The Placebo Effect by David Rotenberg Page A

Cleveland Plain Dealer was very likely Cleveland’s only daily newspaper. As he made his way up the stairs to room 207 he wondered if a plain dealer was a forthright merchant or perhaps a guy who sells farmland or a very boring seller of used cars. At room 207 he clicked on his tiny digital tape recorder and opened the door to yet another office.
    A secretary nodded a greeting and led him to a boardroom.
    Two Plain Dealer staff writers were interviewing a man Decker recognized as the Republican senatorial candidate.
    Decker was introduced as a researcher sent from the head office—better than when he used to be flown in as a play doctor and spent his time in the light booth putting together notes for the show’s producers who didn’t have the balls to tell the director that Decker was there to replace him.
    The interview proceeded. Decker took notes and closed his eyes over and over again. And when he did the room unaccountably got cold, and for a moment his wife’s stricken face shrouded in veil upon veil of ALS came alive in his mind—only her eyes able to move, staring at him, accusing him, imploring him to answer the last question she had ever been able to ask him: “What have you done, Decker? What have you done?”
    â€œI’m sorry if I bore you,” the politician said.
    Decker opened his eyes and realized the man’s comment was to him.
    â€œYou don’t, sir. I have an eye infection that requires I close my eyes periodically to keep them lubricated.” Decker thought, Lie better. So he added, “Doctor’s orders.” And thought, Shit— I really am a lousy liar.
    The senatorial candidate shot Decker a look, then continued his pontification on subjects ranging from Roe v. Wade to the Iranian nuclear threat.
    After the interview finally ended a secretary plunked down almost thirty pages of transcript in front of Decker. It took him only a minute to underline the two untruths.
    He stepped out of the room and gave the transcript to the secretary. She gave him a thick envelope with the name David Gerts on the outside—and $10,000 in cash inside.
    He made his way out of a side door and checked his watch.
    It was tight, but he really didn’t want to spend the night in Cleveland. He hailed a cab and threw fifty dollars on the front seat. “Get me to the airport—fast.”
    He ignored Crazy Eddie’s three-cab rule and, with his fast cab and the flight’s forty-minute delay in departure, he just made the flight to begin his voyage first to Detroit and from there on the eleven o’clock flight to Toronto—and his home in the west end of the city, the Junction.
    Henry-Clay watched the videotape of the interview and checked it against a copy of Decker’s notes. The entire transcript was marked as truthful except for two statements. The first was, “Young men, I have a wholehearted and spiritually backed commitment to the values that made this country great—family values.”
    â€œYeah, Senator, family über alles ,” Henry-Clay muttered, then added, “and what about those hookers in Huff you were taped with?” No great surprise that was a lie. Seventeen pages later Decker had marked his second and final statement as an untruth when the would-be senator stated his “one hundred and five percent opposition to the sale of Internet drugs from Canada into these here United States.” There were twenty-six more pages of claims and boasts, but none were marked as lies.
    â€œVery good, Mr. Roberts—very, very good. So you can pick out a single lie buried in hundreds of truths, half truths, and opinions—like finding a kernel of corn in a barrel of cow shit. I do believe we can do business, Mr. Roberts.”
    Henry-Clay stood. He’d made up his mind. He turned to the window and eyed the Treloar Building on the other side of the Ohio River. The tall building was bathed in golden light by the