Limitless

In need of immediate distraction, I flicked through my address book for Gennady’s cellphone number. I dialled it and waited.

‘Yeah?’

‘Gennady?’

‘Yeah.’

‘It’s Eddie.’

‘Eddie. What you want? I busy.’

I stared at the wall in front of me for a second.

‘I’ve got a treatment done for that thing. It’s about twen—’

‘Give me this in the morning. I look at it.’

‘Gennady …’ He was gone. ‘Gennady?’

I put the phone down.

Tomorrow morning was Friday. I’d forgotten. Gennady was coming for the first repayment on the loan.

Shit.

The money I owed wasn’t the problem. I could write him out a cheque straightaway for the whole amount, plus the vig, plus a bonus for just being Gennady, but that wouldn’t do it. I’d told him that I had a treatment ready. Now I had to come up with one, had to have one for the morning – or else he’d probably stab me continuously until he developed something akin to tennis elbow.

I wasn’t exactly in the mood for this sort of thing, but I knew it would keep me busy, so I went online and did some research. I picked up relevant terminology and worked out a plot loosely based on a recent mafia trial in Sicily, a detailed account of which I found on an Italian website. By some time after midnight – with suitable variations – I’d knocked out a twenty-five-page, scene-by-scene treatment for Keeper of the Code, a story of the Organizatsiya.

After that, I spent a good while searching through magazines for real estate ads. I had decided that I was going to phone some of the big Manhattan realtors the following morning and finally kickstart the process of renting – maybe even of buying – a new apartment.

Then I went to bed and got four or five hours of what passed for sleep these days.

Gennady arrived at about nine-thirty. I buzzed him in, telling him I was on the third floor. It took him for ever to walk up the stairs, and when he finally materialized in my living-room he seemed exhausted and fed up.

‘Good morning,’ I said.

He raised his eyebrows at me and looked around. Then he looked at his watch.

I had printed out the treatment and put it in an envelope. I took this from the desk and handed it to him. He held it up, shook it, seemed to be estimating how much it weighed. Then he said, ‘Where the money?’

‘Er … I was going to write you a cheque. How much was it again?’

‘A cheque?’

I nodded at him, suddenly feeling foolish.

‘A cheque?’ he said again. ‘You out of your fucking mind? What you think, we are a financial institution?’

‘Gennady, look—’

‘Shut up. You can’t come up with the money today you in serious fucking trouble, my friend – you hear me?’

‘I’ll get it.’

‘I cut your balls off.’

‘I’ll get it. Jesus. I wasn’t thinking.’

‘A cheque,’ he said again, with contempt. ‘Unbelievable.’

I went over to my phone and picked it up. Since those first couple of days at Lafayette, I had developed extremely cordial relations with my obsequious and florid-faced bank manager, Howard Lewis, so I phoned him and told him what I needed – twenty-two five in cash – and asked if he could possibly have it ready for me in fifteen minutes.

Absolutely no problem, Mr Spinola.

I put the phone down and turned around. Gennady was standing over at my desk, with his back to me. I mumbled something to get his attention. He then turned to face me.

‘Well?’

I shrugged my shoulders and said, ‘Let’s go to my bank.’

We took a cab, in silence, to Twenty-third and Second, where my bank was. I wanted to make a reference to the treatment, but since Gennady was obviously in a very bad mood, I judged it better not to say anything. I got the cash from Howard Lewis and handed it over to Gennady outside on the street. He slipped the bundle into the mysterious interior of his jacket. Holding up the envelope with the treatment in it, he said, ‘I look at this.’

Then he took off up Second Avenue without saying goodbye.

I crossed the street, and in line with my new strategy of trying to eat at least once a day, I went into a diner and had coffee and a blueberry muffin.

Then I wandered over to – and up – Madison Avenue. After about ten blocks, I stopped outside a realtor’s office, a place called Sullivan, Draskell. I went inside, made some enquiries and got talking to a broker by the name of Alison Botnick. She was in her late forties and was dressed in a stylish navy-blue silk dress with a matching Nehru coat. I realized pretty quickly that even though I was in jeans and a sweater, and could easily have been a clerk in a wine store – or a freelance copywriter – this woman had no idea who I was and consequently had to be on her guard. As far as Ms Botnick was concerned, I could have been one of those new dot-com billionaires on the look-out for a twelve-room spread on Park. These days you never knew, and I kept her guessing.