BLIND TRIAL Read online

  BLIND TRIAL

  Brian Deer

  famousfiction.net

  Unit 50712 P.O. Box 6945

  London W1A 6US

  Copyright Brian Deer © 2021

  All rights reserved

  ISBN: 978-1-8382832-0-9

  Follow Brian on Twitter @deerbrian

  briandeer.com

  FRIDAY JULY 18

  One

  THEY AGREED last night the location for this meeting: “Twelfth Street at New York Avenue.” They agreed on the time: “eight-thirty in the ayem.” They agreed: “punctuality is critical.” But waiting on the corner, four blocks northeast of the White House, Ben Louviere—senior marketing assistant at BerneWerner Biomed—could see no sign of his employer’s general counsel: Mr. Theodore Hosea Hoffman III.

  Behind a blue-and-yellow tie and white cotton business shirt, sweat trickled from his chest to his navel. He’d only run eighty yards from the Marriott at Metro Center but, even with the temperature barely nudging 70°F, the exertion fused with the capital’s humidity to express his emotions in his skin. His palms felt damp. His shorts clung to his genitals. A stain the size of Lake Michigan soaked his back.

  So, where’s Mr. Hoffman? He promised to be here. He promised he would help. We had a deal.

  Ben, twenty-six, arrived at 08:22, and for a while held together his coolest act. He was the six-one big dick, the college baseball catcher, posing, deltoids straining inside a navy Donna Karan suit, smiling looks for beard trimmer commercials. Bristling hair so black, flashing eyes so blue, and boasting a JD degree from Loyola, Chicago, the manufacturers of recombinant vaccines, interferons, and colony stimulating factors had never been so lucky as the day they discovered him and volunteered to pay his way through school.

  But twenty minutes later, he was losing it. Bigtime. He was a seven-year-old abandoned at the mall. He was rubbing his neck, hanging toes off the curb, darting pigeon-quick glances up the street. He was fingering his Samsung, fighting the urge to call home. He was sure Mr. Hoffman wouldn’t show. All the jokey camaraderie, backslaps, shoulder-hugs, were just phony office politics bullshit. So much for the theory they shared a special bond or met in a previous life.

  Hands in pockets, Ben paced in the shade of polished black granite: the American Association for the Advancement of Science building. Traffic choked the avenue, now in rush-hour mayhem, and sporadic pedestrians hurried from a subway exit to the National Museum of Women in the Arts. On a square of clipped grass across a wide, divided intersection, a panhandler folded a tarp.

  So, where’s Mr. Hoffman? He was meant to be the man. He’d said, “Come to me with your problems.”

  But then—thank Christ—a car surged into view. He felt like mom kissed him on the forehead. Two hundred feet south, turning left from H Street, swung a silver Ford LTD Crown Victoria. Styled for the seventies, but vintage 1986: a classic four-door, classic cop. Razored horizontals, chrome trim, double headlights, and a grille with enough edge to dice cheese.

  That Ford: he knew it. Or at least one like it. Mr. Hoffman drove an ancient Crown Vic. In Ben’s forty-seven days, including weekends, on the staff, he’d seen such a vehicle almost daily. Most often she was parked before 09:30 each morning in the BerneWerner Building garage in Atlanta. He’d even snagged a ride in her four years back after his interview for the company scholarship. She was the Last Great American Full-Size Sedan. Or so Mr. Hoffman said at the time.

  By a vacant meter bay, the car slopped to a halt like an aircraft carrier in custard. Behind the wheel sat Mr. Hoffman: a kind of Black Bill Clinton, as big, smart, and smooth as a Bentley. Fitter than his age, which people guessed was fifty-something, it was said he could pop a beer can with a stare.

  The general counsel jerked an arm, and the car jumped forward. Then back and forward, back and forward, until positioned a foot-and-a-half from the sidewalk.

  “YOU THINK of my ride?” Mr. Hoffman slapped the steering wheel. “Five point eight. V-8. Seventeen to the gallon. Tell me this ain’t some lady.”

  “One hell of a car, sir.” Ben climbed into the shotgun. “I like it. One hell of a car.”

  “You know the dream died when they quit building these.”

  “I like it. One hell of a car.”

  The weird thing about it was the legal chief said the same thing—the exact same thing—four years back. Ben remembered the euphoria of being told he’d gotten the scholarship and the conversation switching to the Ford. “You know the dream died when they quit building these.” It wasn’t an easy line to forget.

  “What this lady’s short of, an F-16’s missing. See, we got the electric windows.” Mr. Hoffman opened and shut them. “We got the electric seats.” He powered the split-bench back and forth. “We got enough draft to freeze the Hollywood Bowl.” He flicked the aircon off and on. “We got the illuminated glove box. We got the red vinyl interior. And we got zero to sixty in nine point six seconds.”

  “And sixty to zero?”

  “About an hour.”

  Ben patted the red vinyl, hardly believing this meeting was proving as schmoozy as the interview. The truth of it was, when they summoned him to Atlanta, he feared they’d mixed him up with someone else. He was no dope, sure. But an attorney? Get out of here. He’d been planning to make it big with his band. But the company took him on, stumped up the dough for school, and promised him a fulltime job.

  “One hell of a car sir,” he repeated. And meant it. “Deeply cool. One hell of a car.”

  The Black Bill Clinton glanced in the mirrors, checked his watch, and reached for the ignition. “So, what’s the story then. Huh? What you call me for then? Huh? I drove six hundred miles to this convention of clusterfucks, and you got me here talking cars? We got a move on the vaccine before the NASDAQ closes, and then we’re up at FDA with InderoMab.”

  Ben reached for an envelope inside his jacket pocket. It was clearly time to cut to the chase. “You know when you interviewed me for the scholarship and everything, and you said I was always to come to you if there was something on my mind?”

  Mr. Hoffman spun the wheel, watched for a gap in the traffic, and stamped on the gas to make the tires shriek. “I said that, did I? What a guy.”

  Ben’s head whiplashed as he tugged on the envelope, exposing a sheet of company letterhead. “It’s… I got this just yesterday, printed off at the hotel. From Dr. Crampton. And if you look, you’ll see I’m pretty concerned.”

  Mr. Hoffman snatched the letter, hung a right on New York Avenue, and mumbled through the document in a cartoon voice, as if programing a washing machine.

  “Dear Mr. Louviere,

  This confirms our conversation Monday regarding your evidently meager committment to our enterprise. I raised with you your poor timekeeping; absences from planning meetings; and, most recently, the incident in which you lost a Lenovo ThinkPad laptop computer containing price-sensitive commercial information.”

  The general counsel snorted and waved the letter over the dash. “Look there. See? You see that there? He’s got ‘committment’ with three ‘t’s. You believe that? Duh? Autocorrect? Spellcheck? Huh? Motherfuckin’ dickheads. Every one of them.”

  Ben cracked a grin and squirmed against the passenger door. This meeting was going better than the interview. The vibe felt so right, as if they shared a star sign or Theodore Hoffman and Ben Louviere were meant to be.

  “But you think he’s serious then? What with that final warning part and everything?”

  A red Silverado edged ahead on New York Avenue while Mr. Hoffman finished the letter.

  “You will be expected to replace the missing device, at your own expense. And you should consider this letter to be a final warning within the meaning of your con
tract of employment.”

  Signed:

  “Philip C. Crampton MD, Vice President, Marketing & Product Communications.”

  Mr. Hoffman snorted again, threw the letter in Ben’s lap, signaled right, and turned onto Ninth. “Know here, kid? Know what ‘MD’ stands for?”

  “Doctor of medicine.”

  “Stands for ‘Motherfuckin’ Dickhead.’ Believe me now.”

  A smiling jury is an acquitting jury. Ben learned that much at Loyola. “Yeah, but what he’s saying though. You don’t think it’s serious then?”

  “What’s he say about this Lenovo? That right? You lost a ThinkPad?”

  Damn the laptop. Damn the fucking laptop. He’d left it a few hours in the trunk of his BMW outside a nightclub in Atlanta called Bluestreak. He got there at one, a week last Sunday, left around four, got home, popped the lid, and found the fucking fucker was gone.

  “Can’t understand it, sir. It’s like they had the key to my car, or something. Left it ten minutes. Not even that. In the BerneWerner Building parking garage.”

  Mr. Hoffman shrugged, pumped the car’s brakes, and thrust his foot on the gas. “Who uses laptops anyhow?”

  “Dr. Crampton told me my whole future was in jeopardy. Sent me a Xerox of my contract. You know, with the clause about the scholarship? You said it was a technicality in the state of Georgia.”

  Mr. Hoffman glanced away toward a party of schoolkids formed up to cross the street with their teachers. “I did? What’s that one say?”

  “How the scholarship’s a loan and everything. And how it’s paid-off on twelve months satisfactory service.”

  “That so? Twelve months? And you done what?”

  “Forty-seven days. Including weekends.”

  “That long? And what we spend educating your white ass?”

  “Two hundred sixty thousand dollars.”

  The car rolled to a stop. Mr. Hoffman opened the glove box and yanked out a music CD: Second Piano Concerto by a band called Rachmaninoff. He slugged it into a player beneath the dash.

  “Gotta tell you here kid, you gotta watch out.” The Crown Vic swirled with orchestra. “There’s folks in the company wanting a crackdown. Company’s getting ready for the biggest product launch since Pepto-Bismol in the cherry caplets. Can’t take any goofing. Not now.”

  “But I’m doing my best, sir.”

  “That’s good. That’s good. So why not do better? Can always do better, don’t you think?”

  “Thing is, they give me nothing to do. Like, they send me to law school, which is pretty awesome for a biotech, when you think about it, and then they put me in the Marketing Department. I mean, does that make any sense?”

  Mr. Hoffman upped Rachmaninoff and swayed his fingers over the wheel as if conducting violins around the hood. “Look, that’s only to start you off. Happens with all our scholarship people. Had Janice Hughes on level one reception for months. Dominique Blitzer, well, she was a lab tech. And Sarah-Jane did a year as a payroll clerk. What you gotta say about that then?”

  “But at the interview you told me about maybe regulatory affairs. And, I mean, take this conference. Darlene’s got me working the promotions B module in the Montreal Room. You seen that thing? Really sucks.”

  “You’re our module man, huh? They got you minding the Wendy house?”

  “It’s got a fake doctor’s office inside.”

  Mr. Hoffman turned right and cracked open a window. “Hell, shit will come. Hope for better things. You gotta prove yourself, get yourself noticed.”

  “That’s what I want. To prove myself. I do. Do stuff that means something for medicine.”

  The general counsel sucked a knuckle. “Course there is something. There’s something today if you’re interested. Could help us right now if you want it.”

  “Anything, sir. Anything at all.” He wriggled like a dog to its dinner.

  The mighty Crown Vic was now back where they started: the meter bay beside the science building. Mr. Hoffman hit the brakes but didn’t pull over. A truck hauling ladders behind them honked.

  “Okay. Good. Now here’s what you do. And it’s advantageous stuff, I can tell you.”

  “Sure. Ready for anything.”

  “We’re getting the old girl in from Atlanta this afternoon. Flying her up to the conference.”

  “The old girl?”

  “Sure. Dr. Mayr. Our vaccine chief.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Go meet her at National airport.”

  “And?”

  “Carry her bags.”

  Two

  ABOVE A deco-style canopy and revolving glass door, four flags drifted from sloping staffs outside the Marriott at Metro Center. With the Stars and Stripes and the hotel chain’s banner hung the District of Columbia’s flag (two red-on-white stripes, plus three red stars) and the state of Maryland’s flag (quartered red-and-white crosses, plus black-and-yellow checkerboard hatchings). They swayed and sank on the east side of Twelfth Street like hands too tired to clap.

  Ben leaned on the roof of an open-doored taxi and gazed at the flags with sympathy. In the sticky July heat, they looked how he felt: victims of a higher power’s indifference. He couldn’t think of a time when he felt more depressed since he buried his pet rat, Rocky the Rat.

  After the meeting with Hoffman, he’d opened module B: polishing its video wall and refilling rotating racks with brochures for company products. InderoMab—Setting the Standard was the conference week breakout, with BerneB—Quietly Confident bubbling under. Then he’d sat for two hours in the fake doctor’s office snaring MDs with Apple iPads.

  “Hi, I’m Ben Louviere. This contains our product data. The device is yours to keep.”

  And now he’d got this: Dr. Gertrude Mayr slumped in the taxi, blowing smoke. She’d climbed inside at National airport, burrowed like a dachshund into a leather shoulder purse, and produced a pack of Doral Ultra Lites. “It’s my human right,” she wheezed. “It helps my condition.”

  An outstanding ambassador for health.

  Heading out to the airport, Ben imagined Dr. Mayr as some svelte senior lady: a senator type. But the figure that emerged from Delta’s 14:10 from Atlanta was more like the Bride of Frankenstein’s aunt. Seventy-four, they said. But she looked ten years older, with a face as granite solid as a card sharp’s. She fell forward more than walked toward ground transportation, arms trailing like broken wings.

  He’d tried to be friendly. She was higher up than Crampton, and her vaccine was set to make history. But in the nine minutes it took to cross the Potomac and cut to Twelfth, she conversed on only three topics. First, she demanded help with a book of cardboard matches. Next, she wanted the lowdown on who was at the conference. Finally, she wanted to know was he a scientist?

  “Send lawyers now,” she’d snarled, “to carry folks’ bags.”

  “This is my first case.”

  She didn’t laugh.

  Now a smoldering missile flew from the taxi, and a thin, wrinkled hand gripped the doorframe. Having asserted her prerogative, she’d exit the car.

  He moved to lend an arm, but she declined it.

  “I’m not that sick.” Her accent, due south: Carolinas.

  He dodged from her path, paid off the driver with a company Mastercard, and heaved a purple trolley-case from the trunk. Although the five-day conference would finish tomorrow lunchtime, the vaccine chief’s baggage—with about a thousand wheels and zips—weighed enough to pack skirts for the Roman army.

  She scuttled across the sidewalk to the revolving glass door.

  He followed with the purse and the case.

  A silent motor turned and the door gulped air. Then a raucous shout exploded.

  “Surprise.”

  THERE MUST have been sixty people there, jostling inside the entrance like pre-Ks fighting to pet the rabbits. Physicians, scientists, executives, sales staff, wearing everything from Armani to Dollar Tree. As
Doc Mayr spun through, they erupted into applause, calling “surprise,” “bravo,” and “well done.”

  Inside the door was a marble platform with four steps down, left and right, skirting a pot of lime green chrysanthemums. Doc Mayr lunged forward and grabbed a brushed steel rail as a pathway opened for BerneWerner’s chief executive: grinning teeth to drive at night by. This was Marcia Gelding—British, auburn-haired in a pink-and-gray trouser suit—looking more like a department store fragrance consultant than the head of a twenty-billion-dollar biotech.

  “We’re so thrilled,” she shrieked, with enough Shakespeare to raise Virginia. Half turn. Cheek-cheek. “Darling Trudy.”

  The lobby fell silent except for elevator dings and the shuffle of a greasy bossa nova. Ben blinked at the crowd and the crowd blinked back to Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “Meditation.” Soaring strings, one-hand piano, woodblock, and maracas. No vocals.

  Chaaa ch-ch-chaa chaa. Chaaa ch-ch-chaa chaa. Music to dance with a chainsaw round a corpse.

  The chief executive, or “Ms. Marvelous” as they’d dubbed her in marketing, flapped toward a guy with a video camera. “We ready? Are we ready? Now, where’s the award?”

  Ben considered the wisdom of shifting to the wings. He must have looked like a ventriloquist between the women. But he knew that camera guy: Freddie Mascarenas, an assistant in Social Media Outreach. Within the hour, his video would hit the fifth-floor production suite at the BerneWerner Building and be posted minutes later on Facebook.

  Now half the crowd were holding up phones, and Ms. Gelding posed a three-header selfie. From Washington DC: vaccine chief Doc Mayr… chief executive Ms. Marvelous… and the nonspecifically significant Ben Louviere.

  He parked the trolley-case, slid the shoulder purse beside it, folded his arms, and grinned. Hoffman was right: here was an opportunity. Everyone who was anyone would see him.

  The CEO sparkled as only she could. “Trudy, we’re so pleased, so delighted by your presence, to present you with something rather special, rather super.”