Max Collins - Target Lancer

“We have an eleven-mile parade route from O’Hare Airport to Soldier Field. Chief Rowley says this route gives him considerable misgivings, and I have to agree. Most of it is in relatively open areas, and we can guard overpasses on the Northwest Expressway, as we did last March-we have enough support from the Chicago PD and the sheriff’s department to pull that off.”

An agent asked, “So where is the problem?”

“Jackson Street,” Martineau said, tapping the map. “The President’s limo will have to lumber up the ramp and then make a difficult ninety-degree turn that will slow the vehicle to practically a stop.”

“That’s a warehouse district,” I said. It was just half a dozen blocks from where we sat, actually.

Eben said, “Any warehouse district is far more hazardous than a standard corridor of office buildings.”

Martineau said, “No argument, Ebe. On top of that, we have no fewer than forty-five local school and civic organizations who’ll be on hand at that exit, eagerly awaiting a chance to see their president.”

“And if shots are fired,” I said, “with a crowd like that? You’ll have panic that could easily cover the escape of the assassins.”

“We won’t allow any shots to be fired,” Martineau said sternly.

Another agent said, “We don’t begin to have enough men to cover that Jackson area. Marty, this is a nightmare.”

Martineau raised his hands, palms out, in a calming gesture. “We will have more agents by Saturday morning. I don’t know how many, but Nate here isn’t our only support.”

“Thank God,” I said.

A few smiles.

Eben asked, “So-where, when, and how do we start?”

Martineau got up again, and resumed pointing to the map. He assigned groups of two agents to three heavily Latino neighborhoods: Pilsen on the Lower West Side, West Town northwest of the Loop, and South Lincoln Park.

“I’m leaving Heller and Boldt free to run down leads you guys come up with,” Martineau said, “and to follow any other leads that may develop from tips. Questions?”

There were a few, but nothing worth reporting here. That was still going on when the receptionist stuck her head in.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, sir,” she said, eyes worried behind her masculine glasses, “but you weren’t answering your phone.”

“That’s because we’re in conference, Miss Kundel,” Martineau said rather stiffly.

“I know, but there’s a Chicago police detective in the waiting area, and he says it’s important. It’s a Lieutenant Moyland…?”

I said, “I know him. Want me to take it?”

Martineau nodded, and the meeting resumed while I followed the receptionist back to her post. She was about thirty-five and her gray suit was as mannish as the glasses; she seemed to be working hard not to sway her very nice hips. But I am a trained detective and noticed them anyway.

Lieutenant Berkeley Moyland was about thirty-five, a freckled-face, red-haired copper who might have been my cousin, though I took him for a strictly Irish heritage. Pacing a small patch of carpet, he was in a rumpled raincoat and was turning a brown fedora around in his hands like a bumper-car steering wheel. He looked anxious, but his frown disappeared when he saw me coming forward to shake hands with him.

“Nate Heller?” he said, in his pleasant tenor. “What the hell are you doing at the Secret Service office?”

“It was either this or pay up my back taxes.”

“I can almost believe that.”

“Actually, I’m doing a temporary tour of duty for this presidential trip Saturday.”

“That’s why I’m here,” he said, the frown returning.

So I showed him to my new office.

He sat opposite me at my big empty desk and said, “How does the town’s most notorious private dick wind up with an office at the Secret Service?”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence. Don’t you remember I used to work for Bobby Kennedy?”

“Oh, that’s right-the rackets committee.” He tossed his hat on my desk, sat forward on his brown-leather chair. “Listen, there’s a little cafeteria I grab breakfast at, over on Wilson Street-the Eat Rite. I go in about seven. I know the manager there pretty well. Today he pulls me over and points out this other customer, a regular he says, though I never noticed him. Kid called Vallee. Muscular little schlemiel with a butch haircut.”

Maybe Berkeley had a little Hebrew in him, after all.

I asked, “What about him?”

“Well, my manager pal says this kid’s been talking about wanting to kill the President. Even saying this weekend would be a good time to do it.”

“You have my attention.”

“Yeah, it got my attention, too. So I went over and sat down and talked to the kid. I said I heard he was no Kennedy fan, and he starts in bad-mouthing the guy, saying how he’d like to do something about it. I cautioned him against that kind of talk. Told him I was a cop and that it could get him in trouble.”

“How’d he take this advice?”

“At first he said it was a free country and he had a right to his opinions. Then I told him that kind of talk had serious consequences, and that nothing good could come from it. And he quieted down. Just got quiet.”

“How do you read him?”

“I think he’s nuts. He had a USMC tattoo on his forearm, so he’s obviously one of these ex-service guys who can’t adjust. Kind of a shrimp, not physically, but short. Like, five five. How the hell he made the Marine minimum height requirement is a mystery beyond me.”

“You make him as unstable?”

“I do. If this guy doesn’t have a gun collection that would give Hemingway a hard-on, I’ll eat my fuckin’ badge. Nate, I been thinking about this all day. I probably shoulda called it in sooner. But I decided, as soon as my shift was over, to come tell the Secret Service about it, in person. I mean, it’s their job, right?”

“Right.” The manila folder Kennedy had left with me was on the desk-about the only thing other than Moyland’s fedora. “Something I want you to look at, Berk.”

I showed him the photos of the two white suspects, and asked, “Is either one of these guys your boy Vallee?”

“No. Mine has a kind of prominent forehead, and a dimpled chin. Same kind of Marine base haircut, though.”

“Okay.” I tucked the photos away.

His eyes were earnest. This was a hard-bitten, seen-everything copper, but talk of killing presidents got him going. “Do I need to make a formal statement about this? You want to have it taken down by a secretary or something?”

“No. I’ll follow it up myself.”

“I don’t know where this kid lives or anything. I could snoop around for you.”

“No. I’ll do the snooping. You’ve done plenty.”

I walked him out, and along the way we chatted about family and so forth. Shook hands with him, thanked him, and sent him on his way, winked at the receptionist, who pretended not to like it, then reported the conversation to Martineau in his office.

“Why don’t you let me take this,” I said. “I’ll grab some breakfast at the Eat Rite on my way in tomorrow morning.”

Martineau nodded. “Doesn’t seem to be one of our assassination team, though.”

“No, I figure them for imports, even the rednecks, and this guy is local. But somebody’s got to check. Not terribly far from where I live.”

“Do it,” Martineau said. “Young ex-Marine, mentally unstable. Sounds like a dangerous type.”

“Sounds like me in 1943,” I said, and went out.

Wednesday, October 30, 1963

The Eat Rite cafeteria on Wilson was just a couple of miles northwest of my Old Town town house. I took Clark Street through Uptown, its many cemeteries lending a general aura of death to yet another overcast day. This was about where Uptown turned into Ravenswood, or anyway started thinking about it, an area dominated by its tallest building, a looming Sears store. A lot of DPs-that is, displaced persons-lived around here, German and Greek refugees of the Second World War, well-assimilated by now, a very frugal, blue-collar, lower-middle-class bunch.