Shift: A Novel

BC lifted his left hand, still stuck in the dented urn. Peggy Hitchcock waved it away.

“Grandma’s seen worse.”

BC retrieved the unconscious agent’s gun and stumbled into the hall, pressed the button for the elevator. He’d just managed to extricate his hand from the urn when the doors opened. A shower of ash shot into the air like a desiccated thundercloud. The elevator operator pretended not to notice the ash or the blood or the skewed wig.

“Find what you were looking for, sir?”

BC straightened his vest and walked onto the elevator. “More like it found me.”

The operator was nice enough to hail a cab for BC when they reached the street level, and he raced back to the Village. The cab got stuck in a traffic jam at the end of Fifth, and BC had to run the last five blocks to the hotel. Sweat mixed with the ash and blood on his face to form an acrid gruel that kept dripping into his mouth, but as soon as he pushed the door to the hotel room open, he realized he needn’t have bothered.

Chandler was gone.

Chicago, IL

November 19, 1963

Sam Giancana’s guards didn’t just frisk Melchior: they untucked his shirt and lifted it up to check for a wire, took off his shoes, felt inside the band of his hat, leafed through his wallet. They even opened his pen and scribbled on a piece of paper to make sure it was real—then kept it for themselves. Satisfied he was neither armed nor miked, they ushered him into Giancana’s private office.

“I’m gonna want that pen back before I go,” Melchior said to the guards as they left, then turned around to face the kingpin of the Chicago mob.

Giancana didn’t get up as Melchior, still disheveled from his frisking, approached his desk. He was a lean, nattily dressed man, with a sharp dimpled chin and a softly rounded head, largely devoid of hair. Melchior’d only seen him in photographs, usually wearing a pair of Hollywood shades and a spiffy hat to hide his baldness, but now he wore thick horn-rimmed glasses and looked more like a businessman than the lady-killer who, in addition to a long-term relationship with Phyllis McGuire of the McGuire Sisters, had dated Judith Campbell at the same time she was seeing Jack Kennedy (this was after Miss Campbell was done with Frank Sinatra). The then-candidate was looking for a little help with the Chicago ballot, and rumor had it that his mistress had helped to broker a deal between him and the man sitting on the other side of the desk, whose well-tailored suit did nothing to mask the street-kid accent that filled the room like squealing brakes as soon as Giancana opened his mouth.

“So. Who is this mook who’s been calling every two-bit con artist, numbers man, street hustler, and pimp in Chicago saying he wants to meet Momo Giancana?”

There was a chair in front of Giancana’s desk just as there was in front of Drew Everton’s, but Melchior remained standing. He knew the theatrics that had so annoyed Everton wouldn’t fly here.

“My name is Melchior,” he said, biting back the urge to add, “sir.”

Giancana swatted the answer away like a fly. “I didn’t ask your ‘name.’ I know your ‘name.’ I asked who the hell you are.”

“I work for CIA. I was in Cuba for most of ’62 and ’63—”

Giancana’s nostrils flared as he let out a frustrated sigh. “You’re wasting my time, Mr. Mook Melchior of the Central Fucking Intelligence Agency, or whoever you work for. Now. Who in the hell are you, and why the fuck did you wanna see me?”

Melchior found himself fiddling with his lapel, feeling for the familiar, comforting bullet hole. But although he was still wearing a dead man’s suit, this one had come from a man he’d killed himself, and he’d taken care not to leave any marks. He knew he had to tread every bit as delicately here.

“Here’s the situation, Mr. Giancana. I know you helped Jack Kennedy carry Chicago in 1960, and I know you’ve been helping the Company try to knock off Fidel Castro for the past couple of years. And I also know that you feel double-crossed because, despite the money and manpower you’ve expended in good faith, Bobby Kennedy is still trying to throw your ass in jail.”

Giancana’s expression didn’t change, but for the first time he paused.

“Look, you wanna go tit for tat,” he said, “I can talk shit too. I got letters on CIA stationery thanking Lucky Luciano for his help fighting the Commies in Italy and France right after the war. I got photographs showing Company agents shipping Southeast Asian heroin to San Francisco in order to outfit a private army to fight the Viet Cong. And I got a unique collection of souvenirs—cigars packed with C4, pens filled with cyanide, and a couple-a fungusy-looking things that I don’t wanna get too close to—all made in Langley labs and destined for our good friend on the other side of the Florida Straits.”

Melchior took a moment to absorb this. On the surface, the words were as hostile as everything else Giancana’d said, but the tone was different. The boss was curious. Was sending out feelers to see just how much Melchior was willing to say.

He took a deep breath. It was going to be all or nothing.

“I was in Italy in ’47. I was seventeen years old. Lucky liked me so much he wanted to set me up with his daughter. And I spent nine months in Laos raising funds for the private army you mentioned, and another two years in Cuba, where I went with the task of delivering one of those exploding cigars to El Jefe. I’m not here to accuse you of anything, Mr. Giancana. I’m here to offer you my help.”

Melchior wouldn’t want to get in a poker game with this guy. Giancana’s face didn’t twitch when Melchior rattled off his list. He just sat back, the rich leather of his chair creaking beneath him, and let an amused smile spread across his face. It was a dangerous, disarming smile, like a cobra’s hypnotic swaying just before it strikes.

“Siciliano?”

“My mother was born in the shadow of Mount Aetna,” Melchior said in perfect Sicilian.

A sound, half-laugh, half-bark, burst from Giancana’s mouth. “All right, then. Tell me what it is that you can do for me.”