by Alan Glynn
Hank Atwood and I were still sitting together at the table, contemplatively swirling brandy around in our glasses. The others were standing, chatting, and the air was thick with cigar smoke.
‘You OK, Eddie?’
I turned to look at him.
‘Yeah. I’m fine. Why?’
‘No reason. You just seem, I don’t know, subdued.’
I smiled. ‘I was thinking about the future.’
‘Well …’ He reached over and very gently clinked his glass against mine. ‘… I’ll drink to that …’
Just then, there was rap on the door and Van Loon, who was standing nearby, went over to open it.
‘… immediate and long-term …’
Van Loon stood at the door, looking out, and then made a motion to shoo in whoever was there – but whoever was there obviously didn’t want to be shooed in.
Then I heard her voice, ‘No, Daddy, I really don’t think—’
‘It’s just a little cigar smoke, for godsakes. Come in and say hello.’
I looked over at the door, hoping that she would come in.
‘… either way,’ Atwood was saying, ‘it’s the promised land.’
I took a sip from my glass.
‘What is?’
‘The future, Eddie, the future.’
I looked back, distracted. Ginny was stepping tentatively into the room now. When she was just inside the door, she reached up to kiss her father on the cheek. She was wearing a strappy satin top and corduroy trousers, and was holding a suede clutch bag in her left hand. As she pulled away from her father, she smiled over at me, raising her right hand and fluttering her fingers – a greeting which I think was meant to take in Hank Atwood as well. She moved a little further into the room. It was only then I noticed that Van Loon had his arm stretched out to greet someone else who was coming in behind her. A second or two later – and after what looked like a vigorous handshake – a young man of about twenty-five or twenty-six appeared through the door.
Ginny shook hands politely with Dan Bloom and the other two men, and then turned around. She stood at the table and put a hand on the back of an empty chair that was positioned directly opposite where I was sitting.
The young man and Van Loon were talking now, and laughing, and although I found it hard not to look at Ginny, I kept glancing over at them. The young man was wearing a hooded zip-front thing, a black crew-neck T-shirt and jeans. He had dark hair and a little goatee beard. I wasn’t sure, but I thought I recognized him. At any rate, there was something about him, something around him that I recognized. He and Van Loon seemed to know each other quite well.
I looked back at Ginny. She pulled out the chair and sat down. She placed her clutch bag on the table and joined her hands together, as though she were about to conduct an interview.
‘So, gentlemen, what are we talking about?’
‘The future,’ said Atwood.
‘The future? Well, you know what Einstein had to say about that?’
‘No, what?’
‘He said I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.’ She looked at me directly, and added, ‘I tend to agree with him.’
‘Hank.’
Suddenly, Van Loon was waving an arm in our direction, and indicating for Atwood to come over.
‘Excuse me, my dear,’ he said, and made a strained face as he got up. He walked around the table, and it occurred to me then who the young man was – Ray Tyner. As movie stars reportedly often do, he looked a little different in real life. I’d read about him in the previous day’s paper. He’d just come back from shooting a movie in Venice.
‘So,’ Ginny said, looking around, ‘this is where the cabal meets, the secret movers and shakers, the smoke-filled back-room.’
I smiled. ‘I thought we were in your dining-room.’
She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Yeah, but I ain’t never had dinner in here. I eat in the kitchen. This is the control centre.’
I nodded over at Ray Tyner. Atwood and Bloom and the others had all gathered around him now, and he seemed to be telling a story.
‘So, who’s running the control centre now?’
She turned around in her chair for a moment to look over at him. I stared intently at her profile, at the curve of her neck, at her bare shoulders.
‘Oh, Ray’s not like that,’ she said turning back, ‘he’s sweet.’
‘Are you two an item?’
She pulled her head back, a little surprised at my question.
‘What are you, moonlighting for Page Six now?’
‘No, I’m just curious. For future reference.’
‘Like I said, Mr Spinola, I don’t think of the future.’
‘Is he why you wouldn’t go for a drink with me?’
She paused. Then she said, ‘I don’t understand you.’
I was puzzled at this.
‘What don’t you understand?’ I said.
‘I don’t know …’ Her face changed, as she tried to think of the words. ‘I’m sorry – it must be an instinctive thing – but I get the feeling that when you look at me, you’re seeing someone else.’
I didn’t know what to say to that. I stared uncomfortably at my brandy glass. Was it that obvious? Ginny resembled Melissa, it was true, but until that moment I hadn’t realized what a deep impression the likeness they shared had made on me.
There was a sudden burst of laughter from the other side of the room, and the group started to break up.
I looked at her again.
‘I don’t think of the past,’ I said, trying to be clever.
‘And the present?’
‘I don’t think of that either.’
‘Yeah, I suppose,’ she said, and then laughed. ‘It goes soon enough.’
‘Something like that.’
Ray Tyner had come up behind her now. She turned slightly and twisted her arm up to reach him. He took her hand and she got out of the chair.
‘Ray, this is Eddie Spinola, a friend of mine. Eddie, Ray Tyner.’
I reached over and we shook hands.
I was inordinately pleased that she had described me as a friend of hers.
Up close, Ray Tyner was almost preternaturally good-looking. He had amazing eyes and the kind of smile that meant he could probably work a room without even bothering to open his mouth.
Maybe I’d ask him to be my running mate.
*
I got back to the Celestial just after twelve. It was to be my first night in the new apartment, but I didn’t have anything to sleep on. In fact, I didn’t have any furniture at all, no bed, or sofa, or bookshelves, nothing. I had ordered some stuff, but none of it had been delivered yet.
I wasn’t going to be doing much sleeping in any case, so it didn’t really matter. Instead, I wandered from room to room, through the huge, empty apartment – trying to convince myself that I wasn’t upset or jealous or in any way put out at all. Ginny Van Loon and Ray Tyner made a fabulous-looking couple – and next to a bunch of old business farts smoking cigars and talking percentages, they looked even better.
What was there to be upset about?
After a while I got my computer out of its box and put it on a wooden crate. I went online and tried to catch up with the day’s financial news.
[ 25 ]
I WAS BACK IN FORTY-EIGHTH STREET the next morning at around seven-thirty, drafting speeches and making some final changes to the press release. Given that the announcement was only a couple of hours away and that secrecy was no longer an issue, Van Loon had been able to call some of his regular people in to get the PR machinery up and running. Although this was a great help, the place was now busier than Grand Central Station.
Before leaving the apartment, I had taken my usual dose of five pills – three MDT and two Dexeron – but then at the last minute I had gone back and rummaged in the holdall bag and taken two more, one of each. As a result, I was operating at full tilt, but I found that my accelerated work-rate was intimidating some of the
se Van Loon regulars – people who probably had a lot more experience than I had. To avoid any friction, therefore, I set up a makeshift office in one of the boardrooms and got some work done on my own.
At around ten-thirty, Kenny Sanchez called me on my cellphone. I was sitting at a large oval table with a laptop computer and dozens of pages spread out in front of me when he rang.
‘I have some bad news, Eddie.’
I got a sharp, sinking feeling in my stomach.
‘What?’
‘Well, a couple of things. I’ve located Todd Ellis, but I’m afraid he’s dead.’
Shit.
‘What happened?’
‘Hit-and-run accident, about a week ago. Around where he lived, in Brooklyn.’
Fuck.
This flooded in on me now – without Todd Ellis, what chance did I have? Where did I go? Where did I even begin?
I noticed that Kenny Sanchez was silent.
‘You mentioned there were a couple of things,’ I said. ‘What else?’
‘I’ve been re-assigned.’
‘What?’
‘I’ve been re-assigned, given another case to work on. I don’t know why. I kicked up shit, but there’s nothing I can do. It’s a big agency. This is my job.’
‘So … who’s looking after it now?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe no one.’
‘Is this normal – I mean, interference like this?’
‘No.’
He sounded very pissed off.
‘I worked the phones all yesterday afternoon when I left you, and even late into the evening. Then this morning I get called in to make a report and they tell me I’m needed on another case and to hand over all my paper-work.’
I thought about it for a second, but what could I say? Then I just said, ‘What else did you manage to find out?’
He sighed, and I pictured him shaking his head.
‘Well, you were right about the list,’ he said eventually. ‘It was incredible.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Those out-of-state numbers? You were right. They all seem to be cult members living under assumed names. Most are sick, but I got to speak to some of them.’ There was a brief pause, during which I heard him sighing again. ‘Of the three I was originally looking for, two are in the hospital and one is at home suffering from severe migraines.’
I could tell by his tone that despite having been reassigned he was excited at the progress he’d made.
‘It took a while to get anyone to speak to me, but when I did, it was amazing. The longest conversation I had was with a girl called Beth Lipski. It seems the standard Dekedelia make-over involves a completely new identity – chemically-assisted alteration of metabolism, plastic surgery, new “designated” relatives, the lot. And just like you said, career advancement is the measure of a successful new identity, with 60 per cent of income going back into the organization. Shit, it’s like a cross between the Freemasons and the Witness Protection Program.’
‘Why did she talk?’
‘Because she’s afraid. Tauber has cut off all contact with her, and she feels nervous and lost. She has a permanent headache and can’t work properly. She doesn’t know what’s happening to her. I don’t even think she knows she’s been taking a drug – and I didn’t want to push her over the edge by bringing it up. She was paranoid about talking to me in the first place, but then once she started she couldn’t stop.’
‘So how do you think he gives them the drug?’
‘Apparently, he has them all on a programme of vitamins and special diet supplements, so I guess he slips it in there somehow. And that’s obviously the source of his power over these people, and of his supposed charisma.’ He paused. I heard him stamping his foot, or banging his fist on something. Then he said, ‘Damn! I really can’t believe this shit. I’ve never worked on such an interesting case before.’
I didn’t have time for this now – Kenny Sanchez having a career crisis down the phone at me. I felt a slight queasiness all of a sudden. I took a deep breath, and then asked him if he had come up with anything on United Labtech.
He sighed again.
‘Yeah, I did,’ he said, ‘one thing anyway. It’s owned by the pharmaceutical company, Eiben-Chemcorp.’
Soon after that, I told him I had to go, that I was at work. I thanked him, wished him luck, and got off the phone as quickly as I could.
I put the phone down on the table and stood up.
I walked across the room, slowly, and stood at the windows. It was a clear, sunny day in Manhattan and from up here on the sixty-second floor everything was visible, there to be seen, and picked out, every landmark, every architectural feature – including some less obvious ones, such as the Celestial Building over to my right, or the old Port Authority Terminal further down, on Eighth Avenue, where Kerr & Dexter had their offices. Standing at this window, in fact, I saw that my whole life was laid out in front of me, like a sequence of tiny incisions in the vast microchip of the city – street corners, apartments, delis, liquor stores, movie-theaters. But now, instead of a deeper and more permanent line being cut into the surface, these minute nicks were in danger of being smoothed over and levelled off.
I turned around and stared at the plain white walls on the other side of the room, and at the grey carpet and at the anonymous company furniture. I hadn’t given in to panic yet – though it surely wouldn’t be long in coming. The press conference was scheduled for the afternoon, and already the thought of it filled me with a sense of dread.
But then something else occurred to me, and with the single-mindedness of a condemned man, I latched on to it – and wouldn’t let go.
Sanchez had mentioned Eiben-Chemcorp. I knew I’d heard that name somewhere quite recently, and after a couple of minutes I remembered where. I’d seen it at Vernon’s that day – in the Boston Globe. Vernon had apparently been reading about an upcoming product liability trial in Massachusetts. As far as I could recall, a teenage girl who’d been taking Triburbazine had murdered her best friend and then killed herself.
I walked back over to the table and sat in front of the laptop. I went online and searched the Globe archives for more detail on the story.
The girl’s family had filed a lawsuit looking for punitive damages against Eiben-Chemcorp. In the trial, the company would be defending charges that its anti-depressant drug had caused ‘loss of impulse control’ and ‘suicidal ideation’ in the girl. Dave Morgenthaler, a personal injury lawyer, was to be the lead counsel representing the plaintiffs, and according to one article I read, he had spent the last six months collecting depositions from expert witnesses – among them scientists who’d been involved in the development and production of Triburbazine, and psychiatrists who would be willing to testify that Triburbazine was potentially harmful.
My mind was racing now. I picked up a pen and started doodling on a piece of paper, trying to link all of this together.
Eiben-Chemcorp owned Labtech, which was where MDT seemed to have come from. That meant, in effect, that MDT had been developed and produced by an international pharmaceutical corporation. This corporation, in turn, was facing high profile – and potentially very damaging – litigation.
In fact – I turned back to the computer and went into one of the financial websites, and there it was – due to adverse publicity surrounding the case, Eiben-Chemcorp’s stock had already suffered quite a lot, having apparently dropped to 69⅞ from a high earlier in the year of 87¼. This growing public interest in the case would probably continue as the trial date approached. I found numerous articles that had already touched on what would surely be a key point in the trial: if human behaviour was all about synapses and serotonin, then where did free will fit into the picture? Where did personal responsibility end and brain chemistry begin?
Eiben-Chemcorp, in short, was in a very vulnerable position.
I was too, of course – but what I then wondered was how I could use my knowledge of MDT to leverage some advant
age out of Eiben-Chemcorp. A supply of MDT in return for not talking to Dave Morgenthaler, perhaps?
I stood up and wandered around the room.
It seemed to me that information coming out in court about an Eiben-Chemcorp product that hadn’t ever been tested, and had already caused numerous deaths, would have a devastating effect on the company’s share price. It was a stark, high-risk option, but given the circumstances it was probably the only option I had left.
I passed by the window again, but didn’t look out this time. After a good deal of thought, I decided that the most practical first step would be to establish contact with Dave Morgenthaler. I would have to be careful how I approached him, but to pose a credible threat to Eiben-Chemcorp, I would need to have Morgenthaler primed for the kill. I would need to be able to set him loose at a moment’s notice.
I made some enquiries and found the number for his office in Boston. I called it immediately and asked to speak to him, but he was out of the office for the day. I left my cellphone number and a message: that I had some ‘explosive’ information about Eiben-Chemcorp and wanted to meet him as soon as possible to discuss it.
When I put the phone down again, I tried to get back to work, to redirect my attention to the MCL–Abraxas deal and to the press conference in the afternoon, but I found it very difficult. I kept reliving the past few weeks in my mind and wishing I’d done this or that – wishing, for instance, that I’d investigated Deke Tauber a little earlier, which might have meant reaching Todd Ellis before he left United Labtech …
I then wondered if there’d been any connection between his death and Vernon’s. But what was the use? Whether Todd Ellis’s death had been accidental or not, that route was now closed off to me. I’d had no choice but to come up with an alternative.
I went over to the window again and gazed at the buildings opposite – gazed down along these vast, vertical plates of steel and glass, all the way down to the streets below, and to the tiny rivulets of people and traffic. This city would be buzzing soon with news of the deal and I would be there when the news broke. But I felt removed from it all now. I felt as though I had entered a confused dream, knowing somehow as I did so that I wouldn’t ever be coming out of it again …
