Free The Placebo Effect by David Rotenberg

noticed a surprisingly blank area. He waited for the next time the Canadian signed in and followed him—tracked him—to a blocked side room on the website’s empty space. There he found his Canadian user—Decker Roberts.
    Henry-Clay approached his office window. Across the river the Treloar Building was bathed in floodlights. He pulled his eyes away from the building and returned to the problem at hand.
    Somehow Ratio-Man had found that he had made contact with Roberts. How? Was it possible that wimp hadn’t given Nasty Nat the only access codes to the site? No, he’d have given his left nut—maybe did. So it had to be something else.
    He thought about the first time he saw Ratio-Man on TV, standing beside his incredible balancing statues. Totally symmetrical, he thought—and just like that he had it. Of course: Ratio-Man was also Balance-Man, and he wouldn’t create a website without another in perfect balance with it—a mirror site!
    Sure, Ratio-Man would have an equal and opposite site. A balance. Fuck. That’s how he must have found out about Henry-Clay’s plan for one Decker Roberts.
    Henry-Clay quickly went up online and in less than five minutes found the mirror site. He cursed his foolishness and was tempted to throw the computer through the plate glass window.
    But no. Decker dies in the fire tonight. Then fat Mike ends his days and the threat is over. Henry-Clay put his right hand up to the cold windowpane then drew it away. As he lifted his palm, the frosted imprint of his hand remained, then slid mistlike into oblivion, another place—no, the other place. Now it was only a fleeting memory of a hand on a glass pane. A flicker of life gone forever.
    A death , Henry-Clay thought. Then he corrected himself. Two deaths.
    It was getting cold out there—in more ways than one.
    Back in the Junction, Mac flipped open his Zippo and lit his stump of a cigar, which was still in the side of his mouth. He watched the end of the cigar accept the flame then breathed out a dense fragrant fog of smoke against the frosted windshield as he told himself, Tonight’s a fine night for a wee conflagration.

15
NIGHTMARES
    DECKER KNEW HE WAS DREAMING, DREAMING OF SHANGHAI in the early 1990s before many Chinese spoke English—before they entered the capitalist race to oblivion. He knew what the dream was, but he couldn’t make it stop.
    A Caucasian face loomed up, filling the entirety of his dream-scape screen. “Don’t take anything but ten U.S. dollars. No wallet. No wristwatch. No jewelry.”
    Decker felt the cold, then something in his hand and looked down—blood. He knew it was part of the price for his gift. Then there was an address on Nanjing Lu.
    He watched helplessly as he left his wedding ring, watch, and wallet in his room, waited for the dark to take the great city, then stuffed a single American ten-dollar bill in a front pocket of his jeans and headed toward the Bund.
    Suddenly he felt something smooth between his lips and tasted the divine mix of opium tar and human saliva. He breathed the smoke in deeply. Time began to slip—and elongate—and he knew he was dreaming in his dream—and he felt the presence of the other.
    Then he was out on the street. The damp Shanghai night air knifed through his clothing. He stumbled to the curb and hailed a taxi from the waiting line of vehicles. The lead cab pulled up to him and the window slid down. He reached into his pocket for the card given to him by the theatre to explain where he lived—but it wasn’t there. His wallet wasn’t there either. He remembered! He’d left the wallet with the card and all his money backin his room. He stepped away from the taxi. The driver screamed something at him. He turned and ran. His feet flying along the cracked pavement, then suddenly he was at the river—at the river? How had he gotten to the Huangpu River? He turned to his left and