R.F.K. Is Gonna Burn - Short story - Review

Whole Earth, Winter, 1999 by John Barracato, Peter Michelmore

Through that long, sad day at the cathedral, we waited and watched for Zavos. People were admitted for a time through the doors at the side of the central entrance, where they could be more easily studied by the Secret Service, but the Kennedy family asked that the main doors be opened. I was moved by the composure of the Kennedys; they were splendid. Jacqueline Kennedy thought to speak to several of the agents, thanking them for being there.

Of Zavos, however, there was not a sign, and around midnight I went home for sleep. The Senator's body was to be moved to Washington late the following afternoon. Soon the danger would be over.

At 4 A.M. the telephone rang by my bedside. It was a duty marshal from the bunkroom at headquarters. The desk manager at the Jackson Hotel, in the Bowery, had called to say that Zavos had just checked in.

I alerted John Connell at his home in Queens and we rendezvoused thirty minutes later outside the Jackson, a narrow, five-story brownstone hotel with a flickering green neon outside and a strip of threadbare carpet that started at the threshold and led through glass doors and down a hallway to the registration desk.

The clerk lifted a pink, scaling face at our approach.

"Your party's in cubicle twelve, second floor. You want the light on up there?"

"No light. And you stay here. Is the cubicle locked?"

"Hook-and-eye catch, from the inside."

We climbed the stairs to a huge open wardroom. Fifty beds, at least, were pushed close together down either side of the wall and most were humped with sleeping men, and, probably, women too. This was skid row at rest.

"Jesus!" Connell grimaced and pinched his thumb and forefinger over his nose. The stench of sour wine and sweat and urine overpowered.

We walked down the aisle between the beds to the cubicles, like toilet stalls, at the far end of the room. For the privacy of a bed in one of the stalls the tab was hiked twenty-five cents.

Twelve was marked with big house numbers nailed on a plywood door. It was open at the top, the walls about seven feet high.

"I'll go over the wall," I whispered to Connell. "This guy carries a knife. If we bust in there he might have time to use it."

I gripped the top of the wall beam, threw a leg up, and was quickly over the other side. I flipped the door lock and then grabbed Zavos under the shoulder and threw him bodily to the floor.

"Freeze!" Connell had his gun pointed at Zavos's temple.

My right hand went under the pillow. Nothing. I slithered it under the mattress and felt the hard butt of a knife. As I withdrew it I felt a sting on the top of my hand.

"May I know what is going on?" Zavos's voice was very English, very formal.

"No, you may not, you sonofabitch," said Conneli.

We handed him his clothes piece by piece from the chair at the foot of the bed, then we handcuffed him and took him out past the sleeping derelicts. Not one of them had stirred through the whole proceeding.

"What in Christ's name do you think they are dreaming about?" Connell muttered.

"Thunderbird wine," I said. My knuckle itched and I was sucking on it.