Shift: A Novel

Cambridge, MA

November 1, 1963

Chandler found it disconcerting to have to look up at Eddie Logan. The last time he’d seen him, Percy Logan’s little brother had been as short as a walking stick and almost as thin. Outwardly at least, he’d become a man.

Logan attempted to keep a neutral look on his face, but a smirk flicked at the corner of his mouth.

“Well well well,” he said as his eyes took in the whole of Chandler’s book-lined cave. “How the mighty have fallen.”

It had been so long since Chandler thought of himself as one of “the mighty” that Logan’s words didn’t really hit home. But the tone—especially coming from someone he still thought of as a pipsqueak—the tone stung.

“You must feel clever,” Chandler said. “Vindicated. What’s it been? Eleven years, three months, nineteen days?” There was an awkward pause after this figure rolled off Chandler’s tongue. Something prompted him to give the rest of it. “And three hours. And thirteen minutes.”

Logan’s eyebrows twitched. “Jesus Christ, Chandler, we were kids. You don’t think I’ve held a grudge for—how long? Eleven years, three months, eighteen—”

“Nineteen.”

A bemused smile crossed Logan’s face and he shook his head slowly. “If you want to know the truth, I was casing establishments for Naz when I saw you slumped over a martini at the King’s Head. I guess I couldn’t resist.”

“‘Casing establishments’? You were pimping her is what you were doing!”

“If the shoe fits—”

Chandler was up before he knew it. Had grabbed Logan by the lapels and, despite the fact that the former pipsqueak was now several inches taller than him, slammed him against the wall.

“How many other girls have you done this to? In how many other cities? Do you have girls skulking around bars in Greenwich Village and Georgetown, too? Maybe a little West Coast action?”

“Most girls think it’s fun.” Logan’s voice was tight.

“Fun?!” Chandler’s knuckles were white on Logan’s lapels. “Your little bit of power’s gone to your head.”

“Nobody made Naz do anything she wasn’t already doing. Least of all me. Or did she leave that part out?”

“Let him go, Chandler.” Naz’s hand was on his shoulder, and it seemed to Chandler that she wanted him to let go of more than Logan. He held Eddie’s gaze for another moment, then released him. As soon as he stepped away, Naz put herself where he had been, and, though she didn’t touch Logan, her manner made Chandler’s seem benign by comparison.

“What did you do to us, Agent Logan? We have a right to know.”

The fury pouring off Naz was so palpable that Logan seemed to shrink against the wall. “Well now,” he said hoarsely. “That’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, isn’t it?”

Chandler put his hand on Naz’s elbow and drew her away from the wall. Logan relaxed visibly.

“Naz said there was some kind of drug in our drink.”

Logan took a moment to smooth his lapels with hands that were still shaking slightly. “Lysergic acid diethylamide. LSD for short. Or acid, as some of its more visionary users are starting to refer to it. That was the base of the concoction anyway. But the boys in Technical Services are like chefs—always adding a dash of this and a pinch of that. Only they know what the final formula was. Naz was only supposed to give it to you, but I guess she was feeling adventurous.”

“I don’t care what it’s called or what it’s made of. I want to know what it does.”

Logan shook his head. “The real question is, what happened with you and Naz? Because I’ve seen dozens of different reactions—”

Chandler harrumphed here, and Logan colored visibly.

“—but I’ve never seen two people just stare into each other’s eyes for nearly five hours as though they were reading each other’s minds.”

Naz and Chandler would have made bad spies: at Logan’s last phrase, they couldn’t help but look at each other, then look hurriedly away. For the first time since he’d arrived, Logan smiled.

“O the subtlety!”

Naz cleared her throat. “There was—”

“Naz, don’t!” Chandler stopped her. “You don’t know these people. Once they get their claws into you, they never let go.”

“Oh, I know, Chandler.” Naz’s bitterness was so strong that he had to step back from her. “But he’s all we’ve got.”

They stared at each other for a long moment. Finally Chandler nodded, and Naz turned back to Logan.

“There was a … connection. A mental connection.”

“Huh,” Logan said. “In spy school, they teach us that reluctant interviewees tend to understate the facts, often by eighty or ninety percent. If that statistic is true, then I’m guessing you guys experienced something like full-on telepathy.” He snorted at the absurdity of what he’d just said, but Naz didn’t snort, and neither did Chandler.

“Was that a possibility?” Chandler said in a level voice.

Logan just stared at him a moment, then shook his head as if to clear it.

“It depends who you talk to. Talk to Joe Scheider, he’ll say don’t be crazy, we’re just trying to make a truth serum, a knockout potion, maybe our own Manchurian candidate. But talk to Allen Ginsberg, Ken Kesey, that lot, they’ll tell you the sky’s the limit. Telepathy, the astral plane, naked walks on the rings of Saturn.” He looked between Naz and Chandler and shook his head again. “If you’d backed me into a corner and forced me to pick sides, I guess I’d’ve gone with the headshrinker. But there you go. Sometimes even the beatniks can be right.”

Chandler nodded. “What’s the Gate of Orpheus?”

Logan glanced at Chandler sharply.

“How did you—”

“I pulled it out of your head,” Chandler said coldly, “when you were jerking off on the other side of the mirror.”

Logan’s cheeks turned bright red. His mouth opened, then closed.

“Jesus Christ.” He shook his head incredulously. “Look, all I know—”

He broke off again, his jaw hanging open as the magnitude of what had happened settled into his brain. Nearly a minute passed before he took a deep breath and started speaking again.

“All I know is that some scientists have theorized the existence of a receptor in the brain. Just as certain people have unusually keen senses of smell or taste or rhythm, the hypothesis went, so other people might have retained some vestigial receptiveness to ergot alkaloids, which is what LSD is made from. Ergot’s a fungus that affects most grains. It’s one of those things like alcohol—its existence is so enmeshed with human civilization that most people have developed a genetic resistance to it. But, just as many Indians are especially susceptible to the effects of alcohol because they didn’t evolve with it, it seemed possible that there might also be a population, albeit a much smaller one, similarly sensitive to ergotism. Even its proponents admitted that the possibility was remote, but the consequences if it proved true were so profound that the Company couldn’t ignore it. We know the Soviets are conducting their own experiments, and we can’t risk falling behind.”

It was a moment before anyone spoke. Then Naz said:

“So how do we find out if Chandler possesses this receptor?”

Logan looked at Naz as if he’d forgotten she was in the room.

“We take a little road trip,” Logan said. “It’s time you two met LSD’s fairy godfather.”