The Blonde (49 page)

But Walls’s sympathy for Jackie had grown, like every other American, when her third child died, only days after he was born, back in August. So it was that much more perplexing that this woman blanched at the sight of the first lady.

He knew her. He knew her like he knew himself. Despite her changed hair, her thinner figure, he would have known her anywhere. Every inch of his skin prickled. He shuddered, shook his head, but the phantasm did not dissipate. She was alive—Marilyn was alive. He felt struck dumb. All this time, she had been out in the world, and he’d had no idea, and he was sick with the thought of what she could have done already, but hadn’t. When she turned suddenly and walked away from the hubbub, he followed as though in a trance.

As he trailed her wide, cream-colored Pontiac—he guessed it must have been at least five years old; it was larger, more curvaceous than this year’s models—he realized he wasn’t even surprised. His blood boiled, but he wasn’t surprised. She had always been so much smarter than she let on, and her plan, the one he was beginning to comprehend, was shrewd. She was clever to have chosen Dallas—the president himself had joked darkly with his agents that morning about heading into nut country, how they’d hang him in a second here if they could, which Walls supposed was his funny way of telling his Secret Service men he appreciated what they did. Walls knew full well there would be security lapses—that the indifference of the local police, who were partially responsible for security along the motorcade
route, would make it easier for her to carry out her plan. Plus the entire itinerary had been published in the local news, over his strenuous objections. The president’s aides had insisted that a big turnout was necessary to the success of the trip, and Walls had by then developed the reputation of a square. A man overzealous in his duties, and thus easy to ignore.

Sweat beaded on his forehead as he calculated the time she’d had to practice her aim. He thought how her intimate knowledge of the president would help her now, teach her to intuit his movements, stalk him in the way Walls was able to stalk her. On the radio they were reporting how the president had darted into the crowd back at Love Field to shake hands. Even at a distance this made Walls nervous. He was convinced that the greatest danger to Kennedy at that moment was the supposedly deceased movie star now got up like a suburban mother, piloting an old station wagon through the streets of Dallas, but he couldn’t help agonizing over the dangers posed by the large grouping of people on the tarmac. It would only take one lunatic, a few seconds of negligence, for their leader to fall.

The radio was reporting on the motorcade, and when they described the president’s car without the usual protective covering, he ground his foot into the gas pedal and nearly rear-ended the truck in front of him.

“Shit,” he muttered, and grabbed for his radio. “This is Agent Walls,” he said.

“Walls, where are you? The motorcade took off already.” It was Agent Peal, who was also on the first lady’s detail, part of the group who remained at Love Field to keep the airport safe for the presidential party’s takeoff that afternoon.

“They’ve got to get the cover on the president’s limousine, do you hear me?”

“Too late for that,” Peal said mildly. “It’s a gorgeous day, Walls. The president’s not afraid.”

“Peal, tell them to stop the motorcade. Get the cover on. I’ve seen a suspect—a potential assassin. We’ve got to take every precaution.”

The radio crackled. “Like in New York?”

Walls cursed under his breath. It was true, he had embarrassed himself in New York, caused the other agents a great deal of trouble, but he could not dwell on that now. “Listen to me.”

“Ship’s sailed, Walls.”

“Okay. Fuck. Fuck!” Walls wiped his forehead with his sleeve. “Peal, listen, I am going to need backup. I am currently following the suspect downtown. Suspect headed downtown in a white Pontiac.”

“Description of suspect?”

“She’s five-four, brunette, mid-thirties, mirrored sunglasses, black slacks. A hundred and twenty, maybe, hourglass figure.”

A low whistle. “Hear you loud and clear, Agent Walls.” Was Peal laughing? Walls couldn’t comprehend that anyone would find anything the least bit funny at this moment. “You chase that suspect. Just make sure you’re back here by two.”

“This woman is not a joke!” he shouted hysterically into the radio. “You have no
idea
what she’s capable of!”

“I’ll be looking forward to hearing all about her talents later.” Peal chuckled lewdly. “Over and out.”

Walls hurled the radio at the floor, but apparently Peal hadn’t bothered switching off his radio, so he heard how the other agents went on mocking him as he followed Marilyn’s white Pontiac.

She headed downtown, and he followed close behind and parked half a block behind her on Record Street. They were a block from the plaza, and he could see the railway overpass up ahead. The radio was now reporting that the motorcade had departed the airport, and would be making its way into the city, so he turned the volume low, rolled down his window. The lead car would be stocked with his fellow agents, their eyes scanning the pathway, waiting for any sudden movement; behind them the presidential limousine, driven by another agent, flanked by policemen on motorcycles, which in turn
was followed by another Secret Service vehicle, then the vice president’s car, the press car, a car for agents of the Dallas Bureau. Despite the chill in the air, his collar was soaked through with perspiration.

The area was eerily quiet. A policeman stood on the corner, gazing down the block, in the direction from which the president’s entourage would arrive. The radio reported people lining the entire route, although they must be hushed with anticipation. There were only waiting noises, a shuffle of feet, the snap of a camera, as they waited to capture their moment. He heard a cheer from a long way off—the president was coming. Then Marilyn stepped out of her car, tucked a pocketbook under her arm, and dashed into the big brick building that occupied the whole city block and looked down on the plaza on the other side. Walls closed his car door very quietly, and followed her through the back entrance.

On the second-floor landing, he found her high-heeled shoes, but she had disappeared into the darkness of the stairwell. He, too, shoved off his shoes and jogged up the stairs in his socks. His sense of panic grew as he climbed higher and found no sign of her. Had she gone into one of the lower floors? Had he miscalculated? He figured she’d want to be higher, where she could get a clear shot; but maybe she had a contact on a lower floor. Did she already have a sniper’s rifle set up? Had she managed to secure an office in the building? He was out of breath from running, and furious with himself for having not arrested her when she was in her parked car and he had the chance.

But he wasn’t wrong. He came around the corner and saw her, at the top of the stairs, her silhouette against the sunlight streaming in what must be a large, open room. She was peering around the corner, checking that it was empty. Of course—she had not needed an office; she knew everyone would be down below, watching the show. She stepped back, took a breath, and removed a handgun from her purse. She checked that it was loaded, and pushed the cylinder into place. She never got a chance to cock it. Walls was on her, grabbing her at the wrist and waist, and hauling her back down the stairs.

“You fucking bastard,” she hissed, and he knew that she had thought about him over the past year, too.

They struggled against each other. She was stronger than he’d imagined, more angular and determined, all elbows and teeth, but he held her tight. They staggered together, one lumbering body, pushing each other back and forth, feet slipping on the stairs. Outside a cheer went up, and she let go of the gun suddenly. He flinched as it clattered down the stairs, so his eyes were closed when it went off. Two things occurred to him at once: that neither of them was bleeding, and that a six-shooter was a terrible choice for killing a man at long range. Another shot rang out, which he could have sworn was behind him. In his confusion he relaxed his hold. She escaped his grip and jogged down a few more steps toward the gun. He grabbed her by the hair, yanked her backward, lunged for the gun himself. But the third shot echoed in his skull, and his shock slowed him. She was on his back, a knee against his kidney, reaching beyond him, as he slid down another few stairs, and the last thing he saw was her manicured hand seizing the gun just out of his reach. The blow fell at the back of his neck; and all color left the world.

The next thing he knew was a slap. He was slapped twice, and he shook his head, and discovered that he was slumped in a stairwell, looking into the ashen face of a man in a white police helmet. He recognized the man, and in the next moment he remembered how—they had met that morning, at the Dallas Airport, to go over the details of security for the procession of the president’s limousine.

“Agent Walls, did you see him?”

“Him?”

“The shooter.”

“Where is she?” Walls blinked exaggeratedly, trying to get his eyes to focus, his consciousness to become steady.

“She?”

“Marilyn—she was right here …”

“Who?” The officer exhaled, filling his cheeks with air. That morning he had seemed so brash, but he was something else now. He stood and began jogging up the stairs, toward the sixth floor, the big, open room full of midday sunshine. “Get yourself together, Agent Walls,” he called over his shoulder. “The president’s been hit.”

EPILOGUE

Arlington National Cemetery, November 1996

THE guilt never lessened; it only became the fact of his life, the shape of his face, the story he knew best. He had rehearsed all the scenarios, every possible outcome, until he could replay each by heart without the directives of conscious thought. These took the place of memory. He did not believe in god, but he did try to do penance. Every November twenty-second he went with a cone of yellow roses, although his conscience knew this wasn’t real penance. He went because he wanted to stand amongst a mourning crowd. It was always an awful day, but it was also the only day of the year he did not feel alone.

The government of Kennedy’s successor had labored to promote the notion that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, murdering the president with three rapid shots from the easternmost window of the sixth floor of the Book Depository building. It had been made clear to Walls that he should forget his struggle with the woman in the stairwell. And how could he argue, anyway, with the attorney general, a man who had lost his brother, his president, his boss, and his hero in a single moment? He castigated himself for having not thought to do as Ruby had done, stalk the jailhouse, wait for a transfer of the prisoner, and do unto Oswald as he had done to Kennedy. Of course, with the passing of time, Walls realized that if the assassin had lived at least some questions might have been answered. He had friends who had been in the room questioning him, during those first wretched twenty-four hours, and they later related, while trying to numb themselves with bourbon, that while he never dropped the façade of a radicalized malcontent, he exhibited
signs of a man trained to resist interrogation, and probably torture. That he was, at the very least, more than he seemed.

It had been thirty-three years, not a particularly meaningful anniversary. The president’s widow had passed, and the day was cold, even more than could be expected in late November. The ceremony was over, and only a few spectators lingered watching the flame lick the frigid atmosphere. On the slope above the memorial, lying on the patchy grass as though it were the height of summer and the ground beneath her a verdant pillow—there she was. Her arms were spread like an angel, her head tilted back as she gazed at the thin blue sky. The roses were still in his other hand when he grabbed her by the elbow and jerked her to her feet.

The buried fury of three decades burned in his chest, his features weighted down with anger, but she stared back at him with clear, neutral eyes. She had that radiance of people who no longer have anything to lose, and nothing to prove. In the era when he listened in on her telephone conversations she had been older than him, further along in life, more experienced, but time had worn away such distinctions. They were both old now. She was still beautiful, her skin healthy and her spine straight, although her hair had gone completely white. She wore it long, undone, the way the flower children had, although the rest of her style seemed unchanged from her heyday. Her skirt fell below the knee, and her cloth coat was belted at the waist. It took him a minute to realize that the coat was flat over her breasts—where her breasts should have been—and then he understood that the radiance was something else. She was incandescent. The aliveness of her whole being glowed beneath the skin, but it was the vibrancy of life fighting for the final time. She wouldn’t be here in the spring.

“What are you going to do, arrest me?” she said, without irony or fear.

He didn’t tell her that he no longer had the authority for that. Instead he took her to the bar off Connecticut Avenue, where a long time ago he had perused the file of William Vladimirovich Fitin. They sat at a corner table.
He opened his mouth—but what was there to say? His hands covered his face, no matter how he tried to make himself look at her. He knew her silhouette at the top of the stairs like he knew the joints of his own hand, and he wanted to tell her sorry, for not understanding her intentions that day, but this seemed wholly inadequate to the situation. If she had been Oswald’s lookout, she would have been there earlier, wouldn’t have needed to go to the airport. Her focus would have been down the stairs, waiting for Walls, ready to stop him. If she’d been trying to kill Kennedy, she would have had more than that handgun. In the year after the assassination he had replayed and replayed the whole episode, mostly in bars, her elbows in his side, her nails at his neck, until he reached the conclusion that those were not the moves of an assassin but the desperate flailing of a woman trying to protect her man.