“Shooting and crippling him? Maybe I could and maybe I couldn't. I guess under the right circumstances, I could-like the rally in Trimbull. Suppose I did. After what happened in Laurel, George Wallace was never really a potent political force again. On the other hand, FDR campaigned from his wheelchair and even turned it into an asset.
“That leaves assassination, the Big Casino. This is the one unarguable alternative. You can't run for president if you're a corpse.
“If I could pull the trigger.
“And if I could, what would the results be to me?
“As Bob Dylan says, “Honey, do you have to ask me that?"”
There were a great many other notes and jottings, but the only other really important one was written out and neatly boxed: “Suppose outright murder does turnout to be the only alternative? And suppose it turned out that I could pull the trigger? Murder is still wrong. Murder is wrong. Murder is wrong. There may yet be an answer. Thank God there's years of time.”
But for Johnny, there wasn't.
In early December of 1978, shortly after another congressman, Leo Ryan of California, had been shot to death on a jungle airstrip in the South American country of Guayana, Johnny Smith discovered he had almost run out of time.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
At 2:30 P. M. On December 26, 1978, Bud Prescott waited on a tall and rather haggard-looking young man with graying hair and badly bloodshot eyes. Bud was one of three clerks working in the 4th Street Phoenix Sporting Goods Store on the day after Christmas, and most of the business was exchanges-but this fellow was a paying customer.
He said he wanted to buy a good rifle, light-weight, bolt-action. Bud showed him several. The day after Christmas was a slow one on the gun-counter; when men got guns for Christmas, very few of them wanted to exchange them for something else.
This fellow looked them all over carefully and finally settled on a Remington 700,. 243 caliber, a very nice gun with a light kick and a flat trajectory. He signed the gun-book John Smith and Bud thought, If I never saw me an alias before in my life, there's one there. “John Smith” paid cash-took the twenties right out of a wallet that was bulging with them. Took the rifle right over the counter. Bud, thinking to poke him a little, told him he could have his initials burned into the stock, no extra charge. “John Smith” merely shook his head.
When “Smith” left the store, Bud noticed that he was limping noticeably. Would never be any problem identifying that guy again, he thought, not with that limp and those scars running up and down his neck.
At 10: 30 AM. on December 27, a thin man who walked with a limp came into Phoenix Office Supply, Inc., and approached Dean Clay, a salesman there. Clay said later that he noticed what his mother had always called a “fire-spot” in one of the man's eyes. The customer said he wanted to buy a large attache case, and eventually picked out a handsome cowhide item, top of the line, priced at $149. 95. And the man with the limp qualified for the cash discount by paying with new twenties. The whole transaction, from looking to paying; took no more than ten minutes. The fellow walked out of the store, and turned right toward the downtown area, and Dean Clay never saw him again until he saw his picture in the Phoenix Sun.
Late that same afternoon a tall man with graying hair approached Bonita Alvarez's window in the Phoenix Amtrak terminal and inquired about traveling from Phoenix to New York by train. Bonita showed him the connections. He followed them with his finger and then carefully jotted them all down. He asked Bonnie Alvarez if she could ticket him to depart on January 3. Bonnie danced her fingers over her computer console and said that she could.
“Then why don't you… “the tall man began, and then faltered. He put one hand up to his head.
“Are you all right, sir?”
“Fireworks,” the tall man said. She told the police later on that she was quite sure that was what he said. Fire-works.
“Sir? Are you all right?”
“Headache,” he said. “Excuse me. “He tried to smile, but the effort did not improve his drawn, young-old face much.
“Would you like some aspirin? I have some.”
“No, thanks. It'll pass.”
She wrote the tickets and told him he would arrive at New York's Grand Central Station on January 6, at midafternoon.
“How much is that?”
She told him and added: “Will that be cash or charge,. Mr. Smith?”
“Cash,” he said, and pulled it right out of his wallet -a whole handful of twenties and tens.
She counted it, gave him his change, his receipt, his tickets. “Your train leaves at 10: 30 A. M., Mr. Smith,” she said. “Please be here and ready to entrain at 10: 10.
“All right,” he said. “Thank you.”
Bonnie gave him the big professional smile, but Mr. Smith was already turning away. His face was very pale, and to Bonnie he looked like a man who was in a great deal of pain.
She was very sure that he had said fireworks.
Elton Curry was a conductor on Amtrak's Phoenix-Salt Lake run. The tall man appeared promptly at 10:00 A. M. on January 2, and Elton helped him up the steps and into the car because he was limping quite badly. He was carrying a rather old tartan traveling bag with scuffmarks and fraying edges in one hand. In the other he carried a brand-new cowhide attache case. He carried the attache case as if it were quite heavy.
“Can I help you with that, sir?” Elton asked, meaning the attache case, but it was the traveling bag that the passenger handed him, along with his ticket.
“No, I'll take that when we're underway, sir.”
“All right. Thank you.”
A very polite sort of fellow, Elton Curry told the FBI agents who questioned him later. And he tipped well.
January 6, 1979, was a gray, overcast day in New York -snow threatened but did not fall. George Clements” taxi was parked in front of the Biltmore Hotel, across from Grand Central.
The door opened and a fellow with graying hair got in, moving carefully and a little painfully. He placed a traveling bag and an attache case beside him on the seat, dosed the door, then put his head back against the seat and closed his eyes for a moment, as if he was very, very tired.
“Where we goin, my friend?” George asked.
His fare looked at a slip of paper. “Port Authority Terminal,” he said.
George got going. “You look a little white around the gills, my friend. My brother-in-law looked like that when he was havin his gallstone attacks. You got stones?
“No.”
“My brother-in-law, he says gallstones hurt worse than anything. Except maybe kidney stones. You know what I told him? I told him he was full of shit. Andy, I says, you're a great guy, I love ya, but you're full of shit. You ever had cancer, Andy? I says. I asks him that, you know, did he ever have cancer. I mean, everybody knows cancer's the worst. “George took a long look in his rear-view mirror. “I'm asking y6u sincerely, my friend… are you okay? Because, I'm telling you the truth, you look like death warmed over.”