thought I could assume the lamp bug hadn’t been discovered. I put the headphones back on. Nothing. I tried the distance mike, standing on a chair and holding the Tupperware bowl almost against the ceiling. With it I could hear Lee talking and de Mohrenschildt’s occasional replies, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying.
My ear in the Oswald apartment had gone deaf.
The past is obdurate.
After another ten minutes of conversation-maybe about politics, maybe about the annoying nature of wives, maybe about newly hatching plans to kill General Edwin Walker-de Mohrenschildt bounded down the outside stairs and drove away.
Lee’s footfalls crossed above my head- clump, clud, clump. I followed them into my bedroom and trained the distance mike on the place where they stopped. Nothing… nothing… then the faint but unmistakable sound of snoring. When Ruth Paine dropped off Marina and June two hours later, he was still sleeping the sleep of Dos Equis. Marina didn’t wake him. I wouldn’t have woken the bad-tempered little sonofabitch, either.
Oswald began to miss a lot more work after that day. If Marina knew, she didn’t care. Maybe she didn’t even notice. She was absorbed with her new friend Ruth. The beatings had abated a little, not because morale had improved, but because Lee was out almost as frequently as she was. He often took his camera. Thanks to Al’s notes, I knew where he was going and what he was doing.
One day after he’d left for the bus stop, I jumped into my car and drove to Oak Lawn Avenue. I wanted to beat Lee’s crosstown bus, and I did. Handily. There was plenty of slant-style parking on both sides of Oak Lawn, but my red gull-wing Chevy was distinctive, and I didn’t want to risk Lee seeing it. I put it around the corner on Wycliff Avenue, in the parking lot of an Alpha Beta grocery. Then I strolled down to Turtle Creek Boulevard. The houses there were neo-haciendas with arches and stucco siding. There were palm-lined drives, big lawns, even a fountain or two.
In front of 4011, a trim man (who bore a striking resemblance to the cowboy actor Randolph Scott) was at work with a push mower. Edwin Walker saw me looking at him and struck a curt half-salute from the side of his brow. I returned the gesture. Lee Oswald’s target resumed mowing and I moved on.
