American Obsession td-109

by Warren Murphy

  Upon Sternovsky's arrival, Fillmore Fing ceased his tirade. He walked over to his desk and selected a massive Cuban cigar from a mahogany humidor. He immediately lit up, puffing hard.

  Fosdick hurried to follow his father's lead. His hand trembled as he fumbled around in the humidor. "Hey, Fos, over here..."

  Fillmore's oldest son, Farnham, sprawled on a white leather couch. He wore a gaudy Hawaiian print shirt under a baggy black silk sports jacket, baggy tan silk pants and a pair of handmade Italian loafers. Farnham Fing was the company's director of international sales. At present, he was enjoying being the son not on the hot seat.

  Fosdick threw his brother a cigar, and when his father's back was turned, wiped his runny nose on the inside of his lab-coat cuff.

  For a minute or two, the three Fings didn't utter a word. They concentrated on putting as much smoke into the air as they could. It was necessary because even a sterile jumpsuit couldn't contain the aromas of wolverine ranch that Sternovsky had brought with him.

  Only when blue smoke hung thick in the boardroom did Fillmore lower his cigar and address the American. "We've had a major setback in the stage-three trials," he said in perfect British-public-school-accented English. "Thanks to the sloppy science practiced by my offspring..."

  "But things were going so well at midday," Sternovsky said in shock. "What on earth happened?"

  "Tell him," Fillmore instructed his younger son.

  "There have been some unforeseen developments over the last few hours," Fosdick admitted.

  "Show him, you idiot!" Fillmore prompted.

  The head chemist, his head lowered in shame, switched on the boardroom's VCR.

  At the bottom of the television screen, the time, date and title identified the segment as the surveillance-monitor tape of Test Subject Four. It wasn't for scientific-documentation purposes alone that Family Fing scrupulously recorded the progress of its drug trials; Farnham planned to use the evidence of rapid morphing as part of his global ad campaign. The tape showed a huge man pacing back and forth in his room in the plant's medical wing. His name was Toshi Takahara. A former professional sumo wrestler, he had been taking a synthetic form of WHE for three days. In that time, his voluminous flab had retreated like a melting glacier, revealing Himalayas of newly formed muscle.

  "He seems highly agitated," Sternovsky said.

  Farnham laughed at the observation. "You'd be agitated, too, if you started growing a tail."

  "What? That's impossible!"

  "That's what we thought at first," Fosdick said glumly. "Shortly after 2 p.m., Test Subject Four complained of severe discomfort and pressure at the base of his spine. We examined him and discovered a sizable nodule that had not been present at morning rounds. Because of its growth rate, we were pretty sure it had to be a cancerous side effect of the hormone. We did an immediate biopsy, of course."

  "And?"

  "It's not a tumor. It's healthy bone."

  The video zoomed in on the Japanese man's broad backside, bared for an examination. His behind now sported what looked like the docked tail of a Doberman.

  "I don't understand," Sternovsky said. "This can't be happening."

  "There's more," the elder Fing told him. He waved impatiently, and Fosdick fast-forwarded the tape. When he stopped it, the sumo wrestler was on camera again. Holding the hem of his hospital gown out of the way with his teeth, Takahara carefully urinated in each corner of his room.

  "He does that every fifteen minutes. More often if the staff tries to clean it up."

  "Good God!" Sternovsky said as the realization hit him. "He's marking his territory."

  "We seem to be losing Number Four," Fosdick said.

  "We're on the verge of losing much more than that," Fillmore snarled. "All I have built in my life is about to come crashing down around me. Based on overoptimistic projections, I committed two hundred million dollars to the construction of a new pharmaceutical plant in Union City, New Jersey. Because of the sheer incompetence of my own flesh and blood, the new product will not be ready for distribution in the States by the December 31st deadline."

  That deadline was key to Farnham's marketing strategy and Fillmore's financial house of cards. It was calculated to put the hormone on the shelves of health-food stores already retailing Family Fing products in time for the New Year's resolutions of seventy million overweight, out-of-shape, fat-loving Americans. The Fings' U.S. legal counsel intended to temporarily sidestep the need for FDA approval by calling the drug a "nutritional supplement."

  Long enough for Family Fing to net a few billion dollars in clear, sweet profit.

  "You," Fillmore said, pointing an accusing finger at son Fosdick, "have put a knife in your father's heart."

  Even in the throes of a tantrum, the elder Fing always gave the impression that there was not a hair out place anywhere on his body. Sternovsky had noticed this curious trait the first time he laid eyes on the man, back in Pennsylvania. Fing had gotten wind of his work during a VIP tour of the university. Fillmore was a supporting member of the International Society for Pharmaceutical Advancement, which underwrote Purblind research to the tune of seventy-five million dollars a year. Though Fing contributed generously to the cause, it hadn't bought him what he wanted-the respect of his peers. The other pharmaceutical giants looked down on Fillmore Fing because he had made all his money on "ethnic homeopathics."

  "What about the others in the test panel?" Sternovsky asked. "Are they having the same kind of negative reactions?"

  "We're getting some behavioral problems," Fosdick answered. "Extreme irritability. Violent and destructive outbursts. The same things we've seen with the natural hormone, but the effect is much more exaggerated."

  Sternovsky winced. Those side effects hadn't stopped Fillmore from prematurely market-testing the earliest form of the drug. By selling the refined natural product at an astronomical price to a few select international celebrities, he had managed to recoup some of his initial investment.

  "There's got to be something wrong with the formulation of the synthetic," the American said.

  "It's chemically identical to the natural hormone," Fosdick countered.

  "It can't be," the biochemist told him. "You've miscalculated somewhere."

  "Think!" Fillmore commanded his number-two son. "Think what the mistake might be!"

  Fosdick swallowed hard before he spoke. "It's possible that there's an impurity we've failed to remove from the bacterial product, and that impurity is interfering with the desired reaction. If that's the case, we've been unable to locate it using our most sophisticated equipment. Another possibility is that a naturally occurring but vital impurity is missing from the manufactured compound. The synthetic hormone may be simply too pure for human consumption. This might explain why it seems to be taking effect so much more rapidly than the natural product."

  Sternovsky had another idea. "It's also possible that we're getting a cascade effect that has nothing to do with the presence or absence of an impurity. The changes in blood chemistry related to sudden fat depletion could be bringing on a chain reaction of somatic and psychological effects."

  "What you're both saying is, you haven't got a clue," Fillmore said.

  "Yes, Father," Fosdick admitted.

  "I have a suggestion," Sternovsky said. "We should immediately divide our test subjects into control groups. We can wean two off the drug completely. Reduce the dosage of two more. And maintain current levels in the last two."

  "No," Fillmore said emphatically.

  "No?"

  "The real question here is commercial viability. Commercial viability and meeting our production deadline. What we need to know is, do the test subjects regard the worst of these side effects as so negative that they'd stop buying the drug in its present form? To answer that, we must maintain the current dose in all our subjects."

  "But these are human beings, not lab rats!" Sternovsky protested.

  "Wrong," Fillmore declared. "These are human beings who
have agreed to act as lab rats."

  "Do you really think anyone in their right mind would consider the growing of a tail to be an 'acceptable' side-effect?"

  Fillmore shrugged. "If it were marketed correctly, it could easily become a fashion statement...." Sternovsky opened his mouth to speak, but he was so flabbergasted that no words came out.

  From the luxurious comfort of the boardroom's leather couch, Farnham Fing laced his fingers behind his neck and in a cheery voice said, "Welcome to Family Fing."

  Chapter 9

  After driving around in circles in Simi Valley for twenty minutes, Remo took matters into his own hands. Every time his map reader gave him a direction, he headed the opposite way.

  "Turn right," Chiun said. Remo went left.

  "I said right." Chiun indicated the direction with a long-nailed finger.

  "Sorry," Remo said.

  Actually, the only thing Remo regretted was that he'd let the Master of Sinanju decide their route after they got off the freeway. Chiun's plan, it seemed, was that they stealthily spiral in on their destination from a distance of several miles, presumably so it could not escape them. The alternative-that Remo should read the map and Chiun should drive the rental car-was unthinkable. Chiun didn't drive. Which was a lucky break for the residents of Simi Valley and their insurance companies.

  "Go left," Chiun instructed. Remo went right.

  "We are going the wrong way."

  "Oh, sorry..."

  In three minutes, they pulled into the parking lot outside the L.A. Riots' sprawling training camp and general headquarters. The scheduled press conference was just starting as they pushed through the crowd of reporters and camera crews.

  At the porticoed entrance to the main building, standing in front of a cluster of a dozen or more microphones, were three men: one huge, one large and one tiny.

  "For those of you who don't know me," the little one said as he stepped up to the bouquet of mikes, "I'm Jimmy Koch-Roche, Mr. Boomtower's legal representative. I'm going to deliver a short prepared statement on behalf of Mr. Boomtower and the L.A. Riots organization, then I'll answer your questions, briefly."

  "Is he standing in a hole?" Chiun asked Remo.

  "No," replied the grizzled-looking reporter right behind them, "he is a hole."

  The famous gunslinger attorney, even in five-inch lifts, only came up to his client's waist.

  "What we've all experienced," Koch-Roche began, "the shock and horror of last night's tragic events on the football field, will live in our memories forever. But in the cold light of day, we, as a civilized society, have to ask ourselves two important questions. First, were these events unexpected, and second, who's really to blame?

  "I don't have to tell you that football at the professional level is a violent and dangerous game, and one that quickly takes its toll on athletes. The average league career works out to a little less than twenty-two months. Most of the players have been in the sport since grade school-they know what they are getting themselves into. They play despite the danger, because they love it. And because they love it so much, they play even after they've been injured. That's the real tragedy here. The deaths of the Lobster quarterback and center were preventable. One hundred percent preventable."

  "Don't ya just love the guy?" the grizzled reporter muttered.

  On cue, head coach Dangler passed the attorney a large manila envelope.

  "Thank you, Harry," Koch-Roche said as he opened it. He whipped out a sheaf of X rays and waved them at the camera lenses. "What I have here is incontrovertible proof that my client is innocent of any crime. These X-ray films were taken two weeks ago at the Lobster training center in Bangor. They indicate spinal weaknesses in both of the deceased players, weaknesses that should have kept them out of last night's game, if not out of professional football forever. Mr. Boomtower acted, as did the entire Riots organization, on the assumption that their opposition was to a man fit to step on the playing field. Unfortunately, that assumption was incorrect. We contend that the responsibility for what happened last night lies elsewhere. I'll take your questions now."

  "What kind of weaknesses are you talking about?" one of the reporters asked. "Can you be any more specific?"

  Koch-Roche referred to a slip of paper clipped to the top X ray. "In the case of the Lobster center," he said, "a congenital abnormality of the thoracic vertebrae at T-4. In the case of the quarterback, an untreated hairline fracture of the cervical vertebrae at C-1 and C-2. Sadly, these men were disasters waiting to happen."

  "Do you expect an indictment for manslaughter soon?" another reporter called out.

  Koch-Roche shook his head and then rhymed, "There's no crime, he'll do no time. Next question." He pointed at a guy wearing a network red blazer.

  "What about the league?" the man asked. "Isn't it reviewing permanent sanctions, and a possible lifetime expulsion for your client?"

  "I am confident that Number 96 will be back in orange and black for next week's game."

  A rumble of shock passed through the crowd. "What do you say to the rumors about illegal drug use by your client?" was the next question.

  "That's slanderous rubbish. He's random-tested like every player and has never shown a positive result for outlawed drugs."

  The reporter shot back with a quick follow-up. "Then how do you explain the sudden change in his appearance and his enormous weight gain?"

  "I don't have to explain it. Next question."

  At this point, Bradley Boomtower bent over at the waist and whispered something into Koch-Roche's ear.

  Watching this, it occurred to Remo that the football player's finger span, thumb to pinkie, was almost as wide as his attorney's shoulders.

  "Okay, okay," Koch-Roche said, waving Boomtower off. Then he amended his previous remark. "My client attributes his added muscle mass to a new diet and herb regimen legally imported from Asia. All perfectly natural, I can assure you."

  The grizzled guy had a question of his own. He shouted it through a cupped hand. "After seeing what Mr. Boomtower did to those two Lobster players last night, do you really expect people to swallow this crock about preexisting injuries?"

  "Each person is free to make up his or her own mind, of course," the attorney answered. "But based on the evidence, I am confident that my client will be fully exonerated."

  Something beeped annoyingly. Koch-Roche reached under the jacket of his three-piece suit and drew out his cellular phone. He turned away from the microphones before he spoke into it. The conversation was short. When he turned back to the audience, he announced, "That's all we have time for today. Thank you for your patience, ladies and gentlemen."

  Deaf to the protests of the reporters, the trio ducked through the smoked-glass front doors of the Riots' HQ.

  "So, who're you guys with?" the grizzled newsman asked Remo. He was looking around their necks for the press IDs they didn't have. His photo ID indicated he was Us Johnson, from "National Sports Hotline."

  "I'm Remo Wormwood, Folcroft News-Dispatch."

  "Never heard of it."

  "A biggish small-town daily. It's East Coast. Long Island."

  "And you?" Johnson looked at Chiun, who said nothing.

  "This is Dan Tien," Remo told him. "He's the sports editor from North Korea Today."

  "Gee, I didn't know they followed pro football in North Korea."

  "They get it on satellite TV now," Remo said. "Along with curling and bass fishing."

  "Teeter-totter is very popular over there, too, isn't it?" Johnson said to Chiun. "I saw your national team in the Olympic trials. Very impressive legwork."

  "It's all in the breath," Chiun confided. "Everything comes from the breath."

  "I wouldn't presume to argue with you there, Dan."

  "Say, Johnson," Remo said, "if a daring and enterprising reporter was of a mind to, how would he go about sneaking into the Riots' training center?"

  The veteran newshound made a sour face. "Bad idea, Wormwood. The worst idea I'
ve heard in a long time. Look around. Why do you think this pack of jackals is standing around, playing pocket pool, instead of rushing into that building and pursuing the biggest story of the year? Do you think we are a kinder, gentler media?"

  "Yeah, I kinda wondered about that. There don't seem to be any guards on the entrance, either."

  "Oh, there are guards, all right. They're on the inside, watching, waiting for the chance to bust some heads. The Riots' security staff is made up of proball wanna-bes and washouts. They're big and they're mean, but not nearly as big and mean as the players. Even if you managed to get close enough to ask them a question, the players won't say 'boo' to you without authorization from the team front office. What they will do if they catch you inside is break all your arms and legs and pitch you in a Dumpster. The gulls will pick out your eyes, Wormwood."

  "We're talking purely hypothetical here," Remo insisted.

  "You're sure?"

  "Sure, I'm sure."

  "Well, in that case, I'd go around to the delivery entrance and hide there until I could duck into the storage area. Say, wait a minute! Where are you two going? Didn't you hear what I said? Hey!"

  The newsman watched Remo and Chiun disappear into the crowd.

  Chapter 10

  The tall man in the orange-and-black T-shirt tapped on the wall beside the warehouse's interior door. Something metallic clacked, the door opened and the security guard vanished through it.

  Before the door closed, Chiun was up and moving. His one and only pupil sensed the opportunity, too. But sadly, after so many years of diligent instruction, a fraction of an instant later. The Reigning Master of Sinanju glided across the concrete loading dock like he was on roller skates. Behind him, he could hear the huffing of Remo's breath and the thundering clump of his huge feet.

  Chiun heaved a sigh. Just when he thought his student had finally achieved a level of masterly perfection came the disappointment. The inevitable disappointment.

  It wasn't the teaching that wore a man down, he thought.