that grin
david cooper
The speaker is former Carousel Club waitress Esther Ann Mash.
For that meeting, Jack demanded
absolute privacy and no
interruptions. I was the only
person allowed to enter
the room and that was just
to serve drinks and get out.
There were seven altogether,
including Ruby: five
dark, swarthy men dressed
in suits, looking very
businesslike, like
gangsters out of some movie,
came in about ten thirty
with another man dressed
real casual, didn’t fit
in with the rest at all.
Everyone else kept ordering mixed
drinks but this wimpy looking
little guy kept ordering beer.
They talked until about
one A.M. and then the men
in suite left, Jack went
into his office, and the other
guy stayed until closing
watching the strippers,
couldn’t take his eyes off them.
I might not remember a name,
but I always remember a face --
that man was Lee Harvey Oswald.
I’d played up to the others and discovered
they were Mafia buys form Chicago.
It was a serious meeting
and though I didn’t hear what
they were talking about I am convinced
they discussed killing Kennedy.
I had a very bad feeling, a premonition,
that I had better get away
from Dallas, so I moved to Phoenix.
I didn’t pay much attention to the news
after the assassination but on Sunday
morning my children were watching
TV when the police were moving
Oswald. Ruby shot him and I screamed
“Oh my god!,” thought “that’s the weird
little man at that secret meeting
with Jack and those Mafia types.”
I saw that grin on Oswald’s face
just before Jack shot him.
He was smiling, thinking Jack
was his friend. I didn’t want
to get involved, so I kept quite.
But now I have a blood clot
on the right side of my brain
and somebody needs to know this
before I die.
ATTRIBUTION: Marrs, Crossfire: The Plot that Killed Kennedy (NY: Carroll&Graf, 1989) pp. 408-409.
