The Placebo Effect (19 page)

Decker ordered a ludicrously overpriced glass of red wine. Then another.

Josh was late. Even for a star he was pushing the acceptable limit.

Decker cursed him quietly and ordered dinner.

A commotion at the front of the restaurant signaled Josh's arrival. Decker sighed and swallowed the second glass of wine. It hurt going down. He flicked the toggle on his miniature digital recorder and checked the position of the polished soup spoon to his left at the table's edge. He adjusted it slightly so that he had an image of the lawyer in the concave of the spoon—three-quarters turned away and upside down, but an image nonetheless. Then he cupped his hand over his cell phone's tiny earpiece in his left ear.

Josh finished signing autographs and posing with young women for photographs. Decker always wondered about boyfriends' willingness to take pictures of their ladies draped around stars. Didn't they know that their girlfriends would be fantasizing about the star the next time the two of them were mid coital thrust?

Josh approached the booth. He held the script folded vertically in his hand. Decker smiled to himself—first audition, hold the script. It lowers expectations and gives you something do with your right hand, but never look at it.

Josh, without referring to the script, went right to the first beat. “Thanks for meeting me on such short notice, I really appreciate it.”

“Sure, my pleasure.”

“So look, I'm in the market for a new kind of representation. I want a nonentertainment lawyer—someone smart that I can deal with in confidence—for a second opinion, if you understand me.”

Then he put his cell phone on the table.

Nicely done—smooth, Josh.

Charendoff said that was a wise thing then added, “It's always my pleasure to meet people of real talent.”

Decker smiled. It seemed that Charendoff was on the right track to get to “So what can I do for you” when Decker heard the sound of a zipper opening followed by a dull thunk on the table behind him. He glanced at his strategically placed soup spoon—a leather-bound stack of paper was on the tabletop.

“Mr. Near. Do you mind if I call you Josh? From your work I almost feel like I know you personally. So is it okay if I did that—call you Josh, I mean?”

“No, sure, Josh is fine.”

“Well Josh, I hope you don't mind but I've taken the liberty of bringing you a copy of my latest screenplay. I think it's something special—and there's really a fine cameo in it for you.”

Sound of the thing being pushed across the tabletop.

Decker winced.

“I actually only do this lawyer thing so I can have the freedom to write. Well, you know how it is.”

Decker heard Josh stutter then mumble something—a sure sign he didn't know what to do next. Then he heard the scuffling of running feet and felt a strong hand grab him by his forearm and yank him to his feet. Then a woman's face was so close to his that he could smell the perfume at the base of her neck. Then in a whisper he heard her southern accent say, “Mr. Roberts, you are in danger, come with us quickly.” Then she kissed him full and hard on the mouth. “Whoa there, big boy,” she said loudly, “come on, honey, not here in front of all these fine folks.” Then two sets of hands propelled him toward the front door with a flurry of “Hey, bro, you've had too much to drinks” and before he knew it he was in the back of a black tinted-windowed SUV roaring toward the Holland Tunnel.

Through the circular window in the swinging kitchen door of the restaurant Emerson Remi watched the action too—a Dubonnet on the rocks in one hand, a brisket on rye in the other. Being a reporter for the
Times
allowed you to know the cooks in places like this. He saw everything from his perch: Charendoff's early arrival, then Decker's, finally Josh's ostentatious entrance. He noted the vertically folded pages in Josh's hand. Earlier he had picked out the two undercover cops near the front door of the restaurant. They hovered—watchers shouldn't hover. Then there was the Scottish-looking thug at the bar. The whole thing appeared to Emerson as a set piece—with too many performers—sort of a
MAD
magazine Spy vs. Spy times two or three. Then he saw Josh approach Charendoff's booth and the two undercover cops tense. Josh sat opposite the lawyer and Decker tilted his soup spoon as he slid an earplug from a cell phone into his left ear. He saw Josh put his cell phone on the table. The lawyer brought out a thick sheaf of bound papers, then all of a sudden there was motion all around. From the side of his eye he saw the two undercover cops being badged by guys in grey suits, while Yslan, looking very
pretty, kissed Decker and exited with him in a flurry along with two other men. As they did Emerson saw Josh slip out the side door of the restaurant. Then all was as it was before except Charendoff sat alone in his booth with his stack of bound papers and scowled. It was as if nothing had happened: the waiters waited, the patrons… patroned, although the Scottish guy had slipped out somehow.

Then he noticed what no one else seemed to have noticed—Josh had left his cell phone on the table.

Emerson entered the restaurant, sauntered over, reached down, and picked up the cell phone—and wondered if this could somehow get him to Yslan and her synaesthetes.

He was pretty sure it could.

THE WOMAN WHO HAD A FEW MINUTES BEFORE PLANTED A
big one on him turned from the front seat and faced him. For the first time Decker noticed the extraordinary colour of her almost translucent eyes.

“I think you've got the wrong…”

“You're a very bad liar, Mr. Roberts.”

Again with the bad liar!

“I would suggest that you shut up until we get to where we're going.”

“And where would that be?”

“Somewhere safe,” she said then added, “truthfully—somewhere safe.”

Decker looked past her as they roared into the tunnel and was astonished to see the Holland Tunnel at four o'clock on a Wednesday afternoon—completely empty. He sat back. The wall tiles whipped by him so fast he thought they were flying—and in some ways they were. Decker clutched his laptop to his chest and reached for a seat belt.

“Is there a seat belt law in New Jersey?” the woman with the translucent eyes asked.

“I'm not dying in New Jersey. It would just be too stupid.” He buckled up. And they sped on. He wanted them to talk or spit or do something. They didn't. The beautiful girl looked straight ahead. The two men who had hustled him into the SUV—one beside him, the other driving—didn't remove their wraparound sunglasses or move a muscle. The one in the backseat was a cleaned-up version
of Mr. T. The one who drove had immaculately coiffed grey hair—Ted Knight from the old
Mary Tyler Moore Show.
Finally Decker said, “So, aren't you going to put a blindfold on me or something?”

“Why, Mr. Roberts, do you like being blindfolded?” the woman said as she turned toward him.

“Not particularly. So if you're not going to blindfold me, you won't mind telling me where we're going.”

“Deeper into New Jersey,” she said. A smile creased her wide, expressive mouth.

“So you don't mind me seeing where we're going?”

“With some people I'd mind—a lot. Not with you. You use buildings as markers to find your way home, Mr. Roberts. When your usual subway entrance is closed and you have to use another exit, you haven't got a clue where you are. You set records for a lack of sense of direction, so I don't mind you seeing where we are going because you haven't got a chance in hell of finding the place again—do you?”

Decker glanced at Mr. T out of the side of his eye. He was tempted to ask how she knew that stuff about him but thought better of it when Mr. T momentarily turned his gaze toward him.

“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.”

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.