They drank. The experience surprised Gurney pleasantly. Although he was far from being a connoisseur, he thought the Montrachet was the best wine he’d ever tasted-and one of the few in his memory that ignited an instant desire for a second glass. As he finished the first, the young woman who had brought him up in the elevator appeared at his side with an odd glimmer in her eyes to provide the desired refill.
For the next few minutes, the two men ate in silence. The cold bass was wonderful, and the Montrachet only seemed to make it more so. When Sonya had broached the subject of Jykynstyl’s interest two days earlier, Gurney’s mind had wandered briefly into fantasies of what the money could buy, geographical fantasies that carried him to the northwest coast-to Seattle and Puget Sound and the San Juan Islands in the summer sun, blue sky and blue water, the Olympic Mountains on the horizon. Now that image returned, seemingly fueled by the firming up of the financial promise of the Mug Shot Art project-fueled also by the second, even more delightful, glass of Montrachet.
Jykynstyl was speaking again, lauding Gurney’s perception, his psychological subtlety, his eye for detail. But it was the rhythm of the words that captivated Gurney’s attention now, more than their meaning, the rhythm lifting him, rocking him gently. Now the young women were smiling serenely and clearing the table, and Jykynstyl was describing exotic desserts. Something creamy with rosemary and cardamom. Something silky with saffron, thyme, and cinnamon. It made Gurney smile to imagine the man’s strangely complex accent as though it were itself a dish made with seasonings not normally combined.
He felt a thrilling, and wholly uncharacteristic, rush of freedom, optimism, and pride in his accomplishments. It was the way he had always wanted to feel-full of clarity and strength. The feeling blended into the glorious blues of water and sky, a boat racing forward in full white sail on the wings of a breeze that would never die.
And then he felt nothing at all.
Part Three
Chapter 43
No bone shatters as painfully as the illusion of invulnerability. Gurney had no idea how long he’d been sitting in his car, nor how it had gotten to where it was parked, nor what time it was. What he knew was that it was late enough to be dark, that he had a dizzying headache along with feelings of anxiety and nausea, and no memory of anything that had occurred after his second glass of wine at lunch. He checked his watch. It told him it was 8:45 P.M. He’d never had so devastating a reaction to any amount of alcohol, much less two glasses of white wine.
The first explanation that came to mind was that he’d been drugged.
Staring blankly at that question intensified his anxiety. Staring helplessly into the empty space that should have been filled with recollections of the afternoon made it worse. Then he realized with a slap-in-the-face kind of surprise that he was sitting not behind the steering wheel of his car but in the passenger seat. The fact that it had taken a full minute of consciousness for him to become aware of this ratcheted his anxiety in the direction of panic.
He looked out the windows, front and back, and discovered that he was in the middle of a long block-probably a crosstown block somewhere in Manhattan-too far from either corner for him to read the street signs. The street was busy enough with normal traffic, mostly cabs tailgating other cabs, but no nearby pedestrians. He opened the door and got out cautiously, stiffly, achingly. He felt like he’d been sitting for a long time in an awkward position. He looked up and down both sides of the street for some identifiable structure.
The unlighted building directly across the street from his car was some sort of institutional building, perhaps a school, with broad stone steps and massive doors at least ten feet high. The classical facade was colonnaded.
Then he saw it.
Above the high Greek columns, in the center of a kind of frieze extending the length of the four-story building, just below the heavily shadowed roofline, an engraved motto was barely visible: AD STUDIUM VERITATIS.
He stared, blinking, at the dark stone edifice, trying to make sense of the situation. He’d been in the passenger seat of his own car, so someone else must have driven him here. Who? He had no idea, no memory of driving or being driven.
Surely it wasn’t a coincidence that he’d been driven to this particular spot on this particular block out of a thousand blocks in Manhattan, directly across the street from the front door of the high school from which he’d graduated thirty years earlier-the academically revered institution to which he’d been awarded a scholarship, commuted to from his parents’ apartment in the Bronx, hated, and hadn’t visited since. A school he never spoke of. A school very few people knew he’d attended.
Again he looked up and down the street, as if someone familiar might appear out of the darkness with a simple explanation. No one appeared. He got back into his car, this time into the driver’s seat. Finding his key in the ignition was a momentary relief, certainly better than not finding it, but did little to calm his jumping thoughts.
Sonya. Sonya might know something. She might have been in touch with Jykynstyl. But if Jykynstyl was responsible, if Jykynstyl had drugged him…
Was it possible that Sonya was part of it all? Had she set him up?
Set him up for what? And why? What sense did any of it make? And why bring him here? Why go to the trouble? How would Jykynstyl know what high school he’d gone to? And what would the point be? To prove that the details of his personal life were accessible? To focus him on the past? To remind him of something specific from his teenage years, some person or event from those wretched years at St. Genesius? Give him a panic attack? But why on earth would the world-renowned Jay Jykynstyl want to do any of that?
It was ridiculous.
On the other hand, to pile conundrum on conundrum, was there any proof that the man he’d met in the brownstone was in fact Jay Jykynstyl? But if he wasn’t-if the man was an impostor-what could be the point of so elaborate a deception?
And if in fact he’d been drugged, what was the nature of the drug? Had it knocked him out in the manner of a powerful sedative or anesthetic, or was it something like Rohypnol-a disinhibiting amnesiac-a more problematic possibility?
Or was there something organically wrong with him? Severe dehydration could produce disorientation, even some memory confusion.
But not like this. Not a total eight-hour memory blackout.
A brain tumor? Embolism? Stroke?
Was it conceivable that he had left Jykynstyl’s brownstone, gotten into his car, decided on some nostalgic whim to take a look at his old school, gotten out of his car, maybe even gone inside, and then…?
And then what? Come back out, maybe gotten into the passenger seat to put something into the glove box or take something out of it, and then had some sort of seizure? Passed out? A certain type of seizure could produce retroactive amnesia, blocking recall of the period preceding as well as following it. Was that it-some acute brain pathology?
Questions and more questions. And no answers. There was a tightness in the pit of his stomach like a fistful of gravel.
