Broker
by
Michael D. Britton
* * * *
Copyright 2012 by Michael D. Britton / Intelligent Life Books
Eli Yon casually stepped out of the men’s room and approached the hostess desk, tugging at the front of his blue cotton dress shirt and smoothing his graying hair. The petite girl with long black hair had been too busy to notice that he hadn’t come in through the front doors. That he hadn’t existed until recently.
Works every time.
Yon took a furtive glance at his über-modern silver timepiece to verify which year he was in.
2028.
Perfect.
“Welcome to Jo’s, Lincoln City. Just one?” she asked with a smile as she gazed up into his gray eyes.
Yon nodded and followed the girl past the hostess desk through the huge, high-ceilinged dining hall to a table facing the array of picture windows that framed the great Pacific Ocean. The horizon sliced through the pane like the line dividing grounded reality from the temporal flux with which Yon was all-too familiar.
The nautical décor reminded him of the last time he’d been in a Jo’s restaurant – sixty years ago, in May of 1968 – although it was the one located in Newport that time, and the sixty-year stretch in between had only been two years in Yon’s career as a History Steward.
Back then there was no holographic jukebox, but other than that, the place was much the same.
Yon sat on the hard bench and stared at the menu that offered “hops” and “grapes” in place of beer and wine, and asked for a Full Sail Ale before the hostess left the table.
He enjoyed these excursions, especially to the early twenty-first century – or the nineteen eighties, one of his favorites – because you just couldn’t get that authentic seaside dining experience anymore. Probably because there was no seaside anymore, at least not anywhere north of the twenty-third parallel – what they used to call the tropics. And the rest was just swamp land these days.
No, this was a treat – pounding surf, huge waves rolling in, a (seemingly) endless driven rhythm. They appeared small from this distance, and deceptively silent, but the giant breakers carried such power and authority they gave Yon a shiver down his spine.
A smiling waiter named Sam appeared at the table, his “Jo’s” visor atop his shaggy head, a colony of about a thousand straws peeking out of his apron pocket.
“Are you ready to order?” he asked, hands clasped behind his back and no sign of a pen or pad.
“What do you recommend?”
“The shrimp skewers are amazing.”
“Alright, I’ll take the grilled parmesan petrale sole sandwich – that’s a mouthful! – with the clam chowder,” said Yon, ignoring the waiter’s suggestion.
“Great choice, Sir,” said Sam, stealing away with the menu.
The lowering sun filtered through the tall clusters of cattails outside that leaned in the evening breeze, casting irregular, moving shadows on the walls and highlighting the mini-museum of nautical paraphernalia – a row of “welcome aboard” life preservers, glass floats of various colors hanging in fishing nets with sea shells, a variety of clocks modeled after ship’s steering wheels, and other assorted kitsch.
Yon watched an elderly couple in the corner, as the old man leafed through his wallet, then pulled out a leather coin purse, fishing for change with no luck and cursing in frustration. A small sign on the wall behind them read me and my old crab live here. Yon smiled at the juxtaposition.
On the other side of the room, a chubby young family got up to leave, a tall stack of dirty dishes in their wake. To their left was a knick-knack on the wall – a miniature saloon storefront in bas-relief accompanied by the words we trade in beer and gossip – which reminded Yon that he needed to be sure not to blow his cover.
Strangely enough, Yon had used Jo’s – this one, or others on the Oregon Coast - as a meeting place at various times throughout the latter twentieth century – yet nobody ever recognized him. Salt air, good food, anonymity. Ideal for an elimination broker like Yon.
The perfect location for setting up kills.
The clam chowder was as good as Yon remembered it – the perfect flavor and consistency, with melted butter oozing deliciously up to the surface as he spooned the gray-white puree into his mouth. It was so good he burned his tongue in his race to shovel it in.
Time displacement always made him hungry, so when his sole hit the table it was in his mouth before Sam could ask him if he needed anything else. The crispy parmesan encrusted fish melded with the soft fresh bun, lettuce and tomato with perfection. As he chomped the last bite, he checked his watch again. Soon his contact would be here to receive instructions and payment, and the final phase of this job would be underway.
Yon stared out at a congregation of gulls huddled together across the water on a sand spit, oblivious to the world beyond this run of coast line. He saw the men fishing on the beach, and considered that all of these people were much like the gulls – oblivious to the world around them as it really is. They had no clue the way the strings were being pulled, every day of their little lives.
Yon sipped his ale as Otis Redding’s classic Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay came over the piped music system, throwing Yon’s mind back once again to the late spring of 1968, and the one job that hurt his career the most.
#
Yon strolled out of the men’s room at the Newport Jo’s, his typical time displacement modus operandi. He wore a slim-fitting striped suit with a paisley tie, hair over his ears, and a thin moustache. The Beatles’ Hello Goodbye played on the juke, as if to signify the completion of his transcendental journey through time.
He’d been here before – three weeks ago for him, just yesterday for the world of 1968 Jo’s. On that occasion, he’d met with his contact to finalize the deal that would be consummated today – May 24 – the day of Robert F. Kennedy’s visit to Jo’s.
Yon strolled to the garage door built into the front wall and took a seat just as Jo herself was lifting the broad wooden door to let the sunshine in after days of rain, creating a sidewalk café. The fresh sea air rushed in and Yon inhaled deeply.
In a few minutes, Yon’s contact was to put a permanent end to RFK’s run for the presidency, and Yon wanted to be there to witness history. The history the Syndicate paid him very well to ensure occurred. And if he could catch a recording of it on his watch without being noticed, he could make a few extra bucks on the side for the bootleg historical footage.
Yon ordered a bowl of the famously fabulous chowder and waited. Seconds later, a shabby-looking, bearded man in his late twenties, hippy-length hair and a tie-dye with cut-off denim shorts and flip-flops, strolled in from outside through the garage door, walking right past Yon without noticing him.
The hippy carried a little green canvas bag over his shoulder like a purse that bounced against his hip as he walked. A short string of wooden beads hung from the pouch’s zipper. He took a seat at the counter and looked around nervously for a few moments before reaching into his bag, eyeing the shiny .22 before grabbing a rubber band. He pulled his brown hair back into a pony tail and ordered a coffee.
Don’t get too antsy, kid. Don’t blow this.
Within minutes, Robert Kennedy’s long black Lincoln rolled up. A large contingent of staff and political supporters ushered he and his wife Ethel toward Jo’s. Yon lifted his sleeve to reveal his watch, and touched the interface to begin recording. He glanced toward the hippy and held his breath.
The hippy suddenly widened his eyes and clutched at his throat. He tried to stand, but slipped as he raised himself off the stool and crashed to the floor onto his side, spilling peanut shells across the counter and down under the tables and chairs.
A burly logger threw his chair back and
hoisted the skinny hippy to his feet, then started slamming his open palm into the choking man’s back. The hippy turned blue, then purple as he desperately tried to take in oxygen.
Yon wondered why the logger didn’t perform the Heimlich, then realized it was about a decade early for that.
One final swat of the logger’s waffle-iron hand and the culprit detritus flew from the hippy’s mouth and skittered across the floor. Bile trickled down the hippy’s chin and his eyes rolled back in his head as the color returned to his cheeks, his knees buckling.
“Are you okay, honey? Come on, come back here and sit down for a while, take a drink of water,” said Jo, escorting the hippy into a back room.
A round of applause rose for the logger, timed perfectly with the entrance of Mr. Kennedy.
With Yon’s man in no shape to do his job, it became clear he was going to have to rework this scenario. Kennedy’s visit was short and sweet, and the man was long gone before the hippy was ready to be doing any killing for Yon.
#
A crash of falling dishes in the kitchen broke Yon’s reverie. The sun was dipping lower here in Lincoln City, and he wanted to take a stroll outside before his contact arrived.
He paid his bill in cash, left a handsome tip on the table and walked outside, rounding the corner and heading down the short wooden pier that overlooked the beach. He passed a digital pay-per-view telescope mounted on a rotating pillar and walked out to the end of the pier. The smell of burning driftwood – distinct from your standard campfire smoke – wafted past him as he stared along the sand at the goliath driftwood logs that the ocean had casually tossed ashore by the powerful waves. They sat as a silent testament to the fierce storms that had blown through in days gone by. Further out, the water shimmered as sunlight danced across the white caps.
Yon’s was a strange profession. He traveled constantly for several months of local time, then took a break for a few weeks to avoid temporal dysphasia. He was nearing the end of a work cycle, and held it as a matter of pride to successfully complete his final assignment for the period. And since he was one of the top Stewards – the last of the old-school pros – this was one of the most important missions on the table right now.
Despite the ability to travel through time, his ability to manipulate the continuum was limited by the technology. As a result, doing the work actually took time, real time that could not be retrieved, rewound, recycled or reused. And now he was under deadline, and he had to get this one right or run out of chances.
If he failed this time around, he’d be forced to pass his current assignment to another Steward. They called it a “rescue” mission – one where the job had to be done, regardless of who pulled it off.
As Yon pushed aside thoughts of a possible rescue, a hissing mist suddenly sprung out of the damp wooden deck boards beside Yon, rising in a tumultuous plume of fog. He took a step back and watched as the figure of a man began to resolve from the white steam.
The mist coalesced and drew itself together into a dense cloud, then began to look more and more solid. The whole process took about ten seconds – resulting in a tuxedo-clad black man with no hair, razor-sharp good looks, and a dazzling grin.
“Pretty dramatic entrance, Harley,” he said. “Not much of one for discretion, are you?”
“Fortune favors the bold, my old friend,” said Harley, emphasis on the old.
Yon rolled his eyes. “What are you doing here? And what’s with the duds?”
Yon’s stomach started to knot up at the sight of his chief rival Steward, the eternally cocky Zim Harley. Harley was a real pro – a rising star who was always called upon for the rescues. Yon hoped he was just here for the chowder. For Yon, having to be rescued was embarrassing enough. He was a seasoned professional, after all. But to have to have that hotshot kid Harley swoop in and take the credit, well, that would really chap Yon’s hide.
“I was at a party. And this . . . is a rescue,” said Harley with a flourish, not even trying to hide the gloat in his voice.
Yon turned to the deepening sunset and closed his eyes as if in pain, then exhaled a long sigh. This was it. His career was probably at an end, thrown over for the latest and greatest in the field. He turned back to Harley. “So, what’s your plan for this one?”
“I’ll answer your question with one of my own,” Harley sneered. “How come you can’t manage to take this guy out yourself, Yon?”
“As someone once said, ‘Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly,’” said Yon.
“Wasn’t that RFK?”
Yon smiled bitterly. “You know your history.”
“Of course I do, that’s how I score. After all, if I recall correctly I had to clean up after you on that job, too.”
Yon scowled. “My guy choked, for cryin’ out loud.”
“You choked, my man. At least that’s how it looks on the scoreboard. You didn’t see my man Sirhan suckin’ peanuts down his throat at game time, did you? And why’s that? Because I know how to pick my crazy guys. It’s a gift, really.”
Yon muttered under his breath, “Takes one to know one.” Then, to Harley, “You didn’t answer my question.”
“You mean my game plan for this one? Easy.”
Harley laid out a standard early twenty-first century end-game scenario, with a minor twist or two – mostly thrown in for style, Yon could tell.
“Alright then,” Yon said. “Good luck with that. I’ll see you back at base.”
Harley looked shocked. “What, that’s it? No crying and whining and sad, dejected looks? No picking apart my scenario to tell me it won’t fly? Are you blown away by my genius, or are you just losing heart, Yon?”
Yon looked past Harley to watch the sun dip beneath the horizon. The wind picked up almost immediately, and Yon let his gaze move up into the darkening heavens, following the light spectrum painted on the sky from red at the horizon to deep indigo overhead, where the night’s first stars were popping into view one by one. He looked back at Harley, and as the plan hit him, he couldn’t help but smile.
“Nope,” he said, looking directly into Harley’s dark shining eyes. “Not at all.”
#
The target was Oregon Governor Alex Lee, the man most of the pundits believed was going to be the runaway winner of the 2028 presidential election in five months. Historical analyses of parallel stories showed that Lee could really shake things up in a bad way. A parallel story is what the Stewards studied before heading out on missions – missions to ensure the primary future desired by the Syndicate.
To most laymen it was all gobbledygook. “They just want to know that life will be good,” Syndicate Chair Alistair Falternan always said. “They don’t care how we do it, they just want to make sure we keep doing it. We’re the plumbers of history.”
So Governor Alex Lee was about to be flushed.
But out of a sense of self-preservation, coupled with a growing resentment of Zim Harley, Eli Yon was going to make sure that he got the credit for this one.
Even if it meant breaking some rules.
Yon had been told before his last time displacement that he was due for a layover – a six week period of inactivity to prevent temporal dysphasia. But on his return to base, Yon managed to trade an old friend in the business for three more displacement credits. It cost him a lot of money and favor promises – and it could end up destroying his mind – but he was determined to steal this win back from Harley and rescue his own career.
#
Yon had used the second of his three displacements to pop back to early July 2028, only an hour before Harley’s plan was due to commence.
He showed up in the men’s room of Jo’s restaurant in Lincoln City once again, just in time for the lunch rush. He’d already used his first displacement to lay the groundwork for his plan, obtaining a product on the black market in his home year of 14484.
In about an hour, Alex Lee would stop here as part of his pre-victory victory tour of the hom
e state. A premature victory lap if ever there was one.
Today, Yon was dressed casually and carrying a notepad and pen. He told the hostess he was a professional fiction writer, and that he’d been assigned by his mentor to write a piece about Jo’s. The hostess showed Yon to a table near the west windows, and Yon ordered a strawberry lemonade and a bowl of clam chowder.
He pretended to jot down observations on his notepad while he ate the to-die-for chowder, and the manager approached the table to greet him.
“So, I hear you’re going to be writing a story about our restaurant – that’s wonderful!” she said. “I’m Cynthia White, the manager here.”
Yon offered his hand, “Nice to meet you. Yes, I’ll be writing a story. This place is great – and the chowder is phenomenal.”
“Glad you like it. Listen, if you send me your story, I’ll give you a marionberry pie a la mode, on the house. How’s that sound?”
“That’s great!” Yon smiled eagerly. “Do you think it would be possible for me to tour your kitchen? I may want to use something from there in my story.”
Cynthia assented and led Yon back through the swinging doors into the bustling, pot clanging, and yelling of the large kitchen. As Yon passed one of the huge stock pots of bouillabaisse, he stealthily dropped a tiny capsule into it. He did the same at each of the other four pots, careful to not be noticed. It helped that he had his notepad with him to conceal the drops.
The capsules contained a simple temporally-phased compound, Chronolixer – illegal in Yon’s time, non-existent in 2028 – that would effect nobody except someone who had recently traveled through time.
Someone, say, like Zim Harley.
With bowls of the Chronolixer-laced chowder scattered all over the huge dining hall, Harley wouldn’t stand a chance when he showed up to oversee the end of Alex Lee’s life.
#
Yon stands on the sand and watches the water lap the shore. Any moment now –
BANG!
– and there it is. Harley’s man has done his job. Screams of horror emanate from Jo’s, a few dozen yards away.