Max Collins - Ask Not

“Anyway, on a, uh, very basic level,” he said almost casually, “I didn’t trust the FBI to investigate Dallas.”

“I don’t blame you. But somebody should.”

“Somebody is. In a very low-key fashion, I’ve put some of my own best people, from the Get Hoffa squad, on the case. Walter Sheridan, for one.”

“Good choice,” I said, nodding.

His smile came out a little forced. “And I’ve thought about, uh, hiring you, too, Nate... but I would assume you aren’t doing much fieldwork now.”

“That’s a job I might consider,” I admitted, then sat forward. “But let me ask you something first, Bob. This Warren Commission farce is wrapping up soon — have you testified? Or, are you planning to?”

He shook his head. “Well, you’re right, it is a farce. My political enemies control it, I mean Dulles is an obvious CIA spy on the thing — did you know until recently Lyndon lived across the street from Hoover, and that, uh, Ladybird, Lyndon, Hoover, and Clyde Tolson would have regular Sunday dinner together?”

“Cozy. I can just picture them holding hands and saying grace. Norman Rockwell should paint it. Or Mad magazine.”

He smiled briefly but his expression immediately darkened and he shook his head slowly several times. “You would not believe what that fucking commission put Kenny O’Donnell through.”

O’Donnell was one of Bobby’s best friends and advisers.

His eyes unblinking and empty, Bobby was saying, in a voice so hushed I could hardly make out his words, “Kenny heard at least two shots fired from that grassy hillock... in front of the motorcade? So did Dave Powers — they were in the Secret Service backup car, right behind Jack. They saw and heard the whole horror, Nate. When Kenny reported what he’d witnessed to the FBI, he was informed that he was mistaken about the direction of the gunfire. He was told that the shots came from the book depository and that he should testify to that fact. They were both told that if they did not change their story, the results could be... damaging.”

“To whom?”

A little fatalistic shrug. “The country, I would suppose. Or possibly themselves. Still, Dave wouldn’t budge from his story, and, uh, was not then asked to testify. Kenny went along with them, though, and I asked him why he’d done that, why had he lied, and he told me he just didn’t want to stir up any more pain and trouble for my family.”

“Did you tell him to come forward?”

“Nate, he was under oath. He’d committed perjury. I wouldn’t ask him to do that, not when he’d been trying to do the right thing by the Kennedys. Anyway. Now is not the time for these... revelations.”

My laugh was hollow. “What, you want to wait till your friend can correct the record, and receive a presidential pardon, huh?”

He held up a hand like the cops outside, keeping back the crowd. “Suffice to say I have refused to testify. To avoid that, I agreed to give Warren a signed letter stating I didn’t believe there was a conspiracy behind Jack’s murder.”

Of course, unlike Powers, he hadn’t been under oath.

I said, “You’ve made similar statements in public.”

“It’s what is needed at this point. I mean, there would be blood in the streets, if right now the American people found out what really happened in Dallas. Oswald the lone killer, Ruby the sorrowful nut, it’s a myth that keeps the public reassured... while in the meantime, I authorize a sub-rosa investigation.”

“You want to know who to go after,” I said, “the day you hit the Oval Office.”

“Correct. Which is why Steve and everyone around me is right — I need to get my head in this game.” He had a tortured expression now, as he glanced at that window. “But, Nate, they look at me and they see Jack... and I know what a joke that is.”

“Cut that crap. Quit sniveling. And I’m not convinced you should wait till you’re President. That’s a little like me giving up sex till I can get next to Kim Novak.”

I’d made him smile again — not that easy a task under the best of conditions.

He said, “You, uh, are the Private Eye to the Stars, aren’t you, Nate? I would think, uh, a meeting with Miss Novak could be arranged.”

Sooner or later, when you were hanging out with the Kennedy boys, bedding beautiful movie stars came up in conversation.

I sat forward again. “Bob, a lot of the American people already aren’t buying the lone gunman theory. Maybe when the Warren Commission puts its report out that’ll change... but I don’t think so. People have questions.”

“Do they?”

“Sure! Like how can there be a lone gunman when the Parkland docs say one of the bullets entered the throat? Or how can a guy using a shitty twelve-buck mail-order bolt-action rifle squeeze off three expert shots in under six seconds?”

“You’ve seen the same tasteless articles I have,” Bobby said, with a derisive tone and a sneer to go with it. “These so-called assassination buffs, they’re creeps and kooks, even if they have asked some of the right questions.”

“Well, here’s one they missed — if Oswald was a pro-Castro pinko, why would he shoot a president who was trying to improve relations with Cuba? Of course, you and I know that Oswald was a CIA asset. So maybe his motive was the Bay of Pigs fiasco.”

Irritation was showing in his face again. “Nate, stop it.”

“This isn’t going away, Bob.”

“I know it isn’t. And when I’m in the White House, it’s going to be exposed.”

He meant it would be exposed when he had the power to manipulate the facts to whitewash himself and his brother in Operation Mongoose. And as the guy who had set up the first meeting between the players in that sad game, I was just fine with that.

“Then,” I said, sitting back comfortably, “I need to tell you what I’ve been doing in Dallas the last week or so.”

And he sat forward. Not slumping now.

I gave it all to him, including the Billie Sol Estes cleanup effort, though I wasn’t convinced it had anything to do with the dead witnesses in Dallas, similar though the approach might be.

“I don’t know,” he said, and shuddered. “Flo Kilgore? A gossipmonger? A silly game-show celebrity? That’s not my idea of a credible investigation.”

That rated a laugh. “You aren’t conducting a credible investigation, Bob. You are, in your own words, mounting a very timid, sub-rosa one. Why not let Flo be your stalking horse? She’s going to do it anyway.”

“And if you accept her job offer,” he said, thinking it through, “then you’ll know what she’s found, and you can control the situation.”

“To some degree,” I said, nodding. “And I can report back to you. Plus keep my eye on preserving the Kennedy legacy. But I didn’t want to take her money without you giving the okay.”

His expression remained thoughtful. “I appreciate that. But it’s not like I could stop you, Nate.”

“If you said walk away, Bob, I’d walk away.”

His smile was barely there, but it meant a lot. “Thank you, Nate.”

“And I may walk away, anyway.”

“Oh?”

I told him how this had begun, with what appeared to be an attempt on my life disguised as a hit-and-run accident. And I told him how, afterward, I’d approached both my CIA handler and my primary Mob contact, and had been assured they were not responsible.

“Thing is,” I said, “I promised them I’d stay out of any inquiry into the assassination, or anyway implied as much. I presented myself as a loose end not worth tying off.”

“But now you find yourself in Texas,” Bobby said, “in the midst of what looks like a concerted effort to, uh, tie off various loose ends.”