Alan Glynn - The Dark Fields aka Limitless

So that was it, I thought – I was having a fucking panic attack .

I kept taking deep breaths, and hitting one of the sofa cushions beside me with the back of my hand. It was four o’clock in the morning. I couldn’t call anyone. I couldn’t go anywhere. I couldn’t sleep. I felt like a cornered rat.

I sat it out, though – on the couch. It was like having a massive heart attack that went on for an hour but didn’t kill you, or even leave you with any physical after effects, nothing that a doctor might find if he were to subject you to a whole battery of tests.

The next day, I decided I had to do something. I’d slipped too far and too fast, and knew that if I slipped any further I’d be in danger of losing everything – although quite what ‘everything’ now meant was clearly open to interpretation. In any case, I had to do something – but the problem was, what? The most immediate and pressing concern was the Donatella Alvarez situation, but that was out of my control. Then, of course, there was Carl Van Loon. But frankly, my whole association with him was beginning to seem a little remote to me. I found it hard to accept that I had actually ‘worked’ with him, especially on something so improbable as the ‘financials’ of a corporate takeover deal. In memory, our various sessions together – in the Orpheus Room, in his apartment, in his office, in the Four Seasons – felt more like dreams now than recollections of real events, and seemed, as well, to have the twisted logic of dreams.

But at the same time I couldn’t just ignore the situation. Not any longer. I couldn’t ignore the reality that leapt up at me every time I looked at my own handwriting on Van Loon’s yellow legal pad. Remote as it all might seem now, I had been involved with him, and I had helped to shape the MCL-Abraxas deal. So if I wanted to salvage anything from the experience, I would have to confront Van Loon, and as soon as possible.

I took a shower and shaved. I still felt fairly lousy as I went into the bedroom to get my suit out of the closet, but it was nothing to what I felt when I tried to put it on. I hadn’t worn it in over a week and now all of a sudden I was struggling at the waist to get the trousers closed. It was my only presentable suit, though – so I had no choice but to wear it.

I took a cab to Forty-eighth Street.

As I walked across the main lobby of the Van Loon Building and rode the elevator up to the sixty-second floor, a sense of dread grew within me. Stepping out into the now familiar reception area of Van Loon & Associates, I identified this feeling, correctly, as the onset of another panic attack.

I hung around for a few moments in the middle of the reception area and pretended to be consulting something on the back of a large brown envelope I was carrying – a name, or an address. The envelope contained Van Loon’s yellow legal pad, but there was nothing written on it. I glanced over at the receptionist, who glanced back at me and then picked up one of her telephones. My heart was beating rapidly now and the pain in my chest had become almost unbearable. I turned around and headed in the direction of the elevators. What had I been proposing to do in any case – confront Van Loon? But how? By returning the projections exactly as we’d left them? By showing him I was on a crash diet of cheeseburgers and pizza?

It had been reckless of me to come in here like this. I obviously hadn’t been thinking straight.

The doors finally opened, but the relief of getting away from the reception area was short-lived, because I now had to contend with the elevator car, the interior of which, with its reflective steel panels, its controlled climate and relentless humming, felt as if it had been custom-built to induce and fuel panic attacks. It was a physical environment that seemed to ape the very symptoms of anxiety – the sinking feeling, the uncontrollable fluttering in the stomach, the everpresent threat of nausea.

I closed my eyes, but then couldn’t help picturing the dark elevator shafts above and below me… couldn’t help imagining the heavy steel cables snapping as the car and its counterweights accelerated rapidly in opposite directions, the car naturally hurtling downwards, free-falling to ground level…

Instead it came to a barely perceptible halt near the foot of this concrete tube, and the door slid gently open. To my surprise, standing there – waiting to step inside – was Ginny Van Loon.

‘Mr Spinola!’

When I didn’t respond immediately, she stepped forward and stretched a hand out to take me by the arm, ‘Are you all right?’

I got out of the elevator car and moved with her into the lobby area, which was crowded and busy, and almost as terrifying – though for different reasons – as the elevator car. I was in a cold sweat now and had started shivering again. She said, ‘My God, Mr Spinola, you look-’

‘Like shit?’

‘Well,’ she replied after a moment, ‘yeah.’

We made our way across the lobby and stopped by a large copper-tinted window that looked out on to Forty-eighth Street.

‘What… what’s the matter? What happened?’

I focused on her properly now and saw that her concern was genuine. She was still holding on to my arm and for some reason this made me feel slightly better. Once I acknowledged that, there was a knock-on effect and I managed to calm down considerably.

‘I was… up on sixty-two,’ I said, ‘but I didn’t-’

‘You couldn’t take the heat, right? I knew you weren’t one of Daddy’s business guys. Anyway, they’re nothing but a bunch of automa tons .’

‘Automata. I think I was having a panic attack.’

‘Good for you. Anyone who doesn’t have a panic attack up there has something seriously wrong with them. And you can say automa tons if you want.’ She paused. ‘You can say referen dums .’

‘Yeah,’ I said, trying to catch my breath, ‘referen dums , sure, but you wouldn’t say phenome nons , would you?’

She was wearing black jeans and a black sweater and was carrying a small leather doctor’s bag.

‘Not if I was talking to you , obviously. Anyway, one’s from Latin and the other’s from Greek, the rules are different, so fuck you. How are you feeling now?’

I took a few deep breaths and held my chest.

‘A little better, thanks.’

Aware, suddenly, of my newly acquired girth, I tried to stand up a little straighter and to breathe in.

Ginny studied me for a while.

‘Mr Spi-’

‘Eddie, call me Eddie. Jesus, I’m only thir-’

‘Eddie, are you sick?’

‘Hhn?’

‘I mean, are you unwell ? Because you really look unwell. You’ve…’ – she struggled to find the right words – ‘… you’ve… since that time I saw you in the apartment, you’ve put on some, well… some weight. And-’

‘My weight fluctuates.’

‘Yeah, but that was, what, only two weeks ago?’

I held up my hands. ‘Hey, can’t a fellah have a couple of creamcakes once in a while?’

She smiled, but then said, ‘Look, I’m sorry, I know it’s none of my business, but I just think you should look after yourself better.’

‘Yeah, yeah. I know. You’re right.’

My breathing was more regular now and I felt a good deal better. I asked her what she was doing.

‘I’m going up to see Daddy.’

‘You want to get some coffee instead?’

‘I can’t.’ She made a face. ‘Anyway, if you’ve just had a panic attack, I think you should probably be avoiding coffee. Drink juice, or something wholesome that won’t exacerbate your stress levels.’