Edge of Eternity (86 page)

And almost all the sanitation workers were black.

Their wages were so low that many qualified for welfare. They had to do compulsory unpaid overtime. And the city would not recognize their union.

But it was the issue of safety that started the strike. Two men were crushed to death by a malfunctioning truck. Loeb refused to retire obsolete trucks or tighten safety rules.

The city council voted to end the strike by recognizing the union, but Loeb overrode the council.

The protest spread.

It got national attention when Martin Luther King weighed in on the side of the sanitation men.

King flew in for his second visit on the same day as Jasper, April 3, 1968, a Wednesday. That evening a storm darkened the city. In pounding rain, Jasper went to hear King speak to a rally at the Mason Temple.

Ralph Abernathy was the warm-up man. Taller and darker than King, less handsome and more aggressive, he was—according to gossip—King's drinking and womanizing buddy as well as his closest ally and friend.

The audience consisted of sanitation workers and their families and supporters. Looking at their worn shoes and their old coats and hats, Jasper realized that these were some of the poorest people in America. They were ill-educated and they did dirty jobs and they lived in a city that called them second-class citizens, nigras, boys. But they had spirit. They were not going to take it any longer. They believed in a better life. They had a dream.

And they had Martin Luther King.

King was thirty-nine, but he looked older. He had been a little chubby when Jasper saw him speak in Washington, but he had put on weight in the five years since then, and now he looked plump. If his suit had not been so smart he might have been a shopkeeper. But that was before he opened his mouth. When he spoke, he became a giant.

Tonight he was in an apocalyptic mood. As lightning flashed outside the windows, and the crash of thunder interrupted his speech, he told the audience that his plane that morning had been delayed by a bomb threat. “But it doesn't matter with me, now, because I've been to the mountaintop,” he said, and they cheered. “I just want to do God's will.” And then he was seized by the emotion of his own words, and his voice trembled with urgency the way it had on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. “And he's allowed me to go up to the mountain,” he cried.
“And I've looked over.” His voice rose again. “And I've
seen
the Promised Land!”

King was genuinely moved, Jasper could see. He was perspiring heavily and shedding tears. The crowd shared his passion and responded, shouting out: “Yes!” and “Amen!”

“I may not get there with you,” King said, his voice shaking with feeling, and Jasper recalled that in the Bible, Moses had never reached Canaan. “But I want you to know, tonight, that we as a people will get to the Promised Land.” Two thousand listeners erupted in applause and amens. “And so I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man.” He paused, then said slowly: “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

With that he seemed to stagger back from the pulpit. Ralph Abernathy, behind him, leaped up to support him, and led him to his seat amid a hurricane of approbation that rivaled the storm outside.

Jasper spent the next day covering a legal dispute. The city was trying to get the courts to ban a demonstration King had planned for the following Monday, and King was working on a compromise that would guarantee a small, peaceful march.

At the end of the afternoon, Jasper talked to Herb Gould in New York. They agreed that Jasper would try to arrange for Sam Cakebread to interview both Loeb and King on Saturday or Sunday, and Herb would send a crew to get footage of Monday's demonstration, for a report to be broadcast on Monday evening.

After talking to Gould, Jasper went to the Lorraine Motel, where King was staying. It was a low two-story building with balconies overlooking the parking lot. Jasper spotted a white Cadillac that, he knew, was loaned to King, along with a chauffeur, by a black-owned Memphis funeral home. Near the car was a group of King's aides, and among them Jasper spotted Verena Marquand.

She was as breathtakingly gorgeous as she had been five years ago, but she looked different. Her hairdo was an Afro, and she wore beads and a caftan. Jasper saw tiny lines of strain around her eyes, and wondered what it was like working for a man who was so passionately adored and at the same time so bitterly hated as Martin Luther King.

Jasper gave her his most winning smile, introduced himself, and said: “We've met before.”

She looked suspicious. “I don't think so.”

“Sure we have. But you could be forgiven for not remembering. The date was the twenty-eighth of August, 1963. A lot else happened on that day.”

“Especially Martin's ‘I have a dream' speech.”

“I was a student reporter and I asked you to get me an interview with Dr. King. You gave me the brush-off.” Jasper also remembered how mesmerized he had been by Verena's beauty. He was feeling the same enchantment now.

She softened. With a smile she said: “And I guess you still want that interview.”

“Sam Cakebread will be here at the weekend. He's going to talk to Herb Loeb. He really should interview Dr. King as well.”

“I'll do my best, Mr. Murray.”

“Please call me Jasper.”

She hesitated. “Satisfy my curiosity. How did we come to meet, that day in Washington?”

“I was having breakfast with Congressman Greg Peshkov, a family friend. You were with George Jakes.”

“And where have you been since then?”

“Vietnam, some of the time.”

“You fought?”

“Saw some action, yes.” He hated talking about that. “May I ask you a personal question?”

“Try me. I don't promise to answer.”

“Are you and George still an item?”

“I'm not going to answer.”

At that moment they both heard King's voice, and looked up. He was standing on the balcony outside his room, looking down, saying something to one of the aides near Jasper and Verena in the parking lot. King was tucking his shirt in, as if dressing after a shower. He was probably getting ready to go out for dinner, Jasper thought.

King put both hands on the rail and leaned over, joshing with someone below. “Ben, I want you to sing ‘My Precious Lord' for me tonight like you never sung it before—want you to sing it real pretty.”

The driver of the white Cadillac called up to him: “The air's turning cool, Reverend. You might want a topcoat tonight.”

King said: “Okay, Jonesy.” He straightened up from the rail.

A shot rang out.

King staggered back, threw up his arms like a man on a cross, hit the wall behind him, and fell.

Verena screamed.

King's aides took cover around the white Cadillac.

Jasper dropped to one knee. Verena crouched down in front of him. He put both arms around her, pulling her head to his chest protectively, and looked for the source of the shot. There was a building across the street that might be a rooming house.

There was no second shot.

Jasper was torn for a moment. He released Verena from his protective embrace. “Are you okay?” he asked her.

“Oh, Martin!” she said, looking up at the balcony.

They both stood up warily, but the shooting seemed to have stopped.

Without speaking, they both dashed up the exterior staircase to the balcony.

King lay on his back, his feet up against the railing. Ralph Abernathy was bent over him, as was another campaigner, the amiable, bespectacled Billy Kyles. Screams and moans were coming from the people in the parking lot who had seen the shooting.

The bullet had smashed King's neck and jaw and ripped off his necktie. The wound was terrible, and Jasper knew immediately that King had been struck by an expanding slug known as a dumdum. Blood was pooling around King's shoulders.

Abernathy was yelling: “Martin! Martin! Martin!” He patted King's cheek. Jasper thought he saw a faint sign of awareness on King's face. Abernathy said: “Martin, this is Ralph, don't worry, it's going to be all right.” King's lips moved but there was no sound.

Kyles was first to the phone in the room. He picked it up, but apparently there was no one at the switchboard. Kyles started banging on the wall with his fist, shouting: “Answer the phone! Answer the phone! Answer the phone!”

Then he gave up and ran back out to the balcony. He shouted to the people in the parking lot: “Call an ambulance, Dr. King has been shot!”

Someone wrapped King's shattered head in a towel from the bathroom.

Kyles took an orange-colored spread from the bed and put it over King, covering his body up to his destroyed neck.

Jasper knew wounds. He knew how much blood a man could lose, and what a man could and could not recover from.

He had no hope for Martin Luther King.

Kyles lifted King's hand, prized open his fingers, and took away a pack of cigarettes. Jasper had never seen King smoking: obviously he did it only in private. Even now Kyles was protecting his friend. The gesture touched Jasper's heart.

Abernathy was still talking to King. “Can you hear me?” he said. “Can you hear me?”

Jasper saw the color of King's face alter dramatically. The brown skin paled and turned a grayish tan. The handsome features became unnaturally still.

Jasper knew death, too, and this was it.

Verena saw the same thing. She turned away and stepped inside the room, sobbing.

Jasper put his arms around her.

She slumped against him, weeping, and her hot tears soaked into his white shirt.

“I'm so sorry,” Jasper whispered. “So sorry.” Sorry for Verena, he thought. Sorry for Martin Luther King.

Sorry for America.

•   •   •

That night, the inner cities of the United States exploded.

Dave Williams, in the bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel where he was living, watched the television coverage with horror. There were riots in one hundred ten cities. In Washington, twenty thousand people overwhelmed the police and set fire to buildings. In Baltimore, six people died and seven hundred were injured. In Chicago, two miles of West Madison Street were reduced to rubble.

All the next day Dave stayed in his room, sitting on the couch in front of the TV, smoking cigarettes. Who was to blame? It was not just
the gunman. It was all the white racists who stirred up hatred. And it was all the people who did nothing about cruel injustice.

People such as Dave.

In his life he had been given one chance to stand up against racism. It had happened a few days ago in a television studio in Burbank. He had been told that a white woman could not kiss a black man on American television. His sister had demanded that he challenge that racist rule. But he had caved in to prejudice.

He had killed Martin Luther King, as surely as Henry Loeb and Barry Goldwater and George Wallace had killed him.

The show would be broadcast tomorrow, Saturday, at eight in the evening, without the kiss.

Dave ordered a bottle of bourbon from room service and fell asleep on the couch.

In the morning he woke up early knowing what he had to do.

He showered, took a couple of aspirins for his hangover, and dressed in his most conservative outfit, a green check suit with broad lapels and flared pants. He ordered a limousine and went to the studio in Burbank, arriving at ten.

He knew Charlie Lacklow would be in his office, even though it was the weekend, because Saturday was broadcast day, and there were sure to be last-minute panics—just like the one Dave was about to create.

Charlie's middle-aged secretary, Jenny, was at her desk in the outer office. “Good morning, Miss Pritchard,” Dave said. He treated her with extra respect because Charlie was so rude to her. In consequence she adored Dave and would do anything for him. “Would you please check flights to Cleveland?”

“In Ohio?”

He grinned. “Is there another Cleveland?”

“You want to go there today?”

“As soon as possible.”

“Do you know how far it is?”

“About two thousand miles.”

She picked up her phone.

Dave added: “Order a limousine to meet me at the airport there.”

She made a note, then spoke into the phone. “When is the next flight
to Cleveland? . . . Thank you, I'll hold.” She looked at Dave again. “Where in Cleveland do you want to go?”

“Give the driver Albert Wharton's home address.”

“Is Mr. Wharton expecting you?”

“It's going to be a surprise.” He winked at her and went into the inner office.

Charlie was behind the desk. In honor of Saturday he was wearing a tweed jacket and no tie. “Could you make two edits of the show?” Dave said. “One with the kiss and one without?”

“Easily,” said Charlie. “We already have an edit without the kiss, ready to broadcast. We could make the alternative this morning. But we're not going to do it.”

“Later today you're going to get a phone call from Albert Wharton, asking you to leave the kiss in. I just want you to be ready. You wouldn't want to disappoint our sponsor.”

“Of course not. But what makes you so sure he's going to change his mind?”

Dave was not at all sure, but he did not tell Charlie that. “Having both versions ready, what would be the latest time you could make the change?”

“About ten minutes to eight, Eastern time.”

Jenny Pritchard put her head around the door. “You're booked on the eleven o'clock plane, Dave. The airport is seven miles from here, so you need to leave now.”

“I'm on my way.”

“The flight takes four and a half hours, and there's a three-hour time difference, so you land at six thirty.” She handed him a slip of paper with Mr. Wharton's address. “You should be there by seven.”