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  One sister murmured, “He’s hotter than he’s smart.” But the other pressed the nuclear button. “So, you know what I did?”

  “Hit me.”

  “I checked out the names of the lost to follow-ups. Ran them through Google and the Chronicle online. And two of them actually came up as dead.”

  “Dead?”

  “Two out of fifty-six. What are the odds of that?”

  “Dunno. Guess it depends what they died of.”

  “One boy drowned. And a woman suffered heart failure.”

  “Well, like I say, I’m only a lawyer. But I guess them being dead might make them miss appointments.”

  “They missed them before they died. I checked.”

  He didn’t look convinced. “Okay. I don’t know what to say. Maybe you should tell Doc Mayr. She’ll probably want to know about the things he says.”

  “She won’t want to know.”

  “Sure, she’ll want to know.”

  “Believe me, she won’t want to know.”

  He rose from the chair. “You want my advice? Tell the truth and shame the devil. That’s always my motto. Got to be. She’ll definitely want to know. And I think I can fix you a meeting.”

  Sumiko produced a business card and laid it on the desk. “You think you could do that? Could you?”

  “That’s a no problemo. I’m Ben Louviere. I’m like Doc Mayr’s special assistant.”

  Four

  THEODORE HOFFMAN’S Crown Victoria rolled to a halt on H Street at Twelfth like a train edging into Union Station. He’d replaced her distributor cap and sparkplugs on the weekend, and now she was running damn comfy. Through the door panel, his knuckles felt the clatter of the valve train: as smooth as an old lady knitting.

  Marcia Gelding swung her legs from the seat beside him and clambered onto the street. She’d been sipping martini cocktails with Trudy Mayr in the bar when Ben Louviere blundered in and broke the news.

  “So, this needs fixing,” she spat. “Do I make myself clear? Pronto. Prontissimo. Fix it.”

  “You got it.”

  “You too, Doctorjee. Fix it.” She spoke into the back of the vehicle. “I hate deaths. They’re always the worst.”

  She thumped the door shut, tugged at her skirt, and wriggled off on pink heels toward the Marriott.

  In the rearview mirror, Hoffman caught the Brahmin half-smile that Dr. Viraj Grahacharya, Executive Vice President, Research & Medicine—or “Doctorjee” as he encouraged everybody to call him—had perfected in a lifetime of condescension. It was a mix of I know something that you don’t know and I’m not going to tell you what it is.

  “I do fear we need to be prudent in this matter,” Doctorjee said. “If there is the least implication of impropriety.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning we might consider eliminating San Francisco’s data from the study, if what this young woman indicates about Frank’s conduct is substantiated.”

  “You what?”

  “Of course, I’m concerned about the verbal abuse. But there also appears to be an allegation relating to data. If there’s any remote possibility of such issues being substantiated, our ethical duty might be nothing less than to remove any potential for confusion and pull the center altogether.”

  Hoffman groaned. “That’s as wrong as two left shoes. How the fuck can you pull the center? Wilson’s first author of your paper. You’d have Wilson et al. with no Wilson.”

  Doctorjee shifted on the Ford’s red vinyl, provoking a squeal like a balloon on glass. “Of course, he’s fulfilled an admirable mandate across the study, if perhaps his interpersonal manner is less satisfactory. But I must confess, if there are indications of any possible misconduct, it may even be incumbent upon us to request a brief respite in the application.”

  As the doctor repositioned, an acrid smell reached Hoffman’s nostrils: of tangerine and lavender cologne.

  “You what?”

  “We will have the Brazilian results shortly, which should suffice with the regulator.”

  “Brief respite? For Christ’s sake, we’ve put it out on Wall Street that FDA’s greenlighting us in ten days. The company’s punted nine hundred twenty million dollars on that damn vaccine. You know the Year One sales estimates?”

  “I do.”

  “Two hundred twenty-five million doses at sixty-eight dollars a dose. In Year One. Brief respite over some damn woman whining about Wilson? Great idea.”

  “One is merely offering conjectures, pro tem.”

  “And they’re pretty fucking useless conjectures.”

  “Here he comes.”

  BEN LOUVIERE turned the corner as the Man from Versace: tie loose, jacket draped from a shoulder. How he’d changed since he first turned up in Atlanta at the interview for the company scholarship. He’d arrived in a borrowed suit, sporting an oily black ponytail, bragging about his band, Plus Tax. Asked about his interests, he cited baseball and girls. His role model: Jay Farrar, a country-rock singer from Belleville, Illinois. His life goal: to live in Louisiana.

  Hoffman reached over and popped the passenger door lever, letting a soup of moist air into the car. He loved the capital’s humidity in summer: the old marshland felt good on his skin. As a kid in Detroit, he’d suffered bad with eczema and, though he’d grown out of the ointments and bandages of childhood, the dryness never let him be.

  “Ben Louviere, Doctorjee. Doctorjee, Ben.” The kid climbed in. They shook.

  The executive vice president undid his tie and sawed it against his collar. “So, Ben, please assist us. We are most interested to know what Dr. Honda has told you.”

  The kid twisted round and spoke into the back with a smartass look-at-me kind of face. “So, she says the San Fran Clinical Evaluation Center’s a shambles. That’s the word she used. ‘Shambles.’ Started off with stuff Dr. Wilson says to volunteers, she says. Some heavy homophobic stuff. But she also reckons he altered data. And she reckons he’s had an effect on the no-shows, dropouts, lost to follow-ups, and stuff.”

  Doctorjee leaned forward. “What about the lost to follow-ups?”

  “Says the percentage in San Fran was…”

  “Three point four-nine.”

  “Yeah. That’s what she said.”

  “And her implication? The ‘so what?’ if I might use such abridged terminology.”

  “Well, I didn’t quite follow that part, to be honest. The stuff he says, I get that. But then there were these two deaths, she said, and coming down to the lobby she said his conduct was what she called an ‘uncontrollable variable’ in the data. An ‘uncontrolled variable.’”

  Hoffman stabbed buttons and the car’s windows shuddered open. “Gotta say, that’d be some so what?”

  “Indeed.” Doctorjee folded and pocketed his tie. “But what about the data and deaths? What did she say precisely?”

  “Reckoned people were complaining about data getting changed. Retrospectively, she said. And she found two deaths online and in the San Fran Chronicle. Two of fifty-six lost to follow-ups, she said. One drowned and the other had heart failure, apparently.”

  “One big fucking so what?”

  “Just so.” The EVP brushed fluff from his shoulders. “In point of fact, I once executed a study of fatalities within seven days of Christian baptism. Our findings were intriguing.”

  Hoffman spoke into the rearview. “Your point being?”

  “My point being people do die, even whilst enrolled in clinical trials.”

  “Gotta say, we get some pretty frivolous suits these days in legal, but nobody’s come after us on a drowning.”

  “Which raises the pertinent question of precisely where she’s going with this? Ben, does she have any kind of agenda, did you detect? She’s not gone anti-vax on us?”

  “Agenda? I don’t know, sir. I don’t know any more than that. Seems genuine enough. Sure loves Dr. Wilson.”

  Doctorjee squeezed the f
ront passenger-side headrest. “And assuming none of these alleged issues are entirely new to her, she posits her concerns ten days before our product licensure?”

  “Guess so.”

  “Are you aware, has she informed anyone else of her concerns? I would point out that she did inform you.”

  “Well, yeah, she did inform me. And didn’t need much persuading, that’s for sure.”

  “And you told Trudy Mayr?”

  “I did. Maybe that wasn’t the right thing exactly. I don’t know.”

  Hoffman snorted. “It wasn’t.”

  “Think now, Ben. Did she perhaps indicate any consultations with anyone else?”

  “Not to me she didn’t. No. But, I mean, we weren’t talking long. She stopped by the Montreal Room for an iPad.”

  IN THE street beyond the car, Friday evening was advancing. Here and there, office lights were snapping on. This ought to be a calm time. A time for relaxation. But Hoffman smelled the stink of betrayal. At least with the other kids he’d recruited through the scholarships, there was the distance of professionalism: assessments, discussion. They’d gotten their jobs on merit. But with Ben it was different. There was this whole other thing. And this whole other thing was bringing shit.

  “So what you fucking tell the old girl for?”

  The kid leaned away, his right elbow through the window. His mouth stayed shut. Which was wise.

  Hoffman stabbed buttons and the windows shuddered shut, forcing Ben to pull his arm inside the car.

  “So, this is what you do to me?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Didn’t I tell you, come to me if you got any problems? Didn’t I say that? And what you do? You poke your stick down Trudy Mayr’s hole.”

  “But you weren’t around. You said you were busy today at FDA, and Sumiko, Dr. Honda, only wanted me to set up a meet with Dr. Mayr. Nothing else. Didn’t seem anything much. I thought what she said might be important, before she said it to anyone else.”

  “Important thing now for you kid is that final warning you got from Dr. Crampton. Huh? Important thing for you is what might happen to your ass Monday morning. And the important thing for you is what other folks will think. How it plays when it reaches Centralia.”

  Doctorjee: “Centralia? Would that be a school?”

  Ben said nothing. Which was wise.

  Five

  HOUSEKEEPING CALLED while Ben was at the meeting. When he pushed open the door to room 1115 of the Marriott at Metro Center, floor-length drapes were pulled against the evening, a patterned coverlet lifted to a closet, and fresh towels racked in the bathroom. In a three-second inventory, he verified his baggage: a gray backpack, a blue-orange-and-white Cubs bag, and a black-cased Gibson guitar.

  He dragged off his jacket, shoes, and socks, and in two steps was out of his pants. He moved to the bathroom, stripped his shirt and shorts, and hurled them against a wall by the door. He twisted the shower faucet, climbed into the bath, and stepped underneath a tepid spray.

  His mind swirled. Hoffman’s words enveloped him.

  “How it plays when it reaches Centralia.”

  Water streamed through his hair, across his shoulders, down his back. He pressed his forehead, cold, against tiles. In a mirror above the basin, he watched his body fade as a skim of steam settled on the glass.

  He covered his eyes. Water trickled through his fingers. He tried to fill his mind with something else. He thought of Crampton’s letter; Doc Mayr at the airport; the slim and tight Sumiko in the module.

  But the general counsel’s words kept coming and coming: a severed hand crawling across the floor.

  Now it all made sense: the assignment to marketing; the shit work; airport duty. They’d promised him a real job: maybe regulatory affairs, or liaison with the Capitol Hill lobbyists. But they must have found out. And now they didn’t trust him. They knew about his father: Henry Louviere.

  In Hoffman’s car, Ben clenched his abs, as if pumping a deadlift at the gym. Street sounds hollowed. Colors dimmed. The words hammered his ears like a kick drum.

  “How it plays when it reaches Centralia.”

  Henry Louviere: the man the Sun-Times dubbed “the fixer” during his first trial, in federal court. Henry Louviere: the topic of a WGN special feature when, years later, state prosecutors nailed him. Henry Louviere: disbarred, disgraced, corrupt lawyer.

  “How it plays when it reaches Centralia.”

  His son stepped from the bath, padded footprints to the windows, toweled himself down, and grabbed his phone.

  “Hey bro.”

  “What’s up Pudge?” His best buddy, Luke, panted. “Running from the park here. Just crossing Lakeshore. Hold on. Gonna sit on a wall.”

  Luke called him “Pudge” after the great Carlton Fisk: once the greatest of White Sox catchers. It had caught on as a nickname so far back even Luke said he couldn’t remember when.

  “Yeah man, back with you. How’s it hanging?”

  “Get ready, bro. I think I’m coming home. Haven’t rented out my room yet, have you?”

  Now Ben heard a blowing sound he’d heard a lot lately: a kind of do-I-really-need-this exhalation. They’d driven to Atlanta over Memorial Day weekend, with his stuff in the back of Luke’s Fiat Spider. But, even since then, the dynamic had shifted. An edge in Luke’s voice said it all.

  “Look, Mario’s practically signed the lease here. What you talking about anyhow? You just got there.”

  “I think it’s over. I’m fucked. Pretty certain they’re gonna terminate me Monday.”

  “Congratulations, man. Seven weeks. Way to go. What you do, fuck the CEO’s wife?”

  “Didn’t do anything. Can’t lay this one on me. Worst thing was I lost a fucking laptop.”

  Another exhalation: Luke’s signal for complexity. Friday evening wasn’t his evening for complexity. “Look man, had a shit day in traffic court. Up to my ass in administrative suspensions.”

  “Reckon yourself lucky you don’t work for these assholes.”

  “The scales drop from his eyes. It’s a biotech company. They’re the guys who are fucking with our food.”

  “Medicine’s different. It’s not the same thing.”

  “Yeah, your guys are fucking with our genomes.”

  “Yeah, well, right now they’re fucking with me. And they’re fucking me out of my job.”

  Another blowing sound. “Did I not say when you were scuffing my Spider…”

  “Screw your Spider.”

  Now not a sound, but a Luke-style quiz. “So… what you talking about this time?”

  “I mean, they know about him. They know about Centralia. They know. They know. So that’s it.”

  “What, you told them about him? Must be out of your mind.”

  “You know I never tell anyone.”

  “Well, there’s clips online, if you know what to Google. And the divorce made Court TV.”

  “Whatever. They know. Just hit me with it now.”

  “Yeah, but so what? The fuck’s he to do with you?”

  “You know what they say, ‘Like father like son.’ He’s a crook, so I must be also.”

  “Chill out. Take it easy. You’re probably reading too much into this. Catastrophizing, as ever.”

  “And that’s why they won’t let me near anything worth doing. That’s why I’m working that crappy module B hog house. Mom’s right about that guy. Creep.”

  Luke went silent. That was another Luke thing. Street sounds from Lincoln Park. “Yeah, well, anyhow, they can’t fire you for any of that. And even if they can, so what?”

  “So what is that scholarship they gave me. It’s a loan, remember. Not a grant. I got to work twelve months to write it off.”

  “So why not go see that guy who chaired your interview panel. Theodore Something Whatever?”

  “Yeah, right.”

  THE HOTEL was dozing when Ben came off the phone. Those conference p
articipants who hadn’t already left town were dining out in Georgetown and Adams Morgan. Ben headed to the elevator and rode to the lobby. Maybe he’d see Sumiko in the bar.

  But he didn’t see anyone—at least who he knew. Only an MD he’d given a free iPad. No Theodore Hoffman: general counsel and asshole. No chief executive Marcia Gelding: “Ms. Marvelous.” No Gertrude Mayr: Dr. Doral. No Doctorjee: the fat guy. Everyone who was anyone was absent.

  So where was this troupe who’d shouldered into his life? Not that he cared too much. He didn’t know these people. He didn’t want to know these people. And yet he sensed he’d soon know them well.

  He returned to his room and asked reception to call Sumiko. But her number rang out. Where was she? He downed a vodka from the minibar, rolled a grass joint, and took a couple of hits to calm his nerves.

  TNT was screening a Civil War epic. He sprawled on the bed and tried to follow it. Then he rose, gulped a Jack, and prowled the lobby, bar, and restaurant. He called her room again. Where was she?

  At midnight he was back, cradling his Gibson. He probably shouldn’t have brought it to the conference. Here was the J-45—the “American Workhorse”—with the vintage sunburst finish. Solid spruce top, mahogany back and sides, rosewood fretboard and bridge. The choice of Woodie Guthrie, John Lennon, and Sheryl Crow. Kicking ass since World War II.

  Strings bit his fingers as he picked an arpeggio. He tuned up his voice to the key. He coughed and hit a D for “Fifteen Years from Baton Rouge.” He was seventeen when he wrote the first draft.

  Fire in the swamp; man says I set it.

  Interstate chase on gator’s feet.

  Sun’s going down; I’m twelve feet tall,

  But, hey, what I done, it was nothin’ at all.

  He didn’t finish the song. It made him feel worse. He returned his beloved Gibson to its case. Then he set the TV timeout, climbed into bed, killed the lights, and pulled a pillow to his chest.

  SATURDAY JULY 19