Side Effect

ONE The Chairman died the way he had lived: alone. Sometime between two and four A.M. on a muggy Wednesday in late July, while the rest of the New York City sweltered through the worst heat wave in history, 66-year-old James L. Dwyer walked into the bathroom of his East 58th Street townhouse, ingested a mix of prescription drugs, ironically manufactured by our own corporation, left a note on his study desk and convulsed into permanent sleep. At least that's the way it seemed to the Filipino house-man who found Dwyer when he let himself in at four to prepare the Chairman's usual steak and eggs breakfast. Dwyer had always been a punctual riser. The houseman, Aguinaldo, was a former Manila EMS attendant who checked for a pulse and tried CPR, but the body was cold, the color gone. He phoned me instead of the police. "The Chairman always told me, if there's a robbery, or any reason to call the cops, phone Mr. Acela if you can't reach me. He said there might be important papers here. He said" Aguinaldo was starting to ramble, so I interrupted. I told him he had done the right thing. I calmed him enough so he could answer questions. "Was the front door locked when you arrived?" I asked. "Yes, Mr. Acela." "What about the patio door and the windows?" Aguinaldo took some minutes to check. "All locked from inside except his bedroom window. That one was open by an inch, but it's on the third floor." "Any furniture out of place, drawers open?" "It does not look like a break-in, sir." "Did you touch anything besides the body?" "I read the note. But it makes no sense for him to do this. Did you read theWall Street Journalarticle about his big deal last month? It called him Lucky Jim." "Don't touch anything else. Don't phone anyone. I'll be there in half an hour." I hung up and sat for an instant, stunned, in my den in Devil's Bay, Brooklyn, the boyhood neighborhood to which I'd recently moved back after twenty-six years away. The first-floor windows were open in my remodeled Cape Cod, and I could hear the sound of surf half a block away. I hadn't been sleeping. I'd been glued to my TV for the last few hours, watching the disturbing news from Washington. The Presidenta good and fair manhad resigned tonight, citing health reasons, handing the reins of power to his number two, a man known for extreme right-wing inclinations. In fact, the summer so far had been marked by numerous sudden departures in the capital: a Supreme Court Justice; a crusadingWashington Posteditor; the head of the FBI, my old boss, another good man. I shut off the TV, remembering the rest of what Aguinaldo had said. A contract to come up with antidotes for chemical and biological weapons, sir. The Journal called it one of the richest pharmaceutical deals in history. The shock was sinking in. I'd visited the Chairman just hours ago in his townhouse for one of our periodic late-night report sessions, and found him furious and drinking too much rather than confident, his usual self. It was not unusual for him to conduct business at home at ten P.M. I think he did it to have company. I think I've made a terrible mistake, he'd muttered at one point. And a few minutes later,God help us allthe whole countryif I'm right. He stared at me and I'd had the oddest feeling that he could see inside me. Then he'd nodded as if he approved.I can trust you. He'd added, bitterly,Not like some other people who I thought were friends. Because of this, and because scandals in the company three years agograft we'd dealt with in privatestill left tensions, I discarded the idea of sharing the news with other officers until IReiss, Bob is the author of 'Side Effect ', published 2006 under ISBN 9780440243083 and ISBN 0440243084.