The Third Bullet (12 page)

“Two guys, I’m sure. Black guy, white guy, a team working out of one car. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you? You were in intel, you know how these things can be arranged.”

“If I was in intel, I’d be a trained liar, right? So if I tell you no, you won’t believe it. I don’t know what to say except that if you look at it, why on earth would I have you followed, which, after all, would cost some money, and I don’t have enough of the stuff to throw around like that. The piece of meat I ordered is my one weekly luxury.”

“Okay, okay,” Bob said. “Sorry, didn’t mean it as an accusation. But let me ask you this: do you know anybody in the wide body of buffs, fanatics, researchers, whatever, who might follow me? I’m
thinking I may have a valuable piece of intellectual property. Maybe you mentioned it to someone who mentioned it to someone who thought it sounded interesting and decided to look into me.”

“Jack, I don’t even know what it is. Something about guns, that’s all.”

“That’s right,” said Bob.

“Maybe it has to do with something else altogether, something back in Boise. Child support?”

“If my children can’t support themselves by now, there’s nothing I can do for ’em. I think the money manager sends my ex-wives their checks, so I believe I’m okay on that. No, my life’s too dull for intrigue.”

“Jack, no one’s approached me, asked me any questions about you, anything like that.”

“Richard, I’m just going to disappear for a bit. You okay with that?”

“Sure, Jack.”

“I’ll see you in three days at that Mex place on Main, twelve-thirty.”

“You’ve got it, friend.”

Of course, Swagger didn’t show at the Mexican place, but two FBI agents did, and they confirmed that the operatives from the Jackson-Barnes detective agency were in place down the street with a Nikon and a heavy telephoto lens.

Swagger called Richard while he sat there, apologized for being unavoidably detained, and promised to make it up to him and that they’d meet soon, but he couldn’t set a time because his schedule was so “fluid.” He let three days pass and ambushed Richard in the parking lot outside the Y.O. restaurant, another famous joint just across from the Palm in the West End.

Richard was a little buzzed from the martini, and his belly was loaded with protein and carbohydrates. “Man, you show up at the oddest times,” he said, perturbed, Bob guessed, because his photo
team wasn’t with him and there was no way he could call it in to them in time.

“I’m secret-agent man, all over the place. I think I dumped my followers. Let’s get a cab and drive around for a while.”

“Jack, maybe you’re overdoing it a bit. I should tell you again, in the past three days, nobody asked me anything about you, and nobody’s keeping an eye on me or anything. I do have something for you.”

“Yeah?”

“I have a friend who has a gun as close as you can get to the Oswald rifle. It’s a Mannlicher-Carcano Model 38 carbine, serial number CV2755, just eleven shy of Oswald’s, from Terni. It’s got the Japanese scope and mount, and it was ordered from Klein’s just a week or so before Oswald ordered his, in March 1963. I’m guessing the same technician attached the scope to the rifle. You couldn’t come closer. A wealthy collector I know paid over three grand for it. I think you’d find it interesting to shoot. We’ve even got some white-box 6.5 from Western. You know how hard that stuff is to come by.”

“Nah,” said Swagger. “See, it doesn’t matter how 2755 shoots. It only matters how 2766 shoots. For a dozen reasons, a hundred reasons, they could shoot different by far. And you know what, Richard? In my theory, it doesn’t matter a lick how even Oswald’s rifle shot that day.”

“Okay, I get it. Second gunman, second rifle. Another Mannlicher.”

“Close, but no. Let me tell you this: I don’t know why, I don’t know who, but goddammit, I know how. Come on, let’s get that cab and go for a ride. On me.”

He herded Richard toward the street in a friendly-bear manner, and the younger man couldn’t resist. If working for somebody, he had to maintain the contact; if the assassination nut he claimed to be, he had to find out whether the new info was cool.

They got in, and Swagger instructed the driver to drive around for a while on the meter, that he’d pay whatever. It was a great gig for the fellow, who rarely got a big ride this late at night. Off they went.

“Richard,” Swagger said, “I want your judgment. Maybe I’m nuts and all I’ve got is bullshit. Or maybe it’s part of the answer. Anyhow, I had a what-you-call-it, epiphany today, which makes me even more sure I’m on to something. It came out of something you said. Let me run this by you—”

“Jack, I don’t know anything about guns. I can’t make a judgment.”

“You’ll get this, Richard. Then tell me if it’s worth hiding, worth looking for an author to partner up with, if it has any value book- or movie-wise. I don’t know about that stuff; you do.”

“Okay, Jack. I’ll give it my best shot.”

“Here’s the key question. Why did the third bullet explode? In my opinion, nobody has answered that correctly. The best answer you get is, it exploded because it exploded. Bullets occasionally explode. You can’t predict it, but you can’t deny it. Get something moving that fast, anything can happen.”

“What’s your answer? Why
did
the third bullet explode?”

“You said, ‘As it performed its killing duty, it ceased to exist,’ isn’t that right? The bullet from the future, which, in doing its duty, obliterated itself, its rifle, its shooter, and a hundred years of tragedy.”

“I said that, yes. That’s the crux of the conceit. It’s kind of cool, I think.”

“Richard, do you know what ‘lingering’ means?”

“Of course I do.”

“I mean something that hangs around, won’t leave your mind, seems always there, that kind of lingering.”

“Yes, I know what that kind of lingering is.”

“What you said, ‘it ceased to exist,’ that lingered for me. It lingered and lingered, and finally, I realized something. The third bullet. The one that hit Kennedy. It ceased to exist.”

“So it did. To the eternal annoyance of the Warren Commission and the delight of conspiracy animals the world over.”

“No, no. It wasn’t an accident. Here’s the point.
It had to do that
. It
was engineered to do that. And because the engineering was sound, that’s what made the conspiracy possible.”

“Explosive bullet, huh? Just like
The Day of the Jackal,
with the mercury inside. Or I suppose—”

“No, no. No explosive, no mercury, no glycerin, nothing like that. All those leave chemical traces, easily detectable by the forensics of 1963.”

“I believe the Warren Commission asked the FBI forensics guy about such a possibility, now that you mention it.”

“Yeah, Frazier his name was, and as usual, he was both wrong and stupid. I’m talking about something else. What I mean is that the bullet itself, without changing its composition, its metallurgy, its anything, was engineered in such a way that it had to explode—it had to, that was the brilliance of it all—so that it left no record of its existence. It was the real magic bullet, only everybody was too stupid to figure that out.”

“So what are you talking about? How do you make a bullet explode?”

Swagger said, “I’m talking about velocity.”

He continued to explain to Richard, who sat rapt, as if he did know something about guns after all.

“Where are you?” Nick’s voice came over the cell. It was a few days later. In the meantime, he’d stood up Richard at a planned meet, sent him a few e-mails asking whether he’d come across anything similar to his velocity theory, which Richard was presumably checking, and generally making an annoyance of himself without showing up anywhere to be photographed.

“I’ve switched motels,” Swagger said, giving him the new address. “I’m closer in now, and I can get cabs easier. Man, am I wearing out the ATM, all the cash I’ve been using.”

“Okay, listen to me,” Nick said. New tone to his voice: official
G-man, dead-zero serious. “I want you to stay there. Under no circumstances are you to leave and expose yourself. Don’t make me send a car to bring you in and put you under protective; just comply, okay? It’s for your own good.”

“What’s happened?”

“This may mean nothing. I have no evidence it’s anything other than what it seems to be, but still, it’s provocative. A black Dodge Charger, brand-new, the big muscle-car variant with that supercharged 370 Hemi under the hood, was stolen out of a garage in Fort Worth yesterday. It’s exactly the kind of muscle car that was used in Baltimore.”

Swagger said, “He’s here. He’s hunting me. Either Richard told him, or someone is on Richard and knows what Richard knows. And whoever it is, he doesn’t like the velocity theory. See, Nick, this
proves
it has to do with JFK.”

“It doesn’t prove anything like it. It proves a muscle car was stolen. Maybe it’s in parts in some chop shop, or on the way to a soldier of the Zeta cartel’s garage in Nogales, or being driven around by a couple of meth heads with chicken feed for brains. Those are all possibilities, and they may be more probable than this slightly improbable car killer, whoever he is, if he even exists.”

“Ask James Aptapton if he exists.”

“So. Here’s what I require. You stay put. I mean put. Room-service pizza and Chinese food, lots of daytime cable, get to know your housekeeping staff, that sort of thing. Meanwhile, I am going to put together a task force. I want to bring Dallas Metro in, and since it involves cars, maybe the Texas Highway Patrol. We’ll figure out some kind of sting, find a way to expose you under controlled circumstances, and when he thinks he’s taking you—assuming he exists—we’ll take him. Bet he has some interesting beans to spill.”

“Everything says he’s a pro. He spills no beans. He shuts up, takes whatever ride he gets without ratting, because he believes his outfit will bust him somewhere along the line, maybe not this year but the
next. Those guys have made friends with that kind of math. It’s the price they pay for the chicks and the coke and the respect, for being a hard guy. Nick, he won’t tell you shit. By being here, he’s already told you everything he’s going to tell you.”

“Ten years in Huntsville, followed by life in Hagerstown, that might budge him.”

Bob sighed. “You’re thinking like a lawman. Everything’s leverage. Sometimes you have to send a message; that’s the best leverage.”

“Bob, I’m going to have you picked up if you pull any shit. You will go down. You have to play by our rules on this one. It could be a big bust. It all goes away if you go cowboy.”

Bob saw that Nick was bluffing. It wasn’t so. Dead, the pro would be just as much a trophy as alive, particularly if an FBI undercover put him under through Nick’s supervision. And whoever he was, his identity would be his true testimony and point to a next step.

“Do I have your word?”

“Please tell me you’ll set this up fast.”

“It takes time, coordination between agencies. If he’s after you, he’s not going to go away. We haven’t even spotted him yet. We’ll put a net around Richard and see if he shows. If we nail him, we’ll move on to the next step. I need time from you. And sniper patience.”

“He’ll pick up on that in two seconds.”

“For God’s sake, you—”

“It’ll happen late, no traffic, no pedestrians. Tomorrow night, near Dealey, in some alley. He likes alleys. Have a rolling team set up, get there fast, and it’s your crime scene. It’ll be your kill.”

“Or your death.”

“This guy ran down a decent man who never did a thing except pay his taxes and educate his kids. Broke his spine in an alley. Now let’s see him try that trick against some real competition. I won’t lie to you, Nick. I’m not going to sit here in this goddamn room eating Chinese and rereading books for the tenth time. It’s not my nature. My nature is the hunt.”

Nick said, “I can’t authorize this.”

“I’m your undercover. You get all the credit.”

“I’m hanging up. I cannot authorize this.”

“But you will not pick me up, right?”

“Agh,” said Nick in frustration. He hung up.

Swagger went to the closet and removed his small overnight bag from behind the spare blanket, feeling the heaviness inside. He opened it, picking up the stainless-steel Kimber .38 Super, taking reassurance from the familiar lines of the 1911 platform as designed by John M. Browning over a century ago, with its twenty-three-degree grip angle, its flatness, its ergonomic genius of safety and slide-release placement created in a world where the word “ergonomics” hadn’t been invented. It was already cocked and locked, for what was the point of having a pistol if you couldn’t shoot it fast? He knew that nine hardball +P Winchester 130-grainers were in the mag and a tenth in the chamber, bullets that had their own velocity attributes, moving out at 1300 with enough juice to puncture glass or metal and keep on the straightaway for a killing shot. The gun had a familiarity; its ancient frame was of the perfect width and boasted the perfect relation of grip to bore so that when it came to hand, it went on point naturally. Bob slipped a speed scabbard, a minimalist concealment holster that yielded pistol to draw in a flash, on his belt, along with a mag pouch that already concealed two mags. He cinched his belt, then slid the pistol into the holster so that it rested three inches behind the point of his hip but flat against his body.