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 car park. 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 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 car park 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 car park: ‘Call an ambulance, Dr King has been shot!’
Someone wrapped King’s shattered head in a towel from the bathroom.
Kyles took an orange-coloured 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, prised 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 colour of King’s face alter dramatically. The brown skin paled and turned a greyish 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 110 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 honour 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 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.’
‘That gives me just enough time,’ said Dave. He waved a goodbye at Charlie and said: ‘Stay by the phone.’
Charlie looked bemused. He was not used to being pushed around. ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ he said.
In the outer office, Miss Pritchard said: ‘His wife is Susan and his children are Caroline and Edward.’
‘Thank you.’ Dave closed Charlie’s door. ‘Miss Pritchard, if you ever get fed up with working for Charlie, I need a secretary.’
‘I’m fed up now,’ she said. ‘When do I start?’
‘Monday.’
‘Shall I come to the Beverly Hills Hotel at nine?’
‘Make it ten.’
The hotel limousine took Dave to LAX. Miss Pritchard had called the airline, and there was a stewardess waiting to take him through the VIP channel, to avoid mob scenes in the departure lounge.
He had had nothing but aspirins for breakfast, so he was glad of the in-flight lunch. As the plane came down towards the flat city by Lake Erie, he ruminated over what he was going to say to Mr Wharton. This was going to be difficult. But if he handled it well, perhaps he could turn Wharton around. That would make up for his earlier cowardice. He longed to tell his sister that he had redeemed himself.
Miss Pritchard’s arrangements worked well, and a car was waiting for him at Hopkins Airport. It took him to a leafy suburb not far away. A few minutes after seven, the limousine pulled into the driveway of a large but unostentatious ranch-style house. Dave walked up to the entrance and rang the bell.
He felt nervous.
Wharton himself came to the door in a grey V-neck sweater and slacks. ‘Dave Williams?’ he said. ‘What the hey . . . ?’
‘Good evening, Mr Wharton,’ Dave said. ‘I’m sorry to intrude, but I’d really like to speak to you.’
When he got over his surprise, Wharton seemed pleased. ‘Come on in,’ he said. ‘Meet the family.’
Wharton ushered Dave into the dining room. The family appeared to be finishing dinner. Wharton had a pretty wife in her thirties, a daughter of about sixteen, and a spotty son a couple of years younger. ‘We have a surprise visitor,’ Wharton said. ‘This is Mr Dave Williams, of Plum Nellie.’
Mrs Wharton put a small white hand to her mouth and said: ‘Oh my golly gosh.’
Dave shook hands with her, then turned to the youngsters. ‘You must be Caroline and Edward.’
Wharton looked pleased that Dave had remembered his children’s names.
The kids were awestruck to get a surprise visit from a real pop star they had seen on TV. Edward could hardly speak. Caroline pulled back her shoulders, making her breasts stick out, and gave Dave a look that he had seen before in a thousand teenage girls. It said: You can do anything you like to me.
Dave pretended not to notice.
Mr Wharton said: ‘Sit down, Dave, please. Join us.’
Mrs Wharton said: ‘Would you like some dessert? We’re having strawberry shortcake.’
‘Yes, please,’ Dave said. ‘I’m living in a hotel – some home cooking would be a real treat.’
‘Oh, you poor thing,’ she said, and she went off to the kitchen.
‘Have you come from Los Angeles today?’ Wharton asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Not just to call on me, I’m sure.’
‘Actually, yes. I want to talk to you one more time about tonight’s show.’
‘Okay,’ Wharton said dubiously.
Mrs Wharton returned with the dessert on a platter and began to serve.
Dave wanted the children on his side. He said to them: ‘In the show that your dad and I made, there’s a part where Percy Marquand does a duet with my sister, Evie Williams.’
Edward said: ‘I saw their movie – it was a blast!’
‘At the end of the song, Evie kisses Percy on the cheek.’ Dave paused.
Caroline said: ‘So? Big deal!’
Mrs Wharton raised a flirtatious eyebrow as she passed Dave a large wedge of strawberry shortcake.
Dave went on: ‘Mr Wharton and I talked about whether this would offend our audience – something neither of us wants to do. We decided to leave out the kiss.’
Wharton said: ‘I think it was a wise choice.’
Dave said: ‘I’ve come here to see you today, Mr Wharton, because I believe that, since we made that decision, the situation has changed.’
‘You’re talking about the assassination of Martin Luther King.’
‘Dr King was killed, but America is still bleeding.’ That sentence came into Dave’s head from nowhere, the way song lyrics sometimes did.
Wharton shook his head, and his mouth set in a stubborn line. Dave’s optimism lost its fizz. Wharton said ponderously: ‘I have more than a thousand employees – many of them Negroes, by the way. If sales of Foam plummet because we offended viewers, some of those people will lose their jobs. I can’t risk that.’
‘We would both be taking a risk,’ Dave said. ‘My own popularity is also at stake. But I want to do something to help this country heal.’
Wharton smiled indulgently, as he might have if one of his children said something hopelessly idealistic. ‘And you think a kiss can do that?’
Dave made his voice lower and harsher. ‘It’s Saturday night, Albert. Picture this: all over America, young black men are wondering whether to go out tonight and start fires and smash windows, or kick back and stay out of trouble. Before making up their minds, a lot of them will watch
Dave Williams and Friends
, just because it’s hosted by a rock star. How do you want them feeling at the end of the show?’