~ ~ ~
Trey returns to the table with another round. “See that little black box in the corner over there? There’s a guy at the bar, says you can put your ear up to the earpiece connected to it and you’ll hear the last five seconds of your life.”
“I have tried it once,” says Hugo, nodding.
“And? Did you hear the last five seconds of your life?”
Hugo shrugs. “Hard to know. It is very possible.”
“I don’t know if I would want to hear that,” says Robert.
“You’re a bunch of suckers,” Trey says. “It’s a joke. Of course it’s a joke.”
“So are you going to try it out?” Robert asks.
“I don’t need to try it out. It’s a joke.”
Hugo and Antonio talk about different types of guitar. Trey seems lost in thought. After a moment, he says, “Look, I’ll prove it’s a joke,” and walks over to the black box and puts the earpiece to his ear. Several minutes later he comes back to the table, visibly shaken. “It was my own voice,” he says. “It was my own voice, just like it sounds in my head.”
“What’d it say?” Robert asks. But Trey doesn’t want to talk about it.
~ ~ ~
Hugo tells Robert and Trey about the leader of the guinea-piggers, Jeremy, who came from a good family but fell into guinea-pigging after some financial difficulties. “He lives on the outskirts of town,” Hugo says. “In a storage facility purchased many years ago by Obadiah Birch Pharmaceuticals, and used as temporary housing for long-term guinea-piggers.”
“That facility was shut down years ago,” Trey says.
“Guinea-piggers?” Robert asks.
“Volunteer human test subjects,” Trey clarifies.
“Every few years there is a raid,” Hugo says. “The men in riot gear show up to force the guinea-piggers out of the storage facility by court order, and they are taken to hospital psych wards, or simply dropped off on the outskirts of town. But soon they return. Many have no other place to go. Many are illegal residents, or have bad credit, or feel as though they have found a community among the guinea-piggers.”
“What you’re talking about — if it existed — would be illegal,” Trey says; then, to Robert, “The facility was shut down years ago. It would be trespassing. The state of Indiana would be well within their rights to force these people to leave the area.”
“A single bus line runs by the storage facility,” Hugo continues. “Other than that, the only vehicles that approach are the white vans of the researchers, who arrive with their lists and call out: Male, in good health, 18 to 24. Female, in good health, 35 to 40. Male, in good health, 33 to 45.”
“In good health?” Antonio asks.
“It’s a phase I study,” Trey says. “In a phase I study you’re testing the safety of a drug, rather than its efficacy. Phase I studies start with healthy volunteers. Phase II studies are the ones that target people who actually have the condition you’re trying to treat.”
“You take the drug, and they see if it does anything terrible to you, and then they give you some money,” Hugo says.
“An honorarium,” Trey explains. “By law, all participants in a phase I study have to be healthy volunteers. You don’t pay volunteers. But it is reasonable to recompense them for their time. If you didn’t recompense them for their time, you wouldn’t have any healthy volunteers for your phase I studies.”
Hugo frowns. “Many of the guinea-piggers are not in good health. Many have not recovered from previous phase I studies.”
“Then they shouldn’t be volunteering,” Trey says. “They shouldn’t be signing forms that specifically say that they are in good health.” Then, turning again to Robert, “I mean, are we supposed to assume that our volunteers are lying to us?”
Robert looks down at his drink, concerned.
“That’s assuming, for the sake of argument, that any of this is happening. This fairy tale.” Trey gestures at Hugo. “I mean, who is this guy? Some trombone player. Some asshole making a few bucks on the side from pharmaceutical trials.”
“Hey,” Antonio says, starting to stand up.
Hugo motions for him to sit down. He takes a moment to gather his thoughts, then continues speaking, in the same calm, sad voice. “Jeremy, the leader of the guinea-piggers, is a good man. He is trying to organize the guinea-piggers, to have a voice in the conditions of their labor.”
Trey snorts. “For God’s sake.”
“But there are other, darker forces at work. Guinea-piggers who strive toward violent revolution, who want to take revenge not only on the pharmaceutical companies, but on the city itself. Rumors of a man in black goggles and a fake fur coat who carries two pistols, and stalks the night for researchers who have been sloppy in their phase I testing. Some say that he is exacting vengeance for the death of his son, or perhaps his wife; others, that he himself was killed as the result of a phase I study gone wrong, and it is his spirit who is carrying out these murderous deeds… ”
~ ~ ~
It’s four a.m. by the time Robert gets home. Viola is not in bed. He wakes up several hours later, still wearing his clothes from the night before, minus his suit jacket. He gets up and wanders the house, trying to find the jacket. All around him he hears voices, a messy, conflicting jangle. His head feels thick, part hungover, part still drunk. These voices, he thinks. Is this an unintended adverse effect? Eventually he realizes that the television is on. He turns it off. The radio is on. He turns that off, too. He goes from room to room, turning off televisions and radios. I don’t remember turning any of this on last night, he thinks. Perhaps Viola did it. Perhaps she came home at some point while I was sleeping and turned on every television and radio in the house. Why would she do that, he thinks. Could that be an unintended adverse effect, the need to be surrounded by voices? To be blanketed by them? He can see how, in a certain way, it would be comforting. He tries to think back to the unintended adverse effects that Trey listed for him. He cannot remember if “needing to be blanketed by voices,” or some corresponding scientific term, was on the list.
He finds the suit jacket several days later, at the bottom of a pile of laundry. In the jacket pocket is a note from Hugo, with a phone number on it. Robert calls the number. “Robert,” Hugo says. “I am glad you decided to call. We think that you could be very useful to us.”
~ ~ ~
At the library no one talks about the FBI agent anymore. He is still there, but no one seems willing to indicate that they so much as notice him. It is as though he has become a shared secret. Has he issued National Security Letters to other librarians, Viola wonders. Who else is he fucking?
~ ~ ~
Viola stands outside waiting for the FBI agent in a floral-print sundress with a halter-style top that someone once told her was flattering on her, but then she gets cold and decides that he’s probably not actually going to come and goes inside and puts on a sweater. Five minutes later her cell phone buzzes. The FBI agent asks why she isn’t outside. Viola goes outside and gets into the FBI agent’s car.