‘What was the na-’
‘… but I told him I wasn’t taking anything else, that I wanted to stop, and to get back to normal. I asked him if I could do that, if I could just stop – without there being any other adverse side-effects, and he said he didn’t know, he wasn’t the FDA, but that since I’d been on such a high dosage he wouldn’t recommend stopping outright. He said I should probably reduce my intake gradually.’
I nodded.
‘Which is what I did. But not systematically, not according to any known clinical procedure.’ ‘And what happened?’
‘I was fine for a while, but then this started…’ – he held up his hands – ‘… and then… insomnia, nausea, chest and sinus infections, loss of appetite, constipation, dry mouth, erectile dysfunction.’
He threw his hands up, this time in a gesture of despair.
I didn’t know what to say to him, and we were both silent for a while. I still wanted answers to my original two questions, but at the same time I didn’t want to be insensitive.
After a moment, Geisler said, ‘Look, I’m not blaming anyone but myself. No one forced me to take MDT.’ He shook his head, and went on. ‘I guess I was a guinea pig, though, because I bumped into Vernon about a year later and he told me they’d sorted out any dosage problems they’d been having, that dosage had to be individually adjusted – customized, he said.’ A sudden look of anger came into his face. ‘He even suggested I might like to try it again, but I told him to go fuck himself.’
I tried to nod sympathetically.
I also waited to see if he was going to say anything else. When it appeared that he wasn’t, I said, ‘This Todd guy, do you know his surname? Or anything about him? Which company he worked for?’
Geisler shook his head.
‘I only ever met him two or three times anyway. He was very circumspect, very careful. He and Vernon were some act, I’ll tell you – but Todd was definitely the brains.’
I fiddled with the pack of Camels on the table beside my espresso cup.
‘One more question,’ I said. ‘When Todd told you that you needed to combine the MDT with something else, with another drug, to counteract the side-effects, the memory loss… did he say what that drug might be?’
‘Yes.’
My heart jumped.
‘What was it?’
‘I actually remember it very well, because he kept on about it, telling me that it would take care of the problem, that he’d just worked it out. It was a product called Dexeron. It’s an antihistamine and is used for treating certain allergies. It contains some… thing, some agent, that reacts with a specific receptor complex in the brain and in a way, he claimed, that would prevent the blackouts from happening. I don’t know exactly. I don’t remember the details of what he said. I don’t think I understood it at the time. But apparently you can get it over the counter.’
‘You didn’t ever use it, though?’
‘No.’
‘I see.’
I nodded my head, as though I were considering this – but all I was thinking about now was getting out of there as fast as possible and getting to a pharmacy.
‘… anyway, then, after Janine left me and I was kicked out of the company,’ Geisler went on, ‘I tried to pick up the pieces, but that wasn’t so easy, because of course…’
I drained my coffee and desperately tried to formulate an exit strategy in my head. Even though I felt sorry for Geisler, and was horrified at what had happened to him, I really didn’t need to hear this part of the story – but I couldn’t just stand up and leave, either, so I ended up smoking two more cigarettes before I found the courage to say that I had to go.
I told him thanks and said I’d get the check on the way out. He looked at me, as if to say C’mon, sit down, have another cigarette, drink some more coffee, but then a second later he waved a hand at me, dismissively, and said, ‘Oh, go on, get out of here. And good luck. I suppose.’
I found a pharmacy on Seventh Avenue, a few doors up from the café, and bought two packs of Dexeron. I then took a cab home.
Once in the apartment I made straight for the bedroom closet and took out the MDT pills. I wasn’t sure how many to take, and I deliberated on it for quite a while. I eventually decided to take three. This was my last chance and it would either work or it wouldn’t.
I went into the kitchen and got a glass of water. I swallowed the three MDT pills in one go, and then took two of the Dexeron. After that, I went in and sat on the couch, and waited.
Two hours later, my CDs were back in alphabetical order. There were also no more crushed pizza-boxes to be seen in the apartment, or empty beer cans, or dirty socks… and every single inch of surface space was polished and gleaming…
PART FOUR
22
OVER THE WEEKEND, I stuck to this new dosage regime, and monitored my progress fairly closely. I decided not to go out, just in case anything went wrong – but nothing did go wrong. There were no clicks or jumps or flashes, and it appeared that whatever was in the Dexeron actually worked – which wasn’t to say that I was in the clear, of course, or that I wouldn’t ever be having another blackout again, but it definitely felt good to be back. All of a sudden, I was confident, and clear-headed, and buzzing with ideas and energy. If the Dexeron went on working, my future path was laid out in front of me, brick by brick, and the only thing that I had to do was follow it, undistracted, unrepentant. I would re-acquaint myself with the MCL-Abraxas material and then I’d go and smooth things over with Carl Van Loon. I’d get trading again and make some money, and move into the Celestial Building. I’d eventually extricate myself from involvement with people like Van Loon and Hank Atwood and set up an independent business structure of my own – the Spinola Corporation, SpinolaSystems, Edinvest, whatever.
I couldn’t get Ginny Van Loon out of my mind as I entertained these thoughts, and I tried now to slot her in at some appropriate point along the way. She resisted, however – or the idea of her resisted – and the more resistance there was the more agitated I became. Eventually, I put these feelings aside, compartmentalized them, and moved on to the MCL-Abraxas material.
I read through all of the documents, and marvelled at how I hadn’t been able to understand them before. It certainly wasn’t the most exciting material in the world, but it was still relatively straightforward. I re-acquainted myself with how the Black-Scholes pricing model worked and did up the projections on the computer. I ironed out any difficulties there’d been, including the discrepancy in the third option that Van Loon had pointed out to me that day in his office.
The other thing I did over the weekend – apart from a hundred sit-ups each morning and evening – was to get back into some serious news consumption. I read the papers online and watched all the major current affairs shows on TV. There was very little mention of the Donatella Alvarez murder investigation, other than a brief appeal for anyone who might have witnessed anything to come forward – which meant, presumably, that the police had come up with no leads on Thomas Cole and were now clutching at straws.
There was quite a lot of coverage of the Mexico story. A number of high-profile attacks had taken place – on tourists, and on US citizens, chiefly businessmen, living in Mexico City. One company director had been shot dead and two others had been kidnapped and were still missing. These incidents were being directly linked to the foreign policy debate that was raging in the press – and in which the ‘i’ word was now routinely being used. What had yet to be plausibly constructed in the public mind, despite talk of safety concerns for US citizens, not to mention threatened Mexican expropriation of foreign investments, was a rationale for any invasion that might take place – but they were clearly working on it.