Max Collins - Target Lancer

Now the tracks were actually lower than we were, as the El headed toward the black mouth of the subway tunnel, and Rodriguez glanced at the fence, where a gaping tear yawned-locals having clipped a path to provide a cut-through to the houses beyond-and he slowed enough to clamber through it.

I was right on him, though.

He turned and shoved me, and I damn near lost my balance, knocking back against the fence with a springing effect. I was stumbling on the trash-strewn cinders of the El ditch when he caught my helplessness and decided to start throwing ham-sized fists at me, and I whapped his knuckles with the nine-mil, both hands, making him yelp and reconsider.

Then he tried another shove, and this one put me on my ass. A train was rumbling our way, but it wasn’t on us, not yet, the more pressing problem being that he didn’t seem to know that as he ran pell-mell across those tracks, his next step would be on the third rail.

Didn’t they have fucking electricity in Cuba?

I threw myself at him like a desperate sweetheart and grabbed onto his jacket, and yanked him back right before his sneakered foot touched that deadly rail. I clouted him alongside the skull with the Browning barrel, and that turned him drunken woozy. I dragged him like a stubborn bag of dirty laundry back across the tracks.

When the train came roaring past, he was on his side in the cinders between the fence and the tracks, and as the beast blew by with its familiar metallic scream, I stood pointing the nine-mil down at the wild-haired, wild-eyed Cuban, who was covering his ears, the noise too much for this dainty flower.

I said, “You’re welcome.”

“Fuck you, maricon, ” he said.

Might have been fun at that, seeing him do the one-man rhumba on that third rail.

Saturday, November 2, 1963 8:00 A.M.

The Secret Service office was damn near empty, most of the agents already out in the field for the President’s arrival; but Martineau was visible in his window, the blinds up for a change, and Eben Boldt was in there, standing opposite his boss, who was apparently issuing instructions.

Eben and I had brought the two subjects in yesterday afternoon, and Polaroid pictures had been made of them-no prints taken. This was strictly “detention for questioning,” not an arrest. But the pair had already given up their names, or anyway “names”-Victor Gonzales and Ramon Rodriguez. They claimed to be from Miami. Gonzales had a driver’s license backing that up. Rodriguez had various I.D., none of it official-no driver’s license because he said he did not drive. The Bonneville was on loan from a friend in West Town, one Luis Garcia.

Martineau had sent both Eben and me home yesterday around seven P.M. We’d been getting a ribbing for having the radio on during surveillance and blowing our cover. They were giving Eben the worst of it. Of course, that was after I had cheerfully given him the blame. There was nothing overtly racial in the kidding, but I could tell Eben was taking it personally.

Finally I told one of the crew cuts, “On the other hand, we did haul those two Cuban assholes in. Kennedy’s here tomorrow in the A.M., and how are you fellas doing finding those missing white boys?”

The ribbing let up at that point.

This morning I arrived showered and shaved and armed, ready to save the President-Air Force One would touch down at O’Hare in just under two hours-but without much of an idea how the hell I (or for that matter the entire Chicago branch of the Secret Service) might accomplish that.

Eben came quickly out of Martineau’s office, pausing to say, “Marty wants you to stick around in case something comes up.”

I fell in alongside him. “Where is it you’re going without me?”

“Heading out to Soldier Field. I’m to check the area around Kennedy’s seating. There are two sections reserved for him-one on the Air Force side, other on the Army. He’ll switch during halftime.”

“I’d just as soon not be out there. That halftime gun might make me shit myself.”

He actually laughed at that. Well, he chuckled and shook his head.

I followed him to his desk, where he grabbed his raincoat from where he’d dumped it, apparently having arrived just before me.

As he shrugged into the coat, he said, “There’s been a foreign development.”

“Yeah?”

“Coup in South Vietnam that has the President’s attention. Some kind of special communications facility is being rush-constructed under the bleachers, to keep Lancer informed.”

“Maybe he’ll cancel.”

“I wish he would,” Eben said, and went out.

Martineau called from his office doorway: “Heller! Nate! Come talk.”

The sturdy SS chief was behind his mahogany boat of a desk by the time I dropped into the chair opposite him. No shirtsleeves today, strictly a crisp navy-blue suit and red-and-black-striped tie. His cuff links were little golden replicas of that Treasury Department seal on the nearby wall.

“Ebe mentioned there’s a coup in Vietnam,” I said.

“Yes, apparently the Diem brothers just killed themselves.”

“They’ve been assassinated, in other words. Did we do it?”

He just gave me a look. “I had hoped this would give the President an excuse to cancel, but I was just told in no uncertain terms that the trip is on, and on schedule.”

“Swell.”

“I assume Ebe mentioned this communications setup they’re constructing at Soldier Field.”

“Yeah. If you need somebody to sweep up the candy wrappers under the bleachers for ’em, I’m not available.”

He smiled a little at that. He was used to me by now. “I want you to take a crack at Gonzales and Rodriguez. We’ve been in steady interrogation with those two since you delivered them yesterday afternoon.”

“Learning what?”

“Little and nothing. We’ve got Gonzales in the left booth, Rodriguez in the right, and Motto and Stocks have been in session all night with those sons of bitches. One-on-one, two-on-one, good cop/bad cop, playing one off the other, you name it, they tried it. Goddamn nothing.”

“I could always feed them the goldfish.”

“What?”

“Old Chicago cop expression for the rubber hose you probably don’t have around this refined establishment.” I sat forward. “Glad to give it a shot-they’re tired by now, and I’m fresh as a daisy. Anything we can offer them?”

“They’ve had two meals. There’s water and coffee. They get bathroom breaks. What else?”

“How about money? What’s the petty-cash situation? I doubt they’re small enough fry to be bribed, but it’s always worth a try.”

Martineau shook his head once. “Against policy.”

“The CIA topples governments, and the Secret Service doesn’t pay off informants? This is why Avis never catches up with Hertz.”

“Try something else, Nate. Your charm maybe. Or your wit.”

I told you he was getting used to me.

First I spelled a frazzled Motto, even his crew cut looking wilted-and you can bet he was in his shirt sleeves after that long night. Interview One’s narrow space with its soundproof-tile walls was all but filled by a scarred table decorated festively with cigar-butt-heavy ashtrays, an almost-empty water pitcher, and discarded Styrofoam coffee cups. The wooden chairs were just as scarred, and as comfortable as a cement block.

Gonzales wasn’t so clean-shaven today. He looked up with eyes that were half-lidded, sleepy with contempt. And just plain fucking sleepy.

“Good morning, Victor,” I said, sitting opposite him. “Remember me?”

He nodded.

“Boy, do I feel refreshed. Last night, after I dropped you and your pal off, I had a great meal at Rancho Grande … on North Clark? Then straight home for a nice long hot shower, and right to bed, must have got nine hours. I slept so goddamn long, I feel almost sleepy today. Ever have that happen?”