'Neither do I, not exactly. But there’s something that’s … not right with you. Something odd. And I don’t like it.'
His partner’s hands were trembling, Jeff saw; he must be in bad need of a drink.
'Frank, it’s a terrible, strange day. We’re all kind of in shock right now.'
'You’re not. Not the way I am, and everybody else. Nobody in the office even told you what had happened; it was like they didn’t have to, like you knew what was coming.'
'Don’t be absurd.' A burly police official was being interviewed on TV, describing the statewide manhunt now underway in Texas.
'What were you doing in Dallas last week?'
Jeff eyed Frank wearily. 'What’d you do, check with the travel agency?'
'Yeah. What were you doing there?'
'Looking into some property for us. It’s a growth market, despite what’s happened there today.'
'Maybe that’ll change.'
'I don’t think so.'
'You don’t, huh? Why not?'
'Just a feeling I have.'
'We’ve come a long way on these
'And we can go further still.'
Frank sighed, ran his hand through his prematurely thinning hair. 'No. Not me. I’ve had it. I want out.'
'Jesus Christ, we’ve hardly even started!'
'I’m sure you’ll do spectacularly well. But it’s gotten too weird for me, Jeff. I don’t feel comfortable working with you anymore.'
'For God’s sake, you don’t think I had anything to do with—'
Frank held up his hand, cut him off. 'I haven’t said that. I don’t want to know. I just want … out. You can hang on to the bulk of my share for working capital, pay me back out of profits over the next few years, or however long it takes. I’d recommend you turn my end of the operations over to Jim Spencer; he’s a good man, knows what he’s doing. And he’ll follow your instructions to the letter.'
'Damn it, we were in this together! All the way back to the Derby, to Emory—'
'So we were, and it’s been a hell of a streak. But I’m cashing in my chips, old partner. Walking away from the table.'
'To do what?'
'Finish law school, I suppose. Make some nice, conservative investments of my own; I’ve got enough to keep me set for life.'
'Don’t do this, Frank. You’d be missing out on the opportunity of a lifetime.'
'Of that I have no doubt. Maybe someday I’ll regret it, but right now it’s what I have to do. For my own peace of mind.' He stood up, extended his hand. 'Good luck, and thanks for everything. It was some fun while it lasted.'
They shook hands, Jeff wondering what he could have done to prevent this. Maybe nothing. Maybe it had to happen.
'I’ll talk to Spencer on Monday,' Frank said. 'Assuming the world’s still at peace and the country’s functioning by then.'
Jeff gave him a long, sober look. 'It will be.'
'Good to know. Take care, partner.'
When Frank had left, Jeff moved to a stool at the bar, finally got a drink. He was on his third when CBS broke the bulletin:
'… arrested a suspect in connection with the assassination of President Kennedy.
I repeat, Dallas police have arrested a suspect in connection with the assassination of President Kennedy. The man is said to be a drifter and sometime left-wing activist named Nelson Bennett. Authorities say a telephone number found in Bennett’s pocket has been traced to the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City. We’ll have more on this late-breaking story as soon as…'
The patio of the East Side town house was bleak in the late-November chill; it was a place designed for summer, in a world where summer had been banished. The glass-topped table, the polished chrome struts of the lounge chairs, somehow made this sunless day more barren still.
Jeff pulled his thick cardigan sweater tightly closed and wondered, for the hundredth time in the past two days, just what had happened on that unstoppable day in Dallas. Who the hell was Nelson Bennett? A backup hired assassin waiting in the wings when Oswald was arrested? Or merely a fluke of chance, a random crazy, manipulated by forces far more powerful than any human conspiracy in order that the flow of reality not be disrupted?
There would be no knowing, he realized. He faced enough else beyond his comprehension in this restructured life; why should this particular element be less insoluble than all the rest? And yet it mocked him, chastened him. He had tried to use his prescience to reshape destiny in a positive way, something far surpassing the triviality of his wagers, his investment schemes—and his efforts had created no more than a minor ripple in the stream of history. A killer’s name had been changed, no more.
What, he wondered, did that bode for his own future? All the hopes he had of rebuilding his life with the advantage of foreknowledge … were they doomed to be mere superficial changes, quantitative but not qualitative? Would his attempts at achieving genuine happiness be as inexplicably thwarted as his intervention in the Kennedy affair? All that, too, was beyond his ken. Six weeks ago he had felt a godlike omniscience, and his potential for accomplishment had seemed without limit. Now, once more, everything was open to question. He felt a numbing sense of hopelessness worse than any he had known since boarding school, on that terrible day beside the little bridge where he’d—
'Jeff! Oh, my God, come here! They’ve killed Bennett, it was on the TV, I saw it happen!'
He nodded slowly, followed Sharla inside. The murder was being shown again and again, as he’d known it would be. There was Jack Ruby in his B-movie gangster’s hat, appearing out of nowhere in the basement corridor of the Dallas County Jail. There was the pistol, and Nelson Bennett dying on cue, the twisted agony on his bearded face like a distorted reflection of Lee Harvey Oswald’s well-documented death.
President Johnson, Jeff knew, would soon order a full investigation of the events of this bloody weekend. A special commission, headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren. Answers would be diligently sought; none would be found. Life would go on.
SIX
Jeff didn’t involve himself in much after that except making money. He was very good at making money.
Motion-picture stocks were one fairly easy pick. The mid-sixties had been a time of heavy movie attendance and the first multimillion-dollar sales of films like The Bridge on the River Kwai and Cleopatra to the networks. Jeff shied away from small electronics companies, though he knew many of them would multiply tremendously in value; he just didn’t remember the names of the winners. Instead, he poured money into the conglomerates he knew had thrived through the decade on such investments: Litton, Teledyne, Ling-Temco-Vought. His selections were almost uniformly profitable from the day the stocks were purchased, and he plowed the bulk of that income back into still more shares.
It was something to do.
Sharla had enjoyed the fight, despite the fact that she’d perversely bet on Liston when Jeff told her to
