Dante's Poison

by Lynne Raimondo

  I held my breath while I waited to see if it would work.

  “Sure,” the man answered after a short pause. He gave me his first and last names. “I’m a baggage handler at O’Hare. When will I find out about the cruise?”

  Thirty or so phone numbers later I was thoroughly impressed by the behavioral effect of free offers.

  And getting nowhere.

  I could well understand why Gallagher’s reporting had fallen off. The majority of his calls were to businesses that served his personal needs—Sam’s Liquors, a dry cleaner, the Men’s Shop at Mark Shale, a barbershop, his local Jewel/Osco—and none of the others sounded like a serious lead. I got through to two city employees, a marine biologist at the Shedd Aquarium, a building supplier, an IDOT worker, a teaching assistant at Loyola, an insurance adjuster, and half a dozen personal assistants (all apparently as unhappy with their jobs as Yelena) before concluding I was wasting my time. If there was a connection to be found among these contacts, I couldn’t see it. Trading places with Sisyphus would be as least as productive.

  I got up and paced around my apartment, thought about having another beer and decided against it, paced some more until I had covered the same ground a dozen or so times, and finally tossed myself in frustration on my living-room couch. A Scrabble game I’d been playing against myself sat unused on the coffee table next to it. I picked up the tiles I’d last been working with—which were oversized and (obviously) embossed with Braille—and began idly moving them around, searching for a word with the highest numerical value and playing with various patterns.

  And that’s when it hit me. A pattern.

  I’d been looking in the wrong place for one.

  At one time, my photographic memory would have easily alerted me to what I now wanted to know, but except for things I’d seen before I lost my sight, it had regrettably been deactivated. Fortunately, there were ways to get around that. I went back to my office and dumped the scanned contents of Gallagher’s phone records into a spreadsheet program on my computer. I then sorted the numbers in four ways: date, time, area code, and number. Once again, I turned to my Braille printer to create tactile lists with the results. I was most interested in the numbers, so I turned to those first.

  I moved slowly down the list with my fingers, taking my time and looking for groupings with the same prefix. I found several of them: three numbers with a 744 prefix, six with a 507 prefix, and five with an 832 prefix. I selected one at random from the last grouping and called. It was now nearing midnight, so I was surprised when a live voice answered.

  “Murphy here.”

  This time, I decided not to beat about the bush.

  “Hello, Mr. Murphy? My name is Mark Halliday. I’m an associate of Rory Gallagher at the Sun-Times. You may have heard that Mr. Gallagher passed away recently. We’ve been trying to get a lead on the story he was working on when he died, and his phone records indicate that he spoke to you on . . .” I checked the date. “On August 22.”

  I heard a quick intake of breath followed by an epithet. “What the fuck?” He hurriedly lowered his voice and said, “I told him never to call me here.”

  “Right. Sorry about that. But you see, we’ve lost Mr. Gallagher’s notes. If there’s another number where I could reach you—”

  “Please,” he said, sounding genuinely frightened. “Please don’t call me anymore. There’s nothing I can do to help you. My wife just had a baby and the heat’s turned way up on the investigation. I can’t risk losing my job!”

  “What investigation?” I asked sharply.

  “Go to hell,” he said and hung up.

  I sat back and thought for a bit. Then I dialed the same area code and prefix—832—followed by the number 1000. A dulcet-toned recording came over the line: “Hello. You have reached the offices of Atria Laboratories. Our normal business hours are eight to five, Monday through Friday . . .”

  “So this is what a shrink’s office looks like,” Bjorn said the following morning after Yelena had shown him in.

  He stood just inside the doorway, presumably surveying the modest furniture, the shelves crammed every which way with books and papers, the collection of sixties memorabilia on the credenza behind my desk—including my prized King Zor and my Man from U.N.C.L.E. THRUSH gun—and the Grateful Dead dancing bears poster hanging above them. The office standards committee—headed by Jonathan, of course—was always on my case about adopting a more polished appearance, but so far I had managed to fend them off with the claim that the blind were in special need of familiar surroundings.

  “Who’s this?” Bjorn asked, walking over and picking up the framed photograph of Louis I kept on my desk.

  “A nephew,” I lied.

  “I should have guessed. He resembles you.”

  Another thing Louis wouldn’t have to thank me for. “What do you make of the stuff I e-mailed you?” I asked, anxious to get to the topic at hand.

  Bjorn replaced the photo and settled himself into one of the chairs opposite my desk, putting a foot up against the top. “To tell the truth, I feel like a right idiot.”

  He and I both.

  The night before, I’d lain awake again for hours excoriating myself for not making the Atria connection sooner. As soon as I’d hung up the phone, it had hit me like a lightning bolt what the Dwyers—the couple who had witnessed Jane and Gallagher’s argument at Gene & Georgetti’s that night—had overheard Jane repeating several times. It wasn’t the name Lucy. It was Lucitrol. I remembered what Rusty had speculated, that instead of a lover’s quarrel, Jane and Gallagher had been arguing over confidential information that Gallagher had somehow latched onto. The new information I’d wrested from Mr. Murphy confirmed that Gallagher had been talking to someone at Atria, and that Atria was under some kind of investigation, probably involving the same drug. But what kind of investigation? And what had Gallagher found that was enough of a threat to a person or persons to get him killed?

  “In our mutual defense, we were led astray by the girl’s name,” I pointed out, feeling no less stupid.

  “True,” Bjorn conceded. “But that doesn’t excuse us being such dunderheads. Not when Hallie’s still lying in hospital. I went to see her last night, you know.”

  “How was she?” I asked, reminded once again how I’d abandoned her.

  “Pale as a sheet, but breathing steadily. I met some of the members of the clan. Nice folks. Why haven’t you gone, too? It might do you some good to see her.”

  “Well, that is part of the problem,” I said, wishing it didn’t sound so puerile.

  “You know,” Bjorn said, “If I didn’t think . . .” He stopped himself. “Oh, never mind. It’s none of my business.”

  I hastened to change the subject. “So can you get the names of the other people at Atria Gallagher was in contact with?”

  “Already on it. And I’ll be chatting with each personally as soon as I can track them down. The problem will be getting them to talk. If that fellow Murphy was as worried as you say he was, chances are the others will be as well. I’m not the coppers. I can’t force anyone to tell me what they don’t want to. By the way, we did get a lead on Gallagher’s other whereabouts that night.”

  “And?” I asked hopefully, thinking this might be another break.

  “Seems he spent an hour or so in a booth with another gentleman at a tavern on Rush. But it was dark and nobody could give us much of a description. Big guy, Caucasian with dark hair. A drink apiece and Gallagher paid the bill in cash.”

  “Time?”

  “Just before Gallagher toddled off to the Billy Goat. I gave the bartender an incentive to call me if the fellow showed up again, but if it’s our murderer he’ll be smart enough to steer well clear of the place.”

  So Gallagher had met with someone else that night. But who? The only way to find out, it seemed, was to chase down whatever was going on at Atria.

  After Bjorn had taken himself off, I ambled over to the office coffee room, taking the back way
so that I wouldn’t risk being seen by Sep, whose office was located just across the hall. Since I was supposed to be home resting, I didn’t want to run into him by accident. I almost never used a cane in our suite, whose warren of corridors and felt-covered cubicles was as familiar to me as a rat’s maze, and I was going at my usual fast clip, grazing the wall with my knuckles to stay on course, when I collided with a stack of boxes that someone had thoughtlessly left standing outside the file room. The stack went over and I went with it, ending up sprawled on the floor and swearing, with the change from my pockets rolling in several different directions. Fortunately, no one was around to witness the high comedy. I hurriedly gathered up what I could find of the money, shoved the boxes to one side, and continued on, making a mental note to ask Yelena to be sure everything was put back in order later.

  When I arrived at the coffee room, the 10:30 a.m. klatch was in full swing, with a dozen or so colleagues companionably chitchatting around a table. Predictably, Graham Young was entrenched in the group’s center, identifiable by his loud guffawing. I went over to the single-brew machine and pretended to be occupied with selecting a tea brand while I eavesdropped on the conversation. Alison was passing around photos of her partner’s baby bump to collective expressions of admiration while Graham was giving Josh advice on his daughter’s college applications. That was another thing that bugged me about Graham: he appeared to have a dossier on every doctor in our group, with information about spouses, children, recreational preferences—the names of pets, even—that he used to engage his sales marks while he was making his daily rounds.

  I filled my cup and went over to join them. Josh spotted me coming and gave a swat to the empty chair seat next to him so I would know it was free.

  “Dr. Angelotti,” Graham sang out as I was getting seated. “How nice of you to join us. Here, have a sweet roll.” He pushed a box of them across the table toward me. “I picked them up on Lincoln on my way down here this morning.”

  Normally, I would have declined on principle, free food being another arrow in the big drug companies’ quiver of bribes. Today, however, I thanked him and stuck my hand in the box, locating a sugary drozdzowki and pulling it out.

  “How ’bout a napkin to go with?” Graham asked, sliding one of those over, too.

  “Better give him more than one,” Jonathan said from his position at the head of the table. “He’ll need it.”

  “Yes,” I agreed. “Jonathan will have to have his SSRI refilled if there’s so much as a crumb left on the table.” I gave the pastry a vigorous shake before biting into it.

  “I wish you two would try to get along,” said Emily Weintraub, the office peacemaker, who was seated across from me.

  “That would be like asking the British to embrace their similarities to the French,” Alison remarked to my left. She turned to me. “By the way, how are you feeling? I heard what happened, but none of the details.”

  Everyone stopped talking then and plied me with questions about the attack. Between bites, I explained what happened.

  “That’s a shame,” Jonathan said when I was through. “To think we came this close to losing you.”

  “I know,” I said. “Imagine all those insanely funny jokes going to waste.”

  Jonathan said, “Speaking of which, did I tell you the one about Helen Keller and the Rorschach test?”

  “Let me guess,” I said, rubbing my chin thoughtfully. “She tried to drink the inkwell?”

  Everyone laughed except Emily, who pushed back her chair in disgust. “That’s it. I’m out of here.”

  “I am, too,” Jonathan huffed, rising after her. “Someone around here needs to be attending to their patients.”

  “He’s just pissed that you beat him to his punch line,” Josh said after Jonathan had sulked off.

  “I’m so sorry,” Alison said, putting her hand on my arm in sympathy. “That must have been a horrible experience—for you and your friend. I’ll send flowers.”

  “Better yet,” Graham piped in, “we’ll all send them. I’ll get a collection going this afternoon.”

  The idle chatter resumed, turning eventually—as I’d hoped—to the subject of the Atria conference Graham had mentioned to me some time back, which was scheduled to begin the next day. Graham was enthusiastically describing the resort where it was to take place, which occupied twenty-one acres amid the rolling hills northwest of the city. In addition to jogging paths along the Fox River, it sported an Olympic-size indoor pool, a fully equipped gym, tennis courts, a discotheque, and, naturally, a championship golf course. “You’re gonna just love the food,” he was telling his eager audience. “The head chef trained at the Culinary Institute. And don’t forget to stop by the hospitality desk when you arrive to pick up your complimentary spa pass, good for at least one massage after you’ve wrapped up your eighteen holes.” There were general murmurs of satisfaction.

  “Can you believe how they’re lapping this up?” Alison whispered conspiratorially to me. “Whoever said loyalty can’t be bought?” Like me, Alison was a critic of drug-company events such as Atria’s, which allowed doctors to meet their annual certification requirements at a significantly reduced cost. Under a new industry-ethics code, the companies couldn’t pay for the doctors’ attendance directly, but that didn’t stop them from underwriting the expenses of the supposedly independent programs. And it was more than just coincidence that the speakers at these events tended to be those who’d accepted fees—sometimes upward of six figures annually—for touting the sponsoring company’s products.

  “I have a few spots still open for anyone who hasn’t rsvp’d yet,” Graham was now saying. “How about it, Alison? I’m sure you and your partner could use a weekend away before the new arrival.”

  “Thanks, but no,” Alison said tartly. “We’ll be painting the nursery.”

  “Anyone else?” Graham persisted. “I know better than to ask Dr. Angelotti. Not if I want to walk out of here with my head still attached to my shoulders. Ha, ha, ha.”

  I raised my hand. “Actually, Graham, I was thinking I might take you up on the offer. If it wouldn’t be too much trouble to get me in at this late date.”

  “Really?” Graham exclaimed, like he wasn’t sure I was pulling his leg.

  “Really?” Alison and Josh said in unison along with him.

  “Why not?” I continued, trying to sound genuine. “I could use the relaxation, and it sounds like it will be highly . . . informative.” I could feel Alison and Josh staring at me in shock. “Also, to tell the truth, I’m behind on my CME hours,” I finished with a flourish.

  “Why, that’s—” Graham began, still flabbergasted. “Why, that’s absolutely wonderful! I’ll get on your reservation right away. Will you be staying the whole weekend or just Saturday night? Do you want to be signed up for a foursome? Or tennis? I’m sure I can get you a special room if you need one. And you’ll need to tell me whether you want the filet or the chicken at the opening banquet . . .”

  After he’d left to sign me up and the place had cleared out except for Josh and me—Alison’s parting comment being “Et tu, Brute?”—Josh demanded to know what in the hell was going on. “I’m beginning to think that blow to the head really did knock the senses out of you.”

  “Why? You think I’m faking wanting to go?”

  “Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the smirk on your face is as wide as my waistband.”

  “Do you think Graham noticed anything,” I asked, worried.

  “Relax. He looked like you’d just offered him an all-expenses-paid cruise to the Bahamas. Now tell me, what gives?”

  I filled him in on the events of the last two days, including my conversation with Rusty about Jane’s possible motive for secrecy, the visit to Gallagher’s nephew, my feigned telephone survey, and the Atria employee who’d hung up on me.

  When I was done, Josh said, “Well, I’ll give you the Energizer Bunny award for staying busy. And I’m glad you’ve finally bowe
d to the advisability of getting a real investigator to help you. But what is this crap about attending the Atria event?”

  “I thought it was something I could do that wouldn’t attract attention.”

  “Oh, sure. I bet there’ll be dozens of attendees sporting white canes at the conference. You’ll blend in with no trouble. Besides, what do you think you’re going to accomplish up there?”

  “I know inconspicuousness isn’t exactly my forte these days. But no one there except Graham will know who I am, and most strangers treat me like I don’t exist. I figured I’d just hang out and listen—something I still happen to be competent at. You know how these events are—the hotel will be swarming with drug reps and they’ll all be drinking like there’s no tomorrow. Maybe I can pick up some hints about what’s going on at Atria. If not, it’ll just be a wasted forty-eight hours, but at least I won’t be treading a hole in the carpet doing nothing but flagellating myself over Hallie.”

  “OK, but how’re you going to find your way around? The place sounds huge and you’ve never been there before.”

  “If I let that deter me, I might as well sign up for Social Security right now. There are ways. I’ll manage.”

  “I could come with,” Josh offered helpfully.

  “After that show of distaste you and Alison just put on for Graham? Forget it. He’d catch on right away that there was something going on. Even he isn’t that dense.”

  “OK, but what can I do to help?”

  “Stay in touch with Hallie’s doctor. I’ll feel a lot better knowing you’re standing by while I’m miles away feasting on pretzels and cheese cubes.”

  I arrived back at my office close to noon, with plans on spending the rest of the day engaged in advance planning. With any luck, the resort would have an accessible website with plenty of maps. First, though, I needed lunch. I collected my cane from the hook on the door for a trip down to the cafeteria, absentmindedly patting my pants pocket to be sure I had my pills with me. I stopped and frowned. Other than the change I’d scooped up after my hallway spill, the pocket was empty. I checked the one on the other side. Also empty except for my handkerchief. No problem there. I’d probably left the pills in my jacket, which was hanging on the back of the door.