Chapter 15: The Agitator - Lucidity

FREMMER STUDIED THE ENTRANCE TO THE LUCIDITY CENTER ON WEST 100th Street but wasn’t sure what to make of it. If not for a small brass plaque affixed to the right of the door underneath the intercom system, he would have thought he was looking at another residential brownstone on a block of residential brownstones. This particular building, however, in the well-gentrified neighborhood a little south of Columbia University didn’t have a set of stairs or stoop leading up to the front door, the trademark of the classic Manhattan brownstone. Instead, the immense money-green front door was just off the sidewalk.

His beguiling escort pressed the buzzer on the intercom and addressed the ball-shaped camera integrated into the unit.

“It’s me,” she said.

A few seconds later a click and a short buzz indicated the lock had been released. They entered into a vestibule, a kind of mudroom with coat hooks and a bench on one wall. Fremmer relieved himself of his scooter but kept his backpack, preferring not to separate from his laptop and other gear.

She led him up a short wheelchair accessible ramp to a second door, which swung open as they approached it. Fremmer expected to see someone standing on the other side of the threshold to greet them, but there was no one, just a large, neutral-colored room with high ceilings. A staircase on the opposite side spiraled gradually up to a second floor. On the wall just in front of the staircase was an impressive, square-shaped aquarium with rounded edges that was lit to impressive effect, probably six by six. The door automatically swung shut behind, closing with a barely audible thud.

Aside from the aquarium, the room was sparsely decorated and lighted a little somberly. To his right was a long wood table and high back chairs waiting to seat a dozen people, maybe more, and to his left two couches in an L-shaped configuration around a wooden coffee table that matched the dining room table. A set of folding chairs, at least ten, were stacked up against the wall in the back corner. Fremmer guessed the room converted into a meeting space for larger gatherings.

It had no windows but an opening next to the staircase brought in some natural light from what appeared to be a kitchen and, judging from the sound of the door sliding closed, some sort of outdoor space.

Braden, looking fairly dapper in a blue sport jacket and jeans, came into the room.

“Ah, Mr. Fremmer, I see Rochelle was able to persuade you to make a little time in your busy schedule for us.”

It was the first time he heard her name. On the car ride over she’d agreed to meet him later in the bar of ‘Cesca, a restaurant on West 75th, but wouldn’t tell him her name. Maybe she’d been trying to maintain some distance, or a veil of mystery, but she didn’t seem too concerned that he now had something to call her.

“Do you live here?” Fremmer asked, doing his best to avoid staring at Braden’s prosthesis.

“Sometimes,” he said.

“So you run a business out of your home?”

Braden took the question in stride but didn’t answer it directly. “We think of this as a center for enlightenment,” he said. “We run workshops and seminars here, even do some research, but some of our clients stay with us for up to a week, sometimes longer. We offer intensive training sessions for those who are looking to get to the next level so to speak. Our clients come from around the world.”

“Do you have the required permits to run a hotel out of your home? The proper insurance, etc.”

Fremmer didn’t care if the guy was missing part of his arm. He couldn’t resist needling him. In his days as a high school basketball player he didn’t start. While he had some skill, he earned his minutes for his hustle, and the coach would sub him in to raise his skilled players’ intensity levels. Invariably, he went in and committed a hard foul almost immediately, riling the other team and energizing his own.

He became known as “The Agitator.” That was his role. He fell into it as a sophomore hustling to get minutes. And while he scored more as a senior, even hitting twenty a couple of times, he never really grew out of the role of team agitator. In some ways, he still hadn’t.

“Everything’s in order,” Braden assured him.

“Well, this all reeks of shadiness,” Fremmer declared, holding both his index fingers up and twirling them in a circular motion. “I’ve got a lot of experience in the field of suspect entrepreneurial endeavors and this one’s pretty damn suspect.”

“Have you ever had a lucid dream?” Braden asked.

“I’m familiar with the concept.”

“By familiar you mean you’ve experienced it?”

Fremmer nodded. “I have.”

“How did it manifest itself?”

“I don’t know. I was in a dream and I realized it and I said to myself I’m in a dream, I’ll do whatever I want.”

“And what did you do?”

Fremmer looked over at Rochelle, who had the faint glint of a smile in her eyes. She seemed to be enjoying herself, if only slightly.

“You want the R version or the unrated version?” he asked.

“However you’re comfortable expressing yourself is fine,” Braden replied. “We’re not here to judge.”

“Thanks. But if it’s OK with you, how ’bout she goes first?” He nodded in Rochelle’s direction. “To show me how it’s done.”

Braden motioned for her to go ahead.

“I had one a few night ago where I was in a spinning class,” she began.

“Oh, you spin,” Fremmer remarked. “You know I—”

“I’m next to the instructor,” she went on in the present tense, ignoring him. “We’re facing the class. And I see the class is looking at me. And I’m not sure why they’re looking at me. And then I look down and I see that I’m in my underwear. I’m spinning in a thong and a regular bra.”

Which isn’t much less than what some people spin in, Fremmer thought.

“For a moment I’m really embarrassed. I can’t believe that I came to class dressed like that. What was I thinking? And then I look down at my underwear and I notice it’s a little translucent, I can see pubic hair.”

Fremmer felt his Adam’s apple rise and fall.

“When I see it,” she continued, “That’s my cue.”

“Your cue?”

“That’s my cue to know that I’m in a dream. You can train yourself to activate with certain visual cues that you’ve encountered in previous dreams. It doesn’t always work but in this case it does. I realize I’m dreaming. So I look out at the class and spot a guy I like.”

“You know him?”

“No, just a random, good-looking guy.”

“Older, younger? What level of good-looking are we talking?”

“I don’t know. Dark hair, pretty tall, smooth hard body, in his thirties.”

“OK, generic good-looking guy. You aren’t that picky, but you don’t like chest hair. Go on. I’m fine with unrated by the way. Did I mention that?”

“So I unclip from my bike and go up to him and tell him to get off his bike, I need his help. He asks me what for and I say, ‘You’ll see.’ And he gets off and follows me outside the spinning room. I lead him to the women’s locker room. He stops at the door for a second and asks whether it’s alright to go in. I say, sure, I got permission. And then I lead him into the steam room and we kiss a little and then I tell him to lie down on the bench and I pull off his biker shorts and get on top of him.”

“Are there other women in the steam room?”

“No, I’m not into other people watching.”

“Good to know,” Fremmer said. “What happens after that?”

“I come.”

“Well, that’s a bit anticlimactic. How ’bout the guy?”

“I don’t know. After I got off him, he was gone.”

“Disappeared into the steam, eh? Vaporized?”

“Puff,” she said, her fingers springing open like a flower in high-speed bloom.

“Rochelle has had documented orgasms in her sleep,” Braden announced rather clinically.

Fremmer couldn’t resist asking how one went about documenting that.

“There are sensors,” Braden explained. “The most common is a vaginal photoplethysmograph.”

“Of course,” Fremmer said. “Pardon my ignorance. And I know Candace was fascinated by all this stuff. I saw some of it pop up in her fiction. But to be clear I’m not about to publish a nonfiction book on the subject. And I’ve never seen a manuscript of any sort. What was she writing for you anyway?”

Braden offered a faint smile, then pulled out a folded sheet of paper from his inside jacket pocket and handed it to Fremmer. It didn’t take long for Fremmer to figure out that it was a simple one-page contract, not so different from the ones he’d drafted for his clients. It showed a short description of what she was supposed to write and when she was supposed to deliver the work.

“She was writing a history of The Center wrapped around a history of lucid dreaming,” Braden said. “I was going to get someone else to write it, but she convinced me that she could do a better job for less.”

Fremmer glanced over at Rochelle, standing poker-faced, the neutral bystander. He handed the paper back to Braden.

“So was it supposed to be a promotional vehicle?”

“Yes and no. We intended to sell it. As you can see, this wasn’t a handshake agreement. It’s fully documented. She’s already three months late. I intend to be reimbursed as the contract states. And it’s coming out of all the sales you’ve been making on her current titles.”

Fremmer was stunned. He shouldn’t have been, because Rochelle had already told him that’s why Braden wanted to speak to him. But there was something about Braden’s resolute, detached tone that took him by surprise.

“Are you crazy?” he said. “I’m trying to raise funds for her daughter. And it’s not as much as you think. After taxes, after all is said and done, she’s looking at fifty or sixty grand. Amazon’s making more than she is.”

“Well, maybe they’ll forgo their cut for her sake.”

“Believe me, I’ve been trying to get them to. I’ve made calls.”

“The hospital expenses will eat everything up,” he said. “She’s better off being insolvent. You should disburse the funds and make me—and yourself—whole before the bill collectors come after her. If you want to make a contribution to her daughter, do it later.”

“Will you do that?” Fremmer asked.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. For now, I want my advance back. I’ll give you ’til the end of the day to write me a check for $50,000. Or I can give you a PayPal account to transfer to right now if you want the miles on your credit card, though you’ll have to pay the transaction fee.”

“Are you kidding me? She won’t see the royalties for over sixty days. And what are you doing paying her fifty grand? I could have got you someone for half that.”

“If she were to die from her injuries, which I understand is still a strong possibility, it would complicate things. This needs to be done now.”

“Or what? You gonna break my legs?”

“Not my style.”

Fremmer laughed nervously. He didn’t know what to think. If Braden was bluffing, he was pretty good at it. There was also some perverse logic to his demand.

“What if I find this manuscript?” he asked.

“So you do have it?”

“Did I say I have it? I asked what if I found it?”

“I’d take that into consideration, of course, depending on the condition it was in.”

Fremmer chewed on that for a moment, then decided the whole thing was ridiculous. He told Braden as much.

“No, you’re ridiculous,” Braden shot back, showing some real temper for the first time. “First, you tell the police that I threatened Candace and then you told a reporter that Candace was advanced money to write a book about The Center but didn’t deliver the book. You got me tangled up in this mess.”

OK, so this is where all the hostility is coming from, Fremmer thought. “No, no,” he said. “I just told the detectives that erotica wasn’t the only thing she wrote. I gave that as an example. And as far as telling the police you threatened her, that never happened. I said she appeared to feel threatened but she didn’t tell me by whom. They must have played you. That’s what detectives and prosecutors do. They play people against each other. They take shots and watch for the reaction.”

“I’m well aware of their methods,” Braden replied more calmly. “Speaking of which, I see your attorney friend, the one I met, is now defending this homeless person who pushed Candace.”

“Allegedly pushed.”

“Whatever. Why would you encourage him to do that? You call me crazy.”

“Look, the fact is someone was threatening her. She told me that someone had done something very bad that she knew about. Doesn’t it seem strange that she would then get pushed in front of a car by a random homeless guy?”

“Chance,” Braden said. “Bad luck. As you know, she could be very charming. But she also had her delusional moments. You know her fiction wasn’t always fiction. You do know that, don’t you?”

“That’s what makes it good,” Fremmer said. “If you felt she was so unstable, why’d you give her an advance to write this book for you? I thought she was just doing some accounting work for you.”

“Did I say she was unstable? A little delusional, but then so are about fifty percent of Americans, particularly all the religious fanatics. Look, you say she told you someone was threatening her. Well, she told me you had her manuscript. If you’re inclined to believe her, so am I.”

The guy had a point, Fremmer thought. And it turned his stomach to think about it. If she was lying, then he’d made a grave error and sent Carlos on a fool’s errand. Christ, he thought. Maybe she was lying. Then again, maybe Braden is. But why?

“You see it cuts both ways,” Braden said.

Fremmer scanned his repertoire for a snappy comeback but before he could find one they were interrupted by a teakettle’s low whistle emanating from the other end of the room—or rather beyond it.

“Come,” Braden said, heading in the direction of the noise. “Let me at least offer you something to drink so I don’t come off as completely rude.”

Fremmer didn’t really want anything to drink but he did want to ask Braden a few more questions, so he followed him but paused to look at the fish tank. It was a beautiful microcosm of a saltwater ecosystem, a miniature reef.

Braden was at the stove when Fremmer caught up with him. The kitchen was huge. Modern. White-tiled. High-end appliances. An island in the center, it looked like something you’d see in the suburbs or on The Food Network.

“If you don’t mind my asking, how’d you lose your hand?” he ventured.

Braden didn’t answer right away. He went to the cupboard and took out a mug.

“Antibiotic-resistant staph infection,” he said, placing the cup on the island counter. “Long time ago. Going on twenty-five years. I got a fairly deep cut on one of my fingers. When I saw that it was getting infected I tried to treat it myself. A couple of days later I got a very high fever and had to go to the hospital. They treated it but nothing worked. I went from having this little cut to having to choose between amputation and death. They took most of my forearm to be safe. I’m lucky it was just that and not the whole arm. And that it wasn’t my dominant hand.”

Rochelle removed a tea packet from a box and tore it open. Handing Braden the sachet she said, “I think you’re well acquainted with the illogical emotional ecosystem of tragedy, Mr. Fremmer.”

Braden dropped the tea bag in the coffee mug and poured the steaming water over it.

“After you have something like this happen you can either think you’re cursed or blessed,” he said. “I went with the latter. What I want you to understand is that what we’re doing here is potentially groundbreaking. Your mind is the greatest virtual-reality machine. Nothing can touch it. Not in our lifetimes anyway. And we’ve developed proprietary techniques and technology that allow us to safely and affordably live out our fantasies in a way that’s virtually indistinguishable from reality.”

“I personally prefer the real thing,” Fremmer countered.

“We’re not just talking about sex,” Braden said, “though that’s certainly one of the primary applications.”

“Weightlessness,” Rochelle offered. “Flight. The Superman experience. You want a cup?”

“No thanks,” Fremmer said. He went over to the sliding glass door and looked outside at the walled-in backyard. Even a tiny outdoor space was a huge luxury in Manhattan. This one had a wooden deck off the kitchen overlooking a small Japanese garden with gravel paths, a water fountain, sculptures, well-manicured shrubbery and a couple of small trees. In the reflection of the glass, he could see Rochelle mouthing some words and gesturing with her hand, having a silent discussion behind his back.

“Very Zen,” he said, then turned around and headed back to the island. “I bet you guys do a kick-ass barbecue. Veggie burgers on the grill. A little Enya on the outdoor speakers.”

Braden laughed. “Despite appearances, we’re less new-agey than you think. The garden is the way it is because it’s easier to maintain. We don’t get much light back there, which limits our landscape selection.”

“How long have you known Candace?” Fremmer asked. “She told me she’s been dabbling in this stuff for a while. She was also into psychics. Sorry, check that. She called them intuits. I told her they were the same thing, that they just changed the name for legal latitude. Which is kind of brilliant if you think about it.”

Braden didn’t answer right away. He fished out a half-used packet of artificial sweetener from a small bowl on the counter and sprinkled its remaining contents into his tea.

“A long time,” he finally said. “Maybe twenty years. I’d just bought this place.”

“OK. So now if I were your lawyer, or a detective for that matter, the next question would be what sort of relationship did you have with her?”

“But you’re not my lawyer or a detective.”

“Well, let’s pretend I’m both. Did you ever Bill Clinton her?”

Rochelle laughed. Getting an actual laugh out of her was surprisingly gratifying. Braden wasn’t so amused.

“Is that some sort of hip-hop term?” he asked.

“No, it’s my own,” Fremmer said. “Sorry, I’ve been trying to make that a verb for a while.”

“Look,” Braden said, “I have a reputation at stake. We have financial backers. We have a product coming out—”

“What kind of product?”

“A transcranial electrical stimulation sleep mask. Using electric currents, we can increase or decrease the intracerebral current flow in specific areas of the brain. The change in neuronal excitability is what helps facilitate lucid dreaming. We can significantly increase the odds of having a lucid dream.”

“Really? And there’s some sort of app that goes with it?”

“Yes. Android and iOS.”

“Sweet,” Fremmer said. “And you have clinical studies to back it?”

“We’re working on that.”

“Of course you are.”

“We had to lay out a lot of upfront money to produce enough to bring our cost per unit down. So I’ll just say this: You do harm to me I will do harm to you. I can’t have malicious rumors spread about this center or me. Candace was a good woman—”

“Is,” Fremmer corrected him.

“Yes, is. And I’m sorry about what happened. But she took money from me and she’s going to give it back.”

“I was kind of hoping you’d reconsidered,” Fremmer said.

“There’s nothing to reconsider.”

“Well, at least give me a chance to see if I can find the manuscript.”

“You have ’til the end of the day. You can make arrangements with Rochelle. She’ll let you out.”

With that Fremmer followed her back to the front door and picked up his scooter.

“I guess I don’t get a ride back,” he said to her.

“One-way ticket,” she said. “I’ll see you later at ‘Cesca.”

“Better make it eight. I may need the extra time.”

“Don’t forget your checkbook,” she said.