Libra

Even his appetite was back. This was the first meal he could really dig into. There was coffee in a mug. He drank it slowly. He thought. He listened to the guards talk softly in the narrow hall.

There was a third way he could play it. He could tell them he was the lone gunman. He did it on his own, the only one. It was the culmination of a life of struggle. He did it to protest the anti-Castro aims of the government, to advance the Marxist cause into the heart of the American empire. He had no help. It was his plan, his weapon. Three shots. All struck home. He was an expert shot with a rifle.

Saturday night. David Ferrie was driving in circles through the city of Galveston, Texas. His monkey fur was askew on his head. His mind had reached the stage of hysteroid extremes.

When the President was shot he was in a federal courtroom in New Orleans, where Carmine Latta's tax evasion case was being decided in the old man's favor.

When Leon was picked up by the police he was in his apartment packing for the trip to Galveston. He had his old Eastern captain's hat, gold-braided, that he was putting in an overnight bag. He heard the capture on the radio.

This was cause for panic. He gave in to it at once. Ferrie believed panic was an animal action of the body to ensure that the species survives. It was far older than logic. He kept on packing, only faster, and hurried down to his car.

He drove in circles around New Orleans for hours, listening to news reports. Then he filled the tank and headed west through a black storm, one of those sky bursts full of slanting coastal fury, and seven hours later he was in Houston.

He drove in circles around Houston. At 4:30 A.M. he checked into a place called the Alamorel. He was in no mood for patriotic puns. He spoke Spanish to the desk clerk, went to his room and made a series of calls to people in New Orleans, friends, lovers, clergy. He sought comfort in these calls and spoke Spanish even to those who didn't know a word.

He was afraid Leon would give the police his name.

He was afraid Leon would be killed.

He was afraid Leon, alive or dead, had his library card in his wallet. He seemed to recall letting Leon use his card once.

In the morning he bought newspapers and coffee and sat in the car listening to the radio. He felt his life trembling on the edge of the news reporter's tongue. He drove to a skating rink and made more calls. Banister wouldn't talk to him. Larta was at a sit-down. He called teenage boys he'd taught to fly. The skating-rink organ produced a sound that made him think of total death. He went out to the car.

Something about the time of year depressed him deeply. Overcast skies and cutting wind, leaves falling, dusk falling, dark too soon, night flying down before you're ready. It's a terror. It's a bareness of the soul. He hears the rustle of nuns. Here comes winter in the bone. We've set it loose on the land. There must be some song or poem, some folk magic we can use to ease this fear. Skelly Bone Pete. Here it is in the landscape and sky. We've set it loose. We've opened up the ground and here it is. He took Interstate 45 south. He didn't want them to kill Leon. He felt a saturating sense of death, a dread in the soft filling of his bones, the suckable part, approaching Galveston now.

He drove in circles around Galveston. The plane was probably still at the airport. He thought he might fly it out of here, a Piper Aztec, and make the escape to Mexico without the assassin. It didn't seem the least bit crazy. It seemed a ritual suited to the event.

The event was total death. Only a ritual could save him from succumbing.

He checked into a place called the Driftwood Motel. He spoke Spanish on the phone.

What was he doing in Galveston? Wasn't he here to fly the plane? The idea of flight had drawn him. He was a flyer, a master of the element of air. He was prepared to submit to death if it came at the end of a flight across the shining gulf, on some scoured brown flat in Mexico, remote, in fierce heat, with mountains trembling in the haze. These were the rules he insisted on. Mexico is a place where they understand the dignity of rules for dying.

He reached Banister on the phone. Guy told him something was in the works, a chancy plan, a long shot. David Ferrie decided to get a good night's sleep and head back to New Orleans in the morning.

There were wreaths and flower clusters arrayed on the lawns of Dealey Plaza, marks of sadness and farewell, and Jack Ruby drove through the streets at midnight, soaking up atmosphere and emotion. He looped through the plaza half a dozen times. He drove past seven or eight clubs to see who was open. It made him angry in that patriotic way of clenching your jaw tight when you see your fellow citizens profiteering from the heartbreak of others, co

He drove home and started pulling things out of the refrigerator to eat. He felt a compulsion to stuff the body against despair. He wanted to handle food, to cook it and smell it, watch animal blood spurting in the pan. Take back muscle and blood. Take back gristle. He needed chewy meat and seltzer water fizzing in his teeth. It adds a little reserve to my strength of will.

He spent ten minutes making a sandwich but didn't have the heart to eat it. He went into the living room and picked up a newspaper to make sure his ads looked okay-the notices that his clubs were closed. George was hulked on the sofa in Jack's old robe, a beer can sweating in his hand.

Jack called his brother Earl in Detroit.

He called his sister Eva here in Dallas to talk for the third or fourth time about what happened. Eva began to weep. She was totally broken up. He handed the phone to George because he wanted his roommate to hear his sister weep. It was a broken hacking sob. Authentic. Jack and Eva wept and George stood with the phone planted on the left side of his head, looking impressed.

Jack went to bed. He stared at the ceiling in the dark. Every time a truck passed on Thornton Freeway it made a noise like paper ripping. The phone rang and he went into the living room and picked it up. He listened about twenty seconds. Then he put on his clothes and drove to the Carousel.

He went up the narrow stairs and turned on the lights. The dogs started barking in the back room. He sat in his office ru

He heard the footsteps. Then Jack Karlinsky walked into the office. He looked a little tired. He wore an open-collar shirt and his neck was stretched and ridged. He looked old at this hour, unprepared. He brushed some dog hair off the sofa and sat down.

"It's terrible, what's happening to this city, Jack. Every hour brings new words of grief abroad and wonderment how this could happen. Already the Europeans are talking this is conspiracy. What do we expect? They have their centuries of daggers in the back, frame-ups and poisons. This is adverse thinking. It builds up a pressure which is bad for the city, bad for us all."

"When I think of my father coming out of some Polish village."

"Polish village, exactly."

"To the carpenters' union in Chicago."

"To raise a boy who grows up owning a business, Jack. This is what we want to defend. What is the first thing people say about this tragedy? What does my mother say, eighty-eight years old, in a nursing home? She calls me on the phone. Do I have to tell you what she says? Thank God this Oswald isn't a Jew.' '