Limitless

I nodded, and stuck my hand out. ‘Thanks for coming.’

We shook hands.

‘This better be worth my while.’

He had jet-black hair, quite a lot of it, and wore thick-rimmed glasses. He looked tired and had a kind of hangdog expression on his face. He was in a dark suit and a raincoat. It was an overcast day and there was a breeze blowing. I was about to suggest looking for a coffee shop, or even going into the Oak Room of the Plaza, seeing as how it was right there – but Morgenthaler had other ideas.

‘Come on, let’s go,’ he said, and started crossing over towards the park. I hesitated, and then caught up with him.

‘A walk in the park?’ I said.

He nodded yes, but didn’t say anything, or look in my direction.

Walking briskly, and in silence, we went down the steps into the park, around by the pond, up by Wollman Rink and eventually over to Sheep Meadow. Morgenthaler selected a bench and we sat down, facing the skyline of Central Park South. Where we were sitting was exposed and uncomfortably windy, but I wasn’t about to start complaining now.

Morgenthaler turned to me and said, ‘OK, what’s this about?’

‘Well, like I said … MDT.’

‘What do you know about MDT and where did you first hear about it?’

He was very direct in his approach, and obviously intended to interrogate me as he would a witness. I decided that I would play along with this until I had him in a position where he couldn’t just walk. In the way I answered his questions, I got several key ideas across to him. The first was that I knew what I was talking about. I described the effects of MDT in almost clinical detail. He was fascinated by this, and had pertinent follow-up questions – which also confirmed for me that he knew what he was talking about, at least in terms of MDT. I let it be known that I could supply the names of possibly dozens of people who had taken MDT, subsequently stopped and were now suffering acute withdrawal symptoms. There would be enough cases to establish a clear pattern. I let it be known that I could supply the names of people who had taken MDT and had subsequently died. Finally, I let it be known that I could supply samples of the actual drug itself for analysis.

When we got to this point, I could see that Morgenthaler had become quite agitated. All of the stuff I’d told him would be dynamite if he could bring it out in court – but of course at the same time I had been tantalizingly non-specific. If he walked away now, he’d be walking away with nothing more than a good story – and this was precisely where I wanted him.

‘So, what next?’ he said. ‘How do we proceed?’ And then added, with the merest hint of contempt in his voice, ‘What’s in this for you?’

I paused, and looked around. There were some people out jogging, others walking dogs, others pushing strollers. I had to keep him interested, without actually giving him anything – not yet, at any rate. I also had to pick his brains.

‘We’ll come to that,’ I said, echoing Kenny Sanchez, ‘but first, tell me how you know about MDT.’

He crossed his legs, folded his arms and leant backwards in the bench.

‘I came across it,’ he said, ‘in the course of my research into the development and testing of Triburbazine.’

I waited for more, but that seemed to be it.

‘Look, Mr Morgenthaler,’ I said, ‘I answered your questions. Let’s build up a little confidence here.’

He sighed, barely able to hide his impatience.

‘OK,’ he said, assuming the role of expert witness, ‘in taking depositions relating to Triburbazine, I spoke to a lot of employees and ex-employees of Eiben-Chemcorp. When they described the procedures for clinical trials, it was natural for these people to give me examples, to draw parallels with other drugs.’

He leant forward again, obviously uncomfortable about having to do this.

‘Several people, in this context, made reference to a series of trials that had been done on an anti-depressant drug in the early Seventies – trials that had gone disastrously wrong. The man responsible for the administration of these trials was a Dr Raoul Fursten. He’d been with the company’s research department since the late Fifties and had worked on LSD trials. This new drug was said to enhance cognitive ability — to some extent anyway — and at the time, it seems, Fursten had spoken endlessly about his great hopes for it. He’d spoken about the politics of consciousness, the best and the brightest, looking towards the future, all of that shit. Remember this was the early Seventies, which were still really the Sixties.’

Morgenthaler sighed again, and exhaled, seeming to deflate in the process. Then he shifted on the bench and got into a more comfortable position.