Ambient 06 - Going, Going, Gone

you were under thirty and the cat got out of the bag, well, you’d be sent South, all right – down on the delta, that is to say the Mekong delta.
    That year, I was twenty-nine. Not a good age, considering.
    »Why hasn’t he sent word to Hoover yet, then?«
    »Hamilton wants the job to be done,« Martin said. »Chances are good Hoover wants the job to be done. If it is done, then chances are good Bennett’ll get bumped upstairs and you and I, and everybody we know, will go on their merry way. Otherwise –«
    »So what’s planned for Jim? You know, don’t you?«
    He looked out the window. The louts still cooled their heels. Sartorius was sucking on a candy bar. »There is a pharmaceutical aspect to this, Walter.«
    »Figured as much,« I said. »What? They want me to dose the family, drop a little something off Hyannis?«
    »You know much about hypnosis?«
    »Doesn’t work on me. That’s about it.«
    »Years ago, they found out that if it did work on you, and if you were hypnotized, you could be told to do something, no matter how ridiculous or dangerous, and ninety-nine times out of a hundred you’d do it. But if on the hundredth time you were told to do something you wouldn’t ordinarily do – hit somebody, steal something – you wouldn’t do it, not under any circumstances.«
    »Kill somebody,« I said. I was always good at math.
    »There’s been further development lately completed on a readaptive agent,« he said. »You’ve never tested it. As near as can be told, from what I’ve heard, it works perfectly every time. Hypnosis in a bottle, essentially. And guaranteed to work on anyone.«
    Martin chewed his nails like he needed the calcium. »So I’m supposed to give some to Jim?«
    He nodded. »And give him directions. Help him along, I suspect, though I don’t know for sure.«
    »Help him do what?«
    »You aren’t supposed to know this yet,« he said, and this time he did start to whisper. He gave the glass-smashed bugged gum another crunch, for good measure. »Remember your worrying you were going to be made the Oswald in this?« I nodded. »You won’t be.«
    »Jim?« He nodded. »They want him to kill who? Humphrey? Paxton? Mc –«
    »Bobby.«
    I looked out the window; Bennett was checking his watch, and I had a notion he’d be traipsing back in here shortly to drag Martin along. Sartorius had turned his back to the street, and was staring at the windows of the bar. »Who’s back of this?« I asked. »Who the hell is Hamilton working for?«
    Again, a whisper, this time directly into my ear. »The Kennedys.«
    That send more shivers down my spine than since I’d first laid eyes on my ghosts. Even for that bunch, this seemed pretty cold-blooded. This was something I didn’t think was safe to even dream about, much less talk over, whether whispering or screaming. I was almost scared to move my head, and look anywhere else, thinking for at least a moment or two that surely, at the mention of their names in this unfavourable context, Joe Jr and Jack and Father Ted were all going to suddenly burst through the door, give us a sendoff with tommy guns until we were nothing but Swiss cheese, and then pile back into their black sedan and screech off back to the hideout at Hyannis, whooping. »Which ones?«
    »Well,« said Martin. »Not Jim. Not Bobby –« He shrugged.
     
    That night I didn’t sleep more than a few hours. In between bouts of nightmares I’d sit on the edge of the bed, try not to pay any attention to my ghosts as they hung out in the front room, calling out my name every once in a while just to shake me up. Time to change partners, I knew, but how to do it? Until the year before it’d have been a simple enough matter to hop on the train to Montreal and scoot up to the border, get off at the last town on the New York side, pay off a fisherman to take you across the river and then lose yourself in the midst of our neighbour to the North. Unfortunately, so many had been taking that route since the war escalated that the borders were clamped down tight. Mexico? Back in the fifties, maybe, but they were too keen on making sure nobody used the drugs they produced in-country, and that would have made for rough going while I tried to get back on my feet. Back to Seattle? Nothing for me there, not any more. Mom and Dad both gone and the place had changed too much since they’d built the nuclear plant on Vachon. Europe? The Commie cheese shop was as close as I wanted to get to our