Max Collins - Ask Not

Her smile was wide and those dimples were something. “Oh, yes, Hunt’s a John Birch Society boy. He’s the one that backed that ‘treason’ ad in the paper the day Kennedy came to town, and passed out circulars calling the President a traitor. But H.L. believed in Lyndon, and in the power of money. Funny thing is, he dressed like some poor old man. Richest man in America, in near rags.”

Flo asked, “What did Hunt think of John Kennedy?”

“Oh, hated him like poison, of course. But H.L. was practical, and patient.”

I asked, “Patient how?”

“Well, when Lyndon was going to lose the nomination for President, back at the ’60 convention? Hunt got together with old Joe Kennedy and worked out a deal for Lyndon to get on the ticket. That’s how he became VP, even though JFK couldn’t stand him. And Hunt said to me, ‘We may have lost a battle, honey, but we’ll win the war.’”

“Meaning?”

“I’ll let you draw your own conclusions, Mr. Heller. Nate. I will say that after the assassination, H.L. told me, ‘Well, we won the war!’”

“You’re saying Hunt was behind the assassination.”

“I’d call him the... linchpin of the oilmen around here. Some say Lyndon was behind it, and I asked him, point-blank, right next to me in bed, and he said that was bullshit, that it was Texas oil and those... pardon my French... ‘fucking renegade intelligence bastards.’”

“For what reason?”

“Kennedy was calling for big cuts in the oil depletion allowance. He was stopping mergers under antitrust. The market dropped, steel fell. And he was gonna close a bushel of military bases here and overseas, and was gonna pull out of Vietnam. And he was talking about dismantling the CIA. I mean, he did fire that Allen Dulles and his second in command, our mayor’s brother. Mayor Cabell changed the motorcade route that day, you know... More iced tea, Nate?”

“No. No, I’m fine.”

She smiled impishly. “Here’s something nobody outside of Dallas knows. H. L. Hunt and Jack Ruby are pals. Jack used to set up these great poker games for Hunt — old boy’s an avid poker player.”

“You know Jack Ruby?”

“Everybody around here does. You do know the Carousel was right across from the Adolphus? If you passed Jack on the street, and you didn’t know him, he would stop you and give you his Carousel Club card. Jack was everywhere in those days. He knew everybody in the Dallas Police Department. He hated Kennedy, too.”

I gave her half a smile. “Madeleine, you don’t seem like the type to hang out at a strip joint.”

“Oh, I’m not. I don’t know if I was ever there during regular hours. They opened at seven-thirty P.M., I believe. No, Jack liked to be around important people — said they were ‘classy.’ He’d open up in the afternoon, or any time, really, for fellas like Hunt or anybody in politics or business to duck in for a little privacy or fun. Fix ’em up with gambling or girls. I heard Jack Ruby could have somebody beat up for fifteen bucks and killed for a hundred. No, Jack was a buddy.”

She seemed awfully cavalier about murder, for a nice Catholic girl serving up too-sweet tea on a patio surrounded by flowers.

Flo asked, “What was your reaction when Ruby killed Oswald?”

Madeleine paused. For once, the free-flowing words stopped and she chose them carefully. “I thought he was at the police station because somebody asked him to do that, and he had no other choice than to do it.”

Flo leaned forward. “I understand you saw Lyndon the night before the assassination.”

The dark eyes flashed and so did a smile. “Yes, he surprised me that night. I didn’t know he would be there. I was asked to attend a party at Clint Murchinson’s residence — he’s another of those oilmen behind Lyndon. His son John was living there at the time, because Clint had a stroke — like old Joe Kennedy — and was moved to more accommodating quarters... although he was there that night, all right.”

I asked, “What was the occasion of the party?”

“It was in honor of Edgar Hoover. He was a big pal of Clint’s and of Lyndon’s. Then, of course you know, Edgar was a lifelong bachelor, and had his friend Clyde Tolson with him to... you know, several of those oilmen were life-long bachelors, too. They all loved horse-racing and gambling, and they would go off on these holidays together, and, well that’s neither here nor there. Where was I?”

“The party,” Flo said.

“The party! Well, the guest list couldn’t have been more impressive. For example, Richard Nixon was there...”

I said, “ Nixon was in Dallas during the assassination? Does he have an alibi?”

That last had been kidding on the square.

Flo said to me, “Nixon was in town for Pepsi Cola. They were a client of his legal firm.” She nodded to our hostess. “Please continue.”

“Well, Hunt was there, Sid Richardson, George Brown... George brought Hoover in on his private plane. All the oilmen, who I call the Great White Fathers. Bankers like John McCloy, who’s on the Warren Commission. And all kinds of society people from Dallas. But Lyndon didn’t get there till the party was breaking up, at eleven or even midnight. And he and Hunt and a few others, including Nixon and Hoover, went into the library and locked themselves in for, oh, maybe ten minutes.”

She paused to sip her iced tea.

“When Lyndon came out of there, he saw me and came up and he was red in the face. Like he’d got himself an instant sunburn in there. He had this just... dreadful look. I asked what was wrong, and he whispered, in this terrible grating voice, ‘After tomorrow, those damn Kennedys will never stand in my way again. That’s not a threat, it’s a promise.’ I’ll never forget that. How could I?”

Flo said, “Do you realize what you’re implying?”

“I do. But I don’t know what happened in that room. I don’t know what was discussed. Maybe somebody shared inside news that Lyndon was being dropped from the ticket, and he intended to tell Jack Kennedy off.”

Or perhaps he’d been told of the imminent assassination and had worked himself up some righteous outrage over previous Kennedy humiliations to help rationalize his role in the crime, even if that role was simply foreknowledge.

Flo said, “Forgive me, Madeleine, but my tracking of the whereabouts of the major figures in the case puts Johnson at his hotel at the time. He was seen. ”

She waved that off. “Lyndon had a look-alike cousin who filled in for him, if he was slipping out. Somebody who could pass for him, if it wasn’t up close or in conversation.”

I guess his mistress would know.

“Now, not everybody still at the party went into that private conference,” she was saying. “For example, Mac Wallace didn’t.”

I about fell out of the chair. Flo, who knew of Wallace through me, glanced my way, knowing I’d react.

I said, “You know Mac Wallace?”

“Sure do, bless his heart. He’s Lyndon’s number one hatchet man, and that’s not exactly a figure of speech. Mac made seventeen, eighteen people disappear that I know of, or anyway strongly suspect. You know, he was a man with a future, smart as a whip, but then he got mixed up in that love triangle with Lyndon’s no-good sister, and lost his head and shot that poor golfer. Lyndon bought his friend out of that jam, but you know, that was the end of any kind of normal life for Mac.”

“You don’t hold it against him, being a murderer?”

“Oh, I kind of feel sorry for him. He’s certainly a terrible man now, but once he was so promising.” Her eyes tightened as something occurred to her. “You know, we had this wonderful colored girl who all but raised my two boys when I went back to work at the ad agency. She was with us for many years. She traveled with us, and one time on a trip to San Antonio, I believe it was, she accidentally came in on Lyndon and me at a most inopportune moment. She scurried out, and Lyndon said, ‘Say good-bye to her.’ I thought he was joshing, but she disappeared the next day. No one has seen her since. I asked an attorney who’s been my go-between with Lyndon if he knew what became of her. And he said, ‘What do you think? Mac Wallace’... Now, Mr. Heller, you look dry as a bone. I simply have to refresh your tea.”