Limitless

What did I know?

I glanced out of the back-seat window. The numbers on the crossstreets – the Fifties, Forties, Thirties – were flitting past again, as though levels of pressure were being reduced to allow me to re-enter the atmosphere. The further we got from Linden Tower, in fact, the better I felt – but then something struck me.

Vernon had been into some stuff, Melissa had said. I think I knew what that meant – and presumably as a direct consequence of this stuff he had been beaten up and later murdered. For my part, while Vernon lay dead on a couch, I had searched his bedroom, found a roll of bills, a notebook and five hundred tablets. I had hidden these items and then lied to the police. Surely that meant I was now into some stuff, too.

And could also be in danger.

Had anyone seen me? I didn’t think so. When I got back up from the diner to Vernon’s apartment the intruder had been in the bedroom and had fled immediately. All he could have seen was my back, or at most caught a glimpse of me when I turned around, as I had of him – but that had just been a dark blur.

He or anyone, however, could have been watching from outside Linden Tower. They could have spotted me coming down with the police, followed me to the precinct – be following me now.

I told the driver to stop.

He pulled over on the corner of Twenty-ninth and Second. I paid him and got out. I looked around. No other car – or cars – appeared to have stopped at the same time as we had, although I suppose I could have missed something. In any case, I walked briskly in the direction of Third Avenue, glancing over my shoulder every few seconds. I made my way to the subway station on Twenty-eighth and Lexington and took a 6 train down to Union Square and then an L train west as far as Eighth Avenue. I got out there and caught a cross-town bus back over to First.

I was going to take a taxi from here and loop around for a bit, but I was too close to home, and too tired – and I honestly didn’t believe at this point that I had been followed – so I just gave in, dropped below Fourteenth Street and walked the remaining few blocks to my building.

[ 7 ]

BACK IN MY APARTMENT, I printed out the notes and rough draft of the introduction I’d written for the book. I sat down on the couch to read through them – to check again that I hadn’t been imagining it all – but I was so exhausted that I fell asleep almost at once.

I woke up a few hours later with a crick in my neck. It was dark outside. There were loose pages everywhere – in my lap, on the couch, spread out on the floor around my feet. I rubbed my eyes, gathered the pages up and started reading them. It only took a couple of minutes to see that I hadn’t been imagining anything. In fact, I was going to be sending this material to Mark Sutton at K & D the next morning, just to remind him that I was still doing the project.

And after that, after I’d read all of the notes, what then? I tried to keep busy by sorting through the papers on my desk, but I couldn’t settle down to it – and besides, I’d already done a perfectly good job of sorting through the papers on my desk the previous night. What I had to do – and clearly there was no point in pretending I could avoid it, or even put it off – was go back to Linden Tower and pick up the envelope. I was fairly apprehensive at the prospect, so I started thinking about some form of disguise – but what?

I went into the bathroom, took a shower and shaved. I found some gel and worked it into my hair for a while, flattening it and forcing it straight back. Then I searched through the closet in my bedroom for something unusual to wear. I had one suit, a plain grey affair, which I hadn’t worn in about two years. I also took out a light grey shirt, a black tie and black brogues. I laid them all on the bed. The only problem I could see with the suit was that the trousers mightn’t fit me any more – but I managed to squeeze into them, and then into the shirt. After I’d done up the tie and put on the shoes, I stood and inspected myself in front of the mirror. I looked ridiculous – like some overfed wiseguy who’s been too busy eating linguine and clipping people to update his wardrobe – but it was going to have to do. I didn’t look like me, and that was the general idea.

I found an old briefcase that I sometimes used for work and decided to take it with me, but passed on a pair of black leather gloves that I came across on a shelf in the closet. I checked myself one more time in the mirror by the door, and left.