By the time I got back to the conference room, a lot of people had arrived and the atmosphere was fairly frenetic. I wandered up to the front, where some of the MCL people had gathered in a group and were talking animatedly.
Suddenly, I heard Van Loon approaching me from behind.
‘Eddie, where have you been?’
I turned around. There was a look of genuine surprise on his face.
‘Jesus, Eddie, what happened? You… you look like you’ve seen-’
‘A ghost?’
‘Well, yeah.’
‘I’m a little stressed out here, Carl, that’s all. I just need some time.’
‘Look, Eddie, take it easy. If anyone’s earned a break around here, it’s you.’ He clenched his fist and held it out in a gesture of solidarity. ‘Anyway, we’ve done our work. For the moment. Am I right?’
I nodded.
Van Loon was then whisked off by one of his people to talk to somebody on the far side of the podium.
I floated through the next couple of hours in a kind of semiconscious daze. I moved around and mingled and talked to people, but I don’t remember specific conversations. It all felt choreographed, and automatic.
When the actual press conference started, I found myself at the top of the room, standing behind the Abraxas people, who were seated at the table to the right of the podium. At the back of the room – and over a sea of about 300 heads – there was a phalanx of reporters, photographers and camera-men. The event was going out live on several channels, and there was also a webcast and a satellite feed. When Hank Atwood took the podium, there was an immediate barrage of sound from the cameras at the back – clicking, whirring, popping flashbulbs – and this din continued uninterrupted throughout the whole press conference, and even intermittently during the question-and-answer session that followed. I didn’t listen carefully to any of the speeches, some of which I had helped to write, but I did recognize occasional phrases and expressions – even though the relentless repetition of words such as ‘future’, ‘transform’ and ‘opportunity’ only added to the sense of unreality I now felt about everything that was happening around me.
Just as Dan Bloom was finishing at the podium, my cellphone rang. I quickly took it out of my jacket pocket and answered it.
‘Hello, is this… Eddie Spinola?’
I could barely hear.
‘Yes.’
‘This is Dave Morgenthaler in Boston. I got your message from this morning.’
I covered my other ear.
‘Listen… hang on a second.’
I moved to the left, along the side of the room and through a door about half-way down that led into a quiet section off the atrium lounge.
‘Mr Morgenthaler?’
‘Yeah.’
‘When can we meet?’
‘Look, who are you? I’m busy – why should I take the time out to see you?’
As briefly as I could, I pitched him the story – a powerful, untested and potentially lethal drug from the labs of the company he was about to go up against in court. I kept it unspecific and didn’t describe the effects of the drug.
‘You haven’t said anything to convince me,’ he said. ‘How do I know you’re not some nut? How do I know you’re not making this shit up?’
The lights were low in this section of the lounge and the only other people nearby were two old guys engrossed in conversation. They were sitting at a table next to some huge potted palm trees. Behind me, I could hear voices resounding from the conference room.
‘You couldn’t make MDT up, Mr Morgenthaler. This shit is real, believe me.’
There was a pause, quite a long one, and then he said, ‘What?’
‘I said you couldn’t-’
‘No, the name. What name did you say?’
Shit – I shouldn’t have said the name.
‘Well, that’s-’
‘MDT… you said MDT.’ There was an urgency in his voice now. ‘What is this, a smart drug?’
I hesitated before I said anything else. He knew about it, or at least knew something about it. And he clearly wanted to know more.
I said, ‘When can we meet?’
He didn’t pause this time.
‘I can get an early flight tomorrow morning. Let’s meet, say… ten?’
‘OK.’
‘Somewhere outside. Fifty-ninth Street? In front of the Plaza?’
‘OK.’
‘I’m tall and-’
‘I’ve seen your photo on the Internet.’
‘Fine. OK. I’ll see you tomorrow morning then.’
I put the phone away and wandered slowly back into the conference room. Atwood and Bloom were together at the podium now, answering questions. I still found it hard to focus on what was going on, because that little incident up on the fifteenth floor – hallucination, vision, whatever – was still fresh in my mind and was blocking everything else out. I didn’t know what had happened between me and Donatella Alvarez that night, but I suspected now that as a manifestation of guilt and uncertainty, this was only the tip of a very large iceberg.
After the question-and-answer session had been wrapped up, the crowd began to disperse, but then the place became more chaotic than ever. Journalists from Business Week and Time were floating around looking for people to get comments from, and executives were slapping each other on the back and laughing. At one point, Hank Atwood passed and slapped me on the back. He then turned, and with an outstretched arm pointed an index finger directly at me.
‘The future, Eddie, the future.’
I half smiled, and he was gone.
There was talk among the Van Loon & Associates people about going out somewhere for dinner, to celebrate, but I couldn’t have faced that. With the events of the day so far, I had assembled the possible makings of a full-blown anxiety attack, and I didn’t want to do anything stupid now that would actually precipitate one.
Without saying a word to anybody, therefore, I turned around and strolled out of the conference room. I crossed the atrium lounge and the lobby area and just walked right out of the hotel on to Fifty-sixth Street. It was a warm evening and the air was thick with the muffled roar of the city. I went over to Fifth Avenue and stood at the foot of Trump Tower, looking up the three blocks towards Fifty-ninth Street – at Grand Army Plaza and the corner of Central Park. Why did Dave Morgenthaler want to meet me there? Out in the open like that?
I turned and looked in the opposite direction, at the streams of traffic, dipping and rising, and at the parallel lines of the buildings, trailing towards some invisible point of convergence.
I started walking in this direction. It occurred to me that Van Loon might try to reach me, so I took out my cellphone and switched it off. I kept walking along Fifth, and eventually made a right on to Thirty-fourth Street. After a few blocks, I had reached what I supposed was my new neighbourhood – which was what? Chelsea? The Garment District? Who the fuck knew any more?
I stopped at a dingy-looking bar on Tenth Avenue and went inside.
I sat at the bar and ordered a Jack Daniel’s. The place was nearly empty. The barman poured me the drink and then went back to watching the TV set. It was bracketed high on to a wall just over the door leading to the men’s room, and there was a sitcom showing. After about five minutes – during which time he had laughed only once – the barman picked up the remote and started flicking through the channels. At one point I caught a sudden flash of the MCL-Parnassus logo, and I said, ‘Wait, go back to that for a second.’
He flicked back and then looked at me, still aiming the remote up at the TV set. It was a news report of the announcement with footage of the press conference.