Shift: A Novel (45 page)

Chul-moo pulled a gun from his jacket but Melchior put up his hand.

“I have to do this myself,” he said. He reached his hand down to Song, and, as if in a spell, she took it. “I owe you that much,” he said, then added, “Balthazar,” and drove the point home.

But even as
the blade was piercing fabric and flesh, the scene seemed to melt. First the airplane disappeared, then the hangar and the airport and Dallas, and in its place there were palms and mangroves, a whitesand beach and the roar of surf. Chandler felt the blood rushing over Melchior’s fingers, but they weren’t Melchior’s fingers—they were his. He looked up into Song’s face, but it wasn’t Song.

It was Naz.

Her dark eyes bore into his, and the worst thing of all was that there was no surprise there.

“I always knew you would do this to me,” she said. “You pretended you were different from the rest of them, but I always knew you were just the same.”

And then she died in his arms.

A gunshot
brought Chandler back.

No, not a gunshot: the backfire of a motorcycle. The motorcade’s escort had arrived, was turning onto Elm Street.

Chandler staggered backward. Only the umbrella he was leaning on kept him from falling over. His senses were still screwed up, and instead of throwing himself at Melchior, he almost fell on him. The people around them took a few steps away, their hands shielding their eyes as they looked at the approaching vehicles. A thousand versions of
There he is!
flashed in Chandler’s mind.

He leaned on the umbrella heavily. “Where is she?” he demanded.

Melchior’s smile was a sickening parody of innocence. “What do you mean, where is she? You’re Orpheus. That means she’s in hell.”

Another image of Naz’s dying face flashed in his mind, and Chandler shook his head to clear it. That was a mistake: again Melchior had to grab him to keep him from falling over. Chandler shook him off
roughly, doing his best to steady himself as the acid continued to flood his system.

“You—you added something to the LSD.”

Melchior’s smirk grew wider. “Several somethings in fact. Among others: psilocybin to increase the hallucinogenic power, sodium pentathol to render you open to suggestion, and a heaping spoonful of methamphetamine just to make you crazy.”

“Yeah, well, crazy or not, I’m going to rip your brain apart.”

“I don’t think so,” Melchior said. “I may play fast and loose sometimes, but I never make mistakes.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out an empty pill bottle. “While you went fishing in my brain, I took another pill. You won’t be getting back in for a while.”

Chandler pushed—pushed hard—but it was like trying to get the water out of a sponge with a needle. It would take ten thousand pricks before he accomplished anything. Melchior’s nose wrinkled. It was obvious he was feeling something, but not enough to really hurt him.

“I’ll save you the effort,” he said. “She’s in Cuba. Trust me,” he threw in, when it looked like Chandler might turn and run. “I can have her killed a dozen different ways before you could get out of the country, let alone into Cuba. Listen to me,” he hissed, stepping closer to Chandler. “I know you know Caspar’s in the building behind me. I know you know he’s got a rifle, and I know you know he’s going to shoot the president. I want you to help him.”

Chandler was fighting a fresh wave of dizziness, and he barely heard what Melchior said. “Help him?”

“Caspar never was the best marksman. Help him find his target. Steady his hand. Pull the trigger for him if you have to.”

“Help him?” Chandler said again, but even as he spoke Chandler’s brain was reaching out. It was like Melchior’s words were a map, guiding Chandler to Caspar’s brain.

“But … but why?” he said, trying to fight the connection, feeling it grow stronger instead.

“Why? Because at any point in the past two weeks you could have gone to the police, and you refused to. Because all you could think about was getting your girlfriend back—a girl you spent less than a week with, who you slept with all of
one time
. For her you were willing to sacrifice your duty not just to your country but to your beliefs. It’s
time you learned that there are consequences for putting yourself ahead of everyone else. This morning
I
killed the only woman I might have ever loved—and now you and everyone else are going to learn what it means to cross me. Now, help Caspar make his shot or I swear to God I’ll pull the top of Naz’s skull off with my bare hands and eat her brains for dinner.”

The whole time Melchior spoke, the connection to Caspar grew more and more palpable. Chandler felt the gun as if it were in his own hands, smelled the dust from thousands and thousands of boxed books. The concrete was hard under his knees, and he had to fight the urge to fidget. No, Chandler told himself.
Caspar’s
knees.
Caspar
was fighting the urge to fidget, not Chandler.
Caspar
was looking desperately for Melchior, the scope of his rifle ignoring the motorcade as it moved from one face in the crowd to the next. Chandler could see the faces through the crosshairs. Male and female, black and white, their attention focused on the long line of motorcycles and limousines, their hands shading their eyes from the death pointing down at them from sixty feet above, and as he looked at one innocent face after another he had an idea. He pushed deeper into Caspar’s mind, found what he was looking for, pulled it out, and put it before Caspar’s eyes. The gun angled to the left.

The few seconds
it took the motorcade to complete its left turn onto Elm and enter the shelter of the live oaks growing in front of the depository seemed to take all of Caspar’s life.

He stopped looking through the crowd for Melchior and instead angled the rifle just past the last oak and waited. Melchior had told him he had to play it straight right up until the end.

Suddenly a thought flickered through his head and he jerked the gun a few inches to the left. The view through the scope blurred, settled, and there he was.

Melchior.

He stood on the edge of the street, casually talking to a second man who leaned on an umbrella. He never once looked up at the window.

He hates you
.

The thought seemed to come out of the ether, and Caspar twitched so hard he nearly pulled the trigger.

He’ll sacrifice you to his game
.

Caspar took his eye from the scope, shook his head to clear it. KGB had said things like that to him, when they were trying to turn him. Had said the Wiz sent him behind enemy lines to be slaughtered, just like he’d done with all those poor boys in the Ukraine and Korea. Caspar could almost believe that about the Wiz. But Melchior? Melchior was his friend.

You’re just his patsy
.

Caspar leaned forward, looked through the scope again. Melchior was still right there. He could do it. Do what the Company had asked him, and maybe then he could be Lee again. Just Lee. But in order to do that he would have to kill Tommy. But—but Tommy was already dead. Melchior had said so. Just like he’d said Lee was dead. There was just Melchior now. Melchior and Caspar. If Caspar killed him, he’d be all alone.

Do it
, the voice hissed in his ear.
Do it!

A tap on
the shoulder brought Chandler’s attention back to the street. Melchior’s smile hadn’t faded, but his voice was deadly serious.

“I should tell you that if I don’t check in at exactly 1 p.m., Naz will be killed anyway. Just in case you’re getting any crazy ideas about having Caspar shoot me instead of the president.”

Chandler glared at him. If pure hatred could have killed Melchior, he’d have burst into flames. But all he did was return Chandler’s gaze with that implacable smile on his face. Chandler pushed at Melchior’s brain again, but all he got was that spongy nothingness.

“Not me,” Melchior said, shaking his head. “The
president.”

The president. Chandler looked up. He could see him now. His car had just made the turn off Houston onto Elm. In a minute or two he’d pass through the Triple Underpass and get on the freeway and be away, safe to lead America to a new era of peace and tolerance, to Africa and Asia and all the way to the goddamned moon. His smile was as bright as the noon sun.

In desperation Chandler cast his mind wider, looking for someone in the crowd who could help him. But who? If he tipped off one of the policemen or Secret Service agents and got Melchior arrested, he was as good as killing Naz. If he started some kind of mass panic like he had in Texas, who knew how many people might die.

He found himself thinking of the burning boy. Even though the figure was nothing more than a figment of his imagination—his mixed with BC’s and all the other minds he’d come into contact with—he somehow felt that it would know what to do. A part of him willed the flaming angel to make an appearance, but it refused to come.

“It’s now or never, Chandler,” Melchior said. “Do it. Or Naz dies.”

Not knowing what else to do, Chandler reached out to the only other mind he could think of: the president’s. He felt the ache in the man’s arm as he waved at the crowd, in his jaw as he flashed that famous smile. The ache that throbbed in his lower back beneath his brace despite all the painkillers and other drugs that flowed through his veins. In the past week alone he’d taken Demerol, Ritalin, Librium, thyroid hormone, testosterone, and gamma globulin, and before he consented to get in the car this morning he’d had two injections of procaine to ease the pain in his back. Good lord, Chandler thought, the president of the United States was on more drugs than he was!

As he smiled and waved at the last of the spectators, Jack Kennedy suddenly found himself thinking about Mary Meyer. How funny to think about her now! He glanced over at Jackie guiltily, then looked away again. It wasn’t the fact that he’d slept with her that made him feel guilty—he and Jackie had worked out that part of their marriage a long time ago. It was the fact that she’d given him marijuana and LSD several times, and in the White House to boot. Jackie would’ve flipped if she’d found out about that—she had enough trouble covering up his affairs and his illnesses. Jack hadn’t cared much for the hallucinatory aspects of LSD—he saw enough unbelieveable things in his daily security briefing—but the euphoria was the best painkiller he’d ever experienced. For twelve blissful hours the pain in his back had been like a glob of Silly Putty he could knead and play with. God, that’d be nice right now. Here it was just after noon and his back was killing him, and instead of relief he had to face an interminable luncheon at the Trade
Mart, all for the sake of securing a half dozen votes that probably wouldn’t make any difference at all next November.

As Chandler absorbed all of this he stared at the president’s retreating form. So Jack Kennedy was one of the chosen few who’d been turned on to LSD. Who’d’ve guessed?

Then, with a start, he realized someone else was looking at Kennedy, his gaze doubly focused through the sights of his rifle and Chandler’s own attention. Chandler felt Caspar’s finger on the trigger, realized it was starting to squeeze, and, not knowing what else to do, he pushed at Caspar’s mind, and at the same time snapped open his umbrella.

“What the—!”
Standing on the edge of Dealey Plaza, James Tague jerked his head as something stung his cheek. At the same time, he heard a loud pop from off to his right.

“Oh no, no, no!”
John Connally said in the seat in front of the president’s. Chandler heard him clearly. He knew that the governor of Texas had recognized the sound of a gunshot, unlike the president and his wife and most of the security detail—including the limo driver, who, mistaking the sound for a blowout, stepped on the brakes instead of the gas. At least Caspar had missed. But he was getting ready to fire again, and this time it was Kennedy Chandler pushed.
Duck!
he screamed into the president’s mind, and the president leaned forward. But it was too late. Chandler felt the bullet slam into the base of Kennedy’s neck, nick his spine, and spit out of his throat just below his Adam’s apple. Somehow, though—a miracle!—it missed hitting any vital organs, even as it ripped its way through Governor Connally’s abdomen and wrist.

But the gun was still in Caspar’s hands. He wasn’t thinking about Melchior now, or why he was doing what he was doing. His Marine training had kicked in, and he’d shot the bolt on his rifle and re-aimed. His attention was focused squarely and solely on the president. It was as if the two were linked by a high-tension wire.

Desperate now, Chandler dove deep into Caspar’s mind, trying to
find someone Caspar could never shoot. But it seemed that Caspar wanted to shoot
everyone
. The president’s visage gave way to Castro’s first, then Khrushchev’s, and then to the man with the pointed beard who’d plucked him from the orphanage with the Wiz all those years ago, and then Frank Wisdom himself, beery, bloated, and bellicose. Then Melchior. Not Melchior as he was now but Melchior as a teenager: thin, scrappy, defiant, adaptable. A survivor, unlike Caspar. Unlike Lee. And then that image faded away before another, wavering, indistinct, two-dimensional—a black-and-white photograph that Chandler was only able to flesh out with the greatest effort of will.

“Lee,” Robert Edward Lee Oswald said. “Son, what are you doing?”

“Daddy?” Caspar peered through the scope.

“Put down the gun,” Robert Oswald said. “Come on, Lee. That’s not how your mother raised you.”

Melchior stared at
the retreating limousine. A dozen cops and agents had drawn their guns, and people were starting to yell and point in every direction. A Secret Service agent was jumping onto the trunk of Kennedy’s limo. In another second he would throw himself over the president’s body and the opportunity would be gone.

Melchior pushed Chandler’s umbrella down with one hand, reached into his pocket with the other.

“She’s pregnant,” Melchior said. “It won’t be just her who dies.” And then, opening his hand, he showed him what he’d pulled from his pocket.