Shift: A Novel (42 page)

He was dead before he hit the floor.

BC had no
fewer than five addresses for Caspar. Five, and Chandler had no idea where any of them were. Thank God there was a map in BC’s rental car.

The first was way up in north Dallas. Chandler wasn’t sure what sort of dosage was in the blotter paper BC had procured from Richard Alpert, so he ripped it in half and downed the first part on the drive over; he pushed at the silent single-story ranch when he finally found it, but felt nothing. He broke in anyway. Circled around to the backyard and popped a half-rotted window frame out of its housing. His eyes only confirmed what his mind had already told him: the place was empty and, judging from the layer of dust that covered everything, long deserted.

The next address was on Marsalis Street. It was just after five when Chandler got there, but an old woman was already up, washing the
breakfast dishes. Her tenants, she told him, worked first shift at the string bean factory in Fort Worth, had to be in by seven. She remembered Caspar vividly, although she knew him by another name. It was only because Chandler could see the face in her mind that he knew she was talking about the person he was looking for.

“Oh, sure, Lee Oswald. Troubled boy, what with all those Cuba pamphlets and that Communist wife. Pretty girl, though, when her face wasn’t so bruised you couldn’t see it.”

“He hit her?” Chandler couldn’t help but think of Naz.

“He’d fly into these rages,” she said matter-of-factly, as though describing the propensity of flies to work their way through a window screen. “I couldn’t tell you what brought ’em on. News stories usually. One day it was Castro, the next day the president. Then it was Khrushchev or some mob boss that that Kennedy brother was grilling on the TV. He was one of them people who have an opinion about anything and everything, but God help the poor soul who tried to make sense of ’em all.”

“Did he leave any word where he was going?”

“Well, his wife was in N’Orleans last I heard. He went after her, I guess to try to get her back.” She shuddered. “He’ll find her. He was a confused boy, but you could tell he was one of them who never stops till he gets what he wants.”

Chandler pushed then, just a little, to make sure she was telling the truth, and all of it. There was nothing else there. Caspar seemed hardly to have made an impression on her.

Beckley Street next. It was six thirty when he got there. The landlady confirmed Caspar lived there—she knew him as Lee as well, but he’d told her it was his surname and went by his initials, O.H. She told Chandler that Mr. Lee had spent last night with his wife out to Irving.

“Irving?” Chandler held out the piece of paper with the list of addresses on it. “This one here—2515 West Fifth?”

“Why, yes, I do believe—”

But Chandler had already turned and gone.

Morning traffic was starting to pick up, and it took another hour to get out there. Chandler could feel the juice trickling from his veins and
knew time was running out. He was kind of surprised he still had any left actually. He’d taken the hit almost three hours ago. Massive hits seemed to jump-start his metabolism, racing through his body before leaving him exhausted, whereas small doses metered themselves out slowly, such that he was hardly aware there was any drug in him—save for the fact that he could pull images from people’s minds, of course, push other ones in their place.

The thirty-year-old woman who answered the door in Irving told him that Caspar had left to catch a ride to work with—

Chandler couldn’t wait. He pushed, and grabbed the name from the woman’s mind. Wesley Frazier. He lived right up the block. Chandler ran there. The door was answered by a young woman. Frazier’s sister.

“Wes and Lee have already gone—”

Chandler pushed so hard that Frazier’s sister stumbled backward. He saw Caspar putting a long brown-paper package into the backseat of Wesley’s ’59 Chevy and then get in the passenger seat.

Frazier’s sister was wavering back and forth in the doorway like a blade of grass in the wake of a speeding car. Chandler pushed more, saw Wesley telling his sister he’d got a job at Texas School Books a couple of months ago, saw his sister asking him if there was maybe another job there for Marina’s husband, Lee. “Although I heard her call him Alik once,” he saw Wesley’s sister saying. “You think maybe that’s Russian for Lee?”

Chandler pushed so hard that Frazier’s sister fell back on her sofa. She didn’t know the exact address of the School Book Depository, but she knew it was on Dealey Plaza. Something flickered in her mind, and with the last of his juice Chandler pulled it out of her. It turned out to be the cover of the newspaper. A map. The president’s motorcade route. He followed the arrows. Main. Houston. Elm.

“W-why, yes,” Frazier’s sister said absently, though Chandler hadn’t said anything. “That
is
where it’s at.”

“That’s handy,” Chandler said, and ran for his car.

Five minutes later Frazier’s sister blinked rapidly, noticed the open door.

“Durn pollen,” she said, getting up slowly and shuffling to the door. “Give me a helluva headache.”

Wesley kept up
a steady patter as he drove them to work: the rain, the fact that his car battery was low, the president’s visit. In the passenger’s seat Caspar sat quietly, eyes forward, hands on thighs. The absurdity of it all, he thought. He’s a
spy
, for God’s sake. He’s worked for the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States of America and the Committee for State Security of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Has more aliases than the nitwit in the seat beside him has brain cells.
A Wiz Kid
, for Christ’s sake, yet here he is, hitching a ride to work because he can’t afford a car of his own, and doesn’t have a driver’s license either. Today was not the day to risk a moving violation.

“I heard the only reason he got in in ’60 was because Joe paid the mob to stuff the boxes in Chicago or some such,” Wesley was saying, “but I don’t think Johnson can give him Texas and Georgia this time around. Not with the Civil Rights Bill hanging over—”

The Chevy went over a bump and the paper-wrapped package in the backseat reverberated with a loud metal clank.

“Curtain rods,” Caspar said, even though Wesley didn’t ask. Even though he’d said it when he first got in the car, had said it yesterday, too, when he’d asked Wesley for a ride to work this morning. He’d told Wesley he was going to spend the night with Marina in Irving to see his daughters and pick up some curtain rods she’d bought for him so he could have some privacy in the rooming house he stayed in on Beckley Street.

“All the same I think I’ll go see him.” Wesley was prattling on. “The newspaper said the motorcade’s supposed to pass by work around noon, twelve thirty, so maybe I’ll eat lunch in the park and wave to him and Jackie when they go by.
She’s
a classy lady. Motorcade,” he added. “Mo-tor-cade. Kind of a strange word when you think about it.”

“I think it’s a combination of motor and parade,” Caspar said.

“But then it’d be motor
ade
. It’s more like motor and arcade.”

“Arcade?”

“You know,” Wesley said. “A shooting gallery.”

When they got to work Caspar got out of the car almost before it
stopped and grabbed the package from the backseat and tucked it up under his arm to make it as inconspicuous as possible. As soon as he did that, however, he thought that maybe it looked like he was trying to hide it, but at the same time he was afraid that if he rearranged the package it would draw too much attention to it, so he left it where it was and started off at a fast walk to the main building. Wesley stayed in the car gunning the engine to charge the battery, but he rolled down the window and asked if Caspar needed a ride home. Caspar said he wasn’t going back to Irving that night. Wesley didn’t ask why.

“Damn it, damn it
, damn it, damn it,
DAMN
it!”

Melchior stared at BC’s facedown body, the umbrella still quivering in his hand. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to have happened.
Chandler
was supposed to have come. The tranq was for
him
, not BC. Keller’d phoned him the new formula yesterday, and Melchior’d raced around town after he got out of jail, buying some ingredients here, stealing others there, but even so, he’d only been able to rig up a single shot. Keller was sure it would be enough to knock even Chandler out. Melchior’d asked how strong it was. “Don’t prick your finger” was all Keller said, “unless you want a chemical lobotomy.”

The fallen detective’s bladder had released, and a dark stain was spreading out in the dingy flat pile of the carpet. Melchior kicked BC over, did a cursory pulse check, but it was clear he was dead. The fat needle hung from his stomach. A button was missing from his shirt and the skin underneath was stained with a few drops of blood. It was the shirt that got Melchior. Not the blood, not the corpse itself. The goddamn shirt. Mercerized white cotton, with silk piping and French cuffs held closed with knots of silver. This wasn’t the same man Melchior’d met on the train three weeks ago. He’d remade himself entirely to pursue this thing. To pursue Melchior, and Chandler, and Naz. Remade himself first into a dandy, and now into a corpse.

“Aw, fuck it. Fuck you, BC Querrey. Fuck
you.”

Melchior fell to his knees, careful to avoid the puddle of urine, ripped the man’s shirt open so violently that three more buttons flew across the room. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a flat zippered case, opened it. There were more syringes in there, including
one with a three-inch needle, and a couple of vials, one of which was filled with epinephrine (there was also a Medaille d’Or tucked into a corner of the case, which Melchior planned on smoking after he got Chandler on Song’s plane). Keller had made Melchior carry the epinephrine in case the sedative cocktail proved too strong even for Chandler’s souped-up constitution. Melchior prepared the shot, then slammed it into BC’s chest so hard he heard a rib crack. BC’s body convulsed so violently that the needle on the syringe almost broke off inside his body, which really would have been the coup de grâce, but Melchior was able to jerk it out and step out of the way before BC coughed and choked and spewed a thin spray of vomit into the air.

Before BC was fully conscious, Melchior plopped him into the chair and duct-taped his wrists and ankles to it, making sure to pull the man’s sleeves and pants out of the way so the tape adhered directly to BC’s skin. He did this not out of any concern for BC’s expensive clothes but to make sure the detective wasn’t going to get himself free in a hurry. By now some semblance of awareness was coming back to BC’s eyes, but his limbs still seemed beyond his control. His head sagged on his shoulder, and he could only watch dully as Melchior tied him to the chair. He was so quiet that when he did finally speak Melchior almost jumped, because he’d almost forgotten BC was there.

“Why?”

Melchior didn’t answer. He’d secured BC’s thighs now, his upper arms, his chest.

“Why did you save me?”

Melchior pulled a long piece of tape from the roll.

“Spit.”

“Wha—”

Melchior slapped him in the face.

“Spit.”

BC spat a thin stream of blood, bile, and saliva onto his thighs, and then Melchior put the piece of tape over his mouth and wrapped it all the way around his head, twice. Only then did he answer BC’s question.

“I don’t know really,” he said, stepping back and looking at the trussed detective as though he were a mannequin being dressed for a window display. “Call it a hunch. An impluse. Everybody needs
someone to keep him honest, and I guess that’s what you are for me. In case I ever forget what I’m doing is illegal, immoral, and entirely selfish. In case I start to confuse it with virtue or vision. I’m just a thug, Beau, and having you on my ass reminds me that that’s all I’ll ever be.
Timor mortis exultat me,”
he said. “The fear of death excites me.”

He leaned in close now, so close that BC could feel the heat radiating off his face.

“The way I see it,” he said quietly, “you didn’t really get into this fairly. Started off at a disadvantage, as it were, a pawn in somebody else’s fight. Hell, I thought you were completely incompetent when I first met you, but somehow you managed to survive, and learn, and look at you now: you came this close to taking me out this morning. So I’m going to give you a piece of advice: next time you see me, shoot first, ask questions later. Because that’s what I’ll do to you.”

He paused a moment, looking into BC’s eyes with equal parts contempt and curiosity. Sweat rolled out from beneath the wig he was wearing, and his exhalations were wet on BC’s skin.

“They’re going to say that what happened today changed things,” he whispered finally. “Don’t you believe them. The shift happened a long time ago, and it’s a lot bigger than you or me or Chandler or even Jack Kennedy. You should read that book the director gave you—or
Fahrenheit 451
, or
1984
, or, hell,
The Manchurian Candidate
, the very novel that inspired Project Orpheus. The sci-fi guys have always known good and evil aren’t mutually exclusive, let alone capitalism and communism. That two opposing forces come to look more and more like each other the longer they fight. Up till now it’s been fiction. But after this it’ll be truth. The thing is, though, the truth will have turned into lies, because everything will be about ‘subjectivity,’ everything will be about ‘distrust of authority.’ It’ll be chaos masquerading as reason until someone or something comes along with the authority to lull people into believing that some truths really are incontrovertible: God, maybe, or country, or, who knows, maybe just selfishness as opposed to self-inspection and self-improvement. But no matter how it plays out, it translates into big profit for anyone willing to exploit people’s fears.” Melchior stepped back slightly. “Twenty years in intelligence and I never really got that,” he said, shaking his head. “Not till I met you—someone idealistic
enough to actually believe everything his government told him, even though it resulted in his own persecution. And to show you how much I appreciate your gift, I want to give
you
something too.”