Limitless (19 page)

Then he took off up Second Avenue without saying goodbye.

I crossed the street, and in line with my new strategy of trying to eat at least once a day, I went into a diner and had coffee and a blueberry muffin.

Then I wandered over to – and up – Madison Avenue. After about ten blocks, I stopped outside a realtor’s office, a place called Sullivan, Draskell. I went inside, made some enquiries and got talking to a broker by the name of Alison Botnick. She was in her late forties and was dressed in a stylish navy-blue silk dress with a matching Nehru coat. I realized pretty quickly that even though I was in jeans and a sweater, and could easily have been a clerk in a wine store – or a freelance copywriter – this woman had no idea who I was and consequently had to be on her guard. As far as Ms Botnick was
concerned, I could have been one of those new dot-com billionaires on the look-out for a twelve-room spread on Park. These days you never knew, and I kept her guessing.

Walking up Madison, I had been thinking in the region of $300,000 for a place – $500,000 tops – but it occurred to me now that given my standing with Van Loon and my prospects with Hank Atwood there was no reason why I shouldn’t be thinking bigger – $2 million, $3 million, maybe even more. As I stood in the plush reception area of Sullivan, Draskell, thumbing through glossy brochures for luxury condos in new buildings called things like the Mercury and the Celestial, and listening to Alison Botnick’s pitch, with its urgent lexical hammer-blows – high-end, liquid, snapped-up, close, close,
close
– I felt my expectations rising by the second. I could also see Alison Botnick, for her part – as she morphed fifteen years off my frame and mentally dressed me in a UCLA T-shirt and baseball cap – convincing herself that I
was
a dot-com billionaire. The flames were stoked further when I casually shrugged off her suggestion that, given the storm of paperwork required these days to pass the average
co-op
board’s screening procedure, I would probably want to avoid a co-op apartment.

‘The boards are getting very picky,’ she said, ‘not that—’

‘Of course not, but who wants to be excluded without a fight?’

She assessed this.

‘OK.’

Our manipulation of each other into these respective states of acquisitive and professional arousal could only have led to one thing: viewings. She took me first to see a four-bedroom prewar co-op in the East Seventies between Lexington and Park. We went by cab, and as we chatted about the market and where it was ‘at’ right now, I had that pleasant sensation of being in control – and of being
at
the controls, as though I had designed the software for this little interlude myself and everything was running smoothly.

The apartment we went to view on Seventy-fourth was nothing special. It had low ceilings and didn’t have much natural light. It was also cramped and quite fussy.

‘A lot of these prewar co-ops are like this, you know,’ Alison said,
as we made our way back down to the lobby. ‘They’ve got leaks and need to be rewired, and unless you’re prepared to just gut them and start over, they’re not worth the money.’

Which in this case was $1.8 million.

Next we went to see a 3,200-square-foot converted loft space in the Flatiron District. It had been a textile factory of some kind up until the’50s, had lain vacant for most of the’60s and from the way the place was decorated it didn’t look as if its present owner had made it much past the’70s. Alison said he was a civil engineer who’d probably paid very little for it, but was now asking $2.3 million. I liked it, and it certainly had potential, but it was huddled a little too anonymously in a part of town that was still relatively dull and
unexciting
.

The last place Alison took me to see was on the sixty-eighth floor of a condominium skyscraper that had just been built on the site of the old West Side rail yards. The Celestial, along with other luxury residential developments, was – in theory – to be the centrepiece of a new urban rejuvenation project. This would roughly cover the area between West Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen.

‘If you take a look at it, there’s a
ton
of empty lots there,’ Alison said, sounding like a latter-day Robert Moses, ‘from Twenty-sixth Street up to Forty-second Street, west of Ninth Avenue – it’s ripe for redevelopment. And with the new Penn Station you’ll have a huge increase in traffic – thousands more people pouring in every day.’

She was right, and as our cab cruised west along Thirty-fourth Street, down towards the Hudson River, I could see what she was talking about, I could see the great potential there was for
gentrification
, for a huge bourgeois-boho makeover of the entire
neighbourhood
.

‘Believe me,’ she went on, ‘it’s going to be the biggest land grab this city has seen in fifty years.’

Rising up out of the wasteland of disused and neglected
warehouse
buildings, the Celestial itself was a dazzling steel-frame
monolith
in a seamless casing of reflective bronze-tinted glass. As the cab pulled up alongside a huge plaza at the foot of the building, Alison started reeling off stuff that she obviously felt I should know. The
Celestial was 715 feet tall, had 70 storeys and 185 apartments – also several restaurants, a health club, a private screening room,
dog-walking
facilities, a ‘smart garbage’ recycling system … wine-cellar, walk-in humidor, titanium-sided roofdeck …

I nodded at all of this, as though mentally jotting it down for later scrutiny.

‘The guy who designed this place,’ she said, ‘is even thinking of moving in
himself
.’

The vast lobby area had pink-veined marble columns supporting a gold-toned mosaic ceiling, but little in the way of furniture or art works. The elevator took us up to the sixty-eighth floor in what felt like ten seconds, but must have been longer. The apartment she was showing me still had some work to be done on it, so I wasn’t to mind the bare light bulbs and exposed wiring. ‘
But
…’ she turned to me and said in a whisper as she was putting the key in the door, ‘… check out the views…’

We stepped into an open, loft-style space, and although I was aware of various corridors going off in different directions, I was
immediately
drawn to the full-length windows on the far side of this bare, white room. There was plastic sheeting on the floor, and as I walked across it, Alison following just behind me, the whole of Manhattan rose dizzyingly up into view. Standing there at the window, I gaped out at the cluster of midtown skyscrapers directly ahead, at Central Park huddled up to the left, at the financial district over to my right.

Seen here from an angle that had a dreamlike quality of the
impossible
to it, all of the city’s land-mark buildings were in place – but they appeared to be facing, even somehow
looking
, in this direction.

I sensed Alison at my shoulder – smelled her perfume, heard the gentle swish of silk against silk as she moved.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘what do you think?’

‘It’s amazing,’ I said, and turned to look at her.

She was nodding in agreement, and smiling. Her eyes were a vivid green and glistened in a way that I hadn’t noticed before. In fact, Alison Botnick suddenly seemed a lot younger than I had imagined her to be.

‘So, Mr Spinola,’ she said, holding my gaze, ‘do you mind if I ask you what line of work you are in?’

I hesitated, and then said, ‘Investment banking.’

She nodded.

‘I work for Carl Van Loon.’

‘I see. That must be interesting.’

‘It is.’

As she processed this information, maybe slotting me into some real estate client category, I glanced around at the room with its bare walls and incomplete grid of ceiling panels, trying to imagine how it might look fully furnished, and lived in. I thought about the rest of the place, as well.

‘How many rooms are there?’ I asked.

‘Ten.’

I considered this for a moment – an apartment with
ten
rooms – but the scale of it defeated me. I was drawn irresistibly back to the window and gazed out again at the city – rapt as before, taking it all in. It was a clear, sunny day in Manhattan and just standing there made me feel utterly exhilarated.

‘What’s the ask price?’

I had the impression she was only doing it for effect, but Alison consulted her notebook, flicking through several pages and humming in concentration. After a moment, she said, casually, ‘Nine point five.’

I clicked my tongue and whistled.

She consulted another page in her notebook and then stepped a little over to the left, as though she were now positively lost in concentration.

I went back to looking out of the window. It was a lot of money, sure, but it wasn’t necessarily a prohibitive amount. If I continued trading at my current levels, and managed to play Van Loon the right way, there was no reason why I shouldn’t be able to put some kind of a financial package together.

I glanced back at Alison and cleared my throat.

She turned around, and smiled politely.

Nine and a half million dollars.

There’d been a certain amount of wattage in the air between us, but apparently the mention of money had somehow defused this and for the next while we wandered in silence through the other rooms of the apartment. The views and angles in each one were slightly different from those in the main room, but they were equally as spectacular. There seemed to be light everywhere, and space, and as I passed through what would be the bathrooms and the kitchen, I had swirling visions in my head of onyx, terracotta, mahogany, chrome – elegant living in a kaleidoscope of floating forms, parallel lines, designer curves …

At one point, I contrasted all of this with the cramped
atmosphere
and creaking floorboards of my one-bedroom apartment on Tenth Street and I immediately began to feel light-headed, constricted in my breathing, a little panicky even.

‘Mr Spinola, are you all right?’

I was leaning against a doorway now, with one hand pressed against my chest.

‘Yeah, I’m fine … it’s just …’

‘
What
?
’

I looked up, and around, to get my bearings … unsure that I hadn’t had another momentary blackout. I didn’t think I’d moved – didn’t remember moving – but I couldn’t be 100 per cent certain that …

That
what
?

That from where I was standing, the
angle
wasn’t different …

‘
Mr Spinola?
’

‘I’m fine. I’m fine. I have to go now, though. I’m sorry.’

I started walking swiftly along the corridor towards the main entrance. With my back to her, I waved a hand in the air and said, ‘I’ll be in touch with your office. I’ll phone. Thank you.’

I got out into the hallway and straight over to one of the elevator cars.

I was hoping, as the doors whispered closed, that she wouldn’t follow me, and she didn’t.

I
WALKED OUT OF THE
C
ELESTIAL
and across the plaza towards Tenth Avenue, keenly aware of the colossal rectangular slab of
bronzetinted
glass shimmering in the sun behind me. I was also aware of the possibility that Alison Botnick was still up on the sixty-eighth floor, and maybe even staring down at the plaza – which of course made me feel like an insect, and more so with each step I took. I had to walk several blocks along Thirty-third Street, past the General Post Office and Madison Square Garden, before finding a taxi. I never once looked back, and as I got settled into the cab I kept my head down. There was a copy of the
New York Post
lying folded on the seat beside me. I picked it up and held it tightly in my lap.

I still wasn’t sure if anything had happened back there, but the merest hint of that
clicking
business starting up again absolutely terrified me. I sat still and waited, gauging each flicker of
perception
, each breath, ready to isolate and assess anything out of the ordinary. A couple of minutes passed, and I seemed to be OK. I then relaxed my grip on the newspaper, and by the time we were turning right on to Second Avenue, I had calmed down
considerably
.

I flipped open the
Post
and looked at the front page. The
headline
was
FEDS PROBE REGULATORS
. It was a story about goings-on at the New York State Athletic Commission and was accompanied by extremely unflattering photos of two NYSAC officials. As usual in the
Post
, across the top of the front page, above the masthead, there were three boxed headlines with page references for the articles inside. The middle one, white type on a red background,
immediately caught my eye. It said,
MEX PAINTER’S WIFE IN BRUTAL ATTACK
, page 2. I paused for a second, staring at the words, and was about to flick over to the story when I noticed the headline beside it. This one – white on black – said,
MYSTERY TRADER CLEANS UP
, page 43. I fumbled with the paper, trying to get it open, and when I eventually got to the article, which was in the business section, the first thing I saw was Mary Stern’s by-line.

My stomach started churning.

I couldn’t believe she’d gone ahead and written something about me, and especially after the way I’d spoken to her on the phone – but then maybe that was
why
. The text of the article took up half a page and was accompanied by a large photo of the Lafayette trading room. There were Jay Zollo and the others, swivelled around on their chairs, staring into the camera.

I started reading.

I was named in the second paragraph.

I couldn’t believe it. I skimmed the rest of the paragraph.

The article went on to speculate about who I was and what I might be up to, and included quotes from, among others, a baffled Jay Zollo. A sidebar gave details of trades I’d made and of how various Lafayette regulars had benefited – one guy making enough for a down-payment on an apartment, another booking himself in for some long overdue dental surgery, a third catching up on alimony arrears.

It was a strange feeling, being written about like this, seeing my name in print, in a newspaper, especially in the business section of a newspaper. It was even stranger that it should be in the business section of the
New York Post
.

I looked out at the traffic on Second Avenue.

I didn’t know what any of this meant – in terms of my privacy, or of my relationship with Van Loon, or of anything – but there was one thing I was sure of: I didn’t like it.

The cab pulled up at my building on Tenth Street. I was so distracted by the
Post
article that as I paid the driver and got out, I didn’t notice the small group of what I would soon realize were
photographers
and reporters gathered on the sidewalk. They didn’t know me, didn’t know what I looked like, presumably only knew where I lived – but when I got out of the cab and stood there, staring at them in disbelief, it must have been obvious who I was. There was a brief moment of calm before the penny dropped, a two-second delay at most, and then it was
Eddie! Eddie! Here! Here! Click! Whirr! Click!
I put my head down, got my key out and surged forward.
When are you going back to Lafayette, Eddie? Look this way, Eddie! What’s your secret, Eddie?
I managed to get inside the door and to slam it closed behind me. I rushed upstairs into my apartment and went straight over to the window. They were still down there, about five of them, clustered around the door of the building. Was this a result of the story in the
Post?
Everyone wanting to know about the guy who’d beaten the markets? The mystery trader? Well if
that
was news, I thought, it was just as well no one realized
I
was the Thomas Cole the police were so anxious to interview in connection with the Donatella Alvarez situation.

I turned back in towards the room.

The red light was flashing on my answering machine. I walked over to it, wearily, and pressed the ‘play’ button.

Seven
messages.

I sat on the edge of the couch and listened. Jay Zollo, pleading with me to get in touch with him again. My father, puzzled, wanting to know if I’d seen that thing in the paper. Gennady, pissed, declaring that if I was yanking his chain he’d cut my fucking head off, and with a
bread
knife. Artie Meltzer, all pally, inviting me out to lunch. Mary Stern, telling me it’d be so much easier if I would just
talk
to her. A recruitment company, offering me an executive position in a major brokerage house. Someone from David Letterman’s office – a booking agent – saying if I agreed I could be on the show
tonight
.

I flopped back on to the couch and stared up at the ceiling. I had to stay calm. I certainly hadn’t wanted any of this attention or
pressure
, but if I was going to come through it in one piece, I really needed to keep my wits about me. I rolled off the couch, got up and went into the bedroom to lie down properly. Maybe if I could just sleep for part of the afternoon, for an hour or two, I might be able to think a bit more clearly. But the moment I lay down on the bed and stretched out I knew I wasn’t going to be able to do it. I was wide awake and my mind was racing.

I got up again and went into the living-room. I paced back and forth for a while – from the desk to the phone, from the phone to the desk. Then I went into the kitchen. Then out again. Then into the bathroom, then out again to the living-room. Then over to the window. Then back again. But that was it, there was nowhere else to go – just these three rooms. Standing near my desk, I surveyed the apartment and tried to imagine what the place would be like with ten rooms, and high ceilings, and bare white walls. But I couldn’t do it, not without getting dizzy. Besides, that was somewhere else – the sixty-eighth floor of the Celestial – and I was here now, in my apartment …

I stepped back from the desk, a little unsteadily, and leant against the bookshelves behind me. I felt queasy all of a sudden, and
light-headed
.

I closed my eyes.

After a moment, I found myself floating – moving along an empty, brightly lit corridor. Sound was distant and increasingly muffled. The forward motion seemed to continue for ages, the pace slow and dreamy. But then I was gliding around a broad curve, moving into and across a room, towards a wide, full-length window. I didn’t stop at the window, but floated on – arms outstretched –
through
the window and out above the vast microchip of the city, while behind me, after a brief but inexplicable delay, the huge plate of
bronzetinted
glass shattered deafeningly into a million pieces …

I opened my eyes – and jolted backwards, recoiling in fright from the unexpected aerial view I was now getting of the sidewalk down on Tenth Street, of the trash cans and parked cars and
photographers
’ heads milling around like bacteria in a lab dish. I pulled myself in from the window ledge, struggling to keep my balance, and slumped down on to the floor. Then, taking deep breaths and rubbing the top of my head – which I had banged against the upper section of the window – I stared over in amazement at where I had been a moment before … and still
should
have been …

I got up slowly and walked back across the room towards the bookshelves, closely observing each step. I reached out to touch things as I passed them, to reassure myself – the side of the couch, the table, the desk. I looked back at where I had come from, and couldn’t believe it. It didn’t seem real that I had been leaning out of that window, and leaning out so
far
…

With my heart still thumping, I went into the bathroom. If this thing was going to start up again, and develop, I had to find some way to stop it. I opened the medicine cabinet above the washbasin and quickly searched through all the bottles and packets and sealed containers, the accumulated toiletries, shaving things, soap products, non-prescription painkillers. I found a bottle of cough syrup I’d bought the previous winter but had never used. I scanned the label and saw that it contained codeine. I opened the cap, pausing for a second as I glanced at myself in the mirror, and then started chugging the stuff down. It was horrible, sickly and viscous, and I gagged between swallows, but at least I knew that whatever synaptic
short-circuiting in my brain was causing these blackouts, the codeine would slow me down and make me drowsy, and probably sufficiently drowsy to keep me here, passed out on the couch or on the floor – I didn’t mind which, just so long as I wasn’t outside somewhere in the city, out and about and on the loose …

I emptied the bottle of its last drop, put the cap back on and threw it into the little basket beside the toilet. Then I had to steel myself against throwing up. I sat on the edge of the bathtub for a while, clutching the sides of it tightly, and stared at the wall
opposite
, afraid even to close my eyes.

Over the next five minutes, before the codeine kicked in, there were two more occurrences, both brief as flickers in a slideshow, but no less terrifying for that. From the edge of the bathtub, and with no conscious movement on my part, I found myself standing in the middle of the living-room. I stood there, swaying slightly, trying to act unfazed – as if ignoring what had happened might mean it wouldn’t happen again. Soon after that –
click, click
– I was
half-way
down the stairs, sitting on the bottom step of the first landing with my head in my hands. I realized that another trip-switch forward like that and I’d be outside on the street, being mobbed by
photographers
and reporters – maybe in danger, maybe a danger to others, certainly out of control …

But I could feel the onset now of a heaviness in my limbs and a kind of general spaciness. I stood up, grabbing on to the banisters for support, and turned around. I made my way slowly back up to the third floor. Walking now was like wading through treacle and by the time I got to the door of my apartment, which was wide open, I knew I wouldn’t be going anywhere.

It then took me a couple of moments, standing in the doorway, to realize that the ringing sound I was hearing wasn’t just in my head. It was the telephone, and before I’d had time to reason that I shouldn’t be answering the telephone, given my present state, I was watching my hand floating down to pick up the receiver and then floating back up again towards my head.

‘Hello.’

‘Eddie?’

I paused for a moment, in shock. It was Melissa.

‘
Eddie?
’

‘Yeah, it’s me. Sorry. Hi.’

My voice felt heavy, slack.

‘Eddie, why did you lie to me?’

‘I didn’t … wh-what are you talking about?’

‘MDT. Vernon. You know what I’m talking about.’

‘But—’

‘I’ve just been reading the
Post
, Eddie. Short-selling stocks? Second-guessing the markets?
You?
Come on.’

I didn’t know what to say. Eventually, I came up with, ‘Since when do you read the
New York Post
?’

‘These days the
Post’
s
about all I
can
read.’

What did that mean?

‘I don’t under—’

‘Look, Eddie, forget the
Post
, forget the fact that you lied to me. MDT is the problem. Are you still taking it?’

I didn’t answer. I could barely keep my eyelids open.

‘You’ve got to stop taking it.
Jesus
.’

I paused again, but had no clear sense this time of how long the pause went on for.

‘Eddie? Talk to me.’

‘OK …

Now
she
paused, and then said, ‘Fine, when?’

‘You tell me.’

When I spoke, my tongue felt thick and swollen.

‘Tomorrow. In the morning. I don’t know – eleven-thirty, twelve?’

‘OK. In the city?’

‘Fine. Where?’

I suggested a bar on Spring Street.

‘Fine.’

That was it. Then Melissa said, ‘Eddie, are you OK? You sound strange. I’m
worried
.’