Head Case (7 page)

18

November 5 (B.D.)

Today, Just a Little While Ago.

5:42 P.M.

“You want some?”

“What?”

Ivan Petrovich Lumpkyn held up a roll of breath mints. “You want?” he repeated. We had come to a stop at a red light, and he was shoving the half-unraveled blue roll through the small money tray carved though the center of the divider that separated the front of the car from the back.

“Are you serious?” I asked. At that moment, my breath was the last thing that was worrying me. The chemical balance in this guy’s brain, however, was a definite cause for concern. One minute he was threatening me, the next he was trying to protect me from halitosis. “No thanks, I’ll pass.”

I reached forward to push the roll back through to his side of the car.

Holy shit.

These were not just any breath mints. These were peppermint Certs. I snatched the unraveling roll.

“Wait a second. Are these Polly’s?” I held the roll before me as if it were a sacred scroll, not a package of lumped together, synthetically manufactured ingredients like Sorbitol and Aspartame and magnesium stearate. And “artificial and natural flavoring,” of course. “Did you get these from Polly?”

He shrugged, but I knew they were hers. Why they were here in this renegade taxicab was a mystery. Was this Lumpkyn guy trying to tell me something by offering them to me? Had Polly planted them here as some kind of signal?

I didn’t have time to ask.

The light changed and he hit the accelerator.

“Jesus!” I said as my elbow slammed into the door handle, jamming my funny bone. I dropped the roll, and the blue-speckled white tablets dispersed across the floor of the car. I had an impulse to pick them up. They belonged to my roommate, after all, and they might help answer some questions. I unlatched my seatbelt and bent down, reaching underneath the seats to make sure I got every last one.

I got more than that.

In addition to six perfectly round, blue-speckled, naturally and artificially flavored tablets, there was a small oval caplet with the words “Ziperal ER” printed in small pinkish letters on one side. I knew from my work that these pills weren’t yet commercially available. And the ones from Pharmax that I had recently started working with in my lab were capsules, so if this caplet was Polly’s, she sure hadn’t gotten it from me. 

19

June 14 (B.D.)

A Couple Days after that Lunch with Missy Pander.

10:39 P.M.

Remember that old television commercial, the one with an egg frying in a pan of crackling grease as the narrator says “this is your brain on drugs” in a tone ominous enough to satisfy concerned parties but funny enough to work as a good punch line after you’d taken a hit of a joint or, if you were so inclined, snorted a line of cocaine? Well, I don’t want to get too graphic, but it seems arguable that drugs have caused my brain to look just like those greasy, bubbling eggs. I mean literally. Right now. It’s been years since I’ve inhaled, snorted or popped anything nefarious, but it’s becoming increasingly obvious that drugs are the reason my cerebral cortex is currently sunny-side up on the sidewalk in front of Charity—the club where Mitya works, I should point out—right next to the pole that holds up the red velvet rope, the same one that I stood in front of on that wet spring night just a couple days after my first business lunch with Missy Pander. She had called me earlier that afternoon and said she was making progress on her plan for my employment and wanted to celebrate; she wanted to meet some of my candy-chomping friends. I still had no idea of what my job was going to be, but I was desperate to have it, so even though I wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of going to a club with Polly, I acquiesced.

“I’m sure we’re on the list,” I said to the bouncer, pointing at the Lucite-backed clipboard balanced on his phonebook-sized hand.

He glared down at us with a look that seemed to suggest that we might as well have been tourists from Kansas; we would have to wait our turn on the line with the rest of the riff-raff.

“Can you please check again?” I asked plaintively, wrapping my arms around myself to keep from shivering. The sleeveless, backless black tank had been an overly ambitious choice of attire considering the unseasonable chilly and wet forecast I had heard on the news. “I’m sure my name is there. Olivia Zack.”

He responded with an exaggerated sigh, as if what I was asking of him was offensively over the top.

“Well, then can you just ask someone to tell Lillianne Farber that her friend Olivia is here, standing outside in the rain?” I tried again. “She’s waiting for me inside, and I’m sure she wouldn’t be happy to know I’m being blocked from entering.”

He glared at me with half-closed, been-there-seen-that icy blue eyes. “Yeah, right,” he said, muttering just loud enough for us to hear. “I’ll be sure to do that. Next time Lillianne Farber and I do lunch.” He shook his head and then pointed his pen at the couple standing behind us in the line. “Name?”

“Don’t worry,” I whispered to Missy, “he’s new here. He doesn’t know who I am.” I held my place in front of him, elbowing out the couple vying to push into our spot. “Well, can you ask Mitya, then? The DJ? Just tell him his girlfriend’s roommate is outside.”

The bouncer didn’t bother answering. Instead, he nodded at the slightly smaller but equally menacing cohort who was standing beside him. “Frank?” he said, raising an eyebrow and cocking his head in our direction.

“Come on, ladies,” said the Frank guy. He wrapped his fingers all the way around my upper arm and then tightened his grip. “I think Serge here has made his point.”

Frank tugged me out from under the protective awning, and then, because she was still obstinately standing in place, he reached back and grabbed Missy’s wrist, pulling her forward and causing her to stumble and scrap her knee on the cement sidewalk.

I rubbed my bicep before extending a hand to help her up. Once Missy was standing, I windmilled my arm to regain circulation and dissolve the claw-shaped imprint Frank had left on my bare skin.

“Impressive,” Missy said with a derisive chuckle as she steadied herself. “Shit. Look at this.” A little blood was dripping down her leg. “I look like a fucking kid in a playground.”

I tried to find a tissue in my clutch, but Missy beat me to it, pulling a silk handkerchief out of her purse and pressing it to the cut. It was a humiliating moment for me, certainly, but the depth of shame was immediately overshadowed by the fact that I knew I had to make an even more mortifying phone call to make up for it. 

“I’m so sorry,” I said to Missy. “I’m sure there was just a misunderstanding.” I opened my phone and hit the number one—Polly’s location on my speed dial.

I could hear the laughter and the music in the background when she answered. There was no question she was already inside. 

“So you decided to come out again after all?” she said, shouting above the noise. “I thought this place was beneath you.”

“That isn’t what I said, Polly.”

“What? I can’t hear you.”

“Jesus,” I muttered. “I left you a message!” I said, shouting back at her. “Didn’t you get it?”

“I saw you called. Sorry. Didn’t listen to it.”

I rolled my eyes. I wasn’t sure what it was going to take for Polly and me to work through this rift of ours, but I was hoping that at the very least having a potential injection into our negligible pharmaceutical supply would please her. “Well maybe you should have,” I said. “I’m outside with Missy Pander.”

“Who? Hold on. It’s too loud here. Let me step into the back.”

I could hear the throbbing beat of the electronic house music starting to dim.

“Okay,” Polly said. I could hear a door close and the music fade away. “That’s better. What did you say? Who’re you with?”

“Missy,” I said, aware that the woman in question was staring at me with a look that was more bewildered than bemused. “Missy Pander. From Pharmax. Remember?”

Polly was silent so I let the information sit a moment. 

“So,” I said, “do you think you could get your boyfriend to let us in, perhaps?” 

“You can be such a hypocrite, Olivia.” She exhaled loudly, clearly for my benefit. “But I’ll be right there.”

I nodded at my blond benefactress (well, potential benefactress) as I hung up the phone. “It’ll just be a minute,” I said. “Polly’s coming out to fetch us.”

“Right.” Missy folded up the stained handkerchief and took a compact out of her purse. She quickly surveyed her reflection. “My hair is getting destroyed.”

Of course, it was more than a minute. It always was with Polly. And given the increasing strength of the drizzle, more than a minute was more than Missy’s up-do could handle. I watched as individual blond hairs slowly sprung free from the tight surface they had been pasted onto; a halo of frizz was blossoming around Missy’s head.

“You look great,” I lied. I looked at my watch. It was 10:45. On a weeknight, no less.

“I should probably get going,” Missy said. She replaced the compact and snapped the purse’s latch. “This is a waste of time. We can celebrate another night.”

“I’m so sorry,” I began, “This is really—”

“Hey, you! Blondie!” 

We both turned, even though my hair was decidedly darker. 

“Yeah you. With the dye job.” Serge the bouncer was pointing his banana-sized finger directly at Missy. “You and your annoying little friend. You’re in.” He cracked the door open just wide enough for the two of us to snake through single file; it was as if we were entering a secret chamber and not a nightclub. That was how Polly was acting too, grabbing us at the door and quickly squirreling us to the backroom, the VIP area, which was the only part of the club in which you could actually breathe. The rest was so packed that any attempt of a wiggle on the dance floor would almost guarantee an elbow in your rib. And there was Mitya, lording over it all from his elevated DJ booth, which hovered over the dancers like a UFO descending to earth in a B-rated film.

He waved at us and Polly waved back, causing the gold bangles stacked on her wrist to tumble down to her elbow, flickers of colored light almost blinding me as they bounced off the metal. I had never seen them before, the bangles, but it wasn’t hard to guess where—or should I say from whom—they came.

***

Lillianne was at the back of the room that night, sitting at a corner booth, her friends squeezing in around her. The table was meant for maybe six people, but there were more than eight of them, bunched about, one more attractive than the next, though none as luminous as Lillianne.

“Olivia!” She summoned me. “Vivian said you brought a friend?” I could feel Missy freeze at my side.

“Oh my God,” Missy said, slipping into a flat, mid-western accent I had never heard come out of her, “I can’t believe that’s her! And that’s Adam Fald!” She plunged her hand into her purse to find a pen worthy of Lillianne’s autograph.

In one second flat, Missy Pander had morphed from the overly composed, overly coiffed—if slightly damp—executive to a star struck fool. Celebrity presence can do that to people. It’s understandable, because in many ways, celebrities are immortal. In death and in life, they flutter into our psyches and run around in our dreams. They exist in a completely different realm; meeting an A-list celebrity in person is in many ways like meeting a ghost. Which can freak people out.

Some of us just hide it better than others.

Missy pulled out a Sharpie and waved it over her head the way some people hold up cell phones and lighters at rock concerts.

“Wait.” I snatched the pen and snapped it shut in the bag. “Later, okay?” I said, too embarrassed to let her proceed. It was going to be a long night.

20

June 15 (B.D.)

Still at the Club.

The Wee Early Hours.

Even with my new-found powers of retrospective insight, that night remains hazy to me. I do remember this though: about three rounds of drinks in—more than enough to faze out any inhibitions—Missy unclipped her hair and let it cascade over her shoulders, like she was in a shampoo commercial.

“Next round on me!” she said, scattering a dozen or so sample packs of pills across the table.

“My, my. What do we have here?” Lillianne asked, grabbing at the package that had landed closest to her. “Ziperal Extended Release capsules?” She laughed. “You guys can’t unload this stuff fast enough, can you?” At that point, it was the only drug Polly had left in her bag. All of the stimulants and sedatives had been snapped up weeks before.

“Don’t I know it,” said Missy with an overly dramatic shrug. “It’s just not moving the way we had hoped. It’s killing my chance for a good bonus this year.”

“Too bad you can’t count this as a sale,” said Lillianne.

Missy chuckled and playfully shoved Lillianne’s shoulder. “Well, how about a little celebrity endorsement?” she said with a grin.

“Yeah, right.” Lillianne held the blister pack up to her face, making her best drunken come-hither look. “Ziperal ER, extended release. If you know what I mean …” She licked her lips and blew a sultry Marilyn Monroe-style kiss.

Vivian laughed so hard she snorted. “What the hell does that even mean?”

“I don’t know!” Lillianne said, squealing like an inebriated pig. They were acting like girls who had gotten drunk for the first time at a high school dance, overly giddy and absolutely foolish.

“Do it again!” said Polly, pulling her cell phone out of her purse. “Here, Missy, Olivia, let me get you in there, too!”

Of course, as it turned out, Polly wasn’t the only one with a camera in her phone.

“Wait, Polly, let’s get one with you and Olivia together.” Mitya had come over during his break, two martinis in hand. He handed one to me and put the other on the table. “I figured you might be thirsty.” He winked and held up his Blackberry. “Smile,” he said. I didn’t.

“Dude.” Adam Fald walked up behind our chairs and draped his arms over Polly and me, interrupting the portrait session. He must have just come in, because I could feel the dampness of his shirt on my bare shoulder. “You done jail time?” he asked, jutting his chin in the direction of Mitya’s hand.

“What?” Mitya put his phone back in his jeans pocket and left his hand in there with it. 

“Aren’t those prison tattoos? On your fingers?” He made a fist and play punched the air in front of Mitya’s face. “I had some like that in Blood Pacts,” he said, referring to his recent made-for-TV mafia flick, which had flopped.

“Really?” Polly asked, turning to face Mitya, her eyebrows reaching toward her hairline. “Is that what those are?” It was hard to say whether she was intrigued or concerned by her new boyfriend’s potential revelation. I gave her the benefit of the doubt and went with the latter.

“Well, what if they are?” he asked, shrugging at me as if I were in on some joke.

“Are they?” Polly asked again. She was starting to look a little ashen.

Mitya took his hand out of his pocket and gently caressed her cheek with his blue-inked fingers. “Of course not,” he said. And then he excused himself to return to his shift.

“He’s cool,” said Adam, watching Mitya disappear into the pulsating strobe lights coming from the other room.

Polly looked at me, for the first time in a long time wanting to know my opinion on the matter.

“Well,” I began. “Either way, I think it’s an odd place for tattoos to begin with. And they aren’t even—”

“Lillianne, Vivian, Adam!” Missy said, waving her purse to get their attention. “Let me get one of the three of you! Polly and Olivia, can you duck out of the way?” Missy waved for the celebrities to bunch together. “Okay. Hold it. Wait. Let’s try one more. Pick up one of the packs again, Lillianne. Right. Just like that.” She took the picture and put her phone down.

“Now, don’t go trying to sell that on Ebay,” said Adam, chasing one of the myriad pills he plucked up with the half-full, lipstick-stained glass of vodka Missy had left on the table.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” said Missy, reaching to reclaim her drink.

“No, I mean it,” said Adam. He picked up Missy’s phone, frowning at what he saw. “Are you guys idiots?” he asked Lillianne and Vivian. He tilted his head toward Missy. “Who is this chick, anyway?”

Missy extended her hand. “Missy Pander. Pharmaceutical Sales.”

I pulled out my own phone to look at the time. It was close to 3 a.m. and it didn’t seem like I was any closer to gainful employment. “I should probably get going,” I said. “It’s already Monday. I need to be at the lab in a few hours.”

“What work could you possibly have to do?” Polly asked. “I thought your funding’s all dried up.”

“Right. It is.” I stood up, catching Missy’s eye.

“Come on, Olivia,” Missy said, swaying her now empty glass in my face. “Relax. It’s all good.”

“Yeah,” said Polly, “Kick around. We’re having fun.”

I wasn’t. “There are deadlines, Polly. Responsibilities. I’m sorry if that isn’t something you can understand. I’ve got to go.” And, leaving them all to gobble up pills, drink more drinks, and take more photos to show their grandchildren (or whatever), I left.