Shift: A Novel

You’re just his patsy.

Caspar leaned forward, looked through the scope again. Melchior was still right there. He could do it. Do what the Company had asked him, and maybe then he could be Lee again. Just Lee. But in order to do that he would have to kill Tommy. But—but Tommy was already dead. Melchior had said so. Just like he’d said Lee was dead. There was just Melchior now. Melchior and Caspar. If Caspar killed him, he’d be all alone.

Do it, the voice hissed in his ear. Do it!

A tap on the shoulder brought Chandler’s attention back to the street. Melchior’s smile hadn’t faded, but his voice was deadly serious.

“I should tell you that if I don’t check in at exactly 1 p.m., Naz will be killed anyway. Just in case you’re getting any crazy ideas about having Caspar shoot me instead of the president.”

Chandler glared at him. If pure hatred could have killed Melchior, he’d have burst into flames. But all he did was return Chandler’s gaze with that implacable smile on his face. Chandler pushed at Melchior’s brain again, but all he got was that spongy nothingness.

“Not me,” Melchior said, shaking his head. “The president.”

The president. Chandler looked up. He could see him now. His car had just made the turn off Houston onto Elm. In a minute or two he’d pass through the Triple Underpass and get on the freeway and be away, safe to lead America to a new era of peace and tolerance, to Africa and Asia and all the way to the goddamned moon. His smile was as bright as the noon sun.

In desperation Chandler cast his mind wider, looking for someone in the crowd who could help him. But who? If he tipped off one of the policemen or Secret Service agents and got Melchior arrested, he was as good as killing Naz. If he started some kind of mass panic like he had in Texas, who knew how many people might die.

He found himself thinking of the burning boy. Even though the figure was nothing more than a figment of his imagination—his mixed with BC’s and all the other minds he’d come into contact with—he somehow felt that it would know what to do. A part of him willed the flaming angel to make an appearance, but it refused to come.

“It’s now or never, Chandler,” Melchior said. “Do it. Or Naz dies.”

Not knowing what else to do, Chandler reached out to the only other mind he could think of: the president’s. He felt the ache in the man’s arm as he waved at the crowd, in his jaw as he flashed that famous smile. The ache that throbbed in his lower back beneath his brace despite all the painkillers and other drugs that flowed through his veins. In the past week alone he’d taken Demerol, Ritalin, Librium, thyroid hormone, testosterone, and gamma globulin, and before he consented to get in the car this morning he’d had two injections of procaine to ease the pain in his back. Good lord, Chandler thought, the president of the United States was on more drugs than he was!

As he smiled and waved at the last of the spectators, Jack Kennedy suddenly found himself thinking about Mary Meyer. How funny to think about her now! He glanced over at Jackie guiltily, then looked away again. It wasn’t the fact that he’d slept with her that made him feel guilty—he and Jackie had worked out that part of their marriage a long time ago. It was the fact that she’d given him marijuana and LSD several times, and in the White House to boot. Jackie would’ve flipped if she’d found out about that—she had enough trouble covering up his affairs and his illnesses. Jack hadn’t cared much for the hallucinatory aspects of LSD—he saw enough unbelieveable things in his daily security briefing—but the euphoria was the best painkiller he’d ever experienced. For twelve blissful hours the pain in his back had been like a glob of Silly Putty he could knead and play with. God, that’d be nice right now. Here it was just after noon and his back was killing him, and instead of relief he had to face an interminable luncheon at the Trade Mart, all for the sake of securing a half dozen votes that probably wouldn’t make any difference at all next November.

As Chandler absorbed all of this he stared at the president’s retreating form. So Jack Kennedy was one of the chosen few who’d been turned on to LSD. Who’d’ve guessed?

Then, with a start, he realized someone else was looking at Kennedy, his gaze doubly focused through the sights of his rifle and Chandler’s own attention. Chandler felt Caspar’s finger on the trigger, realized it was starting to squeeze, and, not knowing what else to do, he pushed at Caspar’s mind, and at the same time snapped open his umbrella.

“What the—!” Standing on the edge of Dealey Plaza, James Tague jerked his head as something stung his cheek. At the same time, he heard a loud pop from off to his right.

“Oh no, no, no!” John Connally said in the seat in front of the president’s. Chandler heard him clearly. He knew that the governor of Texas had recognized the sound of a gunshot, unlike the president and his wife and most of the security detail—including the limo driver, who, mistaking the sound for a blowout, stepped on the brakes instead of the gas. At least Caspar had missed. But he was getting ready to fire again, and this time it was Kennedy Chandler pushed. Duck! he screamed into the president’s mind, and the president leaned forward. But it was too late. Chandler felt the bullet slam into the base of Kennedy’s neck, nick his spine, and spit out of his throat just below his Adam’s apple. Somehow, though—a miracle!—it missed hitting any vital organs, even as it ripped its way through Governor Connally’s abdomen and wrist.

But the gun was still in Caspar’s hands. He wasn’t thinking about Melchior now, or why he was doing what he was doing. His Marine training had kicked in, and he’d shot the bolt on his rifle and re-aimed. His attention was focused squarely and solely on the president. It was as if the two were linked by a high-tension wire.

Desperate now, Chandler dove deep into Caspar’s mind, trying to find someone Caspar could never shoot. But it seemed that Caspar wanted to shoot everyone. The president’s visage gave way to Castro’s first, then Khrushchev’s, and then to the man with the pointed beard who’d plucked him from the orphanage with the Wiz all those years ago, and then Frank Wisdom himself, beery, bloated, and bellicose. Then Melchior. Not Melchior as he was now but Melchior as a teenager: thin, scrappy, defiant, adaptable. A survivor, unlike Caspar. Unlike Lee. And then that image faded away before another, wavering, indistinct, two-dimensional—a black-and-white photograph that Chandler was only able to flesh out with the greatest effort of will.

“Lee,” Robert Edward Lee Oswald said. “Son, what are you doing?”

“Daddy?” Caspar peered through the scope.

“Put down the gun,” Robert Oswald said. “Come on, Lee. That’s not how your mother raised you.”

Melchior stared at the retreating limousine. A dozen cops and agents had drawn their guns, and people were starting to yell and point in every direction. A Secret Service agent was jumping onto the trunk of Kennedy’s limo. In another second he would throw himself over the president’s body and the opportunity would be gone.

Melchior pushed Chandler’s umbrella down with one hand, reached into his pocket with the other.

“She’s pregnant,” Melchior said. “It won’t be just her who dies.” And then, opening his hand, he showed him what he’d pulled from his pocket.