Shift: A Novel (4 page)

Suddenly one of the men jumped to the ground, and Melchior snapped into focus. What was in the truck didn’t matter until the six men surrounding it were eliminated. The two machine guns were the real problem. He positioned himself as best he could, having to work with the available chinks in the siding. He started with his pistol since he could re-aim it faster than the guard’s bolt-action Carcano. He drew a bead on the Soviet guard just below the hairline of his scrubbrush–thick crew cut, fingered the crusty hole over his heart, whispered:

“Timor mortis exultat me.”

Just as he squeezed the trigger, he wondered what would happen if someone shot the bomb.

As Naz walked past the powder room to the pay phone, a tall
figure stepped out of the shadows, his eyes lost under the low brim of a fedora.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. You’re some kind of genius at what you do, you know that?”

There was as much jealousy in the man’s words as disgust, and Naz felt a chill run down her spine.

“Agent Morganthau. I didn’t realize you were here.” She jerked her head in the direction of the bar. “I was just coming to call you. I think he’s ready to go.”

“Looks to me like he came and went a long time ago.” Morganthau was shaking his head. “I feel as though I’m witnessing the secrets of the harem.”

There was something wrong, Naz thought. Morganthau was
too
disgusted. Too jealous. Remembering her suspicions when Chandler mentioned his family connections, she said, “Do you know him?”

Beneath the brim of his hat, Morganthau’s thin lips curled into something that she thought was supposed to be a sheepish grin, but came off as a sneer.

“Chandler Forrestal. He was in my older brother’s class at Andover. Captain of the lacrosse team and the debating club. Uncle was secretary of defense, Daddy ran one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies this side of the Atlantic until he gambled everything on a government contract that his brother personally blocked. He hung himself when Chandler was thirteen, and a year later Uncle Jimmy jumped out a window of the Bethesda Naval Hospital. Chandler went off to Harvard like he was supposed to, but instead of going prelaw he studied philosophy, then went for his doctorate in, what was it, comparative religion? Something ridiculous like that. I heard he even talked about becoming a man of the cloth. But I see he’s become a man of the bottle instead.”

Naz listened as Morganthau rattled off this capsule history, less interested in the facts than the vehemence with which Morganthau recounted them. Although she had no idea what had prompted his anger, it was clear he didn’t just know Chandler: he’d set this up. This was more than a prank, or research for that matter. This was revenge.

“You make it sound like he’s a murderer. Why should you care if he wants to study religion, or preach it for that matter?”

“Because he turned his back on his duty. His family. His
country.”

“Maybe he had something he had to do for himself. Before he could help ‘his country.’”

But Morganthau was shaking his head. “Men like us don’t have the luxury of ironic quotation marks, now less than ever. There’s a war on, and the stakes, in case you missed the little brouhaha in Cuba last year, are bigger than ever.”

All of a sudden Naz realized she was drunk. Drunk and tired. Terribly, terribly tired.

“Why are you making me do this?”

Morganthau’s lips quivered. Smile or smirk, Naz couldn’t tell.

“Because I knew he wouldn’t be able to say no to you.”

“Not
him,”
Naz said.
“This
. You’ve said there are other girls. Girls who want to do it. Who find it exciting. So why make me do it against my will?”

Morganthau’s head turned toward the main room, then back to Naz. He put his hand on her shoulder—not heavily, but not altogether lightly either.

“No one’s making you do anything, Naz. Just say the word and you won’t ever have to ask someone to buy you a drink again.”

Morganthau’s hand squeezed Naz’s shoulder, not tightly, but not loosely either. His lips were visible beneath the shadow of his hat, moist, parted slightly, his breath hot in her face and laced with Irish whiskey. For a moment the two of them just stood like that, but then, when Morganthau leaned in for a kiss, she stepped back and shrugged his hand off her shoulder. Morganthau inhaled sharply. His head tipped back and for a moment his whole face was visible, the boyish charm disfigured by lust and contempt. Then he hunched forward and it disappeared again, although the feelings still radiated out of him like heat from an open oven.

He shoved a hand into his pocket. “Here. Give him this instead of the usual stuff.”

Naz slipped the glassine into her purse, less wary than weary. “A new formula?”

“In a manner of speaking.” Another mirthless smirk flickered over Morganthau’s thin lips. “Give me ten minutes before you head out. I definitely want to set the camera up for this one.”

Melchior was so focused on his target that he was almost
surprised when a neat hole appeared in the Russian’s forehead. A moment later the sound of his pistol going off slammed into his ears. The mob guard with the M-16 was already turning, and Melchior’s second shot caught him rather more messily in the side of the head.

God bless Lucky Louie. Suspecting a double-cross, he immediately unloaded his gun into the remaining Russian. He fired wildly, and Melchior thought he heard the ricochet of a bullet bouncing off metal. Nothing exploded, though, so he kept shooting.

With a military target, Melchior’s plan would have had much less chance of success. Soldiers would have kicked their way out of the mill at three different places, and even if they hadn’t managed to take Melchior out, at least one would have gotten away, and with him any hope of that corner office in Langley. But these were mafia men. Thugs. Used to digging in against police officers who’d just as soon take kickbacks as tough out a gunfight. And certainly none of them was willing to be a sacrificial lamb: anytime Louie tried to give an order, one of the other two—Sal and Vinnie seemed to be their names—invariably screamed, “Shut the fuck up, Louie!”

Even so, it took twenty minutes for Melchior to pick off the first two, at which point Louie ran. Melchior took him down with a shot to the pelvis. Louie’s left leg spun limply away from his body, and Melchior imagined the mill hadn’t heard screams like that since the old
hacendado
whipped his workers for not processing the sugar fast enough.

Louie’s gun lay inches from his body, but he was so blinded by pain that he didn’t think of reaching for it until Melchior was virtually on top of him, at which point Melchior just stepped on his spasming fingers. The soles of his sandals were so thin that he could feel Louie’s fingers clawing at the soft, fertile soil. Melchior kicked the gun out of
reach and knelt down. Louie’s mouth was clamped shut now, but he was still moaning like a dog run over by a truck.

“Who sent you here?”

Louie stared right at Melchior, but Melchior wasn’t sure if he saw him or not.
“¿Qué?”

“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 pissant 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 prick 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
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 dipshit.”

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 Revolución.”

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 whore. 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 wiseass.

“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. “Bastard 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?”

“Vassily—that was the guy I was nice enough to shoot for you—Vassily 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
for once, put one against the other instead-a messing around in no-account places like Cuba, you might actually manage to
win
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 motherfucker any day—and I fucking
hate
those Paddy bastards.”

“You do realize your boss gave Kennedy Chicago, which gave him Illinois, which gave him the election? What in hell 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?”

“Can’t keep fucking 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 bloody nose. Melchior thought he would’ve liked the guy, if the circumstances 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?”

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 glassine 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 gods. 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 glassine, dropped one in Chandler’s glass, the other in hers. She swished with her fingers, and in a second they were gone.