Even Flow

by Darragh McManus

  He tore out the page and flattened it to the table. Cathy and Patrick stood, and all three exchanged handshakes.

  Cathy said, “Of course, Danny. If we think of anything.”

  “Yeah. Whatever we can do to help, you know?” Patrick said. “And it was nice to have met you, Detective.”

  “Danny. Nice to meet you, too.”

  “Let me walk you down, Danny,” Cathy said.

  The detective moved outside; Cathy stopped and whispered back, “Call me a little crazy, but was he flirting with you just then?”

  Patrick smiled and shrugged. “Hey, I can’t blame the guy. It’s my animal magnetism, Cath. It’s irresistible.”

  She thumped him on the arm and followed Danny outside. He was about ten feet ahead, stopped, waiting for her. She trotted toward him and they began walking to the elevator.

  Danny flicked his head back in the direction of Cathy’s office and said, “Seems like a nice fellow.”

  “Who, Patrick? Yeah, he’s sweet. He’s just a boy, but he’s sweet.”

  They had reached the elevator. Danny took a deep breath and turned to her, fixing Cathy in his gaze. She met his eyes and thought, Yep—I could answer your questions all day, Detective Danny Everard.

  He said, “Listen, Cathy, I need you to keep a lid on all of this. I know this is a big story—I couldn’t blame you for wanting to get the jump on your competition—but I need some time here. Just to get a proper handle on the situation. It’s a bit crazy just yet. Can you do that for me?”

  He made a silly, pleading sort of face, which didn’t seem to suit him at all, and Cathy had to stop herself smiling. She liked Danny, she decided; he had good intentions and an inherent integrity. And he seemed oddly nervous just then, which endeared him to her even more.

  She clasped his arm and said, “Sure, Danny. You can trust me.”

  “Appreciate it. We’ll talk later, okay?”

  He stepped into the elevator. Cathy stood there for a moment, a tiny smile playing on her lips, as the lights above the chrome doors marked his descent.

  “Later. Okay.”

  The rain had stopped but a heavy bank of lead-gray clouds hovered ominously on the horizon. Danny was trotting down the steps of the Network 4 studio, a fresh wind tickling a chill along his neck, when another man sidled alongside and began walking in step with him.

  “Detective Sergeant Everard? Daniel Everard?”

  Danny stopped and warily examined him. The man was heavy, no taller than five six, his shiny hair brushed flat against his head. He wore a beige trench-coat and Danny thought, God, you are such a cliché. Might as well wear a fedora with “Scoop” written on the hatband.

  The man introduced himself: “Leonard Krige, WRD News. You know, the cable channel? If I could just have a moment of your time, Detective…”

  Danny started walking again, quicker now. Krige followed with a tape recorder held out before him. He called into the wind, “Just a quick moment, sir. It’s about the so-called 3W Gang. Is it true that two nights ago, the sons of two well-known and influential New York bankers were tortured and left for dead in their own apartment?”

  Danny stopped a second time and looked at Krige, incredulous. He shook his head contemptuously and walked off.

  Krige, persistent, resumed his pursuit, saying, “And is it true that a second, related incident occurred last night, in which a young man was kidnapped and strung up naked near one of the city’s most notorious homosexual districts?”

  Danny stood and spoke without turning around. “Who told you that?”

  Krige smiled triumphantly. “So it is true. Can I get an official comment, Detective?”

  Danny muttered, “Get fucked, Krige” and started to jog down the rest of the steps. Krige shouted in his slipstream, “Hey, thanks a bunch. Shall I quote you on that?”

  “Aw, shit. Shit, shit, shit.”

  Cathy closed her eyes and tapped the TV remote control unit off her forehead. Patrick shifted uncomfortably on the low leather couch in one of the station’s screening rooms, feeling bad for her but at a loss as to how he could help. Cathy deftly removed her glasses and massaged her eyes with the same hand, then started flicking back up through the channels. It was obvious to both of them: all their rivals were on the scent of a scoop.

  She stopped on a rolling newscast going out on a rival channel. The newscaster, a thin man of Indian descent, was saying, “…identity of the first two victims has been confirmed as Mr. Clifford Hudson and Mr. Steven Ainsworth, futures traders with the same Wall Street stockbrokers, although further details are not, as yet, available from official sources…”

  An angry man with a large, handsome face came on screen as a mousy woman, presumably his wife, looked on in the background. Text underneath read, “Paul Hudson—father of victim.” He bellowed into the small cluster of microphones before him, “It’s been a full 36 hours since my son was discovered and still nobody has been arrested for questioning, nobody has been charged with any crime. The NYPD is acting like this is some sort of normal occurrence when anyone with a brain in their head can see that Clifford and Steven Ainsworth were the victims of a calculated attack by a well-organized…”

  Cathy flicked again—Leonard Krige was reporting to camera, from the steps right outside her building. She wondered how much it’d hurt if she dropped a coffee-pot on his head from this height.

  Krige said, “…off-the-record sources have confirmed to me that this incident is now being linked to the discovery this morning of an unconscious, naked man, tied to a pier in Chelsea. We can also confirm that Network 4 anchorman, Jonathon Bailey, was the recipient of two videotapes, purporting to come from the gang in question, which allegedly contain actual footage of these grisly attac…”

  She muted the sound and sighed heavily. Patrick stood and took a step toward her, then realized that he didn’t really know what to do. He sat down again.

  Cathy said, “Jesus. This is…a disaster. I promised Danny. I told him it wouldn’t get out, and now…” She pointed at the screen. “Look.”

  “It’s hardly your fault, Cath.”

  “Whose fault do you think it is? I didn’t leak any of this, but it was my responsibility. God damn it.”

  “Well… is there any way we can find out who’s behind it? Who leaked the information?”

  “No. Not really. It could have been anyone, Patrick. A member of staff, or the family of a member of staff, or someone who overheard something in a bar last night. I mean, it could have been you, for God’s sake.” Her cell phone rang, the love theme from The Godfather rendered in thin, electronic tones. “Hello? Yeah…uh-huh…the main boardroom. Got it. I’m on my way.” Cathy pocketed the phone. “Fucking management—melodramatic to the last. I now have to travel upstairs and ‘explain myself’, quote-unquote, to the entire board of directors. Hold on a while here, will you? I’m pretty sure I’ll feel like a drink in about 30 minutes.”

  “’Course I will.”

  She tutted quietly and left. Patrick settled into the soft couch and brought the sound back up on the television. Leonard Krige was just wrapping up on screen.

  “Although we’ve already had one denial from the chief investigating officer, Todd, there seems little doubt that these two bizarre incidents are, indeed, linked. What happens next is anyone’s guess, but the feeling I’ve been getting from sources is that something definitely will happen: sooner or later. This is Leonard Krige…” He gave that fake, practised news media smirk. “…for once, at the Network 4 studios.”

  Patrick killed the set. He sat there momentarily, absently pulling at a small tear in the couch’s fabric. He pictured Cathy, right now, entering the boardroom, a row of unsmiling faces in suits ranked around the table, a wall against which her wave could break. He sighed, and reached for his phone. Not much he could do about it at the moment, anyway. They’d all have to wait, he figured, and allow things to take their course.

  Chapter 6

  Playing poker

>   STREETLIGHTS were pricking into life outside as Danny walked through the hospital corridors, his long overcoat billowing behind him like a superhero’s cape. The smell of antiseptic and something else, some cold, unpleasant odor, filled his nostrils. He paused to check directional signs, followed the arrow and stepped into an elevator that began to ascend.

  Wilde, Waters, and Whitman sat around a low table in a basement uptown. Music played softly in the background—instrumental, evocative. Beer bottles, packs of cigarettes, and ashtrays littered the table. Waters started to deal out cards, their papery snap on the table’s hard plastic top a steady counterpoint to the music.

  Danny reached his floor, stepping out and walking down a long corridor. Large rectangular lights glowed overhead, reflected in the shining tiles on which he walked. A thin man in rimless round glasses stepped out of a door to Danny’s right, shaking his hand.

  “Doctor Ronald Troussier,” he said softly. “I’m handling the patient for the time being.”

  “Detective Sergeant Danny Everard. ‘For the time being.’ What does that mean exactly? How serious is his condition?”

  Troussier beckoned Danny to follow him into the tense hush of Tommy’s room.

  The basement was clean, with plain white walls and banks of electronic equipment on two sides: several computers and modems, a laser printer, a camera on a tripod and one on a shelf, a sound-editing desk, a radio scanner, stacks of CDs, movies on disc and cassette, a bulky, old-fashioned microfiche which gave that corner an air of retro kitsch. Cables snaked from machine to machine, to central power points and wall jacks. A huge banner, made of some sort of netting, was fixed to the four corners of the ceiling, sagging slightly in the centre. It said, “LA LUCHACONTINÚA ” in thick, white letters, an old-style military typeface.

  The hand had been dealt, and the three men examined their cards.

  Whitman drawled, “Um…I bet 20.”

  “20? Don’t be stupid,” Waters responded. “You can’t just bet 20. You gotta start with something decent. Like, say, 50.”

  “I told you, I’m a bit short this week. Had to get new tires for the bike. I’m fucking broke, man.”

  Wilde said, “I’ll lend you the money, Sandro. Alright? Now can we please play the game, you collective pain in the ass? Thank you.”

  Danny and Troussier stood together, a few feet back from the intensive care unit in which Tommy lay, hooked up to different pieces of equipment: a drip, nasal prongs, a cardiac monitor, a chest drain to the left side. Danny actually shuddered—he was physically brave enough, but being around the weak and unwell touched a nerve of uneasiness, the sureness of his mortality. He thought about death a lot; he didn’t fear it, but did recoil from it, instinctively. That immutable impulse to continue existing.

  He said, “So? Gimme a situation report, or whatever you medical people say.”

  Troussier smiled. “Well, I suppose diagnosis is the most commonly used term. Alright: the patient suffered fairly serious hypothermia but is recovering reasonably well. He also had deep knife wounds on the feet, hands and, believe it or not, one under the left rib cage.”

  “The marks of the crucifixion. Jesus Christ.”

  “The very same, or so I’ve been told. However, those aren’t what worry me right now. His wounds have been sutured, and we’ve repaired the tendon damage to both hands. He’s also had a chest drain inserted for bleeding into the lung. In general, Detective, his physical condition is stable and he should recover from those injuries. But there’s something else.” Various books lined the shelves: books on philosophy, psychology, gender, history, fiction. A diversity of subjects and writers, and an eclecticism in their arrangement: Simone de Beauvoir beside James Ellroy, Noam Chomsky nestling up to Alan Moore, Fear of Flying looking almost self-conscious next to The Official Slacker Handbook. The clip of a handgun, though, looked less incongruous, resting on a history of Ulrike Meinhof and the 1970s guerrilla campaign that she led.

  Waters cleared his throat. He took a sip of beer and said, “Listen. Uh…I gotta say something.”

  Wilde said, distractedly, “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah. It’s, ah…it’s about our friend. You know, from the other night?”

  Wilde looked at him over the fan of his cards. “You can say his name, Rob. We’re not bugged here. Tommy. You’re talking about Tommy.”

  “Right. Tommy. I’m a bit… I think we might have gone too far the other night, okay?”

  “Go on, doctor. What are you worried about?”

  Troussier sighed, paused, formulating his words. He had worked with police before, and other non-medical people, and knew how easily the terminology of his profession could convert to meaningless white noise by the time it reached the listener’s ears.

  “The patient has been given something,” he began. “Actually, two things. First off, a mild cocktail of sedatives and muscle relaxants—fairly harmless in the long term. He’s probably gotten over that already. But also another drug, which is where I start to worry. It’s hard to tell exactly what just yet—we’re running tests—but I’d guess one of the psychoactive or hallucinogenic drugs. LSD, maybe, or mescaline. Damned if I know why this might have been done, but all the physiological and neurological signs are there.” He smiled wryly. “This kid is fried.”

  Danny nodded, thinking, working to fit this information into its background context. He said, “A mood-altering drug. Great. This gets better and better. Okay: tell me what something like this does to a person. What reaction it causes.”

  “I was up there earlier. At the hospital,” Waters said. “He looked…fucked up, man. Really bad.”

  Wilde leaned back and let his gaze drift over the walls, covered with home-made artwork, notes and reminders, scavenged advertizing placards and public works signs, and a myriad of posters: rock groups, sports stars, cultural icons, bikini pin-ups. Ali made shapes with those monumental fists and Laetitia Casta beamed, crazily sexy in a gold lamé swimsuit, her imperfect teeth just making her more attractive.

  He said, “Of course. That’s the whole point, isn’t it?”

  “No, you don’t understand. I know what we’re doing here. I know it’s gotta hurt. But Tommy, man… He was at death’s door, alright? And we’d put him there, and that is too fucking far.”

  They moved to the side of Tommy’s bed, the doctor’s head tilted in an attitude of concern.

  He said, “Okay. It’s complicated, alright—and I’m not being patronizing—but in layman’s terms, hallucinogenic drugs work on the neurotransmitters in the brain: the information pathways. A lot depends of the user’s state of mind at the time, and the surrounding environment, but basically, they can induce temporary symptoms of psychosis, cause visual and audio illusions, amplification of the senses, altered self-awareness…a whole heap of different effects. And a list of physical symptoms as long as the proverbial arm.”

  Danny grimaced. He badly needed a smoke.

  “Riiight. I’d be lying if I said I understood all of that, but I get the general gist of it. They gave him something to bring on hallucinations, more than likely. Fuck with his head a little, anyway. Still doesn’t explain why, though. I mean, was it just some sort of punishment, or…?”

  “We’re not just thugs or vigilantes, Rob,” Wilde said. “We don’t just pass judgment and punish. We’re making a stand and making a statement to the collective consciousness of a screwed-up, shitty society, and Tommy? What we did? That was his education, and everyone else’s.”

  Across town Tommy’s eyes flickered open, the barest glint of life in them. He was coming around, slowly. He stared dully at Danny and Troussier, still talking, their voices faint and faraway. He didn’t know where he was or who they were. He just knew he was hurting but still alive.

  Troussier was saying, “…to get this stuff? Well, it’s supposed to be strictly regulated, but as I’m sure you’re aware, ‘supposed to’ doesn’t always mean it is. I don’t know, Detective. On the internet, a street-dealer maybe, a
contact in a hospital or pharmaceutical plant…”

  Then Tommy began to remember—hazy snatches of memory picked from the ether. His mind left the room, the two men by his bed receding from his consciousness as he drifted back into the past—to the last thing he remembered…

  Disorientation, unnerving dreaminess—pockets of memory bubbling to the surface of Tommy’s mind. He was in that warehouse again, that empty, spooky place with its stained walls and metallic echoes. And those creeps in the hoods were strapping him into a chair and smoothly sliding a needle into his forearm. So sharp, he remembered, so sharp he didn’t even feel the spike pierce his skin. The big one clasping Tommy’s head tightly, hands like twin vices around his skull, while the smaller guy yanked his eyelids up and taped them into place, forcing him to look straight ahead at a screen. He struggled against the grip, even tried to bite their fingers. But there was no escape. Then paralysis settling slow, from heart to extremities, a weird leakage of energy; and weirder still, a feeling of indifference. He couldn’t move and his brain was telling him that he didn’t care. Then the man in the doctor’s smock, leaning into his view and smiling. The fucker actually smiled at him.

  “Ever seen A Clockwork Orange, Tommy? Not half as good as the book, really, but there was one good scene.” Standing aside to reveal a video screen. “The Ludovico Technique, Mark II: take it away, men…”

  The three men in the basement threw down cards, tipped long columns of ash from their cigarettes, hoisted their beer bottles. The game continued.

  Waters said, “I’m scared. Not for myself, or that we’re gonna get caught. I’m scared we’ll go too far and someone will die. It’s as simple as that.”

  “That won’t happen, Rob,” Wilde said. “Look at me. That’s not gonna happen, okay? Everything will go as it should.”