The Placebo Effect

by David Rotenberg

  Decker was tempted to walk away but typed: Fine.

  Pittsburgh, Cleveland then home—piece of a cakewalk.

  Decker could sense Eddie smiling as he unapologetically mixed metaphors. Yeah, he wrote.

  You’re not using your own computer. Why?

  Cause.

  With all you have to say you should write a blog.

  True, Decker typed, then hit the disconnect button, paid for his time and left the café.

  His second truth-telling session was in a nondescript office tower downtown. He scouted the back of the building and found a side exit through the ground floor’s janitorial station. Then he established that there were U.S. Mail slots on every fourth floor.

  He took the elevator up to the forty-second floor, identified himself as David Rose to the attractive older woman there. She handed him a file and indicated that he should follow her.

  They entered a small room with an industrial table, a monitor and a set of headphones.

  “I need to be able to see,” he said.

  She parted the curtain on the wall and there was a clear glass pane.

  “One-way mirror?”

  “Yes.”

  “Russian?” he asked her.

  “Kazakhstani, but my Russian is very good—I’ll translate for you if it’s necessary.”

  Soon the light in the next room came on, and a young pale-faced man entered and took a seat at a long table. He fidgeted.

  “Sergei Lomotov. He plays for the Penguins,” the woman beside him said.

  Okay, Decker thought. Russian hockey player, a left-winger if his memory served him. He looked to her. “What’s your name?” Decker asked.

  “Luska.”

  “Okay. Luska, who else is—” But before he could finish his question the door of the other room opened and two men in grey suits entered. They were followed by a guy Decker recognized as the Pittsburgh Penguins general manager—a classic Canadian prairie-hardened man. Then in came an older man who sat beside the hockey player and patted his hand. European, Decker thought. “His translator?” he asked Luska.

  She nodded.

  “And them?” Decker asked indicating the two guys in grey suits.

  “Investigators.”

  Okay, Decker thought.

  The opening set of questions to the young Russian hockey player were just basic data: place of birth, schooling, early hockey experience, and his time with Moscow Dynamo. He answered all of them truthfully.

  Luska’s fingers flew across her computer keyboard, transcribing the dialogue word for word.

  Decker looked out the window to clear his head. Below them was the confluence of the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio rivers. Three Rivers Stadium used to be there—now there’s PNC Park. What’s a PNC anyways?

  Then one of the investigators asked if the kid knew a man named Boris Barionofky.

  The young player dodged. He was truthful but circumspect.

  Suddenly the interrogators’ questions began to come more quickly, often not waiting for the translator to complete his response. Without any segue, the nature of the questions changed.

  Way more accusatory.

  “How many times have you met Boris Barionofky?”

  “When was the last time you met him?”

  “Who else was in the room with you two?”

  “What exactly was discussed?”

  “Has he contacted you since you came to America?”

  “When was that?”

  “Did you meet or speak on the phone?”

  The translator pleaded with them to give Sergei a chance to answer the questions. The head investigator turned on him. “Keep your fucking mouth shut. Sergei understands English well enough to answer our damned questions. Don’t you, Sergei?”

  The boy looked around wildly, clearly trying to find a place of safety in this cage of lions.

  Then the interrogator tossed three photographs onto the table.

  Luska reached into a folder and handed copies of the same three pictures to Decker.

  Each clearly showed the young hockey player with a barrel-chested middle-aged man.

  The hockey player suddenly stood and shouted something in Russian.

  Decker turned to Luska, “My sister is…”

  “Sick. He said, ‘My sister is sick and needs help.’”

  Then there was a moment of silence in the room.

  The general manager swore softly. The interrogators looked at each other, then left the room.

  Decker turned to Luska. “Give me your transcription.” She did. “Come back in ten minutes.”

  She got up and left the room. Decker quickly read through the transcript and underlined the truths. The others he noted were some sort of lies. Probably just equivocations he thought, but it wasn’t his job to decide.

  He opened the door and called for Luska. He handed her the transcription and explained what his notations meant. She thanked him and handed him a thick envelope—$11,290.

  Decker stuffed the envelope with the money into his shoulder bag and headed toward the elevator, but when Luska turned away from him he ducked down the escape stairway, went through the crash door on the thirty-sixth floor and was about to deposit his self-addressed envelope with the USB key for this interview into the U.S. Mail slot there when he thought better of it and pocketed the thing. He raced down the remaining thirty-six flights. After switching cabs three times he got to the Pittsburgh International Airport in beautiful downtown Coraopolis, PA.

  Henry-Clay wanted to clap his fat little hands, but he thought the better of it. He clicked off the images on the flat-screen TVs mounted on his office wall and said to the air, “Even when he doesn’t speak the language. Even then he knows a truth from a lie.” Henry-Clay flicked off the video player and threw his copy of Decker’s annotated transcript toward the circular wastebasket against the wall. It hit the far side and rimmed out. He rolled his office chair over, grabbed the transcript, dunked it, raised his arms, and announced, “Three-pointer!”

  Then Henry-Clay punched a button on his console. “When’s he getting to Cleveland?”

  11

  CLEVELAND, OHIO

  AFTER A HALF-HOUR FLIGHT HIS PLANE TOUCHED DOWN, and twenty minutes after that, Decker entered the main offices of the Cleveland Plain Dealer and approached the front desk. “You have a package for David Gerts.”

  The security guard asked for ID.

  Decker showed him his fake David Gerts driving license and took the package.

  “Room two oh seven, down the hall and up the stairs.” Decker nodded. “Welcome to the Plain Dealer, Cleveland’s finest daily newspaper.”

  Decker suspected two things. One, that the guy hated having to say that to everyone he served, and two, that the Cleveland Plain Dealer was very likely Cleveland’s only daily newspaper. As he made his way up the stairs to room 207 he wondered if a plain dealer was a forthright merchant or perhaps a guy who sells farmland or a very boring seller of used cars. At room 207 he clicked on his tiny digital tape recorder and opened the door to yet another office.

  A secretary nodded a greeting and led him to a boardroom.

  Two Plain Dealer staff writers were interviewing a man Decker recognized as the Republican senatorial candidate.

  Decker was introduced as a researcher sent from the head office—better than when he used to be flown in as a play doctor and spent his time in the light booth putting together notes for the show’s producers who didn’t have the balls to tell the director that Decker was there to replace him.

  The interview proceeded. Decker took notes and closed his eyes over and over again. And when he did the room unaccountably got cold, and for a moment his wife’s stricken face shrouded in veil upon veil of ALS came alive in his mind—only her eyes able to move, staring at him, accusing him, imploring him to answer the last question she had ever been able to ask him: “What have you done, Decker? What have you done?”

  “I’m sorry if I bore you,” the politician said. />
  Decker opened his eyes and realized the man’s comment was to him.

  “You don’t, sir. I have an eye infection that requires I close my eyes periodically to keep them lubricated.” Decker thought, Lie better. So he added, “Doctor’s orders.” And thought, Shit—I really am a lousy liar.

  The senatorial candidate shot Decker a look, then continued his pontification on subjects ranging from Roe v. Wade to the Iranian nuclear threat.

  After the interview finally ended a secretary plunked down almost thirty pages of transcript in front of Decker. It took him only a minute to underline the two untruths.

  He stepped out of the room and gave the transcript to the secretary. She gave him a thick envelope with the name David Gerts on the outside—and $10,000 in cash inside.

  He made his way out of a side door and checked his watch.

  It was tight, but he really didn’t want to spend the night in Cleveland. He hailed a cab and threw fifty dollars on the front seat. “Get me to the airport—fast.”

  He ignored Crazy Eddie’s three-cab rule and, with his fast cab and the flight’s forty-minute delay in departure, he just made the flight to begin his voyage first to Detroit and from there on the eleven o’clock flight to Toronto—and his home in the west end of the city, the Junction.

  Henry-Clay watched the videotape of the interview and checked it against a copy of Decker’s notes. The entire transcript was marked as truthful except for two statements. The first was, “Young men, I have a wholehearted and spiritually backed commitment to the values that made this country great—family values.”

  “Yeah, Senator, family über alles,” Henry-Clay muttered, then added, “and what about those hookers in Huff you were taped with?” No great surprise that was a lie. Seventeen pages later Decker had marked his second and final statement as an untruth when the would-be senator stated his “one hundred and five percent opposition to the sale of Internet drugs from Canada into these here United States.” There were twenty-six more pages of claims and boasts, but none were marked as lies.

  “Very good, Mr. Roberts—very, very good. So you can pick out a single lie buried in hundreds of truths, half truths, and opinions—like finding a kernel of corn in a barrel of cow shit. I do believe we can do business, Mr. Roberts.”

  Henry-Clay stood. He’d made up his mind. He turned to the window and eyed the Treloar Building on the other side of the Ohio River. The tall building was bathed in golden light by the setting late autumn sun.

  He caught his reflection in the window and said to it, “He’s our new one—I can feel it.”

  The light on the squawk box on his desk blinked. Henry-Clay liked the look of old technology; it made him feel that he was the direct descendant of all the other great capitalists going all the way back to the robber barons. He pushed a button on the old thing.

  “Yeah?”

  “Mr. MacMillan is on the line, sir.”

  He checked his watch. Right on time, as usual.

  “Good. Patch him through.” He loved saying that.

  Henry-Clay quickly gave MacMillan Decker Roberts’ flight details. “I know you had men on him, but I want you to follow him personally, Mr. MacMillan. This is our new boy, Mr. MacMillan, and I want to know everything, and I mean everything, about him.”

  Henry-Clay smiled. He felt like he was steering a great ship—he liked steering the ship. It had always been his experience that motion was better than stillness. Motion solved problems. Motion made money.

  12

  MAC

  MAC TOOK NO CHANCES. HE’D BEEN WAITING AT THE CLEVELAND airport just in case Roberts made the last connection to Toronto.

  When Decker entered the departure lounge, Mac turned on his tiny video camera. He lifted his copy of USA Today to cover his face, although he thought it unlikely that Decker Roberts had any idea that he was being followed—and had been followed by Mac’s men from the moment that Henry-Clay Yolles had told him of Decker Roberts’ existence.

  13

  MIKE AT DECKER’S HOUSE

  SO MANY CHURCHES AND RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER from Decker’s house. They must have known—they must have felt the evil a long time ago. Mike could feel it. So many churches and other religious buildings on Annette, Runnymede, and Dundas. He’d memorized the names, and as he prepared to spend his third night waiting for Decker he recited them—as if he were saying the rosary: Keele Street Christian Church, St. Cecilia’s Catholic Church, High Park Korean United Church, Vida Abundante Igreja Pentecostal Portuguesa, Czechoslovak Baptist Church, Church of the Nazarene, the Sharing Place, Gracia de Dios Iglesia Cristiana del Nazareno, Runnymede Presbyterian Church, St. James Catholic Church. Then again and again as darkness took the city and Mike wondered if he was strong enough to withstand another night out in the cold. But he had to. He had to be there when Decker got back from wherever he was. He had to warn Decker.

  Warn him that he was going to be used by the Enemy—as he had been used.

  The Enemy had found us and now was using us.

  He looked around, worried that he had spoken out loud. And there were a lot of dogs on Decker’s street. He liked dogs—all dogs—but some dogs didn’t like him. Then there was Decker’s motion-sensitive porch light. He had to avoid that. He had to remember that light.

  He curled up behind the recycle bin in the alley at the side of Decker’s house. There was a steam pipe there that gave off some heat. He got as close to it as he could. Then he began to recite his rosary again: Keele Street Christian Church, St. Cecilia’s Catholic Church, High Park Korean United Church, Vida Abundante Igreja Pentecostal Portuguesa, Czechoslovak Baptist Church, Church of the Nazarene, the Sharing Place, Gracia de Dios Iglesia Cristiana del Nazareno, Runnymede Presbyterian Church, St. James Catholic Church and on and on into the night.

  Just past one in the morning Decker walked from his cab toward his turn-of-the century house in the Junction. Twenty seconds later Mac parked his car and put a stub of a cigar in the corner of his mouth. He settled in to watch. Mac was good at watching.

  Mike heard first one car, then another pull up in front of Decker’s house. He hunched back into the shadows and prayed that it was Decker. He was so cold and things were getting mixed up in his head. He saw a man get out of a cab and start up the slanted driveway toward the front door. It must be Decker. It had to be Decker. And Mike was cold—so cold. He recited his rosary one more time quickly, then bolted from his hiding place—forgetting about the motion-sensor porch light.

  Decker saw the porch light snap on, a blur of movement cross it, and a large shadowy thing was right up in his face, grabbing his coat and shouting at him. “He’s got the ratio!”

  Decker felt instantly nauseous—as if he were falling down a cavernous well.

  Mac saw the shouting shadow at the same time Decker did. But he wasn’t nauseous—he was astounded.

  Mike stepped aside, and the porch light struck Decker’s face. For a moment Mike couldn’t speak—it was the same face, but an older version, of the boy hung from the lamppost. Finally he managed to shout, “He’s using us. The Enemy’s got the ratio, my ratio, the ratio—and my master ratio—no, my master password. He’s found you. Don’t you see! Secret ratio, secret password. Secret, secret, secret. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Don’t you see? Ratio. Don’t you? Password. How many times do I have to tell you? How many times! I gave it to him. Both. I betrayed us. Betrayed us all. Don’t you see?”

  Decker saw the flabby lips moving but was so overwhelmed by nausea that all he heard was the word “ratio.” He was about to be sick—fuck, he was going to throw up.

  Mac reached for the handgun and the bowie knife beneath the seat. This was not happening. Not happening on his watch. He threw open the car door.

  The light from inside the car drew Mike’s eye.

  For an instant, Decker saw the fat man’s face. Then he heard a car door slam and the light blinked out.

  The Enemy’s assassin! And then Mike was running, crashing through fe
nces, running and running and reciting his rosary.

  Decker found himself on the cold interlocking bricks of his driveway and suddenly felt better. He looked around and saw the taillights of a sedan speeding down the street, and the fat thing, whatever it was, was gone. He got to his feet and scanned the street, and all was as it had always been—the old, stodgy Junction. He thought of calling the police, then let it go. He wasn’t hurt, hadn’t been robbed. Some poor, crazed thing had… he didn’t know what it had done. As he climbed the steps to his house he said aloud, “Using a ratio? What the fuck!” He looked around again to make sure that “the thing” wasn’t there, then he opened the door—and was home.

  14

  HENRY-CLAY’S DECISION

  “AND YOU’RE SURE IT WAS RATIO-MAN?” HENRY-CLAY DEMANDED.

  Mac pulled the BlackBerry away from his ear—his boss was shouting, no, screaming. “Yeah, it was him. I told you we should have dealt with him, not just fired him.”

  Henry-Clay took a deep breath—then a few more. He had to calm himself. He had to think. “Mr. MacMillan—what exactly did you hear him tell Roberts?”

  Mac repeated it pretty much as Mike had said it—using us, told him the ratio, etc.

  Henry-Clay thought about that. Then about the ratio. Then about the potential lawsuits, nightly ads on television encouraging liars to join a class action against Yolles Pharmaceuticals, years of litigation—fucking lawyers up his nose, down his throat, inside his head—massive stock losses—and he’s right on the edge of a gold mine, an antidepressant-inspired gold mine—looking into a pure vein of money! He thought about all that… then about murder. “Mr. MacMillan, Ratio-Man knows too much.”

  “Granted, but what about what Decker Roberts just heard?”

  Henry-Clay paused. Decker Roberts could be a valuable asset, and he was loath to let go of an asset.