It was about 5:30 when King told the people gathered in Room 201 of the Lorraine, “I want to go upstairs and freshen up.” He wanted time to dress before he left for dinner. King and the whole SCLC staff in Memphis were invited to the house of Billy Kyles and his wife, Gwen, for soul food. The dinner would precede the night’s rally at Mason Temple.
Back in their room, King and Abernathy had visions of soul food dancing in their heads. They knew Gwen Kyles to be an excellent cook. Imagining what food she might serve that night had King and Abernathy salivating. King said to Abernathy, “Ralph, call her up and ask her what she’s having.”30
“You’re not kidding, are you?” Abernathy replied.
“No,” King said. “Call her.”
Abernathy called Mrs. Kyles. She ticked off the menu: roast beef, asparagus, cauliflower, candied yams, pigs’ feet, and chitlins. Delighted by the menu, King went into the bathroom to shave. In King’s case shaving was a particularly onerous chore. In deference to his tender skin, he shaved not with a razor but a depilatory powder called “Magic Shave.” He had to plaster it on and wait for it to erode the hair.
While King was waiting for the laborious shaving procedure to run its course, Abernathy mentioned a scheduling conflict. On days Abernathy was scheduled to be in Washington, he had to preach at the weeklong revival of the West Hunter Street Baptist Church in Atlanta. Turning to Abernathy, King said, “Ralph, I would never think of going to Washington without you. West Hunter is the best church in the world. They’ll do anything for you. You go tell them you’re going to have a different kind of revival, one in which we are going to review the soul of this nation. Will you do it?” Sighing, Abernathy promised.
Billy Kyles knocked on the door to tell King that dinner was at six and to please hurry along. It was 5:55 p.m. King splashed some cologne on his face. He told Abernathy, “I’ll wait on the balcony,” and he exited the room.
Chapter 20
Ray’s Lucky Breaks
This is what is going to happen to me also.
—MLK, reacting to the assassination of President Kennedy, November 22, 1963
JAMES EARL RAY likely slept in on the morning of April 4. He did not check out of the New Rebel until early that Thursday afternoon. As was his habit, he bought a copy of the local paper—in the case of Memphis, that was the morning daily, the Commercial Appeal. He must have zeroed in quickly on a front-page story headlined “King Challenges Court Restraint, Vows to March.”
The story said that King was back in Memphis preparing for the march on Monday. It explained, though, that Judge Brown’s injunction might block him from leading the march. The story quoted King’s comment the day before that he might disregard such an injunction “on the basis of conscience.”
One detail buried in the tenth paragraph would have had Ray riveted to the story. He was on a mission to kill King, and he knew how he would do it. He would shoot him. Where he could find King was another question. If he had not learned where King was staying from the TV news the night before, the newspaper would have clued him in. It identified the Lorraine Motel as King’s lodging while he was in Memphis.
Determining King’s likely whereabouts so quickly and effortlessly from a TV broadcast or a ten-cent newspaper was the first of several lucky breaks that would advantage Ray’s murderous plan.
In the early afternoon, he left the New Rebel in his Mustang heading to the Lorraine. From the New Rebel it is a ten-mile drive through the city’s southwestern flank to the motel. Very likely Ray cruised the area around the Lorraine, scouting for a covert location from which he might observe King’s movements. Roaming the seedy area around the motel would have pointed him to four red brick buildings, none taller than four stories, which formed the 400 block of South Main. The Lorraine faced the rear of the four buildings across Mulberry Street.
Ray likely cased the 400 block of South Main, hoping that from inside one of the four buildings he might find a window that would afford him an unobstructed view of the motel. On the same logic, police officers Redditt and Richmond had picked the back of the fire station at 474 South Main as their surveillance post from where they could monitor King and his associates. Unlike Redditt and Richmond, Ray would not only have to locate the right building. He would also have to be fortunate enough to find a way to enter and remain in it long enough to get a bead on King.
Luck was on Ray’s side again. He was able to find just the place that suited his purpose. It was the rooming house at 418½–422½ South Main: two adjoining brick buildings, each two stories tall. On the ground floor were two businesses, Jim’s Grill and Canipe Amusement Company, a jukebox repair and record shop. To the left of the Canipe storefront, an entrance opened to a stairway leading to the rooming-house office on the second floor.
It was about 3:15 p.m. when Ray parked the Mustang nine blocks away, probably to distance the car far from the rooming house so no one could link it to his having been on the 400 block of South Main. He walked to the entrance of the rooming house, climbed the stairs, and knocked at the door of the office.
Bessie Brewer, the resident manager, interrupted her bookkeeping to answer the door. An ample woman in her thirties, she was wearing faded blue jeans and a checkered shirt, and her hair was in rollers. Her sixteen-unit
