"Were they part of the same conspiracy?"
"That part nobody's figured out yet. But don't let me get ahead of myself here."
"You should give me your name for the record."
"I was wondering when you'd get around to that. For a hotshot reporter, you're kinda sloppy on the details."
"Your name, please," Pepsie requested aridly.
"Aloycius X. Featherstone."
"I hope you have a nickname."
"People call me Buck. On account I like to turn one now and again."
"Keep talking, Buck."
"Like I was saying, nobody you think shot anybody, actually did. It's all cover-ups. Nothing that got out so far is the truth, so help me God. Ray didn't kill King."
"Slow down. Who's Ray and who's King?"
"James Earl Ray and Martin Luther King."
Pepsie frowned. "Why does everybody have three names?"
"That's another good point. Three-name guys are very big in this business. Don't ask me why. But whenever you come across a three-name guy, he's usually the killer or the victim."
"You just said that Oswald didn't kill Kennedy. He's a three-name guy."
"It wasn't Oswald. It was Alek James Hidell. That was his real name. Oswald was what he always said he was-a patsy."
"Is there a beginning we can start at?"
"You should see that movie."
"What movie?"
"What one about Oswald and Kennedy that Hardy Bricker directed, CIA. It lays it all out, except the answers."
"Then what good is it?" Pepsie responded.
"You gotta know the right questions to ask, or the answers you're gonna get won't be worth squat. That was the problem with the Warren Commission Report. Those stiffs asked the wrong questions and they got answers that to this day are no good."
"I should read a copy of the Warren Report, shouldn't I?"
"Maybe we can find one in one of those government bookstores."
"Good idea." Pepsie leaned forward. "Driver, find me a bookstore that carries the Warren Report."
"They don't carry it in bookstores," the driver called over the honking of Washington traffic. "You're better off trying the library."
"How would you know?" Buck asked the cab driver.
The cabbie shrugged and said, "I'm a buff. And that guy is handing you a load of crap, lady. Oswald shot Kennedy, all right. On orders from the mob."
Buck shook his head vehemently. "No. It was a CIA operation all the way."
"The mob. The Chicago mob. It was Carlos Marcello and those guys. They had the means, motive and opportunity. They were after Robert Kennedy, who was busting their balls all over the place. They didn't care about Jack. They figured if Jack was croaked, Lyndon would shitcan Bobby. End of problem. If they whacked Bobby, Jack would be in a position to nail them to the fucking wall. Which I can assure you, they did not want."
"Crap," said Aloycius X. "Buck" Featherstone.
"It worked, didn't it? And Hoffa was in on it, too."
"Who's Hoffa?" asked Pepsie, jerking her recorder from the front seat to the back in an effort to vacuum up every loose theory.
"Some smart-ass Teamster boss," muttered Buck. "They never found his body. It don't mean nothing."
"If you're saying the CIA whacked Jack to keep him from pulling out of Vietnam, you're full of it," the cab driver insisted. "There was no guarantee Lyndon wouldn't have done the same thing once his fat can was in the seat."
"But he didn't. That's proof positive!"
"One sec," interrupted Pepsie. "Who did Lyndon shoot?"
"Himself," grunted Buck. "In the foot. He was the President after Jack. Got hounded out of office."
"Why does that keep happening?" Pepsie asked plaintively. "Why do our Presidents keep getting hounded out of office?"
"The press," both cab drivers said at once.
"When I want editorializing, I'll ask for it," Pepsie snapped. "Now, let's get back to hard theory."
"First we gotta get you that Warren Report," said Buck.
PEPSIE FOUND A SET in the Washington Public Library.
"This is the Warren Report?" she asked, staring at a long shelf of dusty leather-bound volumes.
"That's it."
"It must be very popular. They have so many copies. An entire shelf full."
"That's the full set," said Buck. "All twenty-six volumes."
Pepsie's already unnaturally wide eyes became saucers. "This is all one book?"
"Yep."