On Borrowed Time (17 page)

“Which is?”

“Dealing with your loss. Not with mine.”

“Richard, I want to help you find Jen. Maybe it’s because I see her as a surrogate for Julie, maybe it’s because I care about you, or maybe I just want to see justice done against the assholes that took her. But the point is that I don’t really care why; I know when I want something, and I go after it.”

“Allie…”

“If that’s not good enough for you, then throw me out of here. Otherwise, bring me up to date on what’s happened since I left.”

“It’s good enough for me,” I said. “It’s easily good enough for me.”

I told Allie about my encounters with Lassiter and the guy following me, and what Mark Cook said about the device he was using.

“So right now he could be listening to what we’re saying?” she asked, then cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled out, as if into a megaphone, “You’re a piece of garbage!”

I laughed. “They can’t hear you, at least not according to Mark. He installed white-noise machines, which for some reason defeat lasers. It’s a rock-paper-scissors deal.”

Allie went into the kitchen and attempted to make us breakfast, although she had hinted that cooking was not her strong suit. But it was great having her back.

I followed her in. “Craig Langel said that what’s happening to me might have nothing to do with Jen at all; that it might be about the story I was working on.”

“Meaning Lassiter?” she asked.

“I guess so. Maybe I was getting too close to derailing whatever he was doing.”

She shook her head. “Chalk up another one for the doesn’t-make-sense list.”

“Why?”

“Because if I were Lassiter, and you were getting close to destroying something that was very important to me, I wouldn’t go to the trouble of creating this whole bizarre situation.” She smiled her sweetest innocent smile. “I’d just shoot you in the head.”

I returned the smile. “That’s because you are a delicate flower.”

Philip Garber said he had a full schedule, between patients and classes he was teaching.

But that didn’t stop him from calling me back during a break and agreeing to meet me for a drink at six o’clock.

The fact that he would see me so quickly, and in a setting like that, away from his office, told me two things. One, that he didn’t consider me a patient, and two, that he thought I was such a world-class nutcase that he wanted to be a key part of future historical descriptions of my lunacy.

We met at a club on East Seventy-first Street, between Park and Lexington. I was able to identify it only by the address; there was no sign on the building and no hint that it contained a bar inside. The door was locked, as Garber had said it would be, but my knock was answered promptly, and the mention of Garber’s name got me admitted without question.

The bar itself was dark, both in the amount of light and the wood the entire room seemed to be carved of. Everything about it said “rich,” and there was no doubt that the trees used came from the right side of the tree tracks.

Dr. Garber himself seemed a little embarrassed by the surroundings. “Not exactly the singles scene,” he said, smiling after we shook hands. “But it’s quiet, a good place to talk.”

We ordered drinks, and he suggested I try a ‘dark and stormy,’ a New England–based combination of Gosling’s rum and ginger beer. It was terrific.

“Is this a private club?” I asked. “Because if not, a sign on the door might be called for. Neon or otherwise.”

He nodded. “It was originally started seventy years ago by wealthy members of a college fraternity. Since then, membership has been limited to descendants of those founders.”

“You’re one of the descendants?”

“My grandfather was president of the fraternity. Every year I say I’m going to stop being a member, but then I feel disloyal to my heritage.”

“Maybe you can deal with that in therapy.”

He smiled again. “Perhaps so.”

“Will you show me the secret handshake?”

He smiled. “Don’t get your hopes up. But what else can I do for you?”

“I’ve been checking into Sean Lassiter.” He knew who I was talking about, since he had said I had spoken about Lassiter during our sessions, none of which I remembered. “I found out something interesting, something I need your point of view on.”

He didn’t say anything, instead just waited for me to continue. Once a shrink, always a shrink, even when sucking down a dark and stormy in a dark bar with no sign on the door.

“I have information that he, or his company, is conducting some kind of a drug study, a trial. On an Alzheimer’s drug.”

“Where?”

“At a hospital in Ardmore, New York.”

“Where you lost your Jennifer,” he said. He spoke about Jen as if she were real, and I was grateful for that.

“Exactly. I assume you’re not aware of the study?”

“Why would I be?”

“I know you’re an expert on memory.”

He shook his head. “No one is an expert on memory; it’s a process we are just beginning to understand. But my specialty is repressed memory, which clearly has nothing to do with Alzheimer’s. Further, even if this drug were directly related to something I was doing, I might not be aware of it. Such studies are rarely publicized in their early stages, which I assume is where this one is. I’m sorry.”

“Now that you know about it, is there any chance you could learn the details?”

He started to answer, but then stopped himself. The length of the hesitation became uncomfortable, so I said, “If you don’t want to…”

“To use a term from your profession, I would say that I have a reluctance to become part of the story. It’s an instinct we psychiatrists have.”

“I understand,” I said. “But I’m not your patient, even if I once was.”

“If you could be specific about what it is you want to know…”

“Everyone but me has forgotten Jen. I think Lassiter is a crook, and I was obviously investigating him. He hates me, and right now he’s involved with something regarding memory. The connections and coincidences are too much for me to disregard.”

He shook his head slightly, as if saddened to have to enlighten me. “Memory drugs, no matter how advanced, don’t change homes or apartments. They can’t erase all physical traces of a person.”

I asked the question that was most worrisome to me. “Can they create memories?”

He knew what I was talking about. “No. Not to the degree you are experiencing them. Not even close. Memories can be false. You can be positive that something happened, even remember details of it, yet it may never have happened at all. But it’s a trick that only your mind can play on itself, and never voluntarily.”

He was closing doors one after the other, but finally opened one a crack. “I’ll make some discreet inquiries,” he said.

“Thank you for that.”

I ordered another dark and stormy, and we drank to it.

Dr. Harold Gates surprised Kentris.

That in itself was highly unusual; Kentris could count on one hand the number of times he was surprised in the last five years. And each of them involved either sports or women.

It had taken a while to arrange the meeting, and Kentris had believed that Gates was avoiding him. He expected to have a difficult time getting information, and thought he would have to get a court-ordered warrant.

That wasn’t the way it turned out at all, though it took a little prodding. “I’m interested in the business you’re doing with a company called Biodyne, run by Sean Lassiter.”

“That seems to be going around lately,” Gates said. “A journalist named Kilmer was here with the same goal.”

“I’m not a journalist,” Kentris replied.

“So you’re not. May I ask why you are interested?”

“It’s part of an investigation I’m conducting.”

“That’s not very specific,” Gates asked.

“It wasn’t meant to be. Now, about your business with Mr. Lassiter…”

“I know you understand that we try and keep such matters confidential, releasing only as much information to the relevant government agencies as we are required to do.”

“I have no interest in spreading the word, nor do I have a lot of time to spend here,” Kentris said, looking at his watch. “If I have to get a court order, my whole day will be shot.”

Gates shrugged. “Very well; I certainly intend to cooperate. What would you like to know?”

“Let’s start with the nature of your business together.”

“We are conducting a trial of an experimental drug that Mr. Lassiter’s company is developing. The trial is in its late stages.”

“What’s the name of the drug?” Kentris asked.

“Amlyzine.”

“Is it an extensive trial?”

“Very much so. And it has the potential to be a very important drug.”

Gates went on to describe the procedure in some detail, actually more detail than Kentris needed at that point. There were 250 people in the trial, half taking the experimental drug, half taking a placebo.

“So the people taking the placebo think they might be doing something to save themselves, when actually there’s no chance?” Kentris asked.

Gates nodded. “That’s unfortunately the nature of these things; it’s the way medical tests like this are conducted in this country. There are good reasons for it, I assure you.”

“I’d be pissed if it was my father taking a damn sugar pill.”

“It’s for the greater good.”

“How’s the test going?”

“I have no idea,” Gates said. “We do not monitor the results as they come in; that would not be proper science. We conduct the study, and then we analyze the data.”

“I would like to see whatever information you have related to the study,” Kentris said.

Gates hesitated. “You won’t know what you’re looking at.”

“It won’t be the first time.”

“There will need to be some restrictions,” Gates said.

“I don’t like restrictions. They have a tendency to feel restrictive.”

“Nevertheless, if you don’t agree to them I will not give you what you want. You would have to seek your court order, and waste your whole day.”

“Let’s hear them.”

“The names of the patients participating in the study will have to be withheld; the data will have the names redacted for reasons of privacy. You can look at it, but you must do so here, and you must promise to keep what you learn confidential. We have a responsibility to our patients.”

Kentris thought about it for a moment; the conditions were something he could live with, at least for the time being. “Agreed,” he said. “Though I retain the right to share it with other people who are my partners in this investigation.”

Gates was fine with that, and said so. It took forty-five minutes to assemble the information, and Kentris was led to a private room. The books filled with information about the drug study were brought in on a cart, and Kentris was left alone to look at them.

Gates was right; he didn’t understand hardly any of it. But if the time came when it was called for, he could bring in plenty of people who would know exactly what they were looking at.

For now, Kentris was pleasantly surprised by the relative ease in getting Gates to cooperate. That didn’t necessarily mean that Gates was clean in all this.

It just meant that if he wasn’t clean, he didn’t view Kentris as a particular threat.

If Robby Divine burns through his fortune, it won’t be because he spent it on clothes.

According to
Forbes
’ annual list, Robby, as he is known to everyone, is worth in excess of a billion dollars. But he is always in sneakers and jeans, even in his Wall Street office, and they look like they came from Target or Walmart. A while back.

I got to know Robby when I interviewed him for a couple of articles I did on the stock market maybe five years ago. His reputation for picking stocks for himself and his clients is legendary, as is his outspoken, forthright manner of speaking. In short, he has always been the perfect go-to guy for financial journalists.

When I called Robby he said to come right over, and within forty-five minutes I was sitting in his office. The same designer he used for his clothing obviously decorated his office as well; it was a dump, with papers strewn almost everywhere. The only area that was cleared off was part of his carpeting, to enable him to putt golf balls into a cup.

After we said our hellos and reminisced about the stories I’d interviewed him for, he asked, “So, did you find your girlfriend yet?”

“Still looking,” I said.

He nodded. “Bummer.” Then, after making a ten-foot putt, he asked, “So what’s up?”

“There’s a company called Biodyne, run by Sean Lassiter.”

Robby raised his eyebrows a notch; he obviously remembered Lassiter, and probably my contentious relationship with him. “And?”

“He’s testing a drug for Alzheimer’s. I want to know how much he would stand to make if the test turned out to show that the drug was effective.”

Robby looked at me for a moment, then put the putter down and went to his computer. He started punching keys, making notes as he did so. The process took at least ten minutes, a long time when you’re just standing there waiting.

“Okay,” he said finally. “Biodyne has a market cap of eleven million dollars, which makes it a very small company, even in that world. There are six million shares, trading at around a dollar eighty-five. Sean Lassiter owns eighty percent of the company, meaning four million eight hundred thousand shares. He has a hundred percent of the voting shares, but that shouldn’t matter to you.”

“So what effect would a positive stage-two drug trial have?”

“Depends on the drug and what it does, and on how successful the trial is.”

“Let’s say it reverses Alzheimer’s symptoms and the trial is very successful.” I was probably overstating it, but I wanted to get an outside figure.

“Then the potential is unlimited. A cure for Alzheimer’s? You could be looking at a two-hundred-dollar stock. Maybe more.”

“Which would mean what for Lassiter?” I asked.

It didn’t take him long to mentally compute the numbers. “Just under a billion dollars. And that’s just the stock; the drug itself would have mind-boggling ongoing value.”

“If it works.”