11/22/63 Part 65

Ellen took Sadie-who was exhausted-home at ten-thirty. Mike and I turned out the Grange Hall lights at midnight and stepped into the alley. "Gonna come to the after-party, Mr. A? Al said he'd keep the diner open until two, and he brought in a couple of kegs. He's not licensed for it, but I don't think anyone'll arrest him."

"Not me," I said. "I'm beat. I'll see you tomorrow night, Mike."

I drove to Deke's before going home. He was sitting on his front porch in his pajamas, smoking a final pipe.

"Pretty special night," he said.

"Yes."

"That young woman showed guts. A country mile of em."

"She did."

"Are you going to do right by her, son?"

"I'm going to try."

He nodded. "She deserves that, after the last one. And you're doing okay so far." He glanced toward my Chevy. "You could probably take your car tonight and park right out front. After tonight, I don't think anyone in town'd bat an eye."

He might have been right, but I decided better safe than sorry and hoofed it, just as I had on so many other nights. I needed the time to let my own emotions settle. I kept seeing her in the glow of the footlights. The red dress. The graceful curve of her neck. The smooth cheek . . . and the ragged one.

When I got to Bee Tree Lane and let myself in, the hide-a-bed was in its hiding state. I stood looking at this, puzzled, not sure what to make of it. Then Sadie called my name-my real one-from the bedroom. Very softly.

The lamp was on, casting a soft light across her bare shoulders and one side of her face. Her eyes were luminous and grave. "I think this is where you belong," she said. "I want you to be here. Do you?"

I took off my clothes and got in beside her. Her hand moved beneath the sheets, found me, and caressed me. "Are you hungry? Because I have poundcake if you are."

"Oh, Sadie, I'm starving."

"Then turn out the light."

8.

That night in Sadie's bed was the best of my life-not because it closed the door on John Clayton, but because it opened the door on us again.

When we finished making love, I fell into the first deep sleep I'd had in months. I awoke at eight in the morning. The sun was fully up, the Angels were singing "My Boyfriend's Back" on the radio in the kitchen, and I could smell frying bacon. Soon she would call me to the table, but not yet. Not just yet.

I put my hands behind my head and looked at the ceiling, mildly stunned at how stupid-how almost willfully blind-I'd been since the day I'd allowed Lee to get on the bus to New Orleans without doing anything to stop him. Did I need to know if George de Mohrenschildt had had more to do with the attempt on Edwin Walker than just goading an unstable little man into trying it? Well, there was actually quite a simple way to determine that, wasn't there?

De Mohrenschildt knew, so I would ask him.

9.

Sadie ate better than she had since the night Clayton had invaded her home, and I did pretty well myself. Together we polished off half a dozen eggs, plus toast and bacon. When the dishes were in the sink and she was smoking a cigarette with her second cup of coffee, I said I wanted to ask her something.

"If it's about coming to the show tonight, I don't think I could manage that twice."

"It's something else. But since you mention it, what exactly did Ellie say to you?"

"That it was time to stop feeling sorry for myself and rejoin the parade."

"Pretty harsh."

Sadie stroked her hair against the wounded side of her face-that automatic gesture. "Miz Ellie's not known for delicacy and tact. Did she shock me, busting in here and telling me it was time to quit lollygagging? Yes she did. Was she right? Yes she was." She stopped stroking her hair and abruptly pushed it back with the heel of her hand. "This is what I'm going to look like from now on-with some improvements-so I guess I better get used to it. Sadie's going to find out if that old saw about beauty only being skin deep is actually true."

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about."

"All right." She jetted smoke from her nostrils.

"Suppose I could take you to a place where the doctors could fix the damage to your face-not perfectly, but far better than Dr. Ellerton and his team ever could. Would you go? Even if you knew we could never come back here?"

She frowned. "Are we speaking hypothetically?"

"Actually we're not."

She crushed her cigarette out slowly and deliberately, thinking it over. "Is this like Miz Mimi going to Mexico for experimental cancer treatments? Because I don't think-"

"I'm talking about America, hon."

"Well, if it's America, I don't understand why we couldn't-"

"Here's the rest of it: I might have to go. With or without you."

"And never come back?" She looked alarmed.

"Never. Neither one of us could, for reasons that are difficult to explain. I suppose you think I'm crazy."

"I know you're not." Her eyes were troubled, but she spoke without hesitation.

"I may have to do something that would look very bad to law-enforcement types. It's not bad, but n.o.body would ever believe that."

"Is this . . . Jake, does this have anything to do with that thing you told me about Adlai Stevenson? What he said about h.e.l.l freezing over?"

"In a way. But here's the rub. Even if I'm able to do what I have to without being caught-and I think I can-that doesn't change your situation. Your face is still going to be scarred to some greater or lesser degree. In this place where I could take you, there are medical resources Ellerton can only dream of."

"But we could never come back." She wasn't speaking to me; she was trying to get it straight in her mind.

"No." All else aside, if we came back to September ninth of 1958, the original version of Sadie Dunning would already exist. That was a mind-bender I didn't even want to consider.

She got up and went to the window. She stood there with her back to me for a long time. I waited.

"Jake?"

"Yes, honey."

"Can you predict the future? You can, can't you?"

I said nothing.

In a small voice she said, "Did you come here from the future?"

I said nothing.

She turned from the window. Her face was very pale. "Jake, did you?"

"Yes." It was as if a seventy-pound rock had rolled off my chest. At the same time I was terrified. For both of us, but mostly for her.

"How . . . how far?"

"Honey, are you sure you-"

"Yes. How far?"

"Almost forty-eight years."

"Am I . . . dead?"

"I don't know. I don't want to know. This is now. And this is us."

She thought about that. The skin around the red marks of her injuries had turned very white and I wanted to go to her, but I was afraid to move. What if she screamed and ran from me?

"Why did you come?"

"To stop a man from doing something. I'll kill him if I have to. If I can make absolutely sure he deserves killing, that is. So far I haven't been able to do that."

"What's the something?"

"In four months, I'm pretty sure he's going to kill the president. He's going to kill John Ken-"

I saw her knees start to buckle, but she managed to stay on her feet just long enough to allow me to catch her before she fell.

10.

I carried her to the bedroom and went into the bathroom to wet a cloth in cold water. When I returned, her eyes were already open. She looked at me with an expression I could not decipher.

"I shouldn't have told you."

"Maybe not," she said, but she didn't flinch when I sat down next to her on the bed, and made a little sighing noise of pleasure when I began to stroke her face with the cold cloth, detouring around the bad place, where all sensation except for a deep, dull pain was now gone. When I was done, she looked at me solemnly. "Tell me one thing that's going to happen. I think if I'm going to believe you, you have to do that. Something like Adlai Stevenson and h.e.l.l freezing over."

"I can't. I majored in English, not American History. I studied Maine history in high school-it was a requirement-but I know next to nothing about Texas. I don't-" But I realized I did know one thing. I knew the last thing in the betting section of Al Templeton's notebook, because I'd double-checked. In case you need a final cash transfusion, he'd written.

"Jake?"

"I know who's going to win a prizefight at Madison Square Garden next month. His name is Tom Case, and he's going to knock out d.i.c.k Tiger in the fifth round. If that doesn't happen, I guess you're free to call for the men in the white coats. But can you keep it just between us until then? A lot depends on it."

"Yes. I can do that."

11.

I half-expected Deke or Miz Ellie to b.u.t.tonhole me after the second night's performance, looking grave and telling me they'd had a phone call from Sadie, saying that I'd lost my everloving mind. But that didn't happen, and when I got back to Sadie's, there was a note on the table reading Wake me if you want a midnight snack.

It wasn't midnight-not quite-and she wasn't asleep. The next forty minutes or so were very pleasant. Afterward, in the dark, she said: "I don't have to decide anything right now, do I?"

"No."

"And we don't have to talk about this right now."

"No."

"Maybe after the fight. The one you told me about."

"Maybe."

"I believe you, Jake. I don't know if that makes me crazy or not, but I do. And I love you."