'Joe, what's the Mafia?'
'Never hear of him, either.'
Winchell looked at me; I smiled at him blandly.
He said, 'You didn't shoot at Mayor Cermak? The Mafia didn't hire you to shoot at Mayor Cermak?'
Cocky now, almost laughing, Zangara said, 'That's a baloney story.'
'Why didn't you try to get away in the park, Joe?'
'Couldn't get away there. Too many peoples.'
'Wasn't that suicidal, Joe?'
Zangara blinked.
'Risky, Joe,' Winchell said. 'Wasn't that risky?'
The naked little man shrugged again. 'You can't see presidents alone. Always peoples.'
'Are you an anarchist, Joe? A Communist?'
'Republican,' he said.
That stopped Winchell, too.
Then he said, 'So you wouldn't try to kill President Hoover, I suppose.'
'Sure. If I see him first, I kill him first. All same, it makes no difference.'
The sheriff interrupted. 'Zangara, if Mr. Roosevelt came in this jail and you had your pistol back in your hand, would you kill him now?'
'Sure.'
'Do you want to kill me? Or the policemen who caught you?'
'I no care to kill police. They work for living. I am for workingman, against rich and powerful. As a man. I like Mr. Roosevelt. As a president. I want to kill him.'
Winchell jumped back in. 'Do you believe in God. Joe? Do you belong to a church?'
'No! No. I belong to nothing. I belong only to myself, and I suffer.'
'You don't believe there is any God. heaven or hell or anything like that?'
'No. Everything on this earth like weed. All on this earth. There no God. It's all below.'
Winchell had run out of questions.
Zangara turned and walked toward the window in his cell. He could see Biscayne Bay out of it. A gentle breeze was coming through: I could feel it from where I stood.
The sheriff said. 'We'll get you a lawyer tomorrow, Zangara.'
His bare back still to us. he said, 'No lawyer. I don't want nobody to help me.'
The sheriff asked Winchell if he was done, and Winchell nodded, and we walked back out through the cellblock, our footsteps echoing, the black man still sitting on his haunches on his cot; he was laughing, now. to himself. Rocking back and forth.
At the elevator the sheriff shook Winchell's hand and spelled his name for Winchell three times; and we went down.
Winchell was silent in the elevator, but outside, in the Miami night air. he put a hand on my arm and said. 'What's your name, kid?'
'Heller.'
He smiled; showed some teeth for a change. 'Aren't you going to spell it?'
'I don't want to be in your story.'
'Good, 'cause you're not. You're Chicago, right?'
'Born and bred.'
'What do you make of that back there?'
'You're New York. What do
'Hogwash.'
'Is that what they call it in New York?'
'It's one of the things you can call it in print. Bullshit by any name would smell as sweet.'
'That scar on his stomach isn't bullshit.'
'No. It's real enough. Ever hear of Owney Madden?'
Raft's gangster friend.
'Sure,' I said.
'He's a pal of mine,' Winchell said. 'He saved my life when Dutch Schultz got mad at me. I got a little fresh in my column, where Schultz and Vince Coll were concerned. Predicted Coil's murder the day before it happened.'
