Receptor

by Alan Glynn

  “Uh…”

  Sweeney feels like this is a trick question. But he and Matt left the office together on Friday afternoon to attend a meeting downtown, and neither of them returned, so quite clearly—

  “Mr. Sweeney?”

  “I suppose I could be, yes.”

  “You could be?”

  “Well, it would depend on how many people he saw after me. I mean, how many people he saw between, uh…”

  He’s not sure what he’s saying.

  Maintaining eye contact with Sweeney, Detective Ferguson comes around to the front of the desk. He sits against the edge of it and folds his arms. In appearance, strangely, he’s not unlike Dick Blanford. They’re both tall and slim, and of a similar age, but if there’s a fault line that divides them, it’s the quality of their suits. Blanford’s is bespoke, he’s got the pocket square, the tie clip, the cuff links. Ferguson’s, at a guess, is off the rack. It’s plain and a little shabby.

  But the quality of their suits, it turns out, has no bearing on the power dynamic in the room.

  And that has definitely just shifted.

  “Mr. Sweeney,” Ferguson says. “Why don’t you just run through Friday for me? The sequence of events. You left here with Mr. Drake at what time?”

  Sweeney swallows again, self-consciously, hating that this makes him appear nervous or even, somehow, guilty. “We left at about two-thirty, I think. Our appointment was at three. We took a cab to West Houston.”

  “Who was the appointment with?”

  Sweeney looks at Blanford for a second. “It was with Langhammer’s, the furriers. We’ve worked with them before, and we were just pitching them some new ideas.”

  “I see. And how long did the meeting last?”

  “About an hour.”

  “And how did Mr. Drake seem during this time?”

  “How did he seem?” Sweeney considers the question. “Fine, I guess. He made the presentation and answered their questions.”

  “Did he seem in any way agitated?”

  “No.” Sweeney shakes his head. “Not that I noticed. He’s always very professional. I mean, Matt’s one of the best in the business.” He swallows again. “Was.”

  “So the meeting ended at what time?”

  “Uh…” He’s acutely aware of what’s ahead now, of where this sequence of questions is leading them, and in the swirl of nerves, uncertainty, and his continuing shock at the news, he finds himself making a very deliberate decision. “Just after four. I could check my diary, but yeah, it wasn’t long after four.”

  “What happened then?”

  “We walked around for a bit, comparing notes on the meeting, but given that it was Friday afternoon, and probably too late to come back here, we decided to go for a drink.”

  There’s a pause. “Right.”

  What does that mean? Can Ferguson detect that Sweeney is already lying, or at least equivocating?

  “Where did you go?”

  “The White Horse Tavern.”

  “How long did you stay?”

  “I don’t know.” Sweeney glances at Blanford again. “A couple of hours maybe.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “Everything. We spent a good while going over the meeting, but then, you know, stuff. It was a conversation.” Ferguson seems to be waiting for more. Sweeney stares down at the carpet, at the geometric pattern, then looks up. “We talked about the Knicks, the Dodgers, Eisenhower, movies, whatever. I don’t remember exactly.”

  “What did you drink?”

  “Scotch. On the rocks. So did Matt. We had two or three. How is this relevant?”

  Ferguson ignores the question.

  “You and he get along?”

  Sweeney shrugs. “Yes. Though we didn’t socialize outside of work or anything, not usually. He was my boss.”

  “What does that mean? I thought Mr. Blanford here was your boss?”

  “Yes, effectively. But I mean—”

  “Detective Ferguson,” Blanford says, cutting across Sweeney, “in an organization like this there is a certain hierarchy, a sort of chain of command, if you like. Matt Drake oversaw a lot of different accounts, he was a manager, and Mr. Sweeney here worked under him.”

  As Blanford continues, Sweeney reflects on the fact that by not mentioning Mike Sutton he has crossed a line. Because there’s no going back on this, no reinserting him into the narrative.

  How would it look?

  Oh, by the way, I forgot, this other guy was there, too, and he was actually kind of creepy … He could say they bumped into Sutton after the White Horse, out on the street, and pick the story up from there. But he knows he’s not going to.

  “I see, yes,” Ferguson says to Blanford, and then turns back to Sweeney. “So you were there for, what, two hours? Did you leave at the same time? Did you leave together?”

  This is the crucial one. Sweeney has no clear idea what he’s doing, or why he’s doing it, but he suspects that if he takes a wrong turn at this juncture, none of that will matter.

  “Yes, we left together,” he says, “and talked for a few more minutes out on the street before going our separate ways.”

  His heart is thumping.

  Ferguson hesitates, then fishes a notebook and pencil out of his jacket pocket. He starts writing. Sweeney watches each scratch of the pencil, each stroke and curl on the page, trying to decipher what these upside-down words could mean. He knows he’s left a significant hostage to fortune with the White Horse Tavern story. Because what if Ferguson goes down there, speaks to the barman? Oh yeah, Officer, sure, I remember.

  Without looking up from his notebook, Ferguson says, “Corner of Hudson and Eleventh, right? So which way did you go? Which way did he go?”

  “I went east on Eleventh and I think he stayed on Hudson.” Sweeney pauses. “Yes, he crossed the street and went north.”

  Ferguson looks up.

  “Did he say where he was going? Did you discuss that?”

  Sweeney shakes his head. “No.”

  He knows his answer feels a little abrupt. But what else can he say? Besides, he’s too busy trying to chart a quick course for himself that will explain away the subsequent five or six hours of his own evening.

  As it turns out, there’s no need. Ferguson is not in the least bit interested.

  “So, Mr. Sweeney, last question, and thank you for your cooperation. How did Mr. Drake seem when he left you?”

  This again.

  “He seemed fine. I don’t know what to tell you, Detective. He was a stand-up guy, even-tempered, always friendly. He didn’t seem any different on Friday.”

  Ferguson pulls a pained expression, as if to say, I know, I know. He slips the notebook back into his pocket, pushes away from the desk, and stands up straight.

  “Thank you, Ned,” Blanford says. “And remember, we’d appreciate it if you’d keep this, you know, under your hat, so to speak. For now.”

  Ferguson nods in agreement.

  It’s clear that Sweeney is being dismissed. He gets up out of the chair, mumbles a quick “Thank you,” and leaves.

  * * *

  He returns to his office, closes the door, and sits at his desk. He stares vacantly out over the room. There’s plenty of work he could be doing, some of it urgent, but he’s too agitated to even think about reading ad copy or picking up one of these call reports. Plus, he’s tired. Going up there took a lot out of him, having to lie like that, and not just to one of the senior partners, but to the police.

  The hour or so he and Matt Drake spent in that apartment on Friday evening is the key to this thing. It could explain what subsequently happened to Sweeney himself—which now, though still unclear, doesn’t seem all that bad. More important, it could explain what happened to Matt. It could explain how and why he died. Which is an event Sweeney didn’t witness and had nothing to do with. So why did he feel compelled to lie about it?

  He doesn’t know.

  At the time, it felt like an act of se
lf-preservation. He didn’t even have to think about it. What he suspects now is that it was fear of embarrassment. If Matt Drake were still alive, and in the hospital, say, it would be different, but did Sweeney really want to tell the police—and, possibly, through them, some newspaper reporter—that a guy he’d just met had slipped something into his drink? That he’d then wandered the streets of the city for a few hours like a fool, having strange visions, convinced he was meeting Robert Moses and Marilyn Monroe? And that the same thing must have happened to poor Matt Drake? Who hadn’t handled it so well? Who must have lost control, and then his mind, and ended up running out into traffic to his death?

  How would that play? How would it affect, for example, Sweeney’s chances of promotion here at Ridley Rogan Blanford? Or, if they found out, how would the board at Tommy’s school look at it? How would they look at him?

  How would he explain any of this to Laura?

  He moves some papers around on his desk, barely aware of what they are, hoping the telephone stays quiet, hoping no one comes through the door with a question, or with art that needs to be approved, or just to shoot the Monday-morning breeze. Because right now his brain is a mess, a flickering kaleidoscope of emotions—first relief that he didn’t have to tell Ferguson the truth about what happened, then fear that the account he did give had serious holes in it, then curiosity, a sort of queasy, distracted longing for how he actually felt the other night, all of this followed quickly by shock, as he remembers once again that Matt Drake is dead, and that it could just as easily have been him.

  But as it has to, time marches on, the phone does ring, people do come through the door, and he makes an effort to get some work done. He’s aware that his mood and behavior this morning—downcast, sullen, difficult even—are uncharacteristic, and are being perceived as such by his secretary and by the colleagues he interacts with, but he also knows it’ll all make sense in retrospect, or it will simply be forgotten, when the news about Matt Drake finally gets out.

  And that happens just after lunch.

  The background noise in a place like RRB is constant, and any variation in volume, any disturbance, is hard to miss. It starts with a single, startled syllable. This is followed by a cluster of voices raised in anguish. Then someone starts sobbing loudly. Before long Sweeney’s door is open, and people are floating in and out. Soon enough, all the doors are open, on both floors, and as the afternoon passes, bewilderment and grief merge into a sort of collective numbness.

  Sweeney still can’t believe the news himself, but any feelings he might have are filtered through a thickening haze of confusion—because the more clearly he recalls what happened on Friday night, and there’s no doubt the details are coming back to him, the less about it he understands.

  * * *

  At five o’clock, as Sweeney is getting ready to leave for the day, there is a light tap on his open door. He looks up.

  “Hi, Ned,” Dick Blanford says. “A quick word?”

  “Sure, please, come in.”

  Sweeney stands and indicates the free chair in front of his desk. Blanford closes the door behind him, as though declaring an official end to the public mourning.

  “That was quite a day,” he says, shaking his head.

  “Yes. It was.”

  What else can he say? Nothing, except that maybe it still is. And that his current mood—dark, unsettled, and, yes, mournful—shows no signs of lifting either.

  Blanford sits down with a weary sigh. He crosses his legs and flicks away a speck of lint. “People are upset,” he says, “and understandably so, but I wonder how they’d feel if they knew the real circumstances here.”

  Sweeney looks at him. “Do we know the real circumstances?”

  And did he just say we?

  “Without going into too much detail,” Blanford says, but clearly about to, “not only was Matt half naked when they found him, he had marks on his back, as if he’d recently been, well … whipped.” He lets that sink in. “And apparently he was wearing red lipstick. And rouge.”

  “Holy shit.”

  “Who knew, right? But the police are looking into it. They say there are some underground clubs, places he may have frequented.”

  “I … don’t know what to say.”

  Blanford sighs. “You learn something new every day.” Then he leans forward and taps the edge of Sweeney’s desk with his finger. “Anyway, listen, I know I probably shouldn’t be bringing this up now, it’s too soon and all, but the fact is, there’s a lot happening at the moment, so we’re going to need someone to replace Matt, and more or less immediately. I’ve had a look at your record and a quick look at the numbers and I think we could make this worth your while. What do you say?”

  Sweeney stares at him in silence for a few seconds. Blanford has always been a remote figure to him, reserved and patrician, the ad-agency equivalent of an Olympian god. But he finds this shocking of him, almost indecent.

  “Oh, I don’t know, Mr. Blanford,” he says. “I mean, don’t you think—”

  “Sure, Ned. I know.” He stands up. “I’m a heartless prick. But what do you want? Life goes on.” He glances at his watch. “And someone has to look after the shop.” He moves toward the door. “Do me a favor, Ned, go home and think about it. We’ll talk tomorrow. And in the meantime, let’s keep this whips and rouge stuff hush-hush, okay?”

  Sweeney lingers at his desk for another few minutes, staring into space, but then gets up, puts on his coat, and leaves. On the way down in the elevator, he feels a little nauseous and headachy. It’s as if he has a permanent hangover now. Everything seems bleak to him, even stuff that shouldn’t, like the glittering store windows out on Madison, the lively pulse of the sidewalk, the gentle dimming of the afternoon light.

  It’s understandable, though. He’s upset about what happened to Matt Drake. They were colleagues. They sat in meetings together.

  Sweeney turns at Forty-Second Street and heads west into a chill wind.

  At the same time, he didn’t know the guy, not really, and Dick Blanford is right, life has to go on. So shouldn’t he be excited, even a little bit, at this prospect of a promotion? He’s on thirteen thousand a year, and a managerial position would probably bring him up to seventeen or eighteen, maybe more. Laura would be over the moon. They could think about moving to a bigger house.

  Except that …

  He’s not excited.

  And it’s got nothing to do with timing, with what is or isn’t appropriate. It’s got nothing to do with Dick Blanford being a heartless prick. It’s a new way of seeing things—or, rather, the memory of one. Because although he’s fairly certain that the Ned Sweeney of Friday night would consider this promotion a bad idea, the Ned Sweeney of right now can’t conjure up a sublime storm of words and logic to explain why. Not the way Friday-night Ned no doubt could.

  And that’s a more exciting prospect than literally anything else he can think of. So despite the phantom hangover, despite all the stomach-churning confusion about what may or may not have happened the other night, and despite the near panic about how things turned out in the end for Matt Drake, he’s got only one thing on his mind.

  It’s how to get back there. It’s how to be that Ned Sweeney again.

  4

  As the author of Raoul Fursten: A Life starts talking, I turn to face the podium. But I’m unable to focus. I stare ahead, calculating how long this will take, how long it’ll be before I can engage with Clay Proctor again. I want to ask him more questions. I want to get him to explain what he said.

  Ned Sweeney didn’t kill himself.

  As the voice from the podium drones on, I become more and more anxious. This whole thing could just be a coincidence. Or maybe someone engineered it. But why? Every now and again, I glance sideways at Proctor, who appears to be listening intently. I tune in for a moment. “… it was a time of great rivalries and intense competition, but also, let’s not forget, a time of discovery and innovation…”

  The aut
hor reads a couple of passages from the book and then there’s an interminable Q&A session, with most of the questions inaudible and most of the answers incomprehensible. To be fair, I’m not really paying attention. I’ve been blindsided. And I’m not used to thinking about my family, certainly not being forced into doing so by a virtual stranger. This was meant to be a quick favor for the congresswoman, in and out in five minutes, tops.

  The Q&A ends and there’s a round of applause. People start talking again, turning, moving about. I’m positioned behind Proctor now and am on the point of sidling around to try to get his attention when someone else leans over to him and whispers a few words in his ear. This becomes a conversation, a couple of other people join in, then the author himself makes his way over. I see my opportunity receding and have to fight an impulse to elbow my way through the crowd. But say I get back in front of Clay Proctor, what then? Tell me about my grandfather? A raw plea like that with all of these people listening?

  I don’t think so.

  More minutes pass and I decide to leave. But when I turn toward the exit, Stephanie Proctor is standing there, directly in front of me. She’s alone.

  “Well?”

  “He’s … charming. And very alert, as I’m sure you know.”

  “Yes.”

  I really need more time for something like this. “Look, he was on to me in under a minute, so if there’s a cat in this equation, and a bag, they’re no longer…”

  “Okay.”

  “What I will say, though—”

  “Yes?”

  “He might just be too alert. And too relaxed. I mean, how many fucks has he got left to give? Not that many, I’d say, if any at all, and that could be dangerous.”

  The congresswoman doesn’t react to this at first. She studies me closely for a moment or two. She seems to be weighing something. “You’re rattled,” she says eventually. “What did he do? What did he say to you?”

  I don’t like this.

  “What makes you think he—”

  “Because I know him, Ray.”

  “Then what the hell do you need my two cents for?”