Shift: A Novel

Dallas, TX

November 19, 1963

Caspar’s hands twitched as he uncorked the bottle Melchior’d brought with him—his whole body twitched, not like a drunk’s, but like a man who feels bugs crawling over his skin. He scratched and rubbed and slapped at imaginary pests, pausing only long enough to down one shot of whiskey, then a second.

“You hear ’bout the Wiz? They say Joe Scheider fried his brain. Say he sits around in his bathrobe all day and pisses his pants like a goddamn nutcase.”

“Don’t you believe it,” Melchior said, sipping at his own glass. For once he didn’t feel like drinking. “The Wiz’ll be running ops long after you and I are rotting in some unmarked grave.”

Caspar’s face lit up. “You remember when you shot him? With that slingshot? I wish you’d shot the doc. I never liked him. I liked the Wiz well enough, but I never liked Doc Scheider.”

Melchior sipped his whiskey and let Caspar talk.

“I was just Lee then, wasn’t I? No Caspar then. No Alik. No Alik Hidell or O. H. Lee. Just Lee. I liked it when I was just Lee.”

“You were all alone then.”

Caspar shook his head like a rag doll. “I had my mother. I had you, too.” The assertion was almost violent. “And I had me,” he added in a tiny, self-pitying voice. He downed another shot of whiskey. Then, smiling brightly: “I got a wife now. She had a daughter. Today.”

A wife, a daughter, Melchior thought. Another man would have said their names, but all Caspar did was smile at him hopefully, as if begging Melchior to confirm the truth of what he’d said.

“I got two daughters now,” Caspar said beseechingly. “Two.”

“Who does?” Melchior said. “Caspar? Alik? Or Lee?”

Caspar looked at him with a stricken expression. “I do.”

Melchior tipped more whiskey into Caspar’s glass. Caspar looked at it as though it was one of Joe Scheider’s potions, then, like a good boy, took his medicine. His shirt opened as he leaned forward, and Melchior noticed something around his neck. A string of beads. Skulls, it looked like. Hundreds of them, hanging down inside his shirt.

“They’re trying to make me do things,” Caspar said. “Not me, though. They want Caspar to do them.”

“You are Caspar.”

Caspar shook his head. “I’m Lee.”

“Marina thinks you’re Alik.”

“I’m Lee.”

“You can be whoever you want to be.”

Caspar stared at Melchior with a stricken expression. “Alik Hidell bought the guns,” he whispered. “Not me.”

“Alik Hidell can do it then.”

“I don’t want to do it,” Caspar said.

“Caspar can do it too. Or Alik. Or O. H. Lee.”

Caspar got up and began pacing Melchior’s motel room. He’d placed his .38 on the bureau when they first came in, and he walked to it, stood facing it with his back to Melchior. Melchior’s gun was a warm lump under his arm, Ivelitsch’s telegram a slip of paper in his pocket.

“What’s with the skulls, Caspar?”

Caspar’s left hand slipped under his collar. “I’m Lee,” he whispered. He worried a bead between thumb and forefinger, and Melchior imagined bones breaking beneath the boy’s fingers, cranial plates cracking, teeth snapping out like kernels of corn.

“What’s with the skulls?”

Caspar whirled around to face Melchior. If he’d had his gun in his hand, he could have shot Melchior before the latter had time to react. But he didn’t have his gun in his hand.

“I went to Mexico.”

Melchior sat calmly, not reaching for his gun, not setting his drink down—although an agent with more wits about him than Caspar would have noticed that Melchior’s jacket was unbuttoned now, that he’d moved his drink to his left hand.

“Who went to Mexico? Caspar? Alik? O. H. Lee?”

“I did.” Caspar’s fingers moved from one bead to the next like the housemaids at the orphanage saying their rosaries. “I was trying to get away. But I couldn’t.”

“You were trying to go to Cuba, weren’t you?”

“I wanted to get away.”

“You were trying to kill Castro.”

“It was the Day of the Dead,” Caspar said.

“You wanted to go to Russia, too. To kill Khrushchev.”

“People were walking around with skulls hanging around their necks and painted on their faces. It was like they’d already died but their bodies hadn’t figured it out yet.”

Melchior shook his head. “Lee went to Mexico in October, Caspar. The Day of the Dead is in November. Did you think Lee was already dead?”

“I’m Lee,” Caspar said. “I am.”

“But you know they don’t really want Alik to kill Castro, don’t you? Or Khrushchev?”

“They do,” Caspar said angrily, plaintively. “They want him to shoot everyone.”

“Who?” Melchior didn’t bother to distinguish between target and master.

“Anyone. Everyone.” He was pulling so hard on the string of beads that Melchior thought he was going to break it.

“Who do they want Alik to shoot, Caspar?”

“Lee.” Caspar’s eyes dropped to the floor. “I’m Lee.” And then, in a quiet voice: “You.”

“Who do they want Alik to shoot, Caspar? You know who.”

Caspar lurched across the room again, walked straight into the wall, knocked his head against it over and over.

“They want me to shoot you.”

He was by his gun again. He picked it up this time, then turned and walked over to Melchior as steadily as he could, the gun resting flat on his palms like a dead kitten.

Melchior had something in his hand too. Ivelitsch’s telegram.

“Who do they want Alik to shoot, Caspar?”

Caspar stared at the slip of paper in Melchior’s hands. At the name written there. He looked up at Melchior, his shaking hands outstretched, the gun vibrating on his palms, until finally Melchior took it from him and set it on the table and Caspar threw his face in Melchior’s lap like a humbled dog. Melchior put his hand on Caspar’s head and stroked the wiry hair, resisting the urge to bring his glass down on the back of the boy’s head and put him out of his misery.

“You said you’d take care of Lee, Tommy. You said you’d always take care of Lee.”

Very gently, Melchior lifted the string of skulls from Caspar’s neck and slipped it in his pocket.

“He will,” Melchior said. He stroked the hair and tried not to think of the orphanage. “Tommy will take care of Lee. Right up until the very end.”