Shift. Part 24

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 gla.s.ses and looked more like a businessman than the lady-killer who, in addition to a long-term relations.h.i.+p 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 h.e.l.l you are." 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 f.u.c.king Intelligence Agency, or whoever you work for. Now. Who in the h.e.l.l are are you, and why the f.u.c.k did you wanna see you, and why the f.u.c.k did you wanna see me?" 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 a.s.s in jail."

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

"Look, you wanna go t.i.t for tat," he said, "I can talk s.h.i.+t 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 s.h.i.+pping 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 you can do for can do for me 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.d?"

"Yes."

"Good. Saves me the trouble." Then, almost as 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 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 a.s.s 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."

Melchior came closer to gulping than he ever had in his life.

"What I'm saying, Mr. Giancana, is that if you take this bomb off my hands, I'll take care of your Kennedy problem. For good."

Two hours later, he called Song from Midway. Ivelitsch answered, and before Melchior could say anything, the Russian relayed what had happened at Peggy Hitchc.o.c.k's apartment in New York. The story seemed fuzzy to Melchior, like a TV station on a rainy day, but he was too wired to pay it any real attention. He was so jumpy after his interview with Giancana he was practically twitching.

"Yeah, whatever, Pavel, great men you've got working for you. I don't give a s.h.i.+t right now. Put Song on."

There was a disgruntled pause, the sound of m.u.f.fled voices, then Song came on the phone.

"Is this line secure?" Melchior asked.

"We change it every month."

"It's the nineteenth. The Company's had nearly three weeks to tap it, if they're watching you. Is this line f.u.c.king secure?" secure?"

"Calm down, Melchior. Why would CIA be watching me?"

"Because they're watching me. Jesus Christ, get with the program."

"Melchior-"

"Look, just shut up and listen. Things are gonna happen fast now, or they're not gonna happen at all. Our friend in the Windy City tells me you know Jack Ruby."13 There was a pause. Song's frustration came through the line like radiation.

"Song!" Melchior could barely keep from shouting. "Do you know Melchior could barely keep from shouting. "Do you know Jack Ruby? Jack Ruby? The Carousel Club? Dallas f.u.c.king The Carousel Club? Dallas f.u.c.king Texas?" Texas?"

"I don't exactly know know him," Song said coldly. "The Carousel gets its dancers through the Guild of Variety Artists-the Strippers Union-which is run out of Chicago, if you take my meaning. I once sent our friend in Chicago a rather beautiful blonde to dance for him at a private party. Somehow Ruby got wind of it and developed the notion that I'm in the habit of supplying girls to every whiskey-soaked dance club from here to Vegas." him," Song said coldly. "The Carousel gets its dancers through the Guild of Variety Artists-the Strippers Union-which is run out of Chicago, if you take my meaning. I once sent our friend in Chicago a rather beautiful blonde to dance for him at a private party. Somehow Ruby got wind of it and developed the notion that I'm in the habit of supplying girls to every whiskey-soaked dance club from here to Vegas."

"Yeah, well, his dream's about to come true. I want you to call him and tell him you're sending Nancy to Dallas. Chul-moo is your pilot, right?"

"Yes-"

"Bring her in your plane. We're gonna need it afterward. Just the three of you. There's a little strip in north Dallas called Addison. Use that one instead of Love Field."

"After what? And what's wrong with Love?"

"Jesus Christ, Song, are you out of your f.u.c.king mind! Air Force One is gonna be at Love. The place'll be crawling with Secret Service."

"Melchior? What the h.e.l.l are you planning?"

"You'll know soon enough. Now, get your a.s.s to Dallas. Just you, Chulmoo, Nancy, and the plane. Got it?"

"I can't just close up shop for a couple of days to ferry-"

Melchior banged the receiver against the side of the booth.

"Are you f.u.c.king listening listening to me, Song? If this works, you're going to be closing to me, Song? If this works, you're going to be closing permanently permanently. Now, call Ruby, tell him you're sending Nancy to Dallas, and get your a.s.s down there! down there!"

The phone was silent so long that Melchior wondered if he'd broken it when he smashed the receiver. Then: "Jesus Christ, Melchior." Song's voice was hushed. Not frightened, but awed. "They'll send an army after you. You'll be running for the rest of your life."

"I already am running. But once this is over, they won't know who they're chasing."

A crackly voice in the background called Melchior's flight to Dallas.

"Listen to me, Song. Don't lose faith in me. This was your idea, remember? This whole d.a.m.n thing was your idea. Believe in it. Believe in me. Now, put Pavel on the phone."

"I've been on the whole time."

"Of course you have, you eavesdropping f.u.c.k. I need you to send a couple of telegrams. One to Cuba. The other to Dallas."

"Ah." There was a pause. "To whom should I address the second one?"

Ivelitsch's voice was flat. Incurious. Unimpa.s.sioned. Melchior remembered what he'd said in Union Station yesterday afternoon, just before he'd shot one of his own men and forced Melchior to kill two Company agents. Everyone who knows you has to die Everyone who knows you has to die. It was all in a day's work to him.

"Send it to Alik. Alik Hidell."

"And what do I tell-"

"Tell him it's time. Time to do what you trained him to do in Russia."

Was.h.i.+ngton, DC November 19, 1963

In the house on Newport Place, Song and Ivelitsch sat in her office, their conversation punctuated by an occasional whip crack from the second floor, where Chul-moo was helping one of the girls with a prominent lobbyist for the tobacco industry. The lobbyist had just seen a draft of the Surgeon General's impending report on smoking and health and felt he needed to atone for the sins of his profession. office, their conversation punctuated by an occasional whip crack from the second floor, where Chul-moo was helping one of the girls with a prominent lobbyist for the tobacco industry. The lobbyist had just seen a draft of the Surgeon General's impending report on smoking and health and felt he needed to atone for the sins of his profession.

"The idea of the sleeper took hold in American intelligence right after Stalin detonated his first bomb," Song told Ivelitsch. "Suddenly it was undeniably clear that the Soviets were way ahead in the spy game. The Americans lacked experience. What they did have was dollars, and a willingness to try just about anything. Joe Scheider, who was then little more than a hyper-patriotic postdoctoral student with degrees in psychiatry and chemistry, floated the idea of trolling orphanages in search of bright kids who could essentially be raised by the Company as intelligence agents, placed in situ as children, and activated when and if they were needed. There were any number of problems with this plan, but chief among them was the fact that Caspar, Scheider's star recruit, turned out not to be an orphan. His mother left him at the orphanage Monday through Friday, but took him home weekends. Most weekends anyway. Scheider refused to give up, however. He directed Frank Wisdom to act as a paternal surrogate-Caspar's own father had died before he was born-and, although Caspar was raised by his mother and a couple of stepfathers, the Wiz and other Company men had frequent contact with him through various extracurricular activities. They helped him develop a dual ident.i.ty. Publicly he was an outspoken socialist, carting around copies of The Communist Manifesto The Communist Manifesto and and Das Kapital Das Kapital, but privately he was training to become a double agent inside the KGB, joining the Civil Air Patrol in his early teens, then dropping out of high school to enlist in the Marines when he turned seventeen. But, as you saw in Russia, juggling both ident.i.ties proved too much for him. Caspar wasn't sure if he hated America or loved it, if he was working for the triumph of the proletariat or trying to expose the duplicities of the Communist paradise. The only thing that never wavered was his loyalty. Not to the Company or the Wiz or Scheider. To Melchior. I can't believe he'd ever shoot him."

Pavel Semyonovitch Ivelitsch listened to Song's lecture respectfully, smiling when the tobacco lobbyist moaned particularly loudly. He didn't understand masochism. The world was full of people trying to lord it over you-why pay someone to add to that? He'd much rather be the one holding the whip. Now he looked at Song pointedly.

"Would it be such a bad thing if he did?"

Song's eyes narrowed. "You think we can go it alone?"

"I think Melchior's ambivalence could be our undoing. His loyalty to the Company is essentially mercenary, but his loyalty to the Wiz is, like Caspar's loyalty to him, personal, and considerable."

"But with the Wiz gone, Melchior knows there's no place left for him in the Company. They already sent Rip Robertson to kill him, and now they're trying to get Caspar to do it. He's got no one else to turn to except except us." us."

"For our sake, I hope you're right."

"Maybe you don't understand what just happened on the phone."

"What do you mean?"

"Dallas? Jack Ruby? The Carousel Club? Melchior could've sent us a coded telegram, but he mentioned those names out loud. On purpose. He's trying to find out if anyone in the Company besides Everton is spying on him."

"Because?"

"Don't play dumb, Pavel. He's not just going rogue. He's going away. He's going to kill everyone who can identify him. When this is over, only you and I will know that he ever existed, let alone that he still does."

A smile flickered over Ivelitsch's mouth. "I'm almost impressed. But can he pull it off?"

"You mean logistically? Or temperamentally? Logistically I think it's doable. For twenty years he's been in the field. He's virtually unknown by Company bra.s.s, let alone other agents. Everton's the only person in Langley besides the Wiz who's seen his face in the past decade."

"What about the other Wiz Kids?"

Song shrugged. "As near as I can tell, that's a story Melchior made up himself."

"And Caspar? Can he kill him?"

"I don't know. Something's changed in him since he came back from Cuba, and it's not just getting hold of this bomb, or even Orpheus. He's become more calculating. Maybe he's just realized that with the Wiz out of the picture, he has to plan a different future for himself, but he's a much more ruthless man than the one I met a decade ago."

Ivelitsch shook his head. "I meant, will Caspar try to kill Melchior?"

Song looked at Ivelitsch sharply. "You know why Caspar was sent to Russia, don't you?"

"Presumably to infiltrate-"

"Caspar couldn't have infiltrated his mother's house. He carries a sign over his head that says 'SPY' in neon letters."

"Then why send him to the Soviet Union?"

"Because even if he was was a spy, he was still a self-proclaimed defector. A former Marine. A man who could confirm the existence of the U2 program, which evidence could have been used to execute Francis Gary Powers had the Politburo chosen to go down that route. He could have been sent on a whistle-stop tour of the hinterlands to lecture on the evils of capitalism while simultaneously keeping him away from state secrets. Ta.s.s and a spy, he was still a self-proclaimed defector. A former Marine. A man who could confirm the existence of the U2 program, which evidence could have been used to execute Francis Gary Powers had the Politburo chosen to go down that route. He could have been sent on a whistle-stop tour of the hinterlands to lecture on the evils of capitalism while simultaneously keeping him away from state secrets. Ta.s.s and Pravda Pravda could have had a field day with him. All he needed was a single photo op with Premier Khrushchev." could have had a field day with him. All he needed was a single photo op with Premier Khrushchev."

"To-kill him?" Ivelitsch's eyebrows went up, though it was impossible to tell if he was amazed or merely amused. "This sounds more like Mother than the Wiz. It also sounds like a suicide mission."