Shift: A Novel

by Tim Kring

  “I’d worry less about who he’s working for than if he’s going to shoot you. After his failure in the Soviet Union, he needs to do something that’ll prove his worth to the Company—it doesn’t matter if he’s doing it out of loyalty to the U.S. or the Soviet Union. You’ll still be dead.”

  “And so will he,” Song said. “The Company will tip off FBI, who’ll pick him up for murder, and six months later he’ll end up in the electric chair. And that’s the end of the Wiz Kids.”

  Melchior glanced at Song, but he was thinking about Caspar again. About the last time he’d seen him, in a geisha bar outside the naval air base in Atsugi. Just before they parted, Caspar had pulled Melchior aside. “Promise me you’ll get me out if they brainwash me.”

  “Get you out—”

  “Take me out,” Caspar corrected him. “I don’t want them to turn me into something I’m not.” Such a statement begged the question: what was Caspar? But Melchior hadn’t had the heart to ask it. “Promise?” Caspar had said. “I promise,” Melchior had said, and somehow they both knew he was going to break it.

  “Melchior?” This time it was Ivelitsch who pulled him from his reverie. Melchior shook his head to clear it, but Caspar’s face refused to go away. He stood up so abruptly that his newspaper fell to the ground and a few pages fluttered away in the breeze.

  “I have to go to Chicago. We’ll deal with Chandler and Naz later.”

  “Chicago?” Ivelitsch called after Melchior’s retreating form.

  “You want the bomb to come to America,” Melchior called back. “I’m going to get it here, and take care of Caspar at the same time.”

  Ivelitsch turned to Song. “I don’t understand.”

  Song put a hand on Ivelitsch’s knee to keep him from getting up. “I don’t either,” she said, staring after Melchior. “But Chicago is Giancana’s home base.”

  “Ah,” Ivelitsch said.

  Song pointed to the dateline on the paper, and for the first time Ivelitsch noticed that it was the Dallas Morning News. It took him a second to figure it out.

  “He already knew, didn’t he? He was just pumping us for information, making sure we were telling the truth.”

  “I told you,” Song said. “He’s good.”

  Ivelitsch picked up the front page, which was covered with a series of red and black X’s and O’s.

  “What’s this?”

  Song peered at it. “I’m not sure, but I think it’s an old cipher system dating from the forties. It’s hugely complicated. You take your message and the particular page of newsprint you’re using and create an algorithm that encodes the former onto the latter. There are only a handful of agents who can break it without a computer.”

  “Huh.” Ivelitsch was about to say something else, but, twenty feet away, Melchior had turned to look back at him.

  “Did you double him?”

  A little smirk played over Ivelitsch’s lips. “I’ll tell you in fifty years, if we’re both still alive.”

  Melchior nodded, turned back around. “Song keeps petting you like that,” he muttered, “I’m pretty sure you’ll be dead long before then.”

  New York, NY

  November 19, 1963

  The men flanked him, the smaller one ahead, the bigger one behind, as they descended the staircase and made their way toward the front door. They spoke to each other in Russian, more or less confirming BC’s earlier suspicion. This was a bad sign. It was one thing for Melchior to go rogue. It was quite another for him to cross to the other side. Or had word of Orpheus simply crossed international channels? Still, for some reason he wasn’t afraid. He was already bucking the FBI and CIA, after all. What was one more acronymed agency?

  When they reached the bottom of the stairs, the first man turned back to him. “We know you are traveling with Orpheus. You will take us to him, or Nazanin Haverman will die.”

  “Of course,” BC said. “If you’ll go get me a pen and, uh”—a glance over his shoulder—“your partner tracks down some paper, I’d be glad to write down the address.”

  The lead agent smiled at BC’s attempt at a joke. “We are strangers in the city. We would be very appreciative if you took us to him yourself.”

  BC shrugged. “Whatever floats your boat.”

  The second man pressed so close as they made their way through the thronged front hall that BC could feel the man’s belly pressed against the small of his back. He couldn’t resist.

  “Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?”

  “Why can’t it be both?” the man said.

  The crowd seemed to have thickened. The parlors oozed smoke and music and body heat, and people eddied back and forth between them, making the hall a swirling mass. The three men inched their way forward, the lead Russian unwilling to shove through. Probably didn’t want to attract attention, BC thought. The agent’s hesitation bought him a few seconds, but to do what?

  A fresh surge of people pushed the three men against a sleek modern console. An expressionist portrait hung over it—a woman looking like she’d been dismembered and reassembled by a blind surgeon. More helpfully, there was a medium-sized brass vase on the console beneath the painting.

  Another press from the crowd. BC slipped his left hand into the vase as though it were a big brass glove. A puff of ash floated into the air as his hand sank into the metal canister. Great, he thought, I’ve stuck my hand in an ashtray. He hugged it quickly to his stomach, thankful he wasn’t wearing one of his new suits.

  “So, uh …” He squinted at the signature on the painting. The man’s handwriting was the most recognizable thing on the canvas. “What’s your opinion of de Kooning?”

  Even as the front man was turning around, BC whirled, leading with his metal-capped hand. The big Russian behind him was fast, he had to give him that. His gun was already out and leveling off. The vase struck it with a loud clang. The gun bounced off the console and went flying across the room.

  “Whoa, bad trip!” someone yelled as BC whirled back to the front. He wasn’t so lucky this time. He heard the sound of a shot as he turned, saw the smoking barrel of the gun in the lead Russian’s hand even as a ripple traveled up and down his skeleton, shaking his bones one from the other. He wobbled on his feet, only his skin holding him together.

  The Russian smiled. He seemed about to say something, then stopped. His brow furrowed, his smile leveled out. Blood leaked from his mouth and a second stain was flowering on his chest.

  “Blyat,” he said, and fell backward.

  BC held up the vase and saw the dent on the base. He’d gotten lucky after all.

  Not that he had time to enjoy it. Something hard struck him in the small of the back and he was thrown forward. He landed on the fallen Russian and grabbed for his gun, trying to shake the bullet-dented vase off his left hand the whole time, but all he got was a cloud of ash. Still, he had the gun in his right hand, and he rolled onto his back and waved it at the second Russian.

  “Back off,” he said, inching backward across the marble floor, the brass vase clanking with every step.

  “This shit is the best!” someone said. “You would not believe what I’m seeing right now!”

  Other partygoers were less sanguine, or less stoned.

  “Call the cops!”

  “Take it outta here, man. You’re bringing down the vibe!”

  Just then Peggy Hitchcock came into the hall.

  “Oh my God,” she yelled, looking not at the gun in BC’s right hand but the vase on his left. “Grandma!”

  “Call Billy,” BC told her. “Tell him you’ve got a dead KGB agent in your foyer. He’ll know what to do.”

  To her credit, Hitchcock just nodded and ran from the room.

  The Russian seized the moment, diving behind the console beneath the painting. From his position on the ground, BC tried to aim underneath it, but before he knew it the console had flipped up in the air and was coming down top-first on his body, looking for all the world lik
e a coffin falling from the sky. His right hand slammed into the marble floor and his fingers lost their grip on the gun.

  Before he could move a second weight crashed into him. The console exploded in pieces, and he found himself staring at a pair of quivering jowls.

  “If you think de Kooning is bad,” the grinning Russian said, “wait till you see what I do with your face.” He grabbed BC’s throat with both hands and banged his head against the marble floor.

  BC slammed the urn into the side of the Russian’s head. It wasn’t a strong blow, and all the Russian did was blink as a cloud of Peggy Hitchcock’s grandmother’s ashes burst into the air, but at least he stopped banging BC’s head against the floor. BC hit him again, angling for the man’s bulbous nose this time, which showered his own face with blood. A third blow. A fourth. It was the Russian’s face that resembled the de Kooning painting, but still he refused to let go of BC’s throat. Spots dancing in front of BC’s eyes obscured the Russian even more.

  He was about to go for one last blow when the Russian’s head fell on his chest and his hands finally slackened their grip. BC looked up to see Peggy Hitchcock standing over him with an African-looking totem in her hands. She was holding it by a penis the size of its abdomen.

  “Just go,” she said before BC could speak.

  BC lifted his left hand, still stuck in the dented urn. Peggy Hitchcock waved it away.

  “Grandma’s seen worse.”

  BC retrieved the unconscious agent’s gun and stumbled into the hall, pressed the button for the elevator. He’d just managed to extricate his hand from the urn when the doors opened. A shower of ash shot into the air like a desiccated thundercloud. The elevator operator pretended not to notice the ash or the blood or the skewed wig.

  “Find what you were looking for, sir?”

  BC straightened his vest and walked onto the elevator. “More like it found me.”

  The operator was nice enough to hail a cab for BC when they reached the street level, and he raced back to the Village. The cab got stuck in a traffic jam at the end of Fifth, and BC had to run the last five blocks to the hotel. Sweat mixed with the ash and blood on his face to form an acrid gruel that kept dripping into his mouth, but as soon as he pushed the door to the hotel room open, he realized he needn’t have bothered.

  Chandler was gone.

  Chicago, IL

  November 19, 1963

  Sam Giancana’s guards didn’t just frisk Melchior: they untucked his shirt and lifted it up to check for a wire, took off his shoes, felt inside the band of his hat, leafed through his wallet. They even opened his pen and scribbled on a piece of paper to make sure it was real—then kept it for themselves. Satisfied he was neither armed nor miked, they ushered him into Giancana’s private office.

  “I’m gonna want that pen back before I go,” Melchior said to the guards as they left, then turned around to face the kingpin of the Chicago mob.

  Giancana didn’t get up as Melchior, still disheveled from his frisking, approached his desk. He was a lean, nattily dressed man, with a sharp dimpled chin and a softly rounded head, largely devoid of hair. Melchior’d only seen him in photographs, usually wearing a pair of Hollywood shades and a spiffy hat to hide his baldness, but now he wore thick horn-rimmed glasses and looked more like a businessman than the lady-killer who, in addition to a long-term relationship with Phyllis McGuire of the McGuire Sisters, had dated Judith Campbell at the same time she was seeing Jack Kennedy (this was after Miss Campbell was done with Frank Sinatra). The then-candidate was looking for a little help with the Chicago ballot, and rumor had it that his mistress had helped to broker a deal between him and the man sitting on the other side of the desk, whose well-tailored suit did nothing to mask the street-kid accent that filled the room like squealing brakes as soon as Giancana opened his mouth.

  “So. Who is this mook who’s been calling every two-bit con artist, numbers man, street hustler, and pimp in Chicago saying he wants to meet Momo Giancana?”

  There was a chair in front of Giancana’s desk just as there was in front of Drew Everton’s, but Melchior remained standing. He knew the theatrics that had so annoyed Everton wouldn’t fly here.

  “My name is Melchior,” he said, biting back the urge to add, “sir.”

  Giancana swatted the answer away like a fly. “I didn’t ask your ‘name.’ I know your ‘name.’ I asked who the hell you are.”

  “I work for CIA. I was in Cuba for most of ’62 and ’63—”

  Giancana’s nostrils flared as he let out a frustrated sigh. “You’re wasting my time, Mr. Mook Melchior of the Central Fucking Intelligence Agency, or whoever you work for. Now. Who in the hell are you, and why the fuck did you wanna see me?”

  Melchior found himself fiddling with his lapel, feeling for the familiar, comforting bullet hole. But although he was still wearing a dead man’s suit, this one had come from a man he’d killed himself, and he’d taken care not to leave any marks. He knew he had to tread every bit as delicately here.

  “Here’s the situation, Mr. Giancana. I know you helped Jack Kennedy carry Chicago in 1960, and I know you’ve been helping the Company try to knock off Fidel Castro for the past couple of years. And I also know that you feel double-crossed because, despite the money and manpower you’ve expended in good faith, Bobby Kennedy is still trying to throw your ass in jail.”

  Giancana’s expression didn’t change, but for the first time he paused.

  “Look, you wanna go tit for tat,” he said, “I can talk shit too. I got letters on CIA stationery thanking Lucky Luciano for his help fighting the Commies in Italy and France right after the war. I got photographs showing Company agents shipping Southeast Asian heroin to San Francisco in order to outfit a private army to fight the Viet Cong. And I got a unique collection of souvenirs—cigars packed with C4, pens filled with cyanide, and a couple-a fungusy-looking things that I don’t wanna get too close to—all made in Langley labs and destined for our good friend on the other side of the Florida Straits.”

  Melchior took a moment to absorb this. On the surface, the words were as hostile as everything else Giancana’d said, but the tone was different. The boss was curious. Was sending out feelers to see just how much Melchior was willing to say.

  He took a deep breath. It was going to be all or nothing.

  “I was in Italy in ’47. I was seventeen years old. Lucky liked me so much he wanted to set me up with his daughter. And I spent nine months in Laos raising funds for the private army you mentioned, and another two years in Cuba, where I went with the task of delivering one of those exploding cigars to El Jefe. I’m not here to accuse you of anything, Mr. Giancana. I’m here to offer you my help.”

  Melchior wouldn’t want to get in a poker game with this guy. Giancana’s face didn’t twitch when Melchior rattled off his list. He just sat back, the rich leather of his chair creaking beneath him, and let an amused smile spread across his face. It was a dangerous, disarming smile, like a cobra’s hypnotic swaying just before it strikes.

  “Siciliano?”

  “My mother was born in the shadow of Mount Aetna,” Melchior said in perfect Sicilian.

  A sound, half-laugh, half-bark, burst from Giancana’s mouth. “All right, then. Tell me what it is that you can do for me.”

  Melchior nodded. “Just over three weeks ago, I shot Louie Garza.”

  Giancana flicked a bit of lint off his cuff. “That name don’t mean nothing to me.”

  “I shot him in Cuba, while he was trying to steal a nuclear bomb.”

  Another pause. Melchior couldn’t tell if Giancana was considering what he’d just said, or considering how to get rid of his body after he had his guards shoot him in the back. Finally:

  “Louie never mentioned no nuke to me.”

  “That’s because he was planning to sell it and keep the money for himself.”

  “You kill the bastard?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Saves me the trouble.” Then, almost a
s an afterthought: “So what happened to the nuke?”

  “It’s still in Cuba.”

  Giancana leaned forward, reaching for a cigar on his desk. “Oh well, que sera, sera, as Doris—”

  “The way I see it, Mr. Giancana, that bomb belongs to you.”

  For the first time Melchior got a reaction. An eyebrow twitch, but he’d take it. Giancana took the time to light his cigar before speaking again. Melchior glanced at the band. Cuban, of course. Montecristo. Also of course.

  “I done a little-a this and a little-a that in my day. Girls. Booze. Even a few guns here and there. But a nuke? Why don’t I just tape a bull’s-eye on my forehead and hand the gun to Bobby Kennedy?”

  “The way I see it, Mr. Giancana, the bull’s-eye’s on you already. Bobby Kennedy’s made the mafia public enemy number two—after Jimmy Hoffa. One way or another he’s going to nail your ass to the wall in the next year to make sure Jack wins the election, and he’s gonna ride that wave all the way to the White House in ’68. It’s gonna be sixteen years of the Kennedys unless someone does something about it.”

  The number two was a good gambit. As the Montecristo suggested, Giancana liked to be tops in everything. Even the most-wanted list. “What do you want me to do, shoot Bobby Kennedy?”

  Melchior shook his head. “Shoot him and you make him a martyr. Breaking the mafia will go from being his crusade to being the nation’s. The only way to stop him is to get him out of office, and the only way to get Bobby Kennedy out of office is to get Jack Kennedy out of office.”

  Giancana puffed out thick gray wreaths of smoke until a bright red nubbin the size of a thimble glowed at the end of his Montecristo. He turned the cigar toward his face, brought the end so close to his eye that Melchior thought he was going to burn himself, but all he did was watch the glowing tip slowly fade like a dying star. Only when it had dimmed to the palest orange did he look back at Melchior.

  “Say it straight,” he said. “Tell me exactly what you want, or I’m gonna use this cigar to write my name on your forehead.”