“Two men were hit,” a carefully calm voice said. “Do you think it’s possible the target was the other man, not ours?”
“It could be. The other man was one James Hammond Procter. He was a reporter for the local paper.”
“Procter? Do we have a file on him?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And?”
“It’s possible that our man was meeting him for the purpose of… transmitting information.”
“But we don’t know this for sure?”
“No, sir. By the time we… The local police were on the scene very quickly. Whatever was on the person of either man is in their possession now.”
“Do we have someone we can speak to there?”
“I’ll take care of it,” Wainwright said.
1959 October 11 Sunday 23:51
Karl maneuvered his Mercedes behind the building, a flashlight extended in one gloved hand. There! He stopped the car, climbed out, and walked over to a padlocked back door. A thin slice of white showed between his lips. He prowled the back of the building with his flashlight until he found a window along the side.
Karl returned to his car, drove just beneath the window, then climbed lithely onto the roof of the Mercedes. The window glass yielded to his gloved fist.
Inside the building, Karl made his way to the front, found the pulley, and levered the garage door open. Moving quickly, he trotted around to the back, reclaimed his car, and drove it through the opening. Then he pulled the door closed behind him.
Breathing hard, Karl removed his topcoat. Underneath, he was clad in an immaculate brown uniform, with red epaulets and a red stripe down the pants. His jackboots were black mirrors. Around his waist was a heavy leather belt, connected to a matching shoulder strap worn across his chest. The uniform shirt had two armbands, red, with a black swastika in a white circle on each. Karl reached inside his Mercedes and withdrew a uniform cap and a cardboard folder.
He placed the cap on his head and checked his image in the mirror. The sight calmed him, regulating his breathing. He held out one tremorless hand. Hard and true.
Karl gently opened the folder and removed the contents. He carefully arranged the photographs and copies of official documents on the hood of his Mercedes, fussing until the proof, the indisputable proof, that his Führer was a half-Jewish, race-mixing fraud was perfectly aligned.
From the inside pocket of his uniform tunic, Karl took a single sheet of his personal stationery. The words “Blood and Honor” were written in a strong, assured hand.
Karl examined his display with a critical eye. Finally satisfied, he unsnapped the flap of his holster and took out a virginal black Luger.
1959 October 11 Sunday 23:58
“Hoffman’s not happy, Mickey,” the bulky man said.
“I know how to fix that, Sean.”
“Yes? Well, tell us, then.”
“It wasn’t Beaumont who took out Dioguardi,” Shalare said. “It was us, wasn’t it?”
“Aye,” the bulky man said. “That should mend our fences, right enough… if he buys it. But why did we do it, Mickey?”
“Beaumont was playing a double game,” Shalare said, speaking slowly, as if working out a complex problem. “Planning to cross us on the election. Remember, we had his own man, Lymon, working for us. And that part, we can prove. Lymon was an insider. He told us Beaumont was in cahoots with Dioguardi. They were going the other way. It was them or us.”
“Dioguardi’s people, we already talked to them, they’re not a problem,” the bulky man said. “But Beaumont… he may be gone, but there’s plenty of his men still around, Mickey.”
“You forget, Sean. I had the pleasure of dealing with Mr. Royal Beaumont my ownself. The man was a leader-a rock for the others to cleave to. Without him, they’ll just scatter back to the hills they came from.”
“I hope so, with all my heart,” the bulky man said. “Because we still have a job to do here.”
1959 October 12 Monday 00:06
“That was a shot,” the rifleman said.
“You sure?”
“If there’s one sound I know, it’s that.”
“Fuck! This is a sterile zone. We can’t have any police around. We’ll have to wait for one car to leave, then go in and get the body.”
Another shot rang out, clearer than the first.
“I don’t think anyone’s coming out of there,” the rifleman said. “Time for us to break camp.”
1959 October 12 Monday 21:22
“Where you at now?” a harsh voice hissed through a long-distance line.
“What difference does it make?”
“Right. You ever been to Omaha?”
“No.”
“Doesn’t matter,” the voice whispered. “It’s the same everywhere.”
“I know,” the man called Walker Dett said.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Andrew Vachss has been a federal investigator in sexually transmitted diseases, a social services caseworker, and a labor organizer, and has directed a maximum-security prison for youthful offenders. Now a lawyer in private practice, he represents children and youths exclusively. He is the author of numerous novels, including the Burke series, two collections of short stories, and a wide variety of other material including song lyrics, graphic novels, and a “children’s book for adults.” His books have been translated into twenty languages and his work has appeared in Parade, Antaeus, Esquire, Playboy, the New York Times, and numerous other forums. A native New Yorker, he now divides his time between the city of his birth and the Pacific Northwest.
The dedicated Web site for Vachss and his work is www.vachss.com.
