The Texan stayed with them for a week, driving them round the countryside, to the nearest town, Alnwick, and along the coast road that could take them up to Edinburgh. Their instructions allowed them to socialize with discretion. It was important that they didn’t appear to be recluses. Recluses were always objects of curiosity in any community. They learned to drink the strong local beers at the pub in Craster and once a week they ate at The White Swan in Alnwick. From time to time, as the weeks passed, one or both of them were invited by local families to meals or picnics. They returned the hospitality at The White Swan. They had each bought second-hand cars, Petersen a white MG, and Symons a primrose yellow Mini.
There were girls from local families whom they took to the cinema and for meals, but they were careful to keep them emotionally at arm’s length. There was a pretty shop assistant from Seahouses who spent odd nights with Petersen and an even prettier barmaid from Alnwick who slept with Symons. The relationships were relaxed and financial, and in the rather puritan atmosphere of the area neither party had any interest in making the liaison known.
The BBC cameraman shook his head. “There’s a reflection from the oil-painting. Can’t we take it away?”
“No way, or we’d just have a blank wall behind his head. We’ll try moving the lights. Or maybe you can use a polarizer to cut it down.”
“I can’t shift the polarizer, I’ve got to use it to mask the shine of his skin where he’s had surgery.”
“OK.” The producer turned towards the lighting crew. “Can you take the reflection off the painting, please?”
The lighting crew put up a cotton screen to soften the two main lights and most of the reflection disappeared, but the soft lighting seemed to emphasize the unnatural smoothness and cavities on the attorney’s facial skin-grafts.
Another ten minutes of checking focus and zooming, and the producer nodded to the interviewer. He sat opposite the man behind the desk, his eye on the teleprompter as he gave the voice-over to match the head on the monitor screen.
“William Alexander, Assistant District Attorney of Dallas who attended the police interrogation of Lee Harvey Oswald.”
The producer jabbed his finger towards the second camera and a black and white photograph of Oswald came up on the screen. He gave it three seconds and then pointed at the interviewer who looked across at the attorney and said, “What were your impressions at the interrogation, Mr. Alexander?,” and the producer prayed that the reflection in the attorney’s spectacles wouldn’t ruin the shot. The attorney hunched forward over his desk and the cameraman silently cursed him and shifted the focus.
“I was amazed that someone so young could have the self-control that he had. Almost as if he had anticipated the situation … it was almost as if he had been rehearsed or programmed to meet the situation that he found himself in … it was almost as if he anticipated every … question, every suggestion, every move, that the people in charge of him made.”
“Rehearsed by whom?”
The rather grim mouth of the attorney arranged itself into an acid smile as he said with a shake of the head, “Who knows?”
The producer waved his hand, looking at his stop watch. “OK, Michael. That gives us one minute fourteen, maybe fifteen seconds.” He put out his hand to the attorney. “Thank you, sir, for your time, your help and the interview.”
“You’re welcome. When will it be shown?”
The producer smiled. “There’ll be a lot of pressure not to show it at all. It’ll take time. I’d say nine months.”
Jimmy Hoffa sat in the private suite adjoining his office in the large Teamsters Union building. The man with the black wavy hair poured them each a half glass of whisky, handed one of the glasses to Hoffa and sat down carefully in the chair alongside the union boss. He turned to Hoffa, his gentle, brown eyes smiling.
“I heard a story about you the other day, Jimmy. I wondered if it was true.”
“They’re never true, pal. What was this one?”
“I heard that you were in Miami when JFK was shot and when you heard that your people had lowered the flag on this building you’d given them hell and told them to raise it again.”
Hoffa scratched his crotch and said, “Yeah. That’s true all right. And when those goddamed reporters started phoning me they asked for a comment and I told ’em that Bobby Kennedy was just another lawyer now. And the bastards wouldn’t print it.” He turned his head to look at the dark man. “What does Provenzano want?”
“He’s got a proposition he thinks you’ll go for.”
“So why all this crap about wanting me to go to Detroit for a meeting? Why doesn’t he come here? He may be big but he ain’t that big. He’s just one of the Teamsters’ officials as far as my book’s concerned.”
The man smiled. “You know better than that, Jimmy. He wants you to talk to the syndicate in Detroit. He’s laid it all on for you. All you gotta do is say yes … or no.”
“Why the hurry then? Why tonight?”
“So’s you can be back for the weekend. I’ll drive you there and back.”
Hoffa looked at his watch, shrugged and stood up.
“OK. Let’s go.”
It was past midnight when the car turned off Highway 75 and took the road to Trenton.
“Why you come off the highway, Louis?”
“The meeting’s in a place we’ve got in Lincoln Park and it’s quicker this way.”
Hoffa noticed the “we’ve” and made a mental note to take the Italian down a notch or two when they got back to Washington.
“Somebody told me, Jimmy, that you were the contact between the CIA and the syndicate when they fixed to knock off John F. Is that so?”
“There were two
