Shift. Part 6

Biting back his revulsion, BC picked up the nubbin and brought it to his nose. A rich, deep, spicy scent went right past his nostrils to the back of his throat, and his mouth immediately filled with water. He wanted to swallow, but didn't want the man to see him do it, so he just sat there, the cigar-end resting beneath his nose, his mouth filling with saliva like a plugged sink with a leaky faucet.

The man tongued the end of his cigar until it glistened like a Tootsie Roll. Only then did he reach for his matches, light one (not on the box, but on the back of his thumbnail, which was as rough as an emery board), hold it a fraction of an inch from the cigar's tip. His lips sputtered like a landed fish as he sucked in a series of rapid inhales. Little rings of smoke erupted between each puff, till at length the cigar's cherry glowed red as a nickel pulled from a campfire. He took a longer drag, held it in his mouth a moment, then blew a single perfect smoke ring directly at BC. Though it dissipated before it reached him, it still seemed to BC that the ring slipped around his head like a halo, or a noose.

"So, Beau," the man said in a voice thickened by smoke and satisfaction, "where's J. Edna sending you today?"

Was.h.i.+ngton, DC November 4, 1963

BC's fingers twitched and the cigar-end shot up in the air. He opened his mouth, remembered it was full of saliva and sucked it down, choked, coughed, managed to get his arm up in time, ended up splattering the sleeve of his suit with a constellation of droplets that coalesced into a black wet patch the size of a beef cutlet. A fair amount of spittle had landed on his companion's briefcase as well and, after staring at it like a kindergartner regarding an incriminating pool of urine beneath his desk, BC pulled his sleeve into his palm and began wiping at it with slow, mortified strokes. Wool not being the most absorbent of fabrics, all this did was smear the saliva into long smooth arcs. It did, however, bring up a bit of a s.h.i.+ne on the worn leather of the man's briefcase. opened his mouth, remembered it was full of saliva and sucked it down, choked, coughed, managed to get his arm up in time, ended up splattering the sleeve of his suit with a constellation of droplets that coalesced into a black wet patch the size of a beef cutlet. A fair amount of spittle had landed on his companion's briefcase as well and, after staring at it like a kindergartner regarding an incriminating pool of urine beneath his desk, BC pulled his sleeve into his palm and began wiping at it with slow, mortified strokes. Wool not being the most absorbent of fabrics, all this did was smear the saliva into long smooth arcs. It did, however, bring up a bit of a s.h.i.+ne on the worn leather of the man's briefcase.

When the man finally stopped laughing, he nudged BC's briefcase with the toe of one of his worn sandals. The tag lay so that the address label was exposed.

If found, please return to: Beau-Christian Querrey c/o Federal Bureau of Investigation Was.h.i.+ngton 25 D.C.

The man snickered. "I bet it says the same thing inside your underpants."

BC reached a hand down to turn the address label over, as if this could somehow remove its information from his seatmate's mind.

"Who do you you work for?" work for?"

The man puffed on his cigar before answering. "Let's just say we're in related but tangential fields."

"You're CIA?"

The man's eyes widened. "Maybe you're not as green as you look."

Just then the conductor reappeared with the man's drink-the spy's drink, as unlikely as that seemed. The conductor unfolded a napkin on the table and set the drink on it. He had to nudge the man's briefcase toward the window to do this, and BC could see that his fingers were shaking, half retracted inside his gold-piped maroon cuff like the limb of a frightened turtle. He put his hands behind his back after he set the drink down, then stood there. The hot rum steamed on the table, giving off an aroma of sugar and stale blood.

The CIA man picked up the drink, drained it in one long swallow, set it back in its ring on the napkin.

"That was so good I think I'll have another."

The conductor paused, then picked up the gla.s.s. "Pardon me, sir ..."

"I can't drink 'pardon me, sir,' and you can't feed your family 'thout this job, so I suggest you hurry if you want to keep it." He paused just long enough to make his last word gratuitous; then: "Boy." "Boy."

"Yes, sir. It's just that, sir, there's a, well, you see, sir, there's a charge-"

"h.e.l.l's bells, boy, why didn't you say you was buying? Ask my friend Beau here if he wants one too."

"Of course, sir. But that would be two two drinks, sir-" drinks, sir-"

"It'll be three actually, countin' whatever Beau has. Now ask him what he wants, boy, before you end up buying everyone in this car free drinks from here to Pennsylvany Station."

It seemed to BC that the conductor shrank even more as he turned toward him. He was nothing but a suit now, a pair of frightened eyes.

Before the man could ask, BC shook his head. "I'm all right, s-sir."

"Oh, I like like that!" the CIA man said as the conductor scurried off. "'S-s-s-s-s-sir.' Trying to show some that!" the CIA man said as the conductor scurried off. "'S-s-s-s-s-sir.' Trying to show some respeck respeck to the Negro people, even though it don't come to the Negro people, even though it don't come nat'ral." nat'ral." The man leaned back in his seat, kneeing BC's legs toward the aisle so he could stretch out his own. His accent, which came and went with the conductor, s.h.i.+fted once again, from the fields to the Big House. "Lemme guess," he said in the relaxed drawl of a plantation owner, "you a Southern boy, but just barely. Maryland, maybe DC proper. Maybe even Arlington. But no farther down. If you was from farther down, you wouldn't-a stuttered when you said The man leaned back in his seat, kneeing BC's legs toward the aisle so he could stretch out his own. His accent, which came and went with the conductor, s.h.i.+fted once again, from the fields to the Big House. "Lemme guess," he said in the relaxed drawl of a plantation owner, "you a Southern boy, but just barely. Maryland, maybe DC proper. Maybe even Arlington. But no farther down. If you was from farther down, you wouldn't-a stuttered when you said sir sir. You wouldn't-a said it a-tall."

BC stared at the man, trying to decide what to say. In the end, manners won out.

"I'm from Takoma Park."

"h.e.l.l, you almost home then."

With a start, BC realized the train was moving. Had been for some time-they'd crossed the Maryland border already.

"Lemme guess. PG County? You got yourself a little bit of a race problem in PG, don't you? Darkies moving in, flatbed trucks loaded down with corn-shuck mattresses and pickaninnies. Your people get out in time? h.e.l.l, what am I saying? Look at that suit. Of course they didn't. Stuck with some big old row house, I bet, tall and narrow in the front but stretching way back to one-a them little kitchen gardens that don't get enough sunlight to grow anything besides beans and lettuce. Couldn't sell a place like that for ten cents on the dollar right now, what with the character of the neighborhood changing the way it has. Well, you couldn't sell it to a white family anyway."

The man's ability to read BC was a bit unnerving. There was a stunted apple tree in the back garden, but still.

He reached for his book and held it up as if it were a s.h.i.+eld. "If you don't mind-"

"Wuzzat?" the man said, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up his face and squinting at the book as though it were a Polynesian totem or the innards of a j.a.panese transistor radio.

"It's, uh, a novel. A work of, um, 'alternative history.'"

"Huh. Not too too redundant." redundant."

"Beg pardon?"

"C'mon, Beau. History's full of alternate versions, depending on who's doing the telling. What'd your momma call the Civil War?"

BC colored slightly. "The War of Northern Aggression."

"See what I mean? To good old-fas.h.i.+oned Christians like your momma, the war was all about common Yankees trampling on Southern pride. To Negroes like our overstepping conductor, it was about ending slavery. To Abe Lincoln, it was about preserving the Union. It's just a matter of who you ask." Without warning he s.n.a.t.c.hed the book from BC's hands. "Lemme guess. J. Edna told you to look for 'anti-American content' so he can decide whether to put"-he glanced at the book cover-"Mr. Philip K. d.i.c.k on a watch list, along with Norman Mailer and Jimmy Baldwin and Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs and Henry Miller and Ken Kesey and-stop me if I get one wrong. No? Jesus Chris, Beau, who do you work for? The FBI or the Library of Congress?"

"I'm looking for subversive content. Not anti-American."

"How in the h.e.l.l can a novel be subversive? It's all made up."

"It can put ideas in people's heads."

"Well, golly, we wouldn't want to do that, would we?"

BC smiled tightly and held out his hand. "Still, if it's all the same to you, I think I'll get back to it."

"Get back to it?" the man scoffed. "You haven't even started it."

"How did you-"

"No bookmark. And if I know my Beau Query Query-and I think I do-I bet you got yourself a personalized bookmark that moves from book to book, and you never start a new one before finis.h.i.+ng the last."

"My name name is is Querrey Querrey. Beau-Christian Querrey." Querrey."

"Don't blame me for that. I only just met you." The man grinned. "C'mon. Show me the bookmark. Come on." Come on."

Despite himself, BC snorted and reached into his breast pocket, pulled out a wafer-thin rectangle the size of a charge plate. It was made of ivory, however, rather than cardboard or plastic, and had a finely engraved image of- "Why, that's just too too poignant, ain't it?" The CIA man s.n.a.t.c.hed the bookmark from BC's hand. "Huck and Tom rafting down the Mississippi. Poignant and pointed. Practically poignant, ain't it?" The CIA man s.n.a.t.c.hed the bookmark from BC's hand. "Huck and Tom rafting down the Mississippi. Poignant and pointed. Practically on-the-nose," on-the-nose," he said, tapping his broad nostrils with the corner of the card. "Well, now, that's got a edge to it." He rasped the bookmark over the s.h.i.+ny stubble on his cheek. "Bet you use that to cut pages, too, don't you?" he said, tapping his broad nostrils with the corner of the card. "Well, now, that's got a edge to it." He rasped the bookmark over the s.h.i.+ny stubble on his cheek. "Bet you use that to cut pages, too, don't you?"

BC would have s.n.a.t.c.hed the bookmark from the man's hand, but it had belonged to his mother, and his mother had taught him not to s.n.a.t.c.h.

"But now lemme think here," the man said, scratching his face with the bookmark and staring at the book in his other hand. "Subversive content, sub-ver-sive con-tent. Why, that sounds like COINTELPRO work to me. So I gotta ask: what'd you do to get demoted?"

"Counterintelligence is one of the most prestigious-" BC stopped himself. This interrogation had reached an absurd pitch. Had the man researched him before getting on the train? And if so, why?

"See, only two kinds of agent end up in Counterintelligence: the ones who've served the Bureau long enough to prove to J. Edna that their first loyalty is to him rather than the law, in which case they're sent out to infiltrate whatever group's got his panties in a bunch-socialists, suffragettes, and of course the darkies-and the ones who're a little too independent for their own good. Maybe they open up a closed case to prove someone was convicted on faulty or, dare I say it, falsified evidence, or they call the local paper before they make a bust to make sure their picture ends up on the front page. The only thing J. Edna hates more than an open case is when a story about the Bureau mentions someone's name other than his. Of course he can't fire you for doing your job, so instead you get mustered out of-" He squinted at BC. "Organized Crime? Behavioral Profiling?"

"Profiling." BC sighed.

"And now you're reading weirdo novels looking for subversive content and taking long train rides to-well, I guess we're back where we started, ain't we? Where are are you heading today, Beau?" you heading today, Beau?"

The man's read on his career was so accurate that BC had to laugh, if uncomfortably.

"At this point I'm pretty sure there's nothing I can say about myself that you don't already know, so why don't you tell me something: were you really in Cuba?"

The man's lips curled oddly around his cigar, and it took BC a moment to realize he was smiling.

"Would you like me to have been in Cuba, Beau?"

"I'd like you to be in Cuba right now."

A roar of laughter erupted from the man's mouth.

"D'you hear that, boy? He'd like me to be in Cuba right now! That's the best thing I heard since you called me a n.i.g.g.e.r!"

BC looked over his shoulder, saw the Negro conductor marching slow and steady down the aisle with a gla.s.s in each hand. He set the drinks down and scurried away, even as wet smoky laughter continued to burble out of BC's companion's throat.

"Let me explain the difference between an intelligence agent and a federal agent, Beau. See, a spy understands information's value isn't its accuracy, but how it can be deployed. The question isn't, Was I in Cuba, but, Can I make you believe believe I was in Cuba?" I was in Cuba?"

BC couldn't help himself. He made a grab for his book, but the man was faster, held it above his head like a game of keep-away. But then, smiling, he tossed it to BC, who held it in both hands like a puppy for one embarra.s.sing moment, then set it on the table.

The man sucked on his cigar and smiled wickedly. "What was his name?"

"Who?" BC said, although he knew what the man was talking about.

"The guy you got out of jail."

BC rolled his eyes. "Roosevelt Jones."

"Well, that answers my next question, don't it?"

"Yes." BC sighed. "He was a Negro."

The CIA man scrutinized him a moment, and then a broad smile spread across his face.

"You got your picture in the paper too, didn't you?"

BC had been waiting for the question. "Well, I couldn't very well get an innocent man out of jail and then leave a crime unsolved, could I?"

The CIA man laughed even louder than he had before. "Well, get a load-a you! I wouldn't-a thought you had it in you." Suddenly the man's voice leveled. "Well?"

Once again BC knew what the man was referring to; once again he pretended ignorance.

"Well what?"

"Yeah, you might be a good detective, but you're a terrible actor. So just tell me: did the Bureau manufacture evidence to convict n.i.g.g.e.r Jones?"

BC steeled himself.

"No."

The man smiled again, but this time it was a mean smile. Mean, but not surprised, which only made BC's shame greater.

"Like I said, Beau: you're a terrible actor."

BC's eyes dropped, and there was the novel the director had given him that morning. He couldn't decide which was more absurd: the man sitting across from him, or the fact that he was being paid six thousand dollars a year to read a book.

Suddenly an idea came to him.

"Are you really CIA?" he said. "Or is this just some elaborate prank the director worked up to, I don't know, trick me into divulging Bureau secrets to unauthorized personnel?"

The man placed a spread-fingered hand on his chest, and for the first time BC noticed the hole under his lapel, just over his heart. "Did I ever say I was CIA?"

"Because if you are are CIA," BC continued, "it seems like an awfully big coincidence that we're on the same train, in the same car, at the same time." CIA," BC continued, "it seems like an awfully big coincidence that we're on the same train, in the same car, at the same time."

"Coincidental?" The man waggled his cigar like Groucho Marx. "Maybe even suspicious? Or just too good to be true? Who knows, maybe the Company sent someone to follow you up to Millbrook?"

BC opened his mouth, then closed it. This wasn't proof that the man was CIA, after all. He could still be the director's stool pigeon. He'd heard stranger rumors about his boss.

"So tell me, Beau." BC's companion was clearly enjoying his indecision. "What'd the director tell you about Project Orpheus? I'm guessing from your choice of reading material that he either told you nothing at all, or, even more likely, he told you everything everything, and you can't quite bring yourself to believe it, because then you'd have to admit to yourself that not only the Central Intelligence Agency but the Federal Bureau of Investigation is spending thousands-millions-of dollars on investigations that can only be called, well, stupid as s.h.i.+t. Pure science fiction," he said, tapping the cover of BC's book. "Truth serums. Brainwas.h.i.+ng. Manchurian candidates even."

"The Manchurian Candidate Manchurian Candidate8 is a novel," BC said, grabbing his book and staring down at the cover. is a novel," BC said, grabbing his book and staring down at the cover. An electrifying novel of our world as it might have been An electrifying novel of our world as it might have been. He flipped the book open and pretended to read the first page, which happened to be blank.

"C'mon, Beau, I'm trying to help you out. Restore your faith in your employer. You don't think the director'd send an agent of the prestigious Counterintelligence Program all the way up to New York State to check out a bit of science fiction, do you? There's got to be something else involved, right? Someone Someone else maybe? A VIP who has to be handled delicately? Lemme guess. He mentioned Chandler Forrestal? Told you how prominent his family is?" else maybe? A VIP who has to be handled delicately? Lemme guess. He mentioned Chandler Forrestal? Told you how prominent his family is?"

BC did his best to remain impa.s.sive, even as he turned the page so violently he nearly ripped it. If this guy didn't work for the director, he had a bug in his office.

"Lemme save you the trouble of guessing. It's not Mr. Forrestal Director Hoover's worried about. It's Jack Kennedy."

Despite himself, BC giggled. "What, does he nip up there for the weekend in Marine One?"

"Gosh, that'd be fun, wouldn't it, albeit a misallocation of taxpayer dollars. But the truth is the president of the United States of America doesn't have to travel four hundred miles to get his fix. One of his girlfriends brings it to him. Now, how do you think the public would react if they found out, one, that the president has a squeeze on the side, two, that she's supplying him with a drug that has the potential to render the leader of the free world susceptible to mind control, and, three, that said drug is being tested by the Central Intelligence Agency-an organization that just happened to put together a private little war in Cuba a few years back that almost launched World War Three?" The man puffed on his cigar. "I mean, certain people might get a little worked up about that, don't you think? If not John Q. Public, then maybe Barry Goldwater or Nelson Rockefeller?"

BC could only stare at the man. One heard stories, of course. Rumors. Marilyn Monroe. But who wouldn't sleep with Marilyn Monroe? Even Jackie couldn't hold that against him.