The Placebo Effect (27 page)

He thought again of the nausea he'd felt when Mike approached him and when he was near Emerson Remi—their forests interfering with mine. Or were their forests surrounding his—his forest—his what? If they were a forest, what was he?

Three cop cars roared down Seventh Avenue, sirens blaring and lights flashing. Decker turned toward them. For a moment he felt the flush of their cherry tops cross and recross his face. Then they were past him.

As he watched them turn the corner on Twenty-sixth Street, he made up his mind.

He was going to find Mike. That would cost some scratch, but his remaining credit card was too dangerous to use. He was pleased that he'd followed his normal procedure and mailed money to himself for safety's sake. In Toronto he'd divided the $16,290 he'd had left over from his three quick trips into four
parts. One he'd mailed to the post box he'd kept for years at the Kinko's on Ninety-second Street; another to the American Express office on Forty-third. Yes, you can still mail things care of American Express. It was long enough that the combined efforts of the U.S. Mail and Canada Post should have been able to deliver his packages.

He took the bus up Sixth Avenue then walked across Ninety-second Street—and right by the Kinko's. No one seemed to be loitering, looking for him. But then again Yslan's cohorts were more sophisticated than street cops, so he spent a full half hour watching the comings and goings before he was satisfied that it was safe to enter the store. As he stepped into the Kinko's he reminded himself that he'd had the post box there for almost eighteen years—paid for it faithfully each month.

The Kinko's was just marginally warmer than outside. The configuration of the store had changed—naturally enough. He asked at the front counter and was pointed toward a stairway that led to an entire basement wall of post office boxes.

Decker found number 221-S and inserted his key. The key slid in easily—but refused to turn the lock. Decker reminded himself that the damned thing hadn't been opened for years and applied pressure. As the lock resisted and the key bit into his fingers he remembered his wife holding that very key between her thumb and index finger and demanding, “What's this key to? What are you hiding, Decker?” Then she'd opened her mouth but chose not to speak. Decker was now pretty sure that what she was going to say was, “What have you done, Decker? What have you done?”

Decker pressed harder both to open the lock and banish the voice from his head. A sharp scrape of metal on metal—then the small door opened. Decker reached in and withdrew the envelope there. He put it down the front of his pants—four thousand dollars in bills is far too thick for a pocket.

The American Express office presented a more serious challenge. They may very well ask for ID. He'd only chanced using the American Express office because it was possible that whoever
had set his house on fire, cancelled his credit card, had his loan called and condemned his studio had found out about his Kinko's post box. But he assumed that few people still knew about American Express' mail service.

He entered the large office and asked the young receptionist where he could retrieve his mail. The African-American woman pulled her eyes away from her computer screen long enough to give him a strange look, then pointed one large curved red fingernail down a corridor and returned her false-eye-lashed eyes to the monitor.

At the end of the corridor was a counter—not unlike a coat-check counter in a theatre. An ancient man sat on a stool on the far side. The man was so still that for a moment Decker thought he might be asleep. Then the man opened his eyes. “Bathroom's for patrons only,” he said and closed his eyes.

“I'm here to pick up my mail.”

The man's eyes not only opened, but they clearly brightened.

“Name?” the codger asked, a smile widening by the moment.

Decker supplied the false name he'd put on the envelope.

The old man disappeared through a door and in remarkably short order returned with the thick envelope. He held it out to Decker. “Thanks,” the old guy said.

“What are you thanking me for?” Decker asked.

“Yours is the only letter this year. Without guys like you I'd be out of a job.”

Decker hustled out of the office, grateful that he never had to supply any form of ID. Then he headed to Columbus Avenue and Sixty-ninth Street, where he picked up the money he'd mailed to that address, and then over to Fifty-eighth and First, where he had a shock—someone had opened the mailbox and taken the envelope. His $4,290.

So he had $12,000 to track down Mike—and his ratios. Whatever the hell those were.

WHEN YSLAN FINALLY FIGURED OUT THAT DECKER HAD ESCAPED
in Emerson's car she considered several different ways of castrating Princeton's pride and joy, then simply pushed him aside with enough force for him to land hard on his tailbone. Then she called Washington.

Harrison was not pleased, to say the least, when he heard the news. “We need a serious talk when this is over—and it better be over soon.”

“Can I ask about the two interrogations?”

“They are progressing. Three new people have been brought in. I'm a bit more hopeful we'll get some corroboration on which one of these thugs is telling the truth.”

“Then you don't need Decker Roberts.”

“Nonsense! We may not need him for this, but we'll need him in the future. He's your responsibility, Hicks. Find him—and fast.” Harrison ordered the New York and New Jersey offices to join the search. “Now this Princeton snot, Emerson Remi, he's a former of yours, isn't he?”

“Yes, but—”

“Nothing's private here, Hicks. Nothing. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.” She looked at Mr. T and Ted Knight and reaffirmed, “Yes, sir.”

“So get this creep to bury the story. Promise him whatever you have to, do him against a tree if that's what he likes, but I don't want to see this on the evening news. Got it?”

Yslan did the best she could to hold her temper, then
organized her troops. Within the hour she received news of Decker's airplane ticket to Atlanta—and the whereabouts of Emerson's car.

When she summoned Emerson, he claimed that Decker had taken the car at gunpoint. “I wasn't going to die for a 2004 Benz. I mean, you know me better than that, I hope.”

The image of doing something to Emerson against a tree that included two large spikes and a mouth gag entered her head, but she cast it aside and ordered Emerson to stay at hand.

“Sure, anything to help the constabulary.”

Why Princeton guys imitated the very worst of the British was beyond Yslan.

She established that Decker never got on the plane to Atlanta.

In fact, the plane had been delayed when it was discovered that a ticket had been purchased but no one had taken the seat. Every bag had been off-loaded and each passenger had been forced to identify his or her luggage. When it was established that every bag had a passenger, the bags were reloaded and the flight took off—just short of three hours late.

Yslan didn't care about any of that. She wanted to find Decker Roberts. It was her job to find Decker Roberts. And after two days of debriefing him she was completely certain that she and Harrison were right: there was an entire world out there that they didn't understand, and Decker Roberts was part of and maybe their point of access to that other world.

She pulled Ted Knight and Mr. T back into the safe house's kitchen and quickly went through the list of things they'd found when they picked up Decker. The list included his three USB keys, his computer, his tiny digital recorder, his wallet, cell phone, and key ring—all of which Yslan had given back to Decker as evidence of good faith, back when she thought she understood him, believed they were on the same team. She threw aside the itemized list, then said, “Give me that again.” She read through it quickly a second time and swore, “Fuck. Money.”

“What?” Mr. T asked.

“How much money was in his wallet?”

“Just over a thousand dollars,” Ted Knight said. “It's in there,” he said, pointing at a kitchen utensil drawer.

Yslan's thoughts were miles away.

“He had two credit cards as well.”

“The Visa was cancelled. What was the other card?” Yslan demanded.

“MNBA, MasterCard,” Ted Knight said.

Yslan nodded. “That's how we found out about the airline ticket. I'm pretty sure he used it just to throw us off the scent. He won't use it for anything else.” She turned away and said, “Money.”

“What, boss?”

“Money. He must have a way of getting money.”

“Bank accounts?”

“Only if he's stupid—and he's not stupid.” Yslan picked up her notes.

“What are you looking for?”

“When he first got to New York, where'd he go?” Yslan demanded.

“Patchin Place, then the Upper West Side, then East Fifty-eighth Street, and then back to Patchin Place.”

“Did we photograph his key ring?”

“Sure.”

Yslan grabbed the photo and swore, “Fuck me rigid.” Before either of the men could comment on her extraordinary statement, Yslan was punching Decker's previous New York City addresses into Google Earth. “Son of a bitch! We thought he was going to sightsee his old homes.”

“He wasn't?”

“I don't think so,” Yslan said, looking at the photo of the keys again. “Get us a car and tell our Manhattan guys to stake out both places and every post office box near either of Roberts' addresses. Then have them check if the front doors and the mail box keys
have been changed at Decker's former apartments on West Sixty-ninth and East Fifty-eighth.”

Before they were halfway to Manhattan, Yslan received the bad news. Neither the front doors or the mail box keys at either of Decker Roberts' New York City addresses had been changed for years. Yslan lowered her window and affixed a red flashing light to the car's roof. “Let's go, let's go, let's go!”

DECKER TURNED UP THE COLLAR ON HIS COAT—LIKE BOB
Dylan in that wonderful old album cover, he thought, except that there was no tousle-haired woman on his arm or song in his heart. Alone—again. Then he felt the cell phone in his pocket and tears came to his eyes and the word “lost” flew into his mind and gouged deep valleys there. He entered the Canal Street subway stop and went down to the third level where there are no trains—just a lot of bodies trying to find some warmth on a bitterly cold New York City night.

Decker awoke to a none too gentle kick from one of New York City's finest's boots. “Night's done, make like a bread truck and haul buns,” the cop said.

Decker did his best to stretch. He'd slept on top of his laptop to keep it safe, and it had rewarded him by bruising the muscles of his side.

In line with the other men he made his way up to the surface. A cold wind greeted him. He knew he couldn't spend another night in the open—or in the bowels of the subway system. But hotels were out of the question. Since 9/11 you couldn't get a hotel room without presenting a passport. He couldn't figure out how to get around that, so he headed over to Tenth Avenue and began to walk south. Twenty blocks down he found what he was looking for. A TV show was doing a location shoot. The honey wagons were illegally parked on both sides of the street.

Decker hitched up his pants, tried to get the $12,000 comfortable in his shorts, and stepped into TV land. A place he knew
very well. TV sets always had security guards, but no one wore ID, so there was no real way for the security guards to keep outsiders out. And if you knew your way around, and Decker did, there were lots of places to hide on a location shoot.

He realized with a shock that Don Turk was the show runner. Decker had worked for Don in the past—the distant past. The man was a genius. He was the guy who figured out how to shoot an hour-long prime time show in under a week—sometimes in less than six days. He'd saved the networks millions of dollars. They rewarded him by firing his ass—TV typical.

He'd changed the industry single-handed and inadvertently lined Decker's pockets. The demands of fast shooting put tremendous stress on actors to act without the input of directors—something that few people could teach actors. It was Decker's specialty. Actors raced to Decker's classes and to his home to get prepped for shooting.

Decker watched the comings and goings on Tenth Avenue—the relentless self-congratulatory attitude of everyone from the lowest gaffer to the leading actors—and it sickened him. Hubris was a real thing. These folks' overloud voices and swaggering walks tempted thunderbolts as far as Decker was concerned.

Decker passed by the hair and makeup trailer, thought about it, then moved on. He entered the snack wagon and watched a green-haired girl put out any number of sugary treats. Decker waited until the camera crew guys left, than approached the girl.

He awoke later that night in the green-haired girl's Queens apartment. She had been only too happy to stay at her partner's place in return for $500 and for another $200 had given him her passwords to her laptop.

That night he spent hours lurking at the syn website's chat room. Watching and listening, desperate to ask “Who's Mike?” but his desperation to know did not overcome his need for secrecy.

As he watched the interactions in the chat room he remembered the balancing man's weird signs: “I worked here”
(wrong tense), “What's Your Ratio!” (wrong punctuation), “Who's Jumping Now?” (wrong everything).

Then the weird statement “He's using us!”

He contacted Eddie, who “met” him in the blocked-off room.

Where are you?

Out.

Swell. How was New Jersey?