All over the project there were makeshift barbecue pits, fifty-five-gallon oil drums cut in half horizontally and set belly-down on metal legs-smoke rising, hoses shooting water on TV. The clothes tumbled in a dozen Loadstar dryers.

Bobby said, "I believe the whole system works to make the black man humble down. Follow the penny hustle, drink the cheap wine. This is what they got planned out for us. I'll tell you where I'm at, Ozzie. When I read crime news in the paper, I look at the names to figure out was the perpetrator black or white. Some names just black. I check them over close. I say, Go brother. Say, Do it to them. Because what edge do we have asides hating?"

He said, "I'm not looking to wear the white man out with my ability to suffer."

He said, "I'm trying to learn a trade to keep me sane."

They stayed in the speed wash talking until 2:00 a.m. Two nights later they talked again while Bobby loaded machines and folded clothes for the drop-off customers. The next day Lee punched out a little early and met Bobby downtown outside his drafting class and they took a bus to the Oak Cliff section, where the speed wash was located and where Lee was living in an area of rooming houses and rusted car hulks sitting in long weeds. They shared a box of donuts and talked some more. Later that night Lee walked six blocks to the speed wash from his flat on Elsbeth Street and they talked until closing time, talked politics and race and Cuba while the machines turned and the night stragglers threw fistfuls of clothes into the churning soap.

Next day they had an idea. Let's put a bullet in General Walker's head.

Marina stood arm-rocking little June. He'd cleaned the place for her return. He was happy to see her. He took the baby and spoke his fake Japanese, wagging his head. It made them all laugh.

He began to study bus schedules. The Preston Hollow bus, the 36, stopped a block and a half from the general's house. He walked past the house, which was set back from the street and very near to Turtle Creek, a lushness of cottonwoods and elms, a deep quiet. Just walking down the street made him feel untouchable. He memorized the license-plate number of a car at the head of the driveway and wrote it in his notebook. He kept a notebook of travel times, distances and other observations.

She asked him if he would teach her English now.

He sent $29.95 to Seaport Traders for a 38-caliber revolver with a shortened barrel. It was made by Smith amp; Wesson and known as the two-inch Commando. He used the name A. J. Hidell on the order form and entered his address as Box 2915, Dallas, Texas.

The next day he went to typing class. It was his first day there and he sat in the last row, talked to no one, studied the keyboard on his machine. It was like Chinese. He inserted paper, placed his fingers on the keys, trying to understand why the letters were positioned the way they were. It was a picture of his humiliation. Nine dollars to enroll. George had told him if he could type he'd get a better job someday.

It was the very end of January in '63.

He stood in the darkroom with another trainee, Dale Fitzke, a cripple. Dale wore a high shoe. He walked in a kind of tick-tock motion and had a soft clean face, incredibly smooth, that made him look about twelve years old.

They stood shoulder to shoulder by the developing trays. People moved in and out, squeezing behind them. There were dim red lights that made the room look radioactive.

"What kind of person are you?" Dale said. "I am sort of weird in my family. They have finally stopped expecting great things."

"What do they expect?"

"They are holding their breath, sexually. What do you like best about the darkroom? It's the way my room used to look when I had a fever. Childhood fevers were the best times. I had tremendous high fevers. What kind of feeling do you get about this company?"

"I like it here. The work is interesting by comparison to some."

"Because I get the feeling these various and sundry tasks are not the only things going on around here. For example. Do you want to hear an example?"

"Like what?" Lee said.

"They told me to stay away from the worktables in the typesetting area. Not allowed. No lookee."

"You can look. No one will stop you. I look all the time."

"So do I," Dale said with a jump in his voice. "I'll tell you what I see if you tell me what you see."

"They have lists of names for the Army Map Service."

"What kinds of names?"

"Place names."

"That's what I see too. They set the names in type on three-inch strips of paper."

"Some of the names are in Cyrillic letters. Which I know in Russian. For maps of Soviet targets."

They were both whispering.

"I'll tell you what I overheard," Dale said, "if you promise not to tell anyone. The maps are made from photographs. The photographs are the really secret things. They come from U-2s."

The light was an eerie neon rouge.

"Isn't that a neat thing to know? I love being in a position where I can exchange fascinating stuff with someone. Like you tell me, I tell you. U-2s. When I first heard this stuff, around Eisenhower, I thought they were saying you-toos, like there's me-too and you-too."

It was a Saturday and they were getting time and a half. Lee put in for Saturdays whenever possible because he knew this job was doomed the minute Marion Collings gave the word.

"Do you like the people here?" Dale said. "I saw you with that Russian magazine you were reading. There's been a little comment. The people here are friendly up to a point. Not that it matters to me, what anyone reads. Do you remember what it was like, being under the blankets, sweating, as a kid? A fever is a secret thing. It's like falling down a hole where no one can follow but there's no terror or pain because you don't even feel like yourself. I love huddling in sweat."

"I had an ear operation when I was little. I still remember the dreams after they put on the mask."

"I had four operations! I loved going under!"

Dale was gesturing in the glow, with fluid dripping off his hands into the tray.

"What kind of mind do you have, Lee? One day I heard my mother say, 'He'll never be brilliant, Tom.' She was talking to Tom, my brother. I have used that sentence at dinner a hundred thousand times."

The mysterious U-2. It followed him from Japan to Russia and now it was here in Dallas. He remembered how it came to earth, sweet-falling, almost feathery, dependent on winds, sailing on winds. That was how it seemed. And the pilot's voice coming down to them in fragments, with the growl and fuzz of a blown speaker. He heard that voice sometimes on the edge of a shaky sleep.

Dale Fitzke said, "I'll listen for things, you listen for things. Then we'll meet here and talk some more."

His typing class was at Crozier, the same school where Dupard was taking a course, and they met in an empty classroom whenever they could work out the timing. They talked strategy and philosophy, waiting for the gun to arrive in the mail.

Bobby said, "You think it's some coincidence this Walker come to live in Dallas? Get off, man. He is here because the fury and the hate is here. This is the city he made up in his mind."

"Did you see today's paper? He's going out of town on a speaking tour. Twenty-nine cities. He won't be back till April."

"What's he doing, the kill-a-nigger tour?"

"Operation Midnight Ride. The dangers of communism here and abroad. It's going to be pure Cuba. He loves to hit at Cuba. If we have to wait till April, let's make it worthwhile. We get him on the seventeenth. The second anniversary of the Bay of Pigs."

"Who is the shooter?"

"I am," Oswald said.

"You sure about that."

"I am the one that does it."

"If it's the seventeenth, I have to see if there's class."