I should have expected trouble, of course, but I hadn’t been letting myself think about it.

He came in the door, saw what was happening and lost his temper almost immediately. He kicked a couple of boxes over and said that was it. ‘I’ve had enough of

you and your two-faced guinea shit.’

He was wearing a baggy, cream-coloured suit with a swirling pink and yellow tie. His hair was slicked back and he had steel-rimmed, reflective sunglasses resting on

the tip of his nose.

‘I mean, what the fuck is going on here?’

‘Take it easy, Gennady. I’m just moving to a new apartment.’

‘Where?’

This was going to be the hard bit. Once he understood where I was moving to, he’d never be happy to go on with the arrangement as it was. I’d paid off all of the

loan by that stage, so essentially the arrangement between us was me dealing him twelve MDT pills a week. I didn’t want to go on with this arrangement either, of

course, but clearly there’d be a difference of opinion about the nature of any changes we might make.

‘A place in the West Thirties, on Twelfth Avenue.’

He kicked another box.

‘When are you moving?’

‘Early next week.’

The new place wasn’t ready in terms of décor and furnishings, but since it had a shower and phonelines and cable, and since I didn’t mind eating delivery food for a

while – and since I really wanted to get out of Tenth Street – I was prepared to just move into it straightaway, as it was.

Gennady was now breathing through his nose.

‘Look,’ I said to him, ‘you’ve got my social security number and my credit-card details. It’s not like you’ll be losing track of where I am. Besides it’s only across

town and up a bit.’

‘You think I’m worried about losing track of you?’ He threw a hand up in the air dismissively. ‘I’m tired of this …’ – he pointed to the floor – ‘… coming here.

What I want is to meet your dealer. I want to buy this shit in bulk.’

I shook my head and clicked my tongue.

‘Sorry, Gennady, that’s just not going to be possible.’

He stood still for a second, but then lunged forward and punched me in the chest. I fell backwards, over a full box of books, arms outstretched, and whacked my

head on the floor.

It took me a few moments to sit up, and a few more to rub my head and look around in bewilderment, and then to get up on my feet again. I thought of a hundred

things to say to him, but didn’t bother with any of them.

He had his hand out.

‘Come on, where are they?’

I stumbled over to the desk and got the pills from a drawer. I went back and handed them to him. He swallowed one of the pills and then spent the next couple of

minutes carefully transferring the rest of them from the little plastic container I’d given him to his silver pillbox. When he’d finished doing this, he discarded the plastic

container and put the pillbox into the breast pocket of his jacket.

‘You shouldn’t take more than one of those a day,’ I said.

‘I don’t.’ Then he looked at his watch, and sighed impatiently. ‘I’m in a hurry. Write down the address of this new place.’

I went over to the desk again, still rubbing the back of my head. When I found a piece of paper and a pen, I considered giving him a false address, but then thought

what would the point be – he did have all my details.

‘Let’s go. I’ve got a meeting in fifteen minutes.’

I wrote down the address and handed him the piece of paper.

‘A meeting?’ I said, with a hint of sarcasm in my voice.

‘Yeah,’ he smirked, obviously missing the sarcasm, ‘I’m setting up an import-export company. Or trying to. But there’s so many fucking laws and regulations in this

country. You know how much shit you have to go through just to get a licence?’

I shook my head, and then asked him, ‘What are you going to be importing? Or exporting?’

He paused, leant forward a little and whispered, ‘I don’t know, you know … stuff.’

‘Stuff?’

‘Hey, what do you want, this is a complicated scam I’m working on – you think I’m going to tell a cocksucker like you about it?’

I shrugged my shoulders.

‘OK, Eddie,’ he said, ‘so listen. I’m giving you until next week. Set up a time with this person and we’ll meet. I’ll cut you in for a commission. But fuck with me, and

I’ll rip your heart out with these two hands and fry it up in a skillet. Do you understand me?’

I stared at him. ‘Yes.’

His fist came from out of nowhere, like a torpedo, and landed in my solar plexus. I doubled up in pain and staggered backwards again, just avoiding the box of

books.

‘Oh, I’m sorry, did you say yes? My mistake.’

As he was walking down the stairs, I could still hear him laughing.

*

When I was able to breathe normally again, I went over to the couch and lowered myself on to it. I stretched out and stared up at the ceiling. For some time now,

Gennady’s personality had been threatening to spiral out of control. I was going to have to do something about it, and soon – because once he saw the apartment in the

Celestial Building there’d be nothing I could do. Not any more. It’d be too late. He’d want in. He’d want everything.

He’d ruin everything.

However, a bit later – when I thought matters through more fully – I came to the conclusion that the real crisis wasn’t with Gennady at all. The real crisis had to do

with the fact that my supply of MDT was haemorrhaging – and at an alarming rate. Over the past month or so, I’d been dipping into it several times a week,

indiscriminately, without ever bothering to count how many pills were left – thinking each time that I’d count them the next time. But I never did. I never got around to it.

I was too caught up in things, too caught up in the relentless drumbeat inside my own head – the MCL–Abraxas deal, the Celestial Building, Ginny Van Loon …

I went into the bedroom. I opened the closet, took out the big brown envelope and emptied its contents on to the bed. I counted the pills. There were only about

two hundred and fifty of them left. At the current rate of consumption – plus Gennady’s regular supply – they’d all be gone in a couple of months. Even if I eliminated

Gennady from the equation, that would still only add a few more weeks to the total. So ultimately … a few weeks, a few months – what difference did it make?

This was the real crisis I was facing, and in the end, it came back – again – to Vernon’s little black notebook. Somewhere in that list of names and telephone

numbers there had to be someone who knew about MDT, about its origins, and about how dosage levels worked, and maybe even about how to get a new supply line

up and running. Because if I was to have any chance of fulfilling this great, unlooked-for destiny that was stretching out before me, I had to address these issues – either

or both of them, dosage and supply, and I had to do it now.

*

I took out the notebook and went through it again. Using a red pen, I crossed out the numbers I’d already tried. On a separate piece of paper, I made a fresh list of

selected numbers I hadn’t tried. The first number on this new list was Deke Tauber’s. I’d been reluctant to call him before, because I hadn’t imagined there’d be much

chance I’d get through to him. In the 1980s he’d been a bond-salesman, a Wall Street jock, but now he’d recreated himself and was the reclusive leader of an

eponymous self-improvement cult – Dekedelia.

The more I thought about it, however, the more sense it made for me to call him. Regardless of how weird or reclusive he’d become, he would still know who I was.

He’d known Melissa. I could invoke the old days.

I dialled the number and waited.

‘Mr Tauber’s office.’

‘Hello, could I speak to Mr Tauber please.’

Suspicious pause.

Shit.

‘Who may I ask is calling?’

‘Erm … tell him it’s an old friend, Eddie Spinola.’

Another pause.

‘How did you get hold of this number?’

‘I don’t think that’s any of your business. Now, may I speak to Mr Tauber, please?’

Click.

I really didn’t like people hanging up on me – but I knew it was probably going to keep happening.

I looked at the list of numbers again.

Who is this?

What do you want?

How did you get hold of this number?

The thought of going through the list and crossing each number out, one after the other, was too demoralizing, so I decided to persist with Tauber for a while. I

visited the Dekedelia website and read about the courses they offered and about the selection of books and videos they sold. It all seemed very commercial and had

clearly been designed to attract new recruits.

I surfed around for a bit, and found links to a wide range of other sites. There was a directory of fringe religions, an awareness network called CultWatch, various

‘concerned parents’ organizations and other sites dealing with issues such as mind control and ‘recovery facilitation’. I ended up at the homepage of a qualified exit

counsellor in Seattle, someone who had lost his son fifteen years previously to a group called the Shining Venusians. Since this person had mentioned Dekedelia on his

homepage, I decided to find his number and give him a call. We spoke for a few minutes and although he wasn’t much help he did give me the number of a concerned

parents group in New York. I then spoke to the secretary of this group – a concerned and clearly deranged parent – and got the name, in turn, of a private investigation

agency which was conducting surveillance of Dekedelia on behalf of some members of the group. After several attempts and a lot of dissembling, I got to speak to one

of the agency’s operatives, Kenny Sanchez.