Limitless

Kenny Sanchez was short and paunchy and wore a brown suit. Although he was serious and obviously very circumspect when it came to his work, he started to relax after about ten minutes and even became quite chatty. Exaggerating slightly, I told him I’d been a friend of Deke Tauber’s for a while in the 1980s, but that we’d lost touch. This seemed to fascinate him, and he asked me a few questions about it. By answering these freely, I created the impression that I was willing to share any information I had – which meant that by the time I started asking him questions, I had pretty much won him over.

‘The basic tenet of this cult, Eddie,’ he told me, in confidential tones, ‘is that each individual needs to escape the inherent dysfunction of the family matrix, and – get this – to re-create themselves independently in an alternative environment.’

He stopped for a moment and shrugged his shoulders, as if to distance himself from what he’d just said. Then he continued walking.

‘When it started up, Dekedelia was no more, or less, flaky than any of a dozen other of these outfits – you know, with lectures and meditation sessions and newsletters. Like all the others, too, it had an aura of cheap, second-hand mysticism about it – but things changed pretty quickly, and before you knew it the leader of this quote-unquote spiritual movement was producing best-selling books and videos.’

I took an occasional sidelong glance at Kenny Sanchez as he spoke. He was articulate and this stuff was obviously vivid in his mind, but I also felt he was anxious to let me know that he was on top of his brief.

‘The problems started soon after that. A succession of people – always young, usually stuck in dead-end jobs – seemed to just disappear into the cult. But there was nothing illegal about it, because the members were always careful to write “goodbye” letters to their families, thus …’ — he held up the index finger of his right hand — ‘ … cleverly pre-empting any missing-person investigations by the police.’

He was focusing on three individual cases, he said, young people who had disappeared within the past year, and he gave me a few details about each of them – stuff I didn’t particularly need to hear.

‘So, how are your investigations going now?’ I asked.

‘Erm … not so well, I’m afraid.’ He clearly hadn’t wanted to say it, but it didn’t look as if there’d been much choice. Then, as though to compensate, he added, ‘But there seems to be something strange going on at the moment. Within the past week or two, rumours have been circulating that Deke Tauber has taken ill. He hasn’t been seen, hasn’t given any lectures, hasn’t done any book-signings. He can’t be reached. He’s effectively incommunicado.’

‘Hhmm.’

I felt the time had now come for me to show my hand.

I said I had reason to believe that Deke Tauber was taking a strange, physically addictive designer drug and that if he was ill it might be because the only known supplier of the drug had … disappeared recently, leaving all of his clients high and dry — as it were. Kenny Sanchez was naturally very interested in this, though I did keep it quite vague and told him almost immediately what I needed — which was information on an associate of Tauber’s, a Todd-something. I told him that if he helped me out with this, I’d pass on any further information I managed to uncover about the drug thing.

In trying to impress me, Kenny Sanchez had lost his professional bearings somewhat, but he still managed to balk convincingly at the notion of revealing, to a third party, information he had learned during the course of an investigation.

‘Information on an associate of Tauber’s? I don’t know, Eddie – that’s not going to be easy. I mean, we’re bound by rules of confidentiality …’ — he paused – ‘ … and ethics … and stuff …’

I stopped on the corner of Sixth and Central Park South and turned to face him. He stopped as well. I looked directly into his eyes.

‘How do you get information in the first place, Kenny? It’s a commodity, like anything else, no? A currency? This would simply be an exchange …’

‘ … I suppose …’

‘I mean, what are sources anyway?’

‘Yeah, but …’

‘There has to be some give and take, surely.’

I kept on at him like this until he eventually agreed to help me out. He said he’d see what he could do, and added – sheepishly – that if he tried he could probably get access to Tauber’s phone records.

I spent the weekend packing up the remainder of my stuff and having most of it moved into the Celestial. I got to know the main guy, Richie, at the desk in the lobby. I checked out a few more furniture showrooms, as well as having a look at the latest in kitchen appliances and home entertainment systems. I bought a complete set of Dickens, something I’d been meaning to do for ages. I also learned Spanish – something else I’d been meaning to do for ages – and read One Hundred Years of Solitude in the original.