can't afford to retire. Not only can I not afford to do it, I don't want to be sitting on a veranda, picking my feet, and reading the paper from one cover to the other. I'm still a young man. I could do something. Most guys get jobs in the Treasury. The lucky ones join Western Union, or some place where they pay good money. A few even go to big hotels. Head of security, something like that. I was thinking, you being in Miami, you must know a lot of people who own hotels.'
Nimmo nodded. Or maybe a casino. In Vegas.'
Vegas. Yeah. I hadn't thought of that. Vegas would be nice, too.'
Sure, I know lots of people who could use a man with your background and experience. Leave it to me, Murray. I'll speak to someone on your behalf, tonight.'
Thanks a lot, Jimmy. I really appreciate it.' They started to move again. Did you know that it isn't anything other than a straight murder felony to kill the President of the United States? In England, they call it high treason if you kill the head of state, Queen Elizabeth. But not here. Imagine if the President got shot on a trip to the Yukon? Shit, they'd have to try the killer's ass according to local state law, in Juneau, which, I'm sure you know, is the capital of Alaska.'
So what's wrong with that? They'd have to try the guy somewhere. Juneau'd be as good a place to do it as any place else, what with all the witnesses and all.'
Except that they don't have the death penalty in Alaska. They abolished it in fifty-seven. Some fucked-up Alaskan gold-miner shoots the President of the United States and all they do is put him in jail for the rest of his natural. Seems hardly just, now does it?'
They stopped outside 3307 N Street - Senator Kennedy's Georgetown home. It was a flat, red-brick building of three storeys, with a walled garden out back. To Jimmy Nimmo, it seemed a small sort of house for the President-elect to be living in. The lights were on, and no doubt Kennedy was inside choosing another member of his cabinet. It appeared unlikely that he'd be fucking some big-breasted actress with so many reporters and TV cameras parked outside his front door. But then maybe there was a back door, too. And maybe Kennedy was the type to get off on that kind of risk.
Standing there, watching the house, searching the windows for some sign of the President-elect, Nimmo began to understand how easy it would be to kill the man. He himself was carrying a six-shot .38 in a shoulder holster. It had taken just one shot, from a .44-calibre Derringer, to kill Abraham Lincoln. Ford's Theater - the scene of the assassination - wasn't more than three miles away. Killing the President was probably straightforward enough, provided you were willing to be executed for it - or be shot trying to escape, like John Wilkes Booth. But to be shot by a fucking actor. That was plain embarrassing. No wonder they had tried to prove that Booth had been part of some great Confederate conspiracy. Important people -gods - just weren't supposed to die that way.
Of course, the autopsy hadn't helped any. Fucking autopsy surgeons. Early confusion centred on the fact that Booth had approached President Lincoln from the right, but the bullet had entered his head from the left. This obfuscation persisted until the trial of the conspirators - despite the fact that Booth had indeed acted alone, the United States government still managed to hang several others for the crime - when one witness gave evidence to the effect that just before the fatal shot was fired, Lincoln, hearing a noise in the auditorium, had turned his head sharply to the left.
Nimmo turned his own head in one direction, and then the other. The buildings facing the Kennedy home belonged to other senators, or were owned by the federal government. It was hardly sniper's terrain. This would not be where Jefferson made his attempt, that much was clear to Nimmo. Shooting a man with a handgun and then getting caught was hardly the style of a professional marksman.
Weintraub took Nimmo by the arm and led him away. I'll see what I can do for you, Jimmy. I'll call you, in your hotel room, tomorrow morning.'
Nimmo breakfasted alone in his room, and waited for the phone to ring. He watched The Today Show with Dave Garroway, on TV. Then an old movie, just because Peter Lawford, Kennedy's brother-in-law, happened to be in it. Nimmo had heard the stories about Lawford. Rumour had it that Lawford, a boozer and a womaniser, was also a nasty piece of work. The movie was Picture of Dorian Gray and, for a while, Nimmo thought that Lawford would have made a more convincing Dorian than the actor who did play him. But, by the time the movie was over, Nimmo had come to the conclusion that Jack Kennedy would have made an even better fist of the role. Who better than Kennedy, with his handsome good looks and easy charm, to play the part of a destructive hedonist whose own attractive features hid a shocking story of moral degeneration and sexual depravity?
He was watching Morning Court when finally the phone rang. It was Murray Weintraub. He said, Okay, you first.'
I spoke to my friend,' reported Nimmo. Seems like they could use someone with your abilities at the Riviera Hotel and Casino, in Vegas.'
I always wanted to go to Vegas.'
The way you play your cards? I had you down for a regular, Murray.'
I think you'll be happy with what I have for you, too, Jimmy. Meet me for lunch at Duke Zeiberts, seventeen- thirty L Street. That's two doors west of Connecticut Avenue. Twelve o'clock.'
I'll be there.'
After spending most of the morning cooped up in his hotel room, Nimmo decided to walk the mile and a half to the restaurant. There had been a shower of rain but the sun was shining now. It was a typical late November day. Thanksgiving holidays were being planned. Pumpkins were piled in front of grocery stores. Shop windows were posted with Thursday opening hours. America looked a peaceful place to be living in, prosperous and responsibly governed. For all but one citizen abroad on the streets of Washington that 22 November morning, the murder of a President, especially one who had yet to take the oath of office, would have seemed a very unlikely scenario.
Chapter 14
Edith Quadros
Ever since he was a boy, Tom Jefferson had been fascinated by American presidents. When Tom was in New York he used the name Frank Pierce, after Franklin Pierce, the fourteenth President of the United States. If he was moving among the buxom, blithe, and barely bedecked cocktail waitress set - somewhere like Chez Joie, on Broadway - then he called himself Marty Van Buren, after the eighth President. But mostly he stayed at home in the apartment, especially when Edith turned up pretending, for the benefit of the doorman in Tom's building and his nosey neighbours, to be his half-sister.
Edith Quadros was Nicaraguan, estranged - since she was also a communist - from a very rich family who were close friends of Luis Somoza Debayle, the Nicaraguan President. Working alongside Tom was to be her last assignment for the Cuban Intelligence Service before returning to Managua and helping Carlos Fonseca to found a Nicaraguan revolutionary movement. She believed in the Soviet Union - which she had visited - in the Cuban revolution - which she had assisted - and in Fidel Castro - whom she had bedded - as much as she believed in the evil of Standard Fruit, the CIA, and the Somoza regime. And she believed in the expedience of what Tom and Ameijeiras were planning.
Tom liked Edith immediately, not least because she was as intelligent as she was beautiful, and they were quickly lovers, for theirs was the kind of secret work that promotes an easy intimacy. She knew something of the plan already from Colonel Ameijeiras, and although Tom described it again in greater detail, he could see that it made her nervous. He would have been surprised if it had not. So he tried not to discuss it too much with her, which was easy since there was little to do until the week before Christmas, except rent an apartment and buy a car in Boston.
And in the week up to Thanksgiving, he concentrated on showing her a good time in New York. He took her bowling at Pinewood Lanes on West 125th, and to dinner at Le Vouvray on East 55th. He even took her clothes shopping at Korvette's and Ohrbach's. Gradually, as he got to know her better, Tom realised that he had mistaken nerves for impatience to get on with the job, since Edith was quite resolved to go through with her part in the plan which, in its way, was almost as difficult as his own. And it became clear to him that she disliked Kennedy in the same way Tom did.
He's a playboy,' she said dismissively. I've known the type all my life. I can't stand playboys. Being the President is just like having another expensive toy his father has bought for him, and an opportunity to sleep with more women. I don't understand why America would elect such a man.'
The reason's simple,' said Tom. Richard Nixon. Nobody wanted a bum like him for President. He was the one candidate worse than Jack Kennedy.'
