Shift: A Novel (33 page)

Melchior sent a couple of shots through the taxi’s rear windshield. Glass exploded into the air, and he had to duck behind the twelve-inch-high windscreen of his own vehicle as the flak sliced into his car. The taxi fishtailed wildly, then straightened out. The agent slammed on the brakes, and Melchior had to jerk the wheel to the left to avoid slamming into the taxi’s trunk. The agent squeezed off a shot over Melchior’s windscreen even as he jerked the taxi to the right and veered onto Constitution—toward Federal Triangle if he continued straight on, or, even worse, the White House if he turned onto Pennsylvania. There were still no sirens behind them, but it was hard to imagine anything less than a flotilla of armed vehicles if two cars shot past 1600 firing at each other. Melchior had to end this now.

He screeched onto Constitution, narrowly avoiding a panel truck. Again he floored it; again the roadster responded. There were a dozen car lengths between him and the Crown Vic, then there were six. Three. As they flew across Third Street, Melchior pulled up on the taxi’s left flank. The agent was cranking the wheel with both hands to make the turn onto Pennsylvania. Melchior put a shot in the man’s ear and when the agent released the wheel, the car skidded, hit a curb, then turned ass over nose onto the road, crushing the cabin beneath the chassis. If the agent wasn’t dead before the car flipped, he was dead after.

Melchior looked forward—just in time to see a truck cross perpendicularly in front of him. He was going sixty miles an hour. There was no missing it. He threw himself onto the passenger’s seat. The 356 shook and glass exploded all over his back as the car’s nose went under the bed of the truck and the windscreen was ripped off its struts. There
was a moment of vibrating darkness and then, somehow, Melchior was through. He’d gone right under the truck.

He sat up, shaking glass out of his hair, then jammed the car onto Fourth Street. Still no cops—God bless America. Two cars exchanging shots a quarter mile from the White House, and not a police cruiser in sight. President Kennedy needed better security.

He ditched the car in a garage Song had told him about “just in case,” then turned the Wiz’s battered Chevy toward Langley. He’d just shot two Company agents. It was time to turn himself in.

“Once I destroyed a man’s idea of himself to save him.”

“Beg pardon, sir?” The Negro elevator operator seemed anything but interested in what the curiously dressed white man had to say.

“Oh, nothing, nothing,” BC said. Then, thinking he’d better try out some beatnik jargon: “Just some jive by this cool cat of a poet someone turned me on to, Frank O’Hara.”

Without doing anything more than lifting one eyebrow, the elevator operator managed to convey the idea that if the man in the car was what lay in store for the beneficiaries of Civil Rights, he’d just as soon remain a second-class citizen.

“I’m sure I don’t understand, sir.” He stopped the car and pulled open the polished wooden door. “Fifteenth floor, sir.”

BC had been able to track down Richard Alpert at the home of Peggy Hitchcock—sister of William, owner of the Millbrook estate. He insisted on going alone. Chandler didn’t put up much of a fight, which didn’t really surprise BC. He’d noticed that being around people made his charge visibly uncomfortable. No doubt part of this had to do with the fact that Chandler had become different from everyone around him, but BC suspected Chandler’d been a loner even before his transformation. He said he was more than happy to sit in the hotel and watch television. “That new guy on
The Tonight Show
. Carson. He’s no Jack Paar, but I like it when he puts on the turban.” He paused. “Are you going to bring your gun?”

BC just looked at him drolly. “Guns are so uncool, man.”

There was a mirror just outside the elevator, and BC took a moment to inspect himself. To remind himself who he was supposed to be. He’d done rather well, if he said so himself: black turtleneck covered by a long vest in some peasant-looking striped fabric, paint-spattered chinos and battered work boots, all courtesy of a Village thrift store. The coup de grâce, though, was a dark wig that fell almost to his shoulders. It could have come right off the head of Maynard G. Krebs. A suede
headband held it in place and gave BC a bit of a Comanche look besides.

To further solidify his performance, he’d spent the afternoon in a dusty bookstore reeking of marijuana smoke, culling bons mots from the likes of Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. The only one he remembered, though, was the line from O’Hara’s poem (entitled simply “Poem,” as if to justify its presence on the same bookshelf as Shakespeare, Milton, and Donne): “Once I destroyed a man’s idea of himself to save him.” As BC regarded the unshaven, floppy-haired stranger in the mirror, he felt he understood exactly what the poet meant.

Hitchcock lived in a sprawling apartment on Park Avenue, a labyrinthine complex of large high-ceilinged rooms stuffed with Asian antiques, African sculptures and textiles, and modernist canvases covered with squiggles and smears and clumps of things BC thought belonged in a trash can rather than on a posh apartment wall. Not that he was able to get a good look at any of them, for, in addition to the expensive objects, Peggy Hitchcock’s home was also stuffed with people. Though it was a Monday night, “the joint was jumping,” as the person who opened the door said to him. Industrialists and beatniks, socialists and hipsters, starlets, jazz musicians, and artists thronged the rooms, crystal tumblers full of gin or vodka or bourbon in one hand, cigarettes of tobacco or cloves or marijuana in the other, and all of them, male and female, white, black, and indeterminate brown,
loved
BC’s outfit.

“Nice threads, my man.”

“Looking fly, white guy.”

“Way to work it
out.”

BC had never been in an environment where people were so open about their desires. Women in acres of chiffon or inches of polyester stared at him openly, as did more than a few of the men. Normally such overt sexuality would have made him uncomfortable, but the drink that’d been thrust into his hands the moment he walked through the door had calmed him, and he thought he might also be getting something he’d heard referred to as a “contact high” from the layers of sweet smoke in the air. BC used the smoke as his pretext for conversation with various persons, gradually honing his dialogue from “Pardon me, but can I ask where you procured your marijuana cigarette?” to “Any
idea where I can score something stronger, dig?” which, after half a dozen tries, finally hit paydirt.

“Did someone mention scoring?”

BC turned to see a pale woman with dark hair pulled straight off her face and held in place by a large silver comb etched with some sort of Indian scrollwork. Despite the lack of hairspray or makeup (aside from some elaborate paint around the eyes, which gave her face the look of an Egyptian death mask)—not to mention the slim trousers and button-down blouse she wore—her extreme thinness and pinched tones, along with the emerald nugget on her right hand, gave her away as a member of the aristocracy.

“Miss Hitchcock,” he said, taking a chance. He decided to drop the beatnik pose and revert to his Southern accent. “I’m so glad we’ve finally run into each other!”

“Have we met?” Peggy Hitchcock said, looking, in the manner of one whose every social interaction is cushioned by millions of dollars, completely unconcerned that she might have forgotten an acquaintance’s name. “I don’t seem to recall your face, or your accent for that matter. Southerners are as common as dodos around here, if not
quite
as funny-looking.”

BC had no idea how to take this, and decided to pass over it. He extended his hand.

“Beauregard Gamin. We, that is I, am nothing more than a gatecrasher. I was at the Blue Note to see Miles blow”—BC had in fact read a review by Nat Hentoff of the performance in the
Village Voice
—“and a pretty hep character mentioned your pad was
the
place to meet the coolest cats in town.”

“The coolest cats, you say?” Hitchcock’s eyebrows went up in amusement. “I think Miles is in the library. I tried to get him to play, but he’s having more fun standing around the musicians and intimidating them.”

BC had assumed the faint sound of jazz in the apartment came from a hi-fi. He was impressed, and showed it.

“Back in Oxford, Mississippi, where I come from, the only Negroes we ever let indoors wore livery.” He glanced at a beautiful Negress who had her arm around a bearded white man. “You can’t imagine how exciting this is for me.”

“Change will come to the South just as it has to the North. If it’s not Martin Luther King, it’ll be Mary Jane.”

“A wonderful girl! I hope to meet her one day!”

Hitchcock looked at BC sharply again. “So, did I hear you say you were looking for Richard Alpert before?”

“I’ve heard that he traffics in, how shall I put it, mind-opening experiences?”

Hitchcock was silent for so long that BC was sure she was going to throw him out. But finally she laughed and said, “My God, Mr. Gamin, you practically sound like a G-man. Just call it acid, please.”

BC lowered his eyes modestly. “Pardon me, Miss Hitchcock. It must be that Southern reserve.”

“I’m from New England. From my point of view, you’re all flatulent windbags.”

“I, ah …” BC had never spoken to a woman who was so matter-of-factly rude. “I believe flatulent windbag is redundant.”

Hitchcock threw back her head and laughed the kind of laugh that would have caused BC’s mother to stab her in the throat with a kitchen knife.

“Oh, you are a
hoot
, Mr. Gamin. You hold on. I’m going to see if I can find Dickie. Don’t hesitate to grab him if you see him. Big guy, thick beard, rather less hair on his head. Black turtleneck with a gold medallion on his chest.”

BC waited fifteen minutes before he realized Hitchcock probably wasn’t coming back, and then began to make his way through the apartment in search of her. He’d just finished his second revolution when he turned and collided with a large, solid man. Coarse strands of beard rasped across his lips and he felt something hard strike his chest. A pair of hands landed on his hipbones, pushing him back a few inches, then held him there.

“Easy there, young fellow,” a soothing voice, mildly redolent of anise, breathed into his face.

BC wanted to step back, but the hands on his hips rooted him to the spot. He looked up into a tangle of black beard, liberally laced with gray. A pair of warm brown eyes sat atop furred cheeks, glinting at him like a benevolent bear’s.

“I, uh, that is, pardon me …”

“Do we know each other?” the man said, still holding BC in place. A big cavey warmth radiated from his chest and stomach.

“No.” BC’s eyes fell to the gold medallion dangling from the man’s throat. “That is, are you Richard Alpert?”

A smile appeared in the beard.

“As long as you’re not a federal officer or vice cop, I am.”

He laughed, and the shaking was just enough to dislodge his hands. BC stepped back.

“My name is Beauregard Gamin.” BC stuck out his hand, which Alpert took in both of his and held softly but firmly, as though it were a wild bird. “I was hoping to meet you.”

“And what have I done to earn the attention of such a handsome young peacock?”

BC grinned in spite of himself, smoothing the front of his vest.

“I heard that you, that is, it’s my understanding—”

“Oh, are you the Southern gentleman Peggy mentioned? Goodness, she didn’t do you justice.”

“Do you think you can help me out?”

Alpert smirked. “It’s my mission in life to help out men such as yourself. Open your mouth and say aahh.”

BC blushed. Before he could say anything, however, Alpert laughed and said, “Just kidding. Follow me.”

He led BC into a nearby bedroom where two—no, three—legs protruded from a pile of jackets. He reached into a pocket and pulled out a wax paper envelope, peeked inside. BC saw something that looked like a sheet of perforated paper. Alpert tore off a stamp and held it up between two pinched fingers.

“Now then—”

“Actually, I’d prefer to take it with me if I can.” BC looked around the messy room. “I’ve heard that setting plays a vital role, and I’d prefer something more familiar. Intimate.”

On the bed, the big toe at the end of one leg scratched the ankle of one of the others with a sandpapery sound.

Alpert frowned. “A guide is every bit as important as setting, and I’m leery of leaving you alone for your first experience. LSD is an extremely powerful drug.”

“So I’ve heard,” BC said drily.

Alpert deliberated with himself, then shrugged. He reached into a pocket and pulled out a somewhat battered card, slipped it into the envelope with the acid, and pressed it into BC’s hand. Once again, he refused to let go.

“These are my numbers. I want you to call me at any time—before, during, after.” He squeezed BC’s fingers. “Perhaps I can lure you to Millbrook for a more in-depth experience.”

“Millbrook?” BC felt his hand sweating inside Alpert’s furry paws. “Miss Hitchcock has a house there, doesn’t she?”

“Her brother, Billy. It’s quite a special place.”

“Well, if this is everything people say it is, no doubt I’ll want a second experience.”

“Oh, don’t take all of this at once! You’ll be jumping off rooftops thinking you can fly!”

It was another fifteen minutes before BC could get away from Alpert, and even then it took a gaggle of floppy-haired boys and girls to drag the big man away. BC tucked the envelope inside his jacket and headed for the hall. But at the top of the stairs he was stopped by a tall, sturdy-looking man in a bland gray suit. The man opened his jacket just enough to show BC the butt of his pistol.

“Whoa, man,” BC said. “Guns are so uncool.” He smiled, but the man didn’t get the joke.

“I hope you will come without a fuss, Agent Querrey.”

BC heard a trace of an accent. There was nothing particularly Russian about it, yet somehow BC knew the man was KGB. As casually as possible, he turned and looked toward the other end of the hallway. Another gray-suited man waited there. He had a softer face than his companion, with shoulders like ham hocks and a scowl curling his pudgy lips.