Side Effects

by Michael Palmer

  "And?"

  She shrugged. "And they'll let us know as soon as there's any change..

  one way or the other. She's still in the OR."

  "She's going to make it, " Jared murmured, his head sinking again to the spot beside her hand. Less than ten minutes later, the phone rang again.

  "Yes? " Kate answered anxiously. Then, "Jared, it's for you. Someone named Dunleavy. Do you know who that is?"

  Bewildered, Jared nodded and took the receiver. "Dunleavy? It's Jared Samuels."

  "Mr. Samuels. I'm glad you made it all right."

  "Are you in trouble for letting me go?"

  "Nothing I can't handle. That's not why I'm calling."

  Jared glanced at his watch. Seven-fifty. Dunleavy's sixteen-hour double shift had ended almost an hour before. "Go on."

  "I'm at the nurses' station in the OR, Mr. Samuels. They've just started operating on Mrs. Sandler. I think they're going to try and oversew her bleeding ulcer."

  Jared put his hand over the mouthpiece. "Kate, this is the nurse who took care of me at Metro. They're operating on Ellen." He released the mouthpiece. "Thank you, Cary. Thank you for staying and calling to tell me that."

  "That's only one of the reasons I called. There are two others."

  "Oh?"

  "I wanted you and Dr. Bennett to know I'm going to stay on and special Mrs. Sandler after she gets out of surgery."

  "But you've been up for-"

  "Please. I was a corpsman in Nam. I know my limitations. I feel part of all this and… well, I just want to stay part of it for a while longer. I'll sign off if it gets too much for me."

  "Thank you, " Jared said, aware that the words were not adequate. But Dunleavy had something more to say. "I… I also wanted to apologize for that last crack I made about your wife." He went on, "It was uncalled for, especially since I only know what I know second or third hand. I'm sorry."

  "Apology accepted, " Jared said. "For what it's worth, she didn't do any of the things people are saying she did, and no matter how long it takes, we're going to prove it."

  "I hope you do, " Cary Dunleavy said. "That was a curious little exchange, " Kate said after Jared had replaced the phone on the bedside table. "At least the half I got to hear."

  Jared recounted his conversation with the nurse for her. "They've gone ahead with the surgery. That's great, " she said, deliberately ignoring the reference to her situation. "Ellen's bleeding must have slowed enough to chance it…"

  Her words trailed off and Jared knew that she was thinking about her own situation. "Katey, " he said. "Listen to me. Zimmermann is dead and Ellen isn't and you're not, and I'm not. And as far as I'm concerned that's cause for celebration. And I meant what I said to Dunleavy You are innocent-of everything. And we're going to prove it. Together." He leaned over and kissed her gently. Then he straightened and said, "Rest.

  I'll wait with you until we hear from Metro."

  Kate settled back on the pillow. A moment later, as if on cue, the day supervisor and another nurse strode into the room. "Dr. Bennett, " the supervisor said, "Dr. Jordan is in the hospital. She'll be furious if she finds out we haven't even done morning signs on her prize patient, let alone any other nursing care."

  "Don't mind me, " Jared said. "Nurse away."

  The supervisor eyed him sternly. "There are vending machines with coffee and danish just down the hall. Miss Austin will come and get you as soon as we're through."

  Jared looked over at Kate, who nodded. "I'll send for you if they call, " she said. "Very well, coffee it is." He rose and swung his parka over his shoulder with a flourish. As he did, something fell from one of its pockets and clattered to the floor by the supervisor's feet. The woman knelt and came up holding a minature tape cassette. "Did that fall from my parka? " Jared asked, examining the cassette, which had no label.

  "Absolutely, " the supervisor said. "Isn't it yours?"

  Jared looked over at Kate, the muscles in his face suddenly drawn and tense. "I've never seen that tape before." His mind was picturing smoke and flames and blood… and a hand desperately clawing at the pocket of his parka. "Kate, we've got to play this tape. Now."

  He turned to the nurses. "I'm sorry. Go do whatever else you need to do.

  Right now we've got to find a machine and play this."

  The supervisor started to protest, but was stopped by the look in Jared's eyes. "I have a machine in my office that will hold that, if it's that important, " she said. Again, Jared saw the hand pulling at him, holding him back. For Christ's sake, Paquette, let go of me. I'm trying to get you out of here. Let go! "It just might be, " he said. "It just might be."

  "So, Norton, first that brilliant letter to the newspapers about the ballplayer and now this biopsy thing We asked you for something creative to stop Bennett, and you certainly delivered."

  The entire tape, a conversation between Arlen Paquette and Norton Reese, lasted less than fifteen minutes. Still, for the battered audience of two in room 201 of Henderson Hospital, it was more than n enough. "It was my pleasure, Doctor. Really. The woman's been a thorn in my side from the day she first got here. She's as impudent as they come. A dogooder, always on some goddamn crusade or other. Know what I mean?"

  For Kate and Jared, the excitement of Reese's disclosures was tempered by an eerie melancholy. Paquette's conscience had surfaced, but too late for him. The man whose smooth, easy voice was playing the Metro administrator like a master angler was dead-beaten, burned, and then most violently murdered. "You know what amazes me, Norton? What amazes me is how quickly and completely you were able to eliminate her as a factor. We asked, you did. Simple as that. It was as if you were on top of her case all the time."

  "In a manner of speaking I was. Actually, I was on top of her chief technician-in every sense of the word, if ya know what I mean."

  "Sheila." Kate hissed the word. "You know, I tried to believe she was the one who had set me up, but I just couldn't."

  "Easy, boots. If you squeeze my hand any tighter, it's going to fall off."

  "Jared, a woman lost her breast. Her breast!"

  "You must be some lover, sir, to command that kind of loyalty. Maybe you can give me a few pointers some time."

  Maybe I can, Arlen. Actually, it wasn't that tough to get Sheila to switch biopsy specimens. She had a bone of her own to pick with our dear, lamented, soon-to-be-ex pathologist. I just sweetened the pot by letting her pick on my bone for a while beforehand. Norton Reese's laughter reverberated through the silent hospital room, while Kate pantomimed her visceral reaction to the man. "I wonder, " Jared mused,

  "how the lovely Ms. Pierce is going to respond when a prosecutor from the DA's office plays this for her and asks for a statement. I bet she'll try to save herself by turning State's evidence."

  "She can try anything she wants, but she's still going to lose her license. She'll never work in a hospital again."

  "Well, you really stuck it to her, Norton. With that chemist from the state lab in our pocket, Bennett's father-in-law doing what he can to discredit her even more, and now this biopsy coup, I doubt she'll ever be in a position to cause us trouble at the Omnicenter again. Our friend is going to be very impressed."

  "And very grateful, I would hope."

  "You can't even begin to imagine the things in store for you because of what you've done, Nort. Good show. That's all I can say. Damn good show."

  "We aim to please."

  The tape ran through a few parting formalities before going dead. Jared snapped off the machine and sat, looking at his wife in absolute wonder i would have broken, " he said. "Pardon?"

  "If those things had come down on me like they did on you, I would have cracked-killed someone, maybe killed myself. I don't know what, but I know I would have gone under. It makes me sick just to think of how isolated you were, how totally alone."

  "That's where you're wrong. You see, you may have had doubts about me, and justifiably so, but I never had doubts about you, so I wasn't really
as alone as you might think."

  "Never?"

  Kate took her husband's hand and smiled. "What's a doubt or two between friends, anyway? " she asked.

  Friday 9 August

  Though it was barely eight-thirty in the morning, the humidity was close to saturation and the temperature was in the mideighties. August in DC. It might have been central Africa. Silently, Kate and Jared crossed the mall toward the Hubert H. Humphrey building and what was likely to be the final session regarding her petition to the FDA for action against Redding Pharmaceuticals.

  The hearings had been emotional, draining for all concerned. Terry Moreland, a law-school classmate whom Jared had recruited to represent them, had been doing superb work, overcoming one setback after another against a phalanx of opposition lawyers and a surprisingly unsympathetic three-man panel. One moment their charges against the pharmaceutical giant would seem as irrefutable as they were terrifying, and the next, the same allegations were made to sound vindictive, capricious, and unsubstantiated. Now the end of the hearings was at hand — all that remained were brief closing statements by each side, a recess, and finally a decision. "Yo, Kate! Jared! " Stan Willoughby, mindless of the sultry morning, trotted toward them carrying his briefcase and wearing a tweed jacket that was precisely six months out of phase with the season.

  He had attended all the sessions and had testified at some length as to Kate's character and qualifications. "So, this is going to be it, yes?" he said, kissing Kate on the cheek and shaking Jared's hand warmly. Over the months that had followed the arrest and resignation of Sheila Pierce and Norton Reese, the two men, Willoughby and Jared, had formed a friendship based on more than superficial mutual respect. In fact, it had been Jared who suggested a year or two of cochairpersons for the department of pathology, and who had then cooked the I dinner over which Willoughby and Kate had come up with a working arrangement for dividing administrative responsibilities. "We can't think of anything else that could go wrong-I mean go on-this morning, " Jared said. "You were more correct the first time, " said Kate. "Most of this has been pretty brutal. First, all the threads connecting that animal Nunes to Redding Pharmaceuticals evaporate like morning dew. Then, suddenly, Carl Horner gets admitted to Darlington Hospital with chest pains and gets a medical dispensation not to testify. I don't know. I just don't know."

  "We still have the notebook and the tape, " Jared said. Kate laughed sardonically. "The notebook, the tape, and-you neglect to add-a dozen earnest barristers asking over and over again where the name Cyrus Redding or Redding Pharmaceuticals is mentioned even once."

  "Come, come, child, " Willoughby chided. "Where's that Bennett spirit?

  We've made points. Plenty of them. Trust this old war horse. We may not have nailed them, but we've sure stuck em with a bunch of tacks."

  "I hope you're right, " she said, as they spotted Terry Moreland waiting for them by the steps to the Humphrey building. The gray under Moreland's eyes and the tense set of his face spoke of the difficult week just past and of the ruling that was perhaps only an hour or two away. "How're your vibes? " Kate asked after they had exchanged greetings and words of encouragement. Moreland shook his head. "No way to tell, " he said. "Emotionally, what with your testimony and Ellen's account of her ordeal, I think we've beaten the pants off them.

  Unfortunately, it doesn't seem as if we have a very emotionally oriented panel. When that fat one blew his nose in the middle of the most agonizing part of Ellen's testimony, I swear, I almost hauled off and popped him one. Watching the indifference creep across his face again and again, I couldn't help wondering if he hadn't already made up his mind."

  "Or had it made up for him, " Jared added. "Absolutely, " Moreland said as they pushed into the air-conditioned comfort of the office building and headed up to the second floor. That sort of thing doesn't happen too often, I don't think, but it does happen And all you have to do is look across the room to realize what we're up against. Hell, they could buy off St. Francis of Assisi with a fraction of what those legal fees alone come to."

  The hearing room, modern in decor, stark in atmosphere, was largely empty, due in part to the surprisingly scant media coverage of the proceedings. Moreland had called the dearth of press a tribute to the power of Cyrus Redding and the skill of his PR people. Redding's battery of lawyers was present, as were two stenographers and the counsel for the Bureau of Drugs. The seats for the three hearing officers, behind individual tables on a raised dais, were still empty. Moreland and Stan Willoughby led the way into the chamber. Kate and Jared paused by the door. Through the windows to the north, they could see the American flag hanging limply over the Senate wing of the Capitol. "I don't know which is scarier, " Kate said, "the pharmaceutical industry controlling itself or the government doing it for them. I doubt Cyrus Redding's tactics would make it very far in the Soviet Union."

  "I wouldn't bet on that, Dr. Bennett."

  Startled, they turned. Cyrus Redding was less than five feet from them, wheeled in his chair by a blond buck who looked like a weightlifter. The words were the first they had heard the man say since the hearings had begun. "I have many friends-and many business interests-in the USSR," he continued. "Believe me, businessmen are businessmen the world over."

  "That's wonderfully reassuring, " Kate said icily. "Perhaps I'd better submit an article to the Russian medical literature on the reversal of the bleeding complications of Estronate Two-fifty."

  "I assure you, Doctor, that all I know of such matters, you have taught me at these hearings. If you have a moment, I was wondering if I might speak with you."

  Kate looked at Jared, who gestured that he would meet her inside and then entered the hall. Redding motioned his young bodyguard to a bench by the far wall. "I suspect our hearing to end this morning, " he said.

  "Perhaps."

  "I just want you to know what high regard I have for you. You are a most remarkable, a most tenacious, young woman."

  "Mr. Redding, I hope you don't expect a thank you. I appreciate compliments only from people I respect."

  Redding smiled patiently. "You are still quite young and most certainly naive about certain facts."

  "Such as?"

  "Such as the fact that it costs an average of sixty million dollars just to get a new drug on the market, often, quite a bit more."

  "Not impressed. Mr. Redding, because of you and your policies, people have suffered and died unnecessarily. Doesn't that weigh on you?"

  "Because of me and my policies, dozens of so-called orphan drugs have found their way to those who need them, usually without cost.

  Because of me and my policies, millions have had the quality of their lives improved and countless more their lives saved altogether. The greatest good for the most people at the least cost."

  "I guess if you didn't believe that, you'd have a tough time looking at yourself in the mirror. Maybe you do anyway. I mean, a person's denial mechanism can carry him only so far."

  Redding's eyes flashed, but his demeanor remained calm. "Considering the hardship my late employee has put you through, I can understand your anger, " he said. "However, soon this hearing will be over, and soon we both must go on with our lives. I would like very much to have you visit me in Darlington, so that we might discuss a mutually beneficial joint endeavor. You are a survivor, Dr. Bennett, a woman who knows better than to subvert her needs in response to petty pressures from others. That makes you a winner. And it makes me interested in doing business with you."

  "Mr. Redding, " she said incredulously, "you seem to be ignoring the fact that the reason we're here is so that I can put you out of business. Redding's smile was painfully patronizing. "Here's my card.

  The number on it will always get through to me. If you succeed in putting Redding Pharmaceuticals out of business, you don't have to call.

  " Kate glared at him. He was too smug, too confident. Was Terry Moreland's fear about some sort of payoff justified? "We're going to win, " she said, with too little conv
iction. She turned and, disregarding the proffered card, entered the hearing room. "What did Dr.

  Strange love want? " Jared asked as she slid in between him and Terry Moreland. Kate shook her head disparagingly. "The man is absolutely certifiable, " she said. "He told me how little understanding I had for the difficulty, trials, and tribulations of being a multimillion-dollar pharmaceutical industry tycoon, and then he offered me a job."

  "A job?"

  "A mutually beneficial endeavor, I think he called it."

  "Lord."

  At that moment, without ceremony, the door to the right of the dais opened, and the three hearing officers shuffled into their seats, their expressions suggesting that there were any number of places they would rather have been. Before he sat down, the overweight, disheveled chairman pulled a well-used handleerchief from his pocket and blew his bulbous nose. Kate and Jared stood by the stairway, apart from the groups of lawyers, teporterss and others who filled the corridor outside the hearing room. Iwhe recess was into its second hour, and with each passing minute, the tension had grown. If over the previous four days the Redding forces had held the upper hand, the brilliant summation and indictment by Terry Moreland had placed the final verdict very much in doubt. Of all those in the hallway, only Cyrus Redding seemed totally composed and at ease. "I have this ugly feeling he knows something we don't, " Kate said, gesturing toward the man. "I don't see how the panel can ignore the points Terry made in there, boots. He's even better now than he was in law school, and he was a miniature Clarence Darrow then.

  But I will admit that Strange love over there looks pretty relaxed. Say, that reminds me. You never said what your response was to his offer of a job."

  Kate smiled. "I thought you were never going to ask. The truth is, I told him I would be unsuitable for employment in his firm because the first thing I'd have to do is take maternity leave."

  Jared stared at her. "Slide that past me one more time."

  "I was saving the news until after the verdict, but what the heck.