The streets making up the Dallas block I was interested in were Turtle Creek Boulevard (where the general lived), Wycliff Avenue (where I’d parked), Avondale Avenue (which was where I went after returning Walker’s wave), and Oak Lawn, a street of small businesses that ran directly behind the general’s house. Oak Lawn was the one I was most interested in, because it was going to be Lee’s line of approach and route of escape on the night of April 10.
I stood in front of Texas Shoes amp; Boots, the collar of my denim jacket raised and my hands stuffed in my pockets. About three minutes after I took up this position, the bus stopped at the corner of Oak Lawn and Wycliff. Two women with cloth shopping bags got off immediately when the doors flopped open. Then Lee descended to the sidewalk. He carried a brown paper bag, like a workman’s lunchsack.
There was a big stone church on the corner. Lee sauntered over to the iron railing running in front of it, read the noticeboard, took a small notepad out of his hip pocket, and jotted something down. After that he headed in my direction, tucking the notebook into his pocket as he walked. I hadn’t expected that. Al had believed Lee was going to stash his rifle near the railroad tracks on the other side of Oak Lawn Avenue, a good half a mile away. But maybe the notes were wrong, because Lee didn’t even glance in that direction. He was seventy or eighty yards away, and closing in fast on my position.
He’s going to notice me and he’s going to speak to me, I thought. He’s going to say, “Aren’t you the guy who lives downstairs? What are you doing here?” If he did, the future would skew off in a new direction. Not good.
I stared at the shoes and boots in the show window with sweat dampening the nape of my neck and rolling down my back. When I finally took a chance and shifted my eyes to the left, Lee was gone. It was like a magic trick.
I sauntered up the street. I wished I’d put on a cap, maybe even some sunglasses-why hadn’t I? What kind of half-assed secret agent was I, anyway?
I came to a coffee shop about halfway along the block, the sign in the window advertising BREAKFAST ALL DAY. Lee wasn’t inside. Beyond the coffee shop was the mouth of an alley. I walked slowly across it, glanced to my right, and saw him. His back was to me. He had taken his camera out of the paper sack but wasn’t shooting with it, at least not yet. He was examining trash cans. He pulled off the lids, looked inside, then replaced them.
Every bone in my body-by which I mean every instinct in my brain, I suppose-was urging me to move on before he turned and saw me, but a powerful fascination held me in place a little longer. I think it would have held most people. How many opportunities do we have, after all, to watch a guy as he goes about the business of planning a cold-blooded murder?
He moved a little deeper into the alley, then stopped at a circular iron plate set in a plug of concrete. He tried to lift it. No go.
The alley was unpaved, badly potholed, and about two hundred yards long. Halfway down its length, the chain link guarding weedy backyards and vacant lots gave way to high board fences draped in ivy that looked less than vibrant after a cold and dismal winter. Lee pushed a mat of it aside, and tried a board. It swung out and he peered into the hole behind it.
Axioms about how you have to break eggs to make an omelet were all very fine, but I felt I had pressed my luck enough. I walked on. At the end of the block I stopped at the church that had caught Lee’s interest. It was the Oak Lawn Church of Latter-day Saints. The noticeboard said there were regular services every Sunday morning and special newcomers’ services every Wednesday night at 7 PM, with a social hour to follow. Refreshments would be served.
April 10 was a Wednesday and Lee’s plan (assuming it wasn’t de Mohrenschildt’s) now seemed clear enough: hide the gun in the alley ahead of time, then wait until the newcomers’ service-and the social hour, of course-was over. He’d be able to hear the worshippers when they came out, laughing and talking as they headed for the bus stop. The buses ran on the quarter hour; there was always one coming along. Lee would take his shot, hide the gun behind the loose board again ( not near the train tracks), then mingle with the church folk. When the next bus came, he’d be gone.
