The Placebo Effect

by David Rotenberg

  “No questions.”

  That was pretty straightforward, Decker thought. A large green sign announced that they were entering the outskirts of Newark—New Jersey’s toilet.

  The woman turned to face him. “Why not get in touch with Eddie?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me, Mr. Roberts. Get in touch with him—he’ll want to know where you are. This car’s wired and you’re welcome to use our Wi-Fi for free—not like at Starbucks. Or you could meet him in the synaesthetes chat room.”

  Decker wanted desperately to talk to Eddie, but he hesitated. Why? He didn’t know, but he knew he shouldn’t call Eddie. Couldn’t let Eddie know where he was? Was that it? He didn’t know. He just wasn’t sure anymore—not sure. He turned away.

  “Or you could call Trish. Sure. Let’s do that.” She dialed then handed him the cell phone she’d taken from him in the restaurant and put her BlackBerry to her ear.

  The phone was already ringing. “Don’t worry, the caller ID is blocked and I can hear every word either of you say. It’s called conferencing. Welcome to the twenty-first century.”

  Trish picked up on the third ring, “Okay, you have exactly twenty seconds to identify yourself. This blocked caller ID is bush league, whoever you are.”

  “It’s Decker,” Decker said warily.

  “Hey. I love the stuff Theo gave me.”

  “Good.”

  “Yeah. Lynchings are good. Fuck; they’re great.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Decker, you okay?”

  Decker looked at the woman in the front seat, her face an open challenge—“Go ahead, tell her and see what happens.”

  “Yeah. I’m fine.”

  “Good. The network put the rushes of the first episode in front of a group of people—a trial audience. What do you call it when they do that?”

  “Stupidity and cowardice.”

  “Yeah. That too and funny. Show could use more funny, Decker. And I still want you to do the opening voiceover.”

  “Me too,” Decker said, never taking his eyes off the woman in the front seat.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s great. So when can you come in and record the pilot voiceover?”

  Decker looked at the woman and raised his shoulders. She hit a button and the connection went dead. Then she reached for Decker’s cell phone.

  “I need it or my son can’t call me.”

  “He hasn’t called you for a long time.”

  “How do you know about that?”

  “We know lots about you, Mr. Roberts.”

  “Did you ever find out what happened to Leena that night after she bought the car? Awful, that. Such a pretty girl then.”

  So this woman knew about that too.

  “What is it exactly that you want from me?”

  “Recognize this picture?” She handed him a photograph. It showed him getting out of the trunk of the car on the American side of the Akwesasne Reserve.

  “No, I’m afraid I don’t.”

  “Lie better, Decker. Lie much better, because illegal crossing into the United States is a federal offence. Heard of Leavenworth? Not a place you’d enjoy very much.”

  “Okay, I recognize the photo.”

  “Good.”

  “How’s about this one?” She showed him a photograph on her BlackBerry from the restaurant where Josh had met Charendoff. It showed a square-faced Scot in his mid-forties or early fifties. In good shape. Fine grey hair that no doubt had at one time been blond. Piercing blue eyes.

  Mac had always taken a good picture.

  Decker didn’t recognize the man in the photo and told the woman as much. She said, “Take another look.”

  “I don’t know who he is.”

  She put the photograph aside then said, “The problem you have is that neither do we.”

  29

  MAC AND HENRY-CLAY

  MAC SAT IN HIS CHEAP HOTEL ROOM AT 107TH AND AMSTERDAM. He’d just got off the phone with Henry-Clay, who was not pleased that he’d lost Decker—not pleased even a bit.

  Mac knew that it must have been feds at work—efficient, organized, clinical and grey suits equals feds. He’d told Henry-Clay as much, and the man had simply said, “Find Decker Roberts, Mr. MacMillan—find him fast.”

  Mac sat with the pages of the script Decker had written for Josh opened on the Formica tabletop—beside a large glass of scotch.

  “Feds,” he mumbled. He had a cop cousin in Montreal who told him an interesting story about American feds. It may have just been a rumour the guy was repeating, but it had the ring of truth to it. The cousin claimed that the RCMP had been tracking Ahmed Ressam—the Millennium Bomber—from the time he left his apartment in Montreal as he made his way across Canada. The RCMP didn’t want to arrest him on the Canadian side of the border because of the lax refuge claimant process north of the forty-ninth parallel that could very well have seen Mr. Ressam back on the streets in less than a week as he awaited the often four-year-long claim review. So the RCMP had simply followed him at a distance, and when he headed to the American border they informed the FBI—who decided that a female customs officer should make the bust. Nice touch that. But when later the U.S. president claimed that terrorists came from Canada—well, the RCMP and almost every Canadian police officer who knew the story were not pleased.

  Mac thought about that. Then he finished his drink, flipped open his cell phone and began to round up the troops—on both sides of the border.

  Henry-Clay threw his crystal glass against the far wall and it shattered with a surprising crackle and pop. It left a fine stain on the wildly expensive silk wall covering, but truth be told, he couldn’t care less. Although his dates seemed impressed by crap like that.

  He reminded himself that Mr. MacMillan had never failed him, and they’d been together for quite a while.

  He’d first met the man in his Tulane years. A roughneck Scot from the Ninth Ward who talked as if he were raised in the depths of Brooklyn. Later Henry-Clay learned the reason for this: the same families that ran the docks in Brooklyn ran the docks in New Orleans. So Stanley Kowalski actually did talk like Brando in the movie—a New Yorker, not a southerner.

  They’d met in a bar on Tchoupitoulas. Henry-Clay was buying a round for the table when this scruff monster half bull half man moseyed over to the table and sat down with him and his friends. Before Henry-Clay or any of the others could say anything, MacMillan said, “Get the fuck out.” Then to Henry-Clay he said, “Except you.”

  The others gladly skittered away leaving Henry-Clay to his fate. “Can I buy you a drink?” Henry-Clay asked.

  “Why would you want to do that? I’m not one of your pussy friends.”

  “As you will.”

  “What? Is that some faggot thing or other?”

  “No, it’s not. It’s nothing.”

  “So why’d you say it?”

  “I have no idea why I said that—I apologize.”

  “Good. So what’s the point spread on Tuesday night’s game?”

  Henry-Clay brightened—a new client. “Tulane by five and a half.”

  MacMillan shook his large head. His almost white curls fell across the wide expanse of his forehead. “Nope. Got that one wrong.”

  “Really?”

  “Trust me—Rice by three.”

  “That’s an eight-point swing in two days. Can’t be done.”

  “If Rice doesn’t win by three points you’re in serious shit, little man. Maybe you should consider getting out of this game. It’s too tough for a soft guy like you. I’d get out and get out fast or things could get very rough here for you.”

  Henry-Clay looked at the man across the table from him. Most assuredly the guy could take his head off and toss it in the garbage can if that’s what he wanted. But Henry-Clay saw that something else was at work here.

  This man was as much an outsider as he was. So he pushed his drink across the table to the man and s
aid, “Come work for me.”

  MacMillan laughed a short chortle. “I don’t work for kids.”

  “I’m not a kid. I’m the most successful bookmaker in Orleans Parish and you know it and I can give you what you really want.”

  “And what is it that I really want?”

  “Respect. It’s not about money or pussy for you—although both of those are important to you. What’s more important and will in fact lead to the other two is respect.”

  Henry-Clay noticed the man slowly uncoil.

  “What’s your name?”

  “MacMillan. Some call me Mac.”

  “Not me. I’ll call you Mr. MacMillan like you deserve. Now tell me how much they were going to pay you for this.”

  And MacMillan did.

  And Henry-Clay doubled MacMillan’s take—and Henry-Clay had his henchman. Like every businessman he needed a little muscle now and then—not too often, but sometimes people needed to be persuaded to change their minds. And Mr. MacMillan was more than capable of doing that.

  That was a lifetime ago—well before he knew the real ratio of the placebo effect, a ratio that allowed him to pocket a full 28.25 percent more on every pill Yolles Pharmaceuticals sold. And well before he told Mac about Decker Roberts’s son way out west on Vancouver Island.

  30

  B

  THE SAFE HOUSE OR WHATEVER IT WAS WAS DEEP IN THE suburbs on a cul-de-sac at the end of a long road. It had an open field behind it and substantial distance between it and the houses on either side. It was surprisingly old—1910 or 1912, Decker thought.

  They drove the SUV into a garage, the door of which closed quickly behind them. After Ted Knight and the woman inspected the house Decker was ushered into a back room. Mr. T pulled the window cord and the blinds flew up. The windows were bricked in with cinder block. “Nice view.”

  “For your protection,” the woman said as she gently pushed him farther into the room.

  “Is there room service? I could use a Coke.”

  “Get some rest. We start in an hour.”

  “Start what?” The woman didn’t answer. Mr. T nodded and left. “Fine. Good answer. And how long will this thing, whatever it is, go on?”

  “Until it’s finished.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “I have to tell you that I am completely unimpressed by snappy retorts.”

  “Too bad, here I thought we’d been getting on so well that I was sure we’d have a second date.”

  “If I were you, Mr. Roberts, I’d rest.”

  Suddenly Decker didn’t feel so smart. “What do you want from me?”

  “The truth, Mr. Roberts. Just the truth.”

  “Sure.”

  She held up a hand to stop him from continuing. “In an hour—actually in fifty-eight minutes.”

  “Okay. Fine. I don’t suppose I get a phone call.”

  “You had a phone call. You called your producer, Trish.”

  Decker sighed. “Yes I did.”

  “If it was me, I’d have used my phone call to ask for some legal representation—but you chose to talk about your TV show. What’s it called?”

  “At the Junction.”

  “Sounds dull. Get some rest.”

  Decker looked toward the small cot in the corner of the room. “What’s your name?”

  “You haven’t earned the right to know my name yet, Mr. Roberts. See you in fifty-seven minutes,” she said as she closed the solid oak door. Old houses have solid doors.

  Decker heard the dead bolt slide to, then lay down on the bed—and much to his surprise fell into a sound and dreamless sleep.

  Emerson Remi had friends. Princeton was good for that sort of thing—especially if you were bright and had solid Princetonian bloodlines. Emerson was and had. His little black book had the numbers of every member of his secret-society dining club and all their important contacts. He quickly looked up a number in San Jose and dialed. Three minutes later the brains behind the global GPS system was on the line, and five minutes after that Emerson was following the man’s instructions on how to trace the final number dialed on the cell phone he had found in the restaurant—Decker’s number. Then how to triangulate its position when that phone was next used.

  Emerson sat in the bar of the lobby of the Algonquin Hotel in Midtown and waited. As he did he wondered if Dorothy Parker had sat on the very stool upon which he now sat. “If every girl at Smith and Bennington were laid end to end, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised.” Well, he’d done his part in that.

  Yslan used the fifty-seven minutes to contact Harrison in D.C. and get updates on Charendoff, Josh, how the New York cops reacted to being taken off the case and most important who the older man was who sat in the restaurant hiding behind the copy of the Daily News. The guy was a player—it was written all over his rugged face. The Roman legions had been defeated only twice in their entire history. Once by the fanatical Parthians, the other time by the Scots—no doubt led into battle by men like this guy. Then she asked what was foremost on her mind: “How much time do I have?”

  “It’s hard to say.”

  “No more corroboration on either of the terrorist’s testimony?”

  “Not yet—but we have leads, Special Agent. Let me deal with that—you deal with Decker Roberts.” Then he hung up.

  A curse rose in her throat but she swallowed it down and concentrated on the new information as it came to her BlackBerry. None of it was all that helpful. She demanded updates on what she thought of as Decker’s four Junction contacts—Theo, Eddie, Leena and Trish—then she asked for and got copies of the cancellation orders for Decker’s credit cards, the arson report on his house, the calling of his loan at the TD Bank and finally on the condemning of his studio.

  Mr. T stuck his large head into the room. “Coffee?”

  She nodded. “And I want anything that comes in while I’m with him brought directly to me.” Mr. T left and was immediately replaced in the door by Ted Knight. “You let Mr. Roberts keep those USB keys.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Can I ask why? It’s against procedure.”

  “So’s kidnapping,” she snapped. Then she shrugged. “I want him to give me those USB keys voluntarily. And the digital tape recorder in his pants pocket.”

  “Sort of a test?”

  “More a QED.” In answer to Ted’s questioning look she said, “Quod erat demonstrandum—thus it is proved. You northerners didn’t have the quality education we had in the South.”

  “True,” Ted said. “The few of you who can read down there can read quite well.”

  She smiled. She knew he’d gone to Cornell, was a smart guy, but unlike her he’d been educated outside the syntactical realities of the King James Version of the Bible—certainly outside its precepts.

  “Shall I wake him?” Ted asked.

  Yslan recalled some nonsense in the film Usual Suspects where a cop claimed that the one who falls asleep is always the guilty party. Idiocy. Some sleep, some cry, some jerk off—what they do doesn’t mean anything.

  She stared at the grey-haired man for a moment. What did she really know about him? Then she said, “Sure. Wake him up. It wouldn’t be right for a fine southern lady to wake a sleeping gentleman.”

  Mac’s man watched the surfers on their boards riding the swell off the west shore of Vancouver Island. He knew that one of them was the man he’d been sent to follow, so he stepped back into the tree line and watched as the first snowflakes of the season fell into the vastness of the Pacific Ocean.

  31

  DECKER AND YSLAN

  ROUGH, STRONG HANDS BROUGHT DECKER BACK FROM A darkness within the darkness of sleep. He saw that a sturdy table had been set up at the foot of the bed—and sitting on the far side of the table was the woman with the translucent blue eyes. A gooseneck lamp on the table was the only light source in the room. She signaled him to sit at the foot of the bed. He did. Then she waved Ted Knight and Mr. T out of the room. There was a long pause. Decker
looked at the woman. Thirty-two—maybe thirty-four—thirty-six tops. Closer to her mom than her dad. Brothers—tons of brothers. He glanced at her left hand—no wedding ring, nor band of lighter skin—but he didn’t need that reassurance. He knew she was single. No kids. Her left index finger lay, partially curled, against her fully extended middle finger—so she had been a smoker. No nicotine stains—so past tense.

  “What’s the smile for?” she asked.

  “Not Marlboros or you’ve come a long way baby or Kents, but something in a soft pack, filterless—Pall Malls?”

  “Nope. I was a Luckies girl.”

  “Like your grandfather?”

  “That one’s too easy, Mr. Roberts. All the GIs smoked Luckies in World War Two. But the rest was impressive. However…” She hesitated, then said, “That’s not your only parlour trick, is it?”

  Decker looked at her, then glanced at the door. It wasn’t closed. “Am I under arrest?”

  “No.”

  “Then I can go?”

  “No.”

  “Then I’m under arrest, dammit.”

  “If you want it that way—sure. You illegally entered the United States of America. We can arrest you for that. If that’s what you want. Or you can stay here in protective custody until we figure out who tried to kill you.”

  “Nobody tried to kill me.”

  “Your house burnt down.”

  “It was a complete fluke that I got back to town that night. I was supposed to stay over in Cleveland but I lucked into a late flight that had been delayed. They probably thought the place was empty.”

  “Who did?”

  “The arsonist who’s been torching places in the Junction for months.”

  “And the calling of your loan and the cancellation of your credit card and the condemning of your studio—those were all mistakes, just accidents as well? Who do you figure did that to you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Neither do I, but someone’s making your life a misery.” She pulled out the BlackBerry with Mac’s photograph a second time and turned it to Decker. “Who’s this guy?”