“I’ve seen them. You’re getting plenty of attention,” said Eastland. “This is the wonder drug you’re about to launch?”
Flexner shifted position in his chair. “Look, this has no bearing on the matter of the Japanese woman.”
“How do you know?”
“It’s unrelated.”
“We’ll judge that for ourselves, Mr. Flexner.”
“I’d rather not discuss the drug. If any of what I said leaked out prematurely, it could get us suspended on the stock market.”
“Everything you tell me stays within these walls,” Eastland assured him while the unseen watchers in the room across the corridor continued impassively to follow the interview.
David Flexner passed his hand agitatedly across his mouth. “You’re putting me in a difficult position.”
“The hot seat.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m putting you in the hot seat.”
“Oh.” An unhappy smile flickered across the young man’s lips. “You appreciate that I only took over as Chairman quite recently, when my father died,” he explained. “Frankly, the business hasn’t gone too brilliantly for some while. We slipped badly in the pharmaceuticals league table. Our competitors like Merck and Lilly have developed new drugs and gotten away from us. And quite recently our stock market rating took a dive because of a fire at one of our major plants in Italy. The place was gutted.”
“And that hit confidence here?”
“Manflex Italia is our main European subsidiary. The investigation is still going on. We could be dealing with a case of arson.”
“But you hope to restore confidence with this new drug, is that it?” said Eastland.
David Flexner gave a nod. “One mass-selling product can make a hell of a difference. Without saying more man I have to, I can tell you that Prodermolate-”
“Prodermolate?”
“PDM3. It’s one of thousands of compounds that we patented over the years. The great majority never come to anything. Well, it happens that this drug-which was developed getting on twenty years ago-is more effective than anyone suspected.”
“For what?”
“Forgive me, but I can’t tell you that, Lieutenant We’re due to make an announcement in a couple of days and the future of Manflex rests on it. And thousands of jobs. We’re under tremendous pressure to leak the information before Tuesday. I can’t tell anyone, not even you, not even in this place.”
“You can’t withhold information,” said Eastland in a voice more offended than threatening. “I need to know.”
“I’m sorry, but-”
“You think I’m going to rush out tomorrow and buy shares in Manflex?”
“Well, no.”
“I have better things to do than gamble on the stock exchange, Mr. Flexner. If I wanted to be a rich man, I wouldn’t be in this job.”
“But I’m under an obligation.”
Eastland lifted his voice a fraction. “You’re under an obligation? What about me? I have to find a child, a handicapped child, as a matter of fact, who is in real danger of losing her life. This isn’t hide-and-seek, it’s child murder unless I find her.”
“Murder?”
After a sufficient pause, Eastland added, “We’ve had one killing already.”
The quickness of Flexner’s reaction, a spasm of shock that produced a rictuslike baring of the mouth, showed that he was primed for the bad news. Clearly he took the statement to mean that Diamond was the victim. This was the fear most on his mind. In a tone that showed he was about to capitulate, he said, “I wish you’d told me right out.”
“You haven’t been entirely open with me. Tell me about this drag,” said Eastland with the timing of a skilled interrogator. Flexner had whitened noticeably. “You give me your word it goes no further?”
“Secrets are my business.”
“Okay. I, um, I’m not the best-informed person to talk about the potential of the drug, but I gather it was patented back in 1975 at Cornell. The original research was carried out on a grant from Beaver River Chemicals, who became a subsidiary of ours when my father took them over about 1976. Nobody found much use for the stuff. That’s the way things are. You discover thousands of compounds and register them without knowing if they’re any use. Not many are chosen for development, which is extremely costly. It can run into millions. Professor Churchward has discovered that PDM3 is effective in regenerating the nerve cells of the brain.”
“Is that special?”
He looked pained that such a question had to be asked. “I said regenerating. It’s unknown to science. It’s a tremendous breakthrough. It means that we can arrest the process of mental aging.”
“Alzheimer’s?” said Eastland.
“Yes, but more than that, vastly more. PDM3 fosters the production of new cells. We can foresee its being used to sustain the brain at peak efficiency into advanced old age.”
“For anyone?”
“Exactly.”
“So it’s a surefire money-spinner,” Eastland said in a swift descent to market economics. “On Tuesday, you’re launching this drug?”
Flexner raised his hands like a man looking into a gun barrel. “No, no. That’s still at least a year off. We’re staging a conference to report on the work so far and announce that we’re going into the third stage of testing, which is extensive preclinical trials.”
“But the mere fact that you are starting the trials will lead to massive investment in Manflex.”
“That is likely.”
“You mentioned a professor just now.”
“Churchward. He’s at Corydon University, in Indianapolis. I flew out there to see him last week. He’s leading the teams at work on PDM3.”
“Did you form a good estimate?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you like the guy?”
“I didn’t have to.”
“Trust him, then?”
“My judgment is that he’s a good scientist, or I wouldn’t be putting our resources into the drug.”
“So you see a bright future, Mr. Flexner.”
“For mankind, with an advance like this? Certainly.”
“For Manflex Pharmaceuticals.”
He looked faintly embarrassed. “I expect so.”
“You can do without a murder inquiry on your doorstep right now.”
‘Too damned true.”
“And you say you mentioned Detective Diamond to nobody?” “Not a living soul.” Impulsively, Flexner said, “Could we keep it out of the papers until after Tuesday?”
Eastland behaved as if the question hadn’t been put. “When you called him on the phone, did you dial the number yourself?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t ask the switchboard to get the number for you?”
“No.”
“Can they listen in to outside calls?”
“I’m pretty sure they can’t”
“Let’s take another view of this,” suggested Eastland. “Who else beside yourself knows what you intend to announce on Tuesday?”
“About PDM3?” He cast his eyes upwards, as if the names were written on the ceiling. “My deputy, Michael Leapman, and Professor Churchward, of course. They’ll both be at the conference.”
“The professor is in New York?”
“He flew in tonight. He’s staying at the Waldorf Astoria.”
“No one else knows about PDM3?”
“I can’t think of anyone. There are people working on various phases of the project, but only Michael and Professor Churchward know the whole picture.”
“Your wife?”
“I’m unmarried.”
“Girlfriend?”
Flexner shook his head.
“So who is the opposition?” Eastland asked. “Who has an interest in screwing up your big announcement?”
“Competitors, you mean?”
“If you like. Someone took the child. Who do you suspect, Mr. Flexner?”
“I’ve no idea. I’d rule out our competitors. They wouldn’t get involved in anything criminal. Can’t you find out from the mother if anyone has approached her?”
“I told you the mother is missing.”
Flexner let out a long breath. “I can’t explain any of this.”
“It’s pretty obvious that someone in Manflex reacted quickly when Diamond got in touch with you. My guess is mat your office is bugged. Have you thought about that?”
His eyes widened.
Eastland added, “I can think of no other way they could have set this thing up, hired the team to take care of him and also set off the smoke alarm in your building. It was an inside job, Mr. Flexner. No question.”
The young man shook his head, more as a way of coming to terms with the unthinkable than as a denial.
Eastland said. “Where do I find Michael Leapman?”
“Michael? He has no reason to-”
“Was he in the building this afternoon?”
“Yes, but-”
“His address, please.”
“I don’t know. He lives in New Jersey.”
“You have a phone number?”
“Somewhere.” He felt into the back pocket of his jeans.
“But Michael is the last man on earth to want to screw up our plans. PDM3 is his baby.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
It couldn’t have happened in England. Deep in New York’s Chinatown at close to midnight a patrolman had acquired from a clothing emporium for oversize men called Chunky Chang a pair of white cotton trousers with a fifty-inch waist, an XL T-shirt, a loose-knit pink sweater, socks and white sneakers. Diamond was clothed again, if not remotely to his taste. And now he was being driven with Lieutenant Eastland and Sergeant Stein via the Holland Tunnel to New Jersey.
“So what have we got on this guy?” Eastland asked.
Stein had been assigned the problematic task of obtaining a profile of Michael Leapman by radio contact while they were driving to interview him. “No record of arrests,” he said. “Vice Chairman of Manflex for the past five years. Unmarried. Thirty-seven, originally out of Detroit. He worked mere for a pharmaceuticals firm called Fredriksson and Lill. Worked his way up to executive director and then the firm got taken over by Manflex. You want to know the letters he can put after his name?”
“We get the picture,” said Eastland. “Old man Flexner must have rated him to make him Vice Chairman.”
“David Flexner has a good opinion of Leapman, too,” Diamond chipped in, waiting to justify his presence in the party. “And if we believe young Flexner-as I’m inclined to, having watched him under questioning-Leapman has a personal stake in the success of PDM3. He promoted it strongly inside the company. He arranged for Flexner to meet the professor in Indianapolis.”
The car moved on a couple of blocks before anyone followed up the remark, and then it was Stein who spoke. “So why would a good company man like Leapman risk everything on the eve of their big announcement by putting out a contract on a British detective?”
“You mean what made me a threat?” said Diamond.
“No, I mean what made the little girl a threat? You’re just a pawn in the game.”
Such offensive remarks were best treated with indifference, in Diamond’s experience. “I think it has to be connected with this drug, doesn’t it?” he said without betraying the slightest resentment. “PDM3 could be the jackpot of all time, as David Flexner made clear. Leapman is pushing like mad to get it licensed. We don’t know yet how big his personal involvement is, but it’s possible that he’s seen this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and invested his own capital in the company. He must have been shattered when the Chairmanship of Manflex was bequeathed to David Flexner. As I see it, he uses his inside knowledge to get a big payday as compensation.”
“Are you saying this could be a scam, this whole thing about the drug?” asked Stein.
“No, I think it would be difficult to fool so many people. There are all kinds of safeguards in the drugs industry. They must have had some very promising results from the preclinical trials. They couldn’t fake them. But the timing is amazing, isn’t it? They’re ready to go public on the miraculous properties of this drug now, just when Manflex is nose-diving. The stuff has been around for twenty years.”
“He explained that,” Eastland pointed out. “They didn’t know it was useful until the professor started work on it.”
“But he’s been working on it for some years.”
“You think they sat on it until now?”
“I’m just trying to account for Leapman’s behavior-if he really is the villain. Of course it may be that Manny Flexner knew about PDM3 and wasn’t so convinced as his Vice Chairman. Manny may have put the brake on it.”
“If there is anything suspect about the drug, it won’t stay secret for long,” said Eastland. “Like you said, every drug company in the world will want to know the formula and scrutinize the results, not to mention the analysts who advise the stock market.”
Diamond wouldn’t be shaken from his conviction that the decision within Manflex to press ahead with PDM3 had triggered the crimes they were investigating. “Yes, the results so far must be watertight, or they wouldn’t risk publishing them. Let’s accept that everything we’ve heard about the drug is true, and that it’s the most exciting discovery since penicillin. Then isn’t it certain-as sure as God made little green apples-that the criminal fraternity will have got to hear of the payday in prospect?”
“The mob?”
“The barons who run crime in this city of yours, from whatever community. They could be calling the shots.”
“Maybe,” said Eastland. “Maybe.” After a moment he admitted, “It’s plausible.”
Sergeant Stein said wistfully, “It’s a terrific payoff.”
Eastland then followed up his double “maybe” by commenting insensitively, “This is all very neat except that we’re investigating a missing kid, not a killing on the stock exchange. The only link we have is that the kid’s mother happens to be sponsored by Manflex.”
Of all people, Diamond didn’t need reminding about Naomi, but he wasn’t going to be shaken from the point he’d made. “Come on, there’s ample evidence that professional crooks are involved. Mrs. Tanaka’s was a contract killing. And the people who attacked me weren’t amateurs.”
“So why was Mrs. Tanaka killed?” asked Sergeant Stein.
“My guess is that she was given a job to do and she failed. They considered her untrustworthy.”
“She was expendable.”
“Just a pawn, like me.”
“How about the kid?” said Stein. “Is she expendable, too?”
“No,” said Diamond, quick to dismiss the unthinkable. “If they’d wanted to harm Naomi, they’d have done it long ago.”
“I may be dumb,” said Eastland, “but nobody has explained to me yet how one small, mentally handicapped girl is so important in this case.”
Diamond had no answer. He’d long since reached the conclusion that Lieutenant Eastland was anything but dumb.
Leapman’s house was one of six in a cul-de-sac north of Hoboken, spacious two-story wooden buildings with attached garages owned (Diamond guessed) by the kind of people who couldn’t yet afford a prime position overlooking Manhattan, but had their hopes. They had plaster geese on their porches and flagpoles in their lawns.
No lights showed at the windows of the end house, but that wasn’t remarkable considering that it was already 1:15 A.M. Two households were watching TV and the others were dark.
The police car glided to a stop in the street outside the Leapman address. Diamond reached for his door handle and gasped with pain. His right arm still hurt.
“I don’t think so,” Eastland told him. “You’ve seen enough action for one night. We have our procedures. Ready to go, Stein?”
Submissive for a change, Diamond remained in the car and watched them approach the house, guns drawn, moving with stealth. A
t the front door, Stein stood well to one side when he pressed the bell, probably mindful of cops who had been shot through doors.
The chimes were audible from the street.
No lights went on.
Eastland moved around the side of the house, leaving Stein, who sounded the chimes several times more without response.
When a light did appear, it was only Eastland’s flashlight bobbing around the other side, past the garage entrance. He pointed it through a front room window and beckoned to Stein to join him. They stood together staring inside for what became to Peter Diamond an unbearable interval.
Diamond told the driver, “Blow this for a lark. They’ve spotted something. I’m going over.”
The action of removing himself from the car gave him another uncomfortable reminder of the strains he’d put on his physique that night. No catlike movement across the drive for him. He hobbled.
Lieutenant Eastland turned and came towards him.
“What have you found?” Diamond asked, but Eastland walked right past him and used the radio in the car.
“What is it?” He was addressing Stein now, but the question was superfluous.
Michael Leapman’s front room looked as if it had stood in the path of stampeding buffaloes. The moving flashlight picked out a unit lying tilted across a sofa, with books and ornaments strewn across the floor. The television set was faceup, smashed. A chair lay across a table.
“Is he in there?”
“We can’t see,” said Stein, still with his gun drawn. “We don’t know.”
“Shouldn’t we go in?”
“The lieutenant wants a backup.”
“I can provide that Have you checked all the doors? The windows?”
“Don’t get me wrong, but he wouldn’t want backup from you.”
“Why not?”
“Do you have a piece?”
“No.”
Stein gave a shrug that said he wouldn’t want backup, either, from a man without a piece.
“Any signs of a breakin?” Diamond asked.
“No.”
Eastland came back and reported that the Emergency Service Unit was on its way. “The perps could still be inside. I’m taking no chances.”
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