BLIND TRIAL Read online

  “Came home? What do you mean? I’d say a vacation is premature.”

  “No. Not so much anything like that. I mean, it’s nothing that serious, or anything to worry about, you know. But I’ve been kind of doing some thinking about where it’s all taking me. I was thinking maybe I could do better with something else. You know, it’s not exactly working out here how I figured.”

  “What? What are you saying now? That band won’t put food on the table.”

  Through an open window, he heard a splash from the pool. “You might think that, but I think we were doing great. And, if worse comes to worse, I can always work traffic court. Luke reckons it’s cool when you get into it.”

  His mother’s tongue went “tu-tu-tu,” as if she’d found a prophylactic under a pew. “So that’s what you want then? You said you were interested in medicine. ‘Heal the sick and raise the dead’ was your idea.”

  This was going nowhere. He needed to be direct. He’d need to utter the name: the dreaded name.

  “That was a joke.”

  “If you’re asking me for an opinion, you need to give it a year or two. At least. The experience—and the money, if I could mention that—is what you need. No. You grin and bear it till you’ve saved up. That’s my advice. And what about your school fees?”

  “Yeah, but a year or two’s a long time when you’re shoveling shit. And if I come home now then at least I’ve got somewhere to live before Luke rents out my room.”

  “That’s no reason. Now Susan’s away in Singapore, we’ve got two empty bedrooms.”

  “And then there’s the band.” Another evasion. Be quicker to buy a stamp and mail a letter. “I mean, I know we could be going somewhere, and Jad’s looking to find a new voice.”

  “Hold on a minute.” He heard his mother walking: heels rapping tiles. A door thumped.

  “It’s not definite or anything. I’m only thinking out loud, trying to see what people think.”

  “So, what’s brought this on now? Not that nonsense about the silly laptop? Just buy another one.”

  Now he caught the sounds of the St. Savior’s vestry clock: a brass pendulum job, with a white dial and black Roman numbers. “No, it’s not that. It’s the whole setup, you know. I mean, it’s not good. It’s not how I figured it would be. These people are pretty creepy. Luke was right.”

  “Well, they do a lot of good work. There’s treatments we’ve got at the hospital keeping people alive. You shouldn’t listen to Luke all the time. He’s a cynic. He gets it from his mother.”

  He reopened his front door and checked the pool. The author of the splash had gotten out and gone, leaving a trail of wet footprints to the gate. “Yeah, well they’ve made it pretty clear they don’t need me. Been giving out iPads for a week. Seems everyone gets one but me.”

  He heard the vestry clock, tick-tocking death’s approach, as it tick-tocked through his altar boy career. He could see its second hand, counting his life out in circles, and its pendulum, left–right, left–right. He used to loiter beside it with a four-foot candle, waiting for Father Jakub to lead off.

  “Plain truth.” Here we go. “They don’t trust me, to be honest. It’s why I’m doing all this sucky module B stuff. They don’t trust me with anything. They’re praying for a reason to fire me.”

  “Don’t be silly. Why wouldn’t they trust you? Because a computer got stolen from your car?”

  He released the front door and sat on a coffee table. “If you must know, they know. Alright?”

  “What do you mean, ‘They know’? They know what?”

  “They know.”

  She paused. “What do you mean?”

  “About him.”

  “They know about him? What are you talking about? Make some sense, please, if possible.”

  “Centralia. They actually said it.”

  His mother gasped like she’d grabbed a boiling chalice. “What are you talking about? What do you mean, Centralia? What do they know about that?”

  “Hit me with it Friday. Like a way to insult me. How it plays when it reaches Centralia.”

  Now a longer pause. Someone entered the vestry. Then coughing, a rasp, and a boom. “So, who said what? What did they say?”

  “This guy Hoffman. I used to think he was cool, but he’s the biggest creep of them all, if you ask me.”

  An even longer pause. Just the clock ticking. Tick–tock. Tick–tock. Tick–tock.

  “Mom? You there?”

  “Who’s he then? You’ve not mentioned that name.”

  “Runs all the legal stuff. He’s the general counsel. Thinks he’s a wise guy. Smooth.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Mr. Hoffman.”

  “That’s not… That’s not, is it, Theodore Hoffman?” Her voice tightened to a choke. “It’s nothing like that is it? Ben?”

  “Yeah, that’s him. How’d you know that? Been checking out the website, or what?”

  “Oh, mother of God.”

  “What?”

  “No, nothing.”

  “Why? What d’you know about him then?”

  “Nothing. Nothing at all. Who told you I know him? Why have you called?”

  “You just said his name.”

  “Did he say? Or somebody else?”

  “Mom, you’re not making sense. You just told me his name. You just told me it.”

  “Answer my question. Who else have you been speaking with? Tell me.”

  “You know you’re talking gibberish. You been necking the sacrament?”

  “It doesn’t matter then. It’s getting late here. I’ve got to get home and I’m going for lunch with Bessie.”

  “Obviously it does matter. What is it? It’s something about Mr. Hoffman. How d’you know him then? I mean, if you know him, maybe you can help me with something.”

  “Look Ben, it’s better… Not now… I really have to go… Let’s deal with all this later. I’ve got to go.”

  Eleven

  IN A GRAY linoleum corridor on Level 4, Building 30, of the San Francisco General Hospital, white fluorescent tubes buzzed above Sumiko Honda as she tapped letters and numbers into a keyboard. Access denied. She tried a second time. Access denied. A third time. Access denied.

  The only explanation: they’d canceled her password. And it was only Sunday morning. They moved fast.

  She’d fired her best shot and probably missed. For certain, they’d now fire back. What she needed—and quick—was better ammunition: something to nail Wilson for good. In a trial of that size, there was bound to be something. With Wilson, it wasn’t whether. It was what.

  She headed to his office. But his door was locked. Then she heard her iPhone ringing in reception. She hurried down the corridor, pulled open an embroidered handbag, and checked the last call. It was Ben.

  After the Metro incident, he’d been so attentive, and so free with the most gratifying support. At least he believed her. He’d said, “You’re right.” He’d even escorted her to Dulles an hour early. They sat so close in the back of the taxi she got a whiff of that wonderful smell.

  “Maybe he put a contract on your life,” he’d suggested, as she scanned her boarding pass at the airport.

  That made her snigger. A contract on her life? Wilson couldn’t put a contract on his lawn. But she wouldn’t return the call yet. That would look too keen. Best wait until she’d gathered more facts.

  She slumped on a chair and stared across the waiting area: forty green seats with too-flexible backs, scattered with old Vogues and Vanity Fairs. Ardelia Chambers, the center’s tidy-minded manager, must have taken Friday afternoon off.

  Sumiko massaged her left ankle, mildly inflamed from the fall, and smiled with affection for her injury. She wouldn’t have died. The train wasn’t that close. And she hadn’t spent years at yoga and tai chi to lack the suppleness to climb that platform. It was more the shock than anything. And her reward had been worth it: the way he
scooped her up was just… wow.

  But what to do now, with everything locked, at 09:22 Pacific?

  A GRAY STEEL shutter was pulled down on the reception desk. Ah-ha. The shutter. A solution? It had never locked right. Sumiko leaped and dug her fingers, and, with pressure, it rattled up in her palms. She hopped onto the counter, swung her legs across it, dropped the other side, and stabbed a switch.

  More white tubes lit three workstations, each with a monitor and swivel chair. She felt underneath Ardelia’s desk drawers and pulled out a yellow sticky Post-it note with a reminder of the manager’s password.

  On the flight back from Washington, she’d had an idea: she would check which no-shows were Wilson’s. As she’d tried to explain to Trudy Mayr on the Mall, if it was the clients he insulted who most often dropped out, that might impact the trial’s results. If they were gay men, MSMs, sex workers, or needle-sharers, then he might have scared off those most at risk from HIV, making the vaccine look better than it was.

  She tapped Ardelia’s password into the secure data system, waited for the server to deliver a welcome screen, then clicked on a brown-and-yellow box.

  Fifty-six volunteers were coded lost to follow-up. She raised the list and clicked on the first. Up came WV000847: Noah James Greenspan, with an address in Mill Valley, California. A summary screen appeared with the client’s picture—a good-looking African American with a Cupid’s bow smile—and boxes of personal information. Age at enrollment: twenty-two. Self-reported heterosexual. Bar tender.

  Now, to business. She’d see what was what. And, more important, she’d see what wasn’t. The company had gotten a grant from a federal research study: the Sustaining Participation, Involvement, and Retention Endeavor, “SPIRE,” which attempted to find lost to follow-up participants on medical trials of all kinds across the United States.

  At the foot of Noah’s summary, she clicked on a link. The federal study might yield valuable information. The system hung with an hourglass icon, then a screen screamed:

  ACCESS NOT AVAILABLE

  Blast. Damn. She covered her mouth. Her own permissions in the system didn’t extend to SPIRE, and now it seemed that neither did Ardelia’s.

  She returned to the summary. The client wasn’t Wilson’s. Noah was enrolled, consented, and managed by Dr. Abhilasha Dutta, one of eleven physicians who’d worked fulltime, part-time, or occasional sessions since the mayor formally opened the center. Two shots were administered by the date of the trial’s unblinding, when Noah was revealed as randomized to placebo. He was consistently found to be HIV-negative on both antibody and antigen tests.

  She closed the file and opened the next: WV003977, Isabelle Dada, aged thirty-five. Residence: downtown Oakland. Also two shots. Final virology: HIV-negative. Unblinded again as placebo.

  SPIRE access: not available. Again, not a Wilson. Sumiko saw Isabelle herself.

  She checked a third and fourth client. A fifth and sixth. But none were listed as the center director’s. She checked two more: one of her own and one of Abby’s. Then, at last, she hit on a Wilson. It was one of the two deaths she’d found online: the boy she learned from Google had drowned.

  Here was Ed C. Bernstein: eighteen when enrolled. WV004001. Nothing unusual in his notes. Randomized to WernerVac, HIV-negative, bloodwork as expected. Events: colds and flu. Nothing. Nanimo. Zilch. She noted a few wrong keystrokes and time-stamped corrections, but nothing worse than Abby’s or her own.

  Three more cases. Nil of interest. Then the other client death she’d discovered. Here was Helen Allison Glinski, thirty-three at enrollment. The Chronicle ran a paid-for obituary. A retail manager, from Corona Heights, San Francisco. Trial number WV006974. She was signed up by Dr. Mohammed Shah and came for two shots, then signed off as lost to follow-up by, yes, Wilson.

  She tapped through the Glinski records: virology… biochemistry… immunology… microbiology… clinical. Nothing remarkable. Helen was randomized to receive the company’s vaccine, and her antibody test for HIV was positive. So, here was a Wilson client with a breakthrough infection. A few minor issues were reported in the notes: headaches, sinusitis, an injection site nodule. But she’d gone lost to follow-up months before her death, so nothing about the heart disease that killed her.

  Over the next ninety minutes, Sumiko found five more of Wilson’s—three on placebo; two on WernerVac—but nothing to pin anything on him. A few date-stamped corrections, but nothing out-of-the-ordinary. SPIRE access: unavailable for any.

  She returned to the welcome screen, raised the list again, and clicked on an icon for print. A laser by the reception counter spat five sheets of paper: fifty-six names, ID numbers, birth dates, and residential addresses at enrollment.

  POSSIBLY THIS wasn’t the most promising strategy. Where else could she look? Ah-ha. If Ardelia’s password couldn’t access SPIRE, it could certainly open Wilson’s correspondence.

  She quit the database and launched a mail server. “Speaker thanks.” Click. A speaking invitation. “Corridor letter.” Click. A feud with the hospital. “NCI cash.” Click. A grant application. She clicked at random through Wilson’s wit and wisdom. She could be here for the rest of her life.

  There were bound to be emails referring to herself. There would surely be “Honda this” and “Honda that.” She opened “Honda noise” and found a memo Wilson sent her about “playing cheap music” in her room. She opened “Vacation honda” and found a note telling Ardelia that, in his absence, Dr. Dutta was in charge. She opened “Honda jap” and found a memo banning staff from making international phone calls.

  What an asshole. What a pig to work for. What a stinking bucket of excrement on wheels.

  She scrolled and scrolled: “Glove supplies glitch… PCR reagents…” Then she lingered on a filename: “Ramirez bump.”

  Rafael Ramirez was lost to follow-up. She’d tapped through his file an hour ago. Click. A Wilson letter to one Rafael Juan Ramirez, of Clementina Street, San Francisco.

  Dear Rafael,

  Your contribution to our WernerVac phase III randomized placebo controlled clinical trial has been greatly appreciated. However, we now find we are in the fortunate position of being somewhat oversubscribed and are therefore able to release some participants from this arduous regime of attendance.

  I am therefore glad to tell you that we will no longer require you to attend the center for further sessions. Naturally, you will receive the full reimbursement for your involvement, agreed at enrollment, including payment for those future sessions for which we no longer need you to attend.

  We will write you in due course with the outcome of the study. Thank you so much for your assistance with this important project. You should feel proud of your contribution.

  Frank V. Wilson, MD, Director.

  Sumiko was gobsmacked. Bizarre. Nonsensical. Oversubscribed with volunteers? That’s ludicrous. And bumping a volunteer? That’s impossible, impermissible. This shouldn’t happen. Can’t happen. Did.

  Twelve

  SUMIKO CALLED him that night, but what she said hardly registered. Ben had only one thing on his mind. There was a connection of some kind between his mother and Mr. Hoffman. She hadn’t pulled his name off the website.

  All afternoon, his mother’s phone was switched off. His calls went to voicemail: none returned. It was 21:25 Central before she finally had the guts to sneak out of hiding and pick up.

  She was in the street, walking. Where or why didn’t matter. What mattered was she’d better explain.

  “So, you do know him then?”

  “Possibly… I’m not sure.”

  “Gimme a break, mom. We both know it.”

  “Well, even if it’s him, it’s all a long time ago now, and it’s not important anymore. I think we ought to leave it there. What belongs in the past ought to stay in the past. I hope you’re in a better mood now.”

  “What, you had an affair, or something? You were screwing? I mean, so what? It�
�s the twenty-first century, you know. In fact, it might give me some leverage.”

  He heard the rub and rustle of clothing as she moved.

  “Look, mom, I can get his personal number, and ask him, if I have to. So, you might as well tell me before this gets embarrassing.”

  “Don’t do that. Promise me you won’t. Promise me you won’t get involved. If you want to come home, then perhaps you should. I can help for a few months if you need money.”

  “What do you mean, ‘get involved’? I’m already involved. They’re threatening to fire me, and they know about him. Mr. Hoffman’s the one who told me.”

  “Fire you? Why? This is really all pointless. If you’ve made your mind up, follow your instincts. Why not come home next weekend, and we can talk about it then?”

  “Must know him pretty well to get so uptight. Look, ultimatum. I’ll ask him if you don’t tell me.”

  “That would be a mistake.”

  “Last chance. I’m gonna phone his office first thing tomorrow and ask how he knows Suzy Louviere. If he’s an old boyfriend, or something, that’s nothing to anyone. Mother, I’m too white to be his love child.”

  She sighed a sigh: a sigh kept in store to encapsulate a life full of sighs. “Alright. But let’s be straight. Be quite sure we have the right man. Lawyer. Big man. Full of himself.”

  “Theodore Hosea Hoffman III.”

  Dead air on the phone connection confirmed it was him. “Alright,” she said. “You asked me.” Keys jangled. “But don’t blame me. It’s you who wants to know.”

  “Continue.”

  “I should have known something like this would happen. I warned him to stay away, but he laughed.”

  Suzy then spoke of Theodore Hoffman. He was Henry’s biggest buddy, back in the day. He used to come to the house till Ben was nearly three. “Once a month, or so.” Never less. Aged eleven months, Ben let go a chair and took his first steps… to Hoffman.

  But when the government started sniffing, Henry’s friend stopped coming. Then he called one Christmas Eve, years later. The conversation went badly. She hung up. He called again. And he promised he would help her son.