AHMM, September 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Forrester continued speaking to Roc. “Now you've called Dawna in to meet with you and your patient."

  He turned his laser-gaze on Dawna. “So go for it, you lucky sales rep, the one with the easiest job in the world."

  The man was slick beyond slippery. He'd probably staged this little skit countless times. Created the situation all his reps would ultimately be dealing with. He didn't spell out what he wanted them to say. No, he simply gave them the available tools. And trusted that in their ignorance of the law, they'd misuse those tools without any coaching from him.

  It was as if he sensed what Dawna wanted from him and he was turning that desire against her. He was doing his damnedest to make Dawna show everyone how to break the law. She had to turn the tables. And she had to do it fast. Time was running out.

  As if he were still reading her mind, Forrester said, “We've only ten more minutes together. Let's get going."

  Roc winked at Dawna. “I'm interested in that article you gave me,” he began.

  Whitney interrupted. “We're supposed to be acting, right?” When Forrester nodded, she continued speaking to Roc. “You can't be so folksy. You're a doctor with a very sick patient, not a rep with a great product. Let me get my face right, that'll help you get serious.” Whitney bent over and her long brown hair fell forward to screen her expression. When she tossed the mane back and lifted her chin, the corners of her mouth turned down in a caricature of agony. “Please, Dr. Jefferson,” she moaned. “You have to help me."

  The woman had taken the classic worried mother-to-be to a new level. Overacting was the technique Whitney knew best. Any minute, she'd shriek from a labor pain.

  Maybe Dawna could make the same technique work for her. Forrester thought she needed guidance? She'd show him a dumber-than-dirt sales rep who needed help only he could give. “Oh my goodness,” she drawled. “This poor, poor woman. Whatever can I do for you, doctor?"

  Roc narrowed his eyes somberly. “Terbutaline taken orally isn't working. We're considering subcutaneous infusion instead. Can you show Mrs. Stone how your pump works?"

  "Golly.” Dawna stood and rubbed the heel of her hand on her temple before plucking the pump off the tray to hold it gingerly between two fingers from each hand. The durable plastic case chilled her fingertips, and the LCD screen's green dot focused on her like an evil eye. Her rural Texas roots colored her voice and the down-home accent made her seem more squeamish as she knelt in front of Whitney. “I can sure give it a try. Mizz Stone, why don't you pull up your skirt—"

  "Stop right there,” Forrester interrupted. “I can see you don't know how to apply the pump. Either learn to do it perfectly or don't do it at all. You're making a smart device look stupid. And for no reason. You've got a trained nurse standing by. For God's sake, use her.” He jerked his head at the woman in green. “LeeRae, give her a hand."

  Dawna let the nurse take the pump, but she remained kneeling in front of Whitney.

  Who shrieked, just as Dawna had predicted. “Another contraction,” she sobbed. “Oh please, Dr. Jefferson. Please make them stop."

  The nurse was tightening the Velcro straps around Whitney's thigh. She gave her a little pat on the knee and opened her mouth, but Dawna cut her off before she could speak.

  "Mizz Stone, you have to calm down. You're going to be home all alone with this thing. You don't want to be getting all excited and make a mess changing the syringe, maybe not using the proper amount—"

  Again, Forrester cut her off. “Bad move, Dawna. Your relationship is with the doctor. You should be talking to him. You never, ever alarm the patient unless it helps sell the product. And what the hell are you doing down there on the floor?"

  "Tryin’ to learn how to put on the pump, like you said,” she replied huffily. “I don't think it's so damn easy to use."

  "But that's not your problem, is it? Our nurses give the patients careful instructions and monitor their progress. The patient will be fine. If you can get the doctor to prescribe the pump."

  "I don't think that's so easy as you say either.” Dawna edged out of the way so the class could see Whitney's tanned thigh. “Piece of scary medical technology strapped to her leg wouldn't sell itself to me."

  Forrester made an angry noise. “But you're not the one having contractions, are you?"

  Taking the cue and clearly eager to return to center stage, Whitney projected her voice in a loud and wailing plea. “I want these babies so much. I'll do anything. Stay in bed, wear a device on my leg, stick needles in myself. Whatever it takes. Anything to stop these contractions."

  Forrester glanced at the clock.

  Dawna followed his gaze, saw he had only two minutes left.

  As if he were working a carefully timed plan, he directed his next question to Whitney. “Excellent understanding of the patient, Whitney. What do you recommend that Dawna say to Dr. Jefferson?"

  Prescribe our pump for the patient.

  Dawna saw the illegal phrase forming in Whitney's mind. Suddenly, Dawna realized that Forrester was way ahead of her. He'd thought this role play through to the end. And instead of tricking him, she'd played her part precisely as he wanted her to.

  Dawna'd never been his target. Whitney was. The hardest working rep in the class, she said the right thing, every time. Forrester knew that when Dawna dropped the ball, Whitney would pick it up and score. She'd tell everyone how to sell the pump. An innocent bystander, taking all the risk. In the end, maybe all the blame as well.

  Dawna couldn't let that happen. She reached into the cart's lower tray and snatched up a long piece of tubing narrowing to the Teflon cannula. As Whitney opened her mouth, Dawna plunged the sharp point into the soft flesh above her knee.

  Whitney shrieked again.

  "Stay in character,” Dawna muttered to her, doing her best to sound like every drama coach Whitney'd ever had.

  The message worked on Roc instantly. He threw himself into his role, Dr. Jefferson. “She's in labor,” he said tersely. “We've got to get her stabilized."

  Whitney sobbed as though she'd been skewered, which she had. She made the pain part of her act, a seasoned performer who knew that the show must go on.

  The clock struck three. Forrester was out of time. And maybe he'd decided the situation was chaotic enough that the people in the room would make terrible witnesses later. If any of them got into trouble selling the pump, he likely figured they wouldn't remember clearly how they'd learned what to say to doctors. Any investigation would turn up only hearsay and conjecture, none of it strong enough to make a federal case. He plucked his jacket off the chair back.

  "Dawna, tell the doctor to prescribe the pump to stop the contractions. That's all you have to do."

  "What?” Dawna bumped Whitney to provoke another loud cry. “Sorry, I can't hear you over Whitney."

  Louder, he said, “Tell the doctor the pump will stop labor."

  "Okay,” she said happily. “I got you."

  Oh boy, had she. Dawna patted the recording device in her pocket. She'd got him good.

  Copyright (c) 2007 Diana Deverell

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  WASTING ASSETS by Mike Wiecek

  A hospital? Okay, points for originality—none of my clients had ever suggested an ER waiting room for a quiet face-to-face. And yes, it's not the kind of place you'll casually run into people you know. But, come on, people go to the hospital when they're sick. Or diseased. Or smashed up and bleeding all over the floor, like that guy over there.

  The triage desk must have been on break. I tried not to touch anything.

  It's always a problem, finding someplace private to talk, since my clients seem to worry about deniability more than anything. Once you're a C-level officer in a Fortune 500 company, escaping the constant gaze takes an effort. In that light, I used to wonder why they insisted on meeting me themselves—these guys have staff for everything. But I guess you don't claw your way to the top of the corporate slagheap by delegating the hard stuff. />
  The waiting room seemed crowded for a weekday, with more than half the vinyl seats filled and background chatter punctuated by children crying and an occasional siren. Of course I had to sit there an extra half hour—no matter what, they always make you wait, the first meet. Fortunately there was an amusing little mishap early on, at the swinging doors between the ambulance dock and the emergency wards, when a gurney collided with a scrub nurse carrying an open Starbucks cup. The coffee must have been hot because the patient screamed and jerked around and tore out his IV line. Everyone got so busy yelling at each other they nearly forgot about the victim.

  I was still chuckling when the guy showed up, looking older than his photo on the firm's Web site. Maybe it was the suit, dark and subtle, completely out of place in the Massachusetts General bedlam. He came straight over like he knew me, no hesitation, which raised a flag. Very few photos of me are floating around, and if he'd seen one already, that meant a considerable investment in backgrounding.

  "Sorry about the location,” he said, but sounding pleased by his own cleverness in thinking of it. He had a quarryman's voice, graveled and thick, and more extra pounds than even really good tailoring could hide.

  I shrugged and we sat back down after not shaking hands. “It's as good as any. No one's going to be listening in, not in this racket."

  "What I thought.” He looked around. “And not completely inappropriate."

  "Your problem being the, ah—"

  "Three dead guys. Right."

  "Were they treated here?"

  He gave me a look. “Straight to the morgue, every one."

  McClellan was his name, an EVP for the mutual fund giant Freeboard Investments. The firm had a hundred billion under management, eighty funds, and because it was privately held, the kind of concentrated wealth that tends to elevate its owners above law, morality, and the social compact generally. Still, even by Wall Street standards, McClellan's attitude toward his deceased colleagues seemed a little brusque.

  It was a big story, and not just in Boston. Two days ago, in the space of five hours, three of Freeboard's fund managers had been shot to death. One in his Back Bay townhouse, one while jogging on the Esplanade, and the last in the middle of crawling rush-hour traffic by an assassin on a motorcycle.

  Baghdad on the Charles.

  "I'm not sure why you called me,” I said.

  "You take care of problems,” McClellan said. “I got a problem."

  "Nothing the police aren't going to solve. Look, my specialty ... you checked me out, right? You know what I do. Mostly, the bodies start falling after I show up, not before."

  For a moment I thought he choked on some phlegm, but the noise turned out to be a sort of laugh. “Nigel Grayling gave me your name. Said you called yourself a forensic accountant."

  "It's a growing field."

  "Not with your approach.” More hacking. “Point is, you understand the numbers. Not too many button men scored ninety-eight percent on their CPA exams."

  "'Button men'?” I looked around for Robert Mitchum.

  He made an annoyed face. “Listen up. Our three jackasses—know why they were killed?"

  "No idea."

  "The bloggers figured it out this morning. Probably be on the TV news tonight. The funds they ran—Balthazar Premium Small-Cap, Synergy Enhanced Vision Growth, and Freeboard Capital Accumulation—You're not invested in any of them, are you?"

  As if. “No, I prefer derivative-based offshore commodities speculation. You want me to sign a conflict-of-interest waiver?"

  "Last year's fund rankings were released a week ago.” He paused. “These three were at the very bottom."

  I didn't get it. “You mean within Freeboard?"

  "Nope. Measured alongside every other mutual fund in the country. All eight thousand of them. The absolute bottom-ranked, worst returns of all.” McClellan suddenly remembered he was a Freeboard partner. “Against their benchmarks, that is."

  "I'm impressed.” And I was, too. Any piker can inflate their 12b(1) fees, but you really have to work to burn off forty or fifty percent of capital.

  We paused while a middle-aged woman shuffled past, supported on either side by a younger version of herself, the two daughters muttering at each other over her head.

  "Investors in those funds should have just pulled out their cash and put a match to it,” McClellan said. “You can see why people might be upset with the fund managers."

  "So there are lots of suspects."

  "Not necessarily. Disgruntled investors usually don't pick up a MAC-10.” Neither does anyone else with an ounce of sense, of course, but McClellan probably got his gunnery lessons from Jack Bauer on 24. “Think about the big picture. Everyone's retirement depends on the stock market. Social Security's a goner and big companies are bailing out of their pensions right and left. On top of that, market data is everywhere—you can't escape. So those bogus scorecard rankings get far more attention than they deserve."

  If an underfunded 401(k) was my only hope of not spending my golden years running a Burger King register, I might pay attention, too, but I didn't want to interrupt McClellan. He seemed to be working up a lather.

  "Shooting a few investment managers with bad records is populist theater of a very high order,” he rasped. “A hundred years ago the anarchists threw bombs at robber barons. Today they might be looking for other scapegoats. They might be coming after us!” Obviously not meaning me, but I let it go. “I fear—” McClellan's voice dropped. “I fear we may be seeing the beginning of our own Red Terror!"

  "Wait a minute.” I tried to follow the logic. “Terrorists, okay, sure. But why would they kill your guys? Who, let's face it, were doing a pretty good job undermining trust in the capitalist system all on their own."

  "Oh, come on.” He frowned. “If you're a madman with a gun, you don't have to make sense."

  I guess I could go with that. We watched a pair of EMTs run in another gurney, staff in blue scrubs meeting them and taking over on the fly. Rapid talking, paperwork back and forth. I noticed they left the ambulance door hanging open.

  "That's how it'll probably play anyhow,” McClellan said, and suddenly his voice was back to normal.

  "Okay.” I sat back. “So you're looking for some kind of Munich operation. Hunt them down, demonstrate the rule of law."

  "No, no.” He sounded annoyed again. “I thought you were supposed to be smart."

  "What?"

  "I don't believe in Santa Claus. I don't believe in the tooth fairy. And I don't believe in Robin Hood."

  I pondered that. “Actually, Robin Hood wouldn't really qualify as an anarchist—"

  He kept going. “And it was hardly some random lunatic. Too much organization, too much care, and frankly, too much precision in the targeting. I wonder if someone is sending a different kind of message."

  "But not the investors or the stockholders.” I finally began to catch on. Like when the cops find some lady dead on the kitchen floor, they don't start looking for drifters and strangers—they always go straight for the husband. McClellan didn't really think the Beardstown Ladies had gone vigilante. He was worried that someone inside Freeboard had decided on direct action. “You think this is an HR issue, don't you? Son of a gun."

  "When the rankings came out last month, no one was happy. The three worst funds in the universe under our roof? Doesn't make for good ad copy. Doesn't make for positive investment flows. Doesn't overjoy the directors."

  "They're concerned about the incentive structure.” I nodded happily, since this was now making sense.

  "Right."

  "Plenty of upside rewards in the bonus calculation, you might say, but not enough downside risk. They want the fund managers to be, ah, deeply cognizant of the consequences attendant to underperformance."

  "Hey, that's good.” For a moment I thought he was going to take a note.

  "Nice. But wouldn't you know about it?"

  McClellan sighed. “I don't sit in the star chamber. The ma
naging partners, they're in their own world. Who knows what they might be thinking? I don't want Freeboard put at risk."

  "So you're after a private inquiry."

  "I need to know what happened."

  "Before the police figure it out, that is?"

  "As soon as possible.” He stared me down. “If you have to step on some toes, well, that's why I'm hiring you, not Kroll."

  Fair enough. Of course he wasn't going to admit outright the obvious reason—that his real objective was leverage against his bosses. I didn't know if he wanted to bull his way into the inner circle, or jack up his severance guarantees, or simply buy a little protection in case the scandal got out of hand, and the fact was I didn't care. I wasn't signing on to right any wrongs and that was fine by me, so long as I got paid.

  "What kind of authority can you give me?"

  "None."

  "What?"

  "You'll have to be subtle."

  Outside the exterior doors, a man in a sweatsuit and an arm cast noticed the open ambulance door. He looked around, leaned forward to peer inside the vehicle.

  "I have to say, ‘subtle’ isn't usually what people hire me for."

  McClellan creaked in his chair. “You know what to look for, and if necessary you can shoot back."

  "Ah.” It sounded like authority to me, but we didn't need to get into complicated rules of engagement. “Good point. I think I'm going to have to tack on a hazard premium."

  That put us back on familiar ground, and we negotiated for a while. McClellan grudgingly accepted my flat rates, I took the cash discount, and we agreed on an acceptable contingency. He handed over a packet of material in a plastic briefcase, and we stood up.

  "You might as well start with Ms. Danieli,” he said, coming down a little too hard on the Miz, the way old guys do. “She's an analyst, worked with all three of them.” He gestured slightly at the briefcase. “It's all in there."