Max Collins - Target Lancer

Suddenly Dick’s expression carried a remarkable lack of human emotion, and it came to me that his Dana Andrews-ish features had probably never worn any actual human emotion. He was one of those guys missing a small but vital part of the machinery we call humanity-an alien from Planet X who could only imitate human feeling.

He said, “I thought you had everything figured out, Nate. But you don’t, because there is nothing to figure out. You’re a paranoid seeing spooks in a big dark old house. You don’t have any evidence, not a shred. You’re just a guy who has had a very tough week who is walkin’ around delirious on his damn feet. You go around spewing crazy ideas like these, you might have problems, even though there’s nothing to it.”

Cain was right. And I was on dangerous ground.

“Not from me, ” he said with a grin. A practiced grin, it now seemed. “But these wild accusations, about those kind of people-Rosselli, Hoffa, and on up that ladder you mentioned-a guy can wake up dead.”

I thought about killing him right there. It might be the only way to protect myself, and-more important-my son. But alone on some deserted warehouse floor of a printing plant was one thing. Next door to the Chicago chief of the Secret Service was another.

“You’re right,” I said. Sighed, shook my head, and gave him a grin as phony but I hoped believable as the one he’d just flashed me. “I don’t know what the hell’s wrong with me. Maybe it’s the Mexican food I had last night. Maybe I should get a good night’s sleep for a change.”

Actually I’d slept long and well last night.

Cain seemed relieved. Whether he really was or not, who could say?

And now he summoned compassion, or a reasonable facsimile thereof. “Look, old friend-you killed a couple guys this morning. That’s enough to sit anybody back on their ass. Enough to get the nuttiest thoughts going. You’ll keep all this craziness to yourself?”

I grunted a laugh. “Keep what to myself? Sorry, Dick. It just all sort of seemed to fit. You’re right-I sound screwier than that Vallee kid. Forget I said any of it.”

“Sure.” He rose and ambled to the door, then paused there, a hand on the knob. “You forget all of it, too.”

“Sure.”

He gave me an unfiltered smile that would have made the devil jump. “Or do you actually believe that load of horseshit, Nate? You wouldn’t be harboring any ideas of settling up with me, would you?”

“No.”

Not today.

I said, “I just want to get the hell out of this government job and back into the private sector. But enough of that horseshit just might be true, Dick, that I don’t think I ever want to see you again.”

“Nate…”

“Stay away from me and the people I care about, amigo, and I will cut you a wide swath. We were friends long enough that I owe you that much.”

Like hell.

“All right, Nate.” He gave up an easygoing shrug. “You and I, we’ll keep our distance. For now, anyway. But here’s what I would say to you, if that fever dream you shared happened to have any truth in it-stay on the sidelines, and I give you my word, no reprisals. You’ve never been a political animal, and there are changes coming that are way out of your league. Nothing you can understand, or do anything about. If a guy wants to die, that can always be arranged. If a guy just wants to be ignored, that can be arranged, too.”

Then he was gone, and I settled back in my chair and I was shaking.

Fucking shaking.

We had been friends for many years, we had done each other favors, and I had relished his loose way with the rules, always a plus in a friend in law enforcement, but now I realized, not too late I hoped, that I was Abel in this relationship and that bastard was Cain.

When I felt like myself again, I looked around this office I’d inhabited since Tuesday and realized it bore no traces of my presence whatsoever. Nothing to pack. Nothing of me in here at all.

This time Martineau’s door was closed. I knocked, got permission to enter and did.

“Marty,” I said from the doorway, “consider this my resignation from the Secret Service.”

He smiled. “I’m glad the AG assigned you here for this case. And I appreciate everything you did for us.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Everything?”

“Everything.”

“Would you do me a small favor? Use your influence to make your pals in the Service keep a very damn sharp eye out on these upcoming presidential trips.”

“Nate, we always do.”

“I know, I know. But this isn’t just the messed-up likes of Vallee anymore. Four gunmen, Marty, that’s a full-blown conspiracy. And you’ll be cutting two of the players loose this afternoon.”

“I hear you.”

“Good.”

“Listen, Nate, you’ll still need to come in on Monday to sit down with Charlotte and dictate your report. You know, for me to include in the overview I’ll be doing for Chief Rowley.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I can’t make it.”

“You need to try. I’m sure, after almost a week away, you have matters at the A-1 that needed tending to … but we need to wrap this up, officially.”

“Marty, I won’t be in,” I said. “I’m sorry, but it really doesn’t matter.”

“Why is that, Nate?”

“Marty, don’t you know? I was never here.”

Do you remember where you were when President Kennedy was killed? Even if you weren’t alive at the time, you surely know that a sniper in a high window was waiting for JFK to ride by on that infamous day in November.

In Dallas.

Friday, November 29, 1963

In Chicago, around ten P.M., after a long day of work and a quick bite to eat, I got on the El in the Loop, taking the subway south to Thirty-fifth and Wabash. At the White Sox stop, I got off in what used to be called the Section, where colored folk had wound up, coming to Chicago in that first big northward swing after World War I. Jazz had got its start in the Section, Chicago-style anyway, and the area was still rife with filthy streets, broken-down buildings, and greasy spoons. Walking east on Thirty-fifth, the only honky around, I might have felt scared if the nine-mil wasn’t under my arm.

Since last Friday, I hadn’t gone anywhere unarmed.

In my experience, you avoided trouble in Bronzeville by not looking for it. Move easy, cool, confident. No eye contact, not even with those two high-yellow gals in tight dresses striding your way, emphasizing their hip sway and wearing grins half come-on, half dare. If you hear footsteps on the sidewalk behind you, too fast for your taste, just half turn and walk sideways a few steps. Hardly anything really to worry about.

At Thirty-fifth and State-heart of the Section-were the dives where Jelly Roll Morton once played. At Thirty-fifth and Indiana, I wondered if I’d missed the place; but there it was on the northwest corner, a brick storefront with a Schlitz saloon sign and a banner that boldly announced MUDDY WATERS amp; BAND-FRI, SAT, SUN.

Inside, Smitty’s was dark, crowded, and smoky. Moving through the loud bar into the club area, where the brown walls peeled paint and a sign advertised CHEEBURGERS, I spotted Eben Boldt and a good-looking Negro woman, both dressed casually but nice-dark suit, light blue dress-seated toward the front among quiet couples at checker-clothed, postage-stamp tables.

Joining Eben, I was introduced to his friendly wife, Barbara, a schoolteacher pretty enough to worry Diahann Carroll.

The show hadn’t started yet, but the drums, piano, several guitars on stands, and several amplifiers were waiting up on the small stage.