Shift: A Novel

Washington, DC

November 14–15, 1963

“I don’t understand how you let this happen!”

Melchior’s growl practically rattled the paintings off the walls of Song’s office. Although maybe it was just his feet: the shoes he’d taken from Rip came down so heavily on the small Persian carpet that it seemed he was trying to grind it to dust.

Song sat at her desk, rubbing a knot on the side of her head. Melchior could tell from her pout that she was pressing hard enough for it to hurt.

“I suspected the man was KGB. Now I know.”

“And this one’s FBI.” Melchior jerked a thumb at BC. “I thought you said your establishment was secure, yet somehow you’ve managed to run afoul of the three largest intelligence and law-enforcement agencies in the world in the space of a single night.”

“Maybe if you’d told me what I was dealing with—”

“A mentally unstable twenty-three-year-old prostitute with a drinking problem? I thought you were supposed to be able to handle things like that.”

“Nancy—”

“Naz.” BC spoke for the first time since Melchior had shown up. He lifted his head slowly, a lump the size of a dumpling visible through his high-and-tight. “Her name is Naz.”

“Another thing you didn’t tell me,” Song said to Melchior.

“What other thing?” Melchior demanded again. “What didn’t I tell you?”

“She … did something. I don’t know how to describe it.”

“Yes, you do,” BC said.

Song and Melchior both turned to him.

“She made you feel bad,” BC said. “So bad you wanted to kill yourself.” BC looked up at Melchior. “Just like Eddie Logan did.”

“Who’s Eddie Logan?” Song asked.

“He was a CIA agent,” BC said.

“If you don’t shut your fucking mouth, I’m going to—” Melchior broke off, walked the two steps to BC’s chair, and backhanded him across his bruised skull. “Shut up.”

“You sent a fugitive from CIA here without telling me? Good God. I almost set her up with Drew Everton. It’s amazing KGB got her before the entire Company came down on this place. What the hell were you thinking?”

Melchior glared at BC for a moment before turning back to Song.

“I was thinking …” He shook his head. “I don’t know what I was thinking. My stateside contacts are thin. You were all I had.”

“I don’t mind that you turned to me. I mind that you didn’t fill me in. Do you think I would have let her out of the residence if I’d known CIA was looking for her, let alone KGB?” She paused. “Melchior, you have to tell me what you’re doing. Not just with Naz.” Her eyes burned into his. “With Orpheus.”

Song’s face was inscrutable. Was she trying to help him, Melchior wondered, or herself? He didn’t know. And what did he want from her anyway? Assistance, or something more?

What the hell was he doing? Risking his life to squirrel Orpheus away from the Company, and then Cuba, too. If only Chandler hadn’t disappeared. If only it hadn’t been Rip the Company sent after him. If only KGB hadn’t entered the fray. He could have handled one thing at a time: Song, or Naz, or Chandler, or Cuba. But all of them, all at once. It was too much.

“Melchior,” Song said again. “Are you going—?”

“Don’t say it!” He jerked a thumb at BC. “We have to get rid of this one first.”

Song’s eyebrows flicked, just once. “Killing FBI agents? You have come a long way since the last time I saw you.”

“Believe me, there’s nothing I’d like to do more than drill Beau here through the eyes, but that’s the kind of heat I don’t need on top of everything else. But don’t worry, there are other ways to take care of him—ways he’ll enjoy a lot less than death.” He pulled a vial from his pocket. “How’s Garrison’s head? Can he work a camera?”

Song paused a moment, then smiled. “I think he can manage.”

An hour later, Song and Melchior stood in the open archway between Lee Anne’s sitting room and bedroom. The only sound in the suite was the clicking of a camera shutter and a faint, confused moaning.

On the bed a headless, naked male torso and a pair of well-muscled legs stuck out from beneath Lee Anne’s large firm buttocks and wild mane of hair. BC’s skin seemed even whiter against Lee Anne’s chocolate brownness, and his moans echoed out from her nether regions.

“What did you give him?”

“A combination of things. LSD, coupled with methamphetamine to keep him awake, and six shots of Scotch to make sure his breath smells extra sweet when the cops find him.”

“I hope you didn’t raid my private supply. It costs fifty dollars a bottle.”

“It costs someone fifty dollars a bottle. I doubt it’s you.”

“The LSD seems to have had a suppressing effect on him.”

Melchior chuckled. “Somehow I don’t think it’s the drugs that’re keeping BC’s little soldier down.”

“How’s this?” Lee Anne’s back was arched so that her ass peeked out from beneath the feathered hem of her negligee, and her breasts sat atop her brassiere as though on a shelf.

“You look great, baby,” Melchior said, “but we gotta see his face. Scoot down his chest a bit.”

“Naz?” BC said when his mouth was uncovered. His hands fumbled at Lee Anne’s breasts. “I’m sorry, they’re just so”—he shook one up and down—“bouncy.”

Song stiffened at the mention of Naz. “There’s something about that girl.”

“You should meet her boyfriend.”

“Orpheus?”

Melchior waved the question away.

“Let’s finish this first.”

“Actually,” Song said, “I’m more concerned about this.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a piece of paper, handed it to Melchior.

TELL MELCHIOR. I KNOW ABOUT CUBA.

—P.S. IVELITSCH

Melchior crumpled the note in his hand. “Fuck.”

Song waited. Then, when it was clear Melchior wasn’t going to be more forthcoming: “Can I offer some advice?”

“Shoot.”

“You need an organization.”

“To do what?”

“To do what you’re doing.”

“Don’t say it.”

Song turned him away from the bed and made him look her in the eye.

“Melchior,” she said. “You’re going rogue.”

Melchior was silent a long time. He looked down at the crumpled piece of paper in his hand.

“Fuck,” he said again.

Song surprised him then. She put her hand on his shoulder, turned her face to his. Somehow the little knot on the side of her head made her that much more attractive.

“Yes,” she said. “Let’s.”

“Flip him over,” Garrison was saying as they left the room. “And hand me that newel ball. He thinks popping me upside the head was painful, but it ain’t nothing to what it’ll feel like when I stick that piece-a wood where the sun don’t shine.”