Libra - Don Delillo [183]
They’d find the Hidell rifle. He had Hidell documents in Ruth Paine’s garage. His wallet was full of Hidell. So it was only common sense to take the Hidell handgun. A dozen layers to strip away. It was everything, together, Hidell.
He scooped the loose cartridges out of the drawer. Bought off the street by Dupard. Would they even go bang?
He’d left his blue jacket at work. He took his gray one. Wherever he’d be spending the night, and the rest of his life, he might need a jacket. Plus it covered up the gun.
The room. The iron bed.
To anybody watching, what do I look like with the bulge at my hip under the jacket?
Unknown white male. Slender build.
He went out the door and down the walk. He was having a little trouble figuring what to do. All the clarity was gone. There was a nervous static in the air.
What do I look like?
Do I stand out in the street, walking?
He went down Beckley figuring there was no choice but to go to the movie house where they were supposed to pick him up. He knew he couldn’t trust them but there was nowhere else to go. He had fourteen dollars and a bus transfer. They had him cold. He could be walking right into it. The lurking thought, the idea of others making the choice now. He wanted to believe it was out of his hands.
He saw a police car up ahead, coming this way, and he made a left onto Davis, knowing he’d turned too quick. The streets were nearly empty. He actually saw the cop watching him move down Davis, squeezed eyes peering, although the car was out of sight now.
Okay, he shot him once. But he didn’t kill him. To the best of his knowledge he hit him in the upper back or somewhere in the neck area, nonfatally. Then he missed and hit the Governor. Then he missed completely. There are circumstances they don’t know about. Are they sure it was him in that window? It could be different than they think. A setup.
Slender white male. Five feet ten.
The car came into view again, down Patton, and he walked halfway along the next block. Then he did an about-face and went back to Patton and walked south. To fake out the car. He figured if he went to where he’d seen the car, it would be somewhere else.
Do I look like a suspect fleeing?
Have they figured out who’s missing from the Book Depository?
What is my name if I am asked?
He went down Patton to Ninth Street. Nobody around this time of day. The idea was to make a quick move back to Beckley, across Beckley, down to Jefferson. A dozen old hair-drying machines stood along the curbside. A mattress on a lawn.
He wanted to write short stories about contemporary American life.
At Tenth and Patton he expected to see the car, if at all, moving away from him. But it was cruising east, to his right, coming at him. He crossed the street and began walking east and by this time the car was right behind him, tagging along, going ten to twelve miles an hour, the motorcade speed, teasing.
From the corner of his eye he could see the number on the door. A number ten. The car was marked number ten and this was Tenth Street.
He wasn’t sure if he stopped first or the car stopped. It was like they both had the same idea. He went over to the window on the passenger side.
They spoke at the same time. Lee said, “What’s the problem, officer?” And the cop, strong-featured, looking maybe one-eighth Indian, said something about “You live around here, buddy?”
Lee stuck his head right in the window, smelling stale cigarettes, and said, “Any reason to want to talk to me?”
“You look to me like you’re taking evasive tactics.”
“I’m walking in broad daylight.”
“To me, you’re doing every possible thing to evade being spotted. ”
There was a voice squawking on the radio.
“I’m just a citizen on foot.”
“Then maybe you’d like to tell me where you’re going to.”
“I don’t think I’m required to tell you that. I live in this area, which I’m telling you more than required by law.”
He took the position, the attitude, that he was being