Shift: A Novel

Dallas, TX

November 20, 1963

It was nearly midnight when Chandler pulled into the parking lot of the Carousel Club. He’d flown into Dallas just after noon, but it had taken him most of the day to track down a single hit of acid—if Dallas had well-marked Bohemian hotspots like New York, he couldn’t find them, and, following a chain of hints, recommendations, and flat-out guesses, he eventually managed to score in, of all places, Neiman Marcus, where he also picked up several compliments on the clothing he’d taken from BC’s suitcase.

The tab in his hand was of unknown provenance, like a package of batteries lacking an expiration date. It could charge him up all the way or give him only enough energy to emit a dim glow. If he took it and Naz wasn’t in the club, he’d be forced to go after her—after Melchior—unaugmented. But Ivelitsch couldn’t have lied about her whereabouts. Chandler had read it in his brain like a neon sign. She had to be here.

He popped the tab in his mouth. He could process the chemical and normalize the hallucinations and fine-tune his mind in minutes now. The acid, thank God, was good. Not great, but good. When he opened his eyes there was a greenish tint to his vision, but it seemed less impediment than augmentation, like some kind of night-vision lens.

He got out of the car. A tall man sat beside the front door, his lardy ass spilling over either side of the narrow stool that held his linebacker-gone-to-seed frame.

“Evenin’, bub,” he drawled in a voice that could’ve been hostile or friendly, Chandler didn’t know and didn’t care. “It’s five tonight.”

Chandler’s fist caught the bouncer square in the face. The man’s nose exploded in blood, and the stool splintered beneath his flailing limbs and he hit the ground like a rotten tree knocked over in a storm.

Chandler grabbed the man by the wrist and dragged him into the shadow of some crepe myrtle that didn’t so much adorn the front of the club as shrink away from it. He tossed the pieces of stool after him, then pushed open the smoked-glass door. As he went in he noted a flyer pasted to the glass:

BILL DEMAR

Versatile Ventriloquist And Comic

master in the art of extra-sensory perception

A mephitic glow illuminated a long narrow corridor that sloped toward a black curtain. Mid-tempo jazz pushed through the curtain, and smoke, sweat, and stale alcohol saturated everything. Another bouncer sat on the far side of the curtain, and Chandler fought back the urge to use his power to reach into his mind. He had to save his energy. Pick his battles.

“Has the new girl come in?”

The bouncer didn’t take his eyes from the peroxide blonde shimmying off-tempo on stage.

“We got a lotta girls, bub. They’re all good.”

“The new girl,” Chandler insisted. “Short, dark, black eyes.”

“Our girls aren’t really known for their eyes, if you catch my meaning.”

“Olive complexion,” Chandler said, his throat tight. “Dark hair.”

The bouncer must’ve heard the edge in Chandler’s voice, because he turned to him, his mouth curled in a snarl.

“Little Lynn?” The man licked his lips lasciviously. “Jack’s saving her for prime time. Why don’t you grab yourself a beer and a chair and enjoy the show till then? Either that or get the hell out, makes no difference to me.”

Chandler hit him then. He couldn’t help it. The idea of this creature—this crowd—mooning over Naz, waving dollar bills at her, pawing at her, was just too much. Their lust surrounded him like a locker-room funk, and bits and pieces of their disgusting fantasies flickered in his mind like pages ripped out of a blue magazine.

As soon as the bouncer went down, Chandler knew he’d made a mistake. Shouts came from the tables and chairs fell over as men stood up too rapidly, spoiling for a fight to liven up the evening. Chandler could feel their excitement, knew he had to deal with all of them now, instead of just Ruby, wherever he was, or Melchior, if he was here.

Suddenly he noticed the fallen bouncer was reaching inside his jacket, pulling out a gun. He was in Texas, after all. Chandler’s foot lashed out and the gun sailed all the way across the room, smashed into the racks of bottles above the bar.

The music continued to play, but the dancer slowed to a little shake, her bare breasts swaying, her heavily painted eyes staring at the two men like a barbarian queen looking down on a pair of warriors. Chandler caught glimpses of himself and the fallen bouncer through the dancer’s eyes. Apparently the bouncer’d been pressuring her to sleep with him and she was hoping he was about to get his ass kicked but good.

“This is for Felisa,” he said, dropping to one knee and slamming his elbow into the side of the bouncer’s face. He heard the man’s jaw snap over the thumping bass.

A big man in a Stetson was bum-rushing him when he stood up. Chandler felt him before he saw him. The man had no interest in what was happening. He just wanted to hit someone.

Chandler sidestepped, sent the man flying into the wall. There was another patron, this one with a chair. Chandler barely managed to get out of the way. He bumped against a table and his fingers closed around a lowball. He hurled it at the man’s temple and the man went down like a deer shot at close range.

There were four, no, six more patrons. The dancer was among them, a bottle in her hand like a club. Now that her man was down she wanted nothing but to defend him. Chandler had no choice but to push.

“Okay, folks,” he said in the most authoritative voice he could muster. “That’s enough excitement for tonight.”

The six men and one girl paused, blinking. The dancer even rubbed her eyes, wondering how she’d failed to notice the troublemaker was a cop.

“Get on outta here,” Chandler said, adding a little local color, “before I see fit to call your wives and mommas and tell ’em where you been keeping yourselves.”

He continued pushing until the last of the men, supporting the patron Chandler had clocked with the rocks glass, filed out the front door, while the dancer retreated through a curtain at the back.

Chandler sighed now, let his concentration drop. The effort of reaching into so many minds had used up a good portion of his energy, and he needed to save what little he had left.

Something was wrong, though. Where was Ruby? How come he wasn’t out here trying to figure out why he’d been raided? Chandler sent out the lightest feelers he could, trying to discern who was still in the club. He counted three girls in the dressing room, all of them thinking about stuffing their tips into their purses before Ruby could take his cut. There were the two unconscious bouncers, the barman hiding behind the bar. Nothing that felt like Ruby. But …

He pushed toward a mirror set in the wall high over the bar. Not a mirror, he realized. A window. It must be the office. There was a … cloud on the other side of the glass. Not a mind, not as he’d come to understand it, but not a void either.

He looked around, saw a door off to one side of the bar. He went to it, pushed it open. A narrow staircase led up.

He mounted the stairs slowly, pushing all the while at the cloud. It had edges but no dimension. He kept trying to see around it, but there was just more cloud.

His head came up to the floor level of the office. He saw a carpet littered with cigarette butts, coffee cups, soda bottles, the kind of stains you don’t want to look at too closely in a place like this. He mounted higher, reached the landing, turned around.

A voice spoke from the shadows at the opposite end of the room.

“Hello, Chandler.”

He squinted, and Melchior’s face jumped out of the darkness. He pushed then, pushed with all his might, but all he felt was the cloud, and he stumbled forward and nearly fell.

Melchior smiled, and only then did Chandler see the gun in his hand.

Chandler heard the click when Melchior pulled the trigger, but instead of a shot he heard a hiss of compressed air followed immediately by a stabbing punch in his abdomen. He looked down to see a barb dangling from his chest, then felt himself falling to the floor.