discharged its point-blank, vehement, deafening blast.
For an infinity, Beggs felt himself being lifted higher and higher by the blast, and then he was plummeting downward, legless, as if the folding body beneath him were his lower limbs. He heard Dilman groan as they crashed to the cement walk, Dilman beneath and doubled over, and himself atop Dilman.
Trying to rise, Beggs teetered on the rim of a deep invisible canyon, swaying, knowing he must fall. It was all feeling now, feeling and nerve ends, feeling the moist blood on Dilman’s cheekbone, the soaked blood that had pasted his own trousers to his own leg, feeling the security of the metal in the grip of his right palm.
The reverberations from the assassin’s blast still pounded inside his head. He came around on his side, lightning-fast, trying not to expose the President. He came around as the assassin above shook his gun, raised it unsteadily, as if unsure that he had killed the President and determined to try again, determined to find an opening. All this in the shaving of a second. As the other’s gun came up, steadying itself, Beggs’s wrist snapped the revolver in his palm upward. His proud Medal of Honor reflex. His forefinger tugged the trigger as immediately and gently as once it had pulled the thumb from his infant son’s mouth. The response, the report from his revolver, was as quiet and as firm as his finger’s reproof. There was a muffled metallic cough, a swooshing, humming sound.
He was not surprised to see the assassin’s black face let go its venom, open and broaden in wonder. He was not surprised to see the assassin’s fingers fan outward, like those of a mechanical doll, until the Luger was released and clattered to the cement walk. He was not surprised to see the person above touch both hands to his chest, as if to open the overalls at the reddening stain, and then drop his chin, and then gradually surrender life, and then fold downward and downward into a lumpy heap behind the stark branches of the hedge.
Beggs turned his head at the footsteps, so many hurrying footsteps. Sluggishly, with disinterest, he watched them coming from everywhere, from everywhere, it seemed, from the guardhouse, the Oval Office, the entrance above the ramp, and probably from the ground floor behind him. His vision was poor. There were police, Ross and Prentiss and a half-dozen others of Gaynor’s boys, Miss Foster, Flannery, Talley, countless more.
He heard the babel of voices, the shouts, the yelling, the commands.
“Get the physician-get Oates-right through there, around the corner!”
“Move Beggs-move him-lift him off!”
“The President-is he dead?”
It was pleasant for Beggs, all the hands, all the attention. He found himself on a blanket, on his back, staring up at blurred faces and the overhang above them.
From a distance he heard Ross’s voice. “-the gardener fired, missed, then Beggs jumped on the President and bowled him over as the colored guy fired again. Then Beggs rolled over and just shot him dead… The body’s over there, Chief-”
He thought that he heard Admiral Oates’s voice nearby. “Mr. President-Mr. President-” Then silence. “He’s alive-I don’t think he’s been touched-the blood’s not his-here, nurse, give me the spirits of ammonia-Mr. President, there now, that’s better-”
Then he heard President Dilman, weak but irritable. “I’m all right. Leave me alone. Beggs, he took the shot instead of me. Get over there and help him.”
Beggs opened his eyes. What was wrong with them? Nothing was distinct. Admiral Oates’s face floated into his vision, a face less grouchy because it was not clear. He was saying, “Easy, Mr. Beggs, let me have a look-oh yes, yes-see here, it’s his right leg-really chewed up-Miss Foster! Get an ambulance to take him to Walter Reed Hospital at once! Beggs, do you feel any pain? No, I suppose not. Shock. I’ll give you a shot-”
He felt the sting of the needle and its extraction, but no pain; then he was diverted by Chief Gaynor’s voice behind him somewhere. “Mr. President-you all right, sir? Just wanted to tell you the assassin’s cold dead. Beggs got him with one shot straight through the chest. His wallet here-Burleigh L. Thomas, twenty-eight-truck driver’s license-the clippings-Turnerite stuff-that’s it, I’m sure… This, this is the regular map of the guided tour through the White House. You can see the line he drew in red ink. See? Followed the ground-floor tour upstairs, then into the State Dining Room, and when the others went on to the Red Room, he must have hung behind, slipped into the Family Dining Room-something we’ve always been afraid of-hid out then, apparently had the overalls inside his suit coat or jacket, changed, picked up two plants-Hawkins says he saw a colored man carrying plants downstairs around three-thirty-he must have kept himself busy but out of sight until the regular gardeners left-then kind of blended himself with the magnolia, puttered around, waiting for you… What? No, Mr. Flannery, not yet, give us a chance to cover the grounds. We’ll have something definite for the press in the morning. Just tell them the attempt was made, the President is fine, just fine, and the assailant was shot dead.”
Beggs heard Dilman’s voice, shaky but loud. “Tim, you see that Otto Beggs gets all the credit-you hear? All the credit. Admiral, I want him to receive every bit of care available to-”
Someone was shouting, “That’s spelled B-u-r-l-e-i-g-h, yeh, Burleigh, Burleigh Thomas.”
Miss Foster’s voice, he thought, distinct but so far off. “The ambulance is on its way, Admiral! How is poor Mr. Beggs? Will he-?”
He heard Oates’s distant voice. “He’s a brave man. Thank God for men like that.”
He felt soothed, no pain, too tired and sleepy to listen.
He thought: You hear that, Gertrude? You hear that, Otis, Ogden? Brave man.
He thought: You’re right, Ruby, your Otter here is impo’tant. Brave man.
He thought: Ruby Thomas, Burleigh Thomas. Fair enough, Ruby, all square.
He thought: Am I dying? To save a nigger? Dirty, lousy trick, goddam.
He thought: History books’ll say a President, he saved a President. Not bad, not bad, eh, Gertie girl?
He thought: Dear God, be merciful to me a sinner… dear Lord Jesus, see this, greater love hath no man than this… dear Saviour, cast me not into darkness… lemme live, please lemme live to fill the scrapbook, please, thank you, amen.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Office of the White House Press Secretary
THE WHITE HOUSE
ADMIRAL OATES, PERSONAL PHYSICIAN TO THE PRESIDENT, ANNOUNCED TODAY THAT, EXCEPT FOR SEVERAL HEAD BRUISES AND A GENERAL CONDITION OF FATIGUE, THE PRESIDENT IS IN EXCELLENT HEALTH, FOLLOWING YESTERDAY’S ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT. ALL OF THE PRESIDENT’S APPOINTMENTS HAVE BEEN CANCELED, AND HE HAS BEEN CONFINED TO HIS ROOMS FOR “A MUCH-NEEDED REST.” HE WILL ATTEND THE CHANTILLY CONFERENCE IN FRANCE AS SCHEDULED.
ADMIRAL OATES ALSO ANNOUNCED THAT OTTO BEGGS, WHITE HOUSE SECRET SERVICE AGENT WHOSE ACTION SAVED THE PRESIDENT’S LIFE, REMAINS ON THE “CRITICAL” LIST AT WALTER REED GENERAL HOSPITAL. DECISION WILL BE MADE IN NEXT FORTY-EIGHT HOURS WHETHER BEGGS’S INJURED LEG CAN BE SAVED OR WHETHER AMPUTATION WILL BE NECESSARY.
COMPLETE TEXT OF ADMIRAL OATES’S MEDICAL BULLETINS ONE AND TWO ARE ATTACHED.
EDNA FOSTER sat alone in a shadowy recess of the faintly lighted Promenade Lounge of the Mayflower Hotel. She was the small and elegant room’s single occupant in this pre-cocktail hour, lost in thought as she prepared to finish her third vodka Gibson.
She was to have met George Murdock here, their favorite secluded and somewhat-beyond-their-means meeting place when either of them needed a lift, at a quarter to six. Normally she would have finished her day’s work, and taken a taxi up Connecticut Avenue, and arrived here nearly on time, to find George waiting.
However, today had been anything but normal. Because the President had been indisposed, suffering acute hypertension (if the truth were known) induced by the horror of last night, and was confined to his quarters, Edna’s work load had diminished and her workday had been curtailed. Dilman’s usual engagements had been shunted off to the occupants of other offices, and her own duties had been distributed to other White House secretaries. By four-thirty in the afternoon her desk had been clean. She had telephoned the second floor, and the President had insisted that she close shop and go home early. She had found it too late to go to the apartment first, before meeting George, and too early to time her arrival at the lounge with his own. She had decided to go
