"Is that a double negative?" the cameraman asked as they went looking for their cab.
"I don't care what they call it, it's news."
The cabbie was still in the idling Boston taxi down in the underground garage when they got there.
As they got in, they found him fiddling with the cab radio.
"Boy," he said. "You'd think the Secret Service would be talking over a secure channel at a time like this."
Pepsie's eyes and voice grew eager. "You can pick them up?"
"What do you think I've been doing while I've been waiting? The limes crossword?"
"Well, don't just sit there," Pepsie said, pulling a minicassette recorder from her purse. "Turn up the volume so we can all hear."
The tense, urgent voices of the Secret Service crackled over the tinny dash radio.
"They're bringing the shooter's rifle down now," a voice said.
"They sure it's a Mannlicher?"
"It says Mannlicher-Carcano on the barrel, stamped big as life" came the hushed reply.
"What's a Manhiemer-Carbano?" Pepsie wondered aloud.
"Mannlicher-Carcano," the cabbie said. "It's a piece-of-shit Italian rifle."
"How do you know?"
"Hell, everybody knows what a crummy rifle the Carcano is. Even though Oswald did pretty well by it."
"Oswald?"
"Lee Harvey Oswald. The nut who shot Kennedy."
Pepsie frowned. "I thought Sirhan Sirhan shot Kennedy."
"Sirhan shot Robert Kennedy. I'm talking about Jack."
"I wasn't born then," said Pepsie, who hated it when baby boomers flaunted the fact that she hadn't been alive during most of the sixties.
The Secret Service voices continued. "Call out the serial number. I'll radio it to the BATF's NFTC for tracing."
"What did he say?" Pepsie wanted to know.
"He said," the cabbie said patiently, "he's going to radio the Mannlicher's serial number to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. The NFTC is their National Firearms Tracing Center. They can trace any gun manufactured in this country that way."
"How do you know all this stuff?"
The cabbie shrugged. "I'm a buff." He turned around in his seat. "How come you don't?"
"It's a girl thing," Pepsie retorted. "You wouldn't understand. You have testicles."
A voice crackled from the dash speaker. "Serial number C2766. Repeat, C as in Charlie, twenty-seven sixty-six."
"Holy fucking shit!" said the cabbie.
"What is it? What does that number mean?"
"It means," said the cabbie, "that the Mannlicher-Carcano that shot the President dead is the same one that killed Kennedy."
Pepsie Dobbins and her cameraman exchanged blank looks.
"What does that mean?" she asked.
"It means," said the cabbie, "that this is one hell of a story and how come you're sitting here when you should be getting it on the air before the cover-up begins all over again?"
THE CABBIE PEELED out of the garage on burning rubber and sped to the local ANC affiliate.
When Pepsie Dobbins barged in the door, she filled her lungs with air and called out at the top of her voice, "Point me to the nearest hot camera and get my news director in Washington on the line."
She was greeted with a sea of stony faces.
"Well, what are you standing around for?"
The stony regards grew stonier still.
"Don't you know who I am? Pepsie Dobbins. I broke the historic news that the President was murdered. Now I'm about to blow the lid off the conspiracy behind it."
No one made a move except a guard in a booth who picked up a telephone and began dialing.
"What's wrong with you people? I know the President is dead, but you can mourn on personal time. We have the people's right to know to exploit."
"The President isn't dead," someone said in a dull monotone.
Pepsie took a single step backward. "Oh, my God," she whispered to her cameraman. "Do you think they're in on the conspiracy, too? Maybe part of the cover-up?"
"Looks that way to me," the cabbie undertoned.
Pepsie whirled. "What are you doing here?"
"I want to see how everything comes out. Besides, you don't know jack shit about the subject. I do. I've read every book on assassination I could get my hands on. I'm a walking encyclopedia. Maybe I should be put on retainer."
"Later," Pepsie said. She cleared her throat and said, "The President has been killed, and the Secret Service is trying to cover up the truth. God knows how deep this goes or how big it is."
A man stepped out into the waiting area, face tight as a drum. "The President is not dead," he said.