Head Case (2 page)

4

March 7 (B.D.)

Thirty Seconds Later.

Polly had a history of interrupting me at awkward moments, and there I was, sitting on our battered loveseat, supporting an oversized neurochemistry textbook on top of my knees, my feet splayed out on the milk crate that doubled as a coffee table, my toes each separated by a foam pedicure pillow, giving ample air flow to the glistening red polish I had painted on my nails in anticipation of the forthcoming open-toe shoe season.

“Hi?” I said quizzically, putting the book down and trying to act like it was an everyday occurrence that a celebrity like Lillianne Farber came traipsing through our home. “Um, are you guys taking a break?” Like they would normally take a break here and not, say, at the Presidential Suite at the W.

“We came to get something,” Polly said. She motioned for Lillianne to have a seat on the couch next to my book (there was no other place to sit besides the floor). “That’s my roommate Olivia. She’s a PhD candidate at the Leary Institute. You know, for the Advanced Study of the Brain,” she said, as if apologizing for the half-tangled ponytail coming off the top of my head. “Olivia, this is—” she didn’t bother to finish. Of course I knew who “this is.”

Lillianne’s perfume wafted into the apartment, but Lillianne held herself back at the threshold. She looked shocked, like she couldn’t believe she was even associating with people who lived in a place like this, or that apartments this small even existed.

“Are you okay?” I asked as I placed the nail file on top of the textbook and rolled the cuffs of my jeans down to hide the two-week-old stubble that was peeking out.

“Huh? Oh, yeah. You know what? Is it okay if I sit there?” Lillianne gestured at the very spot Polly had just offered her.

Polly and I glanced at each other, acknowledging the weirdness of the situation.

Polly said sure, and that she would be right back.

She went into her room, and when she returned two minutes later, shaking the two small boxes in her hands, Lillianne and I were chatting it up like long-lost friends.

She was actually kind of cool, Lillianne. She wanted to know about what I was studying and I told her about my research on the impact of emotional changes on the molecular structure of brain chemistry. She said she never thought research scientists would have such bright red toenails, but that maybe her misconception of science and scientists was part of the reason she had nearly failed a biology class at Harvard. It was the worst grade she’d ever gotten. I laughed and told her that in fairness, I didn’t know the first thing about acting. I was in the chorus of Guys and Dolls in high school, and the director asked me to lip-sync because I couldn’t carry a tune. She complimented my sweater. I laughed and told her I was a scientist with a shopping problem.

“You should see her closet,” Polly said as she emerged from the bathroom.

I laughed. “You should see my Visa bill.”

Polly placed two small white plastic bottles on top of the textbook. “I found these,” she said. “Sentofel.” She turned a bottle so that we could see the label faced us. “It’s about to expire, but that’s what you take, right? I also have some Fralenex,” she said, turning the other one around.

“What do you think, Olivia?” Lillianne asked me, quite deferentially. “You’re the oddly fashionable doctor of neuroscience.”

I laughed. “You’re getting a few years ahead of my life.” I said, since at that point I was still scratching up the funding I needed to finish my research project and hence my PhD. A doctor I was not. Not yet. And I wouldn’t be anytime soon if more funding didn’t come through.

I told her about a study I’d recently read about Fralenex. “Basically, it said that it’s really similar to methylphenidate—Ritalin. But there’s a tiny difference in the molecular structure, just enough for the company to get a new patent and market it as a different drug. It’s fairly typical of the new releases, so sometimes it’s probably better to just …”

“Ols,” Polly interrupted, shaking one of the bottles to get my attention. “I think Lillianne was just wondering which one she should take?”

“Right,” I said. “Sorry. I guess you should just go with the Sentofel since you’re familiar with it and know how it feels. You don’t want to have some weird side effect hit you in the middle of an interview.”

Lillianne raised her eyebrows approvingly and then looked at Polly, and, finally getting her name correct asked, “Polly, have you taken both of them? What do you think?”

“Well …” Polly put the drugs down on the crate next to my drying toes. “I haven’t taken the Sentofel in a while. I’ve never tried the Fralenex.”

“Aren’t they yours?” Lillianne picked up one of the bottles to get a closer look at the label. She opened it and stabbed the safety seal with the tip of my metal nail file. “So, you don’t need these?” she asked, pouring a week’s worth of little green pills into her hand.

“I have plenty,” Polly said. “They’re just samples. I get them from my dad’s office. I figured we should have them in case I was going on a date and needed something a little stronger than a peppermint Cert.” She laughed nervously and twisted a strand of long hair around her finger, as she was wont to do.

It broke my heart a little, the way Polly so often exposed her lack of confidence. She was so pretty and so smart and she could be so funny. I just didn’t get it. That was one of my professional plans, actually—getting it. I wanted to develop a drug that targeted self-esteem, something that hit the correct synapses more accurately than the mood stabilizers on the market today. I never thought that Polly suffered from the depression that her antidepressant treated, and that was one of the things that got me interested in this field to begin with. My plan, my thesis actually, was to focus on very specific emotional ailments—self-esteem, guilt, anger, etc., and parse out exactly where they occurred in the brain and what hormones and chemicals they triggered. Why treat emotions so broadly, like most mood stabilizers do, when you could target exactly what ails you (or at least the predominant ailment) and treat only that? I was starting to make some good progress, and if enough funding had come through in time, who knows, maybe I could have actually pulled it off.

Lillianne was shaking the other bottle like a rattle. “You got these meds from your dad?”

“Sort of …”

“Polly’s dad is a psychiatrist,” I explained.

Lillianne perked up. “And he gives you samples?”

“No. He’d kill me if he knew. But he has a home office and the reps come by a lot and, well …”

“Aren’t those meant for patients?”

“Yeah. But honestly, they give him so many samples that they expire before he can even unload all the pills.”

“What a tragic waste,” Lillianne said with a grin. “Good thing you can help out.”

“You should see his supply closet,” Polly said. “Sometimes I wonder why his patients ever have to actually pay for their medication at all.”

“Man, the drug companies must spend a fortune on freebies.” Lillianne said, spreading the pills on top of my chemistry textbook.

“Marketing,” I said. “That’s where all the money is. That’s all these samples are. Here, take this one. This is a good starting dose.” I handed Lillianne a small green pill. She picked up the Diet Coke I had been nursing and washed it down.

“Do you think I could take along a few more? Maybe some of the Fralanex? For some of my friends?” she asked. I figured Lillianne certainly had friends who might welcome the access to certain mental assists without worrying about a paper trail of information that some hard-up-for-cash pharmacist could leak to US Weekly or Star.

Polly and I looked at each other and shrugged. 

That was the beginning. And before you could say “stimulant,” Polly was stealing pills from her father (more on that later) and I was playing doctor and consulting about which ones to take. Lillianne was inviting us out to her VIP parties with her VIP friends, helping us cut the VIP ropes and covering the tabs for our VIP drinks (more on that later, as well).

The rush of fabulousness was really more up Polly’s alley than mine. I was just as happy to sit on the ratty couch reading a book, but I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t impressed. Or that I didn’t enjoy the authority and the new friends. Again, more on this later, but it’s pretty hard to be blasé when the A-list entourages are hanging on your opinions and coveting your Z-list company. What’s the phrase? Zero to hero. That was us. It wasn’t every day, not even every week. But over the course of a couple of months, often enough there one of us was, the unidentified friend in the corner of the snapshot in that week’s People magazine, the unnamed companion climbing out of the car in the video posted on Gawker.com. 

That was almost a year ago. Then the samples dried up, and these days Polly and I have been living in opposing worlds (well, we were living in them, anyway), and now Lillianne spends most of her time in ashrams, not after-hours clubs. And once I got deeper into my new pharmaceutical research, for which the drug company Pharmax started cutting me sizeable checks, I really couldn’t be bothered with clubs and trading pills. I was way too busy doing what I was supposed to be doing—advancing my career, paying off my bills, and acting like an adult for a change. So Polly was more or less on her own. Which was part of what our fight was about, mine and Polly’s.

But the Russians? All of that stuff? Mitya’s troubles? I didn’t even know about any of that until today, until I found myself forced to go catapulting down to Brighton Beach to look for the bastard.

5

November 5 (B.D.)

Eight Months Later (Today).

5:35 P.M.

I tried to get there as fast as I could. Or as fast as anyone would try to when responding to a friend who was crying hysterically, almost incomprehensibly, over the phone. Even if they were not currently on speaking terms, which we weren’t. Although yes, I admit that had it not been for the coincidence that my lab rats were settling into their early evening naps, I probably would have taken my sweet time. Because as distraught as she was, I wasn’t taking it all too seriously. Her histrionics, I mean. I just assumed Polly was freaking out because her loser boyfriend hadn’t called when he said he would, which was a fairly predictable occurrence with her. The guy wouldn’t call for a day or so and she would spiral into a blubbering vat of self-doubt that no amount of Prozac, Effexor or Chianti could fix. And then, just as she hit breaking point, inevitably the phone would ring and she would immediately perk up and start talking as if it was she who’d been too busy or preoccupied to be in touch.

So, not a life-threatening emergency, to be sure, but it seemed enough of an excuse for me to bolt out of the laboratory and get out of the tequila shots one of the researchers was offering up at the bar across the street. And besides, I figured Polly calling me like that was her way of offering another olive branch, letting me know that when the proverbial pooh hit the fan, she still needed me. Which was fair. Because proverbial pooh and all, things were getting weird in my life and I needed her, too. I still do. More than ever.

And so I ran, my heels drumming down the sterile white corridors of the Institute and out onto the street.

Before I had a chance to put my hand up to hail a cab, a yellow taxi flashed its lights and screeched to a halt in front of me, splashing dirty water from the puddle at the curb. I brushed the gray drops off the bottom of my jeans and slipped into the back of the car.

Maybe I should have thought it strange that the driver was able to sense my need for a ride before I raised my hand and gave the signal, but that happens—cab drivers often have a sixth sense when scouring for fares. So I got in. Anybody would have. I mean, what could possibly be suspicious about a New York City taxi driver being aggressive about getting some business?

“West 92nd Street,” I said, slamming the door and buckling myself in. “Off Central Park.”

We started to move in that direction. That is, we went south down Fifth Avenue. But when we hit 97th Street, the driver kept going, and then, at 96th, he turned left instead of right. East instead of west.

“West 92nd,” I repeated, pounding on the glass partition separating the front from the back. “You’re going the wrong way.”

The driver didn’t respond.

Gingerly, I said it again. “West 92nd Street.”

Which was when the locks on the doors snapped down.

Which was when I knew I was in trouble.

I took a deep breath, trying to remain calm, and then reached into my jacket pocket and attempted to dial 911 with my hand still inside. I wasn’t sure what would happen, because putting the phone to my ear seemed like it would be a provocation. I was just hoping that some smart emergency operator would have enough psychic intuition to know that the silence on the other end of the line was a cry for help and that they should key up the GPS and fast.

I pressed the wrong button and my phone beeped.

“You should not do that,” the driver said. It wasn’t said like a threat. It sounded more like fatherly advice. “I am sorry, Olivia. It is the Olivia, yes? I recommend you not make call.”

He knew my name.

The driver had a slight accent and he knew my name. And given that while one hand remained on the wheel, and one hand remained in his pocket, it occurred to me he might have a gun.

I told myself to start making mental notes, try to remember every detail I could. I needed him to say more. He sounded Slavic, but I’m hardly a linguist. 

I glanced at his license and made note of the name: Ivan Petrovich Lumpkyn. Expires in October, in eleven months. I wondered if he just got it, the license.

I asked how he knew my name. I told him to stop the car. I demanded some answers, but he wouldn’t offer any. He just told me “it no problem, no worry,” and silently drove over to FDR Drive.

We stopped at a red light and I thought about trying to unlock the door and jump out, but I could see that his eyes were peering at me through the rearview mirror. They appeared to be curious, like he was trying to make sure he got the right girl. Or maybe he was surprised that I, short of stature, thin of frame—conventionally attractive in a conventionally symmetrical sort of way, but not exactly anyone’s exotic fantasy, especially considering the weary, exhausted facade typical of a candidate for a PhD in neurochemistry who was hard up against a number of deadlines and concerns—was the girl he was sent to get. He was no looker, either. His face was puffy but his eyes were squinty, almost closed. The lids were drawn down—the gravity of age, it looked like. But there was something soft about them, something almost sympathetic. These were not the eyes of someone I should fear. At least that’s what I told myself. For a kidnapping cabdriver, this guy was a softie.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked again, as composed as I could muster.

The traffic stopped and he turned to face me.

His face was round, almost cherubic. A bulbous nose. Untamed, wiry white eyebrows, just like the photo on the license. A tweed cap was pushing down what appeared to be unmanageably coarse and long-since overgrown salt and pepper hair. He looked like a combination of Einstein and Mr. Magoo.

I could feel my phone vibrating in my pocket and started to pull it out again to see who was calling. Polly’s name was on the caller ID, but before I could answer, the driver waved his finger in the air, admonishing me. I put it back again and held up my empty hands like someone might do after the police tell them to drop their weapons.

The traffic began to move. An icy drizzle started splattering on the windshield. He hit the accelerator and the car lurched forward.

“Where are you taking me?” I repeated, this time a little louder.

He sighed as if I were pestering him with my questions. “Brooklyn,” he relented.

“Why? Where in Brooklyn? Where are we going?”

“Please. Please, no worry,” he said, apologetically, like I should not think it a big deal that there was a strange man driving me against my will to a place I did not ask to go.

I looked out at the East River passing on my left, trying to put all of this cryptic information together, trying to figure out what I should do next. Had I known that I was nearing, well, oblivion, I might have done something differently. I might have ignored Lumpkyn and picked up the phone—told my parents I love them, told that intern over in Oncology that I thought he was cute, told Polly that I was sorry. I mean, what would you do if you were locked in a New York City taxicab with only fifteen minutes left to live?  What issue would you want to resolve?