“This,” said Pia, holding up the almost-empty decanter of whiskey. The scent wafting up made her feel sick. She picked up the soiled glasses, including Berman’s tumbler, which she’d washed right after Berman had passed out but had brought back to the den. She was glad she had, because it might look odd that there were no glasses with the whiskey. But only if she was acting guiltily, which Pia was now very afraid she was doing.
“You can leave those for the housekeeper,” said Whitney with a wave of her hand.
“It’s no trouble,” said Pia, who wanted to clean the glass a second time, somewhat like Lady Macbeth washing her hands, in case any residue of the narcotic remained. Before Whitney could protest further, Pia exited the room and went to the kitchen, where she scrubbed the tumbler clean under the hottest water the faucet could provide.
Again, Pia didn’t know whether to stick around to see if Berman woke up or to take her leave, but when she got back to the den, Berman was sitting up, drinking a glass of water. He looked as if he’d been in a bar fight. His eyes were reddened and his hair was sticking straight up in the back.
“How are you feeling?” said Pia. This was a moment of truth. “You went down pretty hard last night.”
“I feel like I’ve been hit in the head with a hammer,” said Berman. He kept his head down, eyes away from the light. “How many whiskeys did I have?”
“Plenty, but you’re okay?” said Pia. Meaning, you don’t feel like you’ve been drugged, do you?
“Yes, I’m fine,” he said. He looked at Pia and tried to smile. “I usually have a good head for that stuff. But don’t worry about me, you should go home.” Now it was his turn to feel embarrassed. Behaving like an inexperienced college kid had not been his plan. “Miss Jones tells me I have an important call to make in a few minutes, so I’d better get myself together. And thank you for coming. I had fun, what I remember of it.”
“I had fun, too,” said Pia. She felt vastly relieved, and she didn’t know whether to go over to Berman and shake his hand or kiss him on the cheek. In the end, she did neither, and thought it was best if she just left before it got more awkward. She waved wanly, made sure she had everything she came with, and walked out of the house.
It was still dark outside, and Pia felt as if she might still be drunk as she uneasily descended the front steps down to the driveway level. Fearful of possibly falling, she hung on to the handrail for dear life. She was exhausted and even a little depressed after all the effort she’d expended for naught. On top of that was the realization that she had probably opened the floodgates as far as Berman was concerned. Up until this evening she’d made it a point to keep Berman and his ardor at arm’s length. Now she had no idea what to expect.
Pia drove back to her apartment with extreme caution, maintaining five miles per hour below the speed limit. She parked her car very carefully and made her way into bed. She looked at the clock. It was five-thirty. Berman was on his call or he had finished it. But what the nature of his business was, Pia was no nearer to finding out than she’d been before showing up at Berman’s house. Before she could think about it too much and feel too disappointed, she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
CHAPTER 24
Pia awoke with a start. She emerged quickly into consciousness—damn, she thought right away, what time is it? Pia found her phone and was horrified. Although she had expected to sleep for a couple of hours at most, it was ten forty-five. She saw that she had emails and texts from Mariel Spallek asking where she was, and to get in touch with her immediately. And voice mails, too. Pia didn’t need to listen to them to know what Mariel wanted. Not wanting to delay the inevitable, Pia called Mariel, who answered immediately.
“It’s Pia, I’m really sorry, I’m sick. I’ll try and come in after lunchtime, if that’s okay.”
“I guess it’ll have to be,” said Mariel. “What’s wrong with you?” Her question was posed in the same tone an irritated motorist would use to ask a mechanic what was wrong with her car. There was no hint of sympathy or concern. Mariel had been inconvenienced, and she didn’t like it. Pia wasn’t particularly surprised by Mariel’s reaction — she, too, would have been frustrated by someone not showing up for work, even though this was the first time Pia had ever called in sick. Although some of Pia’s morning timekeeping could be somewhat erratic, such episodes had always been due to her working to the wee hours of the morning.
“Headache, dizziness, nausea. Basically, I feel like shit.” Pia had chosen her rude syntax on purpose, hoping to cut off conversation.
“Sounds like the same thing Mr. Berman has,” Mariel said, unable to resist the opportunity for a little dig, and suggesting to Pia that she had learned of Pia’s second visit and felt jealous. “I’ll see you at two o’clock if not before.”
Pia was about to ask a question, but Mariel had hung up. Had Berman not made it into the office? she wondered. That seemed unlikely. Pia surmised that he had come in, and Mariel had seen him looking hung over. The few hours’ sleep she had stolen had done Pia a world of good, and she felt almost back to normal.
To help with the process, Pia downed two ibuprofen tablets, drank two glasses of water, and took a shower. As the hot water further revived her, Pia went over her options. Again, she took the position contrary to her own and challenged her concerns as to what she had witnessed over the last few days and asked if there couldn’t be a rational, innocent explanation for all of it. And again, presumably with humans involved, possibly as subjects of experimentation, she couldn’t convince herself there was and that she should do nothing.
Pia decided she needed a sounding board. She first thought of George, but there was too much personally invested, on his side, for that to be an efficient use of her time. Two years previously in medical school, he had been helpful, even if it was his negative energy that Pia sometimes fed off. He’d pointed her in the right direction for the polonium discovery, although he had done so inadvertently. Today if she called, he’d want to talk about his recent visit and what it meant, and how they needed to make better contact, blah, blah, blah. That was the last thing Pia wanted to discuss. Pia truly liked George, even if he was hopelessly conservative. The problem was that she knew she could never be what he thought he needed. She also knew instinctively that he’d oppose her doing any kind of investigation of Nano and would be unable to understand her need to do so.
Then she thought of Paul Caldwell, and when she did, she remembered she’d promised to call him by midmorning, otherwise he promised he was going to alert the police. She quickly checked the time. It was beyond midmorning; in fact, it was after eleven. Frantically she called him.
“Pia, how are you?” he said with no preamble. He’d obviously seen her name on his phone’s screen.
“Paul, thank God I got you! I almost forgot to call you. You said you’d call the police if I didn’t. You haven’t, have you?”
“No! And I would have tried you before I called them.”
“Good,” Pia said with relief. “Are you in the ER?”
“No, actually I’ve just left there. I filled in on the night shift for one of my partners with a sick kid. I’m on my way home, but I was going to call you when I got in. I hesitate to ask, but how did it go last night? Did you get a good night’s sleep with the Temazepam?”