The Arx (17 page)

Lawrence Retigo – Reporter – June 17
th

I swore never to go back. I was fine for a couple of weeks, but it’s like something goes off in my head that I can’t control. Maybe it’s my natural instinct to get the story. I didn’t even care about the sex anymore. I had to know who these guys were and what they were up to. Whoever they are, they’re out there. One thing I’m sure of – if they ever found out about me, I’d be dead.

At first I thought Grandpa was the top of the heap, but the other night I found out different. I was in my usual position in the tree. A bunch of the women were there, including Catherine Lesko. Grandpa was there, but I guess he wasn’t horny or he had something else on his mind. No hanky-panky that night.

I was about to climb down when everybody in the room stopped what they were doing and looked toward the door on the west side. A couple of seconds later someone came through it. They wore a robe with a hood, so I couldn’t see the face very well, but it was definitely a woman.

Everybody, including Grandpa, bowed their head when she came in. She talked to Grandpa for a few minutes, then left through the other door. I never saw her face, and I never saw her again.

I tried to research who owns the place, but lately I’m so stressed out and preoccupied I can’t concentrate. I’m sure nobody at the mansion ever saw me, but they’re not normal people. I’m shitting my pants worrying they might know something.

Frank continued to read through the file. Retigo never mentioned another death match, though he said there were skirmishes – always between men. The women didn’t fight. Nobody shed any tears over the losers.

As the journal progressed, it got more and more disjointed and irrational. Retigo seemed to be losing it, raving about Satanist cults and evil conspiracies. If it was a religion, it didn’t sound like one Frank had ever heard of.

He reached the final few entries:

Lawrence Retigo – June 23
rd

Shouldn’t have gotten wasted before I left. I was in the tree with my cell phone out. Put it back in my pocket but when I got home it was gone. Must have fallen out when I climbed down or when I scaled the hedge. I searched the path to my car and even climbed back over and searched the grounds. Nothing!

June 25
th

Passed Catherine Lesko on the street. She looked at me and sort of smiled. She knows. Somebody broke into my apartment. They didn’t take anything. No sign the door’s been tampered with. Stuff’s been moved. Like this crooked picture I hadn’t gotten around to straightening. Somehow it straightened itself. Why the fuck would somebody break in and straighten a picture?

Got to get out of here – move to another city – another country – another planet! How far do I have to go? Whoever these guys are, they’ve got money up the ying-yang and they kill without remorse. How do you hide from somebody like that?

The final section was dated just a week before Retigo died:

June 27
th

They’re messing with my mind. Everywhere I go, they follow me. They don’t do anything, just look at me and smile. No matter how careful I am they find me.

I now understand how fiendishly clever and unrelenting they are. At night, I see them lurking in the shadows on the street below, and hear them creeping down the hallway outside my front door. I draped blankets over my windows, but still they see inside.

All thought of the story has been forgotten. All that remains is survival – survival and paralyzing fear. They are instruments of the devil. They know nothing of compassion, empathy, or love. They have stolen my livelihood, my life, my soul.

They were inside my apartment again. I know they’re going to kill me, but they don’t – they’re playing this bullshit game. Why don’t they do something? Kill me! End the madness!

The document ended. Frank wasn’t sure what to think. Retigo had been on the edge, either headed for a breakdown or already in the throes of one, when he was killed. Was the journal the ravings of a delusional madman? How much, if any, of it was true?

Dogan’s mansion existed, and he knew Catherine Lesko went there regularly – that much was certain. He thought about the sprawling property surrounding the place.

You could do just about anything in there and nobody would know,
he thought.

Rebecca Visits Kaffir

Rebecca felt a stab of guilt the evening after her meeting with Frank, as she dialed his sister Janet’s number. She was breaking her trust with him, and she’d sound like a fool, but she had to know. Either he’d been holding something back or outright lying to her. If that was the case, could she believe anything he said?

“I’m sorry, I don’t have much time,” Janet said. “We’re meeting some people for dinner.”

“I’m sorry for calling you out of the blue,” Rebecca said. “Frank’s been helping me look into Gloria’s death. I’m a little concerned about whether he can handle it – psychologically. You probably know him better than anyone – what do you think?”

“He
was
a detective…” she answered. “A very good one too, from what I’ve heard. Has he done something you’re worried about?”

“He seems fixated on this conspiracy angle, but he won’t tell me anything about it.”

“Oh,” Janet said.

“What? Does that sound familiar?”

“Well… Frank did go on for a while about the force conspiring to get rid of him,” she said. “But that was when he was still in the psych ward.”

“Psych ward?”

“He was there for more than a month. He wasn’t thinking straight. Dr. Sampson said the whole conspiracy thing was part of his… pathology.”

Rebecca’s chest tightened as she spoke. “I know this must seem like a stupid question, but remember the night when Frank first met Gloria over at your place?”

“Sure.”

“He went to look at Ralphie that night. He told me Ralphie had a couple of teeth coming in. Do you remember seeing them?”

“Teeth?” Janet said. “That’s unusual for a baby that age, isn’t it? No, I was outside the room when he was looking at Ralphie. But if Frank says he saw teeth…”

A jolt went up Rebecca’s spine. “So you never saw any teeth?”

“Well, no, but I never really looked that closely – there could have been…”

“You’re sure about that? You didn’t see any teeth?”

“No, I’m sorry.”

“Thanks.” Rebecca felt like a chain was tightening around her stomach. “I also wanted to ask you about his experience a year ago – the one he has nightmares about…”

The line was silent. “I’m sorry,” Janet finally said. “If Frank doesn’t want to talk about that I don’t think it’s my place…”

“I understand,” Rebecca said, with a renewed sense of betrayal. “Thanks. Sorry for bothering you. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention to Frank…”

“Of course,” Janet said.

Rebecca hung up the phone. She’d always suspected that Frank’s theories were a house of cards. A stiff wind was shaking that house to its foundations.

Rebecca was apprehensive a few days later as she climbed the concrete staircase that swept like a terraced hillside around the man-made mountain that was the Kaffir Pharma building. People on either side of her rushed up and down like worker ants, entering and exiting the glass entranceway that wrapped the entire ground floor of the structure.

She hesitated at the top of the stairs, still unsure about her plan. She’d been shocked when her request to interview the VP of Research was immediately granted. With no credentials as a journalist, and no background in pharmaceuticals, she’d expected to be brushed off instantly. She should have been happy at her success, but for some reason it made her nervous.

Stalling, she studied the statistics on a plaque on the wall beside her. It celebrated the construction of the edifice that loomed above her head, one of the most important landmarks in the city.

A million metric tons of concrete. Thirty thousand kilometers of re-bar. Twenty-five thousand square meters of glass. Ten thousand kilometers of copper wire and piping. Half a billion dollars, a million person-hours.

A thousand careers won and lost in the construction of this single edifice, all in pursuit of a vision pouring inexorably from the corporation she was about to risk gaining as an enemy.

She considered what Frank had said about the power behind the organization and shuddered. Then again, Frank said a lot of things.

She’d been caught up in Frank’s version of reality, uncertain whether his theories were part of a delusion or statements of fact. His warning about Kaffir only made sense if his theories about a conspiracy were correct. Even then the relationship between Catherine Lesko and Kaffir seemed tenuous at best. Maybe Lesko was psychotic, acting alone, following some deranged agenda.

Rebecca needed some kind of anchor – something to prove or disprove what Frank was saying. He’d be furious if he found out. Just the same, she pushed through the entrance doors and walked up to the semi-circular marble reception desk.

She told the receptionist about her appointment and after a few minutes’ wait was escorted, through several layers of card-controlled security, to a foyer on the tenth floor. Her original escort waited discretely until a new one, wearing a white lab coat and different coloured security badge, took charge.

Her new escort led her through a secured door on their right and they stepped into a gigantic laboratory. Rebecca glanced around her. As she expected, it was spotlessly clean, tinged with a chemical, antiseptic smell.

Technicians in white coats sat on stools marching into the distance. They hunched over long white workbenches, fiddling with glassware formed into bizarre geometric shapes like ice sculptures, dropping test-tubes into machines for processing, dipping long glass pipettes into lattice-works of samples, examining computer screens or printouts, typing at their computers. The sounds of clinking glass mingled with the whir of centrifuges and the occasional chime from one of the machines.

Her escort led her to a single office in the far west corner of the expanse. Its walls were made entirely of glass – appropriate for the setting, she thought. Sitting behind the desk inside was a woman, also in a white lab coat.

A plain black and white name-plate beside the door read:

Dr. Carla De Leon

Vice President – Research

As they entered Rebecca glanced around the office, then studied the desk in front of her. Something about it was unusual. At first she couldn’t recognize what it was.

Finally it dawned on her. Every object on it had been meticulously positioned. The pens and pencils were placed at exactly the same distance from each other, and though she had no way of measuring, her eye told her they were also lined up exactly in parallel with the edge of the desk itself. Others in a pen-holder were arranged by size and colour. She glanced around the room and noticed that the entire office was laid out with equal care.

The woman behind the desk looked up and noticed them at the door. She smiled and motioned with one hand and they entered. The escort introduced Rebecca and begged off.

Rebecca’s research indicated that Carla De Leon had been with the Olmerol project for almost thirty years. In fact, she’d spent virtually her entire career studying the drug.

Dr. De Leon’s age was listed as fifty-seven, but if Rebecca hadn’t known she would have found it difficult to guess. The difficulty had nothing to do with cosmetics, either surgical or the drugstore kind. Dr. De Leon wasn’t wearing any makeup, and had the aura of a woman who simply didn’t think such things were important.

She had long chestnut hair parted on one side, which gave her a little-girl look incongruous with her age and prestigious position. Her hair didn’t show any gray, and, in keeping with Rebecca’s impression regarding makeup, didn’t look like it had been coloured.

Dr. De Leon smiled as she stood and held out her hand.

Rebecca shook it. “Thanks for seeing me, Dr. De Leon. I know how busy you must be. Mr. Davis explained why I’m here?”

“Please call me Carla,” De Leon said. She gestured toward a chair across from her and Rebecca sat down.

“Yes,” she said once Rebecca was seated, “Mr. Davis explained your interest, but I should warn you – I’m a scientist, not a PR person. He said you were looking for a more in-depth discussion of the drug.”

Rebecca pulled a pocket recorder from her purse and set it on the desktop. “I’m writing a freelance article on drugs from the fifties. I’m planning to title it something like: ‘Successes and Disasters’.”

“And in which of those categories would you put Olmerol?” Carla asked, smiling.

Rebecca felt a flush of warmth on her cheeks. “Well, a success, of course,” she said. “The idea is to compare disasters like Thalidomide with long-term successes like Olmerol. I’m most interested in what studies have been done on Olmerol, what side-effects have been found, and what Kaffir Pharma has done about them.”