Rafael Yglesias - Dr. Neruda's Cure for Evil

“Nothing is true for everybody.”

“This is me,” she said, stopping under an awning to a typical white-brick postwar high rise set between two brownstones. “Do you really believe we’re all so special?”

“Yes.”

“Guess you’ve never looked at market research.”

“That wouldn’t change my mind,” I said. I offered her the gym bag. She didn’t take it. “Want to come up?”

“Were you seeing other men the whole time you were involved with Gene?”

She laughed, a pleasant laugh, not mocking or offended. “You think I’m a tramp.”

“No, I think you’re extraordinary. I think Gene was ordinary and he wasn’t up to you. That’s not your fault. I’m testing his version of reality. He thought you were all his until about a year ago. He told me you met someone else in Paris on a business trip.”

She frowned. “In Paris?” She nodded. “Oh, right. That was when I realized I had to start letting him down easy. So he thought …” She stared at the sidewalk, nodding to herself.

“Halley, all I really want is a simple answer. Was there ever a time you were Gene’s?”

She lifted her right foot and touched a crack in the pavement with the toe of her shoe. Still looking down, she asked, “Does the doctor want to know? Or Rafe the man?”

I moved close, putting the bag into her arms, leaning against it. I whispered these words, “Were you ever really his woman?”

She looked up at me. Her lips were close to mine. I felt her warm breath as she said, “No.”

“I have one more question.”

“You sure you don’t want to come up for coffee? Brandy, maybe? I think I’ve got some.”

“When your father phones later, what will you tell him? Or are you supposed to call him?”

Her face changed. The smile was wiped away, the seductive sparkle in her eyes dimmed out. That didn’t surprise me. Her recovery was a surprise. She blinked once. And then she was confident again, eyes frank and unafraid. “I’ll tell him he has nothing to worry about.” She stepped back, swinging the gym bag playfully. “Is that okay?”

“Perfect,” I said, turning and walking away.

I DECIDED TO DRIVE TO TARRYTOWN THE NEXT MORNING, ARRIVING unexpectedly at Minotaur. The guard in the Plexiglas sentry box was new to me. I had to work hard to get him to call Copley’s secretary, explain I was there unannounced, and ask if I could come in anyway.

Once in the central glass building, I was kept waiting for an hour in the same conference room where I first met Halley. Eventually, a middle-aged woman with a helmet of silver gray hair and a substantial stomach appeared. She told me she was Laura, Mr. Copley’s assistant, and I should follow her. We took a mirrored elevator to the top floor, the fourth. Up there, the floors were black marble. (I was informed later that, since the engineers regularly came from the labs in the adjoining buildings to meet with executives in the business offices, carpeting was avoided because static electricity can harm computer circuits. The engineers themselves thought that the fear of carpeting was silly, since static electricity can be discharged by touching any piece of metal.) Laura led me past medium-sized offices. One of them was Halley’s. Jeff looked up from his desk and called out, a little too loudly to be natural, “Hello, Dr. Neruda.”

Laura didn’t stop. I called back a hello, my feet sliding on the marble floor as I tried to catch up to her. We turned at the corner directly into Copley’s outer office, Laura’s lair. She gestured to a black leather couch and sat at her desk.

She glanced at her phone, told me he was on a call and would see me shortly. Did I want coffee or something else to drink? I declined all hospitality. The waiting didn’t bother me. Not since the summer I graduated high school had I been in my current situation. I had all the time in the world.

At long last, Laura said, “He’s free. You can go in.” How she knew for sure was mysterious: her phone hadn’t beeped or rung.

The mahogany-colored door sealing Copley off from his assistant was roughly eight feet high and at least four feet wide, almost a moving wall. Its handle was a thick brushed-steel bar, about a foot long. The gigantic door created an illusion: my brain assumed that opening it would require a strong effort, so I stumbled when only a slight push was required. Rattled, I didn’t close it behind me, moving straight at Copley. He rose from behind a country French table, bleached white and marked by long use, that he used as a desk. No files or papers were in evidence. A black computer terminal was rigged on a black stand to one side of his antique desk. He greeted me as he did at the hotel, courteous, not friendly. There was the same firm handshake that waited for me to let go first. “Excuse me,” he commented and looked over my shoulder as he made a maneuver with one of his feet.

I heard a whoosh and turned to see the massive door shut by itself. I looked back and noticed his right foot lift off a button almost flush with the floor. “Cool, right?” he mumbled, gesturing for me to sit in a square black leather armchair positioned opposite his tall-backed swivel chair, also black leather, of course. “Did I forget we have an appointment?” he asked.

“No. I’m only in town until the weekend and I had a thought. I was hoping you would be kind enough to see me today so I could ask if it was all right. Only take a minute.”

“Great. Shoot.” His lined starved face was still while he waited for me to talk. I was reminded of Mount Rushmore.

“My little talk with Halley was very helpful. It’s obvious that Gene was fooling himself about their relationship. So now I suspect everything he told me. Clearly, I took in his version of events too uncritically. I wanted to check on his claims that he was very important here.”

“He was. He was vice-president in charge of product development, the heart and soul of the company. That was his job for the last year, year and a half. And before that he was project director of Black Dragon, our biggest success so far.” Copley pointed to the terminal beside his country French table.

“Is that Black Dragon?” I asked eagerly.

“Not really. That’s just a terminal connected to Black Dragon. It’s a midsize mainframe—” He interrupted himself, leaned his head against the tall chair, and asked, “Do you know much about computers?”

“No. Nothing. That’s one reason I came. I couldn’t understand half the things Gene was telling me when he discussed his job.”

“Isn’t that a problem?”

“A problem?”

“I mean, treating someone whose work you don’t understand?”

“Obviously. Look at the result.” I laughed bitterly.

A faint beep came off the rectangular black phone on his desk. He looked at it without making a move to answer. He appeared to be reading something. From my position, I noticed a raised ledge at the top of the phone; on it was a liquid crystal display, but I couldn’t see if anything was written there. “Excuse me,” he said. “I need to take this call. Only be a second.” He lifted the receiver and said, “Bonjour, Didier. Ca va?” He chuckled. “Oui.” He listened somberly for several seconds. “Okay,” he said. “We’ll give them a week. Gotta go. You’ll be at home later? Au revoir.” He hung up. His fingers intertwined. He looked thoughtful. I expected him to crack his knuckles. Instead, he said, “I only have time for another question or two. Where were we?”

“You were explaining,” I said, pointing to the black terminal beside him, “that really isn’t Black Dragon.”

“Right. This is just a station to access it. The mainframe is down the hall.”