Receptor

by Alan Glynn

  “Huh?”

  “Here, I mean. With you. On Friday night.”

  Sutton makes a snorting sound. “What are you, a detective now? You come here asking questions? I thought you lost your fucking pen.” He extends an arm. “You want to look for it, be my guest, but I gotta take a leak.” He turns, still a little unsteady on his feet. He walks over to a narrow corridor on the left and disappears through a door.

  Sweeney is unsure what to make of this. Was Sutton being callous just now or was he not really listening before? Whatever. It doesn’t matter. The guy may be drunk, but when he comes out, Sweeney’s going to have to confront him.

  He surveys the room. The mess is awful. He steps forward to inspect the drinks cart. He doesn’t see anything out of the ordinary—just liquor bottles, a soda siphon, a cocktail shaker, an ice bucket. But then something catches his eye—on the floor, next to the fireplace. It’s a pile of magazines. He leans down to get a closer look. The top one is called Bizarre and the image on the cover is of a nearly naked woman who appears to be chained to a wall.

  Holy shit.

  Sweeney hears a sound, which he can’t identify, and straightens up. When he turns, he catches his reflection in the mirror. After a second, it dawns on him. This is a two-way mirror, isn’t it? He stands there motionless for a while, staring at himself, in shock—and with the growing conviction that Sutton is staring right back at him.

  Sweeney is out of his depth here. It feels as though he’s been caught in a spider’s web. He tries to remember some of the things Sutton said on Friday—what it was about the man that he found so creepy and intimidating. But it’s all a blur, a dizzy flicker of images and half-remembered phrases.

  When Sutton reappears in the room a moment later, Sweeney quickly gets the impression that he’s not as drunk as earlier, that he’s more sure-footed somehow, more alert.

  “No sign of the holy fountain pen?” Sutton says. There’s a crisper tone to his voice as well.

  “Look, Mr. Sutton,” Sweeney says, feeling his heart starting to race. “I didn’t lose any pen. I came back here because of Matt. Because of what happened on Friday night. Because of—”

  The doorbell rings.

  Damn.

  Sutton rolls his eyes and goes over to answer it. From where Sweeney is standing, he can’t see who’s there. Sutton holds the door open and half leans out, not allowing the person to come in. Sweeney can’t hear what’s being said either, not at first, but then Sutton raises his voice.

  “That was never a part of the arrangement, never, now get out of here.”

  “Oh yes it was. Oh yes it was!”

  The voice is female. And angry.

  Sweeney wonders what the arrangement is.

  “No, it wasn’t, and how many times do I have to deal with this? Look, you want me to call the cops, is that it? Because I will.”

  “Oh no, you don’t call the cops, mister, I call the cops. I call the cops. You hear me?”

  Sutton pokes his head back into the room and looks at Sweeney, exasperated. “Sorry about this. Give me a few minutes, will you?” He points at the drinks cart. “Make yourself at home.”

  He slips out into the hallway and pulls the door closed behind him. Sweeney stands and listens intently as Sutton and the woman continue arguing, but then their voices begin to recede. Where are they going? Downstairs? After another moment or two, Sweeney hears the front door of the building slam shut. The voices stop altogether. He waits. Is Sutton coming back up? Nothing happens.

  He listens as hard as he can. After a couple of seconds, he hears a sound. It’s the woman’s voice again, though muffled this time. She’s still shouting, but he can’t make out any words. They’re clearly outside the building now, either on the stoop or on the sidewalk.

  In the next second, and almost without thinking, Sweeney goes over and opens the door Sutton went through earlier. He feels for a light switch and turns it on. The room is small and very narrow. It’s definitely not a bathroom. For a second, he doesn’t know what it is, a recess or a cubbyhole or some sort of a walk-in closet. And when he focuses properly, he realizes he was right—on the wall to the left is the other side of a two-way mirror. He takes a step forward and peers through it into the living room. This is insane. Even more insane is what else Sutton has in this custom-fitted little room of his. There’s a long single-sided bench table running along the wall beneath the mirror and on it sits an eight-millimeter cine-camera. It’s set up on a small tripod, facing out.

  Sweeney tries to make sense of this. What? The guy drugs people and then films them? What kind of a sick son of a bitch is this?

  He stops for a second, remains completely still, and listens for any sounds. There’s nothing. He glances around again. There are papers and notebooks spread out on either side of the camera, as well as a full ashtray and some empty candy wrappers. At the far end of the table, he spots another pile of magazines. The top one is called Exotique and the cover features a woman in a leather corset, fishnet stockings, and high heels. She’s wielding what looks like a bullwhip.

  Holy fuck.

  Sweeney picks up one of the notebooks next to the camera and flicks through the pages. There are lists, charts, symbols—lines and lines of scrawled handwriting. It could be anything. The next one he picks up is almost empty, but he examines the first few pages. It seems to be a diary. The entries are dated. He reads a couple, and doesn’t understand them, but then he spots his own name, and Matt Drake’s, and it’s like a punch to the gut.

  Friday, 18.45 administered 75 mcg of MDT-48 to Ned Sweeney. No apparent effect, disappointing. But Sweeney left early, so can’t be sure. Also administered 50 mcg of LSD-25 to Matt Drake. Delayed reaction, but oh boy. A dose of the horrors, mitigated by generous quantities of bourbon.

  He drops the notebook, feeling a little dizzy.

  A dose of the horrors?

  What does that mean? What is MDT-48? What is LSD-25? And who is this guy?

  He pokes around some more. There are pull-out drawers under the bench table. He flicks some of these open and finds more notebooks, packs of cigarettes, loose pills, razor blades, small canisters of film, and dozens of photographs—none of which he can bring himself to look at. Besides, he’s been in here way too long. What if Sutton comes back?

  That’s when Sweeney realizes what’s delaying him. It’s not just this discovery—which is awful—it’s that he’s looking for something.

  It’s the reason he came back down to West Fourth Street in the first place.

  He stays in the room for another couple of minutes. It frustrates him that he doesn’t know what the thing he’s searching for even looks like. Eventually, he has to give up. He’s tempted to take the diary with him—as what, evidence?—but he leaves it. He flicks the light switch, closes the door, and goes back into the living room.

  He doesn’t hear the muffled shouting anymore. He doesn’t hear anything. He tries to figure out what he’s going to say when Sutton shows up again. Then he looks around, surveying the room for any clue as to where the stuff might be kept. He goes over and checks out the drinks cart again. It’s the same as earlier, but this time he decides he could probably use a shot of something. He examines what’s on offer. There’s a bottle of Old Fitzgerald but Sweeney instinctively avoids it and picks up a bottle of Wolfschmidt instead. He finds a clean glass and pours himself a decent measure. The ice bucket has a pool of cloudy water at the bottom of it. He hesitates, not sure he wants to drink neat vodka.

  He turns and puts the glass down on the coffee table. Maybe it’s to distract himself from what he’s just seen, he doesn’t know, but he decides to go and look for some ice. He finds the kitchen over to the right. The mess in here could go pound for pound with the one in the living room—piles of old newspapers, dirty dishes on every surface, empty milk bottles. He opens the refrigerator, hoping that what he finds won’t be too disgusting. To his surprise, it’s almost empty—a few eggs, some cold cuts, and half a watermelon. H
e opens the freezer section. Right there, he sees a tray of ice cubes, one of those new lever-operated aluminum ones.

  Bingo.

  But …

  It’s a double bingo, because behind the tray of ice cubes is a different metal tray that contains up to maybe twenty glass vials or apothecary bottles, each with a little cork top. Sweeney looks over his shoulder and listens for a second. Nothing. He turns back and eases the container forward a bit. Each of the glass bottles has a label on it and he quickly checks all of them. None of the names means anything to him—except two, LSD-25 and MDT-48.

  He hesitates and then removes the bottle marked MDT-48. He slips it into his jacket pocket. He pushes the container back to the rear of the freezer. He forgets about the ice cubes, closes the refrigerator, and heads back out to the living room.

  There’s still no sign of Sutton.

  Sweeney sits on the couch and picks up the glass of vodka from the coffee table. He takes a sip. And then another. He looks at his watch. Sutton has been gone nearly ten minutes.

  As the clear liquid burns its way down to Sweeney’s stomach, he reflects on what he’s just done. It seems barely believable to him. His behavior. He hasn’t actually stolen anything since he was a kid.

  He swirls the vodka in the glass and takes another sip.

  This is different, though. He has to believe that. And Sutton is guilty of a far more heinous crime. Whatever this LSD is that he slipped to Matt Drake, it clearly caused, or was instrumental in causing, his death.

  A dose of the horrors. Sweeney shudders and takes another sip from the glass.

  Then he hears a loud banging sound. His heart jumps. It’s downstairs, the front door of the building.

  He straightens up and clears his throat.

  He thinks of the drugs, the dirty magazines, the camera, the two-way mirror. He thinks of poor Matt Drake losing his mind and rushing out into traffic to his death.

  But that’s not all he’s thinking about. That’s not even mainly what he’s thinking about.

  The key rattles in the latch, the door opens, and Sutton spills into the apartment.

  “Holy fuck,” he says, shaking his head. “Is there no end to the shit I have to take from these people?” He’s addressing himself more than Sweeney. He makes his way over to the drinks cart, pours a shot of something into a glass, and knocks it back in one go. Then he turns around. He looks flustered. There’s a small scratch just under his right eye. He sees Sweeney noticing it and lifts a hand up to feel it. “Little bitch,” he says, then smiles. “So, Mr. Ned Sweeney, where were we?”

  Sweeney takes a sip from his glass. This is to make it clear that he took Sutton at his word and made himself at home. But he wonders how obvious it is that his hand is shaking.

  “Matt Drake,” he says eventually.

  “Oh yes, of course.”

  “I felt you should know about what happened to him. Because it occurred to me that you might not have heard. Seeing as how before Friday, you and he hadn’t seen each other since … the war?”

  Sutton stares at him. “Yeah, yeah, that’s right. And thank you.”

  “It’s a terrible business. We’re all cut up about it at the office.”

  “I can imagine. Terrible.” Sutton seems distracted, idly feeling the scratch under his eye again, tracing a finger across it. “He was a stand-up guy, all right.”

  “Yes, Mr. Sutton, he sure was.” Sweeney is trying so hard to sound normal that it’s easy to forget just how twisted this whole situation is. But he can’t backtrack now. It was the same earlier on in Blanford’s office, with Detective Ferguson—once he’d started lying, there was only one direction to go in. “It’s such a waste, such a tragedy.” He looks down into his drink.

  “Yes, I know, I know. And call me Mike, would you?” Sutton clears his throat loudly. “Look, he stayed here awhile after you left, maybe an hour, we had a couple more drinks, then he skedaddled.”

  Sweeney’s impulse is to ask him if Matt said where he was going, but he resists. What would be the point? Besides, Sutton was right. Sweeney is not a detective. He’s a grieving colleague, letting an old friend of the deceased’s know what happened.

  “Thanks,” he whispers. He takes a last sip from the glass and puts it down. “So, Mike … I guess I’ll be on my way, then.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  But as Sweeney is getting off the couch, Sutton adds, “You know, Ned, I was just wondering … that business with the fountain pen?” He shakes his head, the conciliatory tone gone. “What was that about?”

  Sweeney tries not to freeze. It’s a reasonable question, the kind an actual detective might ask. Sutton is staring right at him. This is so weird. Is it really just the pen thing? Or is it the fact that he seemed to change his story after Sutton came back? Either way, it occurs to Sweeney that if he wants to push this, he could make a lot of trouble for Sutton—the magazines, the drugs, the camera, not to mention whatever involvement he had in Matt’s death.

  But really, all Sweeney wants to do is get out of here.

  “Look … uh…”

  “Yes?”

  “To be honest, I was a little intimidated by you the other night. I still am.”

  “What? That’s ridiculous.”

  Sweeney doesn’t know if the surprise is genuine, but the smile that accompanies it sure is. Sutton likes the idea.

  “If you remember, I didn’t say much when I was here. You and Matt, telling your war stories … I was sort of overwhelmed. And then, when it came to approaching you today, with what I had to tell you, this awful news … I guess I just blurted it out. About the pen, I mean. To buy a little time. I’m sorry.”

  Sutton considers this, continuing to stare at Sweeney—which by now feels like a deliberate technique, something he’s trained in.

  Is he a detective?

  Sweeney swallows, and then breaks eye contact—two very obvious tells, he’s sure, at least for any professional interrogator.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Sutton says, finally. “And I appreciate you dropping by to tell me the news.”

  Sweeney acknowledges this and moves toward the door. Convinced now that Sutton is in some branch of law enforcement, he can’t get out of the apartment fast enough.

  He walks a few blocks on West Fourth Street and then hails a passing cab. He gets in the back and sits there, his heart still pounding. The driver looks at him in the rearview mirror.

  “Sorry,” Sweeney says. “Penn Station.”

  The cab moves off.

  He takes the glass vial out of his jacket pocket and examines it. As he considers all the possible ways he may come to regret this, he also detects a hint of anticipation.

  6

  I lie awake for most of the night, moving the various pieces around in my head—the former cabinet secretary, Madison Avenue, the State Department, the CIA, my own grandfather—but I can never quite get them all to click neatly into place. Proctor working for the CIA is no big deal—plenty of people were recruited by the Agency back in those days—but here’s what I can’t figure out: Even if Proctor was Agency, and also knew Ned Sweeney … so what? The implication (still only in my head at this point) is that there’s a connection there, that something shady was going on.

  But where’s the evidence for it? A throwaway remark by an old man at a book party?

  It’s not enough.

  I wouldn’t include it in a report for a client, not without further investigation.

  And yet—at 2:00 a.m., at 4:00 a.m.—it continues to bug me.

  I found out a few things about my grandfather last night—very basic stuff, but more than I’d ever known before—and it barely took me twenty minutes. After I got the text from Jerry Cronin, I opened my laptop again and did some more digging. Ned Sweeney was born in Poughkeepsie in 1920. He had a heart murmur and didn’t see active service during the war. The ad agency he worked at in the early 1950s was called Ridley Rogan Blanford.

  I also found this in the New Yo
rk Times archive:

  On Tuesday evening, a man plunged to his death from the fourteenth-floor window of the Fairbrook Hotel in Midtown Manhattan. He has been identified as Ned Sweeney, 34, from Long Island. Police say Sweeney was found on the sidewalk by passersby at approximately 9:00 p.m.

  Later, in a follow-up report, the death was ruled a suicide.

  That was sixty years ago.

  So why did Ned do it? There was no real context provided in the report—no background, nothing to work with. Was he depressed for some reason? Did he have financial troubles? Was he a Communist? It could have been anything. I’m certainly not going to find out what it was in the archives of The New York Times. Or anywhere else for that matter. Because no one involved with Ned back then, no one who knew him—relatives, friends, nobody—is still alive.

  I gaze up at the ceiling.

  Nobody except, it seems, Clay Proctor.

  * * *

  At seven, I roll out of bed. I have a shower and get dressed. I’m never hungry first thing in the morning—I just knock back a couple of espressos. Then, with a rising sense of dread, I scroll through various news and social-media feeds on my laptop, followed by a quick look at email. But by then I usually am hungry, and that’s when the struggle begins.

  Before I had my brush with heroin—which only lasted about six months—I had a problem with food. Heroin you can kick, and it’s not easy. But food? Forget about it. According to the latest studies, it’s not even a question of willpower anymore. It’s all about controlling your environment—clear your cupboards of the wrong foods, don’t have stuff in the house you shouldn’t be eating. Fine. But I don’t have food in the house. My environment is New York City, so try clearing those cupboards of inappropriate food choices and see how it goes. It’s not as if I work out either. I do have a gym membership, but where am I supposed to find the time to go? Or the motivation. Which is another depletable resource, apparently. It’s all about establishing micro-habits and incrementally adjusting your behavior patterns.