Libra - Don Delillo [178]
He spotted Governor John Connally in one of the jump seats, a Stetson in his lap. He liked Connally’s face, a rugged Texas face. This was the kind of man who would take a liking to Lee if he ever got to know him. Cartons stamped Books. Ten Rolling Readers. Everyone was grateful for the weather.
The white pilot car turned, the motorcycles turned. The Lincoln passed beneath him, easing left, making the deep turn left, seeming almost to rotate on an axis. Everything was slow and clear. He got down on one knee, placed his left elbow on the stacked cartons and rested the gun barrel on the edge of the carton on the sill. He sighted on the back of the President’s head. The Lincoln moved into the cover of the live oak, going about ten miles an hour. Ready on the left, ready on the right. Through the scope he saw the car metal shine.
He fired through an opening in the leaf cover.
When the car was in the clear again, the President began to react.
Lee turned up the handle, drew the bolt back.
The President reacted, arms coming up, elbows high and wide.
There were pigeons, suddenly, everywhere, cracking down from the eaves and beating west.
The report sounded over the plaza, flat and clear.
The President’s fists were clenched near his throat, arms bowed out.
Lee drove the bolt forward, jerking the handle down.
The Lincoln was moving slower now. It was almost dead still. It was sitting naked in the street eighty yards from the underpass.
Ready on the firing line.
Raymo got out of the supercharged Merc in the parking lot above the grassy embankment a little more than halfway down Elm. A wooden stockade fence enclosed the parking area, with trees and shrubs set alongside. The rear bumper of the car nudged the fence. There were ten or twelve cars parked nearby, many more in the spaces to the north and west.
Raymo stood a moment, rolling his shoulders. He gave a firm hoist to his balls, three quick jogs with the left hand. The fence was about five feet high, too high for him to brace his left arm comfortably. He went to the rear of the car and stood on the bumper. He looked out over the fence and across a stretch of lawn. The pilot car approached the Elm Street turn.
Frank Vásquez got out of the car on the driver’s side. He carried a Weatherby Mark V, scope-mounted, loaded with soft-point bullets that explode on impact. He stood by the rear fender until Raymo extended a hand. Frank gave him the weapon.
He went back to the driver’s seat. The car bounced when he got in and Raymo glanced back sharply.
The crowd noise from Main Street was still in the air, faintly, a rustle somewhere overhead, and Frank, with his back to the action, sat at the wheel listening. His view was past the railyards to the northwest. Water towers painted white. Power pylons trailing into a flat grim distance. All light and sky. He felt like he could see to the end of Texas.
Raymo stood just west of the point where the two sections of fence form a near-right angle. From the deep shade of the trees he looked out on a sun-dazzled scene. Small groups collecting on the grass on both sides of Elm, families, cameras, like the start of a picnic. The limousine came swinging into the street. People on the north side of Elm, their backs to Raymo, shaded their eyes from the sun. Other people waving, Kennedy waving, applause, sunlight, sharp glare on the hood of the limousine. A girl ran across the grass. The dangling men. Four men dangling from the sides of the follow-up car, only a few feet behind the blue Lincoln.
Dallas One. Repeat. I didn’t get all of it.
Leon fired too soon, with the car passing under the tree. The report sounded like a short charge, a little weak, a defect, not enough powder.
Kennedy reacted late, without surprise at first, his arms coming up slowly like a man on a rowing machine.
The driver slowed to half-speed. The driver sat there. The other agent sat there. They were waiting for a voice