Shift. Part 2

"I'll tell your wife where you're buried," Melchior said in a soft voice. "Just tell me who sent you here."

Louie chewed air, but he seemed to be coming back to himself. The plates of his broken pelvis pushed visibly against his skin, but he tried to put on a brave face.

"I don't got a wife, tell my mother." He managed a wet chuckle, then said, "Same folks sent me as sent you, I'm willing to bet."

"I been in this p.i.s.sant country two years. Whoever sent me here don't even know I'm alive anymore. So drop the macho act and tell me who you're working for. Is it just Momo, or is he representing outside interests?"

For the first time Louie seemed to realize that his captor knew who he was. He peered at Melchior curiously.

"Officially? Paychecks come via a sausage factory in New Orleans, but everyone knows it's a Company front. Banister's the cutout, but according to him the authority comes from higher up."

"Banister's a p.r.i.c.k who'd say just about anything. But just for kicks: did he say it was Bobby or Jack or both?"

"Little brother."

"And did he say why why Bobby Kennedy'd risk his and his brother's careers to hire the Chicago Organization to kill Fidel Castro, when he's got the whole CIA to do it?" Bobby Kennedy'd risk his and his brother's careers to hire the Chicago Organization to kill Fidel Castro, when he's got the whole CIA to do it?"

Louie coughed out another weak, wincing laugh. "Cuz Castro's still alive, you dips.h.i.+t."

Melchior had to give that one to Louie. "What plan did they come up with for you?"

Louie rolled his eyes. "Poison pills. We was supposed to get them in his food somehow." He turned his head and spat blood. "You?"

"Exploding cigars." Melchior laughed, then jerked a thumb at the mill. "This is a little far from the Plaza de la Revolucion."

Louie's eyes glazed over, and Melchior wasn't sure if he was dying, or thinking what his life might've been like if he'd managed to complete his deal. He could feel Louie's blood warming his knees as it soaked into the ground and was just about to kick the gangster when his eyes snapped back into focus.

"You got any rum?"

"Does a Cuban dog have fleas?"

"No more than a Cuban wh.o.r.e. Gimme a taste, and I'll tell you what you want to know. I'd just as soon go out of this world like I came into it: drunk."

Melchior pulled Eddie Bayo's bottle from his jacket and held it to Louie's mouth. Louie wrapped his lips around the neck and drank the smoky liquid like lemonade.

"Jesus," Melchior said when Louie finally came up for air. "That would hurt me more than getting shot in the hip."

"Yeah? Gimme your gun and let's find out."

Melchior laughed. He'd always been partial to a wisea.s.s.

"So: Bobby sent you here to kill Castro. You didn't kill Castro but you're still here. What gives?"

Louie burped and spat more blood. "b.a.s.t.a.r.d pulled the plug. Left us high and dry just like Jack did the Brigade." The disgust was audible in Louie's voice. "That's the problem with those smug Paddies. They don't follow through."

"Yeah, yeah, save it for the campaign trail. Do they know about tonight's meet? Does anyone?"

Now it was pride that filled Louie's voice. "Sam said there's always a way to make money in Cuba. Sugar, gambling, girls. But not even Sam knows about this."

"What about the Russians?"

"Va.s.sily-that was the guy I was nice enough to shoot for you-Va.s.sily says Russia's barely getting by. The people don't trust the government and the government don't trust itself. There's Khrushchev and his guys on one side, the hard-liners on the other. KGB's got their own agenda, Red Army's got theirs. If you worked them them for once, put one against the other instead-a messing around in no-account places like Cuba, you might actually manage to for once, put one against the other instead-a messing around in no-account places like Cuba, you might actually manage to win win the Cold War." the Cold War."

"Yeah, but then guys like me would be out of a job."

Louie's eyes narrowed. "I thought you said the Company didn't know you was here. So who're you working for? Castro pay you off? The Reds?"

Melchior couldn't keep from smirking. "Let's just say one little brother's gonna have to buy me back from another."

"Segundo?" Louie pursed his lips, but all that came out was a wet stream of air. "I heard that when the fighting was over in '59 it was him who lined up what was left of Batista's men and shot them all. I'd take Bobby over that cold-blooded motherf.u.c.ker any day-and I f.u.c.king Louie pursed his lips, but all that came out was a wet stream of air. "I heard that when the fighting was over in '59 it was him who lined up what was left of Batista's men and shot them all. I'd take Bobby over that cold-blooded motherf.u.c.ker any day-and I f.u.c.king hate hate those Paddy b.a.s.t.a.r.ds." those Paddy b.a.s.t.a.r.ds."

"You do realize your boss gave Kennedy Chicago, which gave him Illinois, which gave him the election? What in h.e.l.l have you got against him, besides the fact that he's Irish?"

"Ain't that enough?" Louie's laugh turned into a cough, and he spat up what seemed like a mouthful of blood. "Garza," he said when he could talk again. "Luis."

It took Melchior a moment to get it. "You're ... Cuban?" Cuban?"

"Can't keep f.u.c.king with someone's country and not expect consequences. And Cubans is like Italians. They ain't ashamed to play dirty if that's the only way to win."

Louie broke off, panting heavily, but otherwise holding it together. Not crying and carrying on like Eddie Bayo, begging for mercy like a bully with a b.l.o.o.d.y nose. Melchior thought he would've liked the guy, if the circ.u.mstances had been different.

"I'm getting tired," Louis said now, "and my hip hurts like you can't imagine. Are we done with the twenty questions?"

"Just one more thing." Melchior jerked his thumb at the mill. "Are the keys in the truck?"

Boston, MA October 27, 1963

He had a bottle in his car. Vodka rather than gin. "Doesn't need a mixer," he said by way of explanation. She told him her landlady didn't allow coed guests ("Neither does mine") but if he was surprised that she insisted on this particular motel, so far out in East Boston that it was practically at Logan Airport, he managed to hide it. When he excused himself to go to the bathroom, she poured a pair of drinks and pulled the gla.s.sine Morganthau had given her from her purse. a mixer," he said by way of explanation. She told him her landlady didn't allow coed guests ("Neither does mine") but if he was surprised that she insisted on this particular motel, so far out in East Boston that it was practically at Logan Airport, he managed to hide it. When he excused himself to go to the bathroom, she poured a pair of drinks and pulled the gla.s.sine Morganthau had given her from her purse.

Sometimes the stamps were blank, sometimes they had pictures on them. A rising sun, a cartoon character, one of the Founding Fathers. These depicted a bearded man. She thought it was Castro at first-it was the kind of joke she'd come to expect from the Company-then realized it was actually a William Blake engraving. One of his G.o.ds. What was this one called? Orison? No, that was some kind of prayer. Origen? She couldn't remember.

She was about to drop the stamps into Chandler's drink when she heard a door in the next room. She looked up and there was the mirror. It hung over the dresser, screwed tightly to the plaster. Naz had been in this room enough times to know that if you got right next to it you could see that it was recessed an inch into the wall. A design flaw, she'd thought-how many five-dollar motels went to that kind of trouble?-but Morganthau told her it minimized the dark corners out of camera range.

She stared at the mirror for a long moment. Then, making sure her actions were fully visible, pulled both stamps from the gla.s.sine, dropped one in Chandler's gla.s.s, the other in hers. She swished with her fingers, and in a second they were gone.

"Cheers," she said to the mirror.

"I suppose if I looked as good as you, I'd toast myself too."

She whipped around. Chandler stood in the bathroom doorway, his face wet, his hair freshly combed. He'd taken off his jacket and his white s.h.i.+rt hugged his slim torso. Her heart fluttered beneath her blouse. What am I doing? doing? she said to herself, but before she could answer her question, she brought her gla.s.s to her lips. Warm vodka rasped down her throat like sandpaper, and she had to fight to keep the grimace off her face. she said to herself, but before she could answer her question, she brought her gla.s.s to her lips. Warm vodka rasped down her throat like sandpaper, and she had to fight to keep the grimace off her face.

Chandler just looked at her a moment. She could feel his uneasiness, knew he was picking it up from her. If she wasn't careful, she was going to scare him away. But beneath that she could also feel his curiosity. Not l.u.s.t-or not just l.u.s.t-but a genuine desire to know this girl wrapped in clothes that, like his, were expensive but worn. For the first time in the nine months since Morganthau had recruited her, in the three years since she'd started doing what she did, she felt a mutual current between her and the man in the room.

"Naz?"

She looked up, startled. Somehow Chandler was beside her. His right hand cupped her left elbow softly, the way her father had always held her mother.

"I-I'm sorry," she stuttered, lifting her gla.s.s to her lips. "It's just that I-"

"Whoa there," he said, catching her hand. "That's mine, remember?"

"Oh, uh." Naz grinned sheepishly, handed him his gla.s.s. "I'm sorry," she said again. "I don't normally do this."

Chandler looked around the little room, as if her lie was somehow evident in the dingy walls, the scuffed furniture, the dusty TV with one bent antenna. The unerring way she'd guided him here. He touched his gla.s.s to hers.

"I'm here too," he said, and pounded his drink just as she had. The fingers of his right hand s.h.i.+vered and squeezed as the warm vodka went down, and she felt a tingle through her entire body.

"Ice," he said when he could speak again. he said when he could speak again.

Urizen, Naz suddenly remembered as Chandler grabbed a bucket and ducked into the hallway. That was the name of Blake's G.o.d. Blake claimed to have seen him in a vision, as she recalled.

She rubbed her arm and contemplated her face in the mirror-and what lay on the other side of it-and wondered what she would see.

In the nine months since Morganthau had recruited her, she'd slipped the drug to almost four dozen men. She wasn't exactly sure what he was hoping it would do. She only knew what she'd seen. One minute the men would be pawing at her, the next they'd jump back from something she couldn't see. Occasionally it seemed pleasurable. One time a man sighed, "Cerberus? Is that you, boy?" in a way that made her think it must be a long-lost childhood dog. But nine times out of ten the visions seemed terrifying, and half the men ended up huddling in a corner, swatting at imaginary tormentors. Morganthau suggested that the things the men saw-hallucination seemed an inadequate term, at least from her perspective; they were more like demonic visitations-were influenced by context. Since this was Boston, where Puritan roots ran deep, her johns had a tendency to manifest whatever pillar of judgment they most feared: the police, their wives, their mothers. Urizen himself. months since Morganthau had recruited her, she'd slipped the drug to almost four dozen men. She wasn't exactly sure what he was hoping it would do. She only knew what she'd seen. One minute the men would be pawing at her, the next they'd jump back from something she couldn't see. Occasionally it seemed pleasurable. One time a man sighed, "Cerberus? Is that you, boy?" in a way that made her think it must be a long-lost childhood dog. But nine times out of ten the visions seemed terrifying, and half the men ended up huddling in a corner, swatting at imaginary tormentors. Morganthau suggested that the things the men saw-hallucination seemed an inadequate term, at least from her perspective; they were more like demonic visitations-were influenced by context. Since this was Boston, where Puritan roots ran deep, her johns had a tendency to manifest whatever pillar of judgment they most feared: the police, their wives, their mothers. Urizen himself.

Yet none of them felt as guilty as Naz. She was the wh.o.r.e, after all. The one who'd lived when her parents died. The one who traded her body for a few dollars and the numbing bottles of alcohol they bought. It was only after she'd ingested the drug that she allowed herself to admit that perhaps she hadn't taken it to defy Morganthau, or to find out what it was she'd been giving unwary men for the past nine months, but to punish herself even more than she normally did. To keep herself from getting close to the man who was even now staring into her eyes with a look of wonder on his face, a feeling of positive amazement radiating from his pores, as though he was asking himself what he'd done to deserve her.

She blinked, wondering when-how-he'd come back into the room. The ice bucket was on the table, fresh drinks had been poured. He'd even kicked his shoes off. One sat on the bed like a kitten with its legs folded beneath it.

"Are you cold?" he said.

She looked down and saw that she was still rubbing her arm where he'd held her.

"Want me to warm you up?"

He crossed the room in a black-and-white blur, and before she knew it his hands were on her arms again, rubbing gently. There was nothing fake in the gesture, or domineering, or s.e.xual. He didn't knead her like a lump of human dough. He was just rubbing her arms to warm them up, and, helplessly, she pressed herself against him, turned her face up to look at his.

"My G.o.d," he said in a hoa.r.s.e voice that was neither whisper nor groan. "You are so beautiful." beautiful."

He gazed into her eyes and she stared back, looking for the thing that made him different from all the others. For the first time she saw that they were hazel. The kind of eyes that change color depending on how the light strikes them. Brown, amber, green. A little of each all at the same time. Flecks of purple, too. Blue. Pink. Amazing eyes, really. The irises were kaleidoscopes surrounding the tunnels of his pupils, and all the way at the back of that inky darkness was yet another spark of color. Gold, this time. Pure, immutable, like an electrical charge.

She knew what that spark was. It was his essence. The thing that made him different from every other person she'd met since she came to this country a decade ago. It was right there, flickering at her. Inviting her in.

Even after he closed his eyes and kissed her she could still see it.

She reached for it with her hand, but it was too far inside his head. She would have to go in after it. She had to push at the edges of his pupil to squeeze through, but once she was inside, it was roomier than she'd've expected: when she reached out her hands she couldn't touch the sides. Couldn't feel anything beneath her feet, either, and it was so dark that all she could see was the spark in the distance. For a moment she felt her own spark of panic, but even before she recognized the feeling she heard Chandler's voice.

It's okay.

She giggled like a teenager at a monster movie. The light seemed to have grown limbs, as if it were not simply a spark, a flame, but a person. A person on fire. She thought that should have scared her, but it didn't. There was no sense of torture from the figure leading her deeper inside Chandler, of agony or fear, but rather a sense of protection. Righteousness even. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego cavorting in the fiery furnace.

The spark was larger now. Had lost its limbs and taken on a more solid shape, taller than it was wide, flat on the bottom and sides but curved slightly on top. A tombstone, she thought at first, but when she got closer she realized that it was in fact an arched, open doorway.

It was only when she poked her head through that she saw the books. Thousands of them, stacked atop one another in spindly columns that sprang from the floor of Chandler's brain and receded into impenetrable heights. She'd thought the spark had been his essence, his secret, but now she realized it had only led her here. The real secret was hidden in one of these thousands upon thousands of moldering tomes. A slip of paper folded between the covers of some favorite childhood story long since migrated to the bottom of one of these hundreds-thousands-of stacks.

An embarra.s.sed chuckle sounded off to the side.

"I thought it would look more like a cave. Dark, slimy, water dripping somewhere out of sight."

Chandler stood behind a stack of books just high enough to conceal his nakedness. She glanced down at herself, saw that she was naked too, and similarly s.h.i.+elded.

"Apparently you're a scholar." Even as she said it, she remembered what Morganthau had told her. He was was a scholar, or at any rate a student. Harvard. The Divinity School. "So, uh, why books?" a scholar, or at any rate a student. Harvard. The Divinity School. "So, uh, why books?"

Chandler shrugged. "Safer than the real world, I guess."

"'Politics,' you mean?" Naz made air quotes, although it seemed a fairly ridiculous gesture, given the context.

"In my family we didn't call it politics. We called it service. But from where I stood it just looked like servitude."

Naz laughed. "So, uh, what do we do now?"

"I'm not sure, but I think we're already doing it." Before Naz could ask him what he meant, he opened the topmost book on the stack in front of him. "Look."

Naz squinted. Not because the image was hard to see, but because it was hard to believe. It showed the motel room-the motel bed, to be precise, on which lay the apparently naked bodies of Chandler and Naz, although most of their flesh was covered by the blanket. But that wasn't the part Naz had trouble accepting. The vantage point of the scene was the mirror over the dresser. It was as though she was looking at herself and Chandler through the eyes of Agent Morganthau, whose husky breathing came in time with the rhythmic squeak of springs beneath his body....

And all at once it was over. Naz was back in the room. On the bed. Under the covers. In Chandler's arms. Naked. once it was over. Naz was back in the room. On the bed. Under the covers. In Chandler's arms. Naked.

Wow, she thought. That was some trip. But then she looked in Chandler's eyes.

"Urizen?"

It took Naz a moment to remember the bearded man on the stamp.

"Oh no," she said, and turned fearfully toward the mirror.

Cambridge, MA November 1, 1963

The coo of a mourning dove eased Chandler from sleep. He let the percussive gurgle tickle his eardrums while the last images from his dreams faded from his mind. He'd been back in his grandmother's house, trapped at the table while the old battle-axe presided over one of her endless, tasteless meals. The really strange thing, though, was that the sooty portrait of his grandfather over the fireplace had been replaced by a one-way mirror behind which sat Eddie Logan, the annoying little brother of his best friend from boarding school. What was even stranger, Eddie was holding a movie camera with one hand and himself with the other. Chandler hadn't thought of Percy's pipsqueak brother in a decade. And what the h.e.l.l was he doing with a movie camera? the percussive gurgle tickle his eardrums while the last images from his dreams faded from his mind. He'd been back in his grandmother's house, trapped at the table while the old battle-axe presided over one of her endless, tasteless meals. The really strange thing, though, was that the sooty portrait of his grandfather over the fireplace had been replaced by a one-way mirror behind which sat Eddie Logan, the annoying little brother of his best friend from boarding school. What was even stranger, Eddie was holding a movie camera with one hand and himself with the other. Chandler hadn't thought of Percy's pipsqueak brother in a decade. And what the h.e.l.l was he doing with a movie camera?

Yet this was nothing compared to the other dream.

The girl.

He couldn't bring himself to voice her name, lest, like Eurydice, she should disappear at the first sign of attention. Instead he savored the residue of her voice, her eyes, her lips. Her kiss. Her body. G.o.d, he hadn't had a dream like that since he lived in his grandmother's house. Hadn't been that naively optimistic since his father had been alive.

And all of a sudden there was the other image, one that was never far from his thoughts, waking or sleeping. His father. Dressed in his three-piece suit, creases pressed, collar starched, every hair in place-a perfect imitation of Uncle Jimmy, as if sartorial splendor could mask the failure of his life. But in this memory one detail was out of place; namely, the noose that had jerked the tie from his father's waistcoat, so that it hung in front of his chest in grotesque echo of the tongue that bulged from his mouth. And the crowning glory: the piece of paper pinned to his jacket like a teacher's note on a toddler's s.h.i.+rt: PUTO DEUS FIO.

The line was Emperor Vespasian's, uttered just before he died: I am becoming a G.o.d I am becoming a G.o.d. His father had missed the first word of the quotation, however: vae vae, which could be translated as "alas" or "woe" or just plain "d.a.m.n." Leave it to his dad to get it wrong right up till the end.