The Mediator
A psychological thriller by Erica Pensini
Disclaimer:
This story is a work of fiction and all names, characters, and places are nothing but fantasy.
Thrillers by the same author:
The Missing Link
Forget Me Not
Lethal Discoveries
Chapter 1
In the broadness of my minimalistic living room the shadows of the dimming day wrap around my silhouette, black against the whiteness of the couch.
“Ms. Dawson…”, starts the journalist
“John, why don’t you call me Iris”, I say
The journalist is silent for a moment, before he replies, Sure Iris. His reply is accompanied by a brief laugher and a barely detectable tinge of embarrassment.
“Good”, I smile
John’s eyes elude mine for a moment, tracing unspoken questions in the empty space. I sit immobile, waiting for his words.
“You’ve written ten books worth millions of copies each”, he starts, “but the beginning of your first book is what always stroke me the most”
“Why?”, I ask
John knows, but he cannot tell me.
I see John brought the book with him, and I ask him to read the passage to me.
“Perhaps you could”, he says after a pause, handing me the book
I recite from memory instead, my eyes locked onto his.
I am not an object of desire because of who I am, but because there is something I know how to do better than anyone else. I show people their deepest desires, the ones they cannot get themselves to acknowledge.
Hold my hand as we head to hell, I know that’s where you want to be. It will seem so natural to go down that path when you and I walk side by side.
My innocence is infinite.
After I finish we sit silent for a moment.
“Why?”, I ask again
Instead of offering an answer John clears his throat and pulls out his notebook.
I smile and pour us drinks.
“Perhaps you want to hear the full story behind these words”, I say, as I patiently begin to weave the path to John’s answer.
Chapter 2
I had spent the day in a conference room, and I was ready to have some time on my own. I excused myself from the social activities planned for the evening and started heading to my hotel alone.
The fall chilled New York City. It could start pouring any moment, and passers-by hastily pushed their way forward, barely aware of each other’s presence. It was not a good day for walking, and I could have taken a cab. The streets were jammed though, and I relished the shuffles of wind ruffling my hair, they felt liberating after the atrophy in which the previous hours had plunged me.
But when I reached 5th Ave. hell suddenly broke loose, the slashes of rain fell hard, drenching me within minutes. I tried to hail a cab, but I couldn’t get anybody to stop for me. I silently cursed the drivers, and looked around for somewhere to shelter myself till the rain would subside.
There was a hotel at the corner. I stood at the entrance, monitoring the sky for some sign of respite from the downpour.
A man stepped out of a limousine, accompanied by a guy holding an umbrella over his head. I observed the scene, fascinated by the perfection of the man’s attire and disgusted by the way he strived to overstate his power. I smiled a sarcastic smile at the hidden weakness this overstatement implied.
The man noticed, and he was not the type to let go.
“Not a good day for walking, is it?”, he told me, stopping in front of me
I took my time to reply, a detached smile clinging on my lips.
“There are worse things in life than getting wet”, I said at last, my tone plain
The man’s light blue eyes scrutinized me, before locking onto my dark gaze. I could sense strength in the lightness of those cold eyes, and my smile warmed, yielding. For a moment I felt tenderness at the man’s Achilles heel.
“And there are better things than standing in front of a hotel, soaked to the bones. Be my guest for a drink”, he asserted
It didn’t seem strange to accept, so I did. And this is how it all started.
Chapter 3
My memories are so clear it could all be happening now.
Voices from the hotel restaurant are in the background. There’s only one other customer at the bar. The guy is hunched over a newspaper as he drinks, wrapped in a black trench coat. He looks in my direction every now and then, but I soon forget about his presence.
“Two gin tonics”, says the man, defining my choice
I approve with the flicker of a smile.
The man smiles back, the curved mouth hardened by his full control of the moment.
I observe the barista as he blends our drinks and I say “Iris Dawson”, without diverting my eyes or losing track of the barista’s moves.
“Iris Dawson is your name?”, the man asks, a frown of sudden surprise dissolving the hard edges in his smile
My gaze shifts towards him at the same time the barista places our drinks on the counter.
“Yes”, I reply
The man sips his drink and says “Rob Neilson”, while looking straight ahead
After a moment he turns towards me, staring me down with a resolute lack of expression. Then he suddenly smiles and shakes his head.
“You are strange”, he tells me
“What would you be doing now if you weren’t with me?”, I ask
“What would I be doing?”, Rob echoes back
I nod
“I’d be ordering dinner in my room and watching some show before organizing the documents for tomorrow”, he tells me
I nod again
“Why did you ask?”, Rob wants to know
“To understand why you are with me”, I say
Rob scrutinizes me, trying to grasp my intentions
“What do you mean?”, he insists, his arched brows marking the sarcastic façade he chooses to show me
“Why are we having drinks instead of dinner when we’re both hungry?”, I reply without thinking
The authenticity of the question shifts my perception of the moment.
I swing left and right on the stool while sipping the gin tonic, eyes smiling as my mouth clings onto the glass.
Rob cocks his head, he doesn’t understand my attitude but he’s amused.
“Where do you want to go for dinner?”, he asks
“We can order dinner from your room and watch some show, before you organize the documents for tomorrow”, I tell him, resting my chin on the palm of my hand, a hopeful smile sprawled on my face
Rob laughs, and his laugher is hearty, liberating.
“God”, he replies, shaking his head
I keep looking at Rob with rounded eyes, my expression unchanged
“Ok Iris, let’s go”, he capitulates, and I swing myself off the stool, smiling playfully, my brows peaking as an exclamation mark at the end of a happy sentence
Chapter 4
The hour is undefined. The curtains are closed, the light in the bathroom seeps through the half open door, illuminating the bed where Rob and I are lying naked. A pile of empty dishes is lying on the floor.
Rob turns towards me, and studies me for a moment, wanting to ask a question but hesitating to formulate it. I smile, pulling the blankets up to my chin as I turn to face him.
“Why did you do this?”, he asks at last
“Really, I don’t know”, I say without lying
“Do you often get yourself in similar situations?”, he wants to know
“No, I don’t. This is the first time”
He struggles to believe me.
“Really?”, he insists
“You’re the one who asked
me for a drink”, I reply
“Yes, I asked you for a drink but now we are in my hotel room, naked, and we had sex”, he argues
“Yes”, I shrug
He looks at me, as if trying to read the plan underlying my actions, and I keep smiling
“How long are you here for?”, he asks
“In New York? The conference I’m here for ends tomorrow, and I’ll be flying out tomorrow night”, I say
Rob nods.
Leaving as planned is the only thing that makes sense, and yet I realize I’d want to stay here for an extra day.
“How long are you here for?”, I ask, returning his question
“I have a meeting tomorrow morning, and I’ll be flying out tomorrow night”, he says
“Good timing”, I smile
We’re silent for a moment
“What’s your meeting about?”, I’m curious to know
“It’s about esthanol, a new chemical we’d like to have in our product line”, he tells me
“I see”, I say
“But it’s not that easy”, he continues
“Why?”
“Because someone else is already producing it, and they have the know-how”, he explains
“So you are trying to negotiate the purchase of the know-how?”
Rob shakes his head
“No, they’ll never give it away”
“So?”, I insist
“So there’s really no easy way to achieve this”
I’m silent for a moment
“Is there a hard way to achieve this?”, I want to know, and Rob laughs
“Bribe the inventor of the chemical to tell us all about it and screw over our competitors”, he says, laughing again
“Is this hard?”, I ask
Rob scrutinizes me, pondering if I am joking or if I am truly as clueless as my statement makes me sound
“Well, bribing a guy is much easier than re-building his knowledge from scratch. As long as your target guy is a well-defined person it shouldn’t be that hard”
Rob looks at me, intrigued. His is a purely theoretical curiosity, he doesn’t believe that my logic can be applied to the real world but he feels compelled to hear about it.
“Someone knows about this chemical, yes? So who’s the man?”, I start
Rob doesn’t answer
“Ok, let’s assume you know the man’s name”, I say
“Let’s assume I do. So you want me to walk up to the guy and tell him, I’ll pay you millions if you spill your secrets?”, Rob replies ironically
He’s losing interest
“Not really. Maybe you can’t buy the guy with money”
“So what do you propose to do?”, Rob asks again, his thoughts shifting beyond my reach
I take the remote and turn on the TV.
“Let’s look for inspiration”, I say
I mean it as a joke, but now Rob is wondering if he just slept with a deranged woman. He gets up and starts donning his pants.
I zap for few seconds before landing on the show I want.
Lying in bed naked, I look at the images rolling on the screen and I look at Rob, waiting.
His shirt still undone, Rob stops short, his attention suddenly alert. Rob’s hands cling to the button he was about to close, immobile.
Unnoticed, I smile as I witness the unfolding of Rob’s hidden self.
Chapter 5
The darkness has deepened around us, but I can still discern the signs that John has been impressing in his notebook as I spoke.
“So the Neil Robson in your first novel is the alias of Rob Neilson …”, John says, eyes lowered, as if talking to himself
Our conversation pauses. All is apparently still but I sense John’s body twitch ever so slightly.
There’s a metal box beside the sofa. In it I find a story I cut off from the short fiction section published on the New Yorker years ago. The date is October 20, 1999.
“You’re a journalist, so of course you remember Rob Neilson”, I say
I observe John as he waits for my words.
“But have you ever read this?”, I continue after a moment, handing him the story
John struggles to make out the words, black against the blackness of the room, and even after deciphering them he’s at a loss.
I leave the couch to slide the paper off his hands and refill our glasses. Then I lay back and let the alcohol blow its evanescent flame through me, slowly melting in my body.
Eyes closed, I sense John’s eye on me.
“You’ve read my book, and yet you never saw this episode the way you are seeing it now. The question never occurred to you before”, I say, eyes closed
John keeps silent.
“But now you want to know if Leslie Carson is a fictional character inspired by the night I spent with Rob Neilson, or if she’s more than that. You want to know more about Leslie Carson”, I continue
“Yes, I want to know”, he tells me
“John, if you want something just ask”, I say
John doesn’t reply, and I allow time to flow by, eyes closed, laying back on the couch.
I sense John shift his body forward, and pull back. I smile, and opening my eyes I see that John has taken his glass from the table.
The amber liquid oscillates in John’s glass, ever so slightly, unveiling the invisible shiver in his hand.
I shift my body forward to pick up my glass, and pull back.
“Can you tell me more about Leslie Carson?”, John asks
“I sure can”, I smile, satisfied with the question
My memories resurface with untainted clarity in the impinging nightfall.
Chapter 6
The conference has come to an end and I am lining up to board on my plane.
Rob Neilson reverberates within me, and yet our night together could have happened centuries before. It feels like one of those old memories that are tattooed inside you and emerge at random moments with almost physical intensity.
I turn around absent mindedly, when I catch a glimpse of a name tag hanging on the woman beside me. The woman is labelled “Carlie Lester”. Carlie Lester notices me looking, and realizes she had forgotten to remove her badge. She slides it off her neck with a sight, a contained outburst of frustration after a day that has weighed on her.
I give Carlie a smile and she returns it, radiating a different self for a flashing instant. Carlie is intriguing when she frowns, and beautiful when she smiles.
Carlie and I have not been assigned neighbouring seats. Beside me is instead a heavy woman, who anxiously twists her head in all directions in the vain attempt to spot somebody. She grips the armrests, holding on to them as she swings her bulky torso towards the isle, and she collapses back with a sight, just to start all over again few seconds later. I am starting to get unnerved when a hostess comes to interrupt the woman’s routine by telling her the passenger next to her husband is willing to trade seats.
Carlie appears after a moment and when she sees me a smile of relief crossed her face.
“I couldn’t stand my neighbour”, she says
“I couldn’t stand your neighbour’s wife”, I reply, and we laugh
“Iris”, I introduce myself, and Carlie says, “I’m Carlie”
“I know”, I say, and Carlie looks lost for a moment
“You were sick of wherever you had been, you needed to get out of there so fast that you forgot about the badge hanging on your neck”, I smile
“Oh yeah…”, Carlie remembers, letting herself lie back, eyes closed
And without opening her eyes, she begins.
“I was always thrilled to be a scientist, a real scientist. Do you know what I mean?”
“Yes”, I say
“You do? I was coming up with discoveries and solutions, I had good reasons to drive to work in the morning. But now things have changed”, Carlie says and pauses
“Why?”
“They’ve given me new tasks, and now I’m s
omething in between a salesman and a manager”
“Well, find a new job then”
“I could”, she says
Carlie pauses again, a long pause floating on the background noise of the aircraft’s engines before takeoff. They roar and roar, and I wonder why we’re still stuck to the ground.
Overcoming their sound, Carlie speaks again.
“They pay me well, so it’s hard to let go, but there’s no thrill anymore. What’s worst is that every day that passes plunges me in a deeper state of torpor. I used to blow it all up when things didn’t work for me, I used to go for a fresh start without too many worries. But now…I don’t know”
“So you want the fun and the money, but it seems like you can’t get both at the same time. Is this it?”
“It is and it isn’t”
“They’ve gotten you bored to death and now you don’t know what you want anymore”, I say
Carlie opens her eyes when we finally get off the ground. The motors push the aircraft upwards, compressing us against our seats.
“I love this”, says Carlie
“I do too. I feel free only during transitions”, I tell her
“At this moment I believe anything is possible”, Carlie says
We are silent for a while.
“Anything is possible”, I say, my words reverberating Carlie’s
The trajectory of the aircraft plateaus, Carlie and I face each other.
On the background, beyond Carlie, there’s a man. The guy is hunched over a newspaper as he drinks, wrapped in a black trench coat. I sense we had met before, but I can’t place him. The man glances in my direction, before going back to his paper.
Seeing the man I think, Rob Neilson, but it is only a fraction of a second later that I realize why. He was at the bar the night before. Intriguing coincidence?, I wonder.
“What I want is the thrill”, Carlie tells me, oblivious of my momentary distraction
“What if you could have the thrill and the money?”, I ask smiling
Chapter 7
“What if I could have the thrill and the money?”, Carlie echoes me
My plain face offers no suggestions.
“I’d be happy, I suppose”, she concludes, giving me a shrug and an ephemeral giggle
“You’d be happy whatever it takes to have both?”, I want to know
“Yes”, Carlie admits, after the briefest hesitation, and I smile
“So what can thrill you?”, I want to know
“Being a scientific spy”, is the answer, given without a time gap
The screenplay playing in Rob Neilson’s hotel room unwinds within me, taking new turns.
“A scientific spy?”, I ask, wanting more details
“Imagine sneaking in corporate labs and blowing up all their secrets. Of course human beings create the knowledge corporations treasure as secrets, but human beings are nobodies to the corporations. The profit they make is valuable, but they – as human beings – are worth nothing”