If they wanted it, all they had to do was look on the paved area where Roosevelt's car had been: pools of blood were scattered here and there, like color in one of the paintings in Mary Ann Beame's Tower Town flat. The people were still milling around, but the crowd was thinning.
I sat on the steps to the band shell. Next to me was some of the wounded woman's blood.
Miller and Lang wandered up to me. They stood and looked at me and shrugged.
Lang said, "What now?"
"If you want to stay employed." I said, "I'd find out what hospital Cermak was rushed to. and be on hand"
Miller and Lang exchanged glances, shrugged again, and wandered off.
One of the other two bodyguards. Bill, had overheard this; he came slowly up. He looked haggard.
■
"We should have stopped it." he said.
"Right," I said.
"Do you think it was an accident?"
"What?"
"Maybe the guy was after Roosevelt."
"Go away."
He went away.
The blond, who was now brown-haired, was long gone. I'd had him. and he was gone. Cermak was shot, possibly dying; and a little bushy-haired man had pulled the trigger.
The gardener I'd seen at the son-in-law's.
Well. I knew where they'd taken him: the county courthouse. That was where the jail was. I wanted to get in and talk to that Cuban or whatever the hell he was. Maybe the fools would believe Roosevelt was the target.
But they hadn't heard what the bushy-haired assassin had muttered to me. as the three cops sat on him and drove him away.
'Well." he'd said, looking right at me, with brown shiny eyes. "I got Cermak!"
The towering Gothic Dade County- Courthouse was starkly white against the night, lit up so you could see it for miles. Or anyway for blocks: it was only a matter of eight or so from Bayfront Park to the courthouse, which I walked, since traffic was still blocked off. Cops and sheriffs deputies swarmed the two flights of steps that rose to the entryway, where a row of two-story fluted columns loomed, like a reminder of more civilized times.
A cop, his hand on the butt of the revolver at his side, was pacing nervously at the curb.
I approached him. "I was at Bayfront Park," I said, showing him my identification. "A Cermak bodyguard."
"You did a swell job," he said.
"You're telling me. I take it they aren't here with the gunman yet."
"No. I don't know what the hell's keeping 'em; it ain't that far from the park."
"The car they threw the guy on the back of had some of the wounded in it. They probably went to the hospital first."
The cop nodded. "That must be it."
When the blue limo rolled up a few minutes later, the assassin was off the luggage rack and in the back seat with two cops sitting next to him. not on him; the chauffeur cop and the other cop were in front. They ushered the dark, bushy-haired little man out of the limo and up the steps- he was completely naked, even the khaki shreds I'd seen hanging on him at the park were gone now. and no one seemed concerned about providing him with something to cover up with, not that he seemed particularly concerned about it: he seemed calm, and had the faintest of smiles on his face. The swarm of cops parted like the red sea and moved in waves up the steps. I dove in.
That was when I noticed a guy at my side, in plainclothes; he definitely wasn't a deputy. He was wearing a gray snap-brim fedora, a black suit, a dark blue shirt, and a yellow tie. He was in his mid-thirties, but his brown hair was grayed, and he had a nervous, ferretlike manner.
We were in the midst of the crush of cops and inside the high courthouse lobby, when I turned to him and said, "Can I have your autograph, Mr. Winchell?"
He had a smile about two inches wide- tight, no teeth- and beady blue eyes that were cold as the marble around us. He pressed something in my hand. I looked at it: a five-dollar bill.
"Keep your trap shut, kid," he said, "and let me tag along with you."
"Be my guest," I said.
"Atta boy," he said. "There's another fin in it for you, you play your cards right."
I managed to pocket the five as. across the lobby from us. the elevator was opening and the assassin and a few of the cops squeezed in. apparently. Anyway, as soon as the elevator went up. the crowd of cops and deputies began to thin a bit. and they began milling about, and going their separate ways.
"Shit," Winchell said.
"How'd you get here so fast? You're the only reporter around."
"The rest of those jerks are probably at the hospitals and tagging after Roosevelt."
"I didn't see you with the press at the park."
"I was at the Western Union office, sending my column off to the Mirror, when I heard two guys arguing about how many shots the nut got off at Roosevelt. That's all I had to hear: I got over here so fast my ass won't catch up till Tuesday."
"The rest of the newboys'll catch up with you before it does."
"I know. Can you get me upstairs? The jail's on the twenty-eighth floor. I hear."
"I can try."
We moved over to the elevator, where two cops were stationed to keep the likes of Winchell away, I supposed. We wouldn't have got any farther than that, but one of the cops had been at the park and had seen me helping load the assassin on the back of the limo. So when I said I was Mayor Cermak's personal bodyguard and wanted to question the assassin and flashed my ID. he let me on the elevator.
"What about him?" the cop said, pointing at Winchell. He didn't seem to recognize the columnist; normally that would've hurt Winchell's feelings. I supposed. But he didn't seem to mind, under the circumstances.
"He's with me," I said.
The cop shrugged and said, "Okay. It's the nineteenth floor. That's where the isolation cells are."
We got on the elevator.
Winchell rocked on his heels, looking up at the floor indicator.
"I didn't think this sort of thing was your line." I said.
"My by-line's my line." he said, "and anytime I can pin it on a story that's more than just entertaining the poor slobs on Hard Times Square with how some chorus girl got a diamond bracelet for laying some millionaire, I will."
The door opened on the nineteenth floor, and the sheriff, a big, lumpy man in dark suitcoat, white pants, colorful tie, and misshapen hat, was standing talking to a uniformed cop, who had a nickel-plated.32 long-barreled revolver in the palm of his hand, like something he was offering the sheriff. The sheriff turned a glowering gaze upon us, his dark eyebrows knitting, but before he could say anything. Winchell stepped forward with a smile as confident as it was insincere.
"I'm Walter Winchell," he said, extending his hand, which the sheriff, whose mouth had dropped open, took. "Let me in there for five minutes with that lunatic and I'll put your name in every paper in the world."
The sheriffs expression had shifted from foul to awestruck and, now that fame was pumping his hand, to a fawning, simpering grin.
"Glad to have you in my jail, Mr. Winchell."
"As a temporary visitor, I hope," Winchell said, spitting words like seeds. "What can you tell me about the guest you just checked in?"
"He says his name's Zangara. Giuseppe Zangara. That's about all we got so far. His English is pretty bad. But I'm something of a linguist myself… speak a little Italian. I can translate for you, if you can't make out what he's trying to say in American."
"You're a gentleman. Sheriff. Lead the way."
"Wait a minute," the sheriff said, and turned to me. I was standing just behind Winchell, trying to be inconspicuous. "Who are you?"
I told him; the cop standing nearby, who had been one of the three I'd helped in wrestling the assassin onto the limo luggage rack, confirmed what I said.
"No Chicago people." the sheriff said, waving his hands. "We don't want any of you Chicago cops in here. We'll handle this our own way."
Winchell said. "Sheriff, he's with me."
The sheriff thought about that, said, "Well, okay, then. Come along."