He assesses the doorman, Jay, who’s too friendly to be any threat. Now that Mark has made up his mind to kill Lennon, no one can stop him, really.

He notices a park bench across the street from the building. It’s the perfect vantage point to look up at the seventh floor, where Lennon lives with Yoko, his second wife.

The shades and curtains are drawn, but Mark has no need to see inside. He has studied the details and photographs in a book about Lennon’s life at the Dakota. Lennon, he knows, often prowls around at night and sleeps through the day, so he could be up right now serving lunch to his young son, Sean.

How can he get Lennon out of the apartment?

A bomb threat would do it. Mark has done it before, back in Honolulu, when from a pay phone he called one in to the Ilikai Hotel. He watched the evacuation proceed before him, the sight made even more beautiful by the knowledge that he was in total control. The only greater thrill he could imagine was shooting the people as they came out one by one.

But can he be sure that Lennon is even home?

Mark looks over at the knot of fans. Only two remain, both women.

He gets to his feet. As he crosses the street, hands in his pockets and gripping the gun, the piano intro to “Imagine” plays in his head.

“Imagine if John Lennon was dead,” he sings under his breath. “It’s easy if you try…”

Chapter 19

Chapter 19

Climb in the back with your head in the clouds…

—“Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”

In a way I’m sorry they’ve been so successful,” Brian Epstein—whom The Observer deems “a shrewd young man who has caught the lightning”—admits. “It’s just that I’m kept so busy managing their business affairs and I must share them with everybody.”

It’s February 7, 1964, and the Beatles are aboard Pam Am flight 101 for their first trip to America. The flight’s packed with journalists such as twenty-two-year-old Maureen Cleave, from the Evening Standard, and Daily Express photographer Harry Benson.

Even though Cynthia Lennon isn’t a Beatle, she’s one of the most famous passengers. Everyone in Britain now knows about her and the baby, thanks to the Express. The paper outed them last year with the headline BEATLE JOHN IS MARRIED.

Their son, John Charles Julian, was born April 8, 1963, in Liverpool. Though they call him Julian, he has three legacy names—the first for his father, the second for Cynthia’s father, and finally for John’s mother. John was on the road and didn’t arrive at Sefton General Hospital until a week after his son was born. Brian volunteered to be Julian’s godfather.