Max Collins - Ask Not

She took the glass from my hand and went off to do that while Flo and I looked at each other in blank amazement.

Then Madeleine was handing me back my tall glass and I said, “Doesn’t it bother you, these killings?”

She sat. “Killings bother any Christian, Mr. Heller. Why, I would mourn the untimely demise of any person. But these were political decisions. They were deemed necessary. We’re not talking about just any man. We’re talking about a powerhouse of a man who became the President of the United States. A man I love very much. He did what he had to do, to do the very good things that he has done. For Negroes. For the poor.”

I could think of one “poor” Negro he hadn’t done anything good for — the nanny who raised her boys.

Madeleine’s expression was grave now, her brown eyes boring in on me — no pixie in them at all. “Had the assassination not happened the day it did, Lyndon would probably have gone to prison — or at least the Kennedys would have shuffled him out of public life in some way. All because of his involvement with two good friends, two wonderful men, Billie Sol Estes and Bobby Baker. Funny how some of the people who were going to testify against Lyndon found themselves in the middle of homosexual scandals, or like that Marshall fella, who shot himself five times.”

“Mac Wallace,” I said.

“Yes, Nate,” she said pleasantly. “Without a doubt. And Flo? Can you understand why it is that you can’t use my name? Next time Mac Wallace is in town, I don’t want him dropping by.”

The twenty-two story building at 3525 Turtle Creek Boulevard, of tinted, reinforced concrete and Mexican brick, was the most prestigious apartment house in Dallas.

Built in 1957, 3525 (as it was known) was home to such famous residents as Greer Garson, Jimmy Dean, Senator John Tower, Fabian, and assorted oilmen and wealthy widows. The restaurant off the spacious, modern lobby, the Turtle Room — with its continental cuisine and seventeen-foot, floor-to-ceiling windows on three sides, looking onto magnificent landscaping — was open to the public. The on-site nightspot, Club 3525, however, was for private members only, though of course Flo Kilgore was an honored guest, on the off chance she might mention the place in her nationally syndicated column.

3525 had made the papers before — a while back, a socialite’s body had been found floating in the swimming pool; then department-store widow Minnie Marcus had been relieved of seventy grand in jewelry in a daring robbery; and, not long ago, the club had been raided by the city vice squad for after-hours drinking (the more elderly residents had complained about the noise).

Detective Nathan Heller of Chicago was investigating none of these crimes. Instead I was spending a quiet evening at 3525, first dining on French fare at the Turtle Room in a setting rich with teak and polished crystal, and then in the club, listening to the Bill Black Combo play jazz with a saxy flare that wouldn’t have been wrong for the Colony. Eat your heart out, Bill Peck and his Peckers.

The crowd here was young, at least for 3525 — couples in their thirties and forties, Twisting and Frugging on a small dance floor by the modest stage, pretending they were in their twenties. The room was black booths and mirrored walls with red-and-blue stripper lighting on the stage and dance floor.

Needless to say, I didn’t spot Greer Garson.

Flo had spoken to a number of fans, but signed few autographs, as this was too hip a room for that. She looked very mod in a yellow white-polka-dotted miniskirted dress, with a matching bow in her indestructible bouffant, as seen on TV. She was trying too hard to look young, but the lighting helped.

“Bill Black isn’t in the combo anymore,” she said when they went on break. “Ailing.”

We were sitting close in a booth for four, a martini for her, a vodka gimlet for me.

“Used to be Elvis’s backup band,” I said, showing off.

“That’s old news. Early this year, they opened for the Beatles — at the Beatles’ request — on their first American tour.”

“They’re going to be here next week.”

“Bill Black?”

“The Beatles.”

She smiled a little. “Surely not at Club 3525.”

“Only after hours. They’re going to be at Memorial Auditorium a week from tonight.”

This was Friday. Since Monday, we had interviewed fifteen witnesses, and Flo had plenty of material for an assassination exposé, perfect to appear right after the Warren Commission announced its results, at the end of the month.

But she remained disappointed that I hadn’t been able to arrange an interview with Jack Ruby. That seemed out of the question, for this trip anyway, because we were both set to fly out tomorrow, her to New York and What’s My Line? , and me to Chicago and the A-1 Detective Agency.

I had talked to Barney Ross on the phone several times, in his office at the Milton Blackstone ad agency in Manhattan. Though we had all grown up on the West Side, Barney was much closer to Ruby than I was.

“Belli’s not going to be involved in the appeal,” Barney said, meaning Ruby’s famous defense lawyer. “His new defense team is led by a guy named Clinton. Sam Houston Clinton.”

It would be.

“I got feelers out,” Barney said, “to find somebody I know who knows this guy. If I can get the new man to pass my message along to Sparky, you’ll get in.”

Sparky was Ruby.

I said, “They may want you as a character witness again.”

Barney, as a famous ex — boxing champ, had testified for Ruby at the Oswald murder trial. Ruby had been convicted in March. Justice moved fast in Texas. Or anyway something moved fast.

“Maybe not,” Barney said, and sounded embarrassed. “Some people say my testimony worked against Jack. Because of my drug habit.”

Barney, who’d been a Marine and served with me in the Pacific, had come back from Guadalcanal addicted to morphine, whereas I’d come back mildly nuts enough to rate a Section Eight. Checking himself into a VA hospital for help, Barney had famously kicked the monkey on his back.

But the prosecution had used Barney’s addiction — and that as kids, he and Ruby ran errands for Al Capone — to suggest Barney was some kind of mobbed-up lowlife. In the scheme of things, his testimony hadn’t mattered, but it had been an embarrassment for the ex-champ.

“You know,” Barney was saying, “I helped raise money for the defense, on the first trial, and I’ll offer to do the same on the next one.”

“That should get a lawyer’s attention.”

“They say money talks.”

“And whispers and screams. Just see what you can do.”

I told him I’d be in Dallas through Saturday.

I’d also been on the phone with Captain Clint Peoples in Waco, calling him about checking on Rose Cheramie’s seemingly absurd story. Just yesterday the Ranger had called me back, confirming it.

“Everything the Cheramie girl told you lines up with what the trooper, Frank Fruge, says,” Peoples reported.

“So what?” I said. “It could still all just be a wild story she told Fruge.”

“Well, keep in mind Fruge did find her along the roadside where she’d been dumped. And because of the Kennedy angle, he checked up on the details of her story.”

“Yeah? Such as?”

“Seems the girl mentioned names in the drug scheme — of the boat, of the sailor, and the hotel in Houston where she had a reservation under an alias, which she also gave the trooper.”

“And it all checked out?”

“To a tee. Fruge even took her to Houston to work with the Customs people, for her to help them take the drug ring down. But apparently word got to her accomplices and the thing fell apart.”